Poetry, battles, cap-
tivities, and recognitions fill up the piece; there is no
picture of the mind, no history of the character carried
on with the development of the action.
tivities, and recognitions fill up the piece; there is no
picture of the mind, no history of the character carried
on with the development of the action.
Charles - 1867 - Classical Dictionary
vol.
2, p.
69.
HILKNA, the most beautiful woman of her age.
There are different accounts of her birth and parentage.
The common, and probably the most ancient, one is,
that she was the daughter of Leda by Jupiter, who took
the form of a white swan. According to the Cyprian
Epic, she was the offspring of Jupiter and Nemesis,
who had long fled the pursuit of the god, and, to elude
him, had taken the form of all kinds of animals.
(Atktn. , 8, p. 334. ) At length, while she was under
that of a goose, the god became a swan, and she laid
an egg, which was found by a shepherd in the woods.
He brought it to Leda, who laid it up in a coffer, and
m doe time Helena was produced from it. (Apollod. ,
3, 10, 4. ) Hesiod, on the other hand, calls Helena
? ? the daughter of Oceanus and Tethys. (Sehol. ad
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? HELENA.
HELLitA.
. ;ars ,\jih Menelaiis, who forgave her infidelity; but,
"[iuii hia death, she was driven from the Peloponnesus
by Megapenthes and Nicostratus, the illegitimate sons
of her husband, and she retired to Rhodes, where at
that time Polyxo, a native of Argos, reigned over the
country. Polyxo remembered that her widowhood ori-
ginated in Helen, and that her husband, Tlepolemua,
had been k'. led in the Trojan war, and she therefore
revolved upon revenge. While Helen one day retired
to bathe in the river, Polyxo disguised her attendants in
<. ! . e habits of Furies, and sent them with orders to mur-
der her enemy. Helen was tied to a tree and stran-
gled, and her misfortunes were afterward commemo-
rated, and the crime of Polyxo expiated, by the tem-
ple which the Rhodians raised to Helena Dendritis, or
Helena " tied to a tree. "--There is a tradition men-
tioned by Herodotus, which says that Paris was driven,
as he returned from Sparta, upon the coast of Egypt,
where Proteus, king of the country, expelled him from
his dominions for his ingratitude to Menelaiis, and
confined Helen. From that circumstance, therefore,
Priam informed the Grecian ambassadors that nei-
ther Helen nor her possessions were in Troy, but in
the hands of the King of Egypt. In spite of this as-
sertion, the Greeks besieged the city, and took it after
ten years' siege; and Menelaiis, visiting Egypt as he
returned home, recovered Helen at the court of Pro-
teus, and was convinced that the Trojan war had been
undertaken upon unjust grounds. Herodotus adds,
that, in his opinion, Homer was acquainted with these
circumstances, but did not think them so well calcu-
lated as the popular legend for the basis of an epic
poem. (Herod. , 2, 112, 116, scqq. )--It was fabled,
that, after death, Helen was united in marriage with
Achilles, in the island of Leuce, in the Euxine, where
she bore him a son named Euphorion. (Pausamas,
3, 19. --Cotton, lS. --Ptol. , Hephast. , 4. ) Nothing,
however, can be more uncertain than the whole history
of Helen. The account of Herodotus has been al-
ready given in the course of this article. According
to Euripides (Helena, 25, scqq), Juno, piqued at be-
holding Venus bear away the prize of beauty, caused
Mercury to carry away the true Helen from Greece to
Egypt, and gave Paris a phantom in her stead. After
the destruction of Troy, the phantom bears witness to
the innocence of Helen, a storm carries Menelaiis to
the coast of Egypt, and he there regains possession of
bis bride. Others pretend that Helen never married
Menelaiis; that she preferred Paris to all the princes
that sought her in marriage; and that Menelaiis, irri-
tated at this, raised an army against Troy. Some wri-
ters think they see, in these conflicting and varying
statements, a confirmation of the opinion entertained by
many, that the ancient quarrel of Hercules and Laome-
don, and the violence ofTered to Hcsione, the daughter
of that monarch, and not the carrying off of Helen, were
the causes of the Trojan war. Others treat the story
of the oath exacted from the suiters with very little cer-
emony, and make the Grecian princes to have followed
Agamemnon to the field as their liege lord, and as stand-
ing at the head of the Achaean race, to whom therefore
they, as commanding the several divisions and tribes
of that race, were bound to render service. But the
more we consider the history of Helen, the greater will
be the difficulties that arise. It seems strange indeed,
supposing the common account to be true, that so
many cities and slates should combine to regain her
? ? whon she went away voluntarily with Paris, and that
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? HEl
HEL
? f the same age; 'or one, if not both, was hatched
from the same egg. Yet these children, so little past
their infant state, are said to have pursued Theseus,
? nd to have regained their sister. They must have
been sturdy urchins, and little short of the sons of
Aloeus. (Consult, on this whole subject, Bryant, Die-
nrtation on the War of Troy, p. 9, seqq. )--It is more
dan probable, indeed, that the whole legend relative to
Helen was originally a religious and allegorical myth.
The remarkable circumstance of her two brothers liv-
ing and dying alternately, leads at once to a suspicion
of their oeing personifications of natural powers and
objects. This is confirmed by the names in the myth,
all of which'seem to refer to light or its opposite.
Thus Leda differs little from Leto, and may therefore
be regarded as darkness. She is married to Tyndarus,
a Dame which seems to belong to a family of words
relating to light, flame, or heat (Viil. Tyndarus); her
children by him or Jupiter, that is, by Jupiter-Tynda-
rus, tie bright god, are Helena, Brightness (? Aa,
"light"); Castor, Adorner, (<c<<fu, " to adorn"); and
Polydcukes, Devcful (6eiu, Acvktjc). In Helen, there-
fore, we have only another form of Selene; the Adorn-
er is a very appropriate term for the day, the light
of which adonis all nature; and nothing can be more
apparent than the suitableness of Dewful to the night.
(Keightley'i Mytxology, p. 432. ) -- II. (commonly
known in ecclesiastical history by the name of St.
