VIII. THE IONIANS…

VIII. THE IONIANS

Athens, the eye of Greece, mother of arts and eloquence.

--MILTON.

The complete change in the map of Greece at the close of the Achæan period and the origin of the ethnographic system with which the history of Hellenic times begins, were always referred by Greek tradition to a last wandering of north Grecian tribes. The customary chronology places the beginning of this shifting at 1133 or 1124 B.C., i.e., less than three generations after the so-called conquest of Troy. Recent chronological investigations, however, have made it seem probable that a period at least a hundred years later should be chosen.

The first impulse was probably given by new movements of tribes in the north. The advance of the Illyrians caused the Thessalians, a part of the Epirot tribe of the Thesproti, to withdraw across Pindus into the valley of the Peneus, which was afterwards called Thessaly. While the preservation of the Greek character in Epirus was henceforth left to the brave Molossi, the Thessalians east of Pindus fell upon the settled Greeks of the lowlands and destroyed their states. The proudest and most vigorous elements of the old population that survived the war, determined to emigrate and found a new home. Thus, the Arnæ migrated to middle Greece, destroyed the old states of Thebes and Orchomenus in the basin of the Copaïs and united this whole district, which henceforth appears in history as Bœotia, under their rule.

While the Thessalians were making preparations to subjugate the warlike tribes of the highlands about the valley of the Peneus, one of these mountain races, the Dorians, carried the mighty movement on to the extreme south of the Peloponnesus. Within twenty years, according to tradition, they had crossed the narrow strait of Rhium and begun the conquest of the Peloponnesus. They ascended the valley of the Alpheus into southern Arcadia. From here one body of them descended into the Messenian valley of the Pamisus and overwhelmed the old kingdom of the Melidæ of Pylos. The other branch invaded the principal districts of the Achæans in the east and southeast of the Peloponnesus. In open battle the rude Dorian foot-soldiers easily defeated the Achæan knights. But they could not destroy the colossal walls of the Achæan fortresses or cities, and were themselves finally forced to build fortifications from which they could watch or invest the Achæan strongholds until the opportunity was presented of storming them or forcing their capitulation. It was in such a fortified camp that the Dorian capital Sparta had its origin.

It was probably the tenacious resistance of the Achæans in Laconia that determined a large body of the Dorians to leave that district and turn to the east, where they completely subjugated Argolis and made Argos the centre of Dorian power in the eastern part of the Peloponnesus.

At the close of the Achæan period Attica was the canton which appeared to have the most settled and uniform structure. It now became a favourite refuge of migrant Greeks of many different tribes. This movement seems to have strengthened little Attica in a considerable degree, for tradition ascribes to these immigrants the successful resistance that Attica was able to make when the hordes of the conquerors finally approached her borders. But Attica was far too small and unproductive to retain the mass of fugitives as permanent settlers. So the movement was finally turned towards the islands of the Ægean and the coast of Asia Minor. According to tradition there had already been an Archæan (or Æolian) migration to Lesbos and Tenedos, from whence the Mysian coast and Troas were later colonised.

The most important Ionian colonies in the east were in the Cyclades, at Miletus, and at Ephesus. As their power continued to grow, the Ionians gradually Hellenised a broad strip of coast and in the river valleys pushed out a considerable distance to the eastward.

The Dorians also followed the movement of the other Greeks to the islands and to Asia. Their most important occupations were Crete, Rhodes, and a small portion of the southern coast of Caria, including the cities of Cnidus and Halicarnassus.

By the first half of the eighth century B.C., the Greek world had acquired the aspect which it retained for several centuries. The nation had greatly increased its territory by colonisation. But the district now called Thessaly was in possession of a race that showed little capacity to develop beyond a vigorous and pleasure-loving feudalism; and the Greeks of Epirus and the valley of the Achelous had been for several centuries shut out from the evolution into Hellenism. So apart from the newly risen power of the Bœotians, the future of Greece rested upon the two races that had been but little named in the Achæan period. The Dorians had become a great people. Argos had at first been the leading power of the Peloponnesus, both in religion and in politics. The Doric canton in the valley of the Upper Eurotas had made but slow and difficult progress, until, at the close of the ninth and beginning of the eighth century, that remarkable military and political consolidation was completed which is connected with the name of Lycurgus. This was the starting-point of a growth of Spartan power in consequence of which before the end of the eighth century the balance of Doric power was to pass from Argos to the south of the Peloponnesus.

Among the Ionians the Asiatic branch long remained the more important. The Ionian Greeks of the Ægean and of the Lydio-Carian coast, through their direct contact with the Orient, introduced to the Greek world new elements of culture of a varied character. Of a friendly and adaptable nature, they were specially fitted to be the traders and mariners of Greek nationality. Politically they became pre-eminently the democratic element of the nation, although there were powerful aristocratic groups among them. But with them the tendency appears stronger than among the other Greeks to allow full scope to personality, individual right, individual liberty, and individual activity beside, and even in opposition to the common interest.

The Asiatic Achæans appear in the historical period only under the name of Æolians. This name also came to be applied to those members of the Greek nation in Europe that could not be counted among either Dorians or Ionians.

The common name borne by the Greeks after the completion of the migrations is that of Hellenes. All the members of the various branches exhibit the Hellenic character, though only a few communities developed it in so ideal a form as the Athenians at the height of their historical greatness. A beautiful heritage of all Hellenes was their appreciation and enjoyment of art--of poetry and music as well as the plastic arts. A warm feeling not only for the beautiful, but for the ideal and the noble,--among the best elements also for right and harmoniously developed life,--and a fine taste in art and in ethical perception have never been denied the Greeks.

They were, moreover, at all periods characterised by a quick intellectual receptivity and an incomparable union of glowing fancy, brilliant intelligence, and sharp understanding. But mighty passion was coupled with all this. Party spirit and furious party hatred ran through all Greek history. The proud Greek self-assertion often degenerates into boundless presumption. Cruelty in war, even towards Greeks themselves, cunning and treachery, harsh self-interest and reckless greed are traits that mar the brilliant figure of Hellenism long before the Roman and Byzantine times.[b]

ORIGIN AND EARLY HISTORY OF ATHENS

In that part of earth termed by the Greeks Hellas, and by the Romans Græcia, a small tract of land known by the name of Attica extends into the Ægean Sea--the southeast peninsula of Greece. In its greatest length it is about sixty, in its greatest breadth about twenty-four, geographical miles. In shape it is a rude triangle,--on two sides flows the sea--on the third, the mountain range of Parnes and Cithæron, divides the Attic from the Bœotian territory. It is intersected by frequent but not lofty hills, and compared with the rest of Greece, its soil, though propitious to the growth of the olive, is not fertile or abundant. In spite of painful and elaborate culture, the traces of which are yet visible, it never produced a sufficiency of corn to supply its population; and this, the comparative sterility of the land, may be ranked among the causes which conduced to the greatness of the people. The principal mountains of Attica are, the Cape of Sunium, Hymettus renowned for its honey, and Pentelicus for its marble; the principal streams which water the valleys are the capricious and uncertain rivulets of Cephisus and Ilissus--streams breaking into lesser brooks, deliciously pure and clear. The air is serene, the climate healthful, the seasons temperate. Along the hills yet breathe the wild thyme and the odorous plants which, everywhere prodigal in Greece, are more especially fragrant in that lucid sky--and still the atmosphere colours with peculiar and various tints the marble of the existent temples and the face of the mountain landscapes.

Even so early as the traditional appearance of Cecrops amongst the savages of Attica, the Pelasgians in Arcadia had probably advanced from the pastoral to the civil life; and this, indeed, is the date assigned by Pausanias to the foundation of that ancestral Lycosura, in whose rude remains (by the living fountain and the waving oaks of the modern Diaphorte) the antiquary yet traces the fortifications of “the first city which the sun beheld.” It is in their buildings that the Pelasgi have left the most indisputable record of their name. Their handwriting is yet upon their walls! A restless and various people--overrunning the whole of Greece, found northward in Dacia, Illyria, and the country of the Getæ, colonising the coasts of Ionia, and long the master-race of the fairest lands of Italy--they have passed away amidst the revolutions of the elder earth, their ancestry and their descendants alike unknown.

The proofs upon which rest the reputed arrival of Egyptian colonisers, under Cecrops, in Attica, have been shown to be slender, the authorities for the assertion to be comparatively modern, the arguments against the probability of such an immigration in such an age, to be at least plausible and important. The traditions speak of them with gratitude as civilisers, not with hatred as conquerors. Assisting to civilise the Greeks, they then became Greeks; their posterity merged and lost amidst the native population.

Perhaps in all countries, the first step to social improvement is in the institution of marriage, and the second is the formation of cities. As Menes in Egypt, as Fohi in China, so Cecrops at Athens is said first to have reduced into sacred limits the irregular intercourse of the sexes, and reclaimed his barbarous subjects from a wandering and unprovidential life, subsisting on the spontaneous produce of no abundant soil. High above the plain, and fronting the sea, which, about three miles distant on that side, sweeps into a bay peculiarly adapted for the maritime enterprises of an earlier age, we still behold a cragged and nearly perpendicular rock. In length its superficies is about eight hundred, in breadth about four hundred, feet. Below, on either side, flow the immortal streams of the Ilissus and Cephisus. From its summit you may survey here the mountains of Hymettus, Pentelicus, and, far away, “the silver bearing Laurium”; below, the wide plain of Attica, broken by rocky hills--there, the islands of Salamis and Ægina, with the opposite shores of Argolis, rising above the waters of the Saronic Bay. On this rock the supposed Egyptian is said to have built a fortress, and founded a city; the fortress was in later times styled the Acropolis, and the place itself, when the buildings of Athens spread far and wide beneath its base, was still designated πόλις, or the City. By degrees we are told that he extended, from this impregnable castle and its adjacent plain, the limit of his realm, until it included the whole of Attica, and perhaps Bœotia. It is also related that he established eleven other towns or hamlets, and divided his people into twelve tribes, to each of which one of the towns was apportioned--a fortress against foreign invasion, and a court of justice in civil disputes.

If we may trust to the glimmering light which, resting for a moment, uncertain and confused, upon the reign of Cecrops, is swallowed up in all the darkness of fable during those of his reputed successors, it is to this apocryphal personage that we must refer the elements both of agriculture and law. He is said to have instructed the Athenians to till the land, and to watch the produce of the seasons; to have imported from Egypt the olive tree, for which the Attic soil was afterwards so celebrated, and even to have navigated to Sicily and to Africa for supplies of corn. That such advances, from a primitive and savage state, were not made in a single generation, is sufficiently clear. With more probability, Cecrops is reputed to have imposed upon the ignorance of his subjects and the license of his followers, the curb of impartial law, and to have founded a tribunal of justice (doubtless the sole one for all disputes), in which after-times imagined to trace the origin of the solemn Areopagus.[c]

KING ÆGEUS

The fortress, which Cecrops made his residence, was from his own name called Cecropia, and was peculiarly recommended to the patronage of the Egyptian goddess whom the Greeks worshipped by the name of Athene, and the Latins of Minerva. Many, induced by the neighbourhood of the port, and expecting security both from the fortress and from its tutelary deity, erected their habitations around the foot of the rock; and thus arose early a considerable town, which, from the name of the goddess, was called Athenai, or, as we after the French have corrupted it, Athens.

This account of the rise of Athens, and of the origin of its government, though possibly a village and even a fortress may have existed there before Cecrops, is supported by a more general concurrence of traditional testimony, and more complete consonancy to the rest of history, than is often found for that remote age. The subsequent Attic annals are far less satisfactory. Strabo declines the endeavour to reconcile their inconsistencies; and Plutarch gives a strong picture of the uncertainties and voids which occurred to him in attempting to form a history from them. “As geographers,” he says, “in the outer parts of their maps distinguish those countries which lie beyond their knowledge with such remarks as these, All here is dry and desert sand, or marsh darkened with perpetual fog, or Scythian cold, or frozen sea; so of the earliest history we may say, All here is monstrous and tragical land, occupied only by poets and fabulists.” If such apology was reckoned necessary by Plutarch for such an account as could in his time be collected of the life of Theseus, none can now be wanting for omitting all disquisition concerning the four or seven kings, for even their number is not ascertained, who are said to have governed Attica from Cecrops to Ægeus, father of that hero. The name of Amphictyon, indeed, whose name is in the list, excites a reasonable curiosity: but as it is not in his government of Athens that he is particularly an object of history, farther mention of him may best be reserved for future opportunity.

Various, uncertain, and imperfect, then, as the accounts were which passed to posterity concerning the early Attic princes, yet the assurance of Thucydides may deserve respect, that Attica was the province of Greece in which population first became settled, and where the earliest progress was made toward civilisation. Being nearly peninsular, it lay out of the road of emigrants and wandering freebooters by land; and its rocky soil, supporting few cattle, afforded small temptation to either. The produce of tillage was of less easy removal; and the gains of commerce were secured within fortifications. Attica therefore grew populous, not only through the safety which the natives thus enjoyed, but by a confluence of strangers from other parts of Greece; for when either foreign invasion or intestine broil occasioned anywhere the necessity of emigration, Athens was the resort in highest estimation not only as a place of the most permanent security, but also as strangers of character, able by their wealth or their ingenuity to support themselves and benefit the community, were easily admitted to the privilege of citizens.

But, as population increased, the simple forms of government and jurisprudence established by Cecrops were no longer equal to their purpose. Civil wars arose; the country was invaded by sea: Erechtheus, called by later authors Erichthonius, and by the poets Son of the Earth, acquired the sovereignty, bringing, according to some not improbable reports, a second colony from Egypt.[9] Eumolpus, with a body of Thracians, about the same time established himself in Eleusis. When, a generation or two later, Ægeus, contemporary with Minos, succeeded his father Pandion in the throne, the country seems to have been well peopled, but the government ill constituted and weak. Concerning this prince, however, and his immediate successor, tradition is more ample; and though abundantly mixed with fable, yet in many instances apparently more authentic than concerning any other persons of their remote age. Plutarch has thought a history of Theseus, son of Ægeus, not unfit to hold a place among his parallel lives of the great men of Greece and Rome; and his account appears warranted in many points by strong corresponding testimony from other ancient authors of various ages. The period also is so important in the annals of Attica, and the reports remaining altogether go so far to illustrate the manners and circumstances of the times, that it may be proper to allow them some scope in narration.

Ægeus, king of Athens, though an able and spirited prince, yet, in the divided and disorderly state of his country, with difficulty maintained his situation. When past the prime of life he had the misfortune to remain childless, though twice married; and a faction headed by his presumptive heirs, the numerous sons of Pallas his younger brother, gave him unceasing disturbance. Thus urged, he went to Delphi to implore information from the oracle how the blessing of children might be obtained. Receiving an answer which, like most of the oracular responses, was unintelligible, his next concern was to find some person capable of explaining to him the will of the deity thus mysteriously declared. Among the many establishments which Pelops had procured for his family throughout Peloponnesus was the small town and territory of Trœzen on the coast opposite to Athens, which he placed under the government of his son Pittheus. Ægeus applied to that prince; who was not only in his own age eminent for wisdom, but of reputation remaining even in the most flourishing period of Grecian philosophy; yet so little was he superior to the ridiculous, and often detestable superstition of his time that, in consequence of some fancied meaning in the oracle, which even the superstitious Plutarch confesses himself unable to comprehend, he introduced his own daughter Æthra to an illicit commerce with Ægeus. Perhaps it may be allowed to conjecture that the commerce was unknown to the Trœzenian prince till the consequence became evident, and that the interpretation of the oracle was an ensuing resource to obviate disgrace.

The affairs of Attica being in great confusion required the return of Ægeus. His departure from Trœzen is marked by an action which, to persons accustomed to consider modern manners only, may appear unfit to be related but in a fable, yet is so consonant to the manners of the times, and so characteristical of them, as to demand the notice of the historian. He led Æthra to a sequestered spot where was a small cavity in a rock. Depositing there a hunting-knife and a pair of sandals, he covered them with a marble fragment of enormous weight; and then addressing Æthra, “If,” said he, “the child you now bear should prove a boy, let the removal of this stone be one day the proof of his strength; when he can effect it, send him with the tokens underneath to Athens.”

Pittheus, well knowing the genius and the degree of information of his subjects and fellow-countrymen, thought it not too gross an imposition to report that his daughter was pregnant by the god Poseidon, or, as we usually call him with the Latins, Neptune, esteemed the tutelary deity of the Trœzenians. A similar expedient seems indeed to have been often successfully used to cover the disgrace which, even in those days, would otherwise attend such irregular amours in a lady of high rank, though women of lower degree appear to have derived no dishonour from concubinage with their superiors. Theseus was the produce of the singular connection of Æthra with Ægeus. He is said to have been carefully educated under the inspection of his grandfather, and to have given early proofs of uncommon vigour both of body and mind. On his attaining manhood, his mother, in pursuance of the injunction of Ægeus, unfolded to him the reality of his parentage, and conducted him to the rock where his father’s tokens were deposited. He removed the stone which covered them, with a facility indicating that superior bodily strength so necessary in those days to support the pretensions of high birth; and thus encouraged she recommended to him to carry them to Ægeus at Athens. This proposal perfectly suited the temper and inclination of Theseus; but when he was farther advised to go by sea on account of the shortness and safety of the passage, piracy being about this time suppressed by the naval power of Minos, king of Crete, he positively refused.

THESEUS

The age of Theseus was the great era of those heroes, to whom the knights errant of the Gothic kingdoms afterwards bore a close resemblance. Hercules was his near kinsman. The actions of that extraordinary personage are reported to have been for some years the subject of universal conversation, and both an incentive and a direction to young Theseus in the road to fame. After having destroyed the most powerful and atrocious freebooters throughout Greece, Hercules, according to Plutarch, was gone into Asia; and those disturbers of civil order, whom his irresistible might and severe justice had driven to conceal themselves, took advantage of his absence to renew their violences. Being not obscure and vagabond thieves, but powerful chieftains, who openly defied law and government, the dangers to be expected from them were well known at Trœzen. Theseus however persevered in his resolution to go by land; alleging that it would be shameful, if, while Hercules was traversing earth and sea to repress the common disturbers of mankind, he should avoid those at his door, disgracing his reputed father by an ignominious flight over his own element, and carrying to his real father, for tokens, a bloodless weapon and sandals untrodden, instead of giving proofs of his high birth by actions worthy of it.

