The terms of the treaty of Paris were not only of indefinite import but were susceptible of contradictory interpretations. And instead of interpreting the other articles in harmony with the first, which declared the islands one “sole British Protectorate. free and independent state,” the protecting Power availed itself of every ambiguity to extend its authority. The first lord high commissioner, Sir Thomas Maitland, who as governor of Malta had acquired the sobriquet of “King Tom,” was not the man to foster the constitutional liberty of an infant state. The treaty required, with questionable wisdom, that a constitution should be established, and this was accordingly done; but its practical value was trifling. The constitution, voted by a constituent assembly in 1817 and applied in the following year, placed the administration in the hands of a senate of six members and a legislative assembly of forty members; but the real authority was vested in the high commissioner, who was able directly to prevent anything, and indirectly to effect almost anything. Sir Thomas Maitland was not slow to exercise the control thus permitted him, though on the whole he did so for the benefit of the islands. The construction of roads, the abolition of direct taxes and of the system of farming the church lands, the securing of impartial administration of justice, and the establishment of educational institutions are among the services ascribed to his efforts. These, however, made less impression on the Heptanesians than his despotic character and the measures which he took to prevent them giving assistance in the Greek war of independence in 1821. He was succeeded in 1823 by General Sir Frederick Adam, who in the main carried out the same policy. Under his government the new fortifications of Corfu and some of the most important public works which still do honour to the English protectorate were undertaken. Lord Nugent, who became high commissioner in 1832, was followed by Sir Howard Douglas (1835-1841), who ruled with a firm, too often with a high hand; and he was met by continual intrigues, the principal exponent of the opposition being the famous Andreas Mustoxidi (d. 1861). A complete change of policy was inaugurated by Mr Mackenzie (1841-1843), and his successor Lord Seaton (1843-1849) was induced by the European disturbances of 1848 to initiate a number of important reforms. But the party which wished for union with Greece was rapidly growing in vigour and voice. Serious insurrections of the peasantry, especially in Cephalonia, had to be put down by military force, and the parliament passed a resolution in favour of immediate union with Greece. The hopes of the unionists were roused by the appointment of W. E. Gladstone as high commissioner extraordinary to investigate the condition of the islands. From his known sympathy with Greek independence, it was their expectation that he would support their pretensions. But after a tour through the principal islands Gladstone came to the conclusion that the abolition of the protectorate was not the wish of the mass of the people. For a few days in 1859 he held office as lord high commissioner, and in that capacity he proposed for the consideration of the assembly a series of reforms. These reforms were, however, declared inadmissible by the assembly; and Sir Henry Storks, who succeeded Gladstone in February 1859, began his rule by a prorogation. The contest continued between the assembly and the protectorate. The British government was slow to realize the true position of affairs: as late as May 1861 Gladstone spoke of the cession of the islands as “a crime against the safety of Europe,” and Sir Henry Storks continued to report of tranquillity and contentment. The assembly of 1862 accused the high commissioner of violation of the constitution and of the treaty of Paris, and complained that England remained in ignorance of what took place in the islands.
On the abdication of King Otho of Greece in 1862 the Greek people by universal suffrage voted Prince Alfred of England to the throne, and when he declined to accept the crown England was asked to name a successor. The Cession to Greece. candidate proposed was Prince William George of Glücksburg, brother of the princess of Wales; and the British government declared to the provisional government of Greece that his selection would be followed by the long-refused cession of the Ionian Islands. After the prince’s election by the national assembly in 1863 the high commissioner laid before the Ionian parliament the conditions on which the cession would be carried out. The rejection of one of those conditions—the demolition of the fortifications of Corfu—led to a new prorogation; but none the less (on March 29, 1864) the plenipotentiaries of the five great powers signed the treaty by which the protectorate was brought to a close. The neutrality which they attributed to the whole of the islands was (January 1864) confined to Corfu and Paxo. On May 31st of that year Sir Henry Storks left Corfu with the English troops and men-of-war. King George made his entry into Corfu on the 6th of June.
Since their annexation to Greece the history of the Ionian islands has been uneventful; owing to various causes their prosperity has somewhat declined. Corfu (Corcyra) with Paxo; Cephalonia; Santa Maura (Levkas) with Thiaki (Ithaca) and Zante (Zacynthos) each form separate nomarchies or departments; Cerigo (Cýthera) forms part of the nomarchy of Laconia. The islands retain the exemption from direct taxation which they enjoyed under the British protectorate; in lieu of this there is an ad valorem tax of 20½% on exported oil and a tax of 6% on wine exported to Greek ports; these commodities are further liable to an export duty of 1½% which is levied on all agricultural produce and articles of local manufacture for the maintenance and construction of roads. The excellent roads, which date from the British administration, are kept in fair repair.
