The city-state of the Greeks and Romans; a survey, introductory to the study of ancient history

Front matter

President Whjte Library, CoRNeLL University.

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Preface

The object of this book is, I hope, sufficiently explained in the introductory chapter. It may, however, be as well to add here that it is an expansion of a short series of lectures given for several successive years to men just beginning the study of ancient history in the school of Ziterce Eumaniores at Oxford. Few of these men were likely to become specialists,- and as the object of my course was therefore purely educational, I saw an opportunity of stimulating their interest, and of widening their historical horizon, by treating the subject as a whole, instead of plunging at once into the examination of a particular period or author. It occurred to me that I might construct in outline a biography, as it were, of that form of State in which both Greeks and Eomans lived and made their most valuable contributions to our modem civilisation, tracing it from its birth in prehistoric times to its dissolution under the Eoman Empire.

viii THE CITY-STATE

Such a biography had indeed already been written, and by a man of genius, the late Fustel de Coulanges ; but La Git4 Antique, brilliant as it is, is a book of one idea, and did not exactly answer the purpose I proposed to myself. I wished simply to sketch the history of the City-State, without reference to any particular view of the origin of its institutions.

In writing out these lectures from the notes I used I have expanded them considerably, especially the last two. They will probably, however, betray their origin as lectures, but I hope they may not be found less readable on that account. In adding notes and references it has been my aim to acquaint the beginner with the names of a few books of the best repute, both English and foreign, as well as with the most important original authorities for the events touched upon. It will probably be found that there are more citations of the Politics of Aristotle than of any one oth'er work ; for it was one of my chief objects to connect the history of the City-State as closely as possible with the reasonings of its best philosophical exponent. In order to make sure that every reader, whether he understands Greek or not, shall be able to find the passage to which I am referring without any real difficulty, I have quoted the Politics by the paging of the Berlin edition, which will be found on the

PREFACE IX

margin in all important editions of later date, and also in Professor Jowett's translation. Only in quoting the first three books, which in all editions stand in the same order, I have given the number of the book as well as the page. In no case have I given the number of any particular line in the page quoted, for my references are in almost all cases to chapters rather than to - sentences, and indeed, if a passage be sought out at all, it is far better that it should be read and weighed in connection with its whole context.

I have to thank several friends for much valuable help in the revision of the proofs. To my colleague, Mr. J. A. E. Munro, I am greatly indebted for the correction of several serious errors, and for many other useful suggestions in the chapters dealing with Athenian history. Professor Gardner has given me most valuable help in the tenth chapter, and Mr. Peters of University College and Mr. Matheson of New College have been kind enough to read other parts of the proofs, and have enabled me to correct many minor shortcomings. In spite of all this friendly aid, however, the book is by no means what I could have wished it to be, and no one is more fully aware of its defects than its author. There is absolutely nothing new in it, and its only justification is that it is an attempt to supply a defect in our

X THE CITY-STATE

educational literature. As an introduction to Greek and Eoman history it may, I hope, be of some use; but it can only be so if it is used as an introduction, and not as a means of saving time and trouble in more elaborate studies. The views, for example, which I have expressed as to the tone of the Athenian Demos and the capacity of the Eoman oligarchs must be criticised and corrected as the student's knowledge of those periods increases ; but the purpose of the book will have been fulfilled if in all such detailed studies he brings to bear upon his work not only a special acquaintance with the facts of one period, but a conviction of the bearing of the whole history of classical antiquity on the interpretation of any one portion of it. I owe this conviction myself chiefly to the late Eector of my college, Mark Pattison. Earely as his advice was given, it was always of unique value; and I only wish that I had been ready and able to act upon it with greater profit to myself and others.