Proceeding in his journey he found every fastness occupied by men who, like many of the old barons of the Western European kingdoms, gave protection to their dependants, and disturbance to all beside within their reach, making booty of whatever they could master. His valour, however, and his good fortune procuring him the advantage in every contest carried him safe through all dangers; though he found nothing friendly till he arrived on the bank of the river Cephisus in the middle of Attica. Some people of the country meeting him there saluted him in the usual terms of friendship to strangers. Judging himself then past the perils of his journey, he requested to have the accustomed ceremony of purification from blood performed, that he might properly join in sacrifices and other religious rites. The courteous Atticans readily complied, and then entertained him at their houses. An ancient altar, said to have been erected in commemoration of this meeting, dedicated to Jupiter with the epithet of Meilichius, the friendly or kind, remained to the time of Pausanias.

When Theseus arrived at Athens, Ægeus, already approaching dotage, was governed by the Colchian princess Medea, so famous in poetry, who flying from Corinth had prevailed on him to afford her protection. Theseus, as an illustrious stranger invited to a feast, on drawing his hunting-knife, as it seems was usual, to carve the meat before him, was recognised by Ægeus. The old king immediately rising embraced him, acknowledged him before the company for his son, and afterward summoning an assembly of the people presented Theseus as their prince. The fame of exploits suited, as those of Theseus, to acquire popularity in that age had already prepossessed the people in his favour; strong marks of general satisfaction followed. But the party of the sons of Pallas was powerful: their disappointment was equally great and unexpected; and no hope remaining to accomplish their wishes by other means, they withdrew from the city, collected their adherents, and returned in arms. The tide of popular inclination, however, now ran so strongly in favour of Theseus that some even of their confidants gave way to it. A design to surprise the city was discovered; part of their troops were in consequence cut off, the rest dispersed; and the faction was completely quelled.

Quiet being thus restored to Athens, Theseus was diligent to increase the popularity he had acquired. Military fame was the means to which his active spirit chiefly inclined him; but, as the state had now no enemies, he exercised his valour in the destruction of wild beasts, and, it is said, added not a little to his reputation by delivering the country from a savage bull, which had done great mischief in the neighbourhood of Marathon.

An opportunity however soon offered for Theseus to do his country more essential service, and to acquire more illustrious fame. The Athenians, in a war with Minos, king of Crete, had been reduced to purchase peace of that powerful monarch by a yearly tribute of seven youths and as many virgins. Coined money was not common till some centuries after his age; and slaves and cattle were not only the principal riches, but the most commodious and usual standards by which the value of other things was determined. A tribute of slaves therefore was perhaps the most convenient that Minos could impose; Attica maintaining few cattle, and those being less easily transported. The burden however could not but cause much uneasiness among the Athenians; so that the return of the Cretan ship at the usual time to demand the tribute excited fresh and loud murmurs against the government of Ægeus. Theseus took an extraordinary step, but perfectly suited to the heroic character which he affected, for appeasing the popular discontent. The tributary youths and virgins had been hitherto drawn by lot from the body of the people; who might however apparently send slaves, if they had or could procure them, instead of persons of their own family. But Theseus offered himself. Report went that those unfortunate victims were thrown into the famous labyrinth built by Dædalus, and there devoured by the Minotaur, a monster, half-man and half-bull. This fable was probably no invention of the poets who embellished it in more polished ages: it may have been devised at the time, and even have found credit among a people of an imagination so lively, and a judgment so uninformed, as were then the Athenians. The offer of Theseus therefore, really magnanimous, appeared an unparalleled effort of patriotic heroism.

Ancient writers, who have endeavoured to investigate truth among the intricacies of fabulous tradition, tell us that the labyrinth was a fortress where prisoners were usually kept, and that a Cretan general, its governor, named Taurus, which in Greek signifies a bull, gave rise to the fiction of the Minotaur. The better testimony from antiquity however asserts that Theseus was received by Minos more agreeably to the character of a great and generous prince than of a tyrant who gave his captives to be devoured by monsters. But during this, the flourishing age of Crete, letters were, if at all known, little used in Greece. In after-times, when the Athenians bore the sway in literature, their tragedians, flattering vulgar prejudices, exhibited Minos in odious colours; and through the popularity of their ingenious works their calumnious misrepresentations, as Plutarch has observed, overbore the eulogies of the elder poets, even of Hesiod and Homer. Thus the particulars of the adventures of Theseus in Crete, and of his return to Athens, have been so disguised that even to guess at the truth is difficult. For these early ages Homer is our best guide; but he has mixed mythology with his short notice of the adventure of Theseus in Crete.

A rational interpretation nevertheless is obvious. Minos, surprised probably at the arrival of the Athenian prince among the tributary slaves, received him honourably, became partial to his merit, and after some experience of it gave him his daughter Ariadne in marriage. In the voyage toward Athens the princess being taken with sudden sickness was landed in the island of Naxos, where Bacchus was esteemed the tutelary deity; and she died there. If we add the supposition that Theseus, eager to communicate the news of his extraordinary success, or urged by public duty, proceeded on his voyage while the princess was yet living, no further foundation would be wanting for the fables which have made these names so familiar. Theseus however, according to what with most certainty may be gathered from Athenian tradition, freed his country from further payment of the ignominious and cruel tribute.

This achievement, by whatsoever means effected, was so bold in the undertaking, so complete in the success, so important and so interesting in the consequences, that it deservedly raised Theseus to the highest popularity among the Athenians. Sacrifices and processions were instituted in honour of it, and were continued while the Pagan religion had existence in Athens. The vessel in which he made his voyage was yearly sent in solemn pomp to the sacred island of Delos, where rites of thanksgiving were performed to Apollo. Through the extreme veneration in which it was held, it was so anxiously preserved that in Plato’s time it was said to be still the same vessel; though at length its frequent repairs gave occasion to the dispute, which became famous among the sophists, whether it was or was not still the same. On his father’s death the common voice supported his claim to the succession, and he showed himself not less capable of improving the state by his wisdom than of defending it by his valour.

The twelve districts into which Cecrops had divided Attica were become so many nearly independent commonwealths, with scarcely any bond of union but their acknowledgment of one chief, whose authority was not always sufficient to keep them from mutual hostilities. The inconveniences of such a constitution were great and obvious, but the remedy full of difficulty. Theseus, however, undertook it; and effected that change which laid the foundation of the following glory of Athens, while it ranks him among the most illustrious patriots that adorn the annals of mankind. Going through every district, with that judicial authority which in the early state of all monarchical governments has been attached to the kingly office, and with those powers of persuasion which he is said largely to have possessed, he put an end to civil contest. He proposed then the abolition of all the independent magistracies, councils, and courts of justice, and the substitution of one common council of legislation, and one common system of judicature. The lower people readily acceded to his measures. The rich and powerful, who shared among them the independent magistracies, were more inclined to opposition. To satisfy these, therefore, he offered, with a disinterestedness of which history affords few examples, to give up much of his own power; and, appropriating to himself only the cares and dangers of royalty, to share with his people authority, honour, wealth, all that is commonly most valued in it. Few were inclined to resist so equitable and generous a proposal: the most selfish and most obstinate dared not. Theseus therefore proceeded quietly to new-model the commonwealth.[10]

The dissolution of all the independent councils and jurisdictions in the several towns and districts, and the removal of all the more important civil business to Athens, was his first measure. He wisely judged that the civil union, so happily effected, would be incomplete, or at least unstable, if he did not cement it by union in religion. He avoided however to shock rooted prejudices by any abolition of established religious ceremonies. Leaving those peculiar to each district as they stood, he instituted, or improved and laid open for all in common, one feast and sacrifice, in honour of the goddess Athene, or Minerva, for all inhabitants of Attica. This feast he called Panathenæa, the feast of all the Athenians or people of Minerva; and thenceforward apparently all the inhabitants of Attica, esteeming themselves unitedly under the particular protection of that goddess, uniformly distinguished themselves by a name formed from hers; for they were before variously called from their race, Ionians; from their country, Atticans; or from their princes, Cranaans, Cecropians, or Erechtidæ. To this scheme of union, conceived with a depth of judgment, and executed with a moderation of temper, rarely found in that age, the Athenians may well be said to owe all their after greatness. Otherwise Attica, like Bœotia and other provinces, whose circumstances will come hereafter under notice, would probably have contained several little republics, united only in name; each too weak to preserve dignity, or even to secure independency to its separate government; and possessing nothing so much in common as occasions for perpetual disagreement.

A share in the legislature, extended to all, insured civil freedom to all; and no distinction prevailed, as in other Grecian provinces, between the people of the capital and those of the inferior towns; but all were united under the Athenian name in the enjoyment of every privilege of Athenian citizens. When his improvements were completed, Theseus, according to the policy which became usual for giving authority to great innovations and all uncommon undertakings, is said to have procured a declaration of divine approbation from the prophetical shrine of Delphi.

Thus the province of Attica, containing a triangular tract of land with two sides about fifty miles long, and the third forty, was moulded into a well-united and well-regulated commonwealth, whose chief magistrate was yet hereditary, and retained the title of king. In consequence of so improved a state of things, the Athenians began the first of all the Greeks to acquire more civilised manners. Thucydides remarks that they were the first who dropped the practice, formerly general among the Greeks, of going constantly armed; and who introduced a civil dress in contradistinction to the military. This particularity, if not introduced by Theseus, appears to have been not less early, since it struck Homer, who marks the Athenians by the appellation of long-robed Ionians. If we may credit Plutarch, Theseus coined money; which was certainly rare in Greece two centuries after.

The rest of the history of Theseus affords little worthy of notice. It is composed of a number of the wildest adventures, many of them consistent enough with the character of the times, but very little so with what is related of the former part of his life. It seems indeed as if historians had inverted the order of things; giving to his riper years the extravagance of youth, after having attributed to his earliest manhood what the maturest age seldom has equalled. Whether this should be attributed altogether, or in any part, to the fancy which afterward prevailed among philosophical writers to mix mythology with history, will be rather for the dissertator than the historian to inquire. Theseus however, it may be proper to observe, is said to have lost in the end all favour and all authority among the Athenians; and though his institutions remained in vigour, to have died in exile. After him, Menestheus, a person of the royal family, acquired the sovereignty, and commanded the Athenian troops in the Trojan War.[d]

According to some historians, Theseus, however explained, deserves no credit for the Athenian union, since at the time this union took place, Theseus was not even a national hero but only a local and minor god worshipped about Marathon.

RISE OF POPULAR LIBERTY

We may perhaps safely conclude from analogy, that, even while the power of the nobles was most absolute, a popular assembly was not unknown at Athens; and the example of Sparta may suggest a notion of the limitations which might prevent it from endangering the privileges of the ruling body. So long as the latter reserved to itself the office of making, or declaring, of interpreting, and administering the laws, as well as the ordinary functions of government, it might securely entrust many subjects to the decision of the popular voice. Its first contests were waged, not with the people, but with the kings.

Even in the reign of Theseus himself the legend exhibits the royal power as on the decline. Menestheus, a descendant of the ancient kings, is said to have engaged his brother nobles in a conspiracy against Theseus, which finally compelled him and his family to go into exile, and placed Menestheus on the throne. After the death of this usurper indeed the crown is restored to the line of Theseus for some generations. But his descendant Thymœtes is compelled to abdicate in favour of Melanthus, a stranger, who has no claim but his superior merit. After the death of Codrus, the nobles, taking advantage perhaps of the opportunity afforded by the dispute between his sons, are said to have abolished the title of king, and to have substituted for it that of archon. This change however seems to have been important, rather as it indicated the new, precarious tenure by which the royal power was held, than as it immediately affected the nature of the office. It was indeed still held for life; and Medon, the son of Codrus, transmitted it to his posterity, though it would appear that, within the house of the Medontids, the succession was determined by the choice of the nobles. It is added however, that the archon was deemed a responsible magistrate, which implies that those who elected had the power of deposing him; and consequently, though the range of his functions may not have been narrower than that of the king’s, he was more subject to control in the exercise of them. This indirect kind of sway, however, did not satisfy the more ambitious spirits; and we find them steadily, though gradually, advancing towards the accomplishment of their final object--a complete and equal participation of the sovereignty.

After twelve reigns, ending with that of Alcmæon,[11] the duration of the office was limited to ten years; and through the guilt or calamity of Hippomenes, the fourth decennial archon,[12] the house of Medon was deprived of its privilege, and the supreme magistracy was thrown open to the whole body of the nobles. This change was speedily followed by one much more important. When Tlesias, the successor of Eryxias, had completed the term which his predecessor had left unfinished, the duration of the archonship was again reduced to a single year; and at the same time its branches were severed, and distributed among nine new magistrates.

Among these, the first in rank retained the distinguishing title of The Archon, and the year was marked by his name. He represented the majesty of the state, and exercised a peculiar jurisdiction--that which had belonged to the king as the common parent of his people, the protector of families, the guardian of orphans and heiresses, and of the general rights of inheritance. For the second archon the title of king, if it had been laid aside, was revived, as the functions assigned to him were those most associated with ancient recollections. He represented the king as the high priest of his people; he regulated the celebration of the mysteries and the most solemn festivals; decided all causes which affected the interests of religion, and was charged with the care of protecting the state from the pollution it might incur through the heedlessness or impiety of individuals. The third archon bore the title of polemarch, and filled the place of the king, as the leader of his people in war, and the guardian who watched over its security in time of peace. Connected with this character of his office was the jurisdiction he possessed over strangers who had settled in Attica under the protection of the state, and over freedmen. The remaining six archons received the common title of thesmothetes, which literally signifies legislators, and was probably applied to them, as the judges who determined the great variety of causes which did not fall under the cognisance of their colleagues; because, in the absence of a written code, those who declare and interpret the laws may be properly said to make them.

These successive encroachments on the royal prerogatives, and the final triumph of the nobles, are almost the only events that fill the meagre annals of Attica for several centuries. Here, as elsewhere, a wonderful stillness suddenly follows the varied stir of enterprise and adventure, and the throng of interesting characters, that present themselves to our view in the heroic age. Life seems no longer to offer anything for poetry to celebrate, or for history to record. Are we to consider this long period of apparent tranquillity, as one of public happiness, of pure and simple manners, of general harmony and content, which has only been rendered obscure by the absence of the crimes and the calamities which usually leave the deepest traces in the page of history? We should willingly believe this, if it were not that, so far as the veil is withdrawn which conceals the occurrences of this period from our sight, it affords us glimpses of a very different state of things. In the list of the magistrates who held the undivided sovereignty of the state, the only name with which any events are connected is that of Hippomenes, the last archon of the line of Codrus. It was made memorable by the shame of his daughter, and by the extraordinary punishment which he inflicted on her and her paramour. Tradition long continued to point out as accursed ground the place where she was shut up to perish from hunger, or from the fury of a wild horse, the companion of her confinement. The nobles, glad perhaps to seize an opportunity so favourable to their views, deposed Hippomenes, and razed his house to the ground.

This story would seem indeed to indicate the austerity, as well as the hardness, of the ancient manners: but on the other hand we are informed, that the father had been urged to this excess of rigour by the reproach that had fallen upon his family from the effeminacy and dissoluteness of its members. Without however drawing any inference from this isolated story, we may proceed to observe, that the accounts transmitted to us of the legislation of Draco, the next epoch when a gleam of light breaks through the obscurity of the Attic history, do not lead us to suppose that the people had enjoyed any extraordinary measure of happiness under the aristocratical government, or that their manners were peculiarly innocent and mild.

DRACO, THE LAWGIVER

[Sidenote: [ca. 650-600 B.C.]]

The immediate occasion which led to Draco’s legislation is not recorded, and even the motives which induced him to impress it with that character of severity to which it owes its chief celebrity, are not clearly ascertained. We know however that he was the author of the first written laws of Athens: and as this measure tended to limit the authority of the nobles, to which a customary law, of which they were the sole expounders, opposed a much feebler check, we may reasonably conclude that the innovation did not proceed from their wish, but was extorted from them by the growing discontent of the people. On the other hand, Draco undoubtedly framed his code as much as possible in conformity to the spirit and the interests of the ruling class, to which he himself belonged; and hence we may fairly infer that the extreme rigour of its penal enactments was designed to overawe and repress the popular movement which had produced it.

Aristotle observes that Draco made no change in the constitution; and that there was nothing remarkable in his laws, except the severity of the penalties by which they were enforced. It must however be remembered that the substitution of law for custom, of a written code for a fluctuating and flexible tradition, was itself a step of great importance; and we also learn that he introduced some changes in the administration of criminal justice, by transferring causes of murder, or of accidental homicide, from the cognisance of the archons to the magistrates called ephetes; though it was not clear whether he instituted, or only modified or enlarged, their jurisdiction. Demades was thought to have described the character of his laws very happily, when he said that they were written not in ink, but in blood. He himself is reported to have justified their severity, by observing that the least offences deserved death, and that he could devise no greater punishment for the worst. This sounds like the language of a man who proceeded on higher grounds than those of expediency, and who felt himself bound by his own convictions to disregard the opinions of his contemporaries. Yet it is difficult to believe, that Draco can have been led by any principles of abstract justice, to confound all gradations of guilt, or, as has been conjectured with somewhat greater probability, that, viewing them under a religious rather than a political aspect, he conceived that in every case alike they drew down the anger of the gods, which could only be appeased by the blood of the criminal.

It seems much easier to understand how the ruling class, which adopted his enactments, might imagine that such a code was likely to be a convenient instrument in their hands, for striking terror into their subjects, and stifling the rising spirit of discontent, which their cupidity and oppression had provoked. We are however unable to form a well-grounded judgment on the degree in which equity may have been violated by his indiscriminate vigour; for though we read that he enacted the same capital punishment for petty thefts as for sacrilege and murder, still as there were some offences for which he provided a milder sentence, he must have framed a kind of scale, the wisdom and justice of which we have no means of estimating.

[Sidenote: [ca. 630 B.C.]]

The danger which threatened the nobles at length showed itself from a side on which they probably deemed themselves most secure. Twelve years after Draco’s legislation, a conspiracy was formed by one of their own number for overthrowing the government. Cylon, the author of this plot, was eminent both in birth and riches. His reputation, and still more his confidence in his own fortune, had been greatly raised by a victory at the Olympic games; and he had further increased the lustre and influence of his family by an alliance with Theagenes, the tyrant of Megara, whose daughter he married. This extraordinary prosperity elated his presumption, and inflamed his ambition with hopes of a greatness, which could only be attained by a dangerous enterprise. He conceived the design of becoming master of Athens. He could reckon on the cordial assistance of his father-in-law, who, independently of their affinity, was deeply interested in establishing at Athens a form of government similar to that which he himself had founded at Megara; and he had also, by his personal influence, insured the support of numerous friends and adherents. Yet it is probable that he would not have relied on these resources, and that his scheme would never have suggested itself to his mind, if the general disaffection of the people toward their rulers, the impatience produced by the evils for which Draco had provided so inadequate a remedy, and by the irritating nature of the remedy itself, and the ordinary signs of an approaching change, the need of which began to be universally felt, had not appeared to favour his aims.

