Divisions.] It seems inexpedient to adhere to the arbitrary political divisions established by the Turks in an account of the provinces which constitute European Turkey. These divisions are seldom recognized by travellers, and are ill-adapted for conveying either popular or geographical information regarding this country; we shall therefore merely subjoin a table of them, according to Hadgi-Khalfa and Hezarfen, two native-geographers, and in the topography we shall retain the old natural divisions of the country. Those Sandshaks which will probably form emancipated Greece are here printed in Italics. Sandshaks. I. EJALET RUMILI, or the country of the Romans. Ancient Divisions. 14. Joanina, includ. Karli-ili, Epirus, with western Etolia and Forming the Ejalet Morah, or country of the Morea, Acarnania. Within the limits stated above, including the tract between the Strymon and the Nestus, and the island of Euboea or the modern Negropont, but exclusive of all its other islands, Greece contains an area of 57,750 English miles. If to these be added 1,000 square miles for the Cyclades, the sum total will be 58,750 English miles, which is almost exactly the area of England, or double_that of Scotland, with its dependent isles. The area of Greece, as including Attica, Euboea, Boeotia, Phocis, Doris, Etolia, Acarnania, Thessaly, and Magnesia, measured on D'Anville's map-which is pronounced by Sir William Gell, a very competent judge, to be the most acccurate of any that have been constructed since-comprehends 14,800 English square miles. Peloponnesus or the Morea, which included seven distinct political States, has an area of 6,950 such miles. Epirus and Albania, including the basin of the Drino, occupy a surface of 16,000 English square miles. Macedonia 18,000 square miles, and the Cyclades 1,000. Total 58,750. During the period of Grecian independence, however, all these territories were never united into one political body, nor formed one consolidated government, nor was ever their combined force directed to the prosecution of one common object. Those communities, whose brilliant achievements in war, philosophy, or arts, raised the Grecian name so high, possessed but very small portions of territory, as will be seen from the following table measured on D'Anville's map :Attica, including Megara and Salamis, but not Euboea, Bootia, Laconia, (without Messenia,) Achaia, (the 12 cities with their territories,) 1,190 English square miles. 1,530 1,720 1,140 These States were generally equal in extent to our middle-sized English counties. None of them were so large as Perthshire in Scotland, or Devonshire in England; and the two counties of York and Lancashire, are nearly equal in extent to the whole seven States of the Peloponnesus. 22. Veldshterin, 23. Aladja-Hissar, 24. Semendra, 1. Traunik, Upper Servia, western part. Idem, eastern part. Idem, lower part. II. EJALET BOSNA, or the country of the Bosnians. Bosnia, central part. Bosnia, western part. Turkish Dalmatia. III. EJALET DSCHESAIR, or the country of the Isles. 6. Hersek, First Epoch.] Two thousand years before the Christian era, Greece was inhabited by fierce and savage tribes,-the Autochthones, or ' children of the soil. Our limits will not permit us to enter into any discussion or detail of the different opinions which have been advanced regarding the origin of these tribes. Inachus and Ogyges, about 1800 years B. C. conducted a colony of Egyptians into this country, and founded the States of Argos and Sicyon, whence they spread over the Peloponnesus towards the north; Cecrops, another Egyptian, followed with a second colony, and founded a State in Attica about 1550 B. C.; while Cadmus, a Phœnician, settled in Boeotia about the same time. These two chiefs are said to have founded the cities of Athens and Thebes in their respective dominions. One century afterwards, Pelops, a Phrygian chief, settled himself at Argos; his descendants, having attained wide command in this country, gave it the name of Peloponnesus. These foreigners gradually amalgamated themselves with the original inhabitants of the land, to whom they imparted their arts and manners. The numerous small States into which Greece was thus early divided naturally sought to rival each other in power and prosperity. They were governed in most instances by kings, and had their own heroes, legislators, and poets. The first common enterprise in which the Greeks seem to have engaged was the expedition of the Argonauts to the coasts of the Black Sea, or the countries of Colchis and Mingrelia. The Trojan war probably took place about 1200 B. C. This famous league against Troy indicates the existence even in these early times of a certain community of feeling among the various tribes by which Greece was then peopled, and probably laid the foundation of that national spirit, and that conformity of language and character, which exalted Greece in after ages to the pre-eminent station she attained in the scale of nations. Republican Epoch.] The silence of history, or rather the fables with which its earliest records are usually filled, render very doubtful the greater part of those events of which the memory has only been preserved by tradition. After the destruction of Troy, the dissensions of the dominant families, and the endless quarrels of the Heraclides and Pelopidae, became the fruitful source of