HIST 1OY OF GREECE. BY THE RIGHT REV, CONNOP THIRLWALL LORD BISHO? OF ST. DAVID'S IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. L NEW YORK: HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS. TO JULIUS CHARLES HARE. MY DEAR HARE, You will not be surprised, though you have received no previous intimation of my intention, to find this volume inscribed with your name. At the close of a work which has occupied ai considerable portion of many years of my life, my thoughts naturally revert to the scenes and objects in the midst of which it was begun; to the days when we were living within the walls of the same college, and associated together in labours to which we have still reason to look back with pleasure. How much this work is indebted for whatever is good in it to that intimacy, and more especially to that literary partnership, it would not become me to say, even if I were able distinctly to point it out; but I am conscious that it would probably have been less faulty if I had more constantly considered it as subject to your inspection. This dedication comes too late either to raise a suspicion that it is meant to bias your judgment, or to incur the charge of presumption, as inviting the scrutiny of an, eye so critical and so familiar with the best models, to what I myself feel to be a very imperfect essay. You will accept it as it is meant, for a token of friendship and esteem, which neither time nor distance can abate, and with which I remain, My dear Hare, Yours faithfully, C. ST. DAVID'S. ADVERTISEMENT. THE plan of the little work begun in this volume has been considerably enlarged since it was first undertaken,' and the author fears that a critical eye may be able to detect some traces'of this variation from the original design in the manner of treating one or two subjects.- He would be glad if he might believe that this was its chief defect. But he is most desirous that the object which he has had in view should be understood. He thought it probable that his work might fall into the hands of two different classes of readers, whose wants might not always exactly coincide, but were equally worthy of attention: one consisting of persons who wish to acquire something more than a superficial acquaintance with Greek history, but who have neither. leisure nor means to study it for themselves in its original sources; the other of such.as have access to the ancient authors, but often feel the need of a guide and an interpreter. The first of these classes is undoubtedly by far the largest, and'8it is for its satisfaction that the work is principally designed. But the author did not think that this ought to prevent him from entering into the discussion of subjects which he is aware must be chiefly, if not solely, interesting to readeris of the other description, and he has therefore:dwelt on the earlier part of the history at greater length than would have been proper in a merely, popular narrative. Perhaps he may venture to add, that it is the part which seemed to him to have been most neglected by preceding English writers, and to deserve more attention than it had commonly received among us. it was written before the first (the last published) volume of Mr. Clinton's Fasti had appeared. Another consequence resulting from the nature of his plan is, that he has found it necessary to subjoin a greater number of notes and references than may seem to accord with the unpretending form of the work. He regrets the room which they occupy, and would have been glad to have thought himself at liberty to omit them. But he believes he may safely appeal to the experience of every one conversant with these matters, to attest that they have not been needlessly multiplied. Wherever it could be done without presuming too much on the reader's knowledge, he' has contented himself with generally pointing out the sources from which he has slrawn, and has only introduced a particular reference where either his conclusions might be thought questionable, or the precise passage which he had in his mind was likely to escape notice, or was peculiarly interesting and instructive. If, however, he should be thought not to have observed the right mean in this respect, or sometimes to have addressed himself to too narrow a circle, or even to have amused himself instead of his readers, he consoles himself by the prospect That in the progress of his work, as its subject becomes more T A B L E, ANALYTICAL AND CHRONOLOGICAL, TO THE FIRST VOLUME OF THE HISTORY OF GREECE. CHAPTER I. PAP GEOGRAP CHICALOUPTERS. LF GREECE. - Fourfold Division of the Greek Nation-The AEolians GEOGRAPHICAL OUTLINES OF GREECE.,' Page -The Bceotian JEolis-X-Eolians in the South of Geograf hical Position of Greece-Various Descriptions Thessaly. 60 of its Boundaries. 33 The Minyans-The. Minyean Orchomenus. 61 Thessaly-Tempe-Divisions of Thessaly.. 34 AEolians at Corinth-In Elis-In Pylus.. 62 South of Thessaly-Doris-Phocis-Locris-Beaotia- In Messenia-In Etolia. 63 Lake Copais..35 In Locris — General Character of the.Eolian SettleSouthern Beotia -Eubea - The Euripus -Bceotian Inents-Oriin of the Dorians.64 Character. 36 Their Struggles with the Lapiths-Dorians in the Attica-Megaris-Ozolian ocris.-_Etolia.. 37 Northwest of Thessaly-Conquest of the Southern Acarnania - The Isthmus -Attempts made to dig Doris.65 thrbugh the Isthmus-General View of Peloponnesus Adventures of Xuthus-The Achmans in Thessaly and -Arcadia. 38 Peloponnesus-Their Relation to the Hellenes 66 Outlets of its Waters-Argolis- Sicyon- Corinth- Reasons for thinking them a Branch of the Pelasgialns Passes-Plain of Argos-The ActB-Epidaurus 39 -They are blended with the ZEolians in ThessalyTrcezen-Hermiond —Asind-Passes-Cynuria- Laco- Establishment of an.2Eolian Dynasty among the nia......... 40 Achzeans of Argolis 67 Messenia-Elis-Triphylia-Fisatis-Achaia- Fertili- Achmans in Laconia-Origin of the Ionians-Their Rety of Greece..41 lation to the Hellenes..68 Volcanic Changes.. 42 Their Establishment in Attica.. 69 Antiquity of the Ionian Settlements in PeloponnesusCHAPTER II. Early Distinctions among the Ionians in Attica-MixTHE EARLIEST INHABITANTS OF GREECE. ture of Hellenes with Ionians in Attica —Migrations Causes which render the Subject obscure.. 42 to and from Eua. 70 The Pelasgians-How represented by Homer, Herodo- Ionian Dialect.71 tus, Thucydides, and Strabo-Traces of the Pelasgi- CHAPTER V. ans in Thessaly....43 In Epirus-In Breotia and Attica-InPeloponnesus, es- THE HEROES AND THEIR AGE, B.C. 1384-1184. pecially in Argolis —In Achaia. 44 1300-1200 Definition of the Heroic Age-BellerophonIn Arcadia-Pelasgian Origin of the Arcadians-Various Names of the Pelasgian Tribes-The Caucones 45 Perseus 71 The Leleges —The Thracians.... 46 Hercules-Hercules the God-Hercules the TheThe Leleges-The Thracians..... 46 Influence of the Thracians on Greek Poetry-Asiatic ban Hero.72 Pelasgians. 47 Legends of Hercules in Peloponnesus-Other AdOpinions of the Greeks as to the Origin of the Earliest ventures of Hercules-Theseus a second HerRaces-Course of the Pelasgian Migrations. 48 cule-Attic Kings before Theseus.73 Relation between the Pelasgians and the Greeks-Ob- Birth of Theseus-His Journey to Athens-Adservations of Herodotus on the Pelasgian Language ventures ii Crete- Import of the Legend 74 Minos-His maritime Dominion and Colonies 75 th —Langua of thee Pelasgians not wholly foreign t.o Legend of his Dorian Origin examined-Grounds Inference from the Pelasgian Settlements in Italy- for rejecting it-Conjecture on the Legend of Civilization of the Pelasgians... 50inos Legends of their savage Condition-Traditions of their Confederacies among the Heroes Familiarity with the Arts of Life —Monuments of the Wars, and the Calydonian Chase-Legend of Pelasgians.51 the Argonautic Expedition... 77 Religious Groundwork of the Legend-Its historical Groundwork. 78 1184 Jason and Medea-Story of the Trojan War 79 FOREIGN SETTLERS IN GREECE. How far Credible-Helen a mythological Person Authority of the Traditions concerning Foreign Settlers -Connexion between the Trojan War and the in Greece-Legend of Danaus.52 Argonautic Expedition 80 Its local Features-Other supposed Egyptian Colonies Expedition of Hercules against Troy-Historical in Argolis and Megaris-Colonies of Cecrops, Erech- View of the Trojan War-Consequences of the theus, and Peteus.53 War 81 Colony of Cadmus-Opinions about Cadmus-Legend Authority of the Homeric Poems with regard to of Pelops.....54 historical Facts-With regard to the State of General Arguments in favour of the Reality of the Col- Society described in them.... 82 onies from the East-Coincidence between Greek-and CHAPTER VI. Egyptian Traditions..... 55 in what Sense Egyptians and Phoenicians may be said THE GOVERNMENT, MANNERS, RELIGION, KNOWLEDGE, to have Colonized Greece —Traces of the Phmnicians AND ARTS OF THE GREEKS IN THE HEROIC AGE. in the Greek Legends under other Names-Influence I Distinction of Classes in the Heroic Ageof the Phcnicians on Greece. 56 Slaves-Freemen-Nobles-Kings... 83 Explanation of the Legend of Pelops.... 57 Prerogatives of the Heroic KEngs-Limitations of CHAPTER IV. their Authority. 84 Their Domains and Revenues-Royalty how far. THE HELLENIC NATION. Hereditary.. 85 Tendency of the Greeks to Personification —Caution re- Institutions for preserving the public Peacequired in treating the Heroic Genealogies. 57 Punishments-Dealings between independent The Hellenes in Epirus-Tribes of which the Nation States-Approach towards national Unity 86 was composed-The Curetes 58 II. Mutual Relations of the Sexes —Female CharGeneral View uf the Diffusion of the Hellenic Nation acter.. 87 -A new Population-A new State of.Society.. 59 Friendship-Hospitality-Amusements 88 VOL. I.-D xxvi ANALYTICAL AND CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. B.C. Page B.C. Page Kindness to Inferiors-Usages of War. 89 Restrictions on the, Use of the precious Metals at III. Earliest Form of Natural Religion-Religion Sparta-Condition and Education of the Sparof the Pelasgians 90 tan Women...135 Origin of the Greek Mythology-Influence of the Education of the Spartan Youths-Exercises of Poets on Religion-Hesiod's Theogony 91 Patience-Cultivation of intellectual Faculties, Greek Mythology, how far derived from the East and of moral Habits 138 -How far formed by the Poets-Traces of Men- Spartan Syssitia —Military institutions-System otheism in the Greek Mythology. 92 of Tactics.137 Character of the supreme God-Fatalism of the Maxims of Spartan Warfare-Spartan Laws unGreeks.93 written-Connexion between the Dorian and Connexion between Religion and Morality-.-Ho- the old Hellenic Institutions.. 138 meric View of a future State-Condition of the Peculiar Circumstances which formed the Dorian Soul after Death —Worship and Sacrifices. 94 Character-Peculiar Position of the Spartans. 139 Human Sacrifices-Temples and Holy Grounds.95 CHAPTER IX. Priests-How far a separate Class. 96 Oracles-Omens and Divination-Hero-worship. 97 THE IESSENIAN WADS AND AFFAIRS OF SPARTA DOWN Danmons-IV. Exaggerated Notions entertained TO THE SIXTH CENTURY B.C. by the Greeks of Homer's Learning-Homeric Wars of Sparta with Argos and Arcadia.. 139 Geography...98 State of Messeni —Policy of the Messenian Kings Wanderings of Menelaus 99 -First Quarrel between Sparta and Messenia 140 Homer's View of the Northern and Western Seas 743 Story of Polychares-Beginning of the first Mes-The Ocean-Course of the Sun.. 100 senianWar-Authorities for the History of the The Ethiopians-Olympus-Navigation.. 101. Messenian Wars 141 Astronomy-Commerce. 102 The Messenians fortify Ithom —Aristodemus.142 Degree to which the useful Arts appear to have 723 End of the first Messenian War-Consequences been cultivated-Art of War.... 103 arising to Sparta from the Conquest of Messenia Medicine-The fine Arts-Poetry... J04 -Admission of new Citizens to Sparta-Rise of Music and Dancing-Architecture.. 105 a new DiStinction among the Citizens of Sparta 143 Statuary-Letters-The Art of Writing. 107 Enlargement of the Power of the Ephors-ComWas the Art known to Homer?. 108 parison between the Ethors and the Roman Were the Homeric Poems at first committed to Tribunes-Mode of Election and Authority of Writing? —Unity of the Homeric Poems.. 109 the Ephors, 144 The Rhapsodists-The Homeric Poems the open- 748 Pheidon, King of Argos-LBeginning of the second ing of a new Period..110 685 Messenian War —Aristomenes and Tyrtaus. 145 Victories of Aristomenes-The Messenians fortify CHAPTER VII. Eira..146 Wonderful Exploits and Escape of AristomenesTHE RETURN OF THE HERACLEIDS. Surprise of Eira 147 State of Greece after the Trojan War.110 668 End of the second Messenian War-Messenian The Thessalians migrate from Epirus into Thes- Exiles-Death of Aristomenes-War between saly..11 Sparta and Tegea —Conquest of Cynuria-Oth1124 They drive out the Bceotians, who conquer Bis- ryades —Growing Power and Reputation of otia- Dorian Migration- Connexion between Sparta..148 the Dorians and the Heracleids.. 112 CHAPTER X 1104 Inquiryinto the Truth of the Legend-The Dorians break into Peloponnesus — Conquest of Elis 113 NATIONAL INSTITUTIONS AND FORMS OF GOVERNMENT. The Achaans retreat before the Dorians into Io- Causeswhich tended to keep the Greeks asunder nia-Partition of the conquered Land among the -Origin of partial Associations among the Heracleids 114 Greek Tribes-Amphictyonies.. 149 Means by which the Dorians effected their Con- Amphictyonic Congress at Calaurea-Amphictyquests-Settlement of Cresphontes in Messenia 115 onic Meetings at Delphi and Thermopyle. 150 Various Accounts of the subjugation of Laconia Tribes which composed the League —Changes -Resistance of Amyclte 116 in the Composition of the League-Effect of the The Dorians in Laconia joined by the JEgeids- Dorian Conquests on the State of the LeagueThe Minyans in Laconia and Triphylia.. 117 Mode of Representation in the Amphictyonic The Dorians in Epidaurus-In Trczen, Sicyon, Council.151 and Phlius-.;The Donians conquer Corinth-In- 595 Functions of the Council-First Sacred War bevade Attica..118 gins 152 Codrus-Conquest of Megara and'Egina-Expe- 1 The Delphic Oracle-Olympic Festivai. 153. ditions of the Dorians to Crete.. 119 Presidence of the Olympic Games-Athletic ConColonies founded by Pollis-By Althamenes. 120 tests-Nemean and Isthmian Games. 154 State of Crete at the Time of the Dorian Conquest Effects of the Olympic Festival as an Instrument -Cretan Institutions-Subjects-Slaves.. 121 of national Union-Its Effects on the Diffusion Freemen-Form of Government..... 122 of Knowledge and the Cultivation of the Arts Cretan Syssitia —Education..123 -Effects on the national Character and Habits -The Games considered as Spectacles. 155 CHAPTER VIII Difference in the Forms of Government a Cause of Disunion among the Greeks-Causes which THE LEGISLkTION OF LYCURGUS, B.C. 884. led to the Abolition of Royalty.. 156 Opposite Views of the Subject. 124 Definitions of various Forms of Governmest-OriTime and Lineage of Lycurgus —Birth of Char.i- gin of Oligarchy... 157 laus-Travels of Lycurgus, his Return to Spar- Means by which Oligarchies maintained their ta, Actions, and Death-Antiquity of the Spar- Power - Timocracy- Polity - 2Esymnetes - tan Institutions. 125 Causes which led to the Ruin of Oligarchies 158 Lycurgus a real Person-Nature of thle Revolu- Origin of Tyranny-Policy of the Tyrants.. 159 tion effected by him-Difficulty of reconciling Causes of the shortDuration of the tyrannical Dythe different Accounts of it... 126 nasties-Interference of Sparta in their OverState of Things which called for his Interposition throw.160 -Objects which he had in View-Outline of his Definition of Democracy-Different Forms of DeMeasures 127 niocracy in Practice-Corruption of DemocraDistribution of Property-Erroneous Views of the cy-Ochlocracy... Subject-Nature of the Partition made by Ly- Forms of Government in Arcadia, Tegea, MianticurguS.12. ros.pdurs ~n ~7gn- ~~it- h ~ ~cssu~rgusa.128 ~ nea, HIra, Elis, Achasia 162 Condition of the I~conian SubjectP —TIhe telots I28 Condition of the Itcoiiian Suhjects-The Ilelots 129 Argos, Epidaurus, and 2Egina - Corinth-the Their Treatment-The Cryptia.. 130 Bacchiads.163 The Spartans-Spartan Tribes.131 660 Cypselus overthrows the Bacchiads-Character Spartan Nobles-Assemblies of the People-The of Periander. 164 Gerusia —The Kings. 132 582 End of his Dynasty-Sicyon —Dynasty of Andreas 165 Royal Prerogatives-Honours of the Kings-The Myron and Cleisthenes-Megara; subject to CorEphors 133 inth -166 A general Principle of the Spartan Institutions Theagenes, Tyrant of Megara-Violence of civil -Provisions for preserving the Number of the Discord at Megara-Theognis, the aristocratiSpartan Families unchanged. 134 cal Poet..167 ANALYTICAL AND CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. xxvii B.C. Page B.C. Bceotia —Legislation of Philolaus at Thebes'Bce- Pythagorean ]ailosophyInstitutions of Pythag- a otian Confederacy.168 o.raas.. 215 Locrian'Tribes-Phocis- Delphi- Eubcea- An- His Pretensions-Pythagoras at Croton. 216 cient War between Chalcis and Eretria-Po- Object of his Society-Religion of Pythagoraslitical division of Thessaly... 169 His political Views.217 Distinction of Classes among the Thessalians- Constitution of his Society-His Influence at CroOffice of Tagus-Factions of Larissa. 170 ton. 218 510 Parties at Sybaris-Destruction of Sybaris-SupCHAPTER XI. 504 pression of the Pythagorean Society.. 219 G1IL HISTORY OF ATTICA TO THE EXPULSION OF THE CHAPTER XIII. PISISTRATIDS. AFFAIRS OF TH1E ASIAY'IC GREEKS TO THE YEAR B.c.521,, Division of Attica among several little States — Early Tendency towards a National Union. 170 Rise of the Lydian Monarchy —Irruption of the Attic Tribes-Tribes said to have been founded'' 700 Cimmerians-Gyges makesWar uponthe Ioniby Ion-Meaning of their Names... 171 612 ans-Alyattes attacks Miletus... 220 How far they were politically united - Attic 560 Accession of COcesus-Crcesus subdues the IoniCastes-Nature of the Change effected by The- ans-Prosperity of Croesus. 221 seus. 172 The Medes and Persians-Cyrus dethrones AstyHis Institutions, how far Aristocratical.173 ages.222 How far Democratical —Relations of the Classes 546 Makes War upon Crcesus-Capture of Sardi-l under Theseus-Gradual Abolition of Royalty Cyrus makes War on the Ionians... 223 at Athens. 174 Heroism of the Phocsans-And of the TeiansDivision of the Archonship-Long Blank in the The Persians subdue Asia Minor... 224 early History of Attica... 175 529 Death of Cyrus-Condition of Egypt-Cambyses 624 Story of Hippomenes-Legislation of Draco. 176 525 invades Egypt.2...... 225 612 Conspiracy of Cylon-Megacles incurs the Guilt Enterprises of Cambyses-Polycrates.. 226 of Sacrilege-Early History of Solon. 177 522 Spartan Expedition to Samos-Death of PolycraWar between Athens and Megara-Exile of the tes....227 Alcmteonids-Recovery of Salamis.. 178 521 Revolutions at the Court of iPersia-Darius HysCharacter of Epimenides-Epimenides at Athens 179 taspis mounts the Throne... 2f28 Misery of the Attic Peasantry —State of Parties His Institutions-Their Defects. 229 594. in Attica-Legislation of Solon.. 180 Persian Manners..230 Measures of immediate Relief.. 181 Reform of the Constitution-Division of Ciasses CHAPTER XIV. -General Scope of Solon's Institutions. 182 Concessions to the Commonalty-Councilof Four FROM TIlE ACCESSION OF DARIUS HYSTASPIS TO THE Hundred. BATTLE OF MARATHON. The Assembly of the People-The Heliea-Peri-: Empire of Darius~'....230 odical Revision of the Laws... 184 Democedes at Susa-Syloson... 231 Simplicity of Solon's Institutions-Power of the The Scythians.232 Tribunals-The Areopagus.... 185 513 Darius invades Scythia-Dariusrepasses the DanEducation of the Athenian Youth-Regulations ube. 233 concerning Women —The Naucraries- The Histiaus-the Persians invade Psoria-MacedoMetics 1 86 nia. 234 Slavery at Athens-Solon again leaves Athens- Tributary to Persia —-Histiaeus carried to Susa. 235 State of Parties.187 501 Invasion of Naxos-Aristagoras excites the'loniPiestratus becomes Master of Athens-Character ans to revolt. 236 559 of his Government-Solon's Death...188 Aristagoras at Sparta-Athens seeks Protection Expulsion and Restoration of Pisistratus-Person- 500 from Persia-Aristagoras at Athens 237 ation of Athen6 —Second Expulsion and Resto- 499 Burning of Sardis-Insurrection of Carla and Cyration of Pisistratus. 189 prus.. 238 IHis foreign and domestic Policy —His Encourage- Intrigues of IHIisti-us —The Ionians at Lade. 239 ment of Art and Literature... 190 Dionysius the Phoccean-Dfe'at of the Ionians527 He dies, and is succeeded by his Sons-Govern- 494 Capture of Miletus-Flight of Miltiades. 240 ment of the Pisistratids-Harmodius and Aris- 492 Persian Regulations in Ionia-Expedition of Mar: togeiton191 donius..241 514 Murder of IHipparchus-Tyranny of Hippias - Quarrel between Athens and.lgina-Demaratus Machinations of the Alcmauonids. 192 deposed-Death of Cleomenes. 242 510 The Spartans invade Attica-Hippias quits Attica 193 490 Factions of ZEgina-Expedition of Datis and Ax508 Institutions of Cleisthenes —His Expulsion and itaphernes —Siege of Carystus and Eretria. 243 Return-Spartan Invasion of Attica.. 194 Destruction of Eretria —The Persians at Mara Victories of the Athenians-Hippias at Sparta- v then —Preparations of the Athenians. 244 505 The Spartans baffled by their Allies. 195 Miltiades 245 Battle of Marathon.. 246 CHAPTER XII. Miltiades attacks Paros.. 247 His Death.. 248 THE COLONIES OF THE GREEKS, AND THE&PROGRESS OF ART AND LITERATURE FROM THE HOMRRIC AOE TO CHAPTER XV CHAPTER XV. THE PEItSIAN WAR. 1124 Legends of the mythical Colonies —AEolian Mi- FO THE BATTLE OF MARATHON TO THE BATLE O 1040 gration —Ionian Migration.. 196 SALAMIS. 1049 Dorian Colonies-Greek Colonies in Italy.. 198 485 Preparations of Darius-Accession of Xerxes. 248 In Sicily.199 Onomacritus-Artabanus-Athos and the Hesles-, 632 Cyrene 20 p..ont.. 249 Relation of the Colonies to the parent States- 480 March of Xerxes-Review of the Persian Army Political Institutions of the Colonies. 201. -Nations which composed it... 250 Revolutions of Cyrene-Political Union of the Persian Fleet-March of Xerxes through Thrace 251 Colonies —Ionian Confederacy....202 Preparations of the Greeks-The ThessaliansLycian Confederacy-Factions of Miletus-Prog- The Phocians —Botia and Argos.. 252 ress of Civilization-Milesian Colonies.. 203 Themistocles 253 650 Commerce of the Ionians-Opening of Intercourse Aristides-Athenian Marine. 254 with Egypt.204 Crete and Corcyra-Gelo. 255 Cultivation of the Arts-Architecture-Painting 205 His Offers rejected-Arthmius of'Telea.256 Statuary... 206 The Greeks at Tempe-At Artemisium-MovePoetry — Hesiod... 207 ments of the Persian Fleet-Storm at Sepias. 257 Epic Dialect-Cyclic Poets....208 Terror of the Greeks-Battles at ArtemisiumLyrical Poetry... 209 Wreck of the Persian Squadron at Ccela.. 258 Origin of prose Composition-History. 210 Leonidas at Thermopyhe..259 Philosophy-The Ionian School.. 211 Combat at Thermopylae —The Anopea. 260 The Eleatic School 213 The Spartans overpowered-Eurytus and AristodPhilosophical Literature-Empedocles-Pythag- emus......261 eras. 214 Advance of Xeries-Persians at Delphi.. 262 Xxviil ANALYTICAL AND CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. I.C. Page B.C. N Delphic Oracles-Hesitation of{ie Athenians. 263' Authority of Athens over her Alies-Origin of The Athenians quit their City —"Tndecision of the the Samian War-Revolt of Samos-ApplicaGreeks-Capture of Athens....264 tion of the Samians at Sparta....308 Mnesiphilus and Themistocles. 265 440 Siege of Samos-Reduction of Samos~. -309 Advance of the Persian Fleet-Stratagem gf The- Position of Athens towards her Allies-Athenian mistocles-Aristides at Salamis.. 266 Colonies-In Euboea, Naxos, Andros, Thrace 310 Battle of Salamis-Artemisia. 267 437, 443 Amphipolis-.Thurii..311 Retreat of Xerxes-Device of Themistocles.269 Scrutiny at Athens-Public Buildings at Athens 312 Losses of the Persians-Siege of Potidsa-Hon- Athenian Artists-Expenditure for public Amuseours paid to Themistocles..270 ments.313 480 Battle of Himera.... 271 For the Tribunals and the Assembly-Magnificence of the Age of Pericles.. 314 CHAPTER XVI. Literature of the Age-The Drama. 315 YEschylus. 316 FROM THE BATTLE OF SALAMIS TO THE END OF THE Sophocles —InflUence of Tragedy31 INVASION~ ~ ~~~~~~~~~~. Sohce-nlec.fTaey - - -317 PERSIAN INVASION. Comedy-Freedom of the Attic Stage. 318 479 The Greek Fleet at Delos..-.. 271 Influence of Comedy-Attacks on Pericles. 319 Mardonius and the Greek Oracles-Alexander of Phidias —Aspasia.320 Macedon at Athens-Heroic Conduct of the Anaxagoras.-321 Athenians. 272 Mardonius at Athens —Mysterious Conduct of the CHAPTER XIX. Spartans 273 Probable Explanation of it-Mar!onius in Boeotia 274 CAU5E5 AND OCCASIONS OF THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR Banquet at Thebes-Forces of the Greeks-Posi- 435 Affairs of Epidamnus-Warbetween Corinth and tion of the Greek Army. 275 Corcyra. 322 Skirmish of Cavalry-Defeat and Death of Masis- Envoys'of Corinth and Corcyra at Athens-The tins-The Greeks advance towards Platsa. 276 Athenians send Succours to Corcyra-Sea-fight Greek Diviners 277 432 between the Corinthians and Corcyrseans, 323 Skirmish at Gargaphia-Amompharetus 278 Revolt of Potidsea.324 Battle of Platsea 279 Battle of Potida a 325 Destruction of the Persians-Division of the Spoil Congressat Sparta-Advice of Archidamus' 326 -Honours paid to the Dead..280 Sthenelaidas-Decision of Sparta-Second ConFeast of Liberty 281 gress at Sparta-Embassies from Sparta to AthPunishment of the Thebans —Movements of the ens 327 Greek Fleet 282 Pericles animates the Athenians to War. 328 Leotychides at Mycal6-Battle of Myc al6-Siege q431 Attempt of the Thebans on Platea —Repulse of of Sestus.283 the Thebans —The Peloponnesians march upon Fortification of Athens. 284 Attica. 329 Stratagem of Themistocles-Fortification of Pi- Strength of the Spartan Confederacy. - 330 rseus. 285 Resources of Athens-Preparations of the AtbeAmbitious Views of Pausanias. 286' nians-Prophecies and Forebodings. 331 477 Origin of the Athenian Supremacy-Assessment of Aristides 287 CHAPTER XX Innovation in the Athenian Constitution-D)eath 7 of Aristides.288 FROM THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE PELOPONNESIAN Death of Pausanias —Rapacity of'Themistocles- WAR TO THE END OF THE THIRD YEAH..His Opposition'to Sparta.. 290 431 The Peloponnesians enter Attica-Firmness of 47i His Exile-Flight. 291 Pericles.332 Reception at the Ihouse of Admetus-His Journey Exploit of Brasidas —The Athenians sail rgund to the Court of Persia.292 Peloponnesus-Revenge of the Athenians on His Death.-293 AlEgina and Megara-Provident Measures of Pericles-Funeral Ceremonies. 333 CHAPTER XVII. 430 Funeral Oration of Pericles-Second Invasion of Attica. 334 FROM THE COMMENCEr4ENT OF THE ATHENIAN MARI- Plague at Athens-Its Causes, Symptoms. 335 TIME ASCENDENCY TO THE THIRTY YEARS' TRUCE And moral Effects-Expedition of Peiicles against BETWEEN ATHENS AND SPARTA. Peloponnesus-Murmurs against Pericles. 336 476 Beginning of Cimon's public Life-Conquest of His Defence of his,Policy-Surrender of Potidsea Eion -..293 429 -Invasion of Platea.337 466 Of Scyros-Revolt of Naxos-Battles of the Eu:- Negotiations between the Pilat ans and Archidaorymedon 294 mus —Siege of Plat ea 338 464 Earthquake at Spartra-Beginning of the third Blockade of Platsea-Affairs of Acarnania.. 339 MIessenian War. 295 The Ambracians invade Acarnania-Are repulsed Education of Pericles —His first public Appear- before Stratus-Victory of Phormio in the Coance-His political Views.. 296 rinthian Gulf -. 340 Cimon's Munificence.297 Preparations for another Sea-fight 341 Popular Measures of Pericles - Ephialtes-Im- Second Victory of Phormio-Attempt to surprise peachment of Cimon-Attempt to depress the Pirseus.342 Areopagus 298 Operations of the Athenians in Chalcidice-The 461 The Athenians at Ithome -Alliance between Odrysian Monarchy-Alliance of Sitalcee with Athens and Argos 299 Athens-Spartan Embassy to Persia. 343 The Eumenides of 3Eschylus-Change in the Ju: Exp-edition of Sitalces-Condition of Macedonia 344 risdiction of the Areopagus. 300 Retreat of Sitalces —Death of Pericles. 345 460 Athenian Expedition to Egypt-Great Efforts of 457 the Athenians-Myronides —Spartan Expedi- CHAPTER XX tion to Doris. 301 456 Battle of Tanagra- Battle of (Enophyta 302 FOURTH AND FIFTH YEARS OF THE PELOPONNESIAN 455 Expedition of Tolmides-End of the third Mes- WAR. senian War-Disasters of the Athenians in 428 Third Invasion of Attica-Affairs of MityleneEgypt.303 Preparations for Revolt.346 453. Cimon's Recall - Assassination of Ephialtes - Siege of Mitylene 347 449 Death of Cimon-His Peace. Siege of Mitylene34 448 Project of a Congress at Athens —Spartan Expe- forte of the Athenians 348 447 dttion to Delphi-Battle of Coronea 305 427 Attempt of the Plateans —Fourth Invasion of At445 Invasion of Attica-Thirty Years' Truce. 306 tica.349 Surrender of Mitylene-Operations of AlcidasCHAPTER XVIII. Treacherous Conduct of Paches at Notium. 350 FROM THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE THIRTY EAR Debate at Athens on the Treatment of the MityFROM THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE THIRTY YEARS lnmsCaatro lo 5 lenscans —Character of Cleon.. 351 TRUCE TO THE RENEWAL OF HOSTILITIES BETWEEN Debate on the Decree against the Mitylenaens. 352 ATHENS AND CORINTH, WITH A GENERAL VIEW OF TheDecree is repealed-Fate of Paches-SurTHE ADMINISTRATION OF PERICLES. render of Plata353 icv of Pericles described-Increase of Tribute 307 Punishment of the Plataea...353 L P~licv of Pericles described —Increase of Tribute 307 Punishment of the Plat~ans'... 354 ANALYTICAL AND CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. xxix dC. Page B.C. Pap State of larties at Corcyra-Troubles at Corcyra 355 His Profusion —His early Popularity-His PetuMassacre at Corcyra-Spirit of the Greek Factions 356 lance. 397 His Appearance in public Life-His IRivals —His (C IAPTER XXII. Animosity towards Sparta... 398 Spartan Embassy at Athens-Tricked by AlcibiFROM THE BEGINNI G OF THE SIXTH YEAR OF THE ades-Treaty betweenAthens and ArgosProPELOPONNESIAN WAR TO THE GENERAL PACIFICATION ceedings of Elis against Sparta. 399 OF SICILY. 419 Bceotian Interference at Heraclea-Operations of Cessation and Consequences of the Plague, at Alcibiades in Peloponnesus.. 400 426 Athens-Expedition of Nicias against Melos. 357 418 The Argives invade Epidaurus-The Spartans inSpartan Colony at Heraclea-Expedition of De- vade Argolis-Truce between Sparta and Argos 401 mosthenes against iEtolia.. 358 Attack on Orchomenus-Agis before Mantinea. 402 Its disastrous Issue-The 2Etolians attack Nau- Battle of Mantinea-Blockade of Epidaurus.403 pactus-The Ambracians invade Amphilochia 359 Peace between Sparta and Argos-Alliance beBattle of Olpe —Slaughter of the Ambracians at 417 tween Sparta and Argos-Revolution at Argos 404 Idomene -Moderation and Prudence of the 416 Couhter-revolution at Argos-Expedition to Melos 405 Acarnanians.360 Conference at Melos-Surrender of Melos-Bloody Purification of D.elos-The Athenians form De- Execution.406 signs on Sicily-Reign of Gelo at Syracuse. 361 Inertness of the Spartans..407 478 Hiero and Polyzelus succeed him-Reign of Hiero 362 467 He is succeeded by Thrasybulus —End of Gelo's CHAPTER XXV. 466 Dynasty —War betweenthe Syracusans and the THE SICILIAN EXPEDITION BEFORE THE ARRIVAL OF Mercenaries... SI3C63 GYLIPPUS IN SICILY. 452 Troubles at Syracuse-Enterprises of Ducetius. 364 L. Ascendency of Syracuse established.3fi5 Events at Leontium. 407 428 Embassy of Gorgias-The Athenians send Suc- 422, 415 Embassy of Phieax-Embassy from Segesta cours to the Leontines..... 366 to Athens-Alcibiades threatened with Ostra425 Fifthl Invasion of Attica-Expedition of Euryme- cism.408 don and SoTphocles-Fortification of Pylus. 367 Nicias, Alcibiades, and Lamachus appointed to Brasidas at Pylus-The Spartans shut up in command in Sicily -.... 409 Sphacteria.368 Debate on the Expedition-Warnings of Nicias. 