Helena), the first wife of Constantius Chlorus, was
born of obscure parents, in a village called Drepanum,
in Bilhynia, which was afterward raised by her son
Constantine to the rank of a city, under the name of
Helenopolis. Her husband Constantius, on being
made Cesar by Dioclesian and Maximian (A. D. 292),
repudiated Helena, and married Theodora, daughter
of Maximian. Helena withdrew into retirement until
her son Constantine, having become emperor, called
his mother to court, and gave her the title of Augus-
ta. He also supplied her with large sums of money,
which she employed in building and endowing church-
's, and in relieving the poor. About A. D. 325 she
set out on a pilgrimage to Palestine, and, having ex-
plored the site of Jerusalem, she thought that she had
discovered the sepulchre of Jesus, and also the cross
on which he died. The identity of the cross which
she found has been, of course, much doubted: she,
however, built a church on the spot, supposed to be
that of the Sepulchre, which has continued to be ven-
erated by that name to the present day. She also built
a church at Bethlehem, in honour of the nativity of
our Saviour. From Palestine she rejoined her son at
Ntcomedia, in Bithvnia, where she expired, in the year
327, at a very advanced age. She is numbered by the
Roman church among the saints. (Euseb. , Vtt. Const.
--Hiibner, de Crucist Dominica per Helenam inven-
tione, Helmstadt, 1724. )--III. A deserted and rugged
island in the Aegean, opposite to Thorikos, and ex-
tending from that parallel to Sunimn. It received its
name from the circumstance of Paris's having landed
on it, as was said, in company with Helena, when they
were fleeing from Sparta. (Plin. , 4, 12. --Mela, 2,
7. ) Strabo, who follows Artemidorus, conceived it
was the Crane of Homer. (II. , 3, 444. ) Pliny calls
it Macris. The modern name is Macronisi.
Helenus, an eminent soothsayer, son of Priam and
Hecuba, and the only one of their sons who survived
the siege of Troy. He was so chagrined, according
? ? to some, at having failed to obtain Helen in marriage
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? HE I,
HEUGDOKUS.
in his Land, and that it formed a dangerous shoal for
their vessels. Heraclides, of Ponlus, relates that this
disaster, which took place in his time, occurred during
the night; the town, and all that lay between it and
the sea, a distance of twelve stadia, being inundated
in ar. instant. Two thousand workmen were after-
Ward sent by the Achasans to recover the dead bodies,
but without success. The same writer affirmed, that
this inundation was commonly attributed to divine
vengeance, in consequence of the inhabitants of Hcl-
ice having obstinately refused to deliver up the statue
of Neptune and a model of the Templo to the Ionian*
aftnr tl\"y had settled in Asia Minor, (op. Strai. , 385.
--CorrMre the remarks of Bcrnhardy, Eratostkenica, p.
Hl. --Diod. Sic, 15,49. -- Pausan. , 7, U. --JElian, H.
A. , II. 19. ) Seneca affirms, that Callisthenes the
philosopher, who was put to death by Alexander the
Great, wrote a voluminous work on the destruction of
Hclice (9, 23. --Compare Aristot. , de Mund. , c. 4. --
Polyb. , 2, 41). Pausanias informs us, that there was
still a small village of the same name close to the
sea, and forty stadia from vEgium. (Cramer's An-
cient Greece, vol. 3, p. 61. )
Helicon, a famous mountain in Boeotia, near the
liulf of Corinth. It was sarred to Apollo and the
Muses, who were thenco called Heliconiades. This
mountain was famed for the purity of its air, the abun-
dance of its waters, its fertile valleys, the goodness
of its shades, and the beauty of the venerable trees
which clothed its sides. Strabo (409) affirms, that Hel-
icon nearly equals in height Mount Parnassus, and re-
tains its snow during a great part of the year. Pau-
sanias observes (9, 28), that no mountain of Greece
produces such a variety of plants and shrubs, though
none of a poisonous nature; on the contrary, several
have the property of counteracting the effects produced
by the sting or bite of venomous reptiles. On the
summit was the grove of the Muses, where these di-
vinities had their statues, and where also were statues
of Apollo and Mercury, of Bacchus by Lysippus, of
Orpheus, and of famous poets and musicians. (Pau-
san. , 9, 30. ) A little below the grove was the fount-
pin of Aganippe. The source Hippocrene was about
wentj stadia above the grove; it is said to have burst
jrth when Pegasus struck his foot into the ground.
,Pausan. ,\), 31. --Strab. , 9,410. ) These two springs
lupplied two small rivers named Olmius and Permes-
sus, which, afier uniting their waters, flowed into tho
lake Copai's, near Haliartus. Hcsiod makes mention
of these his favourite haunts in the opening of his
Theogonia. The modern name of Helicon is Palao-
vmini or Zagora. The latter is the more general ap-
pellation: the name of Palreovouni is more correctly
applied to that part of the mountain which is near the
modern village Kakosia, that stands on the site of an-
cient Thisbe. (Cramer's Ancient Greece, vol. 2, p.
204. --Compare Dodieell, Tour, vol. I, p. 200. )--II.
A river of Macedonia, near Dium, the same, according
to Pausanias (9, 30), with the Baphyrus. The same
autior informs us, that, after flowing for a distance
of seventy-five stadia, it loses itself under ground
for the space of twenty-two stadia; it is navigable on
its reappearance, and is then called Baphyrus. Ac-
cording to Dr. Clarke, it is now known as the Mauro
Hero. (Cramer's Ane. Greece, vol. 1, p. 209. )
Heliconiades, a name given to the Muses, from
their fabled residence >n Mount Helicon, which was
? ? sacred to them. (Lw. rct. , 3, 1050. )
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? HEL
HELIOGABALUS
>>0! crver Villemain, "that Heliodorus, when he wrote
tiie work, was at least initiated in Christian senti-
ments. This is felt by a kind of moral purity which
:ontrasts strongly with the habitual license of the
Greek fables; and the style even, as the learned Coray
remarks, contains many expressions familiar to the ec-
clesiastical writers. This styie is pure, polished, sym-
metrical; and the language of love receives a charac-
ter f. delicacy and reserve, which is very rare among
ifce writers of antiquity. " It must not be disguised,
wwever, that Huet, a courtier of Louis XIV. , and the
contemporary and admirer of Mademoiselle de Scu-
dery, judged after the models of romance which were
fashionable in his own century.
