100 lepta or centimes. There are nickel coins of 20, 10 and 5 lepta,
copper coins of 10 and 5 lepta. Gold and silver coins were minted
in Paris between 1868 and 1884, but have since practically
disappeared from the country. The paper currency
Currency, weights and measures.
consists of notes for 1000 dr., 500 dr., 100 dr., 25 dr., 10
dr. and 5 dr., and of fractional notes for 2 dr. and 1 dr.
The decimal system of weights and measures was adopted
in 1876, but some of the old Turkish standards are still in general
use. The dram＝110 oz. avoirdupois approximately; the oke＝400 drams
or 2·8 ℔; the kilo＝22 okes or 0·114 of an imperial quarter;
the cantar or quintal＝44 okes or 123·2 ℔. Liquids are measured
by weight. The punta＝158 in.; the ruppa, 312 in.; the pik, 26 in.;
the stadion＝1 kilometre or 109312 yds. The stremma (square
measure) is nearly one-third of an acre.
Authorities.—W. Leake, Researches in Greece (1814), Travels in the Morea (3 vols., 1830), Travels in Northern Greece (4 vols., 1834), Peloponnesiaca (1846); Bursian, Geographie von Griechenland (2 vols., Leipzig, 1862–1873); Lolling, “Hellenische Landeskunde und Topographie” in Ivan Müller’s Handbuch der klassischen Altertumswissenschaft; C. Wordsworth, Greece; Pictorial, Descriptive and Historical (new ed., revised by H. F. Tozer, London, 1882); K. Stephanos, La Grèce (Paris, 1884); C. Neumann and J. Partsch, Physikalische Geographie von Griechenland (Breslau, 1885); K. Krumbacher, Griechische Reise (Berlin, 1886); J. P. Mahaffy, Rambles and Studies in Greece (London, 1887); R. A. H. Bickford-Smith, Greece under King George (London, 1893); Ch. Diehl, Excursions archéologiques en Grèce (Paris, 1893); Perrot and Chipiez, Histoire de l’art, tome vi., “La Grèce primitive” (Paris, 1894); tome vii., “La Grèce archaïque” (Paris, 1898); A. Philippson, Griechenland und seine Stellung im Orient (Leipzig, 1897); L. Sergeant, Greece in the Nineteenth Century (London, 1897); J. G. Frazer, Pausanias’s Description of Greece (6 vols., London, 1898); Pausanias and other Greek Sketches (London, 1900); Greco-Turkish War of 1897, from official sources, by a German staff officer (Eng. trans., London, 1898); J. A. Symonds, Studies, and Sketches in Italy and Greece (3 vols., 2nd ed., London, 1898); V. Bérard, La Turquie et l’hellénisme contemporaine (Paris, 1900).
For the climate: D. Aeginetes, Τὸ κλῖμα τῆς Ἑλλάδος (Athens, 1908).
For the fauna: Th. de Heldreich, La Fauna de la Grèce (Athens, 1878).
For special topography: A. Meliarakes, Κυκλαδικὰ ἤτοι γεωγραφία καί ἱστορία τῶν Κυκλαδικῶν νήσων (Athens, 1874); Ὑπομνήματα περιγραφικὰ τῶν Κυκλάδων νήσων Ἄνδρου καὶ Κέω (Athens, 1880);
Γεωγραφία πολιτικὴ νέα καὶ ἀρχαία τοῦ νομοῦ Ἀργολίδος καὶ Κορινθίας (Athens,
1886); Γεωγραφία πολιτικὴ νέα καὶ ἀρχαία τοῦ νομοῦ Κεφαλληνίας.
(Athens, 1890); Th. Bent, The Cyclades (London, 1885); A.
Bötticher, Olympia (2nd ed., Berlin, 1886); J. Partsch, Die Insel
Corfu: eine geographische Monographie (Gotha, 1887); Die Insel
Leukas (Gotha, 1889); Kephallenia und Ithaka (Gotha, 1890);
Die Insel Zante (Gotha, 1891); A. Philippson, Der Peloponnes.
(Versuch einer Landeskunde auf geologischer Grundlage.) (Berlin,
1892); “Thessalien und Epirus” (Reisen und Forschungen im
nördlichen Griechenland) (Berlin, 1897); Die griechischen Inseln
des ägäischen Meeres (Berlin, 1897); W. J. Woodhouse, Aetolia
(Oxford, 1897); Schultz and Barnsley, The Monastery of St Luke of
Stiris (London, 1901); M. Lamprinides, Ἡ Ναυπλία (Athens, 1898);
Monuments de l’art byzantin, publiés par le Ministère de l’Instruction,
tome i.; G. Millet, “Le Monastère de Daphni” (Paris, 1900). For
the life, customs and habits of the modern Greeks: C. Wachsmuth,
Das alte Griechenland im neuen (Bonn, 1864); C. K. Tuckerman,
The Greeks of to-day (London, 1873); B. Schmidt, Volksleben der
Neugriechen und das hellenische Altertum (Leipzig, 1871); Estournelle
de Constant, La Vie de province en Grèce (Paris, 1878); E.
