league. He won two great victories. Then, the league being helpless for the moment, he used his popularity to secure reform in Sparta. The oligarchs were plotting against him, but he was enthusiastically supported by the disfranchised multitudes. Leaving his Spartan troops at a distance, he hurried to the city by forced marches with some chosen followers. There he seized and slew the Ephors, and proclaimed a new constitution, which contained the economic designs of Agis, and which virtually placed all political power in the hands of the king. 250. Aratus calls in Macedonia. Cleomenes designed to make this new Sparta the head of the Peloponnesus. He and Aratus each desired a free, united Greece, but under different leadership. Moreover, Sparta now stood forth the advocate of a kind of socialism, and so was particularly hateful to the aristocratic government of the league. The struggle between the two powers was renewed with fresh bitterness. Cleómenes won more victories, and then, with the league at his feet, he offered generous terms. He demanded that Sparta be admitted to the union as virtual leader. This would have altered the character of the confederacy, but it would have created the greatest power ever seen in Greece, and, for the time, it would have insured a free Hellas. The Achaeans were generally in

favor of accepting the proposal; but Aratus-jealous of Cleomenes and fearful of social reform - broke off the negotiations by underhanded methods.

Then Aratus bought the aid of Macedon against Sparta by betraying Corinth, a free member of the league and the city connected with his own glorious exploit. As a result, the federation became a protectorate of Macedonia, holding no relations with foreign states except through that power; and the war became a struggle for Greek freedom, waged by Sparta under her hero king against the overwhelming power of Macedon assisted by the confederacy as a vassal state. Aratus had undone his own great work.

The date (222 B.C.) coincides with the general decline of the Hellenic world (§ 230). For a while, Sparta showed surprising vigor, and Cleomenes was marvelously successful. The league indeed dwindled to a handful of petty cities. But in the end Macedonia prevailed. Cleomenes fled to Egypt, to die in exile; and Sparta opened her gates for the first time to a conquering army. The league was restored to nearly its full extent, but its glory was gone. It still served a useful purpose in keeping peace and order over a large part of Peloponnesus, but it was no longer the champion of a free Hellas.

251. The Final Decline of the League. - Soon after, war followed between Achaea and Aetolia. This contest became a struggle between Macedonia and her vassals on the one side, and Aetolia aided by Rome on the other; for as Achaea had called in Macedonia against Sparta, so now Aetolia called in Rome against Achaea and Macedonia, and Greek history closed.

Some gleams of glory shine out at the last in the career of Philopoemen of Megalopolis, the greatest general the Achaean League ever produced, and one of the noblest characters in history; but the doom of Achaea was already sealed. "Philopoemen," says Freeman, "was one of the heroes who struggle against fate, and who are allowed to do no more than to stave off a destruction which it is beyond their power to avert."

The sentence may stand not unfittingly for the epitaph of the great league itself..

tus,"

66

66

REFERENCES for Further STUDY. - Sources: Plutarch's Lives (“Ara'Agis," Cleomenes," Philopoemen "); Polybius' History (index; extracts in Fling's Studies, No. 5). Modern authorities: Mahaffy's Problems, 176–186; Greenidge's Greek Constitutional History, ch. vii; Fowler's City State, chs. x and xi; Freeman's Federal Government; Holm's History of Greece, IV (see index).

SPECIAL REPORTS.-1. Compare Plutarch and Polybius on the reforms at Sparta. 2. The life of Agis. 3. Cleomenes in exile. 4. Philopoemen.

EXERCISE. - Review, with attention to progressive development, the various confederacies, - Peloponnesian, Delian, Olynthian, Achaean.

REVIEW EXERCISES ON PARTS II AND III.

A. FACT DRILLS ON GREEK HISTORY.

1. The class should form a Table of Dates gradually as the critical points are reached, and should then drill upon it until it says itself as the alphabet does. The following dates are enough for this drill in Greek history. The table should be filled out as is done for the first two dates. First recorded Olympiad Marathon

776 B.C.

490 66

338 B.C.

222

146

2. Name in order fifteen battles, between 776 and 146 B.C., stating for each the parties, leaders, result, and importance. (Such tables also should be made by degrees as the events are reached.)

3. Explain concisely the following terms or names: Olympiads, Ephors, Mycenaean Culture, Olympian Religion, Amphictyonies, Sappho. (Let the class extend the list several fold.)

B. TOPICAL REVIEWS.

This is a good point at which to review certain "culture topics,". i.e., Greek philosophy, literature, art, religion, - tracing each separately from the dawn of history.

The chief divisions of Greek history should be fixed clearly in the mind for this the Table of Contents is a sufficient guide.

PART IV.

ROME.

The center of our studies, the goal of our thoughts, the point to which all paths lead and the point from which all paths start again, is to be found in Rome and her abiding power.—FREEMAN.

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTORY SURVEY.

Divisions I and V of this chapter are suitable for reading and discussion in class. The other three divisions (Geography of Italy, Peoples of Italy, and Geography of Rome) should be studied more carefully.

I. THE PLACE OF ROME IN HISTORY.

252. Preceding History: Oriental Contributions Material; Greek Contributions Intellectual. Our civilization began seven thousand years ago in the fertile valleys of Egypt and western Asia. Slowly war and trade spread it around the eastern coasts of the Mediterranean. But the contributions of this Oriental civilization to the future were mainly material. About 600 B.C. the Greeks, in their Aegean home and in their many settlements scattered along all the Mediterranean coasts, became the leaders in civilization. They made marvelous advance in art, literature, philosophy, and in some sciences. Their chief contributions were intellectual. After about three hundred years, under Alexander the Great, they suddenly conquered the East and formed a Graeco-Oriental World; but politically the empire of Alexander broke at once into fragments.