Chronology, Trade, War, Social Life, &c.—H. F. Clinton, Fasti Hellenici (3rd ed., 3 vols., Oxford, 1841, a work of which English scholarship may well be proud; it is still invaluable for the study of Greek chronology); B. Büchsenschütz, Besitz und Erwerb im griechischen Altertume (1 vol., Halle, 1869; this is still the best book on Greek commerce); J. Beloch, Die Bevölkerung der griechisch-römischen Welt (1 vol., Leipzig, 1886); W. Rüstow and H. Köchly, Geschichte des griechischen Kriegswesens (1 vol., Aarau, 1852); J. P. Mahaffy, Social Life in Greece (2nd ed., 1 vol., 1875).
(E. M. W.)
b. Post-Classical: 146 B.C.-A.D. 1800
I. The Period of Roman Rule.—(i.) Greece under the Republic (146-27 B.C.). After the collapse of the Achaean League (q.v.) the Senate appointed a commission to reorganize Greece as a Roman dependency. Corinth, the chief centre of resistance, was destroyed and its inhabitants sold into slavery. In addition to this act of exemplary punishment, which may perhaps have been inspired in part by the desire to crush a commercial competitor, steps were taken to obviate future insurrections. The national and cantonal federations were dissolved, commercial intercourse between cities was restricted, and the government transferred from the democracies to the propertied classes, whose interests were bound up with Roman supremacy. In other respects few changes were made in existing institutions. Some favoured states like Athens and Sparta retained their full sovereign rights as civitates liberae, the other cities continued to enjoy local self-government. The ownership of the land was not greatly disturbed by confiscations, and though a tribute upon it was levied, this impost may not have been universal. General powers of supervision were entrusted to the governor of Macedonia, who could reserve cases of high treason for his decision, and in case of need send troops into the country. But although Greece was in the provincia of the Macedonian proconsul, in the sense of belonging to his sphere of command, its status was in fact more favourable than that of other provincial dependencies.
This settlement was acquiesced in by the Greek people, who had come to realize the hopelessness of further resistance. The internal disorder which was arising from the numerous disputes about property rights consequent upon the political revolutions was checked by the good offices of the historian Polybius, whom the Senate deputed to mediate between the litigants. The pacification of the country eventually became so complete that the Romans withdrew the former restrictions upon intercourse and allowed some of the leagues to revive. But its quiet was seriously disturbed during the first Mithradatic War (88-84 B.C.), when numerous Greek states sided with Mithradates (q.v.). The success which the invader experienced in detaching the Greeks from Rome is partly to be explained by the skilful way in which his agents incited the imperialistic ambitions of prominent cities like Athens, partly perhaps by his promises of support to the democratic parties. The result of the war was disastrous to Greece. Apart from the confiscations and exactions by which the Roman general L. Cornelius Sulla punished the disloyal communities, the extensive and protracted campaigns left Central Greece in a ruinous condition. During the last decades of the Roman republic European Greece was scarcely affected by contemporary wars nor yet exploited by Roman magistrates in the same systematic manner as most other provinces. Yet oppression by officials who traversed Greece from time to time and demanded lavish entertainments and presentations in the guise of viaticum or aurum coronarium was not unknown. Still greater was the suffering produced by the rapacity of Roman traders and capitalists: it is recorded that Sicyon was reduced to sell its most cherished art treasures in order to satisfy its creditors. A more indirect but none the less far-reaching drawback to Greek prosperity was the diversion of trade which followed upon the establishment of direct communication between Italy and the Levant. The most lucrative source of wealth which remained to the European Greeks was pasturage in large domains, an industry which almost exclusively profited the richer citizens and so tended to widen the breach between capitalists and the poorer classes, and still further to pauperize the latter. The coast districts and islands also suffered considerably from swarms of pirates who, in the absence of any strong fleet in Greek waters, were able to obtain a firm footing in Crete and freely plundered the chief trading places and sanctuaries; the most notable of such visitations was experienced in 69 B.C. by the island of Delos. This evil came to an end with the general suppression of piracy in the Mediterranean by Pompey (67 B.C.), but the depopulation which it had caused in some regions is attested by the fact that the victorious admiral settled some of his captives on the desolated coast strip of Achaea.