CHAPTER I Intkoductoet

Greek and Roman history usually studied separately, p. 1. Close relation between Greek and Roman civilisation, 2. Ethnical affinity of the two peoples, ibid. Affinity in religion, 3. Difference of character a cause of mutual attraction, 4. The Greek and Italian form of State specifically the same, 5. The word vSKis ; Latin equivalents, 5, 6. Difference between the ancient and the modern State ; the ancient State a city with an adjunct of territory, 7, 8. The ancient State a simpler form of association than the modern; more perfect, yet easier to study, 9. Tests of excellence and strength in a State; natural and artificial ties, 10. Examples of modern States, 12. The City-State stronger than these in all the ties, 13 ; and therefore more instructive as a study, 14. Other advantages ; completeness of its life-history, in spite of gaps in our knowledge, 15. Literary value of its records, 17. Its philosophy, 18. New material for its history ; inscriptions, 19. Object of the book : to suggest a wider treatment of classical history in an age of specialisation, 20.

xii THE CITY-STATE

CHAPTER II The Genesis of the City-State

The city as a State : strength of the conception, 22. The ancient and the modern State different in origin, 23. Methods to be followed in studying the origin of the ancient State, 26. I. Social organisation of peoples who have not yet developed a true State, 27. The village community of kinsmen, 29. Characteristics of the village community : kinship, 30 ; government by headman and council, 31 ; common cultivation of land, 32 ; common religious worship, 33. II. Evidence for the existence of the village community in Greece and Italy, 34. III. Evidence of the survival of the village community in the later Gity-State : gentes and yiini at Rome and Athens, 36 foil. IV. Causes which brought about unions of village communities in a City-State, 42. Influence of the land taking the place of kinship, 42. Necessity of self-defence, 44. Fame of religions centres, 45. "^ j Probable era of the birth of the City-State in Greece, 46. Unknown in the case of Italy, 47. Examples of the genesis of a City-State : Athens, 48. Other Greek States, 51. Rome, 52. Greek colonies children of the oldest City-States, 56. i

CHAPTER III Natuhe of the City-State and its First Form op goveenment

How the City-State differed from earlier forms of association, 57. Aristotle's dictum on this point, 59. His view of the State as a natural growth, 61. His conviction that no higher form of union was possible, 62. Aristotle true to the facts of Greek life, which tended to exclude both federations and empires, 63.

CONTENTS XIU

Earliest known fact in the history of the City-State, — government by kings, 64. The Homeric king ; one of many chieftains, not a constitutional monarch, 64-68. (Question as to the existence of the State in the Homeric age, 65-67.) The Homeric king as sacrificer, 69 ; as commander of the host, 71 ; as judge, 72. Undefined character of his power, 73. The Roman Rex ; a magistrate with clearly defined powers, expressed in technical terms, 75. Imperivmi, 76. Customary limits to his power ; the Senate as advising body, 76 ; proweatio, 77. The Spartan monarchy in historical times ; a survival of the earliest form, 78-80. Herodotus' account of it, 80. Degenerate character of this kingship ; the form survives, while the power has almost disappeared, 81-83.

CHAPTER IV The Rise or Aeistocratic Goveenment

King, aristocracy, and people the earliest factors in the City-State, 85. Kings give way to aristocracies, 87. Aristotle's explanation of this, 87. Example in the Odyssey of a monarchy in danger, 88. ' Grote's explanation ; the small size of City- States made the bad rule of kings obvious, 90. A further consideration : kingship, which is the political expression of an aristocratic society, becomes inadequate as aristocracies narrow, 91, 92. What the Greeks meant by ipia-TOKparla ; its ethical meaning and character in early times, 93. Narrowing tendencies seen in (1) degeneracy of the idea of high birth, 98 ; (2) deterioratipn in the use of wealth, 100.

Examples of change from monarchy to aristocracy ; Athens, 103 ; Rome, 105. Impermm, m the hands of the Roman aristocracy ; limitations placed upon it, 108. Imperium milUim and imperium dami, 110. Political order and system due to the intelligence of the aristocracies. 111.

XIV THE CITY-STATE

OHAPTKE V

Tkansition from Akistoceaoy to Democracy (Greece)

Greek history begins in the seventh century B.C., and reveals the aristocracies narrowing into oligarchies, 114. Oligarchies in collision with the people, in respect of religious, military, and legal government, 116. Discontent among the people, 120. The people in Homer and at Athens, 122. Discontent takes the form of a recurrence to the strong government of an individual, 123. The arbiter and the tyrant, 124.