About, La Grèce contemporaine (Paris, 1855; 8th ed., 1883); J. T.
Bent, Modern Life and Thought among the Greeks (London, 1891);
J. Rennell Rodd, The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece (London,
1892). Guide-books, Baedeker’s Greece (3rd ed., Leipzig, 1905);
Murray’s Handbook for Greece (7th ed., London, 1905); Macmillan’s
Guide to the Eastern Mediterranean (London, 1901). (J. D. B.)
2. History
a. Ancient; to 146 B.C.
1. Introductory.—It is necessary to indicate at the outset the scope and object of the present article. The reader must not expect to find in it a compendious summary of the chief events in the history of ancient Greece. It is not intended to supply an “Outlines of Greek History.” It may be questioned whether such a sketch of the history, within the limits of space which are necessarily imposed in a work of reference, would be of utility to any class of readers. At any rate, the plan of the present work, in which the subject of Greek history is treated of in a large number of separate articles, allows of the narrative of events being given in a more satisfactory form under the more general of the headings (e.g. Athens, Sparta, Peloponnesian War). The character of the history itself suggests a further reason why a general article upon Greek history should not be confined to, or even attempt, a narrative of events. A sketch of Greek history is not possible in the sense in which a sketch of Roman history, or even of English history, is possible. Greek history is not the history of a single state. When Aristotle composed his work upon the constitutions of the Greek states, he found it necessary to extend his survey to no less that 158 states. Greek history is thus concerned with more than 150 separate and independent political communities. Nor is it even the history of a single country. The area occupied by the Greek race extended from the Pyrenees to the Caucasus, and from southern Russia to northern Africa. It is inevitable, therefore, that the impression conveyed by a sketch of Greek history should be a misleading one. A mere narrative can hardly fail to give a false perspective. Experience shows that such a sketch is apt to resolve itself into the history of a few great movements and of a few leading states. What is still worse, it is apt to confine itself, at any rate for the greater part of the period dealt with, to the history of Greece in the narrower sense, i.e. of the Greek peninsula. For the identification of Greece with Greece proper there may be some degree of excuse when we come to the 5th and 4th centuries. In the period that lies behind the year 500 B.C. Greece proper forms but a small part of the Greek world. In the 7th and 6th centuries it is outside Greece itself that we must look for the most active life of the Greek people and the most brilliant manifestations of the Greek spirit. The present article, therefore, will be concerned with the causes and conditions of events, rather than with the events themselves; it will attempt analysis rather than narrative. Its object will be to indicate problems and to criticize views; to suggest lessons and parallels, and to estimate the importance of the Hellenic factor in the development of civilization.
2. The Minoan and Mycenaean Ages.—When does Greek history begin? Whatever may be the answer that is given to this question, it will be widely different from any that could have been proposed a generation ago. Then the question was, How late does Greek history begin? To-day the question is, How early does it begin? The suggestion made by Grote that the first Olympiad (776 B.C.) should be taken as the starting-point of the history of Greece, in the proper sense of the term “history,” seemed likely, not so many years ago, to win general acceptance. At the present moment the tendency would seem to be to go back as far as the 3rd or 4th millennium B.C. in order to reach a starting-point. It is to the results of archaeological research during the last thirty years that we must attribute so startling a change in the attitude of historical science towards this problem. In the days when Grote published the first volumes of his History of Greece archaeology was in its infancy. Its results, so far as they affected the earlier periods of Greek history, were scanty; its methods were unscientific. The methods have been gradually perfected by numerous workers in the field; but the results, which have so profoundly modified our conceptions of the early history of the Aegean area, are principally due to the discoveries of two men, Heinrich Schliemann and A. J. Evans. A full account of these discoveries will be found elsewhere (see Aegean Civilization and Crete). It will be sufficient to mention here that Schliemann’s labours began with the excavations on the site of Troy in the years 1870–1873; that he passed on to the excavations at Mycenae in 1876 and to those at Tiryns in 1884. It was the discoveries of these years that revealed to us the Mycenaean age, and carried back the history to the middle of the 2nd millennium. The discoveries of Dr A. J. Evans in the island of Crete belong to a later period. The work of excavation was begun in 1900, and was carried on in subsequent years. It has revealed to us the Minoan age, and enabled us to trace back the development and origins of the civilization for a further period of 1000 or 1500 years. The dates assigned by archaeologists to the different periods of Mycenaean and Minoan art must be regarded as merely approximate. Even the relation of the two civilizations is still, to some extent, a matter of conjecture. The general chronological scheme,