410 They make Proposals for Peace —The Proposals ~ Omens and Prophecies-Mutilation of the Hermes are rejected and they deprived of their Navy- Busts 411 Perplexing Position of the Athenians at Pylus 369 Charges against Alcibiades-Departure of the Armament. 412 Cleon undertakes to reduce Sphacteria-Prepara- Armament41 tions of Demosthenes -.... 370 Its Strength-Its Reception at Rhegium 413 Attack on the Spartans-Their Surrender 3. 371 Proposition of Hermocrates.414 Expedition of Nicias to the Isthmus.. 372 Consultation of the Athenian Generals-The Butchery at Corcyra-Accession of Darius Nothus 373 Athenians admitted into Catana - 415 424 Athenian Embassy toPersia-Expedition of NiciasAlarm at Athens-Information of Dioclides. 416 to'Cythera —Distress of Sparta... 374 Capture of Thyrea-Operations of the Athenians Recall of Alcibiades-His Escape-Operations of in Sicily-Arguments of Hermocrates for Peace 375 Nicias and Lamachus.418 General Pacification of Sicily. 376 Landing at Syracuse-Victory of the Athehenians 41S The Athenians winter at Naxos-Preparations for Defence at Syracuse-Debate at Canlarina. 420 CHAPTER XXIII. Alcibiades at Sparta-Appointment of Gylippus. 421 FROM THE GENERAL PACIFICATION OF SICILY TO THE 414 The Athenians occupy Epipolsi-Operations be fore Syracuse. 422 Death of Lamachus-Despondency prevails at Brasidas prepares for an Expedition to Thrace- Syracuse.423 The Athenians make an Attempt upon Megara 376 Surrender of Nisaea. 377 CHAPTER XXVI. Revolution at Megara-MIarch of Brasidas through THE SICILIAN. EXPEDITION FROM THE ARRIVAL OF GY Thessaly-His Quarrel with Perdiccas. 378 LIPPUS TO ITS CLOSE. He persuades the Acanthians to revolt. 379 Project for a Revolution in Boeotia-Occupation Project for a Revolution in Bceotia —Occupation Arrival of Gylippus in Sicily —He enters Syracuse of Delium........ 380 -Occupation of Plemyrium-The Syracusans Battle of Delium-Dispute about'the Slain'. 381 complete their Counterwork.... 424 tSiege of Delium-Demosthenes at Sicyon-Bras- Despatch of Nicias-The Athenians decree a new idas marches against Amphipolis. 382 Armament. Surrender of Amphipolis-Exile of Thucydides. 383 413 Occupation of Decelea —Departure of DemostheConquests of Brasidas-Surprise of Torone-Cap- nes 426 Conquests of Brasidas-Surprise of Torone-Cap- The Thracians at Mycalessus-Surprise of Plem423 ture of Lecythus-Year's Truce between Spar- 427 ta and Athens.. 384. yium Revolt of Scione-Revolt of Mende - 385 Battle in the Corinthian Gulf-Demosthenes at Expedition against Lyncestis —Retreat of Brasidas Rhegium..428 -Nicias recovers Mende. 386 Naval Operations at Syracuse-Stratagem of Aris422 Treats with Perdiccas-Expedition of Cleon-He to-Arrival of the second ArIament 429 - recovers wiTorone. -erd........ n. f....387 Night Attack on Epipole —Council of War. 430 recovers Toron 387 Eclipse of the Moon 431 Marches towards Amphipolis-Battle of Amphipo- Eclipse of the Moon... 431 lis-Death of Brasidas and Cleon. 388 Superstition of Nicias-Defeat of the. Athenians Negotiations for Peace-Pleistoanax and Nicias -Preparations for a last Effort-Exhortations of Nicias..432 421 -Treaty of Peace. 389 Alliance bet ween Sparta and Athens-Release of Victory of the Syracusans-Stratagem ofHermocAlliance betwveen Sparta and Athens —Release of the Prisoners taken in Sphacteria. 390 rates-Retrat of the Athenians 434 Repulsed in the Valley of the Anapus-They change the Line of their March.. 435 CHAPTER XXIV Surrender of Demosthenes-Surrender of Nicias -O- Execution of Demosthenes and Nicias. 436 FROM THE PEACE OF NICIAS TO THE CONQUEST OF -Execution ofemosthenesand Nicias. 43 Fate of the Prisoners......437 * MELOS. Obstacles to the Execution of the Treaties-In- CHAPTER XXVII. ternal Condition of Argos-Corinth discontent* ed with the Treaty-State of Mantinea.. 391 FROM THE CLOSE OF THE SICILIAN EXPEDITION TO THB Elis seeks the Alliance of Argos-Policy of Bceo- BEINNING OF THE RUPTURE BETWEEN THE SPAR. tia and Megara —Intrigues of the Corinthians. 392 TANS AND ALCIBIADES. Surrender and cruel Punishment of Scione-Res- 413 Defensive Measures of the Athenians-Preparatoration of the Delians-Change of Administra- 412 tions of Sparta-The Allies of Athens meditate tion at Sparta-Intrigues of the new Ephors,. 393 Revolt-Persian Overtures to Sparta.. 438 420 Negotiations between Sparta and Bceotia - Be- Alcibiades at Sparta-Peloponnesian Expedition tween Argos and Sparta. 394 against Chios 439 Alcibiades-His Character and Education-Inter- Peloponnesians blockaded in the Corinthian Picourse with the Sophists.... 395 ramus-Expedition of Claudius and Alcibiades With Socrates-His Indiscretion... 396 -Revolt of Chios. 440 Xxx ANALYTICAL AND CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. C.Revolt of PeB.C. Revolt of iletus-Insurrection at Samos.. 441 Proposals of Capitulation-Intrigues of the OliOperations in Lesbos-Battle of Miletus —Phryn- garchical Faction.487 ichus..442 Return of Critias-Negotiationwith Sparta-EmCapture of Iasus-Misconduct of Astyochus - bassy of Theramenes......488 Spartan Treaty with Persia.... 443 Tumults in Athens.. 489 Siege of Chios-Battle of Syme-Lichas and Tis-?04 Surrender of Athens-Review of the War. 400 sapliernes....444 Rhodes revolts from Athens... 445 CHAPTER XXXI. CHAPTER XXVIII. FROM THE END OF THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR TO THE RE-ESTABLISHMENT OF DEMOCRACY AT ATHENS. FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE RUPTURE BETWEEN THE Establishment of the Thirty.... 492 SPARTANS AND ALCIBIADES TO THE OVERTHROW OF Lysander's return to Sparta.493 THE FOUR HUNDRED AT ATHENS, AND THE RESTORA- Policy of the Thirty-Punishment of the SycoTION OF ALCIBIADES. phants......494 Quarrel between Agis and Alcibiades.. 445 A Sipartan Harmost at Athens. 495 Alcibiades the Counsellor of Tissaphernes.. 446 Dissensions among the Thirty-Theramenes in 411 Alcibiades negotiates with the Athenmans at Sa- Opposition... 496 mos-Phrynichus. 447 He is impeached by Critias.. 497 Pisander's Intrigues at Athens-Political Associ- His Defence-And Execution. 498 ations......448 Increased Violence of the Thirty. 499 Conference between Pisander and Tissaphernes- Death of Alcibiades-Thrasybulus occupies Phyle Third Treaty between Persia and Sparta. 449 -Defeats the Troops of the Thirty... 500 Chios relieved —Ofigarchical Movements of Pi- 403 Bloody Executions-Thrasybulus in Piraus-Batsander. 450 tle of Munychia-The Council of Ten.. 501 And of his Party at Athens —Antiphon. 451 Interference of Lysander-Expedition of PausaTheramenes-The Four Hundred-Expulsion of nias..... 502 the Five Hundred. 452 Negotiations with Sparta-Peace and Amnesty. 503 The Four Hundred negotiate with Sparta. 453 Oligarchical Conspiracy defeated at Samos — CHAPTER XXXII. Thrasybulus and Thrasyllus-Proceedings of Astyochus.... 454 RETROSPECTIVE SURVEY OF THE INTERNAL CONDITION Alcibiades at Samos-Tumult at Miletus. 455 OF ATHENS DURING THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR, CARInfluence of Alcibiades at Samos... 456 BRIED FORWARD TO THE RENEWAL OF HOSTILITIES Reaction against the Oligarchy at Athens-The-EN ATENS AND SPARTA. ramenes-Fortifications of Eetionea. 457 State of Athens at the Close of the,War-The Murder of Phrynichus-Insurrection at Athens- Assembly.... 504 Destruction of Eetionea.. 458 The Demagogues.505 Re7olt of Eubcea-Revolution at Athens. 459 Grievances of the Rich..50 Fate of the leading Oligarchs-Recall of Alcibia- The Council of Five Hundred.... 507 des..460 The Courts of Justice..508 The Sycophants —The Athenian Character. 509 CHAPTER XXIX. State of public Feeling at the Restoraetion-The Areopagus.510 FROM THE OVERTHROW OF THE FOUR HUNDRED TO Revision of the Laws-Case of Lysias-Observ: THE BATTLE OF NOTIUM. ance of the Amnesty..511 Operations of Mindarus in the Hellespont-Battle Political Trials- Prosecution of Eratosthenes, of Cynossema.461 Agoratus, and Nicomachus-Of the Sonl of A1Journey of Tissaphernes - Beginning of Xeno- cibiades-Of Andocides..513 phon's History.. 462 Agyrrhius.. 514 Loss of a Peloponnesian Fleet-Fortification of Prosecution of Ergocles-The Family of Nicias.515 Chalcis-Actions in the Hellespont... 463 Oligarchical Spirit-Aristophanes.. 516 410 Alcibiades arrested by Tissaphernes-Battle of His poetical Character and political Views. 517 Cyzicus.464 Efforts for Peace..518 Distress of the Peloponnesians-Sparta makes For the Revival of ancient Manners-The Sophists 519 Overtures for Peace-Hermocrates... 465 Attacked by Aristophanes-Euripides. 520 409 Athenian Armament under'Thrasyllus-Battle of His Connexion with the Sophists-Socrates. 521 Ephesus.466 Attacked by Aristophanes... 522 408 Capitulation of Pylus - Siege of Chalcedon - Religious Opinions of Socrates-Growth of SuAthenian Embassy to Persia... 467 perstition at Athens...523 407 The Athenians recover Byzantium-Cyrus Satrap Intolerance.524 of the Maritime Provinces of Asia Minor.468 Prosecution of Socrates-The Genius of Socrates 525 Return of Alcibiades to Athens... 469 399 Causes of his Condemnation-His Death. 526 His Expedition to Eleusis - Lysander-At the Court of Cyrus.......470 CHAPTER XXXIII. Battle of Notium..471....., e of.Nt.. ~.THE EXPEDITION OF CYRUS THE YOUNGER. Alcibiades deposed- -onon and his nine Colleagues-Foundation of Rhodes.. 472 404 Accession of Artaxerxes Mnemon-Preparations of Cyrus.527 CHAPTER XXX. Clearchus-Aristippus. 528 401 Cyrus begins his March-MarchthroughAsia MiFROM THE BATTLE OF NOTIUM TO THE END OF THE nor-Epyaxa.529 PELOPONNESIAN WAR. Arrival at Tarsus-Hesitation of the Greeks 530 406 Proceedings of Lysander-Callicratidas Admiral March through Syria-Passage of the Euphrates 531 -Callicratidas at Sardis..473 Trial of Orontes..532 Conon driven into Mitylene.. 474 Preparations for Battle-Battle of Cunaxa.. 533 Battle of Arginusa..475 Death of Cyrus-The Greeks victorious. 535 Spartan Overtures for Peace. 476 Receive a Message from the King-Join Ariaeus. 536 Proceedings against the victorious Generals- Are visited by Tissaphernes... 537 Archedemus..477 Conclude a Treaty with the King-Sitace. 538 Theramenes....478 Passage of the Tigris-Interview between ClearCallixenus-Socrates-Euryptolemus.. 479 chus and Tissaphernes.539 Condemnation of the Generals.... 480 Arrest of the five Generals-Their Fate. 5410 Motives of their Accusers-State of the Athenian Constitution........481 CHAPTER XXXIV. Plot to surprise Chios.482 405 Lysander at Ephesus-Journey of Cyrus to Court 483 THE RETURN OF THE oREEKS. Movements of Lysander-Philocles... 484'ondition ofthe Greeks-Xenophon-His Dream 541 Xgos-potami-Interference of Alcibiades-Cap- Election of new Generals... 542 ture of the Athenian Fleet-Massacre of the Xenophon's Speech... 543 Prisoners. 485 Passage of the Zabatus-The Greeks attacked by Alleged Corruption of the Athenian Commanders Mithridates 544 -Lysander blockt.des Athens-State of public March through Media- Enter the Carduchian Feeling at Athens.... 486 Territory... 545 ANALYTICAL AND CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. xxxi P age B.C. Page.CMarch toug Armenia P.g... 546 Battle of Cnidus-Battle of Coronea.. 58 400 First View of the Sea-Transactions at Trapezus 393 Massacre at Corinth-Attempt of Praxitas.. 569 -At Census and Cotyora.... 547 Iphicrates. 570 They arrive at Sinope-Proceeigs at Heraclea 548 392 Capture of Pirneum-Victory of Iphicrates over'At Port Calpe-Xenophon's Prsject-The Greeks the Mora..571 arrive at Byzantium. 5. 49 Negotiations for Peace.. 572 Ccerotades-The Cyreans taken into the Spartan 393, 391 Andocides-Invasion of Acarnania-Invasion Service-Consequences of the Expedition-For- 390 of Argolis..573 tunes of Xenophon.550 Conon and Pharnabazus on the Coast of Laconia -Restoration of the Long Walls of Athens. 574 CHAPTER XXXV. Embassy of Antalcidas-Thimbron. 575 339 Death of Thrasybulus-Defeat and Death of AnFRoM THE RENEWAL OF HOSTILITIES BETWEEN SPAR- 388 axibius-Athens annoyedby zgina. 570 TA AND PERSIA TO THE DEATH OF LYSANDER. - 388 axibius-Athens annoyed by,aEgina... 576 Stratagem and Death of Gorgopas-Teleutias sur399 Expedition of Thimbron....551 prises Piraus. 577 Dercyllidas-Mania-Meidias.. 552 387 Peace of Antalcidas.578 398 Government of Dorcyllidas-Fortification of the Thracian Chersonesus.553 APPENDIX 397 Invasion of Caria-Armistice-War between Spar401 ta and Elis..554 I. On the Number of the Spartan Tribes. 581 399 Submission of Elis-Accession of Agesilaus. 555 II. On the Organization of the Spartan Army. 582 Internal State of Sparta.. 556 III. On the Attic Tribes..582 The Ephoralty-Cinadon's Plot. 557 IV. On the Conduct ascribed to Miltiades in the 396 Expedition of Agesilaus-He is insulted at Aulis Scythian Campaign of Darius... 583 -Truce with Tissaphernes-His Breach with V. On the Date of the Battle of Marathon. 584 Lysander..559 VI. On the Forces of the Persians and the Greeks at 395 Military Preparations of Ephesus-Battle of Sar- Salamis.. 584 dis.. 560 VII. On a Stratagem ascribed to Themistocles by DiDeath of Tissaphernes-Mission of Timocrates. 561 odorus, xi., 41-43 584 Treaty between Thebes and Athens... 562 VIII. Note to page 300, on a pretended Power of the Death of Lysander-Disgrace of Pausanias-Proj- Areopagus 586 ects of Lysander.563 IX. On some of the Charges brought against Pericles 586 X. On the Author of the Oration against Alcibiades CHAPTER XXXVI. attributed to Andocides..587 FROM THE DEATH OF LYSANDER TO THE PEACE or XI. A Comparison of the Accounts given by ThucydFAOM THE DEATXI OF LYSANDER TO THE PETI:E OF ides and Andocides of certain Points connect~ANTALCDbA. ed with the Prosecution of Alcibiades.. 58 Successes of Agesilaus 564 XI1. On the Development of the Spartan Constitution 58S 394 His Interview with Pharnabazus-His Recall 5P' XIII. On the Decree of Cannonus.. 590 Congress at Corinth-Battle of Corinth. *66 XIV. On the Constitution of Athens under the Thity 590 Agesilaus in Thessaly-Conon. 567 XV. On Lysander's Revolutionary Projects. 591 HISTORY OF GREECE. CHAPTER I. group (the Sporades) which borders the Asiatic coast. Southward of these the interval beGEOGRAPHICAL OUTLINES OF GREECE. tween the two continents is broken by the TIE character of every people is more or less larger islands Crete and Rhodes. From the Isle closely connected with that of its land. The of Cythera, which is parted by a nariow chan-'tation which the Greeks filled among nations, nel from Laconia, the snowy summits of the'he part which they acted, and the works which Cretan Ida are clearly visible, and from them.hey accomplished, depended in a great meas- the eye can probably reach the Rhodian Atabyare on the position which they occupied on the rus,* and the mountains of Asia Minor; smaller ace of the globe. The manner and degree in islands occupy a part of the boundary which which the nature of the country affected the this line of view may be conceived to fix to the bodily and mental frame, and the social institu- -.Egean.. The sea which divides Greece from tions of its inhabitants, may not be so easily Italy is contracted, between the Iapygian Penindetermined; but its physical aspect is certainly sula and the coast of Epirus, into a channel only not less important in an historical point of view thirty geographical miles in breadth; and the than it is striking and interesting in itself. An Italian coast may be seen not only from the attentive survey of the geographical site of Mountains of Corcyra,. but from the low headGreece, of its general divisions, and of the land of the Ceraunian Hills. most prominent points on its surface, is an Thus on two, sides Greece is bounded by a indispensable preparation for the study of its narrow sea; but towards the north its limits history. In the following sketch nothing more were never precisely defined. The word Helwill be attempted than to guide the reader's las did not convey to the Greeks the notion of eye over an accurate map of the country, and a certain geographical surface, determined by to. direct his attention to some of those indeli- natural or conventional boundaries: it denoted ble features which have survived all the revo- the country of the Hellenes, and was variously Lutions by which it has been desolated. applied, according to the different views enterThe land which its sons called Hellas, and tained of the people which was entitled to that for which we have adopted the Roman name name. The original Hellas was included in the Greece, lies on the southeast verge of Europe, territory of a little tribe in the south of Thessaand in length extends no farther. than from the ly. When these Hellenes had: imparted their thirty-sixth to the fortieth degree of latitude. name to other tribes, with which they were It is distinguished among European countries allied by a community of language'and manby the same character which distinguishes Eu- ners, Hellas might properly be said to extend rope itself from the other cootinents-the great las far as thqse national features prevailed. range of its coast compared with the extent of Ephorus regarded Acarnania, including probaits surface;.so that while in the latter respect bly the southern coast of the Ambracian Gulf it is considerably less than Portugal, in the up to Ambracia, as the first Grecian territory former it exceeds the whole Pyrenean penin- on the west. t Northward of the gulf the irrupsutla. The great eastern limb which projects tion of barbarous hordes had stifled the germs fiom the maain trunk of the Continent of Europe of the Greek character in the ancient inhabigrows more and more'finely articulated as it tants of Epirus, and had transformed it into a advances towards the south, and terminates in foreign land; and it must have been rather the the peninsula of Peloponnesus, the smaller half recollection'of its ancient fame, as the primitive of Greece, which bears some resemblance to abode of the Hellenes, than the condition of its an outspread palm. Its southern extremity is tribes after the Persian war, that induced Herodat a nearly equal distance from the two neigh- otus to speak of Thesprotia as part of Hellas.$ bouring continents: it fronts one of the most On the east, Greece was commonly held to terbeautif'ul and fertile, regions of Africa, and is minate with Mount Homole at the mouth of the separated frommthe nearest point of Asia by the Peneus; the more scrupulous, however, exsouthern outlet of the iEgean Sea; the sea, by cluded even Thessaly from the honour of the the Greeks familiarly called their own, which, Hellenic name, while Strabo, with consistent aft.3r being contracted into a narrow stream by laxity, admitted Macedonia. But from Ambrathe approach of the opposite shores at the Helles- cia to the mouth of the Peneus, when these. pont, suddenly finds its liberty in an ample basin were taken as the extreme northern points, it as they recede towards the east and the west, was still impossible to draw a precise line of and at length, escaping between Cape Malea demarcation; for the same reason which justiand Crete, confounds its waters with the broad- fled the exclusion of Epirus applied, perhaps er main'of the Mediterranean. Over that part much more forcibly, to the mountaineers in the of this sea which washes the coast of Greece, a chain of islands, beginning from the southern * Diodorus, v., 59. Apollod., iii., 21. On the distance headland of Attica, Cape Sunium, first girds at which objects may be distinguished in the atmosphere Delos with an irregular belt, the yclades, and of the Archipelago, see Dodwell, Travels in Greece, vol. i., 194. then, in a waving line, links itself to a scattered t In Strabo, viii., 334.' ii, 56. VOL. I.- E 34 HISTORY OF GREECE. interior of _/Etolia, whose barbarous origin, or in the opinion of the ancients, be'defended by utter degeneracy, was proved by their savage I ten rmen against a. host.* But Tempe is at manners, and a language which Thucydides least equally interesting as the only channel describes as unintelligible. When the AEto- which nature has provided for discharging the lians bade the last Philip withdraw from Hel- waters which descend from the Thessalian las, the Macedonian king could justly retort, by Mountains into the sea. An opinion, grounded, asking where they would fix its boundaries, perhaps, rather on observation and reflection and by reminding them that of their own body than on tradition, prevailed among the ancients, a very small part was within the pale from that these waters had once been imprisoned, which they wished to exclude him. "The and had covered the country with a vast lake, tribe of the Agraeans, of the Apodotians, and of which those of Nessonis and Boebaeis, at the the Amphilochians," he emphatically observed, foot of Pelion, were considered as remains, till "is not Hellas."* an outlet was opened for them by a sudden The northern part of Greece is traversed in shock which rent the rocks of Tempe asunder. its whole length by a range of mountains, the This beneficent convulsion was ascribed by the Greek Apennines, which issue from the same legends to the arm of Hercules, or the trident mighty root, the Thracian Scomius, in which of the god Poseidon or Neptune: the appearHaemus, and Rhodope, and the Illyrian Alps like- ance of the plain and of the pass has impressed wise meet. This ridge first takes the name of modern travellers with a similar conviction of Pindus. where it intersects the northern bound- the fact. The Peneus itself, though it is fed by ary of Greece, at a point where an ancient all the most considerable rivers of Thessaly, is route still affords the least difficult passage from a very diminutive stream; and though, when Epirus into Thessaly.t From Pindus two huge swollen by the melting of the snows, it somearms stretch towards the eastern sea, and en- times floods the surrounding plains, in its ordl-, close the vale of Thessaly, the largest and rich- nary state is sluggish and shallow. The vale est plain in Greece: on the north the Cambuni- through which it flows from the northwest coran Hills, after making a bend towards the south, ner of Thessaly is contracted in its upper part terminate in the loftier heights of Olympus, between the lower ridges of Pindus and an exwhich are scarcely ever entirely free from tensive range of hills branching off from the snow; the opposite and lower chain of Othrys Cambunian chain, the highlands of Hesticotis. parting, with its eastern extremity, the Malian Near the rocks of Meteora, in the neighbourhood from the Pagasrean Gulf, sinks gently towards of Homer's craggy Ithomd, the basin of the Pethe coast. A fourth rampart, which runs par- neus expands into a vast level towards the allel to Pindus, is formed by the range which southeast. At Tricca the river takes an east. includes the celebrated heights of Pelion and erly direction, and the plain widens on the right, Ossa; the first a broad and nearly even ridge, but is still confined bN the hills on the left until the other towering into a steep, conical peak, within about ten miles from Larissa, where it the neighbour and rival of Olympus, with which, is bounded' on the north only by the skirts of in the songs of the country, it'is said to dispute Olympus, and extends a gently-undulating surthe pre-eminence in the depth and duration of face southward to the foot of Othrys: a tract its snows.t The mountain barrier with which not less than fifty miles in length, comprehendThessaly is thus encompassed is broken only at ing, as its central part,'the districts called the northeast corner by a deel and narrow Thessaliotis and Pelasgiotis, or the Pelasgian cleft, which parts Ossa from Olympus; the de- Argos; the territory of the Perrhcabians in the file so renowned in poetry as the vale, in histo- north, and in the south the inland part of Achaia, ry as the pass, of Tempe. The imagination of or Phthiotis, the region which included the anthe ancient poets and declaimers delighted to cient Hellas. On the eastern side of the ridge dwell on the natural beauties of this romantic which stretches from Tempe to the Gulf of Paglen and on the sanctity of the site, from which gasce, a narrow strip of land, called Magnesia, Apollo had transplanted his laurel to Delphi.~ is intercepted between the mountains and the From other points of view the same spot no sea, broken by lofty headlands and the beds of less forcibly claims the attention of the histori- torrents, and exposed without a harbour to the an. It is the only pass through which an army fury of the northeast gales. A chain of rocky can invade Thessaly from the north without islands, beginning near the eastern cape of scaling the high and rugged ridges of its northern frontier. The whole glen is something less * Dr. Cramer (Description of Ancient Greece, vol. i., p. than five miles long, and opens gradually to the 379) conceives, from Livy's description, xliv., 6, that, before east into a spacious plain, stretching to the the time of Julius Caesar, the road through Tempe was carried along the heights on the left bank of the Peneus, and shore of the Thermaic Gulf. On each side the that the modern road was constructed by the proconsul L. rocks rise precipitously from the bed of the Pe- Cassius Longinus, of whom an inscription, cut in the face neus, and in some. places only leave room be- of the rock, by the roadside near the narrowest part, records," Tempe munivit." Gell (Itin. of Greece, p. 278) has tween them for the stream; and the road, which confounded this L. Cassius with the C. Cassius who was at the narrowest point is cut in the rockl, might, consulA.U.C. 581. But I do not find that any traveller has been struck by the same thought with Dr. Cramer, and it * Polybius, xvii., 5. seems scarcely credible that the ancient road on the north t That of Metzovo, particularly well described by Dr. ern side should have continued till now entirely forgotten. Holland, Travels, p. 2i16-218. Dodwell's interpretation of the inscription, according to 4 Holland, p. 348. Clarke, vol. iv., p.278. which Longinus repaired the forts of Tempe, is at least. ZElian's description, V. H., iii.,,1 may be compared quite as probable; and since the remains of a fort exactly with those of Clarke, vol. iv., p. 290-297; Holland, p. 291- answering to one -of those mentioned by Livy are still visi 295; Dodwell, p. 109-1 17, who prefers EAlian's description ble on the right of the river (Dodwell, vol. ii., p. 112. Gell, to Pliny's, not only as more beautiful, but more faithful. p. 278), it can hardly be doubted that they all stood on the Holland compares the scenery of Tenspe to that of St. Vin- same side. If it had been otherwise, how could Livy have cent's Rocks at Clifton, Gell (Ilin. of;lreece, p. 280) to that avoided noticing the new southern road, which must have of Matlock. rendered his des( ription ambiguous, and, in fact, incorrect? GEOGRAPHICAL OUTLINES. 35 Magnesia, and in full view of Mount Athos, of Crissa; a more circuitors, but less difficult seems to point the way towards Lemnos and route leads through the heart of _Etoliao to the the Hellespont. The shores of the Gulf of Pa- shores of the Corinthian Gulf near Naupactus. gasse, which open into some rich plains bound- Phocis, which, though it once possessed a port ed by a range of low hills which link Pelion on the Eubcean Channel, was, in the later period with Othrys, may be considered as one of the of its history, entirely parted from the sea by most favoured regions of Greece; and its nat- Locris, includes some narrow but fertile plains ural beauty and singular advantages, which fit- on the banks of the Cephisus, stretching to the ted it to become the cradle of Greek navigation, skirts of Parnassus on the one side, and to the were undoubtedly associated by more than an Locrian Mountains on the other. The passes accidental connexion with its mythical glories. to the north, across Mount Cnemis, are steep In the overhanging forests of Pelion the fated and difficult; but the range which separates tree was felled, which first found a way through Phocis from the coast of Opus sinks into a holthe Cyanean rocks to revive the dormant feud low of easy ascent. Parnassus itself and the between Europe and Asia; and on the same adjacent mass of Cirphis, between which the ground the Muses met at the marriage of Pele- valley of Crissa descends upon the Corinthian us and Thetis, to predict the birth of Achilles Gulf, belinged to the Phocian territory. The and the ruin of Troy.* basin ofhie Cephisus is suddenly contracted, South of this gulf the coast is again deeply by a ridge jutting out from Parnassus towards indented by that of Malia, into which the Sper- Mount lEdylion, into a narrow outlet, which is cheius, rising from Mount Tymphrestus, a con- the entrance to Boeotia, and opens on the spatinuation of Pindus, winds through a long, nar- cious leyel which extends to the edge of the row vale, which, though considered as a part of Lake Copais. Thessaly, forms a separate region, widely dis- The mountains which enclose the inland tertinguished from the rest by its physical features. ritory which formed the main part of Boeotia, It is intercepted between Othrys and (Eta, a and separate it from the narrow maritime dishuge, rugged pile, which, stretching from Pin- tricts on the Euboean Sea and the Corinthian dus to the sea at Thermopylce, forms the inner Gulf, have been already described. The interibarrier of Greece, as the Cambunian range is or of the country is by no means a uniform the outer, to which it corresponds in direction, tract, but is broken into several distinct valleys and is nearly equal in height. From Mount and plains. A ridge of hills, which joins HeliCallidromus, a southern limb of CEta, the same con with the eastern range, and parts the lake range is continued without interruption, though of Capce (Copais) from that of Hylica, may be under various names and different degrees of considered as dividing Baeotia into two great elevation, along the coast of the Euboean Sea, portions. The northern contains the lower vale passing through the countries of the Locrian of the Cephisus, and the Copaic Lake, into which tribes, which derived their distinguishing epi- it flows. The hills which rise from the souththets, the Epicnemidian and Opuntian, from ern and eastern edges of the lake afford no visMount Cnemis and the town of Opus, till it sinks ible outlet for its waters; and the influx of the into the vale of the Boeotian Asopus. Another Cephisus, and the smaller streams that spring branch, issuing from the same part of Pindus, from the side of Helicon, seenr to threaten to connects it with the loftier summits of Parnas- reduce this part of Bceotia to the state from sus, and afterward skirting the Corinthian Gulf which Thessaly was said to have been deliverunder the names of Cirphis and Helicon, pro- ed by the trident of Poseidon. The tradition ceeds to form the northern boundary of Attica of the Ogygian deluge appears to preserve the under those of Citheron and Parnes. recollection of a period when the whole. plain At the parting of these two great branches, was one vast lake; and it is highly probable the head of the vale through which the Cephi- that it first became capable of cultivation, when sus flows into the Lake Copais, lies the little one of those convulsions by which Greece was country of Doris, obscure and insignificant in frequently visited, had opened a subterraneous itself, but interesting as the foster-mother of a channel fobr the flood through the rocky barrier race of conquerors who became the masters of which confined it.'The eastern end of the lake Greece. It is described as a narrow plain, is contracted into a narrow cove, which is clogently undulating between the rugged precipices sed by the craggy skirts of Mount Ptdon: a and shaggy glens of (Eta and Parnassus, which, ridge of three or four miles in breadth parts it by their vicinity, render its winters compara- from the plain on the shore of the Eubcean Chantively rude and long,t but the soil is fertile in nel. The art and industry of the people which grain and pastures. It is watered by several inhabited the borders of the lake in the earliest little streams, which swell the Cephisus into a times of which any account remains, would perconsiderable river even before the valley has haps have been equal to the task of piercing the begun to open into the broader plains of Phocis. bowels of the rock even to this extent; but Two passes afford an entrance into Doris from since the land could scarcely have been habitathe north; one, the more narrow and difficult, ble before such a passage had been formed, the leading across the eastern end of CEta, the other origin of that which actually exists must clearly crossing the same ridge farther to the west. be ascribed to the hand of Nature; and this con. Southward a mountain track traverses the elusion is confirmed by the appearance of every heights of Parnassus, and descends on the vale part that has yet been explored, Several natural chasms open on the lake; but it would seem * Euripides, Med., 3. Iphig. A., 1040. that all these clefts convey their streams into t Dodwell, however fvol. ii., p. 132), found the corn one main current, which is discharged through us to quarly ripe on the ep11th of June. His description teache a single mouth on the eastern side of the hill, 4s to qualify the epithet do, whichtao (ix., whence it rushes rapidly to he sea. The pas 427) applies to the Dorian towus. 