disinterested conduct, than the local Greek clergy, and as such they won respect from the inhabitants. Altogether the Venetian occupation was followed by an improvement in the condition of the conquered province.
Gradually Morosini pushed his forces farther north and took more of the Grecian territory from the Turks. In September 1687 he entered the Piræas, occupied Athens, and besieged the Acropolis. This led to disastrous consequences involving an irreparable loss to the civilised world. The Parthenon was then standing in all the glory of perfect Greek art, the grandest product of Doric architecture, bearing in its pediment and on its entablature the masterpieces of Pheidias, the most sublime sculpture the world has ever seen. Into this centre of classic splendour crashed the Venetian shells, reducing the temple to ruins, pounding some of the sculpture to fragments, and leaving the best of it in the battered and broken condition in which we see it to-day at the British Museum, where, in spite of the ill-usage from which it has suffered, it is still recognised as one of the wonders of the world under the title of "The Elgin Marbles."[1] It is humiliating to Europe to see that the ruin of the greatest relic of art in the city, that had been the crown and flower of ancient civilisation, was directly caused by men from the most beautiful city of modern civilisation, that it was the owners of St. Mark's who shattered the Parthenon. Here we perceive the mockery of war, which flaunts flags of glory and yet is in itself a shameful heritage of brutal barbarism.
The next hundred and fifty years afford little of interest to be recorded concerning the fortunes—or rather the misfortunes—of the Greek Church under the Turkish domination. Pirates still ravaged the coasts, and pashas and Phanariots continued to oppress the inland people who were beyond the reach of the wild sea-rovers. Simony was more rampant than ever. The clerical office was systematically bought for the sake of the power it conferred and the dues it
- ↑ So named because sent to England by Lord Elgin (after suffering later ravages of war), and thus at last saved from total destruction.