At this period scarcely any great enterprise was undertaken in Greece without the sanction of an oracle; yet we cannot but feel some surprise, when we are informed by Thucydides, that Cylon consulted the Delphic god on the means by which he might overthrow the government of his country, and still more at the answer he is said to have received: that he must seize the citadel of Athens during the principal festival of Zeus. Cylon naturally interpreted the oracle to mean the Olympic games, the scene of his glory; and Thucydides thinks it worth observing, that the great Attic festival in honour of the same god occurred at a different season. At the time however which appeared to be prescribed by his infallible counsellor, Cylon proceeded to carry his plan into effect. With the aid of a body of troops furnished by Theagenes, and of his partisans, he made himself master of the citadel. Cylon and his friends soon found themselves besieged by the forces which the government called in from all parts of the country. When the provisions were all spent, and some had died of hunger, the remainder abandoned the defence of the walls, and took refuge in the temple of Athene.

The archon Megacles and his colleagues, seeing them reduced to the last extremity of weakness, began to be alarmed lest the sanctuary should be profaned by their death. To avoid this danger, they induced them to surrender on condition that their lives should be spared. Thucydides simply relates that the archons broke their promise, and put their prisoners to death when they had quitted their asylum, and that some were even killed at the altars of the “dread goddesses,” as the Eumenides, or Furies, were called, to which they had fled in the tumult. Plutarch adds a feature to the story, which seems too characteristic of the age to be considered as a later invention. More effectually to insure their safety, the suppliants, before they descended from the citadel, fastened a line to the statue of Minerva, and held it in their hands, as they passed through the midst of their enemies. But the line chancing to break as they were passing by the sanctuary of the Eumenides, Megacles, with the approbation of his colleagues, declared that they were no longer under the safeguard of the goddess, who had thus visibly rejected their supplication, and immediately proceeded to arrest them. His words were the signal of a general massacre, from which even the awful sanctity of the neighbouring altars did not screen the fugitives: none escaped but those who found means of imploring female compassion.

If the conduct of the principal actors in this bloody scene had been marked only by treachery and cruelty, it would never have exposed them to punishment, perhaps not even to reproach. But they had been guilty of a flagrant violation of religion; and Megacles and his whole house were viewed with horror, as men polluted with the stain of sacrilege. All public disasters and calamities were henceforth construed into signs of the divine displeasure: and the surviving partisans of Cylon did not fail to urge that the gods would never be appeased until vengeance should have been taken on the offenders. Yet if this had been the only question which agitated the public mind, it might have been hushed without producing any important consequences. But it was only one ingredient in the ferment which the conflict of parties, the grievances of the many, and the ambition of the few, now carried to a height that called for some extraordinary remedy. Hence Cylon’s conspiracy and its issue exercised an influence on the history of Athens, which has rendered it forever memorable, as the event which led the way to the legislation of Solon.[e]

FOOTNOTES

[9] [According to some, the name Erechtheus was imported into “history” from the legend of the contest between Minerva (Athena) and Neptune (Poseidon Erechtheus) for the Acropolis. Erechtheus, though defeated, was permitted to remain; later he was thought of as a hero, and finally given a place along with Cecrops (the imaginary ancestor of the Cecropes) in the list of kings.]

[10] Payne Knight has supposed Theseus a merely fabulous personage, because he is not mentioned in any passage of Homer’s poems, excepting one which he has reckoned not genuine. It seems bold to oppose such negative testimony to the positive of Thucydides and Cicero.

[11] The successors of Medon were Acastus, Archippus, Thersippus, Phorbas, Megacles, Diognetus, Pherecles, Ariphron, Thespieus, Agamestor, Æschylus, Alcmæon (Ol. VII, 1. B.C. 752).

[12] His predecessors were Charops, Æsimedes, Clidicus; he was succeeded by Leocrates, Apsander, and Eryxias. Creon, the first annual archon, enters upon his office B.C. 684.

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IX. SOME CHARACTERISTIC INSTITUTIONS

Perpetual warfare, pushed to the last extremity of hostile rage, would in no long time have consumed or ruined the little tribes whose territories occupied only a few adjacent valleys, always open to invasion: the necessity of mutual forbearance for general safety would naturally suggest the prudence of entering into friendly associations, without any ulterior views, either of aggrandisement, or of protection against a common enemy. Such an association, formed among independent neighbouring tribes for the regulation of their mutual intercourse, and thus distinguished on the one hand from confederations for purposes offensive or defensive, and on the other, from the continued friendly relations subsisting among independent members of the same race, is the one properly described by the Greek term amphictyony.

This Greek word, which we shall be obliged to borrow, has been supposed by some ancient and modern writers to have been derived from the name of Amphictyon, the son of Deucalion, who is said to have founded the most celebrated of the Amphictyonic associations, that which is always to be understood under the title of the Amphictyonic Confederacy. There can, however, be scarcely any reasonable doubt that this Amphictyon is a merely fictitious person, invented to account for the institution attributed to him, the author of which, if it was the work of any individual, was probably no better known than those of the other amphictyonies, which did not happen to become so famous.

The term “amphictyony,” which has probably been adapted to the legend, and would be more properly written “amphictiony,” denotes a body referred to a local centre of union, and in itself does not imply any national affinity: and, in fact, the associations bearing this name include several tribes, which were but very remotely connected together by descent. But the local centre of union appears to have been always a religious one--a common sanctuary, the scene of periodical meetings for the celebration of a common worship. It is probable that many amphictyonies once existed in Greece, all trace of which has been lost: and even with regard to those which happen to have been rescued from total oblivion, our information is for the most part extremely defective.

Of all such institutions the most celebrated and important was the one known, without any other local distinction, as the Amphictyonic League or council. This last appellation refers to the fact that the affairs of the whole Amphictyonic body were transacted by a congress, composed of deputies sent by the several states according to rules established from time immemorial. One peculiar feature of this congress was, that its meetings were held at two different places. There were two regularly convened every year; one in the spring, at Delphi, the other in the autumn, near the little town of Anthela, within the pass of Thermopylæ, at a temple of Demeter.

The confederate tribes are variously enumerated by different authors. A comparison of their lists enables us to ascertain the greater part of the names, and to form a probable conjecture as to the rest; but it also leads us to conclude that some changes took place at a remote period in the constitution of the council, as to which tradition is silent. The most authentic list of the Amphictyonic tribes contains the following names: Thessalians, Bœotians, Dorians, Ionians, Perrhæbians, Magnetes, Locrians, Œtæans or Enianians, Phthiots or Achæans of Phthia, Malians or Melians, and Phocians. The orator Æschines, who furnishes this list, shows, by mentioning the number twelve, that one name is wanting. The other lists supply two names to fill up the vacant place; the Dolopes, and the Delphians. It seems not improbable that the former were finally supplanted by the Delphians, who appear to have been a distinct race from the Phocians.

The mere inspection of this list is sufficient to prove at once the high antiquity of the institution and the imperfection of our knowledge with regard to its early history. It is clear that the Dorians must have become members of the Amphictyonic body before the conquest, which divided them into several states, each incomparably more powerful than most of the petty northern tribes, which possessed an equal number of votes in the council. It may however be doubted, whether they were among the original members, and did not rather take the place of one of the tribes which they had dislodged from their seats in the neighbourhood of Delphi, perhaps the Dryopes.

On the other hand the Thessalians were probably not received into the league, before they made their appearance in Thessaly, which is commonly believed to have taken place only twenty years before the Dorian invasion of the Peloponnesus. It is therefore highly probable that they were admitted in the room of some other tribe, which had lost its independence through the convulsions of this eventful period.

The constitution of the council rested on the supposition, once perhaps not very inconsistent with the fact, of a perfect equality among the tribes represented by it. Each tribe, however feeble, had two votes in the deliberation of the congress: none, however powerful, had more. The order in which the right of sending representatives to the council was exercised by the various states included in one Amphictyonic tribe was perhaps regulated by private agreement; but, unless one state usurped the whole right of its tribe, it is manifest that a petty tribe, which formed but one community, had greatly the advantage over Sparta, or Argos, which could only be represented in their turn, the more rarely in proportion to the magnitude of the tribe to which they belonged. Besides the council which held its sessions either in the temple, or in some adjacent building, there was an Amphictyonic assembly, which met in the open air, and was composed of persons residing in the place where the congress was held, and of the numerous strangers who were drawn to it by curiosity, business, or devotion.

It is evident that a constitution such as we have described could not have been suffered to last, if it had been supposed that any important political interests depended on the decision of the council. But, in fact, it was not commonly viewed as a national congress for such purposes; its ordinary functions were chiefly, if not altogether, connected with religion, and it was only by accident that it was ever made subservient to political ends. The original objects, or at least the essential character, of the institution, seem to be faithfully expressed in the terms of the oath, preserved by Æschines, which bound the members of the league to refrain from utterly destroying any Amphictyonic city, and from cutting off its supply of water, even in war, and to defend the sanctuary and the treasures of the Delphic god from sacrilege. In this ancient and half-symbolical form we perceive two main functions assigned to the council; to guard the temple, and to restrain the violence of hostility among Amphictyonic states. There is no intimation of any confederacy against foreign enemies, except for the protection of the temple; nor of any right of interposing between members of the league, unless where one threatens the existence of another.

A review of the history of the council shows that it was almost powerless for good, except perhaps as a passive instrument, and that it was only active for purposes which were either unimportant or pernicious. In the great national struggles it lent no strength to the common cause; but it now and then threw a shade of sanctity over plans of ambition or revenge. It sometimes assumed a jurisdiction uncertain in its limits, over its members; but it seldom had the power of executing its sentences, and commonly committed them to the party most interested in exacting the penalty. Thus it punished the Dolopes of Scyros for piracy, by the hands of the Athenians, who coveted their island. But its most legitimate sphere of action lay in cases where the honour and safety of the Delphic sanctuary were concerned; and in these it might safely reckon on general co-operation from all the Greeks. Thus it could act with dignity and energy in a case where a procession, passing through the territory of Megara towards Delphi, was insulted by some Megarians, and could not obtain redress from the government; the Amphictyonic tribunal punished the offenders with death or banishment.

[Sidenote: [590 B.C.]]

A much more celebrated and important instance of a similar intervention, was that which gave occasion to the war above alluded to, which is commonly called the Crissæan, or the First Sacred War. Crissa appears to be the same town which is sometimes named Cirrha. Situate on that part of the Corinthian Gulf which was called from it the Gulf of Crissa, it commanded a harbour, much frequented by pilgrims from the West, who came to Delphi by sea, and was also mistress of a fruitful tract, called the Cirrhæan Plain. It is possible that there may have been real ground for the charge which was brought against the Crissæans, of extortion and violence used towards the strangers who landed at their port, or passed through their territory: one ancient author, who however wrote nearly three centuries later, assigned as the immediate occasion of the war an outrage committed on some female pilgrims as they were returning from the oracle. It is however at least equally probable, that their neighbours of Delphi had long cast a jealous and a wishful eye on the customs by which Crissa was enriched, and considered all that was there exacted from the pilgrims as taken from the Delphic god, who might otherwise have received it as an offering.

A complaint, however founded, was in the end preferred against Crissa before the Amphictyons, who decreed a war against the refractory city. They called in the aid of the Thessalians, who sent a body of forces under Eurylochus; and their cause was also actively espoused by Clisthenes, tyrant of Sicyon: and, according to the Athenian tradition, Solon assisted them with important advice. They consulted the offended god, who enjoined, as the condition of success in the war, that they should cause the sea to beat upon his domain. In compliance with this oracle, at the suggestion of Solon, they vowed to dedicate the Crissæans and their territory to the god, by enslaving them, and making their land a waste forever. If the prospect of such signal vengeance animated the assailants, the besieged were no doubt goaded to a more obstinate defence by the threat of extermination. The war is said to have lasted ten years, and at length to have been brought to a close by a stratagem, which we could wish not to have found imputed to Solon. He is reported to have poisoned the waters of the Plistus, from which the city was supplied, and thus to have reduced the garrison to a state in which they were easily overpowered. When the town had fallen, the vow of the conquerors was literally fulfilled. Crissa was razed to the ground, its harbour choked up, its fruitful plain turned into a wilderness. This triumph was commemorated by the institution of gymnastic games, called the Pythian, in the room of a more ancient and simple festival. The Amphictyons, who celebrated the new games with the spoils of Crissa, were appointed perpetual presidents.

THE ORACLE AT DELPHI

[Sidenote: [589-585 B.C.]]

As the Delphic oracle was the object to which the principal duties of the Amphictyons related, it might have been imagined to have been under their control, and thus to have afforded them an engine by which they might, at least secretly, exert a very powerful influence over the affairs of Greece. But though this engine was not unfrequently wielded for political purposes, it appears not to have been under the management of the council, but of the leading citizens of Delphi, who had opportunity of constant and more efficacious access to the persons employed in revealing the supposed will of the god. In early times the oracle was often consulted, not merely for the sake of learning the unknown future, but for advice and direction, which, as it was implicitly followed, really determined the destiny of those who received it. The power conferred by such an instrument was unbounded; and it appears, on the whole, not to have been ill applied: but the honour of its beneficial effects must be ascribed almost entirely to the wisdom and patriotism of the ruling Delphians or of the foreigners who concerted with them in the use of the sacred machinery. But the authority of the oracle itself was gradually weakened, partly by the progress of new opinions, and partly by the abuse which was too frequently made of it. The organ of the prophetic god was a woman, of an age more open to bribery than to any other kind of seduction;[13] and, even before the Persian wars, several instances occurred in which she had notoriously sold her answers. The credulity of individuals might notwithstanding be little shaken: but a few such disclosures would be sufficient to deprive the oracle of the greater part of its political influence.

NATIONAL FESTIVALS

The character of a national institution, which the Amphictyonic council affected, but never really acquired, more truly belonged to the public festivals, which, though celebrated within certain districts, were not peculiar to any tribe, but were open to all who could prove their Hellenic blood.[b]

From very early times, it had been customary among the Greeks to hold numerous meetings for purposes of festivity and social amusement. A foot-race, a wrestling match, or some other rude trial of bodily strength and activity, formed originally the principal entertainment, which seems to have been very similar in character to our country wakes. The almost ceaseless warfare among the little Grecian states gave especial value to military exercises, which were accordingly ordinary in those games. The connection of these games with the warlike character may have occasioned their introduction at funerals in honour of the dead; a custom which, we learn from Homer, was in his time ancient. But all the violence of the early ages was unable to repress that elegance of imagination which seems congenial to Greece. Very anciently a contention for a prize in poetry and music was a favourite entertainment of the Grecian people; and when connected, as it often was, with some ceremony of religion, drew together large assemblies of both sexes. A festival of this kind in the little island of Delos, at which Homer assisted, brought a numerous concourse from different parts by sea: and Hesiod informs us of a splendid meeting for the celebration of various games at Chalcis in Eubœa, where himself obtained the prize for poetry and song. The contest in music and poetry seems early to have been particularly connected with the worship of Apollo. When this was carried from the islands of the Ægean to Delphi, a prize for poetry was instituted; and thence appear to have arisen the Pythian games. But Homer shows that games, in which athletic exercises and music and dancing were alternately introduced, made a common amusement of the courts of princes; and before his time the manner of conducting them was so far reduced to a system that public judges of the games were of the established magistracy. Thus improved, the games greatly resembled the tilts and tournaments of the ages of chivalry. Only men of high rank presumed to engage in them; but a large concourse of all orders attended as spectators; and to keep regularity among these was perhaps the most necessary office of the judges. But the most solemn meetings, drawing together people of distinguished rank and character, often from distant parts, were at the funerals of eminent men. The paramount sovereigns of the Peloponnesus did not disdain to attend these, which were celebrated with every circumstance of magnificence and splendour that the age could afford. The funeral of Patroclus, described in the Iliad, may be considered as an example of what the poet could imagine in its kind most complete. The games, in which prizes were there contended for, were the chariot-race, the foot-race, boxing, wrestling, throwing the quoit and the javelin, shooting with the bow, and fencing with the spear. And in times when none could be rich or powerful but the strong and active, the expert at martial exercises, all those trials of skill appear to have been esteemed equally becoming men of the highest rank; though it may seem, from the prizes offered and the persons contending at the funeral of Patroclus, the poet himself saw, in the game of the cestus, some incongruity with exalted characters.

[Sidenote: [ca. 884 B.C.]]

Traditions are preserved of games celebrated in Elis, upon several great occasions, in very early times, with more than ordinary pomp, by assemblies of chiefs from different parts of Greece. Homer mentions such at Elis under King Augeas, contemporary with Hercules, and grandfather of one of the chiefs who commanded the Elean troops in the Trojan War; and again at Buprasium in Elis, for the funeral of Amarynceus, while Nestor was yet in the vigour of youth. But it does not at all appear from Homer that in his time, or ever before him, any periodical festival was established like that which afterward became so famous under the title of the Olympiad or the Olympian contest, or, as our writers, translating the Latin phrase, have commonly termed it, the Olympian Games. On the contrary, every mention of such games, in his extant works, shows them to have been only occasional solemnities; and Strabo has remarked that they were distinguished by a characteristical difference from the Olympian. In these the honour derived from receiving publicly a crown or chaplet, formed of a branch of oleaster, was the only reward of the victor; but in Homer’s games the prizes, not merely honorary, were intrinsically valuable, and the value was often very considerable.

After Homer’s age, through the long troubles ensuing from the Dorian conquest, and the great change made in the population of the country, the customs and institutions of the Peloponnesians were so altered that even memory of the ancient games was nearly lost.