See Mustoxidi, Delle cose Corciresi (Corfu, 1848). Lunzi, Περὶ τῆς πολιτικῆς καταστάσεως τῆς Ἑπτανησοῦ ἐπὶ Ἑνετῶν (Athens, 1856): Ansted, The I. I. (London, 1863); Viscount Kirkwall, Four Years in the I. I. (London, 1864) vol. i. containing a chronological history of the British protectorate; F Lenormant, La Grèce et les îles ioniennes (Paris, 1865); P. Chiotis, Hist. des îles ioniennes (Zante, 1815-1864); Mardo, Saggio di una descrizione geografico-storica delle Isole (Corfu, 1865) (mainly geographical); De Bosset, Description des monnaies d’Ithaque et de Céphalonie (London, 1815); Postolakas, Κατάλογος τῶν ἀρχαίων νομισμάτων τῶν νήσων Κέρκυρας, Λευκάδος, &c. (Athens, 1868), Wiebel, Die Insel Kephalonia und die Meermühlen von Argostoli (Hamburg, 1873); Tsitselis, Γλωσσαρίον Κεφαλληνίας, (Athens, 1876); Ὀνόματα θέσεων ἐν Κεφαλληνίᾳ in the “Parnassus” i. 9-12 (Athens, 1877); Riemann, “Recherches archéologiques sur les Îles ioniennes” in Bibliothèque des Écoles françaises d’Athènes et de Rome (Paris, 1879-1880); Gregorovius, Corfu: eine ionische Idylle (Leipzig, 1882); J. Partsch, Die Insel Corfu: eine geographische Monographie (Gotha, 1887); Die Insel Levkas (Gotha, 1889); Kephallenia und Ithaka (Gotha, 1890); Die Insel Zante (Gotha, 1891).
(J. D. B.)
IONIANS, the name given by the Greeks to one of the principal divisions of the Hellenic peoples. In historic times it was applied to the inhabitants of (1) Attica, where some believed the Ionians to have originated; (2) parts of Euboea; (3) the Cycladic islands, except Melos and Thera; (4) a section of the west coast of Asia Minor, from the gulf of Smyrna to that of Iasus (see [Ionia]); (5) colonies from any of the foregoing, notably in Thrace, Propontis and Pontus in the west, and in Egypt (Naucratis, Daphnae); some authorities have found traces of an ancient Ionian population in (6) north-eastern Peloponnese. The meaning and derivation of the name are not known. It occurs in two forms, Ἰάϝονες and Ἴωνες (compare Χάονες and Χῶνες in Epirus)—not counting the name Ἰόνιος applied to the open sea west of Greece. In the traditional genealogy of the Hellenes, Ion, the ancestor of the Ionians, is brother of Achaeus and son of Xuthus (who held Peloponnese after the dispersal of the children of Hellen). But this genealogy, though it is attributed to Hesiod, is apparently post-Homeric; and it is clear that the Ionian name had independent and varied uses and meanings in very early times. In Homer the word Ἰάϝονες occurs as a name of inhabitants of Attica, with the epithet ἑλκεχίτωνες (Il. xiii. 685 = “trail-vest”), describing some point of costume, and later regarded as imputing effeminacy. The Homeric Hymn to Apollo of Delos (7th century) describes an Ionian population in the Cyclades with a loose religious league about the Delian sanctuary.
The same word Ἰάϝων (Javan) appears in Hebrew literature of the 8th and 7th centuries, to denote one group of the “Japhetic” peoples of Asia Minor, Cyprus and perhaps Rhodes: “by these were the isles of the nations divided, in their lands, every one after his tongue, after their families, in their nations,” a comprehensive expression for the island-strewn regions farther west (Gen. x. 10). In Ezek. xxvii. 13, 19, Javan trades with Tyre in slaves, bronze-work, iron and drugs. Later allusions show that on Semitic lips Javan meant western traders in general. In Persian Yauna was the generic term for Greeks.[1]
The earliest explicit Greek account of the Ionians is given in the 5th century by Herodotus (i. 45, 56, 143-145, v. 66, vii. 94, viii. 44-46). The “children of Ion” originated in north-eastern Peloponnese; and traces of them remained in Troezen and Cynuria. Expelled by the Achaeans (who seem to have entered Peloponnese about four generations before the Dorian Invasion) they invaded and dominated Attica; and about the time of the Dorian Invasion took the lead under the Attic branch of the Neleids of Pylus (Hdt. i. 147, v. 65) in the colonization of the Cyclades and of Asiatic Ionia, which in Homer is still “Carian.” Many of the colonists, however, were not Ionians, but refugees from other parts of Greece, between Euboea and Argolis (Hdt. i. 146); others looked on Attica as their first home, though the true Ionians were intruders there. The Pan-Ionian sanctuary of Poseidon on the Asiatic promontory of Mycale was regarded as perpetuating a cult from Peloponnesian Achaea, and the league of twelve cities which maintained it, as imitated from an Achaean dodecapolis, and as claiming (absurdly, according to Herodotus i. 143) purer descent than other Ionians.
In Herodotus’s account of the first Greek intercourse with Egypt (about 664 B C.) he describes “Ionian and Carian” adventurers and mercenaries in the Delta. Later the commoner antithesis is between Ionian and Dorian, first (probably) in the colonial regions of Asia Minor, and later more universally.