In the conflict between Julius Caesar and Pompey the Greeks provided the latter with a large part of his excellent fleet. In 48 B.C. the decisive campaign of the war was fought on Greek soil, and the resources of the land were severely taxed by the requisitions of both armies. As a result of Caesar’s victory at Pharsalus, the whole country fell into his power; the treatment which it received was on the whole lenient, though individual cities were punished severely. After the murder of Caesar the Greeks supported the cause of Brutus (42 B.C.), but were too weak to render any considerable service. In 39 B.C. the Peloponnese for a short time was made over to Sextus Pompeius. During the subsequent period Greece remained in the hands of M. Antonius (Mark Antony), who imposed further exactions in order to defray the cost of his wars. The extensive levies which he made in 31 B.C. for his campaign against Octavian, and the contributions which his gigantic army required, exhausted the country’s resources so completely that a general famine was prevented only by Octavian’s prompt action after the battle of Actium in distributing supplies of grain and evacuating the land with all haste. The depopulation which resulted from the civil wars was partly remedied by the settlement of Italian colonists at Corinth and Patrae by Julius Caesar and Octavian; on the other hand, the foundation of Nicopolis (q.v.) by the latter merely had the effect of transferring the people from the country to the city.
(ii.) The Early Roman Empire (27 B.C.-A.D. 323).—Under the emperor Augustus Thessaly was incorporated with Macedonia; the rest of Greece was converted into the province of Achaea, under the control of a senatorial proconsul resident at Corinth. Many states, including Athens and Sparta, retained their rights as free and nominally independent cities. The provincials were encouraged to send delegates to a communal synod (κοινὸν τῶν Ἀχαίων) which met at Argos to consider the general interests of the country and to uphold national Hellenic sentiment; the Delphic amphictyony was revived and extended so as to represent in a similar fashion northern and central Greece.
Economic conditions did not greatly improve under the empire. Although new industries sprang up to meet the needs of Roman luxury, and Greek marble, textiles and table delicacies were in great demand, the only cities Social conditions. which regained a really flourishing trade were the Italian communities of Corinth and Patrae. Commerce languished in general, and the soil was mainly abandoned to pasturage. Though certain districts retained a measure of prosperity, e.g. Thessaly, Phocis, Elis, Argos and Laconia, huge tracts stood depopulated and many notable cities had sunk into ruins; Aetolia, Acarnania and Epirus never recovered from the effects of former wars and from the withdrawal of their surviving inhabitants into Nicopolis. Such wealth as remained was amassed in the hands of a few great landowners and capitalists; the middle class continued to dwindle, and large numbers of the people were reduced to earning a precarious subsistence, supplemented by frequent doles and largesses.
The social aspect of Greek life henceforward becomes its most attractive feature. After a long period of storm and stress, the European Hellenes had relapsed into a quiet and resigned frame of mind which stands in sharp contrast on the one hand with the energy and ability, and on the other with the vulgar intriguing of their Asiatic kinsmen. Seeing no future before them, the inhabitants were content to dwell in contemplation amid the glories of the past. National pride was fostered by the undisguised respect with which the leading Romans of the age treated Hellenic culture. And although this sentiment could degenerate into antiquarian pedantry and vanity, such as finds its climax in the diatribes of Apollonius of Tyana against the “barbarians,” it prevented the nation from sinking into some of the worst vices of the age. A healthy social tone repressed extravagant luxury and the ostentatious display of wealth, and good taste long checked the spread of gladiatorial contests beyond the Italian community of Corinth. The most widespread abuse of that period, the adulation and adoration of emperors, was indeed introduced into European Greece and formed an essential feature of the proceedings at the Delphic amphictyony, but it never absorbed the energies of the people in the same way as it did in Asia. In order to perpetuate their old culture, the Greeks continued to set great store by classical education, and in Athens they possessed an academic centre which gradually became the chief university of the Roman empire. The highest representatives of this type of old-world refinement are to be found in Dio Chrysostom and especially in Plutarch of Chaeroneia (q.v.).
The relations between European Greece and Rome were practically confined to the sphere of scholarship. The Hellenes had so far lost their warlike qualities that they supplied scarcely any recruits to the army. They retained too much local patriotism to crowd into the official careers of senators or imperial servants. Although in the 1st century A.D. the astute Greek man of affairs and the Graeculus esuriens of Juvenal abounded in Rome, both these classes were mainly derived from the less pure-blooded population beyond the Aegean.