Poetry, battles, cap-
tivities, and recognitions fill up the piece; there is no
picture of the mind, no history of the character carried
on with the development of the action. The incidents
point to no particular era of society, although the learn-
ed in history may perceive, from the tone of sentiment
throughout, that the struggle had commenced between
the pure and lofty spirit of Christianity and the gross-
ness of pagan idolatry. Egypt, as Yillcmain remarks,
is neither ancient Egypt, nor the Egypt of the Ptole-
mies, nor the Egypt of the Romans. Athens is nei-
ther Athens free nor Athens conquered: in short,
there is no individuality either in the places or persons;
and the vague pictures of the French romances of the
seventeenth century give scarcely a caricatured idea
of the model from which they were drawn. --It may
not be amiss to mention here an incident relative to
the post Racine and the work of Heliodorus which we
have been considering. When Racine was at Port
Royal learning Greek, his imagination almost smoth-
ered to death by the dry erudition of the pious fathers,
he laid hold instinctively on the romance of Heliodo-
rus, as the only prop by which he might be preserved
for his high destiny, even then, perhaps, shadowed dim-
Ij forth in his youthful mind. A tale of love, how-
ever, surprised in the hands of a Christian boy, filled
his instructed with horror, and the book was seized
and thrown into the fire. Another and another copy
met the same fate; and poor Racine, thus excluded
from the benefits of the common typographical art,
printed the romance on his memory. A first love, woo-
ed by steaith, and won in difficulty and danger, is always
among the last to loose her hold on the affections; and
Racine, in riper age, often fondly recurred to his for-
bidden studies at Port Royal. From early youth, his
son tells us, he had conceived an extraordinary pas-
sion for Heliodorus; he admired both his style and
tl* wonderful art with which the fable is conducted.
--In the ecclesiastical history of Nicephorus Calistus,
a story is told of Heliodorus, which, if true, would ex-
hibit, on the part of the Thessalian church, somewhat
of the fanatical spirit which in Scotland expelled Home
from the administration of the altar. Some young
persons having fallen into peril through the reading of
such works, it was ordered by the provincial council,
that all books whose tendency it might be to incite the
r- ? ? ? ? ? generation to love, should be burned, and their
authors, if ecclesiastics, deprived of their dignities.
Heliodorus, rejecting the alternative which was offered
him o( suppressing his romance, lost his bishopric.
This story, however, is nothing more than a mere ro-
mance itself, as Bayle has shown, by proving that the
requisition to suppress it could neither have been given
nor refused at a lime when the work was spref 1 over
? ? ill Greece. (Foreign Quarterly Review, No. 9, p.
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? HEL
HEf,
? nddcn elevation, and the general profligacy of the
times. He surrounded himself with gladiators, actors,
and other base favourites, who made an unworthy use
of their influence. He married several wives, among
others a Vestal. The imperial palace became a scene
of debauch and open prostitution. Heliogabalus, being
attached to the superstitions of the East, raised a tem-
pi; on the Palatine Hill to the Syrian god whose name
he bcrc, and plundered the temples of the Roman gods
I? . 'nrich his own. He put to death many senators;
>>e established a senate of women, under the presidency
of his mother Soaemis, which body decided all questions
relative to female dresses, visits, precedences, amuse-
ments, &. c. He wore his pontifical vest as high-priest of
the Sun, with a rich tiara on his head. His grandmother
Mssa, seeing his folly, thought of conciliating the Ro-
mans by associating with him, as Cxsar, his younger
tousin, Alexander Severus, who soon became a favour-
ite with the peopb. Heliogabalus, who had consented
to the association, became afterward jealous of his
cousin, and wished to deprive him of his honours, but
he -ould not obtain the consent of the senate. His-
ncxi measure was to spread the report of Alexander's
death, v ch produced an insurrection among the pra-
torians. And Heliogabalus, having repaired to tho
camp to quell the mutiny, was murdered, together with
his mother and favourites, and his body was thrown
into the Tiber, A. D. 222. He was succeeded by
Alexander Severus. Heliogabalus was eighteen years
cf age at the time of his death, and had reigned three
years, nine months, and four days. (Lamprid. , Vit.
Heliogab. --llcrodian, 5, 3, seqq. --Dio Cass. , 78, 30,
"91--M-i ^9, 1, seqq. )
Heliopolis, a famous city of Egypt, situate a little
! o the east of the apex of the Delta, not far from mod-
ern Cairo. (Slrab. , 805. ) In Hebrew it is styled
On or Aun. (Well's Sacred Geography, s. v. --Ex-
curs. , 560. --Compare the remarks of Cellarius, Geog.
Antiq , vol. 1, p. 802. ) In the Septuagint it is call-
ed Hcliopolis ('HXidjroXif), or the city of the. Sun.
(Schleusner, Lex. Vet. Test. , vol. 2, p. 20, ed. Glasg.
--In Jeremiah, xliii. , 13, " Beth Shcmim," i. e. , Domus
Solis. ) Herodotus also mentions it by this name, and
speaks of its inhabitants as being the wisest and most
ingenious of all the Egyptians (2, 3. --Compare Nic.
Damasccnus, in Euscb. , Prap. Evang. , 9, 16). Ac-
cording to Berosus, this was the city of Moses. It
was, in fact, a place of resort for all the Creeks who
visited Egypt for instruction. Hither came Herodo-
tus, Plato, Eudoxus, and others, and imbibed much of
the learning which they afterward disseminated among
their own countrymen. Plato, in particular, resided
here three years. The city was built, according to
Strabo (I. c), on a long, artificial mound of earth, so
aa to be out of the reach of the inundations of the Nile.
It had an oracle of; Apollo, and a famous temple of
ihe Sun. In this temple was fed and adored the sa-
bred ox Mnevis, as Apis was at Memphis. This city
was laid waste with fire and sword by Cambyses, and
its college of priests all slaughtered. Strabo saw it
in a deserted state, and shorn of all its splendour.
Hcliopolis was famed also for its fountain of excellent
vtxr, wlsich still remains, and gave rise to the sub-
icquent Arabic name of the place, Am Shcms, or the
-ountain of the sun. The modem name is Matarea,
or cool water. For some valuable remarks on the site
of the ancient Hcliopolis, in opposition to Larchcr and
? ? Bryant, consult Clarke's Travels, vol. 5, pro:/. , xv. ,
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? HELLAS.