Discontent at Athens at end of seventh century B.C., 125. Legislation of Draco, 126. Cylon's attempt at tyranny, 127. Epimenides' mission, 128. Material cause of discontent, 129. Solon as arbiter, 131. His reasonableness, 132. His Seisaotheia, 134. His political reforms, 136. Estimate of his work, 139.

Tyranny : Herodotus' view of it, 140. Aristotle's view, 141. These views considered in the light of the facts, 143. Tyranny brought forward the people, and developed art and literature, 143 ; widened the horizon of Greek thought and action, 146. Polycrates as a typical example of the tyrant 147.

_j CHAPTER VI

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The Realisation of Demockaot : Athens

Athens the City-State which most nearly realised Aristotle's rh e5 ^v, 150. Pericles' description of the Athenian democracy, 151. Later opinion adverse to the democracy, 153. Pericles' view tested by the facts, 153 foil. Soloniau and Periclean Athens compared, 154. Development of the democracy since Solon, 158 foil. Pisistratus, 159. Cleisthenes, 160. Final changes, 161. What the completed democracy meant at Athens, 162 foil. The people did the actual work of

CONTENTS XV

government in legislative and judicial matters, 163 ; in general administration, 164. Election by lot, 167. Respect for the laws, 168. Safeguards of the constitution, 170. Scope for individual talent, 172. Use of public wealth for artistic and educational purposes, 173. Genius finds a home at Athens, 175.

Drawbacks to the democracy : Athens a slave-owning State, 177. Condition of slaves at Athens, 179. Athens an imperial and tyrannic State, 180. Pericles' justification of this, 181. Reaction against Athens and Peloponnesian war, 188.

CHAPTER VII

The Period of Tbansition at Rome

Incredibility of the early history of the Republic, 184.. But certain laws may be taken as facts, and serve as landmarks, 185. Rise of the plebs under Etruscan kings, 186. Changes attributed to Servius Tullius, 188. Patricians and plebs under the monarchy ; origin and position of the plebs, 188-9. The plebs in the new military organisation of centuries, and in the four local tribes, 190 foil. Patricians and plebs after the abolition of the monarchy, 193.

Landmarks in the history of the equalisation of the two orders : 1. Political assembly of centuries, 194. 2. Tribunate of the plebs, 196. 3. Decemvirate and first legal code, 200.

4. Plebeian assembly becomes a legislative body, 202.

5. Marriage between patricians and plebeians made legal, 203.

6. Military tribunate with consular j/mpmwm open to plebeians, 204, 7. Consulship opened to plebeians, 205. Legislation of Licinius and Sextius compared with that of Solon, 206.

Beginnings of Roman law, 209. The Twelve Tables ; jus civile, 210. Stability of Roman legal ideas, 211.

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CHAPTER VIII

The Perfection of Oligakchy : Eome

Influence of war on Eoman constitutional history, 213. Kome tending towards democracy after equalisation of the orders, 214-216. Aristotle's moderate democracy compared with the Roman constitution of this period, 216.

Authorities for the period which followed, 218. Constitution democratic in form, really oligarchical, 219. Proofs of this : executive in the hands of a few families, 221. Jffom homines the exception ; examples, 223. Magistrates in subordination to the Senate, 224. How the Senate was fiUed up, 225 ; fed by the hereditary nobility, 227. Procedure in Senate favours the hereditary principle, 228.

Explanation of this oligarchical tendency : 1. Moral force of an assembly of ex-magistrates, 230 foil. 2. Character of senatorial business growing with the growing State, 232 foil. 3. Character of the Roman people, 236 foil.

Development of Roman law by the oligarchy, 239. The jiis civile insufficient for the new Roman dominion, 240. Edict of praetor peregrinus based on the imperium, 241. Jus gentitim, 242. Influence of Roman conservative spirit on the new system of law, 243.

