Steve Barber Philhellene firing (2014)

The second miniature I painted from the Steve Barber Greek War of Independence range is this, rigorously selected at random. It depicts a Philhellene fighting on the side of the Greek rebels.

Philhellene is a word of Greek origin, made of philos (φιλος) meaning friendship, love, liking and Hellen (´Ελλην) meaning Greek. A Philhellene is literally a "friend of the Greek people" or a "lover of Greek things". The term was used since ancient to refer to those who were fond of Greek culture, be they Roman intellectuals, Renaissance philosophers or writers in the Age of Enlightenment. But it came to mean something else when the Greek Revolution broke out against the Ottomans, in 1821.

Those years were more or less the time of transition between the Age of Enlightenment and the Age of Romanticism. Young western people believed in the values of culture, freedom, beauty and art but they felt the previous generations had betrayed them. The French Revolution had turned into a bloodbath, Napoleon had transformed from revolutionary to Emperor, and those who defeated him had agreed to share power and oppress the masses with the Congress of Vienna. When the Greeks rose against the Turks, western intellectuals had little idea of what was actually going on, but they knew that Greece was the root of their cultural identity, the place where everything started. Losing it, would be losing their souls.

A great number of them, including English poet George Byron and Italian-Argentinian freedom fighter Ricciotti Garibaldi, armed themselves and sailed as volunteers to fight the Ottomans, which had, in their minds, the worst of European oppressors and the ancient Persian conquerors under the tyranny of the Great Kings. Everyone had read of the great battles of the Greeks against the Persians, and heard the tales of the War of Troy and the Voyages of Ulysses. For these young Romantics, it was literally to take a step into epics.

The mountains look on Marathon --
And Marathon looks on the sea;
And musing there an hour alone,
I dream'd that Greece might yet be free
For, standing on the Persians' grave,
I could not deem myself a slave.
...
Must we but weep o'er days more blest?
Must we but blush? – Our fathers bled.
Earth! render back from out thy breast
A remnant of our Spartan dead!
Of the three hundred grant but three,
To make a new Thermopylae.
Byron, The Isles of Greece

Such was the Age. Philhellenes fought in the war, organised fundraising and wrote to journals to stir public opinion. Eventually, their contribution was invaluable for the Greek cause and helped to force western European countries to intervene in the war and force a peace that would never have happened otherwise. Eventually, they did save their soul.

It's nice that such a model was included in the Greek Independence War range.