THE OLYMPIAN GAMES

In this season of turbulence and returning barbarism, Iphitus, a descendant, probably grandson, of Oxylus (though so deficient were the means of transmitting information to posterity that we have no assurance even of his father’s name), succeeded to the throne of Elis. This prince was of a genius that might have produced a more brilliant character in a more enlightened age, but which was perhaps more beneficial to mankind in the rough times in which he lived. Active and enterprising, but not by inclination a warrior, he was anxious to find a remedy for the disorderly situation of his country. He sent a solemn embassy to Delphi to supplicate information from the deity of the place, “How the anger of the gods, which threatened total destruction to the Peloponnesus through endless hostilities among its people, might be averted.” He received for answer, what himself, as a judicious critic has observed, had probably suggested, “That the Olympic festival must be restored; for the neglect of that solemnity had brought on the Greeks the indignation of the god Jupiter, to whom it was dedicated, and of the hero Hercules, by whom it had been instituted: and that a cessation of arms must therefore immediately be proclaimed for all cities desirous of partaking in it.” This response of the god was promulgated throughout Greece; and Iphitus, in obedience to it, caused the armistice to be proclaimed. But the other Peloponnesians, full of respect for the authority of the oracle, yet uneasy at the ascendancy thus assumed by the Eleans, sent a common deputation to Delphi, to inquire concerning the authenticity of the divine mandate reported to them. The Pythoness however, seldom averse to authorise the schemes of kings and legislators, adhered to her former answer and commanded the Peloponnesians “to submit to the direction and authority of the Eleans, in ordering and establishing the ancient laws and customs of their forefathers.”

Supported thus by the oracle, and encouraged by the ready acquiescence of all the Peloponnesians, Iphitus proceeded to model his institution. Jupiter, the chief of the gods, being now the acknowledged patron of the plan, and the prince himself, under Apollo, the promulgator of his will, it was ordained that a festival should be held at the temple of Jupiter at Olympia, near the town of Pisa in Elis, open to the whole Greek nation; and that it should be repeated at the termination of every fourth year: that this festival should consist in solemn sacrifices to Jupiter and Hercules, and in games celebrated to their honour; and as wars might often prevent not only individuals, but whole states, from partaking in the benefits with which the gods would reward those who properly shared in the solemnity, it was ordained under the same authority, that an armistice should take place throughout Greece for some time before the commencement of the festival, and continue for some time after its conclusion. For his own people, the Eleans, Iphitus procured an advantage never perhaps enjoyed in equal extent by any other people. A tradition was current that the Heraclidæ, on appointing Oxylus at the same time to the throne of Elis and to the guardianship of the temple of Olympian Jupiter, had consecrated all Elis to the god under sanction of an oath, and denounced the severest curses, not only on any who should invade it, but also on all who should not defend it against invaders. Iphitus procured universal acquiescence to the authority of this tradition; and the deference of the Grecian people towards it, during many ages, is not among the least remarkable circumstances of Grecian history. A reputation of sacredness became attached to the whole Elean people as the hereditary priesthood of Jupiter, and a pointed difference in character and pursuits arose between them and the other Greeks. Little disposed to ambition, and regardless even of the pleasures of a town-life, their general turn was to rural business and rural amusements. Elsewhere the country was left to hinds and herdsmen, who were mostly slaves; men of property, for security as well as for pursuits of ambition and pleasure, resided in fortified towns. But the towns of Elis, Elis itself the capital, remained unfortified. In republican governments however civil contention would arise. Within a narrow territory the implication of domestic party-politics with foreign interests could not be entirely obviated; and thus foreign wars would ensue. But to the time of Polybius, who saw the liberty of Greece expire, the Eleans maintained their general character, and in a great degree their ancient privileges; whence they were then the wealthiest people of the Peloponnesus, and yet the richest of them mostly resided upon their estates, and many, as that historian avers, without ever visiting Elis.

Character of the Games

At the Olympian festival, as established by Iphitus, the foot-race, distinguished by the name of stadion, is said to have been the only game exhibited; whether the various other exercises familiar in Homer’s age had fallen into oblivion, or the barbarism and poverty, superinduced by the violent and lasting troubles which followed the return of the Heraclidæ, forbade those of greater splendour.

Afterwards, as the growing importance of the meeting occasioned inquiry concerning what had been practised of old, or excited invention concerning what might be advantageously added new, the games were multiplied. The diaulos, a more complicated foot-race, was added at the fourteenth Olympiad; wrestling, and the pentathlon or game of five exercises, at the eighteenth; boxing at the twenty-third; the chariot-race was not restored till the twenty-fifth, of course not till a hundred years after the institution of the festival; the pancration and the horse-race were added in the thirty-third.

So much Pausanias has asserted; apparently from the Olympian register, which on other occasions he has quoted. Originally the sacrifices, processions, and various religious ceremonies apparently formed the principal pageantry of the meeting. Afterwards perhaps the games became the greater inducement for the extraordinary resort of company to Olympia; though the religious ceremonies continued still to increase in magnificence as the festival gained importance. The temple, like that of Delphi, became an advantageous repository for treasure. A mart or fair was a natural consequence of a periodical assembly of multitudes in one place; and whatever required extensive publicity, whatever was important for all the scattered members of the Greek nation to know, would be most readily communicated, and most solemnly, by proclamation at the Olympian festival. Hence treaties by mutual agreement were often proclaimed at Olympia; and sometimes columns were erected there at the joint expense of the contracting parties, with the treaties engraved.

Thus the Olympian meeting to a not inconsiderable degree supplied the want of a common capital for the Greek nation; and, with a success far beyond what the worthy founder’s imagination, urged by his warmest wishes, could reach, contributed to the advancement of arts, particularly of the fine arts, of commerce, of science, of civilised manners, of liberal sentiments, and of friendly communication among all the Grecian people. Such was the common feeling of these various advantages, it became established as a divine law that, whatever wars were going forward among the republics, there should be a truce, not only during the festival, but also for some days before and after; so that persons from all parts of Greece might safely attend it.

The advantages and gratifications in which the whole nation thus became interested, and the particular benefits accruing to the Eleans, excited attempts to establish or improve other similar meetings in different parts of Greece. Three of these, the Delphian, Isthmian, and Nemean, though they never equalled the celebrity and splendour of the Olympian, acquired considerable fame and importance. Each was consecrated to a different deity. In the Delphic, next in consideration to the Olympic, Apollo was honoured; the Delphian people were esteemed his ministers; the Amphictyonic council were the allowed protectors and regulators of the institution. The Isthmian had its name from the Corinthian Isthmus, near the middle of which, overlooking the scene of the solemnity, stood a temple of the god Neptune, venerated by the Corinthian people, administrators of the ceremonies, as their patron.

At the Nemean, sacred to Juno, the Argives (who esteemed her the tutelary deity of their state) presided. All these meetings, like the Olympian, were, in war as in peace, open to all Grecian people; the faith of gods as well as of men being considered as plighted for protection of all, under certain rules, going to, staying at, and returning from them. All were also, like the Olympian, held at intervals of four years; so that, taking their years in turn, it was provided that in every summer, in the midst of the military season, there should be a respite of those hostilities among the republics which were otherwise so continually desolating Greece; and though this beneficial regulation was under some pretences occasionally overborne by powerful states, yet the sequel of history shows it to have been of very advantageous efficacy.[c]

MONARCHIES AND OLIGARCHIES

The enterprises of the heroic age, as we see from the example of the Trojan War itself, often led to the extinction, or expulsion, of a royal family, or of its principal members; and no principle appears to have been generally recognised which rendered it necessary, in such cases, to fill a vacant throne or to establish a new dynasty, while every such calamity inevitably weakened the authority of the kings, and made them more dependent on the nobles, who, as an order, were not affected by any disasters to individuals. But the great convulsions which attended the Thessalian, Bœotian, and Dorian migrations, contributed still more effectually to the same end. In most parts of Greece they destroyed or dislodged the line of the ancient kings, who, when they were able to seek new seats, left behind them the treasures and the strongholds which formed the main supports of their power: and, though the conquerors were generally accustomed to a kingly government, it must commonly have lost something of its vigour when transplanted to a new country, where it was subject to new conditions, and where the prince was constantly reminded, by new dangers, of the obligations which he owed to his companions in arms. Yet, even this must be considered rather as the occasion which led to the abolition of the heroic monarchy, than as the cause: that undoubtedly lay much deeper, and is to be sought in the character of the people--in that same energy and versatility which prevented it from ever stiffening, even in its infancy, in the mould of oriental institutions, and from stopping short, in any career which it had once opened, before it had passed through every stage.

It seems to have been seldom, if ever, that royalty was abolished by a sudden and violent revolution; the title often long survived the substance, and this was extinguished only by slow successive steps. These consisted in dividing it among several persons, in destroying its inheritable quality, and making it elective, first in one family, then in more; first for life, then for a certain term; in separating its functions, and distributing them into several hands. In the course of these changes it became more and more responsible to the nobles, and frequently, at a very early stage, the name itself was exchanged for one simply equivalent to ruler, or chief magistrate. The form of government which thus ensued might, with equal propriety, be termed either aristocracy or oligarchy, but, in the use of the terms to which these correspond, the Greek political writers made a distinction, which may at first sight appear more arbitrary than it really is. They taught--not a very recondite truth--that the three forms of government, that of one, that of a few, and that of the many, are all alike right and good, so long as they are rightly administered, with a view, that is, to the welfare of the state, and not to the interest of an individual or of a particular class. But, when any of the three loses sight of its legitimate object, it degenerates into a vicious species, which requires to be marked by a peculiar name. Thus a monarchy, in which selfish aims predominate becomes a tyranny. The government of a few, conducted on like principles, is properly called an oligarchy. But to constitute an aristocracy, it is not sufficient that the ruling few should be animated by a desire to promote the public good: they must also be distinguished by a certain character; for aristocracy signifies the rule of the best men.

More distinctly to understand the peculiar nature of the Greek oligarchies, it is necessary to consider the variety of circumstances under which they arose. By the migrations which took place in the century following the Trojan War, most parts of Greece were occupied by a new race of conquerors. Everywhere their first object was to secure a large portion of the conquered land; but the footing on which they placed themselves, with regard to the ancient inhabitants, was not everywhere the same; it varied according to the temper of the invaders, or of their chiefs, to their relative strength, means, and opportunities. In Sparta, and in most of the Dorian states, the invaders shunned all intermixture with the conquered, and deprived them, if not of personal freedom, of all political rights. But elsewhere, as in Elis, and probably in Bœotia, no such distinction appears to have been made; the old and the new people gradually melted into one.

An oligarchy, in the sense which we have assigned to the word, could only exist where there was an inferior body which felt itself aggrieved by being excluded from the political rights which were reserved to the privileged few. Such a feeling of discontent might be roused by the rapacity or insolence of the dominant order, as we shall find to have happened at Athens, and as was the case at Mytilene, where some members of the ruling house of the Penthilids went about with clubs, committing outrages like those which Nero practised for a short time in the streets of Rome. But, without any such provocation, disaffection might arise from the cause which we shall see producing a revolution at Corinth, where the aristocracy was originally established on a basis too narrow to be durable: as Aristotle relates of the Basilids at Erythræ, that, though they exercised their power well, they could not retain it, because the people would no longer endure that it should be lodged in so few hands. In general however it was a gradual, inevitable change in the relative position of the higher and lower orders, which converted the aristocracy into an oligarchical faction, and awakened an opposition which usually ended in its overthrow.

The precautions which were used by the ruling class, when it began to perceive its danger, were of various kinds, and it was more frequently found necessary to widen the oligarchy itself, by the admission of new families, and to change the principle of its constitution by substituting wealth for birth as the qualification of its members. The form of government in which the possession of a certain amount of property was the condition of all, or at least of the highest, political privileges, was sometimes called a timocracy, and its character varied according to the standard adopted. When this was high, and especially if it was fixed in the produce of land, the constitution differed little in effect from the aristocratical oligarchy, except as it opened a prospect to those who were excluded of raising themselves to a higher rank. But, when the standard was placed within reach of the middling class, the form of government was commonly termed a polity, and was considered as one of the best tempered and most durable modifications of democracy. The first stage however often afforded the means of an easy transition to the second, or might be reduced to it by a change in the value of the standard.

Another expedient, which seems to have been tried not unfrequently in early times, for preserving or restoring tranquillity, was to invest an individual with absolute power, under a peculiar title, which soon became obsolete: that of æsymnete. At Cumæ indeed, and in other cities, this was the title of an ordinary magistracy, probably of that which succeeded the hereditary monarchy; but, when applied to an extraordinary office, it was equivalent to the title of protector or dictator. It did not indicate any disposition to revive the heroic royalty, but only the need which was felt, either by the commonalty of protection against the nobles, or by all parties of a temporary compromise, which induced the adverse factions to acquiesce in a neutral government. The office was conferred sometimes for life, sometimes only for a limited term, or for the accomplishment of a specific object, as the sage Pittacus was chosen by universal consent at Mytilene, when the city was threatened by a band of exiles, headed by the poet Alcæus and his brother Antimenidas [about 612 B.C.].

TYRANNIES

The fall of an oligarchy was sometimes accelerated by accidental and inevitable disasters, as by a protracted war, which at once exhausted its wealth and reduced its numbers, or by the loss of a battle, in which the flower of its youth might sometimes be cut off at one blow, and leave it to the mercy of its subjects; a case of which we shall find a signal instance in the history of Argos. But much more frequently the revolutions which overthrew the oligarchical governments arose out of the imprudence or misconduct, or the internal dissensions, of the ruling body, or out of the ambition of some of its members. The commonalty, even when really superior in strength, could not, all at once, shake off the awe with which it was impressed by ages of subjection. It needed a leader to animate, unite, and direct it.

Such was the origin of most of the governments which the Greeks described by the term “tyranny”--a term to which a notion has been attached, in modern languages, which did not enter into its original definition. A tyranny, in the Greek sense of the word, was the irresponsible dominion of a single person, not founded on hereditary right, like the monarchies of the heroic ages and of many barbarian nations; nor on a free election, like that of a dictator or æsymnete; but on force. It did not change its character when transmitted through several generations, nor was any other name invented to describe it when power which had been acquired by violence was used for the public good; though Aristotle makes it an element in the definition of tyranny, that it is exercised for selfish ends. But, according to the ordinary Greek notions, and the usage of the Greek historians, a mild and beneficent tyranny is an expression which involves no contradiction. On the other hand, a government, legitimate in its origin, might be converted into a tyranny, by an illegal forcible extension of its powers, or of its duration; and we are informed by Aristotle that this was frequently the case in early times, before the regal title was abolished, or while the chief magistrate, who succeeded under a different name to the functions of royalty, was still invested with prerogatives dangerous to liberty. Such was the basis on which one of the ancient tyrants, most infamous for his cruelty, Phalaris of Agrigentum [or Acragas], established his despotism.

But most of the tyrannies which sprang up before the Persian wars owed their existence to the cause above described, and derived their peculiar character from the occasion which gave them birth. It was usually by a mixture of violence and artifice that the demagogue accomplished his ends. A hackneyed stratagem, which however seems always to have been successful, was, to feign that his life was threatened, or had even been attacked by the fury of the nobles, and on this pretext to procure a guard for his person from the people. This band, though composed of citizens, he found it easy to attach to his interests, and with its aid made the first step towards absolute power by seizing the citadel: an act which might be considered as a formal assumption of the tyranny, and as declaring a resolution to maintain it by force. But in other respects the more politic tyrants set an example which Augustus might have studied with advantage. Like him, they as carefully avoided the ostentation of power as they guarded its substance. They suffered the ancient forms of the government to remain in apparent vigour, and even in real operation, so far as they did not come into conflict with their own authority. They assumed no title, and were not distinguished from private citizens by any ensigns of superior rank. But they did not the less keep a jealous eye on all whom wealth, or character, or influence might render dangerous rivals; and commonly either forced them into exile or removed them by the stroke of an assassin. They exerted still greater vigilance in suppressing every kind of combination which might cover the germ of a conspiracy. The lowest class of the commonalty they restrained from license, and provided with employment. For this purpose, no less than to gratify their taste or display their magnificence, they frequently adorned their cities with costly buildings, which required years of labour from numerous hands: and, where this expedient did not suffice, they scrupled not to force a part of the population to quit the capital, and seek subsistence in rural occupations. On the same ground they were not reluctant to engage in wars, which afforded them opportunities of relieving themselves, in a less invidious manner, both from troublesome friends and from dangerous foes, as well as of strengthening and extending their dominion by conquest.

Such was the ordinary policy of the best tyrants; and by these arts they were frequently able to reign in peace, and to transmit their power to their children. But the maxims and character of the tyranny generally underwent a change under their successors, and scarcely an instance was known of a tyrannical dynasty that lasted beyond the third generation. But, even where the tyrant did not make himself universally odious, or provoke the vengeance of individuals by his wantonness or cruelty, he was constantly threatened by dangers, both from within and from without, which it required the utmost vigour and prudence to avert. The party which his usurpation had supplanted, though depressed, was still powerful, more exasperated than humbled by its defeat, and ever ready to take advantage of any opportunity of overthrowing him, either by private conspiracy, or by affecting to make common cause with the lower classes, or by calling in foreign aid. And in Greece itself such aid was always at hand: the tyrants indeed were partially leagued together for mutual support. But Sparta threw all her might into the opposite scale. She not only dreaded the contagion of an example which might endanger her own institutions, but was glad to extend her influence by taking an active part in revolutions, which would cause the states restored, by her intervention, to their old government to look up to her with gratitude and dependence as their natural protectress. And accordingly Thucydides ascribes the overthrow of most of the tyrannies which flourished in Greece before the Persian War to the exertions of Sparta.

The immediate effect produced by the fall of the tyrants depended on the hands by which it was accomplished. Where it was the work of Sparta, she would aim at introducing a constitution most in conformity to her own. But the example of Athens will show, that she was sometimes instrumental in promoting the triumph of principles more adverse to her views than those of the tyranny itself. When, however, the struggle which had been interrupted by the temporary usurpation was revived, the parties were no longer in exactly the same posture as at its outset. In general the commonalty was found to have gained, in strength and spirit, even more than the oligarchy had lost; and the prevalent leaning of the ensuing period was on the side of democracy. Indeed the decisive step was that by which the oligarchy of wealth was substituted for the oligarchy of birth. This opened the door for all the subsequent innovations, by which the scale of the timocracy was gradually lowered, until it was wholly abolished.

DEMOCRACIES

The term “democracy” is used by Aristotle sometimes in a larger sense, so as to include several forms of government, which, notwithstanding their common character, were distinguished from each other by peculiar features; at other times in a narrower, to denote a form essentially vicious, which stands in the same relation to the happy temperament to which he gives the name of polity, as oligarchy to aristocracy, or tyranny to royalty. We shall not confine ourselves to the technical language of his system, but will endeavour to define the notion of democracy, as the word was commonly understood by the Greeks, so as to separate the essence of the thing from the various accidents which have sometimes been confounded with it by writers who have treated Greek history as a vehicle for conveying their views on questions of modern politics, which never arose in the Greek republics.

