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By Root 1625 0

(Megarians) were inhabitants of an ancient Greek city located between Athens and Corinth on a narrow and mountainous strip of land commanding two routes between the Peloponnese and central Greece. Because of its strategic importance and relatively poor position, Megara was always dominated by powerful neighbors. In the aftermath of the Persian Wars (492–479 BC), when Athens and Sparta vied for leadership of the Greek city-states, Megara switched allegiances several times. The city sided finally with Sparta when Pericles’s Megarian Decree barred Megarian commerce from the harbors of the Delian League. The decree would have ruined Megara economically and was understood at the time (although Thucydides disagrees) to have precipitated the Peloponnesian War (431–404 BC).

p. 49. in a supposed theft of the statuary ofPhidias…. Phidias (c. 465–425 BC) was the Athenian sculptor who directed many of Pericles’s public improvements. His reputation as the greatest sculptor of antiquity rests on his gold and ivory statues of Athena at the Parthenon and Zeus at Olympia.

p. 49. that famous and fatal war, distinguished…by the name of thePeloponnesian war: For twenty-seven years—between 431 and 404 BC—Sparta and Athens, together with their respective allies and tributaries, struggled for supremacy in Greece. Although Athens entered the war as a dominant naval power, years of warfare and several disastrous campaigns exhausted her resources. Sparta triumphed more by endurance than superiority of strategy or power, but both sides suffered enormous losses.

p. 49. terminated in the ruin ofthe Athenian commonwealth: One of the leading cities of ancient Greece, Athens emerged from its legendary beginnings as a typical seventh-century BC aristocracy. Civil strife between rich and poor led to the legal reforms of Solon in the early sixth century. These fostered the growth of commerce and population, but social problems continued until a period of tyranny weakened the power of the aristocracy sufficiently to enable Cleisthenes, in 510 BC, to introduce a basic democracy. During the following century, Athenian democracy matured, reaching its apogee—with an unparalleled flowering of philosophy, art, and literature—under the leadership of Pericles. In the wake of Athens’s earlier success against Persia’s expansionistic designs, Pericles encouraged the Athenians to build an empire of their own. The consequent growth of Athenian power antagonized Sparta and led finally to the disastrous Peloponnesian War and to the end of Athens’s golden age.

p. 49. The ambitious cardinal, who was prime minister toHenry VIII…: The "ambitious cardinal" is Thomas Wolsey (1471–1530), who from 1515 until 1529 was lord chancellor of England and the chief minister of Henry VIII. In 1523, he was appointed legate to Rome, but when he failed to win papal consent to Henry’s divorce from Catherine of Aragon he fell from the king’s favor. He was sentenced for illegal dealings with Rome, pardoned by Henry, and then charged again—this time with treason—when he died in 1530. Henry VIII (1491–1547) was king of England from 1509. While intermittent conflict with France dominated the first part of Henry’s reign, English domestic affairs rose to the fore during the second part. Designated "Defender of the Faith"(1521) by Pope Leo X for his writings against Martin Luther and the Protestant movement, Henry nevertheless fell afoul of the Catholic church when he sought, with Wolsey’s help, to annul his marriage to Catherine, who failed to give him a male heir. He was secretly married to Anne Boleyn in 1533, and his consequent excommunication by the church led to passage of the Act of Supremacy, creation of the Church of England, and the very lucrative state confiscation of monastic property. By sponsoring the English reformation and by ruthlessly defending his position at the head of the English church, Henry accelerated the centralization of governmental power in the crown. He was succeeded by his son, Edward VI.

p. 49. by the influence of theEmperor Charles V: Charles V (1500