CHAPTER IX Decay of the City-State — Inteknal Cattses

Spirit of moderation at Athens and Eome during the development of their institutions, 245. Absence of this spirit in many States, 246. Hostility of the Few and the Many in Greece during the fifth century B.C., 247. Examples : Naxos in 507 B.O., 248 ; Corcyra in 432 B.C., 249 ; Athens in

CONTENTS XVU

411 B.C. (negative instance), 251. Universality of the disease during Peloponnesian war, 252 ; called by the Greeks stasis, 254. Thucydides' reflections on it, 255 ; its weakening effect on the City-State, 257. Aristotle's treatment of the subject, 258. His remedies for the disease ; an even distribution of wealth, 261 ; education in subordination to the character of the State, 262.

Aristotle's reasonings applied to the case of Kome ; stasia at Rome in 133 B.C., 264. Enlarged scope of the issues in this instance, 265. Distribution of wealth at Rome ; destruction of middle class, 267. Education at Rome inadequate to her needs as an imperial State, 269. Cato's education of his son, 272.

CHAPTER X

ExTEKNAL Causes of Decay — Imperial and Fbdekative States

The City - State must have a limit of increase in size, 275. Aristotle's doctrine on this point, 277 ; based on the normal phenomena of Greek States, ibid. His view excludes both imperial and federative States, 279. Yet States of this kind appear in Greek history, 280 ; they increase in number and strength, and may be traced in three periods, 281. 1. Down to the Persian wars ; earliest forms of alliance, 282 ; Spartan supremacy and Peloponnesian League, 282 ; naval power of Polycrates, 284. 2. From Persian wars to rise of Macedou ; confederacy of Delos, 286 ; becomes an Athenian empire, 288 ; Spartan empire, 290 ; second Athenian League, 291 ; Boeotian League and Theban supremacy, 292. 3. Growth of Maoedon, 294. Demosthenes' antagonism to it, 296. Phocion's attitude towards it explained, 297. Failure of Demosthenes and Macedonian assumption of leadership of xviii THE CITY-STATE

Greece, 300. Consequent loss of vitality in the ir6\ei.s, 303 . Last attempt at independence now taking the form of a real federal union ; Achaean League, 302 foil.

CHAPTER XI Dissolution op the City-State : The Roman Empieb

In Alexander's conquests Greece came near to realising a new political system, 306. Alexander representative of Greek ideas ; Plutarch's evidence on this point, 307. Alexander's project of a Greek empire, 309 ; what might have been the result for the City-State, 310. Failure of his plans, 311. Rome takes the place of Alexander, 312. Rome hecomes an imperial State, 313 ; yet continues in form a City-State, 314. Government of the Roman Empire by Roman City-ma^strates, 315. Retention of the form of the City-State in the provinces, 317. Failure of the imperial government of the Roman Republic ; causes of this, 320 foil. The City-State ceases to exist except in form in the last century B. c. , 322.

Necessity of a new political system, 323. Julius Caesar creates one for the moment, 45 B.C., 324. Augustus builds on Caesar's foundation ; completion of the work, 325. Suggestions for the study of this new system ; the imperial constitution, 326. Local government, 328. Extension of the sphere of Roman law, 329. Other lines of research, 330. The Roman Empire at last breaks up, but has lasted long enough to preserve for us the treasures of the City-State, 330.

CHAPTEE I

INTEODUCTOEY

As a subject of study, whetlier in schools or universities, ancient history is almost always separated from modern history ; and it cannot very well be otherwise. It takes the learning of a lifetime fully to appreciate what is meant by that unity of history, of which Professor Freeman was never tired of reminding us. No one can really grasp the inter-connection of a long series of events, or see how states and empires crumble and fall, only to rise again in new forms, unless his mind is sufi&ciently well stored with the detail which must be the material for his thinking powers to work on. Most of lis must take it on trust that there is no region of utter desolation lying between ancient and modern civilisation, and dividing them from each other; most of lis must be content to choose the one or the other as the field of our investigation.