HELLAS
inclined to imagine that Homer did not assign to the
word 'EAAof so limited a signification as Thucyilides
supposed. But, whatever may be thought of the testi-
mony of Homer in regard to this question, we can
have no doubt as to the extension which the terms
'E? . ? . ac and 'EX&nvcc acquired in the time of Herodo-
tus, Scylax, and Thucydities. Scylax, whose age is
disputed, but of whom we may safely affirm that he
wrote about the time of the Peloponnesian war, in-
cludes under Hellas all the country situated south of
the Ambracian gulf and the Peneus. (Pcnpl. , p. 12,
it 26. ) Herodotus extends its limits still farther north,
by taking in Thesprotia (2, 56), or, at least, that part
of it which is south of the river Acheron (8,47). But
it is more usual to exclude Epirus from Gracia Pro-
pria, and to place its northwestern extremity at Am-
bracia, on the Ionian Sea, while Mount Homole, near
the mouth of the Peneus, was looked upon as forming
its boundary on the opposite side. This coincides
with the statement of Scylax, and also with that of
Dicsarchus in his descriptions of Greece (v. 31, segq. )
The name Gracia, whence that of Greece has de-
scended unto us, was given to this country by the
Romans. It comes from the Grffici, one of the an-
cient tribes of Epirus (Aristot. , Meteor. , 1. 11), who
never became of any historical importance, but whose
name must at some period have been extensively
spread on the western coast, since the inhabitants of
Italy appear to have known the country at first under
this name.
1. History of Greece from the earliest times to the
Trojan War.
The people whom we c. l Greeks (the Hellenes)
were not the earliest inhabitants of the country.
Among the names of the many tribes which are said
to have occupied the land pre\ ious to the Hellenes,
the most celebrated is that of the Pclusgi, who ap-
pear to have been settled in most parts of Greece, and
from whom a considerable part of the Greek popula-
tnn was probably descended. The Caucones, Le-
teges, and other barbarous tribes, who also inhabited
Greece, are all regarded by a modern writer (Tlrirlicall,
History of Greece, vol. 1, p. 32-61) as parts of the
Pslasgic nation. He remarks, " that the name Pelas-
gians was a general one, like that of Saxons, Franks,
or Akmanni, and that each of the Pelasgiau tribes had
also one peculiar to itself. " All these tribes, how-
ever, were obliged to submit to the power of the Hel-
lenes, who eventually spread over the greater part of
Greece Their original seat was, according to Aris-
totle (Meteor. , 1, 14), near Dodona, in Epirus, but they
first appeared in the south of Thessaly about B. C.
13S4, according to the received chronology. In ac-
cordance with the common method of the Greeks, of
inventing names to account for the origin of nations,
the Hellenes are represented as descended from Hel-
ta: who had three sons, Dorus, Xuthus, and . Eolus.
Achaeus and Ion are represented as the sons of Xu-
thus; and from these four, Dorus, . Eolus, AcIkeus, and
Ion, the Dorians, JEolians, Achaans, and Ionians were
descended, who formed the four tribes into which the
Hellenic nation was for many centuriesdivided, and who
were distinguished from each other by many peculiari-
ties in language and institutions. At the same time
that the Hellenic race was spreading itself over the
whole land, numerous colonies from the East are said to
have settled in Greece, and to their influence many wri-
? ? ters have attributed tb. 3 civilization of the inhabitants.
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? HELLAS.
HELLAS.
ted by & jealous aristocracy. Her territories were
i! so increased by the conquest of Tegea in Arcadia.
Athens only rose to importance in the century prece-
ding the Persian wars; but even in this period her
power was not more than a match for the little states
of Megaris and ^Egina. The city was long harassed
by intestine commotions till the time of Solon, B. C.
091, who was chosen by his fellow-citizens to frame
a n-w constitution and a new code of laws, to which
ntu:h cf the future greatness of Athens must be as-
cribed. We have already seen that the kingly form
>>f government was prevalent in the Heroic Age. But,
during the period that elapsed between the Trojan
war and the Persian invasion, hereditary political pow-
er was abolished in almost all the Greek states, with
the exception of Sparta, and a republican form of
government established in its stead. In studying
the history of the Greeks, we must bear in mind
that almost every city formed an independent state,
and that, with the exception of Athens and Sparta,
which exacted obedience from tho other towns of At-
tica and Laconia respectively, there was hardly any
state which possessed more than a few miles of terri-
tory. Frequent wars between each other were the
almost unavoidable consequence of tho existence of
so many small states nearly equal in power. The
evils which arose from this state of things were partly
remedied by the influence of the Amphictyonic coun-
cil, and by the religious games and festivals which
were held at stated periods in different parts of Greece,
and during the celebration of which no wars were car-
ried on. In the sixth century before the Christian
ora Greece rapidly advanced in knowledge and civili-
sation. Literature and the fine arts were already cul-
tivated in Athens under the auspices of Pisistratus
and his sons; and the products of remote countries
were introduced into Greece by tho merchants of Cor-
inth and . 'Emilia.
3. From the Commencement of the Persian Wars to the
Death of Philip of Macedon, B. C. 336.
This was the most splendid period of Grecian histo-
>jf. The Greeks, in their resistance to tho Persians,
<<nd the part they took in the burning of Sardis, B. C.
199, drew upon them the vengeance of Darius. After
the reduction of the Asiatic Greeks, a Persian army
was sent into Attica, but was entirely defeated at
Marathon, B. C. 490, by the Athenians under Miltia-
des. Ten years afterward the wholo power of the
Persian empire was directed against Greece; an im-
mense army, led in person by Xerxes, advanced as far
as Attica, and received the submission of almost alt
the Grecian states, with the exception of Athens and
Sparta. But this expedition also failed; the Persian
fleet was destroyed in the battles of Artemisium and
Salamis; and the land forces were entirely defeated
in the following year, B. C. 479, at Platxa in Bceotia.
Sparta had, previous to the Persian invasion, been
regarded by the other Greeks as the first power in
Greece, and accordingly she obtained the supreme
command of the army and fleet in the Persian war.
But, during the course of this war, the Athenians had
made greater sacrifices and had shown a greater de-
Zioa of courage and patriotism. After the battle of
Platiea a confederacy was formed by the Grecian
states fir carrying on the war against the Persians.
Sparta was at first placed at the head of it; but the
allies, disgusted with the tyranny of Pausanias, the
? ? Spartan commander, gave the supremacy to Athens.