36 HISTORY OF GREECE. sage, however, was liable to be blocked up by tains several spacious plains, among which causes'similar to that which appears to have those of Tanagra and Oropus ale distinguished produced it; and tradition and history have re- by extraordinary fertility and beauty. Oropus corded some instances of such a stoppage. One was an object worth the contests to which it in the mythical period was attributed, like the gave rise between the states on whose confines severing of Tempe, to the strength of Hercules, it lay, as well on this account as on account of who was said to have adopted this expedient its vicinity to Euboea. That large and importo humble the pride of the wealthy city of Or- tant island, which at a very early period atchomenus, which stood near the lake. A still tracted the Phoenicians by its copper mines, earlier calamity of the same nature is intimated and in later times became almost indispensable by the tradition that some ancient towns, among to the subsistence of Athens,* though it covers them a Bceotian Athens and Eleusis,, had been the whole eastern coast of Locris and Boeotia, destroyed by the rising of the lake. The re- is more closely connected with the latter of moval of such obstructions was unquestionably these:countries. The channel of the Euripus not left to time and chance, but was speedily which parts it from the mainland, between Aueffected by the industry of the people, whose lis and Chalcis, is but a few paces in width,t fruitful fields had been laid under vser. A and is broken by a rocky islet, which now forms natural perpendicular chasm, which deMcends to the middle pier of a bridge. The ancients bethe surface of one of the subterraneous streams, lieved, what the aspect of the coast appears to might suggest the possibility of seconding the confirm, that one of those convulsions which process of Nature. During the better days of seem to have produced other momentous changGreece, the level of the lake appears to have es in the adjacent regions, also opened a pasbeen kept regularly low, though it might be oc- sage for the impetuous and irregular current of casionally raised by extraordinary floods; but the straits.$ in the time of Alexander, either long neglect, The peculiar conformation of the principal or some inward convulsion, again choked up the Boeotian valleys, the barriers opposed to the eschannel, and produced an inundation. An en- cape of the streams, and the consequent accugineer, named Crates,* was employed to clear mulation of the rich deposites brought down the passage, and he succeeded so far as to rem- from the surrounding mountains, may be conedy the temporary evil; but political disturban- sidered as a main cause of the extraordinary ces prevented him from completing his work, fertility of the land. The vale of the Cephisus which would perhaps have afforded permanent especially, with its periodical inundations, exsecurity. At present, however, the lake is lit- hibits a resemblance, on a small scale, to the tle more than a marsh, containing some deep banks'of the Nile-a resemblance which some pools. In summer it is nearly dry; but after of the ancients observed in the peculiar characheavy rains it still overflows its natural bound- ter of its vegetation. The profusion in which aries.t the ordinary gifts of Nature were spread over The southern portion of Boeotia is broken the face of Boeotia, the abundant returns of its into several distinct plains by low ridges, which grain, the richness of its pastures, the materials branch out frorr the principal chain. The lar- of luxury furnished by its woods and waters, gest and richest stretches from the foot of the are chiefly remarkable, in an historical point of hills on which Thebes occupies an insulated em- view, from the unfavourable effect they produinence to the Lake of Hylica, which receives a ced on the character of the race, which finally part of the waters of the northern lake by a sub- established itself in this envied territory. It terraneous channel, and is believed to send its was this cause, more than the dampness and own by a similar outlet to the Eubcean Sea. thickness of their atmosphere, that depressed The Theban plain rises gradually westward into the intellectual and moral energies of the Bceoa higher marshy level, the district of Thespice, tians, and justified the ridicule which their temfrom which two narrow glens, parted by a lofty perate and witty neighbours so freely poured mountain (Korombile) between Helicon and Ci- on their proverbial failing.~ The Attic satire thaeron,$ descend to the Boeotian ports on the might have been suspected, and large abateCorinthian Gulf, the only break in the southern ment might have been thought necessary for barrier. The plain of Leuctra connects that of national prejudice, as well as for poetical exThespiae with the table-land of Platcea, which aggeration, had it not been confirmed by the is raised sufficiently to part the source of the grave evidence of Polybius, who records that, (EroS, a little stream which falls into the Corin- after a short effort of vigorous ambition, the thian Gulf, from the basin of the Asopus, a weak Boeotians sank into a depth of grovelling sen. and sluggish river, which, unless swollen by suality, which has no parallel in the history of rains; scarcely finds its way to the sea. The any Grecian people.ll Yet they were warm long winding vale through which it flows con- lovers of poetry and music, and carried some branches of both arts to eminent perfection. * Strabo's account of the operations of Crates, ix., 407, A ild and rugged, though not a lofty range admits of various interpretations. That of Kruse (Hellas, of mountains, bearing the name of Cithaeron on vol. ii., p. 454) seems preferable to Mueller's (Orchomenos, the west, of Parnes towards the east, divides p. 59), which requires an alteration of Strabo's text, and, in the present state of our knowledge, seems not reconcilable with the local phenomena. He supposes the chasm men- * See Mr. Hawkins, in Walpole's Mfemoirs, vol. ii., p. 545 tioned by Strabo, the mouth of which is now visible on the t Thirty on one side of the rock, and twenty on the otheastern s.de of the hill, to have been opened by a shock er. Gell, It. of Greece, p. ]30. which happened in or before the time of Crates, and to $ According to Gell (It. of Greece, p. 131), the tide of the have been quite distinct from the passage which Crates at- Euripus is regular for about eighteen or nineteen days each tempted to clear. t Dodwell. vol. i., p. 235. month; but for eleven days the current changes from elev$ Leake, Morea, vol. iii., p. 381. Dodweli, vol. i., p. 258. en to fourteen times in the day. Gell, It. of Greece, p. 117, conjectures that this remarkable 4 See Athenxus, x., c. 11. mountain may have been anciently called Tipha. H Polyb. in Athen., x., 418. GEOGRAPHICAL OUTLINES. 37 Bleotia from Attica. Lower ridges, branching its shrubs, and the fineness of its fruits. But off to. the south, and sending out arms towards in its most flourishing period its produce was the east, mark the limits of the principal dis- never sufficient to supply the wants of its intricts which compose this little country, the least habitants, and their industry was constantly proportioned in extent of any on the face of the urged to improve their ground to the utmost. earth to its fame and its importance in the histo- Traces are still visible of the laborious cultivary of mankind. The most extensive of the Attic tion which was carried, by means of artificial plains, though it is by no means a uniform level, terraces, up the sides of their barest mountbut is broken by a number of low hills, is that ains.* After all, they were compelled to look in which Athens itself lies at the foot of a pre- to the sea even for subsistence. Attica would cipitous rock, and in which, according to the have been little but for the position which it ocAttic legend, the olive,'still its most valuable cupied, as the southeast foreland of Greece, with production, first sprang up. It is bounded on valleys opening on the coast, and ports inviting the east by Pentelicus, and by the range which, the commerce of Asia. From the top of its under the names of the Greater and Lesser Hy- hills the eye surveys the whole circle of the mettus,* advances till it meets the sea at Cape islands, which form its maritime suburbs, and Zoster. The upper part of Pentelicus, which seem to point out its historical destination. rises to a greater height than Hymettus,t was The plain of Eleusis was separated by a chain distinguished, under the name of Epacria, or of hills, which at its eastern end acquired, from Diacria, as the Attic Highlands. This range, its forked summit, the name of Kerata, or the which, after trending eastward, terminates at Horns, from the territory of Megara, which inCape Cynossema, forms with Parnes and the cluded one plain, of narrow compass and small sea the boundary of the plain of Marathon. On fertility, parted into two branches at the site of the eastern side of Hymettus a comparatively the ancient capital. t The remainder is occulevel tract, separated from the coast by a lower pied by the mountains which extend from Cirange of hills, seems to have been that which thaeron to the Isthmus, and at the northwest was called Mesogaa, or the Midland. The hills corner of the Saronic Gulf sink precipitously which enclose it meet in the mountainous mine into the sea, above which a rugged way skirts district of Laurium, and end with Cape Sunium, the edge of the Scironian cliffs, which now are the southernmost foreland of Attica. The At- chiefly formidable to sailors for the sudden gusts tic mariner, as he sailed round Sunium, could which often burst from the mountains above discern the spear and the crest of his tutelary them. This was one of the passes leading out goddess in front of her temple on the Athenian of Peloponnesus into Northern Greece; others Rock. The tract on the coast between Sunium crossed the inland ridge of Geranea, the sumand Cape Zoster, a tract of low hills and undu- mit of the Onean chain, which stretches from lating plains, was designated by the name of sea to sea, and terminates the mountains of Paralia, as the maritime region of Attica, though Northern Greece in the isthmus of Corinth. To the whole land was entitled to the appellation these passes, which were easily defensible, and Acte, whence, perhaps, it derived the name of to its two ports, Niscea, on the Saronic, and Attica, from the form in which it advanced into Page, on the Corinthian Gulf, Megara owed all the sea. On the western side, the plain of her importance in Grecian history. Athens is bounded by a chain of hills, issuing To the west of the vale of Crissa, a narrow from Parnes, and successivelybearing the names mountainous tract, extending along the coast of Icarius, Corydallus, and Algaleus, as it stretch- as far as the town of Naupactus, from which es towards the sea, which at Cape Amphiali sep- the Gulf of Corinth has taken its modern name arates it by a channel, a quarter of a mile in of Lepanto, was occupied by the Western Lowidth, from the island of Salamis. It parts the crians, who, from some peculiarity of their habplain of Athens rom that of Eleusis, which con- its or their land, received the epithet of the tained the Thriasian and the Rharian fields, cel- Ozolian.$ The territory of their western neighebrated in the Attic mythology as the soil bours, the Aiftolians, was still more rugged, conwhich had first been enriched by the gifts of sisting, in great part, of lofty ridges branching Demeter, or Ceres, the goddess of harvests. out from Pindus and CEta into the basin of the Attica is, on the whole, a meager land, want- Achelous. In these highlands during the wining the fatness of the Bceotian plains, and the ter all passage and intercourse between the freshness of the Bceotian streams. The water~s villages, which are built like nests on the top of of its principal river, the Cephisus, are expend- the rocks, are often long interrupted by the seed in irrigating a part of the plain of Athens,$ verity of the cold. The Achelous, however, and the Ilissus, though no less renowned, is a the most considerable of the Greek -rivers, in mere brook, which is sometimes swollen into a its long course, which usually formed the boundtorrent. It could scarcely boast of more than ary between LEtolia and Acarnania, traversed two or three fertile tracts, and its principal some broad and fruitful plains; and at its mouth riches lay in the heart of its mountains, in the a great level, originally produced by its depossilver of Laurium, and the marble of Pentelicus.~ ites, was continually receiving fresh accessions, It might also reckon among its peculiar ad- * Parnes and 2Egaleus, Dodwell, vol. i., p. 505, 509. vantages the purity of its airl the fragrance of t Paus., i., 41,2. Gell, It. of Greece, p. 11. f Pausanias (x., 38) offers several conjectures on the ori* Called also Anudros, the waterless. gin of the name; among the rest, that it was derived from t Gell, It. of Greece, p. 95. the undressed skins which were worn by the ancient inf'As in the time of Sophocles. See the interesting illus- habitants. Strabo (ix., p. 427) refers it to a fetid spring at tratioa of an obscure passage, (Ed. C., 717, given by F. the foot of Mount Taphiassus, the burial place of the cenThiersch in his Etat actuel de la Grdce, vol. ii., p. 26. taurs, which still retains this property. See Gell, It. of Xenophon, De Veclig., c.. Morea, p. 4; It. of Greece, p. 292. But Arbchytas, an ] Celebrated by Eurip., Medea, 829; and in Plutarch, Ozolian poet, quoted by Plutarch (Qu. Gr., 15), derived the De Exil., 13. name from the abundance of flowers which scented the air 38 HISTORY OF GREECE. which at length united a group of islands, once feelings: it seems to have been viewed as an at some distance from the shore, with each audacious Titaniarn effort of barLarian power; other, and with the continent. The fertile land and when Nero actually began it, having openthus gained became the theatre of many con- ed the trench with his own hands, the belief of flicts between the bordering tribes; and the in- the country people may probably have concurundations of the river probably gave rise to the red with the aversion of the preetorian workmen, Eltolian legend, according to which Hercules to raise the rumour of howling spectres, and had wrestled with the Achelous for the hand of springs of blood, by which they are said to have their king's daughter Dejanira. Another fer- been interrupted.* Pliny notices the disastrous tile plain was similarly formed by the Evenus, fate of all who had conceived the project; t and the second in size of the XEtolian rivers, which, Pausanias observes, that Alexander had been descending from the side of CEta, parted the baffled, and the Cnidians stopped by the Delphic ancient districts of Pleuron and Calydon. oracle, in similar attempts to do violence to the Acarnania, lying between the lower part of works of God.: the Achelous, which took its rise in Pindus be- The face of Peloponnesus presents outlines yond the limits of Greece, and the Ionian Sea, somewhat more intricate than those of Northern was, like 2Etolia, a mountainous land, but its Greece. At first sight, the whole land appears hills, still clothed with thick forests, are less one pile of mountains, which, towards the northlofty and rugged. The valleys of both countries west, where it reaches its greatest height, forms contain some extensive lakes, surrounded by a compact mass, pressing close upon the Gulf rich pastures. Northward of Acarnania, on the of Corinth. On the western coast it recedes Ambracian Gulf, lay the territory of the semi- farther from the sea; towards the centre, is barbarous Amphilochians, and that of Ambracia, pierced more and more by little hollows; and which met the southern confines of Epirus. A on the south and east, is broken by three great peninsula, called Leucas, from the white cliff gulfs, and the valleys opening into them, which celebrated in ancient fable for the cure of des- suggested to the ancients the form of a plane perate love, once projected from the western leaf, to illustrate that of the peninsula. On clocoast of Acarnania, but was afterward severed ser inspection, the highest summits of this pile, from the mainland by a narrow channel opened with their connecting ridges, may be observed by its Corinthian colonists. Southward of it, a to form an irregular rirg, which separates the cluster of islands, including Ithaca, Cephallenia, central region, Arcadia, from the rest. Thus and Zacynthus, cover the opposite shores of the range of Artemisium, and Parthenium, which Acarnania and Peloponnesus. bounds it on the east, is connected, by a chain We observed that the Onean range, which of highlands running from eastto west, with the extends over the greater part of the territory northern extremity of Taygetus; this, again, is. of Megara, terminates in the Isthmus; and this linked with the Lyccean and Nomian Mountains, is true for a general and distant survey. The which form the western frontier, and stretch on Isthmus, however, is not exactly level. The towards Pholoe, which meets the great northern roots of the Onean Mountains are continued barrier, including Olenus, Scollis, Erymanthus, along the eastern coast in a line of low cliffs, Aroanius, and Cyllene. The territories which till they meet another range, which seems to skirt the three principal gulfs are likewise enhave borne the same name, at the opposite ex- closed by lofty ranges, ending in bold promontremity of the Isthmus.* This is an important tories, and exhibit each a peculiar character. feature in the face of the country: the Isthmus, The northern and western sides contain no such at its narrowest part, between the inlets of prominent landmarks; and the states which Schcenus and Lechceum, is only between three possessed them were separated by artificial and four miles broad; and along this line, hence rather than by natural limits. called the Diolcus, or Draughtway, vessels were The mountains which encircle Arcadia are so often transported from sea to sea, to avoid the connected as to afford a passage for its waters delay and danger which attended the circum- only by one opening, the defile (below Caritena, navigation of Peloponnesus. Yet it seems not or Brenthe) through which the Alpheus descends to have been before the Macedonian period to the Western Sea. This is the principal feathat the narrowness of the intervening space ture which distinguishes the western from the suggested the project of uniting the two seas eastern part of Arcadia. On the west, a numby means of a canal. It was entertained for a bbr of valleys open into the basin of the Alphetime by Demetrius Poliorcetes; but he is said us, bringing down tributaries, some of which to have been deterred by the reports of his en- are considerable rivers, as the Ladon, and the gineers, who were persuaded that the surface Erymanthus, which flow from the northern of the Corinthian Gulf was so much higher than mountains; and several ancient towns in this the Saronic, that a channel cut between them region were built on heights near the confluence would be useless from the rapidity of the cur- of the neighbouring streams: as Cleitor, Psophis, rent, and might even endanger the safety of Methydrium, Brenthe, Gortys, and Hercea. On the 2Egina and the neighbouring isles. Three cen- other hand, the eastern portion of Arcadia is in. turies later, the dictator Caesar formed the same tersected by lower ridges, which completely enplan, and was perhaps only prevented from ac- close a great number of little plains, so that the complishing it by his untimely death. The streams which fall into them find no visible outabove-mentioned inequality of the ground would let. Such are the plains of Asea, Pallantium, always render this undertaking very laborious Tegea, 1Mantinea, Orchomenus, Alea, Stymphalus, and expensive. But the work was of a nature and Pheneus. Hence a great part of the counrather to shock than to intoerest genuine Greek try would be covered with stagnht pools, and * Leake, iii., p. 311. * Dio Cass, lxiii., 16. t N. H., iv., 5. t ii., 1, 5. GEOGRAPHICAL OUTLINES. 39 its air generally infected by noxious vapours, the ancients for its'luxuriant fertility. The dodid not the inland rivers and lakes find means minions of Corinth, which also extended beyond of escaping through chasms and subterraneous the Isthmus, meeting those of Megara a little channels, not uncommon in limestone mount- south of the Scironian Rocks, occupied a conains, but which perhaps nowhere occur so fre- siderable portion of Argolis. The two cities, quently, within an equally narrow compass, as Sicyon and Corinth, were similarly situated, in Arcadia. So the Aroanius, even after Her- both commanding important passes into the incules had cut a canal to guide its course into terior of the peninsula.* The hill which was the Lake of Pheneus, would have encroached on the site of Sicyon, probably in the earliest as well the surrounding plain,.if it had not been receiv- asthe latest period of its history, rose near the ed by a vast gap at the foot of a mountain. openings of two ravines or valleys, those of the through which it descends to rise again, under Helisson and the Asopus. The latter river dethe more celebrated name of the Ladon. So scended from the plains of Phlius and Ornece. the waters collected in the plain of Mantinea, The lofty and precipitous rock, called the Acroat the western foot of Mount Artemisium, gush corinthus, on which stood the citadel of Corinth, up out of the sea near the eastern coast. So though, being4 commanded by a neighbouring the Lake of Stymphalus disgorges itself into a height, it is of no great value for the purpochasm, from which it issues again in the plain ses of modern warfare, was in ancient times of Argos as the Erasinus. The Alpheus, above an impregnable fortress, and a point of the highall, is. a Protein stream, and acts at home a est importance, both for the protection of the wonderful prelude to his fabled submarine ad- Isthmus, and of the pass which led up to the ventures. According to a general, and appa- plain of Cleonce, and thence to that of Nemea. rently a well-grounded belief, it is the same riv- From the vale of Orneae a rugged road crossed er which, springing from several sources on the the mountains into the plain of Argos. But the western side of Mount Parnon, sinks under more frequented approach from the north was ground at the foot of Mount Cresium, and rises the narrow, rocky glen of the Tretus, the faagain in the plain of Asea, where it is thought bled haunt of the Nemean lion, which branchto mingle with the principal source of the Euro- ed off to Cleonee and Nemea. A third pass, a tas.*' In this case, both are once more swal- little to the east of these, called the Contopolowed by the earth, and, after parting below its reia, or staff-road, was accessible only to footsurface, reappear-the one in the plain of Me- passengers. t galopolis, the other in the north of Laconia. The plain of Argos, which is bounded on three Many of the Arcadian legends were filled with sides by lofty mountains, but open to the sea, the mythical history of these natural wonders, is, for Greece, and especially for Peloponnesus, and with the changes wrought by the opening of considerable extent, being ten or twelve miles, or the obstruction of the subterraneous water- in length, and four or five in width. But the courses. The land was a fit theatre for the la- western side is lower than the eastern, and is bours of Hercules; and its peculiar features watered by a number of streams, in which the sufficiently explain the worship of the earth- upper side is singularly deficient. In very anshaking Poseidon, and his struggles with the cient times the lower level was injured by exoffended Demeter.t The mountains were cloth- cess of moisture, as it is at this day; and hence, ed with forests, which abounded with game: perhaps, Argos, which lay on the western side, the bear was frequently found in them, even in notwithstanding its advantageous position and the days of Pausanias; and it is probable thaft the strength of its citadel, flourished less for a they may have afforded attraction for tribes of time than Mycence and Tiryns, which were sithunters or shepherds, while few of the plains uate to the east, where the plain is now barren were in a state to repay the labours of the hus- through drought. A great mass of Argive lebandmen. In later times, the Arcadians, ac- gends owed its origin to these local features, cording to their countryman Polybius, enjoyed and especially to the marsh of Lerna and the a high reputation among the Greeks for hospi- fathomless Alcyonian pool, which bordered the tality, kindness, and piety; but he ascribes western shore of the gulf, where popular tradlthese qualities to the success of their social in- tion placed one of the monsters overpowered stitutions, in counteracting the natural tenden- by the strength of Hercules. On the eastern cy of a rugged climate, which, while it inured side the Argolic plain was bounded by the insuthem to toil and hardship, disposed their char- lated rock of Nauplia, at the foot of which lay acter to an excess of harshness. the port ofArgos, not a very commodious shelThe other greg divisions of Peloponnesus ter even for the ancient shipping; its road apare Argolis, Laconia, Messenia, Elis, and Achaia. bDears to. be much better adapted to a modern Argolis, when the name is taken in its largest fleet. sense, as the part of Peloponnesus which is' The peninsula which parted the Saronic from bounded on the land side by Arcadia, Achaia, the Argolic Gulf, and which was sometimes and Laconia, comprehends several districts, called the Acti of Argolis, is almost wholly oc which, during the period of the independence cupied by a chainwof hills, which, in the northof'Greece, were never, united under one gov- ern and loftiest part, bore the name of -Mount ernment, but were considered, for the purpose Arachnceum. The territory of Corinth extended of description, as one region by the later geog- along the eastern coast, till, near the harbour raphers. It begins on the western side with called Peirceus, it met the confines of Epidaurus, the little territory of Sicyon, which, besides some which, besides a few small maritime plains, posinland valleys, shared with Corinth a small sessed some little inland valleys, one of which maritime plain, which was proverbial among was in great part dedicated to the worship of * Leake, Morea, iii., p. 372. TLeakl iii., p 42, 43. t Paus., viii., 25. t On these passes, see Leake, iii.. p. 328. anld ii., p. 415. 40 HISTORY OF GREECE. Esculapius. Midway netween the Epidaurian regents the aspect of a valley enclosed by the coast and that of Attica lay the mountainous lofty cliffs in which the mountains here abruptly island of iEgiaia, with several others of smaller terminate on each side of the Eurotas. When, size and note. Southward of Epidaurus, the however, the poet added, that the land containterritory of Trozen stretched round Cape Scyl- ed a large tract of arable, but of laborious tillaeum, the southeastern point of the Act6. It lage, he may have had, not the plain onlyincluded a fertile maritime plain, in front of though, except near the banks of the river, its which was the noble'port called Pogon, shel- soil is said to be poor-but- the highlands in tered by the high rocky peninsula of Methana, view. For both Parnon and Taygetus, more and by the islands of Hiera and CalEurea, now especially towards the north, include many genunited by a narrow sandbank under the name tle slopes and high valleys, which well repay of Poro. West of Cape Scylleum, the city of cultivation. On the western side, in particular, Hermione, once the capital of an independent the lofty rocks which bound the Spartan plain state, occupied a small peninsula facing the support a comparatively level region, which is islands of Hydrea and Tiparenus,* which have not much less productive than the vale below. become more celebrated in modern times than The ridge of Taygetus, beginning in the north they are in ancient story. On the western side from the basin of the Alpheus, which separates of the Act6, Asind, and its little territory inter- it from the opposite chain of Mcenalus, rises to vened between the borders of Hermion6 and its greatest height towards the centre, where it Argos. is distinguished by five conspicuous peaks, often The range of the Artemisian and Parthenian capped with snow,* and gradually declines tomountains, which separated'Argolis from Ar- wards the south, while its sides become more cadia, was only crossed by three natural passes: and more steep and rugged. After sinking to one, called Trochus, leading into the plain of its lowest level, it rises again in the rocky penTegea; and two, called Prinus and Climax, lead- insula of Tcenarus,t the southernmost extremity ing into that of Mantinea. This same range of Greece and of Europe. was continued into Laconia, where it took the The character which the poet ascribes to Laname of Parnon, and terminate&dat Cape Malcea. conia —that it is a country difficult of access to The mountains, as they advance towards the an enemy-is one which most properly belongs south, press more and more abruptly on the to it, and is of great historical importance. On eastern coast. Near the opening of the Argol- the northern and the eastern sides there are ic Gtff tke little district of Cynuria, lying on only two natural passes by which the plain of the frontiers o' Argos and Sparta, was once an Sparta can be invaded:T the one opening from object of obstinate struggles between the neigh- the upper vale of the Eurotas; the other, from bouring states, but during the best part of Gre- that of the ZEnus, in which a road leading from cian history belonged to Laconia. Arcadia by the western side of Parnon, and anA long valley, running southward to the sea, other crossing the same mountain from Argos and the mountains which border it on three through Cynuria, meet at Sellasia. On the sides, composed the territory of Laconia. It west, Taygetus forms an almost insurmountawas traversed in its whole length by the Euro- ble barrier. It is, indeed, traversed by fa track, tas, and bounded by the range of Parnon'on the which, beginning near the head of the Messeeast, and by that of Taygetus on the west. nian Gulf, enters the plain near Sparta, through Three different regions may be distinguished a narrow defile, at the foot of lofty and precipiin the basin of the Eurotas. That which may tobus rocks. But this pass appears to be so difbe called the Upper Vale, from the source of ficult, that the simplest precautions must althe river to its junction with the iEnus, a little ways have been sufficient to secure it. At the above the site of Sparta, is narrowly confined mouth of the Laconian Gulf, the island of Cybetween Taygetus and the rugged highlands thera, containing excellent harbours, was a valwhich connect it with'Parnon, and which are uable appendage, or a formidable neighbour, to probably the district once called Sciritis.t At Laconia. Sparta the valley is so contracted by the oppo- The chain of Taygetus separates the Lacosite hills as to leave room for little more than nian Gulf from the 3Messenian, which runs up the channel of the Eurotas, but, immediately much higher into the land. It is not, however, after, it opens into the great Laconian plain. the direct northern continuation of this chain This plain, however, does not extend without that forms the eastern boundary of JMessenia; interruption to the sea, but is again contracted but a western branch, which is parted from it into a narrow ravine, by a projection of Tayge- by the Arcadian valley of Nkomi. At the nortus, which separates the Vale of Sparta froffi them foot of these mountains begins the Mesthe maritime plain of Helos, at the head of the senian plain, which, like the basin of the EuroLaconian Gulf.t. It is to the middle region, the tas below Sparta, is divided into two distinct heart of Laconia, that most of the ancient epi- districts, by a ridge which crosses nearly its thets and descriptions relating to the general whole width from the eastern side.