long internal wars, during which Argos, Sparta, Messenia, and Corinth changed masters, the Achaians their name, and Elis was seized by the Eolians. Draco, and after him Solon, framed a code of laws for Athens, six centuries before the Christian era. Lycurgus also presented Sparta with the outlines of a military constitution, which quickly raised that State to a preponderancy in the Peloponnesus. Besides Athens and Sparta, several other republics existed in Greece, none of which, however, could be compared to them in power and influence; Corinth was enriched by commerce, and Thebes exalted to political consideration by her heroic generals, Pelopidas and Epaminondas. Greece at this period comprehended Arcadia, Argolis, Corinth, Sicyon, Achaia, and Elis, in the Peloponnesus; Hellas embraced Megaris, Boeotia, Phocis, Locris, Etolia, and Acarnania; and northern Greece, Thessaly and Epirus. The Greek islands were Corcyra a colony of Corinth, Egina, Eubœa, Crete, Cyprus, and the Cyclades. The Hellenes stretched themselves equally towards the east and west. On the coasts of the Mediterranean and of the Black Sea, on those of Thrace and of Asia Minor, on those of Italy and of Sicily, Greek colonies and establishments were founded. The colonies of Asia Minor extended from the Hellespont to the confines of Cilicia; enriched by commerce, they speedily became the seat of the fine arts and of the highest Grecian civilization. Those of Eolis were founded in 1124; those of Ionia in 1044 B.C. The colonies on the shores of the Propontis, the Black Sea, and the Palus Mæotis, were founded betwixt 800 and 600 B. C. Those of Athens and of Corinth, occupied the coasts of Thrace and Macedonia. Towards the west the Greek republicans founded the colonies of Crotona, Sybaris, Thuria, Locri, Epizephyria, Rhegium, Tarentum, Cuma, Agrigentum, and Syracuse; and several in the islands of Sardinia and Corsica. Marseilles in Gaul, Saguntum on the coast of Spain, and Cyrene on the African coast, were established in the same epoch. Persian War.] The support given by the Athenians to their countrymen in Asia Minor, furnished Darius, king of Persia, with a pretext for attacking Greece; but the Persian fleet under Mardonius was wrecked against the promontory of Athos; and the Athenian general Miltiades defeated the invading army under Hippias at Marathon, 490 B. C. Themistocles and Aristides succeeded Miltiades in the direction of public affairs; the former made Athens a naval power,—the latter directed her counsels with unbending rectitude, and successful but ill-requited enterprise. Nine years after the signal defeat of Hippias, Xerxes, king of Persia, at the head of a countless host crossed the Hellespont, and directed his march, through Thessaly, upon Athens, with the view of exterminating the liberties of Greece; but Themistocles saved his country by annihilating the Persian navy at Salamis, and Leonidas with his devoted band of 300 Spartans taught the tyrant, at the Pass of Thermopyla, what Greeks could dare and sacrifice in the cause of liberty. The lesson was repeated on the plains of Platea, where Mardonius beheld his barbarous hordes scattered like the chaff before the banded arms of Grecian freemen. The conquerors on this glorious field, Pausanias, his fellowpatriot Themistocles, Cimon the only son of the immortal Miltiades, and Aristides the Just, shared the fate of all their compatriots who had raised themselves to the enviable pinnacle of distinction among their fellow-citizens; they were accused of having accepted of bribes from the Persians, or of other state-offences, and driven from the society of their jealous and ever mobile countrymen. But the age was prodigal in great men, and Athens rose to the very summit of greatness and glory under the administration of Pericles the successor of Aristides. Alcibiades commanded her armies,-Phidias decorated her temples with the divine productions of his chisel,-Sophocles and Aristophanes furnished her theatrical entertainments,-Thucydides wrote the history of her glorious wars,-Democritus and Empedocles, and a crowd of other distinguished philosophers, exercised and trained the intellect of her youth,-and Socrates taught them what was the true wisdom and the chief good of life, for which, with their usual gratitude, his countrymen requited him by condemning him to death as a reviler of the gods. But unfortunately the luxury and licentiousness which wealth usually begets, soon manifested themselves in their consequences. Athens, already an object of envy to all the neighbouring States, and especially to her ancient rival Sparta, excited the deadly resentment of the latter power by refusing to aid her in suppressing a revolt of the Messenian slaves. This gave rise to the Peloponnesian war which raged for 27 years, and finally left Athens crippled in all her resources, and under inglorious subjection to Thirty tyrants, nominated her rulers by Lysander her Spartan conqueror. Thrasybulus restored the fallen fortunes of his country; and the Theban generals Epaminondas and Pelopidas chastised and subdued the imperious arrogance which Sparta, emboldened by success, had begun to assume in the counsels of Greece. With the preponderance of Macedonia a new order of things commenced in Greece. Philip and Alexander.] The kingdom of Macedon originated in a Greek colony sent from Argos under