But we do not only separate modern history from that of the Greeks and Eomans : we also

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J separate the histories of these two peoples. Or rather, even where they are studied at the same time, little effort is made to look at them as one great whole. Here, again, want of time to master the necessary detail is the cause, and the legitimate excuse. Yet so close is the connection between these two civilisations, that they may be in some respects considered as one and the same ; and at the outset of a detailed study of either, it is as well to see whether they cannot be brought together in some way which will make it impossible for an intelligent learner ever to think of them again as wholly distinct.

Let us consider for a moment the nature of this close relation between Greek and Roman civilisation. It is indeed no great matter that the two races were not far distant from each other in ethnological descent. They were perhaps not so near of kin as we once thought, and it seems to be now made probable that the Eomans were more closely allied to the Celtic race than they were to the Greek. But they were at least near enough to each other to feel a certain mutual attraction even early in their history. There is no trace of any such repulsion between them, as Greek and Phcenician seem always to have felt for each other, in spite of constant intercourse ; their languages were both really and obviously related, while the Semitic speech of the Phcenician and Carthaginian was a sealed book to both. The veneration shown in the earliest Eoman traditions for the superior gifts of the Hellenic race finds its counterpart in the

I INTEODUCTOEY 3

admiring curiosity with which Hellenes of a later age — a Polybius or a Posidonius — could study the manners and institutions of the Eomans.

In their religious ideas, too, or at least in the religious practices on which our knowledge of those ideas is chiefly based, there is a close resemblance between the two races. It was easy to identify Greek and Italian deities, when anything was to be gained by doing so ; it was by an easy though a gradual process that Eoman ritual was so far superseded by Greek, that it is now a hard task to excavate the genuine Italian practice by removing the foreign strata beneath which it lies buried. It is indeed true enough that most-'^aces have been much readier than we should at first suppose to adopt the religious customs of' their neighbours, or even of peoples far removed from them in kinship or geographical position. But there is hardly a case to be found in which this adoption is so complete as it was at Eome. The Eomans believed the Greek forms to have superior efficacy, and they took them over, except on rare occasions, without misgiving. They found nothing in them essentially antagonistic to their own notions of their relations to the gods. In spite of much diversity there was a basis both of conception and practice which was common to both peoples. There were at least two special points of agreement : each believed in certain great deities whom they associated with their history and their fortunes ; and each looked on these deities as I localised in their cities, as belonging to none , but, / themselves, and as incapable of deserting them except as a consequence of their own shortcomings.

In regard to character, it was just the very unlikeness of the two peoples that served to attract them to each other. What the Eoman lacked the Greek could supply, — poetry and the plastic arts, and the mythological fancy in which these were so deeply. rooted; the power of thinking, too, and the precious gift of curiosity which spurs men to ask questions and to seek for answers to them. Thus the Eomans borrowed the finer elements in their civilisation from the Greeks; but they were not without something to give in exchange. They possessed what Matthew Arnold called " the power of conduct " in a far higher degree than the Greeks — the self-restraint, the discipline, the " courage never to submit or yield," which at last placed the dominion of the world in their hands. These qualities were regarded almost with awe by the Greek thinkers who came to know the Eomans as conquerors. These, too, and the rare power of governing which the Eomans developed out of them, made it possible for Greek culture to survive long after the Greeks had lost their freedom. The Eqman dominion became a legal framework on which Greek intelligence could be fitted. And though Greek and Eoman never became wholly amalgamated, and East and West always remained in many ways distinct, yet the two great currents poured into a single channel, and ran side by sidej like Ehone and Sa6ne after their junction, distin-

1 INTEODUCTOK'^ 5

guishable from each other at a glance, yet forming one great stream.

But what is of the greatest moment for our purpose at present is that these two peoples developed the same hind of polity. They carried it out with different aims and with very different results ; but the form of political union in which they lived was essentially one and the same, and passed through the same stages of growth. Living as they did in adjacent peninsulas, in the same latitude and in much the same climate, within easy reach of the sea, and in fertile valleys or plains surrounded by mountainous tracts, it was natural that they should develop socially and politically on much the same Unes. Like conditions produce like growths, modified only by the iaherent differences of stock, and by the forwarding or retarding influences which may be brought to bear on them as they grow. The Greek and Latin States experienced very different fortunes, and their differing characteristics caused them to float in different directions, some going straight onward in a natural order of progress, some being swept into backwaters, and retarded for many generations ; but their State was in all cases of the same species, and this species was almost peculiar to themselves among the peoples of antiquity.