~ The upcharacter of the country properly apply. The per of these districts, which is separated from Vale of Sparta is Homer's hollow Lacedaemon, Arcadia by a part of the Lycaean chain, and is which Euripides farther describes as girt with bounded towards the west by the ridge of Ithomountains, rugged and difficult of entrance for me, the scene of ever-memorable struggles, was a hostile power.~ The epithet hollow fitly rep- the plain of Stenyclerus, a tract not peculiarly rich, but very important for the protection and * Commonly supposed to be Petza or Spezia. But Leake (Morea, ii., p. 465) conceives this to be a mistake, and, also, that the true name of the island was Tricarenus. * Hence the name Pentedactylon, the ridge of the five fian ]t Leake, iii., p. 28. gers, or knuckles. 4 Gell, Journey in the fMorea, p 348. Leake, i., r 190. t See Leake, i., p. 301. t Ibid, iii., p. 26. In Strabo, viii., I) 366. $ Leake, i., p. 388. Gell, Journey, p. 190. GEOGRAPHICAL OUTLINES. 41 command of the country, as the principal pass- rupted on the seaside by the insulated promes, not only from the north, but from the east ontory of Chalonatas. The rich pastures on and west, fall into it. The lower part of the the banks of the Elean Peneus were celebrated Messenian plain, which spreads round the head in the earliest legends; and'an ancient channel, of the gulf, was a region celebrated in poetry which is still seen stretching across them to and history for its exuberant fertility; some- the sea, may be the same into which Hercules times designated by the title of Macaria, or the was believed to have turned the river, to cleanse Blessed, watered by many streams, among the the stable of Augeas. rest by the clear and full Pamisus. It was, no A little south of Cape Araxus, the River La doubt, of this delightful vale that Euripides risus was the common boundary of Elis and meant to be understood when, contrasting Mes- Achaia. On the western side of Achaia, besenia with Laconia, he described the excellence tween Cape Araxus and the straits of the Coof the Messenian soil as too great for words to rinthian Gulf, the high mountains which occu. reach. But Messenia, in general, appears.to pied the confines of Achaia and Arcadia leave contain a larger proportion of cultivable ground some comparatively broad plains open to the than Laconia. The plain of Stenyclerus is sea. But on the Corinthian Gulf they either separated by the plain of Ithom6 from another descend abruptly on the shore, or are separated long valley, which stretches to the sea. Far- from it only by narrow levels. These small ther westward, the country is broken into hill maritime plains, and the slopes immediately and dale by ranges of no great height, termina- above.them, are, however, for the most part, ted towards the south by that of Tematlhia, and highly fertile; and the soil is peculiarly adapted towards the west by that of AEgaleum, which to some kinds of produce.* They are watered borders the coast, leaving room only for a few by streams issuing from the heart of the mountnarrow levels at its foot. The climate of Mes- ains, through deep and narrow gorges, which senia was also extolled by the ancients, in con- are the only approaches by which the country trast with that of Laconia, as temperately soft; can be invaded from the south. The coast is a praise which seems to have been applied to deficient in harbours, which abound on the opthe lower Messenian plain, but which travellers posite side of the gulf. from the north are hardly able to understand. When the necessary deduction has been made The western coast is marked by the deep Bay for the inequalities of its surface, Greece may, of Pylus, which has become celebrated in mod- perhaps, be properly considered as a. land, on ern history under the name of Navarino-the the whole, not less rich than beautiful. And it only perfect harbour of Peloponnesus; but bet- probably had a better claim to this character in ter adapted for the shelter of a modern fleet the days of its youthful freshness and vigour. than of the ancient vessels. Its productions were various as its aspect; and The River Neda, rising in Arcadia, and flow- if other regions were more fertile in grain and ing through a deep and savage glen, at the foot more favourable to the cultivation of the vine, of a range of hills, connected with _Egaleum, few surpassed it in the growth of the olive, and and including Mount Eira-a name of kindred of other valuable fruits. Its hills afforded abunglory with Ithom —was the limit of Messenia dant pastures: its waters and forests teemed to the north, and separated it from Elis, or the with life. In the precious metals it was, perElean territory, according to the largest extent haps fortunately, poor; the silver mines of Lauincluded in later times under that name. But rium were a singular exception; but the Pelothe district immediately north of the Neda was ponnesian Mountains, especially in Laconia and properly called Triphylia. It consisted of a hill Argolis, as well as those of Euboea, contained country, bounded by the vale of the Alpheus on rich veins of iron and copper, as well as prethe east, and linking the range of Lycetum with cious quarries. The marble of Pentelicus was that of Pholoe. The Triphylian Hills never re- nearly equalled in fineness by that of the Isle cede from the coast so as to leave more than of Paros, and that of Carystus in Eubcea. The a very narrow strip of maritime plain. One of Grecian woods still excite the admiration of the most conspicuous, features of this, as in travellers, as they did in the days of Pausanias, general of a great part of the Elean coast, is, -by trees of extraordinary size. Even the hills that it is lined by a series of lagoons, parted of Attica are said to have been once clothed from the sea by narrow sandbanks, and fed with forests;t and the present scantiness of its partly by land-springs, but more frequently by streams may be owing, in a great measure, to. the waves which break over in stormy weather. the loss of the shades which once sheltered It is not easy to determine at what point of the them. Herodotus observes, that, of all councoast Triphylia met the confines of Pisatis, or tries in the world, Greece enjoyed the most the territory of Pisa. It seems clear, however, happily-tempered seasons. But it seems diffithat, during the period of her independence, cult to speak generally of the climate of a counPisa possessed the whole of the lower vale of try, in which each district has its own, deterthe Alpheus, including the celebrated plain of mined by an infinite variety of local circumOlympia, on the right bank of the river, on stances. Both in Northern Greece and in Pelwhich the ancient city of Pisa itself stood. oponnesus the snow remains long on the highNorth of the Alpheus, Pisatis included a portion er ridges; and even in Attica the winters are of the skirts of Mount Pholoe, and a maritime often severe. On the other hand, the heat of plain, hounded by a low ridge, ending in Cape the summer is tempered, in exposed situations, Icthys, which separated it from the Elean terri- by the strong breezes from the northwest (the tory, properly so called. This was the tract Etesian winds), which prevail during that seaknown by the name of the Hollow Elis, consist- son in the Grecian seas; and it is possible that ing chiefly of a broad level, extending north- * The currant-vine appears to thrive here better than in ward as far as Cape Araxus, and only inter- any other part of Greece. t Plato, Critias, p. 111. VOL. I -F 42 HISTORY OF GREECE. Herodotus may have had their refreshing influ- reasonably awaken a suspicion that they were ence chiefly in view. mere fictions, which did not even spring out of Greece lies in a volcanic zone, which extends any popular belief, but were founded on an opinfrom the Caspian-if it does not extend still far- ion which prevailed in the Alexandrian period ther east-to the Azores, and from the 45th to of Greek literature among the learned, and the 35th degree of latitude,* the greater part of'which was adopted in'its full extent by the elder the world known to the Greeks. Though no Pliny. Thus, we find Callimachus speaking traces of volcanic eruptions appear to have been generally of islands as formed of the fragments discovered in Greece, history is full of the ef- which Poseidon had severed with his trident fects produced there by volcanic agency; and from the mountains.* Pliny is more explicit: permanent indications of its physical character he does not hesitate to deliver, as a notorious were.scattered over its surface, in the hot fact, that nature had torn Sicily from Italy; springs of Thermopyle; Trcezen, _ZEdepsus, and Cyprus from Syria; Eubcea from Boeotia;t and, other places. The sea between Peloponnesus again, Atalant6; Macris, and Ceos,$ from Eubeea; and Crete has been, down to modern times, the and that the sea had not only burst through the scene of surprising changes wrought by the straits of the Bosporus, the Hellespofit, Rhium, same forces; and not long before the Christian and Leucas-though in this last instance the era, a new hill was thrown up on the coast near channel was notoriously artificial-but that it Trcezen, no less suddenly than the islands near had taken the place of the land in the Propontis, Thera were raised out of the sea.t Earth- and in the gulfs of Corinth and Ambracia. We quakes, accompanied by the rending of mount- may, perhaps, most safely conclude, not that ains, the sinking of land into the sea, by tem- these late writers had access to any better inporary inundations, and other disasters, have in formation than we now possess on this subject, all ages been familiar to Greece, more especi- but that they were less afraid of raising a great ally to Peloponnesus. And hence some atten- pile of conjecture on a very slender basis of tion seems to be due to the numerous legends facts. and traditions which describe convulsions of the same kind as occurring still more frequently, and with still more important consequences, in a period preceding connected history; and CHAPTER II. which may be thought to point to a state of elemental warfare, which must have subsided be- THE EARLIEST INHABITANTS OF GREECE. fore the region which was its theatre could have ALL we know about the earliest inhabitants been fitted for the habitation of man. Such an of Greece is derived from the accounts of the origin we might be inclined to assign to that Greeks themselves. These accounts relate to class of legends which related to struggles be- a period preceding the introduction of letters, tween Poseidon and other deities for the pos- and to races more or less foreign to that which session of several districts, as his contests finally gave its name to the country. On such with Athen6 (Minerva) for Athens and Trce- subjects tradition must be either vague and zen;t with the same goddess, or with Here general, or filled with legendary and poetical (Juno), for Argos, where he was said, according details. And, therefore, we cannot wonder to one account, to have dried up the springs, that, in the present case, our curiosity is in and, according to another; to have laid the plain many respects entirely disappointed, and that under water;~ with Apollo for the isthmus of the information transmitted to us is in part Corinth.ll We might be led to put a like inter- scanty and imperfect, in part obscure and conpretation on the poetical traditions, which spoke fused. If we only listen to the unanimous tesof a period when several of the islands between timony of the ancients, we find that the whole Greece and Asia, as Delos and Anaphe,~ and amount of our knowledge shrinks into a very even Rhodes,** and Cyprus,tt were yet cover- narrow compass: if we venture beyond this ed by the sea, out of which they rose at the bid- limit, we pass into a boundless field of conjecding of some god. And still greater weight ture, where every step must be made on dispumay seem to belong to a tradition preserved by table ground, and all the light we can obtain the priests of Samothrace, an island famrous for serves less to guide than to perplex us. There its ancient mystic worship, who told of a great are, however, several questions relating to the convulsion, which had burst the barriers'that original population of Greece which it may be once separated the Euxine from the AEgean, fit to ask, though we cannot hope for a comand had opened the channels of the Bosporus pletely satisfactory answer, if for no other purand the Hellespont.tt It would not be difficult pose, at least to ascertain the extent of our to connect this tradition with a poetical legend, knowledge. This is the main end we propose in which Poseidon was said to have struck the in the following inquiry; but we shall not scruland called Lycaonia, or Lyctonia, with his tri- ple to pursue it, even where we are conscious dent, and to have scattered its fragments, as that it cannot lead to any certain result, so far islands, over the sea.$$ But the vast magnitude as we see any grounds to determine our opinion of the changes described by these legends may on the most interesting points of a dark and in*~k~ Hoff,~~~~ ~tricate subject. Hoff, Gechichte der Veraenderungen der Erdobr- The people whom we call Greeks-the Helfiaeche, vol. ii., p. 99. t Ovid, Metaph., xv., 296. Strabo, i., p. 158. lenes-were not, at least under this name, the t Paus., ii., 30, 6. first inhabitants of Greece. Many names have Apollod., ii., 1, 4, 9. Paus., ii.,22, 4. been recorded of races that preceded them II Paus., ii., 1, 6.; Conon., 49. Apoll. R, 1718. there, which they, in later times, considered as ** Pindar, 01., vii. tt Eustath. ad Dion. P., v., 508, tt Diod., *., 47. * H. in Del., 30-36, t N. IH., ii., g9. ~9 Orph., Arg., 1287. N. H., iv., 20.' THE EARLIESTi INHABITANTS. 43 barbarous, or foreign in language and manners ments which both prove the ex.stence of the to themselves. Among these names, that of people, and afford some insight into their charthe Pelasgians claims our first and chief atten- acter and condition. A district, or a town, in tion, both because it appears to have been by the southeast of Thessaly, is mentioned in the far the most widely spread, and because it con- Iliad as the Pelasgian Argos. The opinion entinued longer than the others-so late as the tertained by some of the ancients, that this Arfourth century beforeeour era-to be applied to gos was a part of the great Thessalian plain, existing races. So that, on the notions we con- one region of which bore the name of Pelasnect with it, our view of the ancient state of giotis in the latest period of Greek history, is Greece must mainly depend;'and to it we may confirmed by Strabo's remark, that the word most reasonably look for the fullest and clearest Argos signified a plain in the dialects of Thesinformation the case admits of. Homer, as well saly and Macedonia. In the richest portion of as Herodotus and Thucydides, speaks of the this tract, on the banks of the Peneus, stood Pelasgians only as occupying some insulated one of the many cities called Larissa: a word points, and those not in the continent of Greece, which was perhaps no less significant than Arbut in Crete and Asia Minor, where, in the Tro- gos, and, according to one derivation, may have jan war, they side with the Trojans against the meant a fortress or a walled town. Most of the Greeks. But that in earlier times they were Larissas known to have been founded in very widely diffused in Greece itself, is established ancient times may be clearly traced to the Pelasby unquestionable evidence, and is confirmed gians;* and there is, therefore, good reason for by allusions which occur in the'Homeric poems believing that the word belonged to their lanto their ancient seats. We even meet with ex- guage, and for considering it as an indication pressions in ancient writers which, at first of their presence. Besides the celebrated city sight, seem to justify the supposition that the on the Peneus, there were two other towns of whole of Greece was once peopled by Pelas- the same name, one on the northern, the other gians. "All," says Strabo, "are pretty well not far from the southern border of Thessaly; agreed that the Pelasgians were an ancient from which it seems fair to infer that the Perace, which prevailed throughout all Greece, lasgians once possessed the whole country. and especially by the side of the /LEolians in Yet they were not exclusively known there unThessaly:"'and since the 2Eolians were com- der that name; for we find the people who conmonly supposed to have sprung from Deucalion, tinued in after ages to be called Perrhaebians, who first reigned in countries westward of occupying the same seats in the earliest times; Thessaly, while the higher antiquity of the Pe- and we learn that Simonides spoke of them as lasgians was universally admitted, this state- the Pelasgian part of the new population formed ment appears in substance to coincide with that by the irruption of the Lapiths in Thessaly. of Herodotus,. who speaks of the Pelasgians as The same, therefore, may have been the case inhabiting the country afterward called Greece. with other tribes —of which it is not expressly But in another passage, where he observes that recorded-as it probably was with the Dolopes, what Hecateeus had said of Peloponnesus-that who, as well as the Pelasgians, are mentioned barbarians inhabited it before the Greeks- as ancient inhabitants of the island of Scyros; might be applied to nearly the whole of Greece, and the Athamanes, who were neighbours of Strabo illustrates his meaning by a long list of the Perrhaebians, and, like them, were expelled other races, which he seems to consider as by the Lapiths.t Besides the names of Argos equally ancient and equally foreign; so that the and Larissa, another occurs in Thessaly, which prevalence he ascribes to the Pelaggians can carries us back into the most remote antiquity, only be understood as subject to the same re- and is no less intimately connected' with the strictions with which it is spoken of by Thucyd- Pelasgian race.' Achilles, in the Iliad, invokes'ides, who mentions them as the tribe which, Jupiter as the Dodonaean, Pelasgian king; and before the rise of the Hellenes, had spread its it was a disputed point among the ancients, name more widely than any other over the coun- whether the Dodona, from which the god detry. And this view must also have been that rived this epithet, lay in Thessaly or in Epirus. of Herodotus; since, when he is describing the The Iliad testifies, the existence of a Thessagrowth of the Hellenic nation as the effect of lian Dodona in the land of the Perrhebians; its. union with the Pelasgians, he adds, that it and, by describing a river which flowed through received an accession from many other barbar- the adjacent region as a branch of the infernal ous tribes. There can, therefore, be no doubt Styx, seems plainly to mark this Dodona as the that the Greeks regarded the Pelasgians as seat of a worship similar to that which prevailonly one, though the most powerful, among the ed in Epirus, the mythical realm of Aidoneus; races anciently settled in Greece. and some ancient writers maintained that the We arrive at the same conclusion, if we in- oracle of the Pelasgian Jupiter had been transquire into the particular regions occupied by the planted from Thessaly; to the Thesprotian DoPelasgians: for we then find that, according to dona. ancient tradition, they were not spread uniform- If, according to the more common opinion, ly over the whole of Greece; but that, while in which was supported by the authority of Arissome districts they are exclusively mentioned, totle,~ Homer spoke of the Western Dodona as In others they appear among a crowd of other sacred to the Pelasgian god, the Iliad would tribes, and that in others, again, no trace of them contain the earliest allusion to the abode of the seems to be found. If we approach Greece * A list f them is given by Strabo, ix., p. 440. Steph. from the north, we meet with the first distinct Byz., s. v. Raoul Rouchette, Col. Gr., i., 178. evidence of their presence on the eastern side t Strabo, ix., p. 442. of Pindus in Thessaly. It is attested, not only t Either from Dodona (or Bodona), Fragm. Steph.Byz., Thegaly vic atstd, not only or from, Scotussa. strabo, vii. by the general voice of antiquity, but by monu- Meteor, i., 14. -44 HISTORY OF GREECE. Pelasglans in Epirus. That this country was ed Perrhabians and perhaps likewise Dolopes, one of their most ancient seats, and that the and Athamanes, as in Epirus they were called Thesprotian Dodona belonged to them, is uni- Selli, Chaones, and apparently also Graeci; so, versally admitted. Yet the race described in in Attica, no-period is mentioned during which the Iliad as dwelling round the sanctuary was the name of Pelasgians prevailed, though Hecalled by a different name; they were the Helli, rodotus holds it unquestionable that the Athenior Selli; and they appear to have been not mere- ans always belonged to that nation. There was, ly the ministers of the temple, but a considera- indeed, a people which dwelt for a time in Attible tribe; for they occupied a region named, no ca, and was known there by the name of Pelasdoubt from them, Hellopia.* Another people, gians, or Pelargians. A monument of their whom Aristotle places along with the Helli, presence was preserved to the latest times, in "in the parts about Dodona and the Achelous," the Pelasgian wall with which the citadel of were the Grceci; and it cannot be doubted that Athens was fortified. But they were strangers this race, from which the Italian name of the who, as Herodotus says,* became neighbours Hellenes has been transmitted through the Ro- to the Athenians, and received a portion of man into the modern European languages, must land as the price of their services in buildhave been extensively spread. We find the ing the wall. According to Ephorus, they Pelasgians, however, distinctly connected with were the same Pelasgians who were driven a third people, who are said to have ruled over out of Boeotia after the Trojan war; and all Epirus before it fell under the dominion of Pausanias found some reasons for believing the Molossians - the Chaones: they are de- that they had'migrated from Acarnania, and scribed, like the Selli, as interpreters of the ora- that they were originally Sitels;t whether he cle of Jupiter, and Chaonia is called Pelasgian.t meant by this, that their more ancient seats lay But if we pursue our inquiry along the coast of in Sicily, or Italy, or Epirus, is doubtful; but it the Adriatic into Greece, we immediately lose looks as if this tribe were only called Pelasgisight of the Pelasgians: in,Etolia and Acarna- ans, because it was not known to what race nia, the earliest known inhabitants bear differ- they more particularly belonged. ent names, as Leleges, Taphians, Teleboans, Cu- In Peloponnesus, as in the north of Greece, r.etes. So, too, after leaving Thessaly, as we the Pelasgians appear to be confined to particular proceed southward, we meet with no Pelas- regions, though Ephorus said that the whole was gians before we come into Boeotia. Here their ionce called Pelasgia. That they were ancientname occurs, indeed, but only as one among a ly predominant in the peninsula, may be inferred great number of barbarous tribes, the ancient from the opinion which prevailed among the possessors of the country; and' the way in ancients, that it was the part of Greece from which they are mentioned seems to imply that which they issued to overpower the rest: there they gained a footing here after the rest. "Boeo- is, however, no express evidence that they tia, it is said, was first inhabited by barbarians, ever occupied any other districts than Argolis, Aones, and Temmices, and Leleges, and Hyantes. Achaia, and Arcadia. Argoli was not less Afterward the Phoenicians, the followers of celebrated as a Pelasgian country than ThessaCadmus, took possession of it; and his de- ly. There they founded a Larissa, which was scendants continued masters.of nearly all Bceo- generally supposed to have been the oldest of tia, till they were dislodged, first by the expe- all the cities so called: hence it was said to dition of the Epigoni from Argos, and after- have been named after Larissa, the daughter.ward again by the Thracians and Pelasgians." of Pelasgus; and the adjacent territory, which, These Pelasgians, according to Ephorus, were like the Thessalian plain, was called Argos, and driven out of Bceotia into Attica by a revolution, distinguished by the epithet Achaian, was conwhich Thucydides places sixty years after the sidered by many ancient authors as the motherTrojan war.S country of the whole Pelasgian nation.: This But Attica, as we learn from Herodotus, had opinion seems to have been deliberately adopted long before this event been peopled by Pelasgi- by.lEschylus, who, in one of his tragedies, inans. According to his view, the Athenians of troduces Pelasgus, king of Argos, claiming for his own day where a Pelasgian race, which had the people named after him a vast territory, exbeen settled in Attica from the earliest times, tending northlward as far as the Strymon. The and had undergone no change, except by suc- mention of the Dodonaean Mountains, the Percessively receiving new names, and by adopt- rhaebians, and Paeonians, in the poet's descriping a new language. "The Athenians," he tion, seems to imply that, according to his says, "when the Pelasgians were in possession view, which is expressed far too accurately to of the country now called Hellas, were Pelasgi- be ascribed to poetical license, the name of ans, named Cranai; but under the reign of Pelasgians might be properly applied to the Cecrops they were called Cecropidea: when most ancient inhabitants of Greece, Epirus, and Erechtheus succeeded to the kingdom, they Macedonia. Yet he undoubtedly knew that changed this name fpr that of Athenians; and many races of other names existed in those when Ion, son of Xuthus, became their general, countries during the same period to which he they took the name of Ionians." This is, in- refers the dominion of the Pelasgians. In deed, strictly speaking, a history only of Athens; Achaia, as in Attica, according to a tradition but it evidently includes that of Attica; and we which Herodotus says was current throughperceive in it the same distinction, which we have already so frequently met with, between ii., p. 51. Kruse, Hellas, i., p. 416, overlooking the word the name and the blood of the people. As in iyjvovro in this passage, represents these Pelasgians as a Thessaly there were Pelasgians who were call- part of the original population of Attica; whereas Herodo*; _ - tus agrees with Ephorus and Pausanias in describing them ~ Strabo, vii. t Strabo, vii. Steph. Byz., Xaovia. as strangers. t -i., 23, 3 t Strabo, ix., p. 401. Dion. Hal., i., 17. Steph. Byz., Iadiaala THE EARLIEST INHABITANTS. 45 out Greece, the first settlers were Pelasgians, just taken of the Pelasgian set lements in and they were only named-Ionians after Ion, the Greece appears inevitably to lead to the conson of Xuthus, came among them: they had elusion that the name Pelasgians was a general before been called simply /Egialeans, coastmen, one, like that of Saxons, Franks, or Alemanni; as the most ancient name of the country was but that each of the Pelasgian tribes had also AEgialus, or the Coast.* Combined with this one peculiar to itself. We shall even find testimony, the names of Larissa, and the River ground for believing that the nation was once Larisus, which formed the boundary between spread much more widely than the name; but Elis and Achaia, may be regarded as indications at all events, we cannot be sure that, in every of the same fact;t and the tradition, that agricul- instance, both the general and the particular ture was first introduced into Achaia from Attica name of each tribe have been preserved: it it by Triptolemus, points towards the same result.4 much more probable that, in the numberless Arcadia was so celebrated as a Pelasgian land, migrations and revolutions which took place in that it disputed the honour of being the mother-,the period we are now considering, either one country of the whole nation with Argolis; and or the other has often been lost; and therefore even the authors who preferred the title of the if we inquire into the relations between the Argive Pelasgians, did not deny that the Ar- Pelasgians and the other barbarous tribes by cadians were at least younger members of the which Greece is said to have been anciently same family -Ephorus, tracing the origin of the peopled, their names alone cannot guide us to nation to Arcadia, followed the authority of any safe conclusion; and whenever we decide Hesiod, who had spoken of Lycaon, the son of the question without any other grounds, we Pelasgus, as the father of six sons.