It must not be forgotten, that the body to which the terms oligarchy and democracy refer formed a comparatively small part of the population in most Greek states, since it did not include either slaves or resident free foreigners. The sovereign power resided wholly in the native freemen; and whether it was exercised by a part or by all of them, was the question which determined the nature of the government. When the barrier had been thrown down, by which all political rights were made the inheritance of certain families,--since every freeman, even when actually excluded from them by the want of sufficient property, was by law capable of acquiring them,--democracy might be said to have begun. It was advancing, as the legal condition of their enjoyment was brought within the reach of a more numerous class; but it could not be considered as complete, so long as any freeman was debarred from them by poverty. Since, however, the sovereignty included several attributes which might be separated, the character of the constitution depended on the way in which these were distributed. It was considered as partaking more of democracy than of oligarchy, when the most important of them were shared by all freemen without distinction, though a part was still appropriated to a number limited either by birth or fortune. Thus where the legislative, or, as it was anciently termed, the deliberative, branch of the sovereignty was lodged in an assembly open to every freeman, and where no other qualification than free birth was required for judicial functions, and for the election of magistrates, there the government was called democratical, though the highest offices of the state might be reserved to a privileged class. But a finished democracy, that which fully satisfied the Greek notion, was one in which every attribute of sovereignty might be shared, without respect to rank or property, by every freeman.

More than this was not implied in democracy; and little less than this was required, according to the views of the philosophers, to constitute the character of a citizen, which, in the opinion of Aristotle, could not exist without a voice in the legislative assembly, and such a share in the administration of justice as was necessary to secure the responsibility of the magistrates. But this equality of rights left room for a great diversity in the modes of exercising them, which determined the real nature of a democratical constitution. There were, indeed, certain rights, those which Aristotle considers as essential to a citizen, which, according to the received Greek notions, could, in a democracy, only be exercised in person. The thought of delegating them to accountable representatives seems never to have occurred either to practical or speculative statesmen, except in the formation of confederacies, which rendered such an expedient necessary.

But the principle of legal equality, which was the basis of democracy, was gradually construed in a manner which inverted the wholesome order of nature, and led to a long train of pernicious consequences. The administration of the commonwealth came to be regarded, not as a service, in which all were interested, but for which some might be qualified better than others, but as a property, in which each was entitled to an equal share. The practical application of this view was the introduction of an expedient for levelling, as far as possible, the inequality of nature, by enabling the poorest to devote his time, without loss, or even with profit, to public affairs. This was done by giving him wages for his attendance on all occasions of exercising his franchise; and, as the sum which could be afforded for this purpose was necessarily small, it attracted precisely the persons whose presence was least desirable.

A further application of the same principle was, as much as possible, to increase the number, and abridge the duration and authority of public offices, and to transfer their power to the people in a mass. On the same ground, chance was substituted for election in the creation of all magistrates, whose duties did not actually demand either the security of a large fortune or peculiar abilities and experience. In proportion as the popular assembly, or large portions detached from it for the exercise of judicial functions, drew all the branches of the sovereignty more and more into their sphere, the character of their proceedings became more and more subject to the influence of the lower class of the citizens, which constituted a permanent majority. And thus the democracy, instead of the equality which was its supposed basis, in fact established the ascendancy of a faction, which, although greatly preponderant in numbers, no more represented the whole state than the oligarchy itself; and which, though not equally liable to fall into the mechanism of a vicious system, was more prone to yield to the impulse of the moment, more easily misled by blind or treacherous guides, and might thus, as frequently, though not so deliberately and methodically, trample, not only on law and custom, but on justice and humanity. This disease of a democracy was sometimes designated by the term “ochlocracy,” or the dominion of the rabble.

A democracy thus corrupted exhibited many features of a tyranny. It was jealous of all who were eminently distinguished by birth, fortune, or reputation; it encouraged flatterers and sycophants; was insatiable in its demands on the property of the rich, and readily listened to charges which exposed them to death or confiscation. The class which suffered such oppression, commonly ill satisfied with the principle of the constitution itself, was inflamed with the most furious animosity by the mode in which it was applied, and regarded the great mass of its fellow-citizens as its mortal enemies.[b]

FOOTNOTES

[13] The Pythia had once been a maiden, chosen in the flower of youth; but this practice having been attended with inconvenient consequences, women were appointed who had passed the age of fifty, but still wore the dress of virgins. Diodorus, xvi, 26.

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X. THE SMALLER CITIES AND STATES

Aristotle’s survey of the Greek forms of government was founded on a vast store of information which he had collected on the history and constitution of more than a hundred and fifty states, in the mother country and the colonies, and which he had consigned to a great work now unfortunately lost. Our knowledge of the internal conditions and vicissitudes of almost all these states is very scanty and fragmentary: but some of the main facts concerning them, which have been saved from oblivion, will serve to throw light on several parts of the ensuing history.

ARCADIA, ELIS, AND ACHAIA

We have scarcely anything to say, during this period, of the state of parties, or even the forms of government, in Arcadia, Elis, and Achaia. If Arcadia was ever subject to a single king, which seems to be intimated by some accounts of its early history, it was probably only, as in Thessaly, by an occasional election, or a temporary usurpation. The title of king however appears not to have been everywhere abolished down to a much later time, as we find a hint that it was retained at Orchomenos even in the fifth century before our era. That the republican constitutions were long aristocratical can scarcely be doubted, as the two principal Arcadian cities, Tegea and Mantinea, were at first only the chief among several small hamlets, which were at length united in one capital. This, whenever it happened, was a step towards the subversion of aristocratical privileges; and it was no doubt with this view that the five Mantinean villages were incorporated by the Argives, as Strabo mentions without assigning the date of the event. But it is not probable that Argos thus interfered before her own institutions had undergone a like change, which, as we shall see, did not take place before a later period than our history has yet reached. Whether the union of the nine villages, which included Tegea as their chief, was effected earlier or later, does not appear. But, after she had once acknowledged the supremacy of Sparta, Tegea was sheltered by Spartan influence from popular innovations, and was always the less inclined to adopt them when they prevailed at Mantinea: for as the position of the two Arcadian neighbours tended to connect the one with Sparta, and the other with Argos, so it supplied occasion for interminable feuds between them. But, in general, the history of the western states of Arcadia is wrapt in deep obscurity, which was only broken, in the fourth century B.C., by the foundation of a new Arcadian capital.

In Elis the monarchical form of government continued for some generations in the line of Oxylus, but appears to have ceased there earlier than at Pisa, which, at the time when it was conquered and destroyed by the Eleans, was ruled by chiefs, who were probably legitimate kings. Immediately after the conquest, in the fiftieth Olympiad, the dignity of hellanodicæ, which had been held by the kings of Elis, or shared by them with those of Pisa, was assigned to two Elean officers by lot, a proof that royalty was then extinct. The constitution by which it was replaced seems to have been rigidly aristocratical, perhaps no other than the narrow oligarchy described by Aristotle,--who observes that the whole number of citizens exercising any political functions was small--confined, perhaps to the six hundred mentioned by Thucydides; and that the senate, originally composed of ninety members, who held their office for life, and filled up vacancies at their pleasure, had been gradually reduced to a very few. Elis, the capital, remained in a condition like that of the above-mentioned Arcadian towns until the Persian War, when the inhabitants of many villages were collected in its precincts. This was probably attended by other changes of a democratical nature--perhaps by the limitation which one Phormis is said to have effected in the power of the senate--and henceforth the number of the hellanodicæ corresponded to that of the tribes or regions into which the Elean territory was divided; so that, whenever any of these regions was lost by the chance of war, the number of the hellanodicæ was proportionately reduced. So too the matrons who presided at the games in honour of Hera, in which the Elean virgins contended at Olympia, were chosen in equal number from each of the tribes.

In Achaia, the royal dignity was transmitted in the line of Tisamenus down to Ogyges, whose sons, affecting despotic power, were deposed, and the government was changed to a democracy, which is said to have possessed a high reputation. From Pausanias it would rather seem as if the title of king had been held by a number of petty chiefs at once. If so, the revolution must have had its origin in causes more general than those assigned to it by Polybius. It was probably accelerated by the number of Achæan emigrants who sought refuge in Achaia from other parts of the Peloponnesus, and who soon crowded the country, till it was relieved by its Italian colonies. What Polybius and Strabo term a democracy may however have been a polity, or a very liberal and well-tempered form of oligarchy. Of its details we know nothing; nor are we informed in what relation the twelve principal Achaian towns--a division adopted from the Ionians--stood to the hamlets, of which each had seven or eight in its territory, like those of Tegea and Mantinea. As little are we able to describe the constitution of the confederacy in which the twelve states were now united.

ARGOS, ÆGINA, AND EPIDAURUS

More light has been thrown by ancient authors on the history of the states in the northeast quarter of Peloponnesus, those of Argolis in the largest sense of the word. At Argos itself, regal government subsisted down to the Persian wars, although the line of the Heraclid princes appears to have become extinct toward the middle of the preceding century. Pausanias remarks, that, from a very early period, the Argives were led by their peculiarly independent spirit to limit the prerogatives of their kings so narrowly as to leave them little more than the name. We cannot however place much reliance on such a general reflection of a late writer. But we have seen that Phidon, who, about the year 750 B.C., extended the power of Argos farther than any of his predecessors, also stretched the royal authority so much beyond its legitimate bounds, that he is sometimes called a tyrant, though he was rightful heir of Temenus. After his death, as his conquests appear to have been speedily lost, so it is probable that his successors were unable to maintain the ascendancy which he had gained over his Dorian subjects, and the royal dignity may henceforth have been, as Pausanias describes it, little more than a title. Hence, too, on the failure of the ancient line, about B.C. 560, Ægon, though of a different family, may have met with the less opposition in mounting the throne. The substance of power rested with the Dorian freemen: in what manner it was distributed among them we can only conjecture from analogy. Their lands were cultivated by a class of serfs, corresponding to the Spartan helots, who served in war as light-armed troops, whence they derived their peculiar name, “gymnesii.” They were also sovereigns of a few towns, the inhabitants of which, like the Laconians subject to Sparta, though personally free, were excluded from all share in their political privileges. The events which put an end to this state of things, and produced an entire change in the form of government at Argos, will be hereafter related.

Among the states of the Argolic acte, Epidaurus deserves notice, not so much for the few facts which are known of its internal history, as on account of its relation to Ægina. This island, destined to take no inconsiderable part in the affairs of Greece, was long subject to Epidaurus, which was so jealous of her sovereignty as to compel the Æginetans to resort to her tribunals for the trial of their causes. It seems to have been as a dependency of Epidaurus that Ægina fell under the dominion of the Argive Phidon. After recovering her own independence, Epidaurus still continued mistress of the island. Whether she had any subjects on the main land standing on the same footing, we are not expressly informed. But here likewise the ruling class was supported by the services of a population of bondsmen, distinguished by a peculiar name (conipodes, the dusty-footed), designating indeed their rural occupations, but certainly expressive of contempt. Towards the end of the seventh century B.C., and the beginning of the next, Epidaurus was subject to a ruler named Procles, who is styled a tyrant, and was allied with Periander the tyrant of Corinth. But nothing is known as to the origin and nature of his usurpation. He incurred the resentment of his son-in-law Periander, who made himself master of Procles and of Epidaurus. It was perhaps this event which afforded Ægina an opportunity of shaking off the Epidaurian yoke. But, had it been otherwise, the old relation between the two states could not have subsisted much longer. Ægina was rapidly outgrowing the mother country, was engaged in a flourishing commerce, strong in an enterprising and industrious population, enriched and adorned by the arts of peace, and skilled in those of war. The separation which soon after took place was embittered by mutual resentment; and the Æginetans, whose navy soon became the most powerful in Greece, retaliated on Epidaurus for the degradation they had suffered by a series of insults. But the same causes to which they owed their national independence seem to have deprived the class which had been hitherto predominant in Ægina of its political privileges. The island was torn by the opposite claims and interests arising out of the old and the new order of things, and became the scene of a bloody struggle.

SICYON AND MEGARA

The history of Sicyon presents a series of revolutions, in many points resembling those of Corinth. At what time, or in whose person, royalty was there extinguished, and what form of government succeeded it, we are not expressly informed; but, as we know that there was a class of bondsmen at Sicyon, answering to the helots, and distinguished by peculiar names, derived from their rustic dress or occupation, there can be little doubt that other parts of the Dorian system were also introduced there, and subsisted until a fortunate adventurer, named Orthagoras, or Andreas, overthrew the old aristocracy, and founded a dynasty, which lasted a century: the longest period, Aristotle observes, of a Greek tyranny. Orthagoras is said to have risen from a very low station--that of a cook--and was, therefore, probably indebted for his elevation to the commonalty. The long duration of his dynasty is ascribed by Aristotle to the mildness and moderation with which he and his descendants exercised their power, submitting to the laws and taking pains to secure the good will of the people.

His successor, Myron, having gained a victory in the Olympic chariot-race in the thirty-third Olympiad, erected a treasury at Olympia, which was remarkable for its material, brass of Tartessus, which had not long been introduced into Greece; for its architecture, in which the Doric and Ionic orders were combined; and for its inscription, in which the name of Myron was coupled with that of the people of Sicyon. It may be collected, from an expression of Aristotle’s, that, though Myron was succeeded, either immediately or after a short interval, by his grandson Clisthenes, son of Aristonymus, this transmission of the tyranny did not take place without interruption or impediment; and, if this arose from the Dorian nobles, it would explain some points in which the government of Clisthenes differed from that of his predecessors.

He seems to have been the most able and enterprising prince of his house, and to have conducted many wars, beside that in which we have seen him engaged on the side of the Amphictyons, with skill and success: he was of a munificent temper, and displayed his love of splendour and of the arts both in the national games and in his native city, where, out of the spoils of Crissa, he built a colonnade, which long retained the name of the Clisthenean. The magnificence with which he entertained the suitors who came from all parts of Greece, and even from foreign lands, to vie with one another, after the ancient fashion, in manly exercises, for his daughter’s hand, was long so celebrated, that Herodotus gives a list of the competitors. It proves how much his alliance was coveted by the most distinguished families; and it is particularly remarkable, that one of the suitors was a son of Phidon, king of Argos, whom Herodotus seems to have confounded with the more ancient tyrant of the same name. Still Clisthenes appears not to have departed from the maxims by which his predecessors had regulated their government with regard to the commonalty, but, in the midst of his royal state, to have carefully preserved the appearance, at least, of equity and respect for the laws. On the other hand, towards his Dorian subjects he displayed a spirit of hostility which seems to have been peculiar to himself, and to have been excited by some personal provocation. It was probably connected with a war in which he was engaged with Argos, and it impelled him to various political and religious innovations, the real nature of which can now be but very imperfectly understood.

One of the most celebrated was the change which he made in the names of the Dorian tribes, for which he substituted others, derived from the lowest kinds of domestic animals; while a fourth tribe, to which he himself belonged, was distinguished by the majestic title of the archelai (the princely). Herodotus supposes that he only meant to insult the Dorians; and we could sooner adopt this opinion than believe, with a modern author, that he took so strange a method of directing their attention to rural pursuits. But Herodotus adds, that the new names were retained for sixty years after the death of Clisthenes and the fall of his dynasty, when those of the Dorian tribes were restored, and, in the room of the fourth, a new one was created, called from a son of the Argive hero, Adrastus, the Ægialeans. When the Dorians resumed their old division, the commonalty was thrown into the single tribe (called not from the hero, but from the land), the Ægialeans.

We do not know how this dynasty ended, and can only pronounce it probable that it was overthrown at about the same time with that of the Cypselids (B.C. 580), by the intervention of Sparta, which must have been more alarmed and provoked by the innovations of Clisthenes than by the tyranny of Periander. It would seem, from the history of the tribes, that the Dorians recovered their predominance; but gradually, and not so completely as to deprive the commonalty of all share in political rights.

On the other side of the isthmus, the little state of Megara passed through vicissitudes similar to those of Corinth and Sicyon, but attended with more violent struggles. Before the Dorian conquest royalty is said to have been abolished there after the last king, Hyperion, son of Agamemnon, had fallen by the hand of an enemy, whom he had provoked by insolence and wrong: and a Megarian legend seems to indicate that the elective magistrates, who took the place of the kings, bore the title of æsymnetes. The Dorians of Corinth kept those of Megara, for a time, in the same kind of subjection to which Ægina was reduced by Epidaurus; and the Megarian peasantry were compelled to solemnise the obsequies of every Bacchiad with marks of respect, such as were exacted from the subjects of Sparta on the death of the king. This yoke however was cast off at an early period; and Argos assisted the Megarians in recovering their independence. Henceforth it is probable Megara assumed a more decided superiority over the hamlets of her territory, which had once been her rivals; and she must have made rapid progress in population and in power, as is proved by her flourishing colonies in the east and west, and by the wars which she carried on in defence of them. One of her most illustrious citizens, Orsippus, who, in the fifteenth Olympiad, set the example of dropping all incumbrances of dress in the Olympic foot-race, also conducted her arms with brilliant success against her neighbours--probably the Corinthians--and enlarged her territory to the utmost extent of her claims. But the government still remained in the hands of the great Dorian land-owners, who, when freed from the dominion of Corinth, became sovereigns at home; and they appear not to have administered it mildly or wisely. For they were not only deprived of their power by an insurrection of the commonalty, as at Corinth and Sicyon, but were evidently the objects of a bitter enmity, which cannot have been wholly unprovoked.

Theagenes, a bold and ambitious man, who put himself at the head of the popular cause, is said to have won the confidence of the people by an attack on the property of the wealthy citizens, whose cattle he destroyed in their pastures. The animosity provoked by such an outrage, which was probably not a solitary one, rendered it necessary to invest the demagogue with supreme authority. Theagenes, who assumed the tyranny about 620 B.C., followed the example of the other usurpers of his time. He adorned his city with splendid and useful buildings, and no doubt in other ways cherished industry and the arts, while he made them contribute to the lustre of his reign. He allied himself to one of the most eminent families of Athens, and aided his son-in-law, Cylon, in his enterprise, which, if it had succeeded, would have lent increased stability to his own power.

The victories which deprived the Athenians of Salamis, and made them at last despair of recovering it, were probably gained by Theagenes. Yet he was at length expelled from Megara; whether through the discontent of the commonalty, or by the efforts of the aristocratical party, which may have been encouraged by the failure of Cylon’s plot, we are not distinctly informed. Only it is said that, after his overthrow, a more moderate and peaceful spirit prevailed for a short time, until some turbulent leaders, who apparently wished to tread in his steps, but wanted his ability or his fortune, instigated the populace to new outrages against the wealthy, who were forced to throw open their houses, and to set luxurious entertainments before the rabble, or were exposed to personal insult and violence. But a much harder blow was aimed at their property by a measure called the palintocia,--which carried the principles of Solon’s seisachtheia to an iniquitous excess,--by which creditors were required to refund the interest which they had received from their debtors.