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? HEt
HEI
Vance with the Theb>>n>> for the purpose of resisting
Philip; but their defeat at Charonea, B.
HILKNA, the most beautiful woman of her age.
There are different accounts of her birth and parentage.
The common, and probably the most ancient, one is,
that she was the daughter of Leda by Jupiter, who took
the form of a white swan. According to the Cyprian
Epic, she was the offspring of Jupiter and Nemesis,
who had long fled the pursuit of the god, and, to elude
him, had taken the form of all kinds of animals.
(Atktn. , 8, p. 334. ) At length, while she was under
that of a goose, the god became a swan, and she laid
an egg, which was found by a shepherd in the woods.
He brought it to Leda, who laid it up in a coffer, and
m doe time Helena was produced from it. (Apollod. ,
3, 10, 4. ) Hesiod, on the other hand, calls Helena
? ? the daughter of Oceanus and Tethys. (Sehol. ad
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? HELENA.
HELLitA.
. ;ars ,\jih Menelaiis, who forgave her infidelity; but,
"[iuii hia death, she was driven from the Peloponnesus
by Megapenthes and Nicostratus, the illegitimate sons
of her husband, and she retired to Rhodes, where at
that time Polyxo, a native of Argos, reigned over the
country. Polyxo remembered that her widowhood ori-
ginated in Helen, and that her husband, Tlepolemua,
had been k'. led in the Trojan war, and she therefore
revolved upon revenge. While Helen one day retired
to bathe in the river, Polyxo disguised her attendants in
<. ! . e habits of Furies, and sent them with orders to mur-
der her enemy. Helen was tied to a tree and stran-
gled, and her misfortunes were afterward commemo-
rated, and the crime of Polyxo expiated, by the tem-
ple which the Rhodians raised to Helena Dendritis, or
Helena " tied to a tree. "--There is a tradition men-
tioned by Herodotus, which says that Paris was driven,
as he returned from Sparta, upon the coast of Egypt,
where Proteus, king of the country, expelled him from
his dominions for his ingratitude to Menelaiis, and
confined Helen. From that circumstance, therefore,
Priam informed the Grecian ambassadors that nei-
ther Helen nor her possessions were in Troy, but in
the hands of the King of Egypt. In spite of this as-
sertion, the Greeks besieged the city, and took it after
ten years' siege; and Menelaiis, visiting Egypt as he
returned home, recovered Helen at the court of Pro-
teus, and was convinced that the Trojan war had been
undertaken upon unjust grounds. Herodotus adds,
that, in his opinion, Homer was acquainted with these
circumstances, but did not think them so well calcu-
lated as the popular legend for the basis of an epic
poem. (Herod. , 2, 112, 116, scqq. )--It was fabled,
that, after death, Helen was united in marriage with
Achilles, in the island of Leuce, in the Euxine, where
she bore him a son named Euphorion. (Pausamas,
3, 19. --Cotton, lS. --Ptol. , Hephast. , 4. ) Nothing,
however, can be more uncertain than the whole history
of Helen. The account of Herodotus has been al-
ready given in the course of this article. According
to Euripides (Helena, 25, scqq), Juno, piqued at be-
holding Venus bear away the prize of beauty, caused
Mercury to carry away the true Helen from Greece to
Egypt, and gave Paris a phantom in her stead. After
the destruction of Troy, the phantom bears witness to
the innocence of Helen, a storm carries Menelaiis to
the coast of Egypt, and he there regains possession of
bis bride. Others pretend that Helen never married
Menelaiis; that she preferred Paris to all the princes
that sought her in marriage; and that Menelaiis, irri-
tated at this, raised an army against Troy. Some wri-
ters think they see, in these conflicting and varying
statements, a confirmation of the opinion entertained by
many, that the ancient quarrel of Hercules and Laome-
don, and the violence ofTered to Hcsione, the daughter
of that monarch, and not the carrying off of Helen, were
the causes of the Trojan war. Others treat the story
of the oath exacted from the suiters with very little cer-
emony, and make the Grecian princes to have followed
Agamemnon to the field as their liege lord, and as stand-
ing at the head of the Achaean race, to whom therefore
they, as commanding the several divisions and tribes
of that race, were bound to render service. But the
more we consider the history of Helen, the greater will
be the difficulties that arise. It seems strange indeed,
supposing the common account to be true, that so
many cities and slates should combine to regain her
? ? whon she went away voluntarily with Paris, and that
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? HEl
HEL
? f the same age; 'or one, if not both, was hatched
from the same egg. Yet these children, so little past
their infant state, are said to have pursued Theseus,
? nd to have regained their sister. They must have
been sturdy urchins, and little short of the sons of
Aloeus. (Consult, on this whole subject, Bryant, Die-
nrtation on the War of Troy, p. 9, seqq. )--It is more
dan probable, indeed, that the whole legend relative to
Helen was originally a religious and allegorical myth.
The remarkable circumstance of her two brothers liv-
ing and dying alternately, leads at once to a suspicion
of their oeing personifications of natural powers and
objects. This is confirmed by the names in the myth,
all of which'seem to refer to light or its opposite.
Thus Leda differs little from Leto, and may therefore
be regarded as darkness. She is married to Tyndarus,
a Dame which seems to belong to a family of words
relating to light, flame, or heat (Viil. Tyndarus); her
children by him or Jupiter, that is, by Jupiter-Tynda-
rus, tie bright god, are Helena, Brightness (? Aa,
"light"); Castor, Adorner, (<c<<fu, " to adorn"); and
Polydcukes, Devcful (6eiu, Acvktjc). In Helen, there-
fore, we have only another form of Selene; the Adorn-
er is a very appropriate term for the day, the light
of which adonis all nature; and nothing can be more
apparent than the suitableness of Dewful to the night.
(Keightley'i Mytxology, p. 432. ) -- II. (commonly
known in ecclesiastical history by the name of St.