~ Later shall be as much in danger of separating kindred mythologers attributed a more numerous off- races, as of confounding those which were most spring to Lycaon; and, according to their sys- foreign to each other. tem, each of the Lycaonids became the founder All that we can venture to say of these obof a city, or the father of a people.ll The names scure tribes is, that, so far as tradition affords of these heroes are indeed all fictitious; but they us any insight into their national affinities, they prove that the inhabitants of the cities and re- appear to be connected with the Pelasgians, gions which correspond to them were conceived and that we can discover no argument, except to be connected together by a national affinity, the diversity of names, to exclude the conjecfor whichno expression couldbe foundmore suit- ture that they were all branches. of the same able than to call them descendants of Pelasgus; stock. This conjecture is perfectly consistent and though the authors may have been some- with the general statements of many ancient times mistaken on this point, still their opinion authors, some of which have been already mendeserves respect, wherever it is consistent with tioned, concerning the prevalence of the Pelasthe general tenour of tradition. We must there- gians in Greece: it expresses the same view fore believe that it was well founded with re- which we should have been led to form, if we gard to the Arcadians themselves, and that they had no other information, by the poetical dewere, not, indeed, the posterity of Pelasgus, but scription of /Eschylus; and if it is at variance a Pelasgian people: for Herodotus also calls with those accounts in which a variety of barthe Arcadians who joined the Ionian migration barous races is spoken of, the misconception it Pelasgians. An important inference seems to attributes to the historians whom it appears to flow from the fact; since the Arcadians, so far contradict is so natural, and so common, that as history is able to trace them, were always it detracts little from their authority. But as in possession of the same country, and never- it is contrary to the opinion of most modern theless were held no less genuine members of writers, and especially of one who has thrown the Hellenic body than the Dorians or Ionians. more light than any other on this subject,* it This has led a modern author, who separates will not be superfluous to point out some of the the Pelasgians very widely from the Greeks, to indications that suggest it. deny the identity of the Pelasgians with the Ar- Among the barbarians mentioned as the most cadians, and to believe that they were only set- ancient inhabitants of Greece, there are several tfled in a part of Arcadia; that they were a peo- tribes, as the Bceotian Hectenes, Temmices, ple totally distinct from the original Arcadians; Aones, and Hyantes, of whom our knowledge and that the band of Pelasgian emigrants men- goes no farther than their names; and it would tioned by Herodotus was the last remnant of be idle to build a conjecture about them on the their race in the region which has generally tradition that two of them had migrated from.been considered as one of their principal seats. Sunium in Attica,t and that a third finally setWe shall soon have occasion to inquire wheth- tled in Phocis and M.Etolia.t But there seems er it is necessary to adopt this conjecture. But to be good reason for believing that the Cauwe may here observe, that the difference be- cones, who once occupied a great part of the tween the two names cannot be admitted as an western side of Peloponnesus, where a remnant argument in its favour. Homer, indeed, though of them long continued to bear that name, were he speaks of Pelasgians in Crete and Asia, does a Pelasgian race, as some ancient authors held not call the Arcadians by that name. But nei- them to be.{ This was undoubtedly the view ther does lie call the Selli about Dodona Pelas- of the writer who reckoned Caucon among the gians, though it would be contrary to all tradi- sons of Lycaon, and it is confirmed by the letion, as well as to probability, to suppose that gends which connect a person of the same name the Pelasgians had, before the poet's age, been with the religion of Eleusis, which he is said to deprived of their oracle. The review we have - Niebuhr, note 67, in the third edition of his Histor * Compare Herod., vii., 94, and Pausan., vii., 1, 1. of Rome. t Strabo, ix., p. 401. t Strabo, ix., p. 440. T Paus., vii., 18, 2. X Paus., x., 35, 5. Strabo, x., p. 464. - Strabo, v., p. 221. ii Paus., viii., 3, 1. 3 Strabo, xii., p. 542. 46 HISTORY OF GREECE. have introduced into Messenia, during the reign lowed the authority of Hesiod, who spoke of of the first king.* A similar conclusion is that them as the first men that sprang from the which most readily offers itself with regard to stones with which Deucalion repeopled the the Leleges, who occur very often in the tra- earth after the deluge, and as the subjects ditions relating to the early state of Greece, but of Locrus.* Accordingly, they are reckoned are exhibited under many totally different, and among the forces with which Deucalion exalmost contradictory, aspects. In the Iliad, pelled the Pelasgians from Thessaly.t These they appear as auxiliaries of the Trojans: their western Leleges were, according to Aristotle, king, Altes, is Priam's father-in-law; and they the same who occupied Megara; so that he inhabit a. town called Pedasus, at the foot of seems to reject the story of the Egyptian coloIda. Strabo relates,.that they once occupied ny; and thus, if we inspected their supposed the whole of Ionia, together with the Carians, wanderings very closely, we should have to who were so blended with them, that the two explain how the Leleges, who drove the Pelasraces were often confounded. In many parts gians from Iolcus, happened to be found by of Carla, however, and in the territory of Mile- them in Pylus, when they took refuge there. tus, the fortresses and sepulchres of the Leleges But the real question is, how far the traditions were distinguished at a very late period; and concerning the Leleges in the northwest of the Carian town of Pedasa, Strabo says, was Greece, and those of the 2Egean, relate to the named by them. They were the earliest known same people. For the Asiatic side of their hisinhabitants of Samos, where they were said to tory would lead us to believe that their settlehave founded the most ancient temple of Here, ments in Asia either preceded the revolutions a Pelasgian goddess.t According to Herodo- by which the Hellenic name became prevalent tus, the Carians were called Leleges while they in Thessaly,' or were an effect of them. We possessed the islands of the 2Egean. It is clear, gain little light by finding Teleboas enumerated however, both from the traditions of the Carians among the posterity of the Arcadian Pelasgus themselves, and from all other traces, that the by Apollodorus. Strabo himself considered two nations were quite distinct in their origin; them not only as a wandering, but as a mixed and perhaps Herodotus only meant to signifythat race, and seems to have been half inclined to they were confounded together in the islands, believe that their name was formed to express which he elsewhere says were peopled, before this. Yet Hesiod, on whose verses he grounds the Ionian migration, by a Pelasgian race.$ his conjecture, can only have meant to allude This accidental intermixture of the Leleges and to their high antiquity. It is, however, very Carians was probably the foundation of the Me- probable that their name either was at first degarian tradition that, in the twelfth generation scriptive, and was applied to many independent after Car, Lelex came over from Egypt to Me- tribes, or, having originally belonged to:one, gara, and gave his name to the people.~ A was gradually extended to others that were grandson of this Lelex is said to have led a connected with it by their fortunes, or, as was colony of the Megarian Leleges into Messenia, the case between the Taphians and the Leleges where they founded Pylus, and remained till of the IEgean, resembled it in their habits. But, they were driven out by Neleus and the Pelas- however this be, the result to which our inquiry gians from Iolcus, and took possession of the leads is, that they may safely be regarded as Elean Pylus.ll The presence of Leleges in allied either to the Pelasgians or the Hellenes}Messenia seems to be attested by the name of that is, in a certain degree, as will be hereafter the "vine-cherishing Pedasus," which occurs explained, to both. among the seven flourishing towns, " all near We perceive sufficient grounds for a similar the sea at the extremity of Pylus," offered by conclusion as to the Thracians, who are numAgamemnon to Achilles. On the other hand, bered among the barbarous inhabitants of Bceothe Laconian traditions spoke of a Lelex, the tia. They are indeed represented as sharing first native of the Lacedaemonian soil, from the possession of the country with the Pelaswhom the land was called Lelegia, and the gians; but if the view w6 have taken of the people Leleges; and the son of this Lelex is Pelasgians does not deceive us, this tradition said to have been the first king of Messenia- is perfectly consistent with a close affinity bethe same in whose reign Caucon was' related tween these two races, and it is indifferent to have introduced the Eleusinian mysteries whether we consider the one as a branch of the there.~ other, or both as springing from a common If on the coast of Asia, in the islands, and in stock. These Boeotian Thracians were unthe south of Greece, the Leleges appear so in- doubtedly distinguished, not only by their name, termixed with the Carians that it is diflicult to but by a very peculiar character, from the other separate them, in the north of Greece they pre- Pelasgian tribes; but their relation to the sent the aspect of a genuine Hellenic race. Greeks appears to have been very similar to Aristotle seems to have thought that their origi- that of those Pelasgians who were most propnal seat was on the western coast of Acarnania, erly so called. Whether they were also in any or in the Leucadian Peninsula: for there, ac- degree related to the people who are known to cording to him, reigned a Lelex, the first child of us by the name of Thracians in later ages, is a the soil; from whom descended the Teleboans, question the more difficult, as the population of the same people who are celebrated in the Odys- Thrace underwent great changes during the sey under the name of Taphians. Aristotle like- period in which that of Greece was shifting, wise regarded them as of the same blood with and even after the latter had finally settled; and the Locrians: in which he appears to have fol- it is not clear, either how far the tribes which are said to have migrated from Thrace into * Paus., iv., 1, 5. t Athen., xv. p. 672. t vii., 95. 4 Paus., i., 39, 6. 11 Ibid., iv., 36, 1. I Ibi 1., iii., 1, 1; iv., 1, 1, and 5. * Strabo, vii., p. 321, 322. t Doan. H., i.. 17 THE EARLIEST INHABITANTS. 47 Asia Minor, and to have established themselves Thracians, the tribe which seems to have comthere under various names-as Mysians, Bi- bined the various elements of the Greek mythynians, Mariandynians - were allied to the thology, and to have mouldedl them nearly into subsequent possessors of their European seats, the form they present in the Homeric poems.*. or these among one another. It is possible A later age, indeed, forged names, perhaps, as that the Doloncians of the Thracian Chersone- -well as works, of ancient Thracian bards, which sus, who. sent envoys to the Delphic oracle in may have been. utterly unknown to Homer and the time of Pisistratus, were but very remotely his contemporaries. But, though he never connected with their fierce neighbours, the Ap- speaks of Orpheus or Musaeus, he has preservsinthians, who sacrificed their captives with pe- ed the memory of the Thracian Thamyris, the culiar rites to their god Pleistorus:* and there rival of the Muses, whose fate was undoubtedly seem to be still stronger reasons for thinking the theme of a very ancient legend,; and he has that the Bceotian and Phocian Thracians had thus placed the general character of the people nothing but the name in common with the sub- on which this and numberless others were jects of Teres, the founder of the Odrysian founded, beyond dispute. If, however, it is admonarchy, whom Thucydides deemed it neces- mitted that the Thracians exerted such an insary, for the information of Athenian readers, fluence as has been ascribed to them on the expressly to distinguish from the mythical Te- poetry and the religion of Greece, it is scarcely reus, trekking of Daulis, and the husband of possible to conceive that they can have been Procne.t Strabo observes that the worship of separated from the countrymen of HIomer by so the Muses on Mount Helicon, and the cave there broad. a cleft as the ambiguity of their name dedicated to the Leibethrian Nymphs, proved suggested to the Greeks, who termed them, as that this region had been occupied by Thra- well as the Pelasgians, barbarians. And hence, cians, and that these Thracians were Pierians, in their case at least, there is no room for a the people who consecrated the land of Pieria, suspicion that the distinction has been artifiat the northern foot of Olympus, and Leibeth- cially disguised, and that the significant local rum, and Pimpleia, to the same powers.1 But names, from which Strabo drew his proof of it does not appear why the Pierians are called their Pierian origin, did not belong to them, but Thracians; for Homer describes Thrace as were substituted for others of the same meanbeginning far from Pieria; so that Juno, when ing in their barbarous tongue. she descends from the Thessalian Olympus to Pelasgians, as we have already observed,. apseek Lemnos, lights upon Pieria, and Emathia, pear in the Iliad among the auxiliaries of the before she bounds towards the snowy mount- Trojans. From later evidence we learn that ains of the Thracians.~ The Pierians may they were scattered over the western coast of have been the genuine Thracians, from whom Asia Minor, nearly in the same seats as the the name was extended. to the foreign tribes Leleges; and three ancient towns in this tract that surrounded them; or, if they migrated from bore the name of Larissa. Here, therefore, the North to the land at the foot of Olympus, they seem to be a peculiar tribe, distinct from they may have brought with them a name de- all the others enumerated by the poet, and Perived from the seats they had left.. lasgians their proper name. That it was so Though the Beeotian Thracians belong to a cannot be doubted, since, even in the time of mythical period, and none of the legends rela- Herodotus, the inhabitants of two towns on the ting to them can claim to be considered as his- Propontis were so called. Yet, unless we knew torical traditions, still their existence, and their whether these Asiatic Pelasgians were colonies affinity with the Northern Pierians, are well at- from Greece, or had never moved farther westtested; and the same evidence that proves ward, they would not assist us to determine these points, justifies us in attributing several the original extent of the name. In the one important consequences to their presence in case, it may have been given to them because Greece. The worship of the Muses, which is they had migrated from various regions, and uniformly acknowledged to have been peculiar could only be designated by a word of compreto them, though' it arose out of the same view hensive meaning; in the other case, they may of nature which is expressed in many popular have retained it as their ancient and distincreeds, appears to have afforded a groundwork guishing title. for the earliest stage of intellectual culture among As to the quarter from which the Pelasgians the Greeks. The belief that the invisible deities came into Greece, we cannot expect to learn who dwelt in the depths of caves and fountains, anything from the Greeks, since they themloved music and song, and coul dispense the selves were content with their ignorance on inspiration by which the human voice was mod- this subject, and were not even tempted to inulated to tuneful numbers, implies a disposition quire into it. The ancient writers, who recordto poetry, and some experience of its effects. ed their historical knowledge or opinions in the This connexion between a popular form of reli- form of poetical genealogies, when they had gion, and the first strivings of poetical genius, ascended to the person whom they considered does not indeed. warrant any conclusion as to as the common ancestor of a nation, thought it the character they assumed, or afford a ground enough to describe him as the son of a god, or for supposing that the earliest poetry of Greece as the natural fruit of the earth itself, or, uniting was distinguished from that of a later period both these views in a third, as framed by the by being exclusively dedicated to religious subjects. But it is probable enough that the Greek * Mueller, Prolegomena, z. e. w.,M., p. 219, thinks that orcles owed their originl toh this source, even this may be inferred from the single fact that the Pierian oracles owed their origin to this source, eveI! Olympus, which is the seat of the gods, gives the Muses if that of Delphi was not founded by the Pierian their epithet in Homer and Hesiod. The reader should, however, compare the two leading passages on this subject, * Herod., ix., 119. t iT., 29. Paus., ix., 29, 3; Strabo, ix., p. 410, on which Mueller has t Strabo, ix., p; 410. I1., xiv., 226. commented in his Orchonleuus, p. 381, foll. 48 HISTORY OF GREECE. divine will out of some brute matter. Thus in Greek history, but the first of which any tra-l many of these genealogies terminate, as we dition has been preserved. have seen, in children of the soil; and though This fact, however, does not merely set the Greek word that denoted this* was some- bounds to our inquiries, beyond which they find times vaguely used to express the antiquity of *no ground to rest on; it also warrants a conclua race, there can be no doubt that it was gen- sion, which it is useful to bear in mind. It erally received, not only by the vulgar, but by seems reasonable to think that the Pelasgians educated men, and without reference to any would not have been, as they appeared to Ephopeculiar philosophical system, like that of Em- rus, the most ancient people of whose dominpedocles, in its most literal sense.t Hence ion in Greece any rumour remained,* if they Plato, in the funeral oration, in which he had not been really the first that left some perembraced all the topics that could flatter the manent traces there. If they were not the vanity of the Athienians, dwells upon this pop- original inhabitants of the country, at least no ular notion, which was certainly not his own. nation more powerful or more civilized can "The second praise," he says, "due to our easily be imagined to have been'there before country is that, at the time when the whole them; and if any of the tribes whose names country was sending forth animals of all kinds, are coupled with theirs belonged to a different wild and tame, this our land proved barren and and a more ancient race, it is probable that the pure of wild beasts, and from among all ani- obscurity which covers them is owing to their mals chose and gave birth to man, the creature utter feebleness and insignificance. On the which excels the rest in understanding, and other hand, though to the Greeks the history alone acknowledges justice and the gods." of the Pelasgians began in Greece, and we are With the same right that the Athenians claim- therefore unable to pursue it farther, it should ed this glory for themselves, the Arcadians be remembered that this is only an accidental boasted of being older than the moon;t and, termination of our researches, and that the road indeed, when the principle was once admitted, does not necessarily end where the guide stops. and the agency of an intelligent Creator exclu- If we believe that the Pelasgians really existed, ded, since the mechanical difficulty costs no we must also believe that they either sprang more to overcome, in many instances, than in out of the ground, or dropped from the clouds, one, there was no reason why everyvalley should or that they migrated into Greece from some. not have produced its first man, or, rather, a part of the earth nearer to that where mankind whole human harvest. The antiquity of the first came into being. But, though we have Arcadians was asserted by the genealogical the strongest grounds for adopting the last of poet Asius of Samos, who is supposed to have these opinions, we must be cautious not to conflourished so early as the beginning of the found it with others, which neither flow from it Olympiads, and who sang of the Arcadian Pe- nor are necessarily connected with it. Reason lasgus, "that the black earth sent him forth in and authority may unite to convince us that the shady mountains, that the race of mortals the Pelasgians were a wandering people before might exist."~ According to the more com- they settled in Greece, but neither supplies an monly received opinion, the A:rgive Pelasgians answer to any of the numberless questions were the eldest of the race. ll But the only which this fact suggests. Yet most of the. question among the antiquarians was, from views that have been formed'of them in modern what part of Greece it had issued: none thought times appear to have been, at least secretly, of tracing it to any foreign region as its ear- affected by a preference given to some single lier home. The presence of the Pelasgians in conjecture over a multitude of others equally Greece is not only the -irst unquestionable fact probable. For the sake of guarding against such prepossessions, it is useful to remember the great diversity of ways by which such a t Kruse, i., p. 396, very superfluously for his argument, questions this, because Aristotle (Rhet., i., 5) speaks of population, and that we have no historical evihigh birth as consisting, in the case of a nation or a city,'in dence to determine us in favour of one hypothbeing'vtdxeovae j &pxaelov —a passage from which it ishe exclusion impossible to draw any inference even as to Aristotle's own esis to the exclusion of the rest; but that the opinion. But the popular notion seems to be distinctly ex- variety and apparent inconsistency of the local pressed, though not without humorous exaggeration, by Pla. traditions relating to the Pelasgians would into, Mer.exenus, p. 37. Kruse also concludes (i., p. 428) that ine us to that they came intoGreece, Pausanias, though he reports the popular belief of the Arcadians, that Pelasgus was the first man who came into be- not from a single side, nor during a single peing in Arcadia, himself believed that a different race pre- riod, nor under the same circumstances, but ceded the Pelasgians there. Pausanias, however, far from that many tribes were gradually comprhended saying anything to warrant this conjecture, observes that that many tribes were gradually comprehended Pelasgus could not have been born alone, for then he would under the common name, which, though conhave had no people to govern, but that. other men must nected together by a national affinity, had been have been born together with him, though he may have ex- previously severed from each other, and had celled them in the qualities of his body and his mind. differe The general opinion of Pausanias himself on this subject passed through d t conditions and turns is distinctly intimated (viii., 29, 4), where, having men- of fortune. The Greek traditions about their tioned some gigantic bones that had been found in Syria, migrations rest on no firmer ground than the and had been declared by the oracle of lars to belong to opinion that they were somewhere or other, in Orontes, an Indian, he adds, "If the sun made the first men by heating the earth, which in ancient times was still a literal sense, natives of the Greek soil: if we full of moisture, what land is likely to have brought forth reject it, there is no necessity to imagine that men sooner than that. f the Indians, or to have produced either their seats in the north, or those in the men of greater size, since even in our day it breeds strange south of Greece, were the more ancient, or that and huge beasts " south of Greece, were the more ancient, or that 7rpoaArvoto. Other explanations have been given of the connexion of parent and colony subsisted, the word (as pre-Hellenic). Its true derivation does not concern us here. 4 Paus., viii., 1, 4 I Dionys., A. R.,i,17. Strabo. ii., p. 327 THE EARLIEST INHABITANTS. 49 immediately or remotely, between their most of Mount Athos.* This language Herodotus widely parted settlements. describes as barbarous, and it is on this fact he The greater the extent we assign to the Pe- grounds his general conclusion as to the anlasgians, the more interesting it is to consider cient Pelasgian tongue. But he has not entheir relation to the Greeks. If they once cov- tered into any details that might have served ered the whole or the greater part of Greece, to ascertain the manner or degree in which it they must be held to have constituted the main differed from the Greek. Still, the expressions bulk of its population throughout the whole pe- he uses would have appeared to imply that it riod of its history; for not only have we no was essentially foreign, had he not spoken quite record or report of any violent convulsion or as strongly in another passage, where it is-*mrevolution by which its ancient inhabitants possible to ascribe a similar meaning to his were wholly or mostly exterminated or dis- words. In enumerating the dialects that prelodged, but we find the contrary expressly as- vailed among the Ionian Greeks, he observes, serted by the most authentic writers. It there- that the Ionian cities in Lydia agree not at all fore becomes a very important'question, in what in their tongue with those of Caria; and he sense we are to understand the same writers applies the very same term to these dialects when they speak of the Pelasgians and their which he had before used in speaking of the relanguage as barbarous, that is, not Hellenic. mains of the Pelasgian language. This pasMust we conceive the difference implied by sage affords a measure by which we may estithis epithet so great, that the Pelasgians may mate the force of the word barbarian in the.forhave been no less foreign to the Greeks; and mer. Nothing more can be safely inferred from their language not more intelligible to them, it, than that the Pelasgian language which Hethan the Phoenician or the Etruscan *. The rodotus heard on the,Iellespont and elsemost satisfactory answer to this question would where, sounded to him a strange jargon; as did be afforded by remains of the language itself, if the dialect of Ephesus to a Milesian, and as the any such still existed in sufficient amount to Bolognese does to a Florentine. This fact determine its character. But, unfortunately, leaves its real nature and relation to the Greek the only specimens that can be brought for- quite uncertain; and we are the less justified ward, without assuming the point in dispute, in building on it, as the history of these Pelasconsist of names of persons and places, handed gian settlements is, extremely obscure, and the down by tradition, few in number and of an traditions which Herodotus reports on that subambiguous aspect. It must be acknowledged, ject have by no means equal weight with that those which recede farthest from the ordi- statements made from his personal observation. nary Greek form are safer tests than those Thus it seems we cannot appeal to the lanwhich coincide with it; because, in the latter guage itself, nor to any direct testimony concases, there is room to suspect that the Pelas- cerning it, for evidence of its character; and if gian original may have been either translated, we have any means of forming an opinion on or adapted to Greek ears. Strabo himself men- it, it must be by examining the historical contions several names of foreign sound, as beto- nexion in which the Pelasgians stood with the kening the barbarian origin of the persons who Greeks, and by inquiring into the conclusions bore them. It is remarkable that one of these that may be drawn from it with regard to their names is that of the Athenian King Codrus, a national affinity. We find that, though in earsupposed descendant of Nestor. Strabo's au- ly times Thessaly, and the north of Greece in thority is decisive as to the fact; but when we general, was the scene of frequent migrations reflect how strmnge' most of the Saxon names and revolutions, so that its ancient inhabitants that were current in England before the Con- may here and there have been completely disquest now sound to us, how many are entirely placed by new tribes, Attica appears never to out of use, it seems hazardous to draw any in- have undergone such a change; and Peloponflrence from such specimens, and still more so nesus lost no considerable part of its original to trust our own judgment as to the character population till long after the whole had become of the Pelasgian names. Hellenic.'We shall shortly have occasion to In the days of Herodotus, however, a lan- consider the nature of this transformation. All guage was still spoken, which was-believed to we are now concerned to observe is, that it be that of the ancient Pelasgians, and, was was apparently accomplished without any vioheard by Herodotus himself, as he gives us to lent struggle; and that, in Arcadia, which is understand, at least at three different places. uniformly represented as a Pelasgian land, and Two of these lay on the Hellespont: as to the was even regarded by many of the ancients as third, it is a disputed question whether it was the hive whence the Pelasgian people issued, the town of Cortona in Etruria, or one of which it seems to have been almost spontaneous. No nothing else is known, but which must have event, of which any tradition has been preservbeen seated somewhere on or near a line con- ed, marks the epoch at which the Arcadians necting the heads of the Thermaic and Toro- ceased to be Pelasgians and became Greeks. naean Gulfs, and not very far from the isthmus This makes it difficult to believe that the Pelasgian language can have been entirely lost; * Kruse (i., p. 398, note ix., and p. 463, note) appears to and it is equally improbable, if it still survives onceive that the Pelasgian tongue was either the same in the Greek, that it can have differed from the with the Etruscan, or formed one of its elements. At least pure Hellenic, like the Etruscan or Phmenician, his argument rests on this supposition. Kreuser (Vorfra- or as the Celtic from the Teutonic, and yet gen ueber Homeros, p..83, and foil.) labours to prove the have been so intimately blended with it, that identity of the Pelasgians and the Phcenicians by some new have been so intimately blended with it, that and ingenious arguments. F. Thiersch (in the Munich no traces of the two incongruous elements Denkschriften, 1813, p. 35, n. 26) brings them out of Asia, to overpower, unite, and civilize the primitive inhabitants * Niebuhr's opinion on this subject is ably controverted )f Greece. by Mueller, Etrusker, i., p. 97 VoL. I.-G 50 HISTORY OF GREECE. should be perceptible. The force of this argu- i right point of view, it would be capricious t ment is not weakened, even if the extent of the doubt that the portion or element-for it ii. Pelasgian population be reduced within the cludes both substance and form-which thi narrowest limits that have ever been assigned Latin language has in common with the Greek, to it, unless it be imagined that they were not was immediately derived from the Pelasgians only a peculiar tribe, but that they were farther It will then follow that their language was, at removed from the Greek character than others least, the basis of the Greek itself, and that it which are coupled with them as barbarous. may be far more correctly considered either as The slighter we conceive to have been the a dialect, or an early stage of it, than as totally original distinctions that separated all these foreign to it. This general result seems to be tribes from one another and from the Greeks, well established; but all attempts to define the more simply and easily may the propagation more exactly the relation between the two lanof the Greek language be explained. guages, and to describe their characteristic We find this result confirmed, if we extend marks, can only rest on analogies arbitrarily our view beyond Greece, and pursue the traces chosen and applied. We must be content with of the Pelasgians in their western seats. These knowing, both as to the language and the race, we have not yet noticed, because our object has that no notion of them which either confounds been, not to make a complete survey of the Pe- or rigidly separates them, will bear the test of lasgians, but to inquire into their connexion historical criticism. with the Greeks. For this purpose, it will not If the Asiatic Pelasgians are spoken of as if be necessary to take any side in the controver- they were known by no other name, those of sy raised among the ancients, and revived by Italy, on the other hand, seem to have borne it modern writers, about the origin of the Italian only as a common one, which was, perhaps, inPelasgians. It may be treated as an indifferent troduced by the Greeks, and was probably little question, whether they crossed over from the or never heard among the several tribes, At opposite side of the Adriatic in two great col- least here, as in Greece, each was distinguished on;es-one issuing from' Thessaly, the other by its own. The PelasgPans of Etruria were from Arcadia-or were a native race in the called Tyrsenians, those of the south (Enosame sense as those of Greece. We may, how- trians, Chaones, Siculians, and otherwise, acever, observe, that though the accounts of the cording to their wider or narrower circles. If two migrations appear to rest rather on the cur- the name was ever a proper one, it would seem rent opinion as to the principal seats of the to have belonged originally to one of the eastGreek Pelasgians, than on genuine historical ern branches of the nation, and to have spread tradition, there is no reason to doubt that the westward no farther than the shores of the south of Italy received at least a part of its Pe- Adriatic. lasgian population from Epirus, as the occur- The obscurity which renders it difficult to asVence of the same local names in the two coun- certain even the general relation of the Pelastries naturally suggests.