This transaction at the same time discloses one, at least, of the causes which had exasperated the commonalty against the nobles, who probably had exacted their debts no less harshly than the Athenian Eupatrids. But, in this period of anarchy, neither justice nor religion was held sacred: even temples were plundered; and a company of pilgrims, passing through the territory of Megara, on their way to Delphi, was grossly insulted; many lives even were lost, and the Amphictyonic council was compelled to interpose, to procure the punishment of the ringleaders. It is unquestionably of this period that Aristotle speaks, when he says that the Megarian demagogues procured the banishment of many of the notable citizens for the sake of confiscating their estates; and he adds, that these outrages and disorders ruined the democracy, for the exiles became so strong a body, that they were able to reinstate themselves by force, and to establish a very narrow oligarchy, including those only who had taken an active part in the revolution. Unfortunately we have no means of ascertaining the dates of these events, though the last-mentioned reaction cannot have taken place very long after 600 B.C.

During the following century, our information on the state of Megara is chiefly collected from the writings of the Megarian poet, Theognis, which however are interesting not so much for the historical facts contained in them, as for the light they throw on the character and feelings of the parties which divided his native city and so many others. Theognis appears to have been born about the fifty-fifth Olympiad, not long before the death of Solon; and to have lived down to the beginning of the Persian wars. He left some poems, of which considerable fragments remain, filled with moral and political maxims and reflections. We gather from them, that the oligarchy, which followed the period of anarchy, had been unable to keep its ground; and that a new revolution had taken place, by which the poet, with others of the aristocratical party, had been stript of his fortune and driven into exile. But his complaints betray a fact which throws some doubt on the purity of his patriotism, and abates our sympathy for his misfortunes.

BŒOTIA, LOCRIS, PHOCIS, AND EUBŒA

The peculiar circumstances under which Bœotia was conquered, by a people who had quitted their native land to avoid slavery or subjection, would be sufficient to account for the fact that royalty was very early abolished there. It may indeed be doubted whether the chief named Xanthus, who is called king, sometimes of the Bœotians, sometimes of the Thebans, and who was slain by the Attic king Melanthus, was anything more than a temporary leader. The most sacred functions of the Theban kings seem to have been transferred to a magistrate, who bore the title of archon, and, like the archon-king at Athens, was invested rather with a priestly than a civil character.

From the death of Xanthus, down to about 500 B.C., the constitution of Thebes continued rigidly aristocratical, having probably been guarded from innovation as well by the inland position of the city as by the jealousy of the rulers; and the first change, of which we have any account, was one which threw the government into still fewer hands. But, about the thirteenth Olympiad, it seems as if discontent had arisen, among the members of the ruling caste itself, from the inequality in the division of property, which had perhaps been increased by lapse of time, until some of them were reduced to indigence. Not long after that Olympiad, Philolaus, one of the Corinthian Bacchiads, having been led by a private occurrence to take up his residence at Thebes, was invited to frame a new code of laws; and one of the main objects of his institutions was to prevent the accumulation of estates, and to fix forever the number of those into which the Theban territory, or at least the part of it occupied by the nobles, was divided. He too was perhaps the author of the law which excluded every Theban from public offices who had exercised any trade within the space of ten years. It is probable enough that his code also embraced regulations for the education of the higher class of citizens; and it may have been he who, with the view, as Plutarch supposes, of softening the harshness of the Bœotian character, or to counterbalance an excessive fondness for gymnastic exercises, to which the Thebans were prone, made music an essential part of the instruction of youth.

Our information on the other Bœotian towns is still scantier as to their internal condition; but we may safely presume that it did not differ very widely from that of Thebes, especially as we happen to know that at Thespiæ every kind of industrious occupation was deemed degrading to a freeman: an indication of aristocratical rigour which undoubtedly belongs to this period, and may be taken as a sample of the spirit prevailing in Bœotia. The Bœotian states were united in a confederacy which was represented by a congress of deputies, who met at the festival of the Pambœotia, in the temple of the Itonian Athene, near Coronea, more perhaps for religious than for political purposes. There were also other national councils, which deliberated on peace and war, and were perhaps of nearly equal antiquity, though they were first mentioned at a later period, when there were four of them. It does not appear how they were constituted, or whether with reference to as many divisions of the country, of which we have no other trace. The chief magistrates of the league, called Bœotarchs, presided in these councils, and commanded the national forces. They were, in later times at least, elected annually, and rigidly restricted to their term of office.

As to the institutions of the Locrian tribes in Greece, very little is known, and they never took a prominent part in Greek history. Down to a late period the use of slaves was almost wholly unknown among them, as well as among the Phocians. This fact, which indicates a people of simple habits, strangers to luxury and commerce, and attached to ancient usages, may lead us to the further conclusion that their institutions were mostly aristocratical; and this conclusion is confirmed by all that we hear of them. Opus is celebrated, in the fifth century B.C., as a seat of law and order by Pindar.

Equally scanty is our information as to the general condition of the Phocians. Their land, though neither extensive nor fertile, was divided among between twenty and thirty little commonwealths, which were united like the Achæans and the Bœotians, and sent deputies at stated times to a congress which was held in a large building, called the Phocicum, on the road between Daulis and Delphi. But Delphi, though lying in Phocis, disclaimed all connection with the rest of the nation. Its government, as was to be expected under its peculiar circumstances, was strictly aristocratical, and was in the hands of the same families which had the management of the temple, on which the prosperity of the city and the subsistence of a great part of the inhabitants depended. In early times the chief magistrate bore the title of king, afterwards that of prytanis. But a council of five, who were dignified with a title marking their sanctity, and were chosen from families which traced their origin--possibly through Dorus--to Deucalion, and held their offices for life, conducted the affairs of the oracle.

In Eubœa an aristocracy or oligarchy of wealthy land-owners, who, from the cavalry which they maintained, were called hippobotæ, long prevailed in the two principal cities, Chalcis and Eretria. The great number of colonies which Chalcis sent out, and which attests its early importance, was probably the result of an oligarchical policy. Its constitution appears to have been, in proper terms, a timocracy: a certain amount of property was requisite for a share in the government. Eretria, once similarly governed, seems not to have been at all inferior in strength. She was mistress of several islands, among the rest of Andros, Tenos, and Ceos; and, in the days of her prosperity, could exhibit 600 horsemen, 3000 heavy-armed infantry, and 60 chariots in a sacred procession. Chalcis and Eretria were long rivals, and a tract called the Lelantian plain, which contained valuable copper mines, afforded constant occasion for hostilities. These hostilities were distinguished from the ordinary wars between neighbouring cities by two peculiar features--the singular mode in which they were conducted, and the general interest which they excited throughout Greece. They were regulated, at least in early times, by a compact between the belligerents, which was recorded by a monument in a temple, to abstain from the use of missile weapons. But, while this agreement suggests the idea of a feud like those which we have seen carried on, in an equally mild spirit, between the Megarian townships, we learn with surprise from Thucydides that the war between Eretria and Chalcis divided the whole nation, and that all the Greek states took part with one or the other of the rivals.

It has been suspected that the cause which drew this universal attention to an object apparently of very slight moment was, that the quarrel turned upon political principles; that the oligarchy at Eretria had very early given way to democracy, while that of Chalcis, threatened by this new danger, engaged many states to espouse its cause. We are informed indeed that the Eretrian oligarchy was overthrown by a person named Diagoras, of whom we also hear that he died at Corinth while on his way to Sparta, and that he was honoured with a statue by his countrymen. It is also certain that the oligarchy at Chalcis, though more than once interrupted by a tyranny, was standing till within a few years of the Persian wars. But we do not know when Diagoras lived, and, without stronger evidence, it is difficult to believe that the revolution which he effected took place before the fall of the Athenian aristocracy, an epoch which appears to be too late for the war mentioned by Thucydides.

THESSALY

Thessaly seems, for some time after the conquest, to have been governed by kings of the race of Hercules, who however may have been only chiefs invested with a permanent military command, which ceased when it was no longer required by the state of the country. Under one of these princes, named Aleuas, it was divided into the four districts, Thessaliotis, Pelasgiotis, Pthiotis, and Hestiæotis. And, as this division was retained to the latest period of its political existence, we may conclude that it was not a merely nominal one, but that each district was united in itself, as well as distinct from the rest. As the four Bœotian councils seem to imply that a like division existed in Bœotia, so we may reasonably conjecture that each of the Thessalian districts regulated its internal affairs by some kind of provincial council. But all that we know with certainty is, that the principal cities exercised a dominion over several smaller towns, and that they were themselves the seat of noble families, sprung from the line of the ancient kings, which were generally able to draw the government of the whole nation into their hands. Thus Larissa was subject to the great house of the Aleuadæ, who were considered as descendants of the ancient Aleuas; Crannon and Pharsalus to the Scopadæ and the Creondæ, who were branches of the same stock. The vast estates of these nobles were cultivated, and their countless flocks and herds fed, by their serfs, the Penests, who at their call were ready to follow them into the field on foot or on horseback. They maintained a princely state, drew poets and artists to their courts, and shone in the public games of Greece by their wealth and liberality.

We are not anywhere informed whether there were any institutions which provided for the union of the four districts, and afforded regular opportunities for consultation on their common interests. But, as often as an occasion appeared to require it, the great families were able to bring about the election of a chief magistrate, always of course taken from their own body, whose proper title was that of tagus, but who is sometimes called a king. We know little of the nature of his authority, except that it was probably rather military than civil; nor of its constitutional extent, which perhaps was never precisely ascertained, and depended on the personal character and the circumstances of the individual.

The population of Thessaly, beside the penests, whose condition was nearly that of the Laconian helots, included a large class of free subjects, in the districts not immediately occupied by the Thessalian invaders, who paid a certain tribute for their lands, but, though not admitted to the rights of citizens, preserved their personal liberty unmolested. But above this class stood a third, of the common Thessalians, who, though they could not boast, like the Aleuadæ and the Scopadæ, of a heroic descent, and had therefore received a much smaller portion of the conquered land, still, as the partners of their conquest, might think themselves entitled to some share in the administration of public affairs. Contests seem early to have arisen between this commonalty and the ruling families, and at Larissa the aristocracy of the Aleuadæ was tempered by some institutions of a popular tendency. We do not know indeed to what period Aristotle refers, when he speaks of certain magistrates at Larissa who bore the title of guardians of the freemen, and exercised a superintendence over the admission of citizens, but were themselves elected by the whole body of the people, out of the privileged order, and hence were led to pay their court to the multitude in a manner which proved dangerous to the interests of the oligarchy. It seems not improbable that the election of a tagus, like that of a dictator at Rome, was sometimes used as an expedient for keeping the commonalty under. But the power of the oligarchs was also shaken by intestine feuds; and, under the government of the Aleuadæ, such was the state of parties at Larissa, that, by common agreement, the city was committed to the care of an officer, who was chosen, perhaps from the commonalty, to mediate between the opposite factions; but, being entrusted with a body of troops, made himself master of both. This event took place two generations before the Persian War; but the usurpation appears to have been transitory, and not to have left any durable traces, while the factions of Larissa continue to appear from time to time throughout the whole course of Grecian history.

The western states of Greece are, during this period, shrouded in so complete obscurity, that we cannot pretend to give any account of their condition. With respect to the Ætolians indeed it is uncertain how far they are entitled to the name of Greeks. The Acarnanians, as soon as they begin to take a part in the affairs of Greece, distinguish themselves as a finer and more civilised people; and it is probable that the Corinthian colonies on the Ambracian Gulf may have exerted a beneficial influence on their social progress.[b]

CORINTH UNDER PERIANDER

In the Isthmus of Corinth there is a pillar with a double inscription. On the side facing Peloponnesus is written “Here is Peloponnesus and not Ionia.” On the opposite side, which faced the territory of Megaris, was written, “This is not Peloponnesus but Ionia.” Between the hostile worlds of the Dorians and Ionians, Corinth was as between two stools. Originally, however, the Corinthians favoured the Dorians because they had been conquered by them when Peloponnesus was subjugated under the Heraclids. Corinth took the side of Lacedæmon in the internal quarrels of Greece.

The aristocratic genius of the Dorians without abolishing the ancient royalty, subordinated Corinth. One of the Heraclids was called king. He commanded the army and presided over the debates of this military aristocracy. Later, the oligarchy made this not very powerful king disappear, and kept for itself all the rights of sovereignty. This was at the time of the descendants of Bacchis, the Heraclid.

The Bacchiadæ numbered over two hundred, amongst them being other families with whom they were connected and who governed Corinth together. Each year, one of them, elected by his fellows, exercised under the name Prytanis, a power very much resembling royalty. One day this annual authority fell into the hands of an ambitious man Cypselus, who was not satisfied with his power, and became master, not only of the people but of his equals. This tyranny was followed by that of Periander, son of Cypselus. Periander’s first acts were popular, but a sad occurrence weighed upon his brain and made him cruel. This was found out in Corinth, and from that time Periander, thinking he had nothing more to hope for, gave way to all the bad traits of his character. He banished the most powerful citizens. He killed his wife, Melissa, by a kick in the stomach and then wishing by way of atonement to give her a splendid funeral, he assembled all the women of Corinth in Juno’s Temple, where his guards stripped them of their jewels and clothes which were burnt in honour of Melissa.

However, Periander kept down luxury. He forbade the citizens to keep many slaves, he ordered land-owners to live on their estates in order to cultivate them, he allowed no one to spend more than his income, and he established no new taxes. Last of all, he increased the Corinthian navy and he conceived the idea of piercing the isthmus. These acts were worthy of a statesman. He wrote and composed over two thousand verses with morals. He praised democratic government and said that he himself was a tyrant because he thought it too dangerous to give up being so. He recommended moderation in happiness and that friendship should not change with fortune.

Man’s heart is large enough to have good as well as bad qualities. Besides, to have supreme power over equals was a double spur exciting good as well as bad actions. If the intoxication of power inflamed the senses and passions of the usurper, and defiance had to be met by cruelty, it was in Periander’s interest to give his town all the advantages of good government. Also, as he was clever, he knew how to conciliate the people. Force is always admired and worshipped when it comes from the highest, and protects and spares the weak.

After Periander, who died in his bed, Corinth had an aristocratic government and knew no more the tyranny of a single ruler. The people had an assembly but the direction of the important affairs of state was in the hands of a senate. The aristocracy of Corinth which was rich and prudent in governing, watched with jealous care over maintaining its power and it is due to the energy of one of its number that Corinth escaped from a new tyranny.

Of an illustrious family, Timophanes had become the idol of the people. His audacity, his prowess in warfare, his familiarity with the humblest citizens delighted the multitude and seemed to invite him to take the reins of government into his hands. But Timophanes had near him a severe judge in his brother. This brother, though loving him very much and having for a long time screened or excused his faults, ended by killing him in order that Corinth should not be reduced to servitude. The verses Virgil dedicated to the first of the Brutuses might be applied to Timoleon.

This republican fratricide had the misfortune of being cursed by his mother. He lived twenty years, not in repentance but in solitude, and we shall find him again at Syracuse. Corinth had not only founded that celebrated city in Sicily, she had founded other colonies besides, amongst them Corcyra, with which she was a long time at war, accusing the inhabitants of not paying the respect due to a capital. “Our other colonies love and respect us whilst the Corcyreans are arrogant and unjust, to such a point that they have seized Epidamnus, which belongs to us and which they intend to keep.” These were the complaints Corinth made through her deputies, at Athens, against her colonies. However, in spite of the complaints, the Athenians received the alliance of Epidamnus, which had a powerful navy, and which, in their eyes, had the great advantage of being situated on the way to Italy and Sicily.

This determination not to help Corinth, irritated the Corinthians, whose Dorian origin already made them Athens’ natural enemy, and was one of the decisive causes of the Peloponnesian War. It was at the instigation of Corinth that the Peloponnesians held a kind of congress at Sparta, in which they denounced the ambition and audacity of the Athenians who were born, they said, never to have rest and never to allow anybody else to have any.

Before Athens shone by her eloquence, poetry, and art, Corinth was the centre of Hellenic trade and was the sojourn of pleasure. All the merchandise of Europe and of Asia was imported on payment of duty, and all foreigners flocked there more than they did to any other town of Greece. People came from everywhere, from Egypt as well as from Sicily; but Corinth was a town essentially for rich men--it was the town of Venus. The courtesans were honoured. They had the privilege of offering the public vows to Venus, when the goddess was appealed to in a case of great danger. They it was who asked her to grant the salvation of Greece when that country was invaded by Xerxes. When private people had their prayers granted by the goddess they showed their gratitude by offering her a number of courtesans for her temple. All the countries which traded with Corinth provided these charming priestesses.

At Sparta the glory of women was their patriotism, at Athens their intellect, and at Corinth their beauty. Laïs was the queen of the courtesans and received homage from the most important and serious personages of Greece, from philosophers as well as from politicians. She was in reality a Sicilian, captured when a child by the Athenians and sold to Corinth. But the Corinthians idolised her, and always swore she was born amongst them.

Riches and pleasure! It was to the interest of the Corinthians not to get rid of these women, in order to enjoy life, and this was in itself a guarantee against the rule of a demagogue in the city of Periander and of Timoleon. Pindar can say with great truth in one of his Olympics, “Harmony and good legislation are found in Corinth, also justice and peace. The daughters of the prudent Themis dispense happiness to mankind and watch over their cities.”

This prosperity had a tragic ending. When the Romans triumphed over the Achæan League, Corinth perished miserably. Such lamentable ruin was like the last day of Ilium. Everything condemned the town before the Roman tribunals: its admirable position, the key to the whole of Greece; its riches and works of art, which were placed in the Capitol at Rome.[c]

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XI. CRETE AND THE COLONIES

Crete was an island, which, from its position, should have dominated over the whole of Greece, as it had for its neighbours the coasts of the Peloponnesus and of Asia. The Cretans were remarkable amongst the Hellenic nations for their institutions, which bore a singular physiognomy. Diodorus describes all the legends relating to the Greek divinities of whom Crete boasted to be the cradle; he then adds that during the generations succeeding the birth of the gods, many heroes lived in the island, the most illustrious of whom were Minos, Rhadamanthus and Sarpedon. These heroes are not truly historic, and an exact place cannot be given to their genius and passions, but at any rate they indicate deeds and customs which have left strong impressions on the lives of men. Antiquity believed that Crete, even from the most ancient period, had good laws which were imitated by many of the peoples of Greece, and above all by the Lacedæmonians.