Helena), the first wife of Constantius Chlorus, was
born of obscure parents, in a village called Drepanum,
in Bilhynia, which was afterward raised by her son
Constantine to the rank of a city, under the name of
Helenopolis. Her husband Constantius, on being
made Cesar by Dioclesian and Maximian (A. D. 292),
repudiated Helena, and married Theodora, daughter
of Maximian. Helena withdrew into retirement until
her son Constantine, having become emperor, called
his mother to court, and gave her the title of Augus-
ta. He also supplied her with large sums of money,
which she employed in building and endowing church-
's, and in relieving the poor. About A. D. 325 she
set out on a pilgrimage to Palestine, and, having ex-
plored the site of Jerusalem, she thought that she had
discovered the sepulchre of Jesus, and also the cross
on which he died. The identity of the cross which
she found has been, of course, much doubted: she,
however, built a church on the spot, supposed to be
that of the Sepulchre, which has continued to be ven-
erated by that name to the present day. She also built
a church at Bethlehem, in honour of the nativity of
our Saviour. From Palestine she rejoined her son at
Ntcomedia, in Bithvnia, where she expired, in the year
327, at a very advanced age. She is numbered by the
Roman church among the saints. (Euseb. , Vtt. Const.
--Hiibner, de Crucist Dominica per Helenam inven-
tione, Helmstadt, 1724. )--III. A deserted and rugged
island in the Aegean, opposite to Thorikos, and ex-
tending from that parallel to Sunimn. It received its
name from the circumstance of Paris's having landed
on it, as was said, in company with Helena, when they
were fleeing from Sparta. (Plin. , 4, 12. --Mela, 2,
7. ) Strabo, who follows Artemidorus, conceived it
was the Crane of Homer. (II. , 3, 444. ) Pliny calls
it Macris. The modern name is Macronisi.
Helenus, an eminent soothsayer, son of Priam and
Hecuba, and the only one of their sons who survived
the siege of Troy. He was so chagrined, according
? ? to some, at having failed to obtain Helen in marriage
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? HE I,
HEUGDOKUS.
in his Land, and that it formed a dangerous shoal for
their vessels. Heraclides, of Ponlus, relates that this
disaster, which took place in his time, occurred during
the night; the town, and all that lay between it and
the sea, a distance of twelve stadia, being inundated
in ar. instant. Two thousand workmen were after-
Ward sent by the Achasans to recover the dead bodies,
but without success. The same writer affirmed, that
this inundation was commonly attributed to divine
vengeance, in consequence of the inhabitants of Hcl-
ice having obstinately refused to deliver up the statue
of Neptune and a model of the Templo to the Ionian*
aftnr tl\"y had settled in Asia Minor, (op. Strai. , 385.
--CorrMre the remarks of Bcrnhardy, Eratostkenica, p.
Hl. --Diod. Sic, 15,49. -- Pausan. , 7, U. --JElian, H.
A. , II. 19. ) Seneca affirms, that Callisthenes the
philosopher, who was put to death by Alexander the
Great, wrote a voluminous work on the destruction of
Hclice (9, 23. --Compare Aristot. , de Mund. , c. 4. --
Polyb. , 2, 41). Pausanias informs us, that there was
still a small village of the same name close to the
sea, and forty stadia from vEgium. (Cramer's An-
cient Greece, vol. 3, p. 61. )
Helicon, a famous mountain in Boeotia, near the
liulf of Corinth. It was sarred to Apollo and the
Muses, who were thenco called Heliconiades. This
mountain was famed for the purity of its air, the abun-
dance of its waters, its fertile valleys, the goodness
of its shades, and the beauty of the venerable trees
which clothed its sides. Strabo (409) affirms, that Hel-
icon nearly equals in height Mount Parnassus, and re-
tains its snow during a great part of the year. Pau-
sanias observes (9, 28), that no mountain of Greece
produces such a variety of plants and shrubs, though
none of a poisonous nature; on the contrary, several
have the property of counteracting the effects produced
by the sting or bite of venomous reptiles. On the
summit was the grove of the Muses, where these di-
vinities had their statues, and where also were statues
of Apollo and Mercury, of Bacchus by Lysippus, of
Orpheus, and of famous poets and musicians. (Pau-
san. , 9, 30. ) A little below the grove was the fount-
pin of Aganippe. The source Hippocrene was about
wentj stadia above the grove; it is said to have burst
jrth when Pegasus struck his foot into the ground.
,Pausan. ,\), 31. --Strab. , 9,410. ) These two springs
lupplied two small rivers named Olmius and Permes-
sus, which, afier uniting their waters, flowed into tho
lake Copai's, near Haliartus. Hcsiod makes mention
of these his favourite haunts in the opening of his
Theogonia. The modern name of Helicon is Palao-
vmini or Zagora. The latter is the more general ap-
pellation: the name of Palreovouni is more correctly
applied to that part of the mountain which is near the
modern village Kakosia, that stands on the site of an-
cient Thisbe. (Cramer's Ancient Greece, vol. 2, p.
204. --Compare Dodieell, Tour, vol. I, p. 200. )--II.
A river of Macedonia, near Dium, the same, according
to Pausanias (9, 30), with the Baphyrus. The same
autior informs us, that, after flowing for a distance
of seventy-five stadia, it loses itself under ground
for the space of twenty-two stadia; it is navigable on
its reappearance, and is then called Baphyrus. Ac-
cording to Dr. Clarke, it is now known as the Mauro
Hero. (Cramer's Ane. Greece, vol. 1, p. 209. )
Heliconiades, a name given to the Muses, from
their fabled residence >n Mount Helicon, which was
? ? sacred to them. (Lw. rct. , 3, 1050. )
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? HEL
HELIOGABALUS
>>0! crver Villemain, "that Heliodorus, when he wrote
tiie work, was at least initiated in Christian senti-
ments. This is felt by a kind of moral purity which
:ontrasts strongly with the habitual license of the
Greek fables; and the style even, as the learned Coray
remarks, contains many expressions familiar to the ec-
clesiastical writers. This styie is pure, polished, sym-
metrical; and the language of love receives a charac-
ter f. delicacy and reserve, which is very rare among
ifce writers of antiquity. " It must not be disguised,
wwever, that Huet, a courtier of Louis XIV. , and the
contemporary and admirer of Mademoiselle de Scu-
dery, judged after the models of romance which were
fashionable in his own century.