* But, whatever un- gians to the Greeks, also obstructs our inquicertainty may hang over this subject, it-does ries when we endeavour to determine the denot affect the main point, the existence of a gree of civilization they had attained before people in Italy, who were either called Pelas- they became a Hellenic people, and.the steps gians, or were known as such by their national by whichl they rose to it. In this respect, as in features, of language, manners, or religion, and others,' they present two aspects, which it is were very widely diffused over the peninsula. not easy to reconcile, and neither of which can That they were confined to the northern part, be shown to be absolutely fate. Some acor to Etruria, is an opinion depending on a con- counts represent their original condition as no jecture supported by no authority: that Arca- better than that of mere savages, strangers dia was originally peopled by two entirely dif- even to the simplest arts of life, and to the first ferent races, the one Pelasgian, the other allied necessaries of civilized society: others imply to the Greeks, and that the latter sent out col- that, in the very earliest period of their settleonies to the south of Italy, while the former re- ment in Greece, they had already reached a mained at home, until the last remnant that much higher stage of humanity. In the history preserved the national name and character mi- of their progress, too, there is an important vagrated along with the Ionians into Asia. These riation; for, according to one view, it was gradArcadian colonies are indeed extremely doubt- ual and spontaneous; according to another, it ful, and. were, very probably, fictions invented was the effect of foreign influence. Finally, after the list of the Lycaonids had taken in opinions have diverged no less widely on' the CEnotrus and Peucetius, the mythical fathers of rank to which, through either of these means, the 0(Enotrian and Peucetian tribes. But the they rose, independently of the Greeks, as a Pelasgian origin of these tribes was then, ac- civilized people. When we consult the testicording to the author of that list, a notorious monies of the ancient authors on these subfact, which he meant to express by the ped- jects, we are perplexed by the difficulty of disigree; and it is confirmed by a casual mention tinguishing between genuine tradition and the of Pelasgians as standing in the same servile artificial results of philosophical or historical relation to the Italian Greeks, to which Greek speculation. So it is with the legends of Areasettlers very commonly reduced the old inhab- dia and Attica; two regions, to which, as the reitants of a conquered country.t If this is the puted seats of a Pelasgian population, which was never exterminated,,we should be inclined * Chaones, Pandosia, Acheron, Dodona; to which may perhaps be added the Elymians, anld Drys (see Raoul Rochette, Colonies Grecques, i., p. 229), and the Sicels. See treated the Pelasgians as the Lacedamonians did their Hean Essay of Niebuhr, translated in the Philological Mu- lots, the Argives their Gymnesians, the Sicyonians. their seum, No. I. Corynephori, the Cretans their Moittae. See Niebuhr, i., t Steo. Byz Xiog. He says that the Italian Greeks p. 29. THE EARLIEST INHABITANTS. 51 to look for the purest traditional evidence. In sity for supposing that all the Pelasgian tribes Arcadia, King Pelasgus, the earth's first-born, stood in this respect on the same level, and teaches his people to build rude huts, and to were equally favoured by nature and fortune. clothe themselves with skins, such as were If some were attracted by the fertility of the worn in some parts of Greece down to the la- broad plains, others might be tempted by the test time; and to substitute the fruit of the security of the mountain-valleys, and thus Aroak, which was long the characteristic food of cadia may have been peopled as early as Argos the country, for the leaves and wild herbs on by the same race.- And yet, unless the Arcawhich they had before subsisted. His son, Ly- dian settlers found their new seats prepared for caon, founds the first city, Lycosura; and it is their reception, the forests already cleared, the not before the reign of Areas, the fourth from swamps drained, and those great works accomPelasgus, who gave his name to the country, plished which were ascribed to the power of that the Arcadians learned the use of bread, and Hercules, or Poseidon, and without which many began to exchange their boar-skins for woollen tracts could never have been habitable, they garments.* It can hardly be believed that this must have been long engaged in a struggle with picture is anything more than a sketch, traced nature, which would detain them in a condition by the understanding, and filled up by the im- very inferior to that of their Argive brethren. agination, of the order in which useful discov- The legends of the two countries appear to ineries and inventions may be supposed to have dicate that such was the case. It would be an succeeded each other in a primitive communi- equally narrow view of the Pelasgians to conty. But if it were possible to treat it as con- ceive that they were solely addicted to agricultaining any touch of historical truth, it would tural pursuits. Even if it were not highly probstill be doubtful whether the Pelasgians ought able that a part of the nation crossed the sea to to be regarded as giving or receiving the ben- reach the shores of Greece, and thus brought efits of civilized life; and we should be as little with them the rudiments of the arts connected justified in inferring that they themselves emer- with navigation, it would be incredible that the ged from a savage state, as in drawing the like tribes seated bn the coast should not soon have conclusion from the Italian legend, which re- acquired them. Accordingly, the islands of the lates that Italus introduced husbandry among _/gean are peopled by Pelasgians, the piracies his subjects, the (Enotrians.t So, too, when of the Leleges precede the rise of the first marthe Pelasgians of Attica are described as origi- itime power among the Greeks, and the Tyrnally plunged in the grossest barbarism, there senian Pelasgians are found infesting the seas is strong reason to suspect that it has only been after the fall of Troy. attributed to them for the sake of heightening To know that a nation which has any fair the contrast between them and the foreign set- claim to affinity with the Greeks was not, at tiers, who in the same accounts are said to any period to which probable tradition goes have reclaimed them.$ I back, a horde of helpless savages, is in itself Other traditions, not so liable to distrust, con- not unimportant. The same evidence which cui in assigning tillage and useful arts to the disposes us to believe that the Pelasgians spoke Pelasgians as their proper and original pursuits. a language nearly akin to the Hellenic, must We are told that they loved to settle on the render'us willing to admit that, before they rich soil of alluvial plains: hence the name and came into contact with any foreign people in the legend of Piasus, who reigned over the Pe- Greece, they may have tilled the ground, plantlasgians in the valley of the Hermus, and grew ed the vine, launched their boats on the sea, wanton from the exuberant increase of the dwelt together in walled towns, and honoured land.~ So, in Thessaly, the waters have no the gods, as authors of their blessings, with fessooner been discharged bythe earthquake which tive rights and sacred songs. And it is satisrent Ossa and Olympus asunder, than Pelasgus factory to find that all this, if not clearly ascerhastens to take possession of the newly-discov- tained, is at least consistent with the general ered territory, and the happy event is celebra- tenour of ancient tradition. But even this is ted in a -yearly festival with loaded boards. 11 far from giving us a notion of the precise point The powers that preside over husbandry, and of civilization to which the Pelasgians had adprotect the fruits of the earth, and the growth vanced before the Greeks overtook and outof the flocks and herds, appear to have been stripped them, and still less does it disclose any the eldest Pelasgian deities. It is, therefore, peculiar features in their national character. not an improbable conjecture, that the genuine Fully to discuss the former of these subjects, it and most ancient form of the national name would be necessary to enter into a very wide was expressive of this character.s And per- and arduous field of inquiry, and to examine the haps this might explain how, having been at pretensions set up on behalf of the Pelasgians first confined to some fortunate and industrious to the art of writing, to religious mysteries, and tribes, which cultivated the most fruitful tracts, to a theological literature. But as this would it came to be widely diffused, without superse- lead us away from our main object, it will be ding those which prevailed elsewhere. But, as better to reserve these questions till we are has been already observed, there is no neces- called upon to notice them so far as they bear on the progress of society among the Greeks. * Paus., viii., 4, 1; iv.. 11, 3. t Aristot. Pol.vi.,. For the present, we shall only touch on one t Eudocia, under the article Cecrops. subject, which affords us surer ground for ob. AStrabo, xiii., 621. servation, and perhaps the best measure for l[ Athen., xiv., p. 689. The Peloria. fa~pyeo (from'ipos and 7rw), inhabitrants or culti- judging of the condition and character of the vators of the plain. Mueller (Orchom., p. 125, n. 6) con- Pelasgians. The most ancient architectural nects this with the name Pelorza, the feast of the settlers. monuments in Europe, which may, perhaps, out, Yet the analogy of lros, raepodAos, &c., seems unfa- last all that have been reared in later ages vourable to this etymology 52 HISTORY OF GREECE. clearly appear to have been works of their ting the effects produced by them on the moral hands. The huge structures, remains of which and intellectual character, the religious or politare visible in many parts of Greece, in Epirus, ical condition of the Greeks. It required no Italy, and the western coast of Asia Minor, and little boldness to venture even to throw out a which are commonly described by the epithet doubt as to the truth of an opinion sanctioned Cyclopean, because, according to the Greek le- by such high authority, and by the prscription gend, the Cyclopes built the walls of Tiryns and of such a long and undisputed possession of the Mycenee, might more properly be called Pelas- public mind; and perhaps it might never have gian, from their real authors. The legendary been questioned, if the inferences drawn from Cyclopes, indeed, are said to have been brought it had not provoked a jealous inquiry into the over from Lycia by Prcetus, king of Argos, the grounds on which it rests. When, however, founder of Tiryns. But this tradition, whatev- this spirit was once awakened, it was perceived er may have been its foundation, is certainly that the current stories of these ancient settlenot a sufficient clew for tracing the style, as ments afforded great room for reasonable diswell as the name, to Argolis, nor a safe ground. trust, not merely in the marvellous features for ascribing its origin to a different race from they exhibit, but in the still more suspicious the Pelasgians. The epithet most probably ex- fact that, with the lapse of time, their number presses nothing more than the wonder excited seems to increase and their details to be more by these gigantic works in the Greeks of a more accurately known, and that the farther we go refined age. It suggests, however, the point back the less we hear of them, till, on consult-of view from which they may reflect some light ing the Homeric poems, we lose all traces of on the people to which they belong. - The -ear- their existence. We can here neither affect to liest of them are so rude, that they seem at first disregard the controversies that are still agitasight to indicate nothing more than a capacity ted on this subject, and repeat the common traconfined to undertakings which demanded much ditions without warning the reader of their toil and little skill, and a state of society settled questionable character, nor can we discuss the enough to encourage such exertions. In this arguments of either side. But as it seems posrespect, it matters little whether they were sible, and even necessary, to take a middle productions of free labour, or tasks imposed by course between the old and the new opinions, a foreign master. The gradual progress that it will be proper to explain why we cannot emmay be traced, through a series'of easy transi- brace either with an unqualified assent. tions, from these shapeless masses to regular A slight inspection of the Greek stories about and well-contrived buildings, seems to show the foreign settlers seems sufficient to show that, in those of the rudest workmanship, the that neither the authority on which they rest, sense of symmetry, the most distinguishing fea- nor their internal evidence, is such as to satisfy ture in the Greek character, was only suppress- a cautious inquirer. We must here briefly noed in the struggle of an untaught people with tice their leading features. The principal colthe difficulties that beset the infancy of art. onies brought to Greece from the East are said The interval between the style, if it may be so to have been planted in Argolis, on the opposite called, of the most unsightly Cyclopean wall and side of the Saronic Gulf, and in Bceotia. The that of edifices like the treasury or tomb of At- Pelasgians were still masters of the plain of reus, is perhaps not so wide as that which sep- Argos when Danaus, driven out of Egypt by arates works of the latter class from what may domestic feuds, landed on the coast, was raised be conceived to have been the simplest form of to the throne by the consent of the natives, and the Doric temple; though they were much far- founded a town, afterward tile citadel of Argos, ther removed from that stage in which necessi- and known by the Pelasgian name Larissa. He ty is still the parent of invention, utility its only is said to have given his name to the warlike guide, beauty its unsought, and, seemingly, ac- Danai, once so celebrated that Homer uses this cidental result. as a general appellation for the Greeks, when that of Hellenes was still confined to a narrow range. The later Argives showed his tomb in their market-place, and many other monuments CHAPTER III. of his presence. The popular belief is confirmFOREIGN SETTLERS IN GREECE. ed by the testimony of Herodotus, who mentions the migration of Danaus without any distrust, IN a comparatively late period-that which fol- and even learned in Egypt the name of the city lowed the rise of an historical literature among from which he came: and the historian's evithe Greeks-we find a belief generally preva- dence appears to be backed by an independent lent, both in the people and among the learned, tradition which he found existing at Rhodes, that in ages of very remote antiquity, before that Danaus had landed there on his passage, the name and dominion of the Pelasgians had and founded a temple of Minerva at Lindus, to given way to that of the Hellenic race, foreign- which, in the sixth century B.C., Amasis, king ers had been led by various causes from distant of Egypt, sent offerings in honour of its Egyplands to the shores of Greece, and there had tian origin. This is the naked abstract of the planted colonies, founded dynasties, built cities, tradition; and, when so related, stripped of all and introduced useful arts and social institu- its peculiar circumstances, it may seem pertions before unknown to the ruder natives. The fectly credible, as well as amply attested. On same belief has been almost universally adopted the other hand, the popular legend exhibits by the learned of modern times, many of whom, other features, apparently original, and not to regarding the general fact as sufficiently estab- be separated from its substance, which are utlished, have busied themselves in discovering terly incredible, and can scarcely be explained fresh traces of such migrations, or in investiga- without transporting the whole narrative out o! FOREIGN SETTLERS. 53 the sphere of history into that of religious fable. Leleges.'But this solitary and ill-attested leAll authors agree that Danaus fled to Greece, gend, which was manifestly occasioned by the accompanied by a numerous family of daughters ancient rivalry of the Carian ahd Lelegian races, (fifty is the received poetical number), to escape cannot serve to prove the Egyptian origin of from the persecution of their suiters, the sons the latter people, which seems not to have been of his brother _Egyptus. This is an essential suspected by any other ancient authors. In part of the story, which cannot be severed from Attica we meet with reports of more than one the rest without the most arbitrary violence. Egyptian colony. The first, led by Cecrops, is The Danaids, according to Herodotus, founded said to have found Attica without a king, desothe temple at Lindus, and instructed the Pelas- lated by the deluge which befell it a century begian women at Argos in the mystic rites of fore, in the reign of Ogyges. If we may beDemeter. To them, too, was ascribed the dis- lieve some writers of the latest period of Greek covery of the springs or the wells which re- literature, Cecrops gave his own name to the lieved the natural aridity of the Argive soil. land, and on the Cecropian rock founded a new Before Herodotus, _Eschylus had exhibited on city, which he called Athens, after the goddess the Attic stage the tragical fate of the sons of Athen6, whom, with the Romans, we name,'Egyptus, who had pursued the fugitives to Minerva. To him is ascribed the introduction Greece, and, after forcing them to the altar, not only- f a new religion of pure and harmless were slain by their hands. A local legend re- rites, but'even of the first element of civil socilated that Lerna, the lake or swamp near Argos, ety, the institution of marriage; whence it may had been the scene'of the murder, and that the be reasonably inferred that the savage natives heads of the suiters were there buried, while learned from him all the arts necessary to civtheir bodies were deposited in a separate monu- ilized life. But, notwithstanding the confidence ment.* One of the main streams of Lerna de- with which this story has been repeated in modrived its name from Amymon6, one of the sis- ern times, the Egyptian origin of Cecrops is ters, to whom Neptune, softened by her beauty, extremely doubtful. It is refuted by the silence had revealed the springs which had before dis- of the elder Greek poets and historians; and, appeared at his bidding. This intimate con- even in the period when it became current, is nexion between the popular legend and the pe- contradicted by several voices, which describe culiar character of the Argive soil, which ex- Cecrops as a -native of the Attic soil: and the hibited a striking contrast between the upper undisguised anxiety of the Egyptians to claim part of the plain and the low grounds of Lerna, the founder of Athens for their countryman must be allowed to give some colour to the con- could excite the distrust even of a writer so jecture of the bolder critics, who believe the credulous and uncritical as Diodorus.* Not whole story of Danaus to have been of purely content with Cecrops, they pretended to have Argive origin, and,to have sprung up out of sent out Erechtheus with a supply of corn for these local accidents, though all attempts hith- the relief of their Attic kinsmen, who rewarded erto made to explain its minuter features seem his munificence with the crown; he, in return, to have failed. The Argive colonies in the east completed his work of beneficence by founding of Asia Minor might be conceived to have con- the mysteries of Eleusis on the model of those tributed something towards the form which it which were celebrated in Egypt in honour of finally assumed, even before Egypt was thrown Isis. A third Egyptian colony was said to have open to the Greeks. But the historian cannot been red to Attica by Peteus only one generadecide between these contending views, and tion before the Trojan war. The arguments of must resign himself to the uncertainty of the the Egyptians seem to have been as weak as fact, unless it can be maintained by some their assertions were bold. The least absurd stronger evidence, or more satisfactorily ex- was that which they derived from the Oriental plained. character of the primitive political institutions If we could consent to swell the list of the of Attica. But some more distinct marks of foreign settlers with the conjectures of modern Egyptian origin would be necessary to c'ountercritics, we should not consider the arrival of vail the tacit dissent of the Greek authors, who Danaus as an insulated fact. We might have might have been expected to be best informed spoken of Inachus, who is called the first King on the subject. Nor is their silence to be exof Argos, and is said to have given his name to plained by the vanity of the Athenians, who its principal river: hence, in the mythical ge- were accustomed, indeed, to consider themnealogies, he is described as a son of Oceanus, selves as children of the Attic soil, but were not, the common parent of all rivers. Yet on this on that account, reluctant to believe that their ground it has sometimes been supposed that he land had been early visited by illustrious strantoo came to Greece across the sea. We as gers. We purposely abstain from insisting on little venture to rely on such inferences as to the result of mythological inquiries, which tend construe the fabled wanderings of Io, the daugh- to show that both Cecrops and Erechtheus are ter of Inachus, into a proof that, even before fictitious personages, and that they belong enthe time of Danaus, intercourse subsisted be- tirely to a homesprung Attic.fable. Such attween Greece and Egypt. If, however, we tacks would be wasted on tales which scarcely turn northward of the Isthmus, we find another present the semblance of an historical founda. Egyptian prince at Megara, where, according tion.t to the tradition which Pausanias heard there, Lelex, having crossed over from Egypt, founded * i., 29. the dynasty which succeeded that of Car, the t It may, however, be proper to remind the reader that the question as to an Egyptian colony in Attica does not son of Phoroneus, and gave his name to the depend upon the opinion which may be formed on the existence or the origin of Cecrops. Whatever may be thought * Apollod., ii., 1, 5, 11. Pausanias (ii., 24, 2) inverts the on that point, arguments such as those which are urged story.' with great ability by F. Thiersch, in his Epochen der bil 54. HISTORY OF GREECE. The opinion of a foreign settlement in Bceotia! the mysterious Cabiri, decisive marks of a Peis undoubtedly supported by much better au- lasgian origin; insist upon the inland position thority. That Cadmus led a Phcenician colony of Thebes as inconsistent with the ordinary into the heart of the country, and founded a character of a Phocenician settlement; and contown called Cadmea, which afterward became sider the epithet of the Tyrian Cadmus as a the citadel of Thebes, was a tradition which chronological error, which betrays the late rise had certainly been current in Boeotia long be- of the story, the authors of which substituted fore the time of Herodotus, who not only con- Tyre for the elder Sidon. As if to increase our firms it by the weight of his own judgment- perplexity, an ingenious attempt has been made which is not here biased, as in the case of Da- to prove that the Cadmeans were a Cretan colnaus, by the Egyptian priesthood-but also by ony.* some collateral evidence. He had ascertained There is still another celebrated name which that one of the most celebrated Athenian fam- we must add to this list, before we proceed to ilies traced its origin to the companions of Cad- consider the subject in a different point of view. mus; that another division of them had been According to a tradition which appears to be left behind in the Isle of Thera; and that his sanctioned by the authority of Thucydides, Pekinsman Thasus had given his name to the lops passed over from Asia to Greece with treasisland where the Pheenicians opened the gold ures which, in a poor country, afforded him the mines which were still worked in the days of means of founding a new dynasty. His descendthe historian. These may, indeed, so far as ants sat for three generations on the throne of Cadmus is concerned, be considered as mere Argos: their power was generally acknowlramifications of the Theban legend, not more edged throughout Greece, and, in the historian's conclusive than the tradition that followers of opinion, united the Grecian states in the expeCadmus settled in Eubcea. But they at least dition against Troy. The renown of their anprove that Phoenicians had very early gained a cestor was transmitted to posterity by the name footing on the islands and shores of Greece. of the southern peninsula, called after him PelThebes boasted of having received the precious oponnesus, or the Isle of Pelops. The region gift of letters from her Phcenician colonists; of Asia from which Pelops came is not uni and Herodotus adopts this opinion after a dili- formly described, any more than the motives gent inquiry, which ought not to be wholly dis- of his migration. Most authors, however, fix regarded, because he was deceived by some his native seat in the Lydian town of Sipylus monuments which were either forged or misin- where his father Tantalus was fabled to have terpreted. The Oriental derivation of the name reigned in more than mortal prosperity, till he of Cadmus is, indeed, as uncertain as the origi- abused the favour of the gods, and provoked nal import of that of Phcenix, which Hellanicus them to destroy him. The poetical legends vagives to his father, but which was used by the ried as to the marvellous causes through which Greeks as one of the proper names of their na- the abode of Pelops was transferred from Sipytive heroes. Thebes likewise showed what lus to Pisa, where he won the daughter and the were thought to be the traces of Phoenician crown of the bloodthirsty tyrant CEnomaus, as worship;* and the story of the Sphinx, whatev- the prize of his victoryin the chariot-race. ThQ er may have been its origin, may seem to point, authors who, like Thucydides, saw nothing in. if not to Phoenicia, at least towards the East. the story but a political transaction, related that On the other hand, modern writers find, in the Pelops had been driven from his native land by legends of Cadmus and his consort Harmonia, an invasion of Ilus, king of Troy;t and hence in their connexion with Samothrace, and with it has very naturally been inferred that, in leading the Greeks against Troy, Agamemnon was denden Kunst, p. 26, f., from the Attic religion and art, par- merely avenging the wrongs of his ancestor.$ ticularly from the names, offices, and mutual relations of On the other hand, it has been observed that, Athenp (Neitha), Hephaestus (Phthath), and their son far from giving any countenance to this hypothApollo (Picero, Nat. De., iii., 22), and from the Egyptian physiognomy of Athen6 on fthe ancient coins, such, argu- esis, Homer, though he records the genealogy ments will still be equally entitled to attention. On the by which the sceptre of Pelops was transmitted other hand, it is difficult to acquit the ingenious and elo- to Agamemnon, nowhere alludes to the Asiatic quent author of a too willing credulitywhen he attempts to trace the expedition of Cecrops, or of the colonists whom origin of the house. As little does he seem to he represents, over the sea to Thrace, and thence to the have heard of the adventures of the Lydian southern extremity of Greece; and, for this purpose, not stranger at Pisa. The zeal with which the only accepts such an authority as Isidore (Or., xv., 1) to Eleans mainta d this part of the stry, manprove that Cecrops built the city of Rhodes (which has Eleans maintained this part of the story, manbeen commonly believed, on the authority of Diodorus, to ifestly with a view to exalt the antiquity and have been first founded 01. xciii., 1), but even condescends the lustre of the Olympic games, over which to rake up out of Meursius (De Regg. AtM., i., 7) the testimo- they presided, raises a natural suspicion that py of an Albert, abbot of Stade, who, it seems, has recorded they presided, raises a natural suspicion that in his Chronicle that Cecrops built the temple at Delphi the hero's connexion with the East may have and founded Lacedaemon. His two other citations (from been a fiction, occasioned by a like interest, and Stephanus' and Strabo): are certainly not so ludicrously propagated by like arts. This distrust is conweak, but they prove nothing. That there should have been a district in Thrace called Cecropis, as is asserted by firmed by the religious form which the legend Stephanus (KEKposrla), may be believed, and accounted for was finally made to assume, when it was comfrom the widespread power of Athens, without going back bined with an Asiatic superstition, which found to the time of Cecrops; and Strabo's remark (ix., p. 407) that Cecrops ruled over Baeotia was a natural inference its way into Greece after the time of Homer. from the probably well-founded tradition that it once cort- The seeming sanction of Thucydides loses altained two towns, named Eleusis and Athens. most all its weight when we observe that he * Cadmus was said to have dedicated a statue of Athend at Thebes, with the title of Onga; on which Pausanias does not deliver his own judgment on the ques(ix., 12, 2) observes that this name, which is Phemnician tion, but merely adopts the opinion of the Pelo(compare Steph. Byz., Oy~caTua and Xvai), contradicts the opinion of those who hold Cadmus to have been, not a Phcs- * Welcker, Ieber eine Kretische Colonie in Theben. 7aicial, but an Egyptian. ]t Paus., ii., 22, 3. D By Kruse, Hellas, i., p 485 FOREIGN SETTLERS. 