Before teaching Greece, Crete, for a short time, dominated over her. The Cretans, who were an insular and warlike nation made up chiefly of Pelasgians and Dorians, at an epoch made great by the name of Minos, had a navy with which they were able to take possession of the greater number of the islands belonging to Greece. They also reigned over part of the coast of Asia Minor. They were the guardians of the sea, suppressed the Athenian pirates and made them pay tribute. These pirates had their revenge according to the fable of the Minotaur. The Cretans pushed on as far as Sicily, and it was there, so goes the legend, that Minos was killed by the daughters of King Cocalus, who suffocated their father’s guest in a bath. A few generations later, Crete sent a fleet of eighty vessels against Priam, a new proof of maritime greatness. About the time when the Odyssey was written, this is how Greece imagined the island of Minos: “In the middle of the vast ocean is glorious Crete, a fertile island, where countless men live; there are eighty-six towns,[14] which have each a different language; they are inhabited by the Achæans, the autochthonous Cretans, high-minded heroes, the Cydonians, the Dorians, who are divided into three tribes, and the divine Pelasgi. In the midst of all these people is the beautiful town of Knossos, where Minos reigned, and every nine years had an audience with Jupiter.” Thus is the divine or religious type of legislator formed in the mind of the Greeks and with the double help of time and poetry the name of Minos becomes great.

Crete was as little spared from the revolutions which Thucydides foretold would be one of the results of the Trojan War, as the peculiar state of her soil and customs warranted. The inhabitants, living in a mountainous and divided country, were separated into many cantons, jealous of one another’s independence. In Crete, as in Switzerland, nature prepared republics. For a long time royal power succeeded in preventing the germs of discord from bursting forth; this was in the time of Minos, of Rhadamanthus, and of Sarpedon, when the Cretans were conquerors and masters of the sea and possessed of a legislation inspired by the first of all the gods. Later, everything which had helped to make a sovereign authority gave way, the towns of Crete quarrelled internally and with one another for individual government. This spirit of independence was doubtless encouraged by the presence of the Greeks, who, on their return from Troy, founded colonies on the island. Little by little, royal power, weakened by the absence of the chiefs, who had joined the princes of the Peloponnesus in order to attack Asia, disappeared.

Through what shocks, compromises or transitions, Crete passed from government by kings, to an aristocratic federation, with Knossos, Gortyna, Cydonia, and Lyctus at the head, we know not. All we know is that several generations after the Trojan War the new government had entirely taken the place of the old, though still invoked in the sacred name of Minos. The Cretans thus began the great practice we so often find in ancient days, that of placing the young generations under the protection and genius of the ancients. Man, even with a long line of centuries behind him, is a weak creature, and when he separates from the ancients he adds to his nothingness.

In representing Crete with a federal and aristocratic government, these words must not be taken in their full meaning. It was not the entire establishment of a nation, but attempts at peace and order frequently interrupted by revolutions. This point has often escaped modern writers, especially Montesquieu.

Crete was a fertile chaos, from which Sparta took various principles. But Crete itself could not benefit from them. The reason for the outbreaks was the rivalry between the different towns. When one of them conquered the other, the result was despotism; when they strove one against the other without either getting a decisive advantage, the result was anarchy.

At the head of each town were ten magistrates called cosmes (or cosmoi), taking their name from order itself, and from the necessity of seeing it carried out, for in every town there was always an incorrigible inclination for plotting. The cosmes, who were the forerunners of the Spartan ephori, were chosen, not from all the citizens, but from a small number of families. As they succeeded royal authority they had its powers, they commanded the troops, concluded treaties, and ruled over people and things alike, with an arbitrary power. The Cretan customs were a strange contrast to this despotism, which was the unmistakable remains of sovereignty. When by their conduct the cosmes offended some of their colleagues, they were driven away. When they chose they could also abdicate. Law did not rule, but the will of man, which is not a sure rule. The Cretans had the habit, when they reached the highest point in their quarrels, of returning to a provisional monarchy, in order to facilitate war between them. They lived in the midst of periodical disputes which prevented them from ever forming a great nation.

When the cosmes came to the end of their term of office, which lasted a year, they took a place in the assembly or senate formed of the old men of the city. This was always the custom in antiquity, as in all youthful nations. Thus, experience in life is called in to help govern. The old men who had been cosmes, or had been destined to be so, exercised an irresponsible and life-long authority, deciding all things, not according to written laws but according to their opinions. The decisions of the cosmes and senators were presented to a general assembly where all the citizens met; the assembly only confirmed by vote what was proposed. There were no discussions, a mute acquiescence was alone allowed. The senators and cosmes were the chiefs of that army which had warriors and labourers as body and force. This division into soldiers and labourers was common to the Egyptians and Cretans, according to Aristotle, who traces it back, for the former, to Sesostris and for the latter to Minos, and the ancient discipline, adds Alexander’s tutor, remained especially strong amongst the peasants. Like all ancient nations, the Cretans had slaves, those serving in the country were called chrysonetes and those in the towns amphamiotes. Their usual name was clarotes, because they were divided equally by lot, as they were prisoners of war. At Cydonia, one of the towns of Crete, the slaves had festivals during which they were free and powerful, and could even fight the citizens. Servitude has always provoked orgies.

All the instincts of civilisation began to develop in Crete with great energy. The Cretans did not like inaction, they liked hunting, wrestling, and every kind of exercise. They lived in common and divided the fruits of the earth. These customs and habits were at the bottom of Cretan institutions. The legislators confirmed these customs in certain cases and in others trained or suppressed them. The laws, called the laws of Minos, were never written down, and changed in the course of years.

Let us enter into Lyctus, a town of Crete, and see the everyday life of the people. Each person gave up the tenth of his productions or possessions to help support the society of which he was a member. These contributions were divided amongst all the families of the city by the magistrates. The citizens were divided into little societies; the care of the meals being in the hands of one of the women who directed the work of three or four of the public slaves, each of whom had a water-carrier. In each city there were two public edifices; one devoted to the serving of meals, the other to the shelter of foreigners and strangers. In the building for the meals were two tables, called hospitable tables, where strangers sat. The other tables were for the use of the citizens. An equal portion was given to each, except to the young people, who had only half a portion of meat and touched no other food. A pitcher of wine and water was on each table, from which everybody drank; after the meal another pitcher was placed on the table. The children had one pitcher in which the wine was measured, the old people and men had unlimited wine. The women who presided at the meals chose the choicest pieces for those who had distinguished themselves by their valour or their prudence. After the repast, public affairs were discussed, then great actions were related and those who had been courageous were praised and set up as models to the young.

Warfare was the object of all the institutions. On this point Plato and Aristotle agree. Clinias the Cretan, one of Plato’s interrogators, wished everything to be arranged for warfare; he took trouble to have it understood that without supremacy in battle, riches and culture in art will be of no use, since all the treasures of the defeated pass into the hands of the conqueror. Aristotle remarked that in Crete as in Sparta, and among the Scythians, Persians, Thracians, and Celts, everything led up to warfare--education, laws, customs. In Crete, the men were soldiers living under the same discipline, eating the same food, sharing perils and pleasure, and always ready to march or to fight. They were respected only when they were hardy, vigorous, agile, and quick. Prudence and repose were for old age.

As soon as the children could read, they were taught poems in which the laws were explained, and the elements of music. They were very strictly treated, with a severity which was never changed, no matter what the season. Clothed in rough clothes, they ate on the ground, helping one another and waiting upon the men. When they became older, they formed part of different companies, each one being presided over by a youth chosen from the highest or most powerful families. These young chiefs led the companies out hunting and racing; they had an almost parental authority over their companions and punished the disobedient. On certain days the companies fought against each other; to the sound of the flute and lyre, they attacked each other with their hands or weapons. This drilled them in the art of warfare. The Cretan towns, like other Grecian cities, had public buildings and gymnasiums for corporal exercises, gymnasiums for the mind were added later.

There was a time when the disputes between the different towns were judged by a kind of federal arbitration, but it is doubtful whether the decisions of this tribunal were respected. However, after some civil wars between the towns, arrangements were made, and we find some curious remains in the principal clauses of a treaty between two towns, Hierapolis and Priansus. Each had rights of isopolity and of marriage, of acquiring possessions in each other’s territory, and of having an equal share in all things, divine and human. Those who wanted to reside in the other town could do so and could buy and sell there, lend or borrow money and make any kind of contract according to the laws of both.

Thus without unity and always at war with one another, the Cretans never left their island and took no part in the general affairs of Greece. They refused to enter into the league formed against Darius, giving the excuse that their assisting Menelaus had cost them misfortune, and recalling the conduct of the Greeks who had not hastened to avenge the death of Minos. These were pretexts, but the real cause was the feebleness of the Cretans, too weak and too few to take part in any great enterprise, a weakness which kept Crete always isolated, obscure and selfish. Polybius was indignant at Crete being compared to Lacedæmonia; he compared the equality of wealth and contempt of riches which reigned at Sparta to the avarice of the Cretans who were quite unscrupulous as to their means of becoming rich.

With the exception of the fact that the cosmes were elected yearly, we believe Polybius is wrong in esteeming Crete a democratic state. Power was in the hands of the senate, which was a regular oligarchy. As for the natural faults of the Cretans, which their government rather encouraged than corrected, time succeeded only in making them increase, and it is not astonishing that, at the time that Polybius wrote, they deserved the severe opinion of the historian. It would be unjust not to state with what disfavour the Greeks looked upon them. This insular race that helped no one and was ready to accept the pay of any nation, was hated by the Greeks. The Cretans were called treacherous liars, and it was proverbial that it was permitted to “cretise” with a Cretan.

Crete was renowned for two causes; it was looked upon first as the cradle of the gods, then as the nest of sea-robbers and mercenaries. After having shone at the beginning of Greek civilisation, its development was interrupted before its time. Anarchy unnerved it. The bad reputation of the Cretans at Athens was also due to the jealousy of the Athenians who could never forgive Crete a short supremacy on the sea. When the poets wished to please the Athenians they abused Minos and the Cretans. Nothing is more dangerous to good fame with posterity than to have for enemy a witty nation.[b]

BELOCH’S ACCOUNT OF GREEK COLONISATION

The scene of Grecian primitive history is practically limited to the countries bordering the Ægean Sea. But in the period which gave rise to the great epic poems the geographical horizon had already begun to expand. In one of the later songs of the Iliad, Egyptian Thebes is mentioned; the songs relating the wanderings of Ulysses speak of the Cimmerians, the original inhabitants of the north coast of the Pontus, and the clear summer nights of the north, of which the Greeks could learn only on this coast. The Telemachus speaks of Libya, beside Egypt, and the latest songs of the Odyssey show an acquaintance with the Siculi and the land of the Sicani. No tradition has preserved the names of the bold explorers who first ventured out into the open sea which phantasy had peopled with all kinds of monsters and fabulous beings, and which, in reality, concealed countless terrors and dangers. Their deeds however lived on in the songs relating the expedition of the Argo and the home-coming of the heroes from Troy.

The settler soon followed the explorer. The need of land had once in a dim antiquity led the Hellenes to the islands of the Ægean Sea and to the western coast of Asia Minor; these regions were now occupied, and whoever found his home too narrow was obliged to seek out more distant lands. Commercial interests played no part in these migrations at first, because there was no industry in Greece to furnish articles for export. People were in search of fertile districts; whether or not good harbours were close at hand was wholly a question of secondary importance. The division of farm lands was consequently the first business of the new settlers; at the beginning of the fifth century the ancient citizens of Syracuse already style themselves “land owners” (γαμόροι). Herein lies the fundamental difference between Grecian and Phœnician colonisation. Every Phœnician settlement was primarily a commercial establishment, which under favourable circumstances might develop into an agricultural colony; the Grecian settlements were originally agricultural colonies out of which, however, in the course of time extensive commercial centres were developed.

The oldest colonial foundations of this time were like those unorganised expeditions which once poured out upon the islands and the shores of Asia Minor. Such were the settlements of the Achæans and Locrians in southern Italy. As the Greeks, however, were continually being forced out to more distant coasts, their colonisation had to take on a different character. The navigation of the islandless sea in the west, or even the journey to Libya and the stormy Pontus, necessitated a degree of seamanship greater than that possessed by the inhabitants of the agricultural coast districts of the Grecian peninsula, from among whom the settlers of the lands across the sea had until then gone forth. Hence Africa, Bœotia, and Argolis ceased to take an independent part in the colonisation movement. In their place arose cities, hardly or not at all mentioned by Homer, which by their advantageous location had come to be centres of navigation; Chalcis and Eretria on the Euripus, the strait which furnishes the most convenient connection between southern Greece and Thessaly; Megara and Corinth on the isthmus, where the two seas which wash the shores of Greece come within a few miles of each other; Rhodes, Lesbos, and other islands of the Ægean Sea; finally the Ionian coast towns, especially Miletus. Not that all the colonists, who went out from here to seek new homes on distant shores were actually at home in these cities. On the contrary, these cities were only gathering places whither streamed the emigrants from the surrounding regions--all those who found no chance to advance in their old homes or who were driven abroad by love of adventure or by dissatisfaction with political conditions. But the cities, from which the colonising expeditions went out, organised the undertaking; they provided leaders and ships and their institutions served as models for the colonies.

Once founded, however, the colonies were, as a rule, wholly independent of the mother-city. The relation between them was like that between a father and his grown son in Grecian law. The citizen of the mother-city was always respected in the colony; and the colony, on the other hand, could always count on finding support with the mother-city in case of a difficult crisis. That the colony, moreover, remained in especially active intercourse with its mother-city lay in the nature of this colonial relationship; and in the course of time the colonies became the surest supports for the commerce of the mother-city and the best markets for the productions of its industrial activity.

In consequence the recollection of this relationship was kept alive for a long time. But the circumstances which gave rise to the foundation of all the colonies earlier than the sixth century, remain veiled in the darkness of tradition. Historical records were as yet far removed from this period, and the dates of foundations which have been handed down to us are based wholly upon calculations according to generations or upon suppositions of even less value. Such accounts can at the most give us only approximate clews and must in each single instance be compared with other traditions. Only so much is certain that in the first half of the seventh century the settlement of the southern coast of Thrace was in full progress and the Hellenes had already established themselves upon the gulf of Tarentum.

No other field offered the Grecian colonists such favourable conditions as the coasts of Italy and Sicily, beyond the Ionic Sea. Situated in the same latitude as the mother-land, these countries have a climate very similar to that of Greece.

Intercourse between the two shores existed at an early date. Fragments of vases in the Mycenæan style have been found in Messapia, and the pre-Hellenic necropolis in eastern Sicily shows traces of a civilisation which is partially under Mycenæan influence. It even appears that in pre-historic times immigrations from the Balkan peninsula into Italy already took place by way of Otranto. At least it is related that the Chones once dwelt on the western coast of the gulf of Tarentum; and the similarity of names between these people and the Epirot Chaones, the inhabitants of the region about the Acroceraunian promontory, can hardly be accidental. Perhaps this is connected with the fact that the Italici designate the Hellenes as Græci, since the Græci are said to have been an Epirot tribe, which in historic times had wholly disappeared.

Be that as it may, the Hellenes had at all events taken possession of the eastern coast of the present Calabria, during the course of the eighth, or at latest at the beginning of the seventh century. The new settlers called themselves Achæans and thought they were descended from the Achæans in the Peloponnesus. As a matter of fact their dialect is closely related to the Argolian. The Chones of Italy have since disappeared from history, and have probably been merged into one people with the Achæans.

The new home was called Italia, after a branch of the original population which disappeared at an early date, and this name was gradually extended over the whole peninsula clear to the Alps. The land offered a boundless field for Hellenic activity, and the realisation of that fact found expression in the name Greater Hellas, which arose in the colonial territory across the Ionian Sea in about the sixth century, in contrast to the crowded condition of the too thickly populated mother-land. This may have been hyperbole, but it was in a sense justified by the brilliant development of the Achæan settlements. The coasts of the gulf of Tarentum became covered with a circle of flourishing cities. In the north at the mouth of the Bradanus was Metapontum, which bore on its armour the speaking device of an ear of corn; then came Siris in the fruitful plain at the mouth of the river of the same name, which, to the poet Archilochus appeared an ideal place for a colony; further south where Crathis empties into the sea, was Sybaris, whose wealth and luxury soon became proverbial. In close rivalry with Sybaris stood Croton, situated near the promontory of Lacinium, on the top of which the new settlers founded the temple of Hera, the queen of heaven, which became the chief sanctuary for the Greeks of Italy. One column of the building is still standing, a signal for ships, and can be seen from afar over the blue waters of the Ionian Sea. Finally, far to the south at Cape Stilo was Caulonia, the last of the Achæan settlements.

The Achæans soon penetrated also into the interior and through the narrow peninsula to the shores of the Tyrrhenian Sea. Sybaris founded here the colonies of Scidrus and Laos, and, further north, on the lower Silarus, Posidonia [afterwards Pæstum], whose temple to-day arises in solemn majesty from out its desolate surroundings, the most beautiful monument of Grecian architecture which has been preserved on the western side of the Ionian Sea. Pyxus [afterwards Buxentum], between Posidonia and Laos, is probably a colony from Siris, which was directly opposite it on the Ionian Sea, and was later closely associated with it. Croton founded Pandosia in the upper valley of the Crathis, and Terina and Scylletium (Scylacium) on the isthmus of Catanzaro where the Ionian and Tyrrhenian seas approach to within a few miles of each other. The Achæans now controlled the whole region from the Bradanus and Silarus southward to the gulf of Terina and the gulf of Scylletium, an area of fifteen thousand square kilometres.

The Achæans were soon followed by the Locrians, who lived opposite them on the gulf of Corinth. They founded a new Locri, south of the Achæan settlements not far from the Zephyrian promontory. This city also soon became rich and powerful, so that its territory was extended to the west coast of the peninsula, where it established the colonies Hipponium and Medma.