Poetry, battles, cap-
tivities, and recognitions fill up the piece; there is no
picture of the mind, no history of the character carried
on with the development of the action. The incidents
point to no particular era of society, although the learn-
ed in history may perceive, from the tone of sentiment
throughout, that the struggle had commenced between
the pure and lofty spirit of Christianity and the gross-
ness of pagan idolatry. Egypt, as Yillcmain remarks,
is neither ancient Egypt, nor the Egypt of the Ptole-
mies, nor the Egypt of the Romans. Athens is nei-
ther Athens free nor Athens conquered: in short,
there is no individuality either in the places or persons;
and the vague pictures of the French romances of the
seventeenth century give scarcely a caricatured idea
of the model from which they were drawn. --It may
not be amiss to mention here an incident relative to
the post Racine and the work of Heliodorus which we
have been considering. When Racine was at Port
Royal learning Greek, his imagination almost smoth-
ered to death by the dry erudition of the pious fathers,
he laid hold instinctively on the romance of Heliodo-
rus, as the only prop by which he might be preserved
for his high destiny, even then, perhaps, shadowed dim-
Ij forth in his youthful mind. A tale of love, how-
ever, surprised in the hands of a Christian boy, filled
his instructed with horror, and the book was seized
and thrown into the fire. Another and another copy
met the same fate; and poor Racine, thus excluded
from the benefits of the common typographical art,
printed the romance on his memory. A first love, woo-
ed by steaith, and won in difficulty and danger, is always
among the last to loose her hold on the affections; and
Racine, in riper age, often fondly recurred to his for-
bidden studies at Port Royal. From early youth, his
son tells us, he had conceived an extraordinary pas-
sion for Heliodorus; he admired both his style and
tl* wonderful art with which the fable is conducted.
--In the ecclesiastical history of Nicephorus Calistus,
a story is told of Heliodorus, which, if true, would ex-
hibit, on the part of the Thessalian church, somewhat
of the fanatical spirit which in Scotland expelled Home
from the administration of the altar. Some young
persons having fallen into peril through the reading of
such works, it was ordered by the provincial council,
that all books whose tendency it might be to incite the
r- ? ? ? ? ? generation to love, should be burned, and their
authors, if ecclesiastics, deprived of their dignities.
Heliodorus, rejecting the alternative which was offered
him o( suppressing his romance, lost his bishopric.
This story, however, is nothing more than a mere ro-
mance itself, as Bayle has shown, by proving that the
requisition to suppress it could neither have been given
nor refused at a lime when the work was spref 1 over
? ? ill Greece. (Foreign Quarterly Review, No. 9, p.
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? HEL
HEf,
? nddcn elevation, and the general profligacy of the
times. He surrounded himself with gladiators, actors,
and other base favourites, who made an unworthy use
of their influence. He married several wives, among
others a Vestal. The imperial palace became a scene
of debauch and open prostitution. Heliogabalus, being
attached to the superstitions of the East, raised a tem-
pi; on the Palatine Hill to the Syrian god whose name
he bcrc, and plundered the temples of the Roman gods
I? . 'nrich his own. He put to death many senators;
>>e established a senate of women, under the presidency
of his mother Soaemis, which body decided all questions
relative to female dresses, visits, precedences, amuse-
ments, &. c. He wore his pontifical vest as high-priest of
the Sun, with a rich tiara on his head. His grandmother
Mssa, seeing his folly, thought of conciliating the Ro-
mans by associating with him, as Cxsar, his younger
tousin, Alexander Severus, who soon became a favour-
ite with the peopb. Heliogabalus, who had consented
to the association, became afterward jealous of his
cousin, and wished to deprive him of his honours, but
he -ould not obtain the consent of the senate. His-
ncxi measure was to spread the report of Alexander's
death, v ch produced an insurrection among the pra-
torians. And Heliogabalus, having repaired to tho
camp to quell the mutiny, was murdered, together with
his mother and favourites, and his body was thrown
into the Tiber, A. D. 222. He was succeeded by
Alexander Severus. Heliogabalus was eighteen years
cf age at the time of his death, and had reigned three
years, nine months, and four days. (Lamprid. , Vit.
Heliogab. --llcrodian, 5, 3, seqq. --Dio Cass. , 78, 30,
"91--M-i ^9, 1, seqq. )
Heliopolis, a famous city of Egypt, situate a little
! o the east of the apex of the Delta, not far from mod-
ern Cairo. (Slrab. , 805. ) In Hebrew it is styled
On or Aun. (Well's Sacred Geography, s. v. --Ex-
curs. , 560. --Compare the remarks of Cellarius, Geog.
Antiq , vol. 1, p. 802. ) In the Septuagint it is call-
ed Hcliopolis ('HXidjroXif), or the city of the. Sun.
(Schleusner, Lex. Vet. Test. , vol. 2, p. 20, ed. Glasg.
--In Jeremiah, xliii. , 13, " Beth Shcmim," i. e. , Domus
Solis. ) Herodotus also mentions it by this name, and
speaks of its inhabitants as being the wisest and most
ingenious of all the Egyptians (2, 3. --Compare Nic.
Damasccnus, in Euscb. , Prap. Evang. , 9, 16). Ac-
cording to Berosus, this was the city of Moses. It
was, in fact, a place of resort for all the Creeks who
visited Egypt for instruction. Hither came Herodo-
tus, Plato, Eudoxus, and others, and imbibed much of
the learning which they afterward disseminated among
their own countrymen. Plato, in particular, resided
here three years. The city was built, according to
Strabo (I. c), on a long, artificial mound of earth, so
aa to be out of the reach of the inundations of the Nile.
It had an oracle of; Apollo, and a famous temple of
ihe Sun. In this temple was fed and adored the sa-
bred ox Mnevis, as Apis was at Memphis. This city
was laid waste with fire and sword by Cambyses, and
its college of priests all slaughtered. Strabo saw it
in a deserted state, and shorn of all its splendour.
Hcliopolis was famed also for its fountain of excellent
vtxr, wlsich still remains, and gave rise to the sub-
icquent Arabic name of the place, Am Shcms, or the
-ountain of the sun. The modem name is Matarea,
or cool water. For some valuable remarks on the site
of the ancient Hcliopolis, in opposition to Larchcr and
? ? Bryant, consult Clarke's Travels, vol. 5, pro:/. , xv. ,
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? HELLAS.
