No. 8.
MY DEAR CHILDREN, ―My last letter broke off with the calm of a few years which succeeded the fruitless expedition of Darius into Scythia. It was now that the Greeks came upon the scene, not of history―for the great poem of Homer had been written nearly four hundred years before, and they were themselves in a high state of civilization―but upon that scene or platform which brought them under the recognition of Jehovah, as having to do with His own people; for history with God ever has the Jew as its center. “When the Most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when He separated the sons of Adam, He set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel.”(Deuteronomy 32:88When the most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel. (Deuteronomy 32:8).) In reality, when the third empire was set up, the glory of Greece, in the eye of the philosopher and poet, had passed away, and even its “notable horn,” Alexander, would not, by the country from whence he came, have been allowed the name, ― Macedonia not being in Greece proper. But I must not anticipate, but rather trace, very rapidly for you, the previous history of these people, and how they came into collision with Darius, and how thus the baffle of Marathon was brought on, with the subsequent defeat and humiliation of Xerxes.
Peloponnesus, now called the Mores, was the seat of the early Greek cities mostly under kingly rule, but never claiming authority over more than the surrounding district. They resembled in some sort the chiefs or kings which Joshua slew, of which thirty-one are numbered in the small country of Canaan. (Joshua 12:2424The king of Tirzah, one: all the kings thirty and one. (Joshua 12:24).) They were races or tribes claiming common descent from a fictitious person, Hellen, thence called, even till now, Hellenes. A temporary or more permanent supremacy over other parts of the country followed, according to the character of the ruling chief. But they were tied together in the general by a community of language, and by great annual games and religious ceremonies, in which every Hellene had a right to take part. The year 776 B.C., called the first. Olympiad, is their first authenticated historical date. From this time the art of writing perpetuated facts, and it was then that Lycurgus, one of those kingly chiefs, gave a great weight and preponderance to Sparta, by the wisdom of his laws, and the weight of his arm; and for 150 years or more she ruled the whole of the Peloponnesus. Nor could any power north of the Isthmus of Corinth dispute her prowess, until Athens arose, a beautiful city situated in the fertile plain of Attica, where to this day are to be found the remains of her renowned temples and statuary. It was to the philosopher Solon that she owed, B.C. 594, her laws and her greatness. Greece was long disturbed by intestine commotions, owing to the rivalry of these two powers, until the Persian war, which first shewed them the necessity of combining for mutual support and protection. Meanwhile, the arts and sciences, such as architecture, music, painting, philosophy, and poetry, flourished, leaving us those models, both in poetry and sculpture, which, if equaled, have never been excelled.
But it was not with the main land of Greece that the Persians came first into collision. Greek colonies, whether Doric, Æolic, or Ionian (for these were the three principal dialects), from the eighth century, at least, had possessed the whole coast of Asia Minor, and had built large cities. Homer himself is allowed to have been an Asiatic Greek. Cyrus, as I told you, first became acquainted with them when he conquered Lydia. Those settled near that monarchy went by the general name of Ionians, and had previously yielded to the mild rule of Crcœsus; but finding that without assistance from the mother country they must inevitably fall under the Persian conqueror’s much harder terms, they requested assistance from Sparta, who, whilst refusing troops, sent some citizens to report on the state of affairs. One of their number warned Cyrus not to injure any Greek city, for the Lacedemonians would not permit it. His reply was, “I was never yet afraid of men who have a place set apart in the middle of their city (meaning the market place), where they meet to cheat one another.” These Ionian cities, with the adjacent islands, submitted eventually to his general, Harpagus, still retaining a measure of self-government, whilst his own conquests were going on in upper Asia.
When Darius, after the Scythian expedition, quitted Sardis for Susa, Miletus, a large Ionian city near the coast (Acts 20:1717And from Miletus he sent to Ephesus, and called the elders of the church. (Acts 20:17)), had for its governor Aristagoras, son-in-law of that Histiæus who had kept the bridge across the Danube for Darius during the Scythian campaign. The great king, jealous of Histiæus, who had also been governor of Miletus, carried him off to Susa, under pretense of friendship. Meanwhile there was a change of government at Naxos, a large island independent of Persia, lying midway between Asia Minor and Greece. The help of Aristagoras was asked, in order to restore the defeated party. He persuaded Artaphernes, satrap of Lydia, to help him with a fleet, affirming that it would greatly improve the position, and add to the power of the Persians, to have a hand in the affairs of Naxos, and might lead to dominion over the adjoining large island of Eubœa, lying over against the main-land of Attica. But the expedition entirely failed, and Aristagoras found himself distrusted by the Persians, and his only hope was in exciting a revolt among the Ionian cities of Asia Minor against the Persian power. To this he was also instigated by Histiæus, and assisted in it by twenty ships from Athena. “These ships,” says Herodotus, “were the beginning of mischiefs between the Greeks and barbarians.” These vessels arriving (B.C. 500) at Ephesus, an expedition was forthwith planned against Sardis, the capital of Lydia which so far succeeded that it was taken and burnt; but eventually the Ionians and Athenians retreated, pursued by a Persian force, and the Athenians hastening on board their ships, returned home.
