The mass of the Christian population engaged in agricultural operations were, however, allowed to enjoy a far larger portion of the fruits of their labour under the sultan's government than under that of many Christian monarchs. The weak spots in the Othoman government were the administration of justice and of finance. The naval conquests of the Othomans in the islands and maritime districts of Greece, and the ravages of Corsairs in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, reduced and degraded the population, exterminated the best families, enslaved the remnant, and destroyed the prosperity of Greek trade and commerce.

Towards the end of the seventeenth century ecclesiastical corruption in the Orthodox Church increased. Bishoprics, and even the patriarchate were sold to the highest bidder. The Turks displayed their contempt for them by ordering the cross which until that time had crowned the dome of the belfry of the patriarchate to be taken down. There can be no doubt, however, that in the rural district the secular clergy supplied some of the moral strength which eventually enabled the Greeks successfully to resist the Othoman power. Happily, the exaction of the tribute of children fell into disuse; and, that burden removed, the nation soon began to fed the possibility of improving its condition.

The contempt with which the ambassadors of the Christian powers were treated at the Sublime Porte increased after the conquest of Candia and the surrender of Crete in 1669, and the grand vizier, Kara Mustapha, declared war against Austria and laid siege to Vienna in 1683. This was the opportune moment taken by the Venetian Republic to declare war against the Othoman Empire, and Greece was made the chief field of military operations.

Morosini, the commander of the Venetian mercenary army, successfully conducted a series of campaigns between 1684 and 1687, but with terrible barbarity on both sides. The Venetian fleet entered the Piraeus on September 21, 1687. The city of Athens was immediately occupied by their army, and siege laid to the Acropolis. On September 25 a Venetian bomb blew up a powder magazine in the Propylæa, and the following evening another fell in the Parthenon. The classic temple was partially ruined; much of the sculpture which had retained its inimitable excellence from the days of Phidæas was defaced, and a part utterly destroyed. The Turks persisted in defending the place until September 28, when, they capitulated. The Venetians continued the campaign until the greater part of Northern Greece submitted to their authority, and peace was declared in 1696. During the Venetian occupation of Greece through the ravages of war, oppressive taxation, and pestilence, the Greek inhabitants decreased from 300,000 to about 100,000.

Sultan Achmet III., having checkmated Peter the Great in his attempt to march to the conquest of Constantinople, assembled a large army at Adrianople under the command of Ali Cumurgi, which expelled the Venetians from Greece before the end of 1715. Peace was concluded, by the Treaty of Passarovitz, in July 1718. Thereafter, the material and political position of the Greek nation began to exhibit many signs of improvement, and the agricultural population before the end of the eighteenth century became, in the greatest part of the country, the legal as well as the real proprietors of the soil, which made them feel the moral sentiment of freemen.

The increased importance of the diplomatic relations of the Porte with the Christian powers opened a new political career to the Greeks at Constantinople, and gave rise to the formation of a class of officials in the Othoman service called "phanariots," whose venality and illegal exactions made the name a by-word for the basest servility, corruption, and rapacity.

This system was extended to Wallachia and Moldavia, and no other Christian race in the Othoman dominions was exposed to so long a period of unmitigated extortion and cruelty as the Roman population of these principalities. The Treaty of Kainardji which concluded the war with Russia between 1768 and 1774, humbled the pride of the sultan, broke the strength of the Othoman Empire, and established the moral influence of Russia over the whole of the Christian populations in Turkey. But Russia never insisted on the execution of the articles of the treaty, and the Greeks were everywhere subjected to increased oppression and cruelty. During the war from 1783 to 1792, caused by Catherine II. of Russia assuming sovereignty over the Crimea, Russia attempted to excite the Christians in Greece to take up arms against the Turks, but they were again abandoned to their fate on the conclusion of the Treaty of Yassi in 1792, which decided the partition of Poland.

Meanwhile, the diverse ambitions of the higher clergy and the phanariots at Constantinople taught the people of Greece that their interests as a nation were not always identical with the policy of the leaders of the Orthodox Church. A modern Greek literature sprang up and, under the influence of the French Revolution, infused love of freedom into the popular mind, while the sultan's administration every day grew weaker under the operation of general corruption. Throughout the East it was felt that the hour of a great struggle for independence on the part of the Greeks had arrived.

IV.--The Greek Revolution

The Greek revolution began in 1821. Two societies are supposed to have contributed to accelerating it, but they did not do much to ensure its success. These were the Philomuse Society, founded at Athens in 1812, and the Philiké Hetaireia, established in Odessa in 1814. The former was a literary club, the latter a political society whose schemes were wild and visionary. The object of the inhabitants of Greece was definite and patriotic.