FOREIGN RULE. From the completion of the Roman conquest by the capture of Corinth in B.C. 146 until the outbreak of the Mithradatic wars in B.C. 88 Greece enjoyed a just and wise adminis tration under the Romans, and the country pros pered. The nationalist revolt which followed the first successes of Mithradates against the Romans changed these conditions. Athens was sacked by the forces of Sulla in B.C. 86, and Thebes was re duced in the following year. The hand of Rome fell heavily upon the rebellious cities, and that decline began from which the country never re covered. Under the emperors Greece enjoyed re newed tranquillity, its supremacy in thought and letters was recognized, and there was a partial return to prosperity. The Emperor Hadrian and Atticus Herodes (q.v.), the friend of the Anto nine emperors, did much to restore the splendor of the ancient civilization. In the middle of the third century A.D. this condition was disturbed by the Gothic hordes, which overran the peninsula, captured Athens, and laid waste the cities of Argos, Corinth, and Sparta. Christianity, after the third century, spread rapidly in Greece in spite of the opposition it had to meet from the philosophers of Athens, which to the end re mained the centre of pagan culture. When the world-empire founded by the Romans fell to pieces before the attacks of the northern bar barians, the eastern half, which embraced all that was Greek, continued its existence as the Byzan tine or Greek Empire. But this Greek Empire, with its seat at Constantinople, which outlived the Western Empire by a thousand years, until it was extinguished by the Turks in 1453, was the mixed Oriental Greece, not that classic Hellas that had been the bulwark of the Western world. (See BYZANTINE EMPIRE.) The life of the true Greece was obscured for several centuries, only appearing as the peninsula became an object of conquest or an arena of strife. Before the final division of the Roman Empire, the rulers of Rome attempted to Romanize the East by intro ducing into the language of the period a min gling of Latin and Greek, known as Romaic; but they failed to overcome the strong race character istics of the people. From the sixth to the eighth century, Slavic peoples from the north crowded into the Balkan Peninsula. occupying almost ex clusively the ancient Peloponnesus. The invaders were merged to some extent with the ancient race, and remained in occupancy of Illyria and Thrace, producing a mixture of nationalities which constitutes at the present clay one of the chief elements of confusion in the puzzling prob lems of the Balkan Peninsula. The ambition of the Frankish leaders of the Fourth Crusade and the greed of Venice interrupted the continuity of Byzantine rule. establishing the short-lived Latin Empire of the East (1204-1261), and dividing the Hellenic Peninsula into a number of feudal fiefs, of which the Duchy of Athens was the most prominent and the longest lived. Held for a cen tury (1205-1308) by the Frankish House of Do la. Roche, then for a few years by that of Brienne, the duchy became after the conquest by the Catalan Grand Company (q.v.), in 1311, an appanage of the Kingdom of Aragon. In 1385 it was acquired by the Florentine family of Accia juoli, under whom it remained until the Turkish conquest—in 1456. During this period the Court
of Athens was one of the most brilliant of the feudal courts of Europe. Soon after the capture of Constantinople in 1453, Mohammed II. turned his attention to the Morea and Attica, and by 1460 they had been completely subjugated. The Turkish conquest, sending thousands of Greeks into exile, spread the intellectual influence of the race through the West, and promoted the revival of learning in Europe. ( See RENAIS SANCE.) The Venetians still held many places in the Grecian islands, and defended them obsti nately in an almost constant series of wars until 1718; but gradually the islands, like the mainland, fell into the hands of the Turks. The great naval battle of Lepanto (Naupactus), won by the allied Papal, Spanish, and Venetian fleets, October 7, 1571, gave the Christian powers a temporary advantage which they failed to follow up. Venice lost Crete in 1669, but in 1684 the Venetian Admiral Morosini opened a vigorous campaign, which resulted in 1687 in the conquest of the Morea and of Attica. During the siege of Athens (1687) the Parthenon was ruined by the Venetian bombardment. The peace of Carlo witz in 1699 left the Morea alone in the posses sion of Venice; and in 1715 this was again con quered by the Turks, after a feeble defense, and by the Peace of Passarowitz (1718) the Ottoman Empire remained in full possession of Greece. The country was administered in the usual Turk ish fashion. It was divided into pashalics, within which the pashas ruled autocratically, being held accountable only for a certain amount of revenue, which they wrung from the unfortu nate people. The same was true of officials of lesser rank, begs and agas, within the districts intrusted to them. Prostrated under an alien and irresponsible tyranny, the country lapsed into anarchy and poverty. All over Greece many of the more vigorous and independent of the peo ple adopted the wild, free life of klephts or brig ands, having their lairs in the mountains, and waging unceasing warfare against the Turks. Among them the spirit of independence was kept alive, although with a total disregard for author ity. Terrible as was the rule of the Turks, they allowed two institutions to exist which acted as powerful forces toward maintaining intact the nationality of the Greeks. One was the Greek Church, the other the system of local self-govern ment. In the eighteenth century Russia sought to extend a helping hand to the Greeks, her core ligionists, but little of moment was achieved. Large numbers of Greeks found a field for their activity in commerce and navigation, and this preserved the national life from stagnation and kept the people in touch with the outside world. Those who resided in foreign countries under freer governments, many of whom acquired wealth and influence, remained devoted to the fatherland and fostered the spirit of independ ence by helping to establish national institu tions of learning. At the close of the eighteenth century the trade of the ports of Greece and of the Grecian islands assumed great proportions, and the merchant marine became a school whence was to issue a large array of naval heroes.