The burning of the capital of Lydia incensed Darius in the highest degree. It was against the strangers from Greece that he gave vent to his wrath. “The Athenians,” he exclaimed, “who are they?” and he charged one of his attendants to remind him thrice every day at dinner― “Sirs, remember the Athenians.” It took him eight years (B.C. 492) completely to subjugate the Ionians, when he sent his son-in-law, Mardonius, with a large army to subdue Thrace and Macedonia. This expedition had only a partial success; meanwhile Darius was preparing another for Greece, to take both Eretria in Eubœa, and Athens. In the spring of B.C. 490 a vast army was assembled it Cilicia (that is, in the region of Asia Minor opposite the island of Crete), with a large fleet and transports for horses. Datis and Artaphernes, the commanders, the former a Mede, having embarked their troops, sailed for Samos, ant thence, subduing all the Greek islands on the way, they landed in Eubœa (now called Negropont), and, after a gallant defense, took Eretria (which had sent a few ships to assist the Athenians against Sardis), and after a few days’ rest sailed for Marathon, 22 miles from Athens where the expedition landed.
Of course it is not my object to describe battles. I am merely tracing very rapidly the growth of the hostility between Europe and Asia together with the decadence of the second great empire, and the rise of the third. I shall only therefore, say, that on September 28th 490 B.C. 110,000 Persians and Medes (according to the Greeks,) were met and defeated by 10,000 Athenians and 1000 Platœans, with a loss to the Persians of 6400 men, whilst of the Athenian there fell only 192. Except, perhaps, the achievement of William fell, in freeing Switzerland from the yoke of Austria, no event in the history of man has been such a fruitful them for the poet, from Æschylus who was himself it the fight down to Byron. It has served throughout the world to encourage the hope of many a patriot suffering under oppression, and to nerve many an arm in the actual struggle for the freedom of his country. But however, my dear children, it has been the theme of the patriot and the poet, and however an unavoidable thrill may run through us at the reading of such achievements, yet there is no association akin to Christianity in such feelings. Our Lord Jesus effected His victory over the devil by being buffeted, scourged, and crucified. And His follower (Paul) says: “God forbid that I should glory save in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, whereby the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.” I write thus because a habit has grown up of connecting illustrious deeds such as these with the virtues enforced by the Christian religion; but neither patriotism nor manliness are godliness. We are allowed, in tracing the history of nations, to point out the causes of their rise or of their fall, and in quite a subordinate sense to applaud the one and to condemn the other; but the Cross on which “the princes of this world” crucified the Lord of glory shews, in clear outlines, the antagonism between the glory of God and the glory of man.
“He is the freedman whom the truth makes free,
And all are slaves beside.”
“If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.” The troops re-embarked with difficulty, and after a feeble parade before Athens, sailed back to Asia.
The disastrous result of this first attempt upon Greece did not discourage Darius, but served only to increase his resentment and whet his appetite for revenge. He determined henceforth to lead his army himself. The most extensive preparations were made throughout his immense territories for the space of three years, during which Egypt revolted, and before he could quell the rebellion death surprised him (B.C. 485), after a long but unquiet reign of thirty-seven years. He was certainly, when compared with the later kings, an able ruler; but he loses immensely in character when compared with Cyrus; and it is to be feared that a great deal of the luxury and effeminacy which characterized the Persian court crept in during his reign. In his later years Atossa, the queen, had the whole power within the palace, and it was through this influence that her son Xerxes―handsome in person, but feeble in mind, and brought up among slaves―was preferred rather than his elder brothers to the crown, under the pretense that he was the eldest-born after Darius came to the throne. I must wait until my next letter to give you an account of him. By this faint outline of the events of the reign of Darius, you are able to distinguish between the gold and the silver. Here was a great monarchy already in its early days sheaving signs of decrepitude. Its dominion was successfully disputed in open battle by a nation animated by a love of liberty, but which could only meet Persia in the field by less than a tenth part of her forces. There were luxury and corruption at court, and revolts in provinces. Yet still her monarch was called “the great king the king of kings,” and she bore rule over all the earth.
What a glorious day will dawn upon this downtrodden earth when He comes who is emphatically “King of kings and Lord of lords;” when “the vile person shall be no more called liberal, nor the churl said to be bountiful;” when “He shall deliver the needy when he crieth, the poor also, and him that hath no helper.”
“He that ruleth over men must be just, ruling in the fear of God: and he shall be as the light of the morning, when the sun riseth, even a morning without clouds.” Nebuchadnezzar and Darius, and, still worse, David and Solomon, failed in the trust committed to them; but when Christ takes the kingdoms of this world, it will be to maintain them in trust for His Father, who gives them to Him, and deliver them up, having subdued all enemies under His feet. (1 Cor. 15) May the Lord hasten it in His time. ―Your affectionate Father.