THE WAR OF GREEK INDEPENDENCE 1821 TO 1833 BY W.ALISON PHILLIPS 1897

THE SENATE OF THE PELOPONNESE 81
sphere of which a patriotism purely local could take no
account, corruption and knavery reigned supreme.
The political history of this period is a disgusting
record of petty jealousies, intrigues, shameless peculations
and contemptible incompetence; and only the
heroic patience and indomitable fortitude of the people
at large can relieve the sordidness of the picture.
No
one seems to have had any idea of the right way to set
about constructing a constitution. That of England
had been in its origin a '
concentration of local machinery,'
and had the Greek constitutions similarly been
based on the existing
communal system, they would
have had more chance of success. As it was, the attempts
at constitution-making
of the successive National
Assemblies, when they did meet, were but plausible
schemes evolved by pedantic doctrinaires out of
their own inner consciousness, and were for the most
part still-born.
Meanwhile the demand of the people for some sort
of central executive could not be neglected;
and on
June 7, 1821, there was formed the Gerousia, or Senate
of the Peloponnese, a purely oligarchical committee
based upon no popular suffrage,
of which the authority
was to last till the fall of Tripolitza. This
derived especial power from the co-operation of Archbishop
Germanos, whose eloquence, assumed sanctity,
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