55 ponnesian antiquarians, which he found best t.case indeed required, but which would not have adapted to his purpose of illustrating the prog- been observed by religious fraud or patriotic ress of society in Greece. vanity. While this appears an argument of There can scarcely be a more irksome or un- some moment, when the question is viewed profitable labour than that of balancing argu- from the side of the West, it is met by another ments of this nature, and watching the fluctua- stronger and alike independent on the side of tionof the scales, as a new conjecture is thrown the East. The history of the countries from in on either side. We turn with impatience which these colonies or adventurers are said to liom this ungrateful task, to make a few gen- have issued, tells of domestic revolutions, general remarks, which may, perhaps, assist the erally coinciding with the date of the supposed leader in appreciating the comparative value settlements in Greece, by which a-portion of of these traditions. We must repeat that none their inhabitants was driven into foreign lands. of these stories, considered by themselves, have` Egypt, after having been long oppressed. by a any marks of truth sufficient to decide the con- hostile race, which founded a series of dynasties viction of a scrupulous inquirer; nor can their in a part at least of her territory, is said to number be safely held to make up for their in- have finally rid herself, by a convulsive effort, dividual deficiency in weight. Yet there are 1 of these barbarous strangers, who were disperother grounds which seem to justify the belief, sed over the adjacent regions of Asia and Afrithat at least they cannot have been wholly des- ca. If we admit the truth of these traditions, titute of historical foundation. Even if we had which appear to rest on good grounds, it seems no such distinct accounts of particular persons scarcely possible to doubt that the movement and events, it would be scarcely possible to occasioned by this shock was propagated to doubt that, at a period long prior to that repre- Greece; and it seems highly probable that some sented by the Homeric poems, migrations must of these outcasts, separating themselves from have taken place from various parts of the East their brethren, found means of embarking on the to the shores of Greece. We have sufficient coasts of Egypt or Palestine, and wandered over evidence that, in the earliest times, Greece the./Egean until they reached the opposite was agitated by frequent irruptions and revolu- shore, while others may have been led to the tions, arising out of the flux and reflux of the same quarter by a more circuitous road. Hence nations which fought and wandered in the coun- we are inclined not altogether to reject the testries adjacent to its northeastern borders. We timony, or, rather, the opinion of an author, have ample reason to believe that, during the who, though undoubtedly much later than Hecasame period, the western regions of Asia were taeus, the predecessor of Herodotus, whose name not in a more settled state. Such movements he bears, may have been delivering more than appear to be indicated by the history of the a mere conjecture of his own when he relates Phrygians, who are said to have passed out of that the migrations of Danaus and Cadmus Europe into Asia Minor, which, nevertheless, were occasioned by this Egyptian revolution.* was most probably their earlier seat; by the If, indeed, any weight could be attached to an expedition of the Amazons, which left such obscure report of the Hellenic dynasty among deep traces in the legends of Attica and the those of the shepherd kings, we might suppose neighbouring countries; perhaps by that of the that an intercourse between the two countries fabulous Memnon, which the Greek poets con- had been opened at a still earlier period.t At nected with the siege of Troy.* It cannot sur- all events, an objection which has often been prise us, that, while Macedonia and Thrace tirged against the common story - that the were a highway, or a theatreqof war, for flying Egyptians in the earliest times were strangers or conquering tribes, other wanderers should to maritime expeditions, and shrank with abhave bent their course to Greece across the horrence from the sea- loses all its force 2Egean. Its islands appear from time imme- against this hypothesis. It is true that neither morial to have been the steps by which Asia the Egyptians in the time of Herodotus, nor the and Europe exchanged a part of their unsettled Greeks before the Alexandrian period, viewed population. Thus, in the remotest antiquity, the migration of Danaus and Cadmus in this we find Carians occupying both sides of the light. They considered Danaus as an Egyptian Saronic Gulf; and Sicyon derived one of its by birth, and Cadmus, in general, as a native most ancient names from a people who are de- of Phenicia. This, however, if the fact was scribed as among the earliest inhabitants of as here supposed, would be a very natural misCyprus, Rhodes, and Crete.t take; and with regard to Cadmus, we find that When, thus prepared to contemplate Greece there was an ancient controversy on the quesas a land, not secluded from the rest of. the tion whether he came from Phoenicia or from world, but peculiarly open and inviting to for- Egypt.T An author who wrote a little before eign settlers, we again consider the stories of our era, and who professes to have examined the various colonies said to have been planted the subject with great attention, relates that there by strangers from the East, we are struck Cadmus was a powerful chief among those by some coincidences which cannot have been Phcenicians who conquered Egypt, and estab-.the result of design, and which, therefore, be- lished the seat of their empire at Thebes, and speak a favourable hearing. It is on the eastern that it was from Egypt he set out to found a dyside of Greece that, with the sdlitary and doubt- masty in the West, where he named the Bceotian ful exception of Pelops, we find these colonies Thebes, after the city which he had left.i If planted; a restriction which the nature of the Cadmus was such a Phoenician, we need no * See an essay on this subject in the Philological Muse- * Diod,, Fr., xl. urn, No. iv. t According to Goar's reading, a dynasty of fIellenic t Telchinia, Steph. l3yz., TeXIc, Pans., ii., 5, 6, and shepherds occurs in Syncellus, p. 114 (ed. Bonn). ix., 19, 1. Diod., v., 55. f Pans., ix., 12, 2. ( Conon., 37. 56 HISTORY OF GREECE. longer be startled-by the inland position of his jecture as to the influence they exerted on th& new capital, and shall have no occasion for the Greek mythology. fanciful conjecture, that he chose it with a view The name of the Phoenicians raises another to form a commercial communication between question. The expedition of Cadmus mani. distant parts of the coast,* a destination of festly represents the maritime adventures of which we find not the slightest hint in the an- his countrymen; but it leaves us in doubt cient legends of Thebes. whether the Phoenician settlements ascribed ta It seems to be only in some such sense as his followers are to be referred to the shepherds that here explained, that it is possible to con- who were expelled from Egypt, or to the comceive Egyptian colonies to have been ever mercial people who, at a later period, covered planted in Greece: for the expedition of Sesos- the coasts of Africa and Spain with their colotris, even if admitted to be an historical event, nies. The foundation of Thebes might most can scarcely serve as a foundation for the story. probably be attributed to the former; but it We would not decide, indeed, whether, among must have been the mercantile spirit of Tyre, the earliest inhabitants of Greece, some of to- or Sidon, that was attracted by the mines of tally different race from these Phoenician fugi- Cyprus, Thasus, and Euboea. The precise tives may not have taken nearly the same date of the first opening of the intercourse becourse; but settlers of purely Egyptian blood, tween Phoenicia and Greece is wholly uncercrossing the g2Egean, and founding maritime cit- tain; but we see no reason for doubting that it ies, appears to be inconsistent with everything existed several centuries before the time of we know of the national character. Here, how- Homer, and we are inclined to consider this as ever, a new question arises. It is in itself of the most powerful of all the external causes very little importance whether a handful of that promoted the progress of civilized life, and Egyptians or Phcenicians were or were not introduced new arts and knowledge in the islmingled with the ancient population of Greece. ands and shores of the./Egean. It has been All that renders this inquiry interesting is the suspected, not without a great appearance of effect which the arrival of these foreigners is probability, that the Phcenicians are often desupposed to have produced on the state of soci- scribed in the legends of the Greek seas under ety in their new country. Herodotus represents different names. Thus the half-fabulous race the greater part of the religious notions and called the Telchines exhibits so many features practices of the Greeks, the. objects and forms which remind us of the Pheenician character, of their worship, as derived from Egypt. When that it is difficult to resist the conviction that we consider that among the Greeks, as in most they are the same people, disguised by popular other nations, it was religion that called forth and poetical fictions. Cyprus seems to have their arts, their poetry, perhaps even their phi- been looked upon as their most ancient seat; losophy, it will be evident how many interesting but they are equally celebrated in the traditions questions depend on this; and as it is the de- of Crete and Rhodes; and Sicyon, as has been gree in which the religious and intellectual cul- observed, derived one of its names from them. ture of the Greeks was derived from foreign These stations exactly correspond to the course sources that constitutes the whole importance which the Phoenicians must be supposed to have of the controversy, so it is the point on which pursued, when they began their maritime adthe decision must finally hinge. But neither ventures in the Mediterranean, as the mythical the study of Greek mythology, nor the history attributes of the Telchines do to their habits of Greek art, has yet arrived at such a stage of and occupations. The Telchines were fabled maturity as to enable the historian to pronounce to be the sons o;the sea, the guardians of Powith confidence on the rival hypotheses, one of seidon in his childhood; they were said to have which fetches from the East what the other re- forged his trident, and Saturn's sickle. In gards as the native growth of the Grecian soil. general, to them are ascribed the first labours The difficulty is much increased if we interpret of the smithy, the most ancient images of the the traditions about the Egyptian colonies in gods; and by a natural transition they came to that which appears to be their most probable be viewed as sorcerers, who could assume all sense. We knowsomething about the religion kinds of shapes, could raise tempests, and and the arts of the Egyptians, and of the Phce- afflict the earth with barrenness: and they nicians on the coast of Syria. But as to the seem even to have retained a permanent place Phoenician conquerors of Egypt, we have no in- in the popular superstitions as a race of maliformation to ascertain the relation in which cious elves. It can scarcely be doubted that they stood to the natives, and how far they these legends imbody recollections of arts inwere qualified to be the bearers of all that He- troduced or refined by foreigners, who attractrodotus believed Egypt to have imparted to ed the admiration of the rude tribes which they Greece. The author from whom Diodorus visited. It may be questioned whether the drew his account of Danaus and Cadmus,t as- policy of the Phoenicians ever led them to aim cribed their expulsion to the resentment and at planting independent colonies in the islands alarm excited in'the Egyptians by the profane- or on the continent of Greece; and whether ness of the strangers, who neglected their rites, they did not content themselves with establishand threatened the total subversion of the na- ing factories, which they abandoned when their tional religion. If there is any truth in this attention was diverted to a different quarter. statement, they must have been very ill fitted In their early expeditions, the objects of piracy to instruct the Pelasgians in the Egyptian mys- and commerce appear to have been combined teries, and a boundless field is opened for con- in the manner described by Homer and Herodotus. But it is highly probable that, wherever * This is Kruse's mode of solving the difficulty, i., p. 481. they came, they not only introduced the prot Fr. of book xl. dutts of their own arts, but stimulated the in. THE HELLENIC NATION. 57 dustry and invention of the natives, exploredI dentally, but from the genius of the people, the mineral and vegetable riches of the soil, which constantly tended to imbody the'spirituand increased them by new plants and methods al, and to personify the indefinite. When, of cultivation. Undoubtedly, also, their sojourn, therefore, we are seeking, not for poetry, but even where it was transient, was not barren of for historical facts, we cannot but feel a great other fruits, some of which were perhaps rather distrust of every such legend, and the more in noxious than useful. There are several parts proportion to the distance of the period to which of the Greek mythology which bear strong it carries us back. On the other hand, it would marks of a Phoenician origin; and as we know be rash to pronounce that every legend which that the character of their own superstition was refers the origin and the name of a Greek tribe peculiarly impure and atrocious, it seems by no to an individual, is on that account incredible means incredible that many of the horrid rites Causes may certainly be imagined through which are described as prevailing at an early which the name of a chief might sometimes be period in Greece, were derived from this source. transferred to his people.* But still it will alBesides Egypt and Phoenicia, it is possible ways be the safest rule to wilh-hold our belief that the Phrygians may be entitled to some from such traditions whenp per they are not share in the honour of heaving contributed to- supported by independent, trustworthy eviwards the cultivation of Greece. In the intri- dence; and we shall have the stronger reason cate legends of the Greek Archipelago we find for rejecting them, the earlier the period to names of fabulous beings, of a nature akin to which they relate, and the more obscure the the Telchines, and apparently standing in nearly person whose name they record. This remark the same relation to the Phrygians as the Tel- applies with full force to the heroes from whom chines to the Phoenicians. Such are the Cory- the Greeks believed their whole nation and its bantes and the Idaean Dactyls, who are con- main branches to have derived their origin. nected on the one hand with the arts, on the " Of Hellen," Hesiod sang, " sprang the justiceother with the worship, of Phrygia. It might dealing kings Dorus and Xuthus, and the wareven be a not untenable hypothesis to suppose like AEolus; of.Eolus, Cretheus, and Athamas, that Pelops, if he was indeed a foreigner, be- and wily Sisyphus, Salmoneus the Unjust, and longed to the same stock, especially as we the proud Perieres." The opinion that Hellen hear of Idaean Dactyls at Pisa. But perhaps it was the founder of the Hellenic race was not may not be necessary to go so, far in order to merely spread by the poets, and received by the explain the common story, without absolutely vulgar, but was adopted, apparently with full rejecting it. As the Pelasgians belonged no conviction, by grave historians, such as Herodless to Asia than to Europe, so Pelops and his otus and Thucydides. But, on such a subject, sister Niobe, who is the daughter of the Argive the authority of the best Greek writer is of very king Phoroneus as well as of the Lydian Tan- little weight. It is not too bold a surmise that, if talus (for it is idle to distinguish these mythical no such person as Hellen had ever existed, his personages), may, perhaps, wit4 equal truth, be name would sooner or later have been inventconsidered as natives of either continent: and ed; and there is nothing in the few actions asthis appears to have been, in substance, Nie- cribed to him to dimir.sh our suspicions of his buhr's solution of the difficulty.* We will not reality. But though we seem to be fully justiattempt to pierce farther into the night of ages: fled in considering the genealogy given by Hewe will only suggest that some traditions of the siod as a fabrication, perhaps not much earlier tribes which first settled in Greece may have than the poet's time, it does not follow that it been retained and transmitted in an altered ought to be discarded us utterly groundless. form, as accounts of subsequent expeditions Such genealogies express an ancient, and a and migrations; though what has been said more or less authentic, opinion about national seems sufficient to show that the received relations, which always deserves attention, and, opinion as to the foreign colonists had an inde- where it is not opposed by stronger evidence, pendent historical groundworl must be allowed to preponderate. Our conviction that Hellen and his immediate progeny are fictitious personages, need not prevent us from using the indications afforded by their pedigree CHAPTER IV. in tracing the propagation of the'main branches of the Hellenic race. ~ THE HELLENIC NATION. The reputed founder of the nation is someA VERY slight acquaintance with'the works times called a son of Jupiter, but more frequentof the authors from whom we have received ly either a son or a brother of Deucalion.t our accounts of the earliest ages of Grecian When we consider the part which Deucalion history, will be sufficient to lead any attentive fills in the Greek mythology, we perceive that reader to observe the extreme proneness of the these accounts differ very slightly in substance. Greeks to create fictitious persons for the pur- Deucalion is celebrated in fable for the great pose of explaining names, the real origin of -flood which happened in his time, and for the which was lost in remote antiquity. Almost new race which sprang up to replenish the desevery nation, tribe, city, mountain, sea, river, olated earth from the stones which he and his and spring known to the Greeks, was supposed wife Pyrrha, by command of the Delphic oracle, to have been named after some ancient hero, of threw behind them on Mount Parnassus. When, whom, very often, no other fact is recorded. These fictions manifestly sprang up not acci- * One may conceive that a land, or a town, might take its name from a powerful chief, and afterward give it as an epithet to the people. * He observes (Kleine Schriften, p. 370, note), " The t Hellen and Deucalion, sons of Prometheus and Clymemigration of Pelops signifies nothing more than the affinity ne, Schol., Pind., 01. ix., 68. Hellen, sot of Jupiter, Apol of the peoples on both sides of the X.Egean." led., i., 7, 2, 7. -TT 58 HISTORY OF GREECE. therefore, Hellen is termed the son of Deuca- mentions their names. That part of it, indeed, lion, it would seem that nothing more is meant which concerns the Leleges, is apparently con than when his origin is immediately referred to firmed by the combined testimony of Aristotle the father of gods and men;. both legends pro- and Hesiod; the former of whom related that claim his high antiquity, and appear to prevent they once inhabited Acarnania, together with us from carrying our researches farther back- the Curetes, and afterward received the name ward.. But though Deucalion is in all probabil- of Locrians; and the latter, that they were led ity a mere symbol of the flood itself, other tra- by Locrus, being the people whom Jupiter raisditions are connected with his name which ed from the earth, and gave to Deucalion.* may throw some light on the origin of the Hel- But since we find them described as the earlilenic nation. As in the fable Deucalion brings est settlers in Eubcea, Boeotia, and Laconia, no his new people down from Parnassus, so he is less than in Acarnania, there seems to be no related to have crossed over into Thessaly from reason for thinking that they migrated from the the regions adjacent to Parnassus, leading a west towards the east of Greece, rather than in host composed of Curetes and Leleges, and oth- the contrary direction, though it is easy to imer tribes which then dwe]t there.* This tradi- agine how a legend of such a migration might tion, though reported by a late writer, accords arise. The name of the Curetes also is found, so well with others resting on higher authority not only in Acarnania; but in Eubcea and in that it is entitled to attention. It leads us to Crete, where, however, they are described, not conclude that the people afterward called Hel- as a people, but as the fabulous attendants of lenes came from the West; and we are con- Jupiter, who watched over his infancy, or else firmed in this belief by finding names differing as his real ministers, who celebrated his worvery slightly froin that of Hellen among the ship with dances in armour, like the Salii at most ancient tribes of Epirus. Here, according Rome. Some of the ancients observed that, to Aristotle,t about Dodona and the Achelous, as the name was a descriptive epithet, being lay the ancient Hellas; "for," he adds, "the used by Homer for young warriors, it cannot Sellians dwelt there, and the people who were prove that.the Curetes of Crete, Euboea, and then called Greecians, but now Hellenes." By Acarnania belonged to the same race.t Yet the Sellians he means the people who, in the this identity of name and variety of settleIliad, are mentioned as the ministers of the Do- ments have suggested the thought that the:donean, Pelasgian Jove. Pindar had used the Cretan Curetes, of whom we find some faint form Hellians for the same name; another, only traces in the early traditions of Elis,T may have varying the termination, must have been that wandered to the west of Greece, carrying with of Hellopes; for the country about Dodona was them the germs of civilization which they had celebrated by Hesiod for the richness of its pas- received from the Phcenicians, and, having first tures, under the name of Hellopia.t The sanc- settled in Acarnania, may in Thessaly have betuary of Dodona itself was called Hella; and come the real fathers of the Hellenic nation.~ a temple legend, different from that which He-. According to our view, it is a strong objection rodotus heard there, spoke of Hellus, a wood- to this hypothesis, that the name of the Curetes, cutter, to whom the sacred dove had revealed instead of continuing to be the predominant one, the oracular oak.ll It seems scarcely possible is entirely lost, or, rather, never heard of in to resist the inference that it was from this Thessaly. On the whole, it seems to be a hopetribe, and not from any single ancestor, that less undertaking to attempt to define the elethe Hellenes derived their name, though Thu- ments of which the Thessalian Hellenes were cydides may be right'in supposing that in this composed. All that appears to be established form it was first heard in Thessaly.1F But be- by the uniform tenour of the most authentic trayond this point we have no distinct trace to ditions is, that they entered Thessaly from the.guide us. We have no means of determining west, and we find sufficient ground for believing the exact relation between the two tribes which that they had previously occupied the fertile Aristotle mentions as both inhabiting the an- territory of Dodbina. We shall see that, in a cient Hellas. We can only suspect that they later age, the people from which Thessaly took were akin to each other and to the Pelasgians, its name migrated from the same region; and the ancient possessors of Dodona and of all it is not improbable. that both events may have Epirus. The name of the Greecians** must once arisen from a like cause-the pressure of new have been widely spread on the western coast, tribes issuing from the north. It is true that for it appears to have been that by which its in- one difficulty is left, which we are unable to rehabitants were first known to the Italians on move. It'is not easy to explain how it happenthe opposite side of the Ionian Sea, who gave ed that the people whom we supposed to have it a much wider meaning, with which it was been the ancestors of the warlike Hellenes are transmitted to the Romans, and, through them, named in the Iliad as the peaceful and austere has unfortunately descended to us. As little prophets of Jupiter. But our ignorance on this can we venture to guess in what manner these subject cannot unsettle what is otherwise es ancient Hellenes of Dodona were intermingled tablished on sufficient evidence. with the tribes who are said to have' accompa- The origin of the Hellenes is a question of nied Deucalion into Thessaly, even if we could much less importance than the manner in depend upon the accuracy of the tradition which which they spread, from the little tract which they first occupied, over the country which was * tDionys. Hal., i., 17. Compare the account of Diodorus, xiv., 113. t Meteor., i., 14. $ Fr., xxxix, * Strabo, vii., p. 322. t Strabo, x., p. 467. 4 Hesych.,'EXa,'EXAd. Paus., v., 7, 6, 8, 1. First, Hercules and the Curetes; I1 Philostr., Im., ii., 33. ~ i., 3. afterward his descendant Clymenus, fifty years after Deu** Grsecus was said to be a son of Thessalus. The female calion's flood: both legends immediately connected with the plural, I'PaeKE, vas used by Aleman and Sophocles. Steph. fabulous institution of the Olympic games. Byz., rpaLd6;. ~ Plass., Geschichicte Griechenlasds, i., p. 201. THE HELLENIC NATION. 59 finally named after them. Their earliest seats dence, to render it probable that the transition lay in the south of Thessaly, near the foot of was not universally produced by the invasion Mount Othrys, the part of Greece first called or the peaceful admission of the new people; Hellas: it was believed by some to have con- but that it was, in some instances, the result tained a city of the same name, founded by Hel- of a natural development in the social state of len, whose tomb was shown in the neighbour- the Pelasgian tribes, favoured in a degree which ing town of Melitea, to which he was said to we cannot precisely ascertain, by causes some have transferred his abode.* But before the of which have been already noticed.' name of Hellas had extended beyond this little Though it may be convenient to speak of a district, the people seems to have gained a foot- Pelasgian and a Hellenic period, it must not be ing in almost every part of the country after- imagined that any exact line can be drawn beward so called. The ancients agree in descri- tween them, or that the former, any more than bing the diffusion of the Hellenes as an event the latter, was of a uniform and stationary charwhich effected an important change in the acter. There can be no doubt that the populacondition and character of the inhabitants of tion of Greece, from the time of its first settleGreece, but they give us very scanty informa- ment, was in continual, though not unobstructtion as to the nature and progress of this revo- ed progress. In the earlier part of the Pelaslution. Befdre we endeayour to trace its course, gian period, it was perhaps thinly scattered we will notice what seem to be its.most promi- over the country, and almost wholly engaged in nent features... struggling with the obstacles opposed by nature It is'scarcely possible to comprehend the rise to the cultivation of the soil. The independent and growth of the Hellenic nation, without con- tribes had probably little intercourse, either sidering it in two points of view, both of which friendly or hostile, with each other, and still are confirmed as well by high authority as by less with strangers. As their wealth and numintrinsic probability. On the one hand, it can- bers increased, new avenues of communication not be denied that the Hellenic population of would be opened between neighbouring commuGreece included some new elements, not, in- nities: the inhabitants of the coast would bedeed, absolutely foreign to the old Pelasgian come more and more familiar with the sea, and race, but yet very, slightly connected with it. would extend their excursions to more distant This is expressed by the tradition that the sons shores'; foreigners, from lands more advanced of Hellen, issuing from Thessaly, overspread in civilization, by passing voyages or permaGreece;. and still more strongly when it is nent settlements, introduced new arts, wants, added, that the country was previously occupi- and knowledge. The tribes on the coast may ed by barbarian tribes.t We have seen that have experienced such changes in their characthe distance between the Pelasgian and the ter and habits, while the inlanders still remainHellenic race cannot reasonably be considered ed in their primitive seclusion; in which some so great as to exclude all national affinity; they were perhaps long detained by the forms of a must be conceived allied to one another by some patriarchal or sacerdotal government, exerci community of language and character. Still, it sing a severe control over their actions and is no less manifest that the peculiar stamp which modes of life. But. the picture drawn by Thudistinguished the Greeks from every other na- cydides appears to show that these fetters had tion on the earth was impressed on them by the already been generally relaxed or broken before little tribe which first introduced among them the diffusion of the Hellenes; that the wealthithe name of Hellenes. We are, therefore, led er class had begun to seek its chief distinction to regard this people not so much in the light in the use of arms; and that where a sacerdoof strangers, such as the supposed Egyptian, tal caste existed, a military one must have risLibyan, or Phcenician settlers, as in that of a en up by its side. What, then, it may be asked, branch of the Pelasgian family, which contain- was the effect produced by the appearance of ed its best and purest blood, and was destined the Hellenes. Unless we adopt a conjecture to unfold the noblest faculties implanted in its which has been already noticed, that they were constitution, and to raise the life of the nation the Cretan Curetes, there seems to be no reato the highest stage which it was capable of son for thinking that, when they first invaded reaching. On the other hand, it seems clear Thessaly, they were at all superior to its more that the transition from the Pelasgian to the ancient inhabitants in the arts of civilized life, Hellenic period was not effected simply by the or that it was by these means they extended conquests or migrations of this new people. their sway over the rest of Greece. We should Thucydides himself, who recognises its diffir rather be led to infer, from the course assigned sion as the main cause of a great revolution in by tradition to their migration, that in this rethe state of Greece, indicates another kind of spect they were behind the tribes seated tochange, which prepared the way for its entrance, wards the east and the south, and were only and promoted its progress, when he says that pre-eminent in martial qualities, in their active Hellen and his sons, having become powerful and enterprising genius, their love of arms, and in Phthia, were called in as auxiliaries to other skill in warfare. Accordingly, these were the states. For this must be taken in connexion qualities which long continued to be prized mlost with the historian's preceding remark, that civil highly among their posterity. But the ascerndfeuds and foreign wars arose everywhere, in ant which they gained in their new seats over proportion to the growth of opulence and pow- a weaker, but a more civilized people, placed er; for which reason the richest lands oftenest them at once in possession of all the stores, changed their owners. This would, perhaps, material and intellectual, which it had amassed, be sufficient, even if there were no other evi- and in a situation the most favourable for increasing them. Wherever tt gy established * Strabo, ix., p 432. t Thuc., i., 3. Her., i., 58. themselves, whether they fobrcib.y dislodged the 60 HISTORY OF GREECE. ancient settlers, or were peaceably admitted to are therefore led to suppose must have been share their possessions, they constituted the one of the earliest settlements of the zEolians. ruling class. But even where they were not It lay to the west of the Enipeus, between that immediately present, the spirit of war and con- river and the Peneus. But the people which quest, of adventure and discovery, which, among appears to have inhabited this district from the themselves, was continually growing, and seek- remotest period to which we can go back, is the ing new fields of exercise, could not fail to give same which afterward gave its name to Beeotia,* an impulse to their neighbours, which was felt so that here, as in Elis and in Eubesa, the land throughout Greece, and tended everywhere to and the people would seem to have been called produce a similar state of society. It is this by different names. It is, indeed, only the name general predominance of a military caste, raised of.Eolis that attests the presence of the AEoliabove the need of labour, rude in its manners, ans in this district: there are no legends to impatient of repose, and eager for warlike ad- connect it with the house of.Eolus, unless it be ventures, yet endowed with a boundless capaci- one which deduces the mythical ancestor of the ty of education, and gradually softened by the Bceotia-ns from Amphictyon, the son of Deucaliarts and pleasures of peace, and submitting to on.t We have, therefore, no means of deterthe restraints of religion and of social order, mining the original relation of these Bceotian that seems to constitute the characteristic fea- ZEolians to the Hellenes of Phthia; and can ture of the Hellenic period in its earliest stage. only infer, as well from their name as from the Of Hellen's three sons, two, AEolus and Dorus, language -of the Bqcotians, who spoke the tEoliwere believed to have given their names to the an dialect, that they either were from the first, AEolian and Dorian divisions of the Greek na- or in time became, kindred tribes. Whether, tion: the third son, Xuthus,- does not immedi- however, this IEolis, and the XEolians in genately represent any portion of the race; but eral, derived their name from a hero called through his sons, Ion and Achaeus, he was con- lEolus, may be doubted on the same grounds as sidered as the forefather of the Achaean and the the existence of his reputed father. It seems Ionian tribes. Of these four divisions, the probable that the name is only a different in_/Eolian was that which spread most widely, and flection of the word from which we suppose that continued in the latest times to occupy the of the Hellenes to have been formed.t greatest part of Greece with its name and its To XEolus himself no'conquests and no language.