HELLAS
inclined to imagine that Homer did not assign to the
word 'EAAof so limited a signification as Thucyilides
supposed. But, whatever may be thought of the testi-
mony of Homer in regard to this question, we can
have no doubt as to the extension which the terms
'E? . ? . ac and 'EX&nvcc acquired in the time of Herodo-
tus, Scylax, and Thucydities. Scylax, whose age is
disputed, but of whom we may safely affirm that he
wrote about the time of the Peloponnesian war, in-
cludes under Hellas all the country situated south of
the Ambracian gulf and the Peneus. (Pcnpl. , p. 12,
it 26. ) Herodotus extends its limits still farther north,
by taking in Thesprotia (2, 56), or, at least, that part
of it which is south of the river Acheron (8,47). But
it is more usual to exclude Epirus from Gracia Pro-
pria, and to place its northwestern extremity at Am-
bracia, on the Ionian Sea, while Mount Homole, near
the mouth of the Peneus, was looked upon as forming
its boundary on the opposite side. This coincides
with the statement of Scylax, and also with that of
Dicsarchus in his descriptions of Greece (v. 31, segq. )
The name Gracia, whence that of Greece has de-
scended unto us, was given to this country by the
Romans. It comes from the Grffici, one of the an-
cient tribes of Epirus (Aristot. , Meteor. , 1. 11), who
never became of any historical importance, but whose
name must at some period have been extensively
spread on the western coast, since the inhabitants of
Italy appear to have known the country at first under
this name.
1. History of Greece from the earliest times to the
Trojan War.
The people whom we c. l Greeks (the Hellenes)
were not the earliest inhabitants of the country.
Among the names of the many tribes which are said
to have occupied the land pre\ ious to the Hellenes,
the most celebrated is that of the Pclusgi, who ap-
pear to have been settled in most parts of Greece, and
from whom a considerable part of the Greek popula-
tnn was probably descended. The Caucones, Le-
teges, and other barbarous tribes, who also inhabited
Greece, are all regarded by a modern writer (Tlrirlicall,
History of Greece, vol. 1, p. 32-61) as parts of the
Pslasgic nation. He remarks, " that the name Pelas-
gians was a general one, like that of Saxons, Franks,
or Akmanni, and that each of the Pelasgiau tribes had
also one peculiar to itself. " All these tribes, how-
ever, were obliged to submit to the power of the Hel-
lenes, who eventually spread over the greater part of
Greece Their original seat was, according to Aris-
totle (Meteor. , 1, 14), near Dodona, in Epirus, but they
first appeared in the south of Thessaly about B. C.
13S4, according to the received chronology. In ac-
cordance with the common method of the Greeks, of
inventing names to account for the origin of nations,
the Hellenes are represented as descended from Hel-
ta: who had three sons, Dorus, Xuthus, and . Eolus.
Achaeus and Ion are represented as the sons of Xu-
thus; and from these four, Dorus, . Eolus, AcIkeus, and
Ion, the Dorians, JEolians, Achaans, and Ionians were
descended, who formed the four tribes into which the
Hellenic nation was for many centuriesdivided, and who
were distinguished from each other by many peculiari-
ties in language and institutions. At the same time
that the Hellenic race was spreading itself over the
whole land, numerous colonies from the East are said to
have settled in Greece, and to their influence many wri-
? ? ters have attributed tb. 3 civilization of the inhabitants.
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? HELLAS.
HELLAS.
ted by & jealous aristocracy. Her territories were
i! so increased by the conquest of Tegea in Arcadia.
Athens only rose to importance in the century prece-
ding the Persian wars; but even in this period her
power was not more than a match for the little states
of Megaris and ^Egina. The city was long harassed
by intestine commotions till the time of Solon, B. C.
091, who was chosen by his fellow-citizens to frame
a n-w constitution and a new code of laws, to which
ntu:h cf the future greatness of Athens must be as-
cribed. We have already seen that the kingly form
>>f government was prevalent in the Heroic Age. But,
during the period that elapsed between the Trojan
war and the Persian invasion, hereditary political pow-
er was abolished in almost all the Greek states, with
the exception of Sparta, and a republican form of
government established in its stead. In studying
the history of the Greeks, we must bear in mind
that almost every city formed an independent state,
and that, with the exception of Athens and Sparta,
which exacted obedience from tho other towns of At-
tica and Laconia respectively, there was hardly any
state which possessed more than a few miles of terri-
tory. Frequent wars between each other were the
almost unavoidable consequence of tho existence of
so many small states nearly equal in power. The
evils which arose from this state of things were partly
remedied by the influence of the Amphictyonic coun-
cil, and by the religious games and festivals which
were held at stated periods in different parts of Greece,
and during the celebration of which no wars were car-
ried on. In the sixth century before the Christian
ora Greece rapidly advanced in knowledge and civili-
sation. Literature and the fine arts were already cul-
tivated in Athens under the auspices of Pisistratus
and his sons; and the products of remote countries
were introduced into Greece by tho merchants of Cor-
inth and . 'Emilia.
3. From the Commencement of the Persian Wars to the
Death of Philip of Macedon, B. C. 336.
This was the most splendid period of Grecian histo-
>jf. The Greeks, in their resistance to tho Persians,
<<nd the part they took in the burning of Sardis, B. C.
199, drew upon them the vengeance of Darius. After
the reduction of the Asiatic Greeks, a Persian army
was sent into Attica, but was entirely defeated at
Marathon, B. C. 490, by the Athenians under Miltia-
des. Ten years afterward the wholo power of the
Persian empire was directed against Greece; an im-
mense army, led in person by Xerxes, advanced as far
as Attica, and received the submission of almost alt
the Grecian states, with the exception of Athens and
Sparta. But this expedition also failed; the Persian
fleet was destroyed in the battles of Artemisium and
Salamis; and the land forces were entirely defeated
in the following year, B. C. 479, at Platxa in Bceotia.
Sparta had, previous to the Persian invasion, been
regarded by the other Greeks as the first power in
Greece, and accordingly she obtained the supreme
command of the army and fleet in the Persian war.
But, during the course of this war, the Athenians had
made greater sacrifices and had shown a greater de-
Zioa of courage and patriotism. After the battle of
Platiea a confederacy was formed by the Grecian
states fir carrying on the war against the Persians.
Sparta was at first placed at the head of it; but the
allies, disgusted with the tyranny of Pausanias, the
? ? Spartan commander, gave the supremacy to Athens.
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Vance with the Theb>>n>> for the purpose of resisting
Philip; but their defeat at Charonea, B.