the command of Temenidas, about 813 B. C. The chronology of its first kings is uncertain; but its history clears up from the era of the Persian war. The battle of Platæa delivered this country from the payment of an annual tribute to the kings of Persia; but in the Thracians and Athenians, Macedonia had to contend with formidable and jealous rivals. Its quarrels with republican Athens commenced under Perdiccas II., 454 B.C. At this epoch the Macedonian State comprehended only the countries of Emathia, Mygdonia, and Pelagonia. When Philip mounted the Macedonian throne, he found his kingdom in a highly distracted and weakened state; but the sagacity of his policy, the vigour of his measures, and the introduction of the far-famed phalanx into the armies of Macedon, quickly brought about a change of affairs, while the discovery of gold-mines in Thrace supplied him with the means of effecting by bribery what he could not or was not willing to bring about by force of arms. Philip aimed at the protectorship of Greece, and the Sacred war, as it was called, afforded him the means of attaining his object. Called to the assistance of the Thessalians, he entered their country in the character of an ally, but did not leave it until it had been declared a province of Macedonia; a treaty which he concluded with Athens placed the passes of Thermopylæ in his hands; and in 346 B. C. he obtained admission to the council of the Amphictyons. Sparta submitted unresistingly to the growing power of this new State; but Athens for a while resisted it with her fleet. By his victories over the Thracians and Illyrians Philip extended the frontiers of his kingdom to the Danube and the Adriatic. The siege of Perinthum and Byzantium revealed to the Athenians and Persians the designs of this powerful chief upon the islands of Asia Minor. With much political sagacity Philip affected at this period to renounce all interference in Grecian affairs, at the moment that his agents were preparing a new expedition against the liberties of that country, and the orator Eschines was labouring to obtain for him the title which he secretly thirsted for, and the Amphictyons hesitated to bestow. The battle of Chæronea, 338 B. C. decided the fate of Greece, though Demosthenes strove by all the thunders of his eloquence to rouse his countrymen to a proper sense of their danger and the ambitious designs of Philip. Philip fell under the dagger of an assassin in 336 B. C.; and was succeeded by his son Alexander, on whom the general diet of Grecian States held at Corinth conferred the title of generalissimo of their armies in the war with Persia,-a charge which had already been entrusted or rather yielded to his father. The battle of the Granicus opened up Asia Minor to Alexander's arms; the defeat of Darius in person, on the Issus, inspired him with the design of overturning the Persian monarchy; the battle of Arbella, 331 B.C.-the result of which was chiefly due to the formidable Macedonian phalanx-was followed by the taking of Babylon, Susa, and Persepolis, and placed the empire of that powerful country, by which Greece had been so long menaced, in the hands of the Macedonian hero. Alexander's expedition to India was one of those hazardous enterprises, the signal success of which can alone shield it from censure. Alexander directed his march from the Jaxartes to the limits of India, of which he conquered the northern provinces; but a mutiny which broke out in his army prevented him from advancing to the Ganges. Embarking the greater part of his army on the Indus, to return by the Indian ocean into the Persian gulf, he himself passed through the deserts of Gedrosia and Carmania in 326–5 B.C., and arrived by this rout at Babylon. This city he had intended to make the metropolis of his vast empire and the seat of government; but the conqueror of the world fell a victim to his disordered habits on the 21st of April 323, before he had completed his 33d year, or arranged the details of that gigantic plan of government which his ambitious spirit had conceived. Reduction of Greece to a Roman Province.] The troubles which followed the death of Alexander weakened the power of Greece. The battle of Ipsus 301 B.C. gave Egypt, Palestine, and Arabia to Ptolemy; Macedonia and Greece to Cassander; Thrace and Bithynia to Lysimachus; and the rest of Asia to the Indus, or the kingdom of Syria, as it was called, to Seleucus. Under Ptolemy-Soter Greece reflected back upon Egypt a part of that knowledge which it had at first derived from that cradle of the arts and sciences; but the decadence of the former country was begun and rapidly advancing to its consummation. The weakness of the Macedonian rulers led to the formation of two distinct confederations in Greece,-the Ætolian and Achaian leagues. The former of these associations was little more than a league of robbers and pirates for the purpose of pursuing their system of depredation with greater impunity; the latter embraced Corinth, Athens, Sicyon, and several of the smaller States who were sincerely desirous of getting rid of the Macedonian garrisons which had been planted in their country, and reasserting their ancient freedom. Aratus, a spirited and prudent man, planned this league on the broad and stable principle of political equality in all the members of the Union; and the talents of Philopomen supported its |