In the meantime the inhabitants of eastern Greece had begun to direct their gaze to the newly discovered lands in the west--first of all the Chalcidians, the bravest men in Hellas, as they are called in an old proverb. Since the coast of the gulf of Tarentum was already occupied, they sailed further, to Sicily the land famed in fable as the home of the Cyclops and Læstrygones. These were no longer to be found there, but instead a people of Italic race, the Siceli, or the Sicani, as they were called in the western part of the island, a brave and warlike people, but with no national unity so that they were unable successfully to oppose the invaders. Here, at the foot of the lofty snow pyramid of Ætna, the Chalcidians founded Naxos, their first settlement and the first Hellenic town on Sicilian soil. In gratitude to the god, Apollo Archegetes, who had brought them over the sea in safety, the settlers erected an altar. Later on, when Sicily had become an Hellenic land, all those who were setting sail to attend the festivals in the mother-land used to sacrifice at this place.

From Naxos the Chalcidians soon took possession of the surrounding region. In the south they founded Catane, Leontini, Callipolis, Eubœa; in the north, on the strait which separates Sicily from Italy, they built Zancle, the later Messana, or Messina, and opposite this on the mainland Rhegium was established. Here the wide Tyrrhenian Sea was open to the Hellenes. The precipitous western coast of the Calabria of to-day and the waterless Liparæan Islands were not indeed attractive to settlers, but on the small island Pithecusa (Ischia), off the coast of the Osci, was the most favourable spot a colonist could wish--the soil being luxuriantly fertile and at the same time secure from hostile attacks. Thus the Calcidians established themselves here at an early date, perhaps in the eighth century. Soon they ventured over to the near-lying continent, and on the steep trachyte cliff, upon the flat, wave-beaten shore of the gulf of Gæta, they founded Cumæ, so called from a place [Cyme] in the old Eubœan home-land.

Neapolis, the “new city” was colonised from here in about the year 600, while Samian fugitives settled at Dicæarchia [afterwards Puteoli], in close proximity to Cumæ (in 527). The second large island of the Neapolitan Bay, Capreæ must also have been settled by Chalcidians, since we find a Hellenic population there even in the period of the empire.

Cumæ is the most extreme westerly point of Italy which the Chalcidians, and indeed the Hellenes as a whole, ever possessed. It has always remained, as it was first established, the most advanced frontier post, and the continuous territory of Grecian colonisation in Italy ends at the Silarus. A similar position was occupied on the southern shore of the Tyrrhenian Sea by Himera, which was colonised from Messana in about the year 650, and was the only Grecian city on the northern coast of Sicily. Chalcidian colonisation in the west came to an end with this settlement.

The example given by Chalcis was soon imitated. The Corinthians in the eighth century still occupied the rich island of Corcyra and likewise turned their steps to Sicily. Since the region around Ætna and the strait was already occupied by Chalcidians, they went further south and established the colony of Syracuse upon the small island of Ortygia, in the most beautiful harbour on the eastern coast of Sicily. This colony was destined to become the metropolis of the Grecian west. The real colonising activity of Corinth, however, was directed chiefly towards the northwestern part of the Grecian peninsula. In the course of the eighth century a dense circle of Corinthian and Corintho-Corcyræan settlements grew up here: among them Chalcis and Molycrium in Ætolia at the entrance to the bay of Corinth.

Like Corinth, its neighbour city Megara began at an early date to take part in the colonisation of Sicily. A new Megara arose here, between Syracuse and the Chalcidian Leontini, professedly in the eighth century, at any rate before Syracuse had acquired much importance and had begun to found colonies of its own. Its powerful neighbours made it impossible for the city to expand towards the interior and thus the Megarians were obliged to go further west, when their territory became too cramped for them at home. They founded Selinus, not far from the most western point of the island on the coast of the Libyan Sea, at about the same time that the Chalcidians laid out Himera on the opposite coast (about 650). On account of the fertility of the district the new colony soon reached a high grade of prosperity and established on its own account a number of settlements, such as Minoa, near the mouth of the Halycus (Platani) so called from the little island of like name in the old Grecian home.

Of the other states of the Grecian mother-land only Sparta took part in the settlement of the west. Inner disturbances which broke out after the conquest of Messenia are said to have caused a portion of the conquered party to leave their home. The emigrants set sail for Iapygia and established there, upon the only good harbour on the southeast coast of Italy, the colony of Tarentum (700 B.C.). Two centuries later, shortly before the Persian wars, the Spartans made an attempt to establish themselves in the west.

Sicily and Italy were too far out of the way for the Asiatic Greeks, and they consequently held almost entirely aloof from any colonising expeditions thither. Rhodes was an exception. At the beginning of the seventh century its citizens, together with the Cretans, established the colony of Gela, on the fertile depression at the mouth of the Gela, which was the first Grecian city on the south coast of Sicily. About a century later (in 580) this city colonised Agrigentum, which is situated farther to the west on a steep height commanding a broad outlook, not far from the sea. This filled the gap which had been left in the row of Grecian cities between Gela and Selinus. At about the same time Rhodians and Cnidians under the leadership of the Heraclid Pentathlus, tried to find a footing on the most extreme west point of Sicily, on the promontory of Lilybæum. But the Hellenes were here successfully opposed by the Elymi, the original inhabitants of this part of the island, and by the citizens of the neighbouring Phœnician colony of Motya. The new settlers and their Selinuntine allies were beaten; Pentathlus himself fell, and the remainder of his people were forced to take refuge on the barren Liparæan Islands, which were thus won for the Grecians.

The distant west had been opened up to Grecian commerce even before this. It is said to have been a Samian sailor, Colœus by name, who, on a journey to Egypt, being carried out of his way by a storm off the Libyan coast, was the first to reach Tartessus, the rich silver-land, lying near the Pillars of Hercules (600 B.C.) At about the same time Ionic Phocæans founded the colony of Massalia not far from the mouth of the Rhodanus. This soon became a centre for the commerce of these regions and extended its influence far into the Celtic interior. From here the Phocæans advanced along the Iberian coast to Tartessus, where they entered into friendly relations with the natives and established the colony of Mænaca, which was the most westerly point the Hellenes ever held. The Phocæans settled also on Cyrnus (Corsica). In 565 they founded Alalia on the east coast of the island. When Ionia was forced to succumb to the Persians after the fall of Sardis (545) a large portion of the citizens of Phocæa left their homes and turned to their tribal kinsmen in Alalia, which thus grew from a mere mercantile settlement into a powerful city.

These results, however, were for the most part of short duration. The Phœnicians reached the western Mediterranean at the same time with the Hellenes, perhaps somewhat earlier even. The northern coast of Libya from Syrtis Major to the Pillars of Hercules was covered with a line of their settlements, among which Carthage attained the first place in the course of time, owing to the advantage of its incomparable location. It was not long before they crossed over to the islands lying opposite Africa. They occupied Melita (Malta) and Gaulos (Gozzo), and founded Motya, Panormus, and Solus in west Sicily, probably during the seventh century. Here the Greeks formed a barrier preventing their further expansion. The Phœnicians, however, could spread themselves upon Sardinia without hindrance, since the Greeks, although they may have planned to settle there, never went seriously about it. In this way a succession of Phœnician settlements grew up along the south and west coast of the island--Caralis, Nora, Sulci, Tharrus and others. The Pityusæ are said to have been colonised from Carthage in the year 654-653 B.C. The Phœnicians had already reached the silver-land of Tartessus in the eighth century. Their chief point of support in this region was Gades, situated on a small island beyond the Pillars of Hercules on the edge of the ocean.

A hostile encounter with the Hellenes could now no longer be avoided and it seems to have been the danger which threatened the Phœnicians from this side which led their scattered settlements to unite into a single state with Carthage as its centre, or at any rate materially assisted Carthage in her work of unification. Above all it was necessary to drive out the Phœnicians from their newly won position on Corsica. The Phœnicians were aided in their attempt by the Etruscans, who, as bold pirates, had long beforehand made themselves feared by the Greeks, and regarded the Phocæan settlements so near their coasts with no less anxiety than the Phœnicians themselves. The Phocæans could not withstand the attack of the two peoples, who were the most skilful navigators in the western Mediterranean. They were indeed victorious in an open sea fight, but they endured such severe losses that they were obliged to give up Alalia. They next turned to south Italy and established there the colony of Hyele, between Pyxus and Posidonia. Massalia was now isolated and thrown upon its own resources. The distant Mænaca could consequently be maintained no longer, and Carthage won undisputed possession of Tartessus. But within its narrow range of power Massalia victoriously resisted all attacks of the Phœnicians, and the final result was that a sort of dividing line was established between the two cities. Massaliot influence was preponderant north of the promontory of Artemisium (cape of Nao); Carthaginian, south of it, on the east coast of Iberia.

Cyrnus came under Etruscan influence after the withdrawal of the Phocæans. The Etruscans, it appears, had already taken possession of the fertile plain on the lower Vulturnus and had established there a number of settlements, whose centre was at Capua. They now proceeded to attack Hellenic Cumæ (presumably in 524). Here, however, the superior military skill of the Greeks won the victory, and the latter were able to defend the Latin cities, which were friendly to them, from being brought into subjection by the Etruscans. The strength of Cumæ, however, was not sufficient to keep up the unequal fight for long and it was due only to the intervention of the Syracusans that Hellenism maintained itself here until the end of the fifth century.

Nearly contemporaneously with the beginnings of colonisation in the west the Hellenes began to spread toward the north and southeast. The Chalcidians again took the first place. Opposite Eubœa a long peninsula projects from the north into the Ægean Sea, which, on account of the numerous indentations of its coast, as well as the fertility of its soil, invited settlement. A long succession of Grecian colonial towns grew up here, the most of which were founded from Chalcis; hence the name Chalcidice, which the peninsula bore in later times. The Corinthians followed the Chalcidians here, just as they had done in the west. On the narrow isthmus joining the peninsula of Pallene with the main body of Chalcidice they founded the colony of Potidæa (in 600) which remained the most important city of this region until the time of the Peloponnesian War. The original Thracian population maintained itself only on the rugged slopes of Athos.

Further east, in the first half of the seventh century, the Parians took possession of the mountainous island of Thasos, which at that time was still covered with a thick primeval forest. The new settlers soon crossed over to the near-lying mainland, where they established a number of commercial stations, as Œsyma and Galepsus, which had to maintain themselves through long struggles with the warlike Thracian tribes. Opposite Thasos, on the fruitful plain between Nestus and Lake Bistonis, the Clazomenæans founded Abdera in 651, but they could not long maintain themselves against the attacks of the Thracians. Colonists from Teos, who emigrated after the conquest of Ionia by the Persians (545) and took possession of the deserted place, were more successful; Abdera now became the most important city on this whole coast and also took an active part in the intellectual life of the nation.

Lesbos and Tenedos were for a long time the most advanced posts of the Hellenic world toward the northeast. Not until the eighth century do the inhabitants of these islands appear to have succeeded in taking possession of the south of Troas, from the wooded slopes of Ida to the entrance to the Hellespont. None of the numerous settlements founded here, however, became very important. The Lesbians then went further and crossed over to the European shore of the Hellespont, where they built Sestus at the narrowest point of the strait and Alopeconnesus on the northern coast of the Thracian Chersonesus. Ænus, at the mouth of the mighty Hebrus, the principal river of Thrace, was also colonised by Mytileneans. The further expansion of the Greeks on this coast was arrested by the warlike tribes of Thrace.

The Lesbians were soon followed by the Milesians. In 670 they established Abydos, opposite Sestus, and at about the same time (675) founded Cyzicus on the isthmus connecting the mountainous peninsula of Arcotonnesus with the Asiatic mainland. Other Ionian cities also took part in the colonisation of these regions. Lampsacus was colonised from Phocæa (651); Elæus from Teos; Myrlea from Colophon; Perinthus from Samos (600).

The Milesians also advanced into the Pontus at an early date. It was due to them that this sea, which, with its inhospitable shores peopled by wild barbarians, had been the terror of Grecian mariners, became known as “the hospitable sea” (Pontos Euxinos), with which few other regions could compare in importance for Grecian commerce. Miletus is said to have founded in all no less than ninety colonies on the coasts of the Hellespont and Pontus. In 630 Milesians built Sinope not far from the mouth of the Halys, which soon grew to be the most important emporium in this region, and founded in its turn a number of colonies, as Cotyora, Trapezus, and Cerasus. The Milesians, however, turned their attention especially to the northwest and north coasts of the Pontus, which were to become the principal granaries of Greece. After the middle of the seventh century a large number of Milesian colonies grew up here. The first was Istrus south of the mouth of the Danube, said to have been founded in 656; a few years later (644) Olbia, at the mouth of the Borysthenes near its junction with the Hypanis (Bug); then in the first half of the sixth century on the east coast of Thrace, Apollonia, Odessus, and Tomis; further on Tyras at the mouth of the river of like name (Dniester) and Theodosia on the south coast of the Crimea. The Hellenic settlements were especially frequent in the Cimmerian Bosporus, the highway uniting the Pontus with the sea of Mæotis. Nymphæum and the Milesian colony of Panticapæum, the later capital of the Bosporian kingdom, arose here on the western shore; opposite, on the Asiatic shore, was Phanagorea, founded from Teos. Finally, Tanais was founded at the mouth of the Don, the most northerly point ever occupied by the Greeks.

The Megarians had begun to establish themselves on the Propontis at about the same time with the Milesians. In 675 they founded Chalcedon at the entrance to the Thracian Bosporus, and seventeen years later, Byzantium, on the opposite European shore. Selymbria, neighbouring Byzantium on the west, and Astacus, at the most easterly point of the Propontis, not far from the site of the later Nicomedia, were Megarian colonies. The Megarians, however, penetrated into the Pontus itself, at a comparatively late date. Their first colony here was Heraclea, founded in association with Bœotian settlers in the year 550, in the land of the Mariandyni, about two hundred kilometres from the outlet of the Bosporus. From there Mesembria and Callatis were colonised on the east coast of Thrace, and Chersonesus, on the southern point of the Tauric peninsula, near the present Sebastopol.

All of these Grecian towns, however, remained with few exceptions isolated points in the midst of the original population of barbarians. An actual hellenising of the country as in Sicily and lower Italy was never accomplished. This was largely due to the configuration of the Pontine coast, which with the exception of the Crimea has no indentations, so that the Grecian colonies had no way to protect themselves against the attacks of the tribes from the interior. Besides, the winter climate of the regions north of the Pontus was very raw. The Greeks could not feel happy in a land where the vine and olive tree grew only in sheltered places, and only the bitterest necessity or the prospect of great commercial gain could cause them to leave their sunny home-land for such a country. Thus the Grecian cities on the Pontus never became very populous; there was not one among them to compare with Sybaris, Taras, Acragas, to say nothing of Syracuse. Condemned to a continual struggle for existence, the Greeks here had no leisure for the cultivation of higher interests. It is remarkable how poor the Pontine colonies have been in intellectual greatness. Their rôle in history has practically been confined to providing the mother-land with grain, salted fish, and other such raw products. Only once, when the rest of the nation had already fallen under foreign dominion, did they take an active part in great political events. The last battle for Grecian liberty was fought with their forces, but he who led the fight was a hellenised barbarian king.

Although the Hellenes had been able to expand on the Italian, Sicilian, and Pontine coasts with almost no hindrance, Grecian colonisation met an insurmountable obstacle in the old civilised lands on the southeastern shores of the Mediterranean, with their dense populations. In Syria the Hellenes did not attempt a settlement; they were not even able to drive the Phœnicians out of Cyprus. Indeed, when the Assyrian king Sargon conquered Syria at the end of the eighth century, the Greeks on Cyprus thought it advisable to recognise his supremacy, at least nominally, and this relation continued under his successors until Asshurbanapal. Later, after the fall of the Assyrian Empire, the island came under Egyptian rule. Sargon’s son Sennacherib (705-681) repulsed an attempt of the Greeks to settle on the Cilician plain. The warlike tribes of rough Cilicia and Lycia also succeeded in keeping the Greeks at a distance from their coasts, or at least prevented their further expansion. Phaselis, founded by the Rhodians on the western shore of the gulf of Pamphylia in 700, remained the last Grecian colony in the south of Asia Minor.

The rich valley of the Nile attracted Grecian pirates at an early period, the more so as the political divisions of the country in the eighth and first half of the seventh century rendered an effective resistance impossible. The superior military ability of these pirates finally caused Psamthek, the ruler of Saïs, to hire them as mercenaries. With their aid he got the upper hand over the other sectional princes and freed Egypt from the Assyrian yoke (about 660-645). From that time forward, Greeks formed the kernel of the Egyptian army, and although the Nile valley was now closed to piracy, it was, on the other hand, open to Greek commerce. The Milesians founded a colony on the Bolbitinic mouth of the Nile, below Saïs; somewhat later a number of Greek mercantile settlements grew up at Naucratis, not far from the Canopic mouth of the Nile, to which King Aahmes granted rights of corporation. The city soon grew to be the chief commercial emporium of Egypt and in the sixth century occupied, on a small scale, a position like that of the later Alexandria. In the course of time the Greeks would without doubt have become rulers of the country, but the Persian conquest retarded their development for fully a century and put a limit to the further expansion of Hellenism.

The route from Greece to Egypt was usually by way of Crete in a southerly direction to the coast of Libya. This is the narrowest part of the eastern Mediterranean, and the stretch of open sea to be crossed measures hardly three hundred kilometers, about the same as the width of the Ægean Sea. The need soon began to be felt of having a station at the place where land was first touched again. Thus in 630 Greeks from Thera settled upon the small island of Platea, which is situated off the Libyan shore at precisely this point. After a few years the colonists felt strong enough to cross over to the mainland. At a short distance from the coast, where the high tableland of the interior slopes down to the sea, they founded the city of Cyrene. The fertility of the soil and the trade in the aromatic plant silphion, which is here indigenous and was highly prized by the Greeks, assured prosperity to the newcomers. The Libyan tribes living in the neighbourhood were subdued and an attack of the Egyptian king Apries [Uah-ab-Ra] was successfully repulsed (570). A short time later Barca was founded (550) on the heights of the plateau west of Cyrene, and Teuchira and Hesperides on the coast. Carthage prevented a further extension toward the west, and Egypt toward the east, and consequently Cerenaica remained the only district on the south coast of the Mediterranean, which was colonised by Hellenes.

Thus in the course of two centuries the Ionian Sea, the Propontis, and the Pontus had become Grecian seas, and Grecian colonies had arisen in Egypt as well as in Libya, on the west coast of Italy, and in the land of the Celts as far as distant Iberia. The nation had grown out of the narrow limits in which till then its history had been enacted. Greek influence was henceforth predominant within the entire circumference of the Mediterranean. The reaction of this on Grecian life was manifest in all its phases.[c]

FOOTNOTES

[14] [Recent excavations have tended to confirm the existence of Crete’s boasted hundred cities.]

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