The Greeks too profited by the enlightened policy of their sovereign. One
Greek monk at this time made the road to the monastery of St John the
Hunter on the slopes of Hymettos, to which the still standing column on
the way to Marathon alludes; another built one of the two churches at the
quaint little monastery of Our Lady of the Glen, not far from the fort of
Phyle. For thirty years Athens enjoyed profound peace, till a fratricidal
war between Guillaume de Villehardouin, the ambitious Prince of Achaia,
and the great barons of Eubœa involved Guy in their quarrel. The prince
summoned Guy, his vassal for Argos and Nauplia, to assist him against his
foes; Guy, though bound not only by this feudal tie but by his marriage
to one of William’s nieces, refused his aid, and did all he could to help
the enemies of the prince. The latter replied by invading the dominions
of his nephew. Forcing the Kakè Skála, that narrow and ill-famed road
which leads along the rocky coast of the Saronic Gulf towards Megara, he
met Guy’s army at the pass of Mount Karydi, “the walnut mountain,” on
the way to Thebes. There Frankish Athens and Frankish Sparta first met
face to face; the Sire of Athens was routed and fled to Thebes, where he
obtained peace by a promise to appear before the High Court of Achaia and
perform any penalty which it might inflict upon him for having borne arms
against the Prince.
The High Court met at Nikli near Tegea; and the Sire of Athens, escorted
by all his chivalry, made a brave show before the assembled barons. They
were so much impressed by the spectacle that they declared they could not
judge so great a man, and referred the decision to St Louis of France,
the natural protector of the French nobles of Greece. The chivalrous
monarch propounded the question to the _parlement_ at Paris, which
decided that Guy was technically guilty, but that the trouble and cost of
his long journey to France was ample punishment for his offence. Louis
IX, anxious to show him some mark of royal favour, conferred upon him,
at his special request, the title of Duke of Athens, for which, he told
the king, there was an ancient precedent. The ducal style borne by Guy
and his successors has become famous in literature as well as in history.
Dante, Boccaccio, Chaucer, and Shakespeare bestowed it upon Theseus, and
the Catalan chronicler, Muntaner, upon Menelaos.