This unique form of State was what the Greeks called the ttoX*? ; a word which, like the Latin whs, may probably have originally meant no more than a fortified position on a hill, to which the inhabitants of the surrounding country could fly for refuge on the approach of an enemy. But the Greek of a more civilised age came to give this word a much wider and deeper meaning, which it is the object of the following chapters to explain and trace out. By this word and its derivatives he sought to express the whole life, and the whole duty, of man; that union of human beings for a common end, which could alone produce and exercise all the best instincts and abilities of every free individual. The Latin race had no word which was an exact equivalent to this; for "urbs" never attained to a meaning so profound, and " civitas," which comes nearest to it, is less explicit. The Latin race, indeed, never realised the Greek conception of a "ttoKk in quite the same degree ; but this was rather owing to their less vivid mental powers than to the absence of the phenomenon among them. Their form of State was of the same kind, their idea of their relation to it was not less definite ; but they had not the instinct to reflect on it or inquire into its nature, and had eventually to fall back on the Greeks themselves for their philosophy of it.

What, then, was this TroXts, this form of political union in which both these races developed their best faculties, and made their lasting contributions to European civilisation ? Our modern notions of a State hamper us much in our efforts to realise what the iro\t9 was ; nor is it possible to do so completely until we have gained some knowledge of the conditions under which it arose, of its constituent elements, of its life in its best days, and of the causes which sapped its vitality and finally let it be yo

I INTEODTSyOEY 7

swallowed up in a vast political imion of a totally different kind. In subsequent chapters some attempt will be made to sketch its history, and to show where this necessary knowledge may be looked for. At present we must be content to point out the most obvious difference between the modem State and that of the Greeks and Latins, and the one which wiU best serve to show the reader that the study of Greek and Eoman history is a very different task from the study of the growth of modern European States — a task, too, which, in some respects at least, is more fruitful and more suggestive.

By a modern State we mean a country or territory with a central government and a capital town ; or a group of such territories, each with its government and its capital, bound together in a federal league, like the United States or the cantons of the Swiss Eepublic. In this form of State the capital city is a convenient place for carrying on the central government, but does not in and by itself constitute the heart and life of the State. The history of modern States shows that, while the State is growing, the question is an open one as to where the acts of government may best be performed. In England this in the middle ages was just where the king happened to be, at Winchester, at Marlborough, at the now obscure Clarendon, as well as in London or at Windsor. Even in much later times, after the complete consolidation of a State, it has been found perfectly possible to transfer the government to other centres besides the capital city ; as the King'g

8 THriiciTy-STATE chap.

government in the Civil War was carried on at Oxford, and the French government at Bordeaux in 1870-71. It is plain, then, that in a modern State the so-called capital city is not an essential part of the State's life, and has only grown in course of time, and from reasons of convenience or tradition, to occupy the first place in the minds of the people among all the other towns, as the seat of their central government. It is plain, for example, that by the State called France we mean the whole French people living on French territory, and having their political existence, not as Parisians hut as Frenchmen, with a convenient centre, Paris.

But the Greeks and Eomans conceived of their 'State as something very different from this. Athens, _^ Sparta, Miletus, Syracuse, Eome, were, themselves ' cities, with a greater or less amount of territory from which they drew their means of subsistence. This territory was indeed an essential, but it was not the heart and hfe of the State. It was in the city that the heart and life were centred, and the territory was only an adjunct. The Athenian State comprised all the free people living in Athens, and also those who lived iu the Attic territory ; but these last had their political existence, not as inhabitants of Attica, but as Athenians, as citizens of the ■n-6\i<; of Athens. So, too, the Eoman State, even when it had extended its territory over the whole Italian peninsula, was still conceived of as having its heart and life in the city of Eome, with a tenacity which led to much trouble and disaster, and ultimately to the destruction of this peculiar form of State. It