* The Achaeans are the most cele- achievements are attributed by the legends of brated in the heroic poetry, their name being his race. But his sons and their descendants commonly used by Homer to include all the spread the AEolian and the Hellenic name far Hellenic tribes which fought before Troy. The and wide, and it is in their history that we must Dorians and Ionians rose later to celebrity; but seek that of the people. Various accounts were their fame and power greatly surpassed that of given of the progeny of LEolus; some authors the other branches of the nation. It will be assigned ten sons to him,~'others seven;11 Hesiconvenient to consider the early history of od, as we have seen, named only five, Cretheus, Greece with reference to these four main di- Athamas, Sisyphus, Salmoneus, and Perieres. visions; and, in order to understand their rela- To these were sometimes added a Macedo and tion to one another, and to the more ancient in- a Magnes, to indicate that the Macedonians and habitants of the country, it will not be sufficient the Magnesians were of AEolian origin. As to simply to describe theirgeographicalboundaries, the former, we have no other proof of such an but it will be necessary to follow them, so far affinity; but Magnesia undoubtedly contained as tradition enables us, into the seats in which many XEolian cities. But the principal settlewe find them at the beginning of the historical ments of the.Eolids in Thessaly lay round the period, when a new series of convulsions and shores of the Pagasatan Gulf, and in the fruitful migrations completely changed their relative plains near the coast. Here Cretheus himself condition. We begin with the lEolians. was said to have founded Iolcus, the port from Hellen is said to have left his kingdom to which the Argonaut afterward steered; and,Xolus, his eldest son, while he sent forth Dorus the neighbouring Pherse was thought to have and Xuthus to make conquests in distant lands.t been named after Pheres, one of his sons. In The patrimony of.Eolus is described as bound- the same region lay Alus, where the memory ed by the Asopus and the Enipeus:$ a description which, if the Asopus is the little stream * The Homeric catalogue, indeed, which is implicitly which fell into the Malian Gulf near the foot of followed by Strabo (ix., p. 401), represents the Bceotians as Mount CEta, would nearly correspond with that salready occupying Bceotia at the time of the Trojan war. division of Thessaly which was known in later But it seems clear from Thucydides (i., 12), that this is an anachronism, and that they only migrated from Thessaly times by the name of Phthiotis; and, according- for the first time sixty years later; thouah Thucydides, in ly, the dominions of Achilles, who reigned in deference to the catalogue, speaks of an earlier colony. Hellas and Phthia, lay, in great part, in the Mueller, Orchom., p. 394. vale of the Spercheus. Yet Phthia and Hellas t Pas., ix., 1, 1. Baotus is a son of Itonus, son of Amphictyon. The town of Itonus contained the temple of themselves, whether they were different dis- the Itonian Athen6, which was the national sanctuary of tricts, or the same under different names, were the Bwcotians. See Strabo, ix., p. 411. According to others, situate at the northern foot of Mount Othrys; he was son of Poseidon and Arn6. Diod, iv., 67. 4 "EXXso, Alosoe. and it was there, according to Thucydides, that Eustath. ad Dionys., Per., 427. He only mentions the sons of Hellen first established their power. Macedo. But there was also a part of Thessaly, included 11 Apollod., i., 7, 3, 4. His list includes Deion and Mag nes, besides the five named by Hesiod. To these we must'n the division afterward called Thessaliotis, add Cercaphus, whose son Ormenus, the grandfather of which bore the name of 2Eolis, and which we Phcenix, founded Ormenium (Strabo, ix., p. 438); and -M'acareus, who probably represents the.Eolians of ]Lesbus, * Strabo, iii., p.'33. t Apollod., i., 7, 3, 1. though by some he was called a son of Crinacus (DIod.,, $ Concz. 7. 81, and Wessel). THE HELLENIC NATION. 61 of the sufferings of Athamas was preserved tion would lead us to suppose.* In considering down to the time of- Xerxes, by peculiar rites,* the elements of which the Hellenic race was and a tract called the Athamantian plain. It is, composed, it must not be'overlooked that the however, at least a remarkable coincidence, Dolopes, who were seated on the western conthat on-his side of Thessaly, towards the north, fines of Phthia,t and are described in the Iliad the plains -round Lake Bcebe were long inhab- as originally subject to its king,$ retained their ited by the Athamanes,t who, in later times, name and an independent existence, as memappear as one of the Epirot tribes. They are bers of the great Hellenic confederacy, to very said to have been driven out of their seats at late times.~ the foot of Pelion by the Lapiths, a half-fabulous If, according to either of the views just sugpeople, whom, however, we find intimately con- gested, we consider Minyans and YEolians as nected with the oEolian Greeks. According to the same people, we find the most flourishing analogy, Athamas would be the mythical ances- of the 2Eolian settlements in the north of Bceotor of the Athamanes; and, if the coincidence tia; Here the city of Opchomenus rose to great is not a mere play of chance, his name must power and opulence in the earliest period of have been transferred from them to the legends which any recollection was preserved. Homer of the conquering nation. compares the treasures which flowed into it to The.Eolians on the Gulf of Pagasae appear those of the Egyptian Thebes. The traveller inseparably blended with the Minyans, a race Pausanias, who was familiar with all the wonof great celebrity in the most ancient epic poe- ders of art in Greece and Asia, speaks with adtry, but whose name seems to have been al- miration of its most ancient monument, as not most forgotten before the beginning of the period inferior to any which he had seen elsewhere. when fable gives place to history. The ad- This was the treasury of Minyas, from whom venturers who embarked on the Argonautic ex- the ancient Orchomenians were called Minpedition, of which we shall shortly have occa- yans; and the city continued always to be dission to speak, were all called Minyans,$ though tinguished from others of the same name, as they were mostly.Eolian chieftains, and the the Minyean Orchomenus: Minyas, according same name recurs in the principal, settlements to the legend, was the first of men who raised which referred their origin to the line of lEolus. a building for such a purpose. His genealogy Iolcus itself, though founded, as we have seen, glitters with names which express the tradiby Cretheus, is said to have been inhabited by tional opinion of his unbounded wealth.ll It Minyans; and a still closer affinity is indicated may be considered as an historical fact, that the by a legend which describes Minyas, the fabu- kings of Orchomenus reigned over a great part lous progenitor of the race, as a descendant of of Bceotia, and that Thebes itself was once /Eolus.S There are two ways in which this tributary to them.~1 The extraordinary wealth connexion may be explained, between which it of the ruling dynasty arose, no doubt, chiefly is not easy to decide. The Minyans may have from this dominion over a fertile country; their been a Pelasgian tribe, originally distinct from magnificence-which in a rude age must have the Hellenes; and this may seem to be confirm- excited astonishment, since in one of the highed by the tradition, that Cretheus, when he est refinement it still seemed worthy of admi. founded Iolcus, drove out the Pelasgians who ration-may seem to justify the belief that they were before in possession of the land.11 But in owed their early progress in the arts of peace this case we are led to conclude, from the to their intercourse with more cultivated forcelebrity to which the Minyans attained in the eigners. We are thus reminded of the PhceniGreek legends, that they were not a rude and cian colony at Thebes, of the Egyptian Cecrops, feeble horde, which the.4Eolians reduced to who ruled over Bceotia, and founded an Athens subjection, but were already so far advanced in on the Lake Copais; more especially as we find civilization and power, that the invaders were an Egyptian legend repeated in one which not ashamed of adopting their name and tradi- seems to have been common to several branchtions, and of treating them as a kindred people. es of the Minyan race, and which is closely It may, however, also be conceived, and, per- connected with their ancient works of art.** haps, accords better with all that we hear of No other traces, however, of such a connexion them, that the appellation of Minyans was not with the East appear in the traditions of Orchooriginally a national name, peculiar to a single Imenus. Those which describe its foundation, tribe, but a title of honour, equivalent to that of and the succession of its early kings, are reheroes or warriors, which was finally appropri- markably intricate and obscure. They, however, ated to the adventurous lEolians who established themselves at Iolcus and on the adjacent * We hear of a town called Minya, on the borders of coast. If we take this view of it, all the indi- Thessaly and Macedonia (compare Steph. Byz., MLvva and'AX/lopwria), and of a Thessalian Orchomenus Minyeus, Plin., cations we find of the wealth and prosperity of N.'A iaH., iv., 8.Pn., the Minyans will serve to mark the progress of't Strabo, ix., p. 434. t ix., 483. the oE~olian states in which the name occurs *; Paus., x., 8, 2, 3. The name of the Dolopes seems to and it will only remain doubtful whether the be that which has dropped out of the list of the Amphictyand it will onlyremaindoubfulwhoneS in AEschines, De F. L., p. 43. _Eolians or Hellenes were not more closely II Paus., ix., 36, 4. He is the son of Chryses, whose mothconnected with other tribes in the north of eris Chrysogeeia. Thessaly, among which the, name of the Min- r Eustathius on II., ix., 381, p. 758,1. 22, has a remark which is worth notice, though he does not nmention his auyans likewise appears, than the common tradi- thor. "Orchomenus was a city eminent for its wealth, which, however, it derived from strangers; for, as it was * Her., vii., 197. strongly fortified, many of its neighbours deposited their t Strabo, ix., p. 442. See also Apollod., i., 9, 2. 3. treasures there." Is this only another way of describing t Hence Herodotus (iv., 145) gives the same name to the tribute? their posterity in Lemnos. ** Compare the story in Her., ii., 121, with that related 0 Apoll. Rhod., iii., 1094, and the Scholiast by Paus., ix., 37, 5, and by Charax, in the Schol. to ArisU Schol. on n., ii., with Paus., it., 36, 1. toph., Nub., 508. 62 HISTORY OF GREECE. point to Thessaly as the mother-country from pied by an Eolian tribe is intimated by another which the people issued: Andreus, the first legend, which describes Deion, son of XEolus, king, is a son of the River Peneus. He assigns as reigning there,* and perhaps also by the sto. a part of his territory to Athamas, who adopts ries about the strife of cunning between Sisytwo of the grandchildren of his brother Sisy- phus and the Phocian Autolycus.t phus; they give their names to Haliartus and Sons, or more remote descendants of 2Eolus, Coronea; and Halmus, son of Sisyphus, is the spread the iEolian name over the western side founder of the royal line from which Minyas of Peloponnesus. They appear chiefly in the himself springs. These may be considered as legends of Elis and of Pylus, The Eleans, who indications of a native race, apparently Pelas- seem not to have been scrupulous in accommogians, overpowered by XEolian invaders; and dating their ancient traditions to the purpose of the same fact seems still more clearly attested exalting the glory of the Olympic games, from by the names of the two Orchomenian tribes, which, in later times, they derived their chief the Eteoclean and the Cephisian; the former importance, gave the significant name of JEthof which, called after Eteocles the son of An- lius to their first king, and called him the son dreus, seems to have comprised the warlike of Jupiter and Protogenia, daughter of Deuca-'chiefs; the latter, the industrious people which lion. This parentage, however, was not setilled the plains watered by the Cephisus. It lected without some historical ground; for Prois' not so easy to explain the appearance of the togenia was also the first mother of the LoPhlegyans in these legends: a fierce and god- crians of Opus, who were really connected with less race, who separate themselves from the Elis.T According to another tradition, EndyOrchomenians, and at length are destroyed by mion, to whom the Eleans ascribed the first the gods, whom their impiety and sacrilegious celebration of games at Olympia, in which his -outrages have provoked. Yet Phlegyas, their three sons-Paon, Epeus, and iEtolus-conmythical ancestor, is connected with the house tended for the succession to his throne, was of _Eolus in exactly the same manner as Min- the son of iEthlius, by Calyce, a daughter of yas himself.* But for this, it might be imagined IEolus, and himself led a colony of tEolians to that the ferocious violence of the Phlegyans Elis. It is remarkable that Endymion, who represents the continued resistance which the here, like Pelops, acts the part of a conqueror new settlers experienced from some of the na- and a king, is in the fables of Asia Minor the tive tribes, which they at length extirpated or beautiful huntsman, for whom Selene descends expelled. There are also traces of the zEolians into the Latmian cave,~ though no legend seems in the south of Boeotia, where Tanagra is said to have brought him into Elis from the coast to have received its name from a daughter of of Asia. Other iEolian settlements on this side.Eolus, and Hyria from a hero who is introduced of Peloponnesus are connected with the name in various ways into the Minyan legends.t of Salmoneus, who is celebrated for the venAnother,seat of the AEolian race was Ephyra, geance inflicted by Jupiter on his audacious imwhich afterward became more celebrated under piety. He is said to have founded Salmone, in the name of Corinth. That of Ephyra was com- the territory of Pisa: the same name, with a mon 4o it with many other towns, as in Elis, slight inflexion, is given to a Bceotian town or Thessaly, and Epirus; and Homer couples the district, which is said to have been named after Ephyreans with the Phlegyans, as the especial a son of Sisyphus. ll To the south of Elis, anfavourites of Mars.T The LEolian dynasty at other.Eolian dynasty, long renowned, not only Corinth, as we shall call it by anticipation; is in epic song, but in history, owed its origin to represented by the wily Sisyphus; and this, his Tyro, the beautiful daughter of Salmoneus. legendary character, may not be unconnected Left by her father in Thessaly, she becomes the witli the causes which procured the epithet of mother of Pelias and Neleus, whom the legend wealthy for his city before the time of Homer.b represents as the offspring of the god of the sea. As to the more ancient population, there are She afterwardwedded her uncle Cretheus, and reasons, which we shall mention hereafter, for bore to him another heroic progeny. Neleus believing that it was nearly allied to that of founded a kingdom in Pylus, apparently the Attica. Here we will only remark, that the Triphylian; for there were three towns of that local legends were singularly interwoven with name on the western side of Peloponnesus, and the story of the Argonautic expedition, to which it was a controverted point, even among the we shall hereafter revert. They inform us that ancients, which was the one described by Ho-,tEetes, king of Colchis, had first reigned at Co- mer as the residence of Nestor. Among other rinth, but, dissatisfied with this realm, withdrew traces which confirm Strabo's opinion, that the to the east, leaving it, however, in charge'for poet meant the Triphylian Pylus, we may rehis descendants. Hence, when Jason brought mark that, as the mother of Nestor sprang'from his daughter Medea home to Iolcus, the Co- the Minvean Orchomenus, so the remembrance rinthians invited. her to their city, which, when of the same race was preserved in Triphylia, by she was about to return to Asia, she delivered a river called by Homer the Minyeus, afterward up to Sisyphus.ll As we have already seen that the Anigrus.~ It must be added, that, if Nesome of the line of Sisyphus take a part in the leus and Nestor are to be considered as real affairs of Orchomenus, so we hear that his son persons, there is probably a break in the series Ornytion was the father of Phocus, who gave of the Pylian kings, which is concealed by the his name to Phocis.'V That Phocis was occu* Apollod., i., 9, 4. * His mother is Chryse, daughter of Halmus; she is the t Autolycus dwelt on Parnassus, and stole the cattle of sister of Chrysogenia, Paus., 36, 4. Sisyphus, and changed their marks to elude their owner, t Paus., ix., 20, 1, and 37, 5, Eustath. on Od.. xix., 395. * StIabo, ix., p. 425. f I1., xiii., 301. $ II., ii., 570. ~ Paus., v., 1, 5. Quint. Cal., x., 125. 1 Paus., ii, 3. From the ancient Corinthian poet Eu- 11 Paus., ix., 34, 10. melns ~ Paus., ii., 4, 3. ~ Strabo, viii., p. 347. Leake's Morea, i., 54. THE HELLENIC NATION. 63'current genealogy, and that Nestor, the con- of the Peneus. For there stood an Ithllome, -temporary of the heroes before Troy, cannot, xvhich-must have given its name to the town consistently with the chronology of the heroic and the mountain, which were long the strongages, be so few degrees removed from _/Eolus hold of Messenian liberty. There, too,wwas a as he appears now to be. In fact, we find- an- Tricca, celebrated for the most ancient temple other branch of the same family at Pylus, which of Esculapius; as there was a Messenian Tricseems to have preceded the Neleids. Amy- ca, which contained one sacred to the same thaon, one of the sons of Cretheus, must have god.* The Messenians had a peculiar legend established himself there a generation or two about his birth;t and in the Homeric catalogue, earlier than Neleus is supposed to have done; the men of Tricca, Ithome, and CEchalia are for his sons, Bias and Melampus, become the commanded by his sons Podalirius and Machafounders of royal dynasties in Argolis, which on. We shall soon have a fitter occasion of will not otherwise bear a chronological com- noticing the conclusion towards which all these parison with the line of Neleus.* There is one indications tend. remarkable feature common to the legendary The above-mentioned contest, which Endycharacter of these two houses. That of Amy- mion proposed to his sons, was decided in fathaon was renowned for its wisdom. Jupiter, vour of Epeus: henceforth, it is said, the peoso Hesiod sang, gave prowess to the JEacids, ple were called Epeans; and this is the name wit tthe Amythaonids, and wealth to the sons by which Homer speaks of them, though he uses of Atreus.t Melampus is the Greek Merlin. that of Elis for the country.t It was in the While he lived in the forest, his ears were reign of Epeus that Pelopswas said to have arpurged by the tongues of serpents to discern rived in Greece, and to have wrested the terri the language of birds and reptiles, from which.tory of Pisa from the Epeans. The two brothhe learned all the secrets of nature.4 Poseidon ers who were excluded from the throne werehad bestowed an equally marvellous gift on his believed to have led colonies to foreign lands: grandson Periclymenus, the brother of Nestor. Paeon to the banks of the' Axius, where he was He. had endowed him with the power, which supposed to have become the father of the Paeowas generally attributed to the marine deities, nian nation;S.Etolus to the land of the Cuof assuming any shape he would.~ And thus retes, which was thenceforth named./Etolia the wisdom of Nestor, which in the Iliad is de- after him, as its two principal towns or disscribed as the fruit of years and experience, tricts were after his two sons, Calydon and viewed in the light of the ancient legend, seems Pleuron. II These Hellenic settlements in _/Etorather the result of his superhuman descent. I[ lia seem never to have comprised more than In these little Hellenic States, the Caucones, the maritime part of the country: the interior the ancient inhabitants of the land, formed per- was apparently occupied by tribes of a different haps the bulk of the subject people. But many origin, which, strengthened from time to time of them, driven from the coast into the hills on by new hordes from the north, rather gained the borders of Arcadia, preserved their inde- than lost ground, and did not, tfll a very late pependence for several centuries.~ It is not so riod, feel the influence of their more civilized clear what changes took place at this period in neighbours. The Curetes are said to have rethe population doMessenia. According to one treated before tEtolus into Acarnania: we find account, it' also fell under the dominion of _Eo- them described in the Iliad as formidable enelian princes, the first of whom was Perieres, mies to the people of Calydon. The country whom Hesiod numbers among the sons of _Eo- about Calydon, and perhaps all the south of lus. But according to another tradition, which _/Etolia, at one time bore the name- of.Eolis: was very generally received, he was a descend- this, however, seems to have been derived from ant of Lelex, the first king of Laconia;** and in a much later invasion of the Bceotian _Eolians.T this case, the first indication afforded by the Still, there is no reason to doubt that the earMessenian legends of a new race of settlers, lier inhabitants belonged to the.Eolian race, as would be contained in the tradition that Mela- was universally believed, and perhaps is indineus, a man expert in archery, and hence ac- cated by their name; though in other legends counted a son -of Apollo, came to Messenia in./Etolus was made to descend indeed from Deuthe reign of Perieres, who granted him a dis- calion, but not to be otherwise connected with trict in which he founded CEchalia.tt The name the line of Hellen.** of this CEchalia was undoubtedly derived from Thessaly, where there was another town so * Strabo, ix., p. 437; viii., p. 360. Paus., iv., 3, 2. called, the seat of the renowned archer Eury- II., ii., 615-619. Conon., 14, omits Epeus. tus.jt But if seems to have been not from the 0 In other genealogies, Peon was said to be a son of'sou10i of Thessaly, the seat of the Eolids, that Helle (Hygin., Poet. Ast., ii., 20): Minyas weds his daughter Phanosyra (Schol. Ap. Rh., i., 230); a tradition, the Mes enia received its new inhabitants, who meaning of which is easily understood, when it is rememshared it with the Leleges and the Caucones; bered that there was a town said to have been once called but from the north, the upper part of the vale Minya in the north of Thessaly, near the borders of Mace donia. See Steph. Byz., Mtvva, AAAonria. * lIleyne, Apollod.,vol. ii., p. 377; or Mr. Clinton, F. H.,.1I Apollod., i., 7, 7. vol. i., -p. 41. t Fr., xlviii. t Apollod., i., 9, 11, 3. ~ Thucydides (iii., 102) seems to speak of the name as ~ IIesiod and Euphorion, in the Seholiast of Apoll. R., i., obsolete in his time. Ephorus (Strabo, x., p. 464) related 156. that the Epean settlers in AEtolia were afterward comII Hence it has been supposed that Neleus is only an- pelled to receive a colony of o1Eolians, who were driven out other form of Nereus, the water-god, of whose metamor- of Thessaly along with the Bceotians. These were probphoses we read in Apollodorus, ii., 5, 11, 4, as of those of ably the.LEolians who destroyed O lenus (Strabo, x., p. 451), Thetis, i4ii., 13, 5, 4. Proteus is the old man of the sea. and from whom the name of _A/olis.arose. Od., iv. 1~ Od.,:iii., 366. Herod., iv., 148. ** Athen., ii., p. 35. The legend is worth noticing. ** A son of Cynortas. Apollod., i., 9, 5. P-aus., iii., 1, 3. " Hecataeus, of Miletus, says that the vine was discovered tt Paus., iv., 2, 2. in XEtolia as follows: When Orestheus (the mountaineer) i$ Fromn him Hercules learned the use of the bow. Apol- came to reign in JEtolia, a bitch brought forth a stock Wod.. ii., 4, 9,1. With his bow Ulysses kills the suiters. (c'EIEXOS). This he ordered to be put in the earth, and 64 HISTORY OF GREECE. We have reserved the mention of the Lo- the traces of an X.Eolian dynasty are the least crian tribes for this place, because one of distinct. Poseidon, and other deities connectthem bordered on 2Etolia, and they are in gen- ed with the sea, occur most frequently in the eral connected, by their traditions, both with it genealogies and legends of the race.* This, and with Elis. The Locrians claimed a high- its common character, will appear more strier antiquity than any other branch of the Greek king and important when we compare its histonation. Those of Opusw boasted that Cynus, ry with that of the Dorians, which we now protheir port town, had been the dwelling of Deu- ceed to review. calion, when he had descended with his new The early fortunes of the Dorians are related people from Parnassus, and they showed there by Herodotus in a brief sketch, which we shall the tomb of Pyrrha.* Strabo, without assign- give in his own words, that we may use it as a ing any reason, treats it as certain that they thread to connect other accounts, which illuswere a colony from the Epicnemidian Locris,t trate or fill up his scanty outline. After obthough he records an inscription which com- serving that the Dorians and Ionians were, of memorated the struggle of the Greeks at Ther- old, conspicuously distinguished from one anmopylae, in which. Opus was termed the mother other and from the other branches of the Greek city of the Locrians. In accordance with these nation, he adds, "The one was a Pelasgian, pretensions,- Locrus, the founder of their name, the other a Hellenic race; and the one never was described in the national legends as a de- yet changed its' ancient seats, but theother scendant, not of Helen, but of Amphictyon, an- went through many wanderings. For, in the other son of Deucalion: a fictitious personage, reign of Deucalion, it inhabited Phthiotis; unwho, as we shall afterward see, represents the der Dorus, the son of Hellen, the land at the earliest union of the Hellenic tribes. But the foot of Ossa and Olympus, called Hestiaeotis; ruling families among the eastern Locrians ap- after it was forced by the Cadmeans to quit pear, in the Iliad, closely united with those of Hestiaeotis, it dwelt on Mount Pindus, and was the Thessalian Hellas. On the other hand, called the Macednian people. After this, again, among the ancestors of Locrus we find an aEto- it passed into Dryopis; and so, from Dryopis, lus sometimes mentioned; and while, in one came into Peloponnesus, and was named the tradition, Opus is simply a son of Locrus, in an- Dorian race." other he is also a king of Elis, whose daughter If we adopt this narrative as literally accubears a son of the same name to Locrus.~ rate in all points, we must suppose that the These legends are grounded on the fact that Dorians, when they left their ancient home in there was an Opuntian colony in;Elis, and this Phthia, first bent their way towards the north, may have been connected with the establish- but afterward took the opposite direction, and ment of the Ozolian Locrians on the eastern advanced by successive stages till they reached border of aEtolia.ll The Locrian mythology the southern extremity of Greece. There is, seems to lead to the conclusion that the earli- however, great difficulty in believing that this est population of the eastern Locris of which was the real course of their migrations. The any recollection was preserved consisted of only probable motive which could have preventLeleges; and to them, perhaps, the name of ed them from following the same impulse which Locrians originally belonged, though chiefs of carried their brethren towardshe south, would a Hellenic, and most probably an 2Eolian race, be, their desire of occupying the riCh plains in undoubtedly settled among them. the heart of Thessaly. But it seems surprising Thus, then, in the countries we have men- that here they should have left no traces of tioned, which include the greater part of North- their presence, and that we find them transern Greece and the western side of Peloponne- ported all at once from Phthiotis to the opposus, the beginning of a new period is connect- site corner of Thessaly, at the foot of Ossa and ed, more or less closely, with the house of Olympus. We have already intimated that the /Eolus, or with the tribe which his name rep- common genealogy of the race of Hellen can resents. We learn, indeed, little besides this only be received as a general picture of nationgeneral fact from the legends which we are al affinities. In that sense, Dorus may be concompelled to follow as the only sources of our sidered as a brother of lEolus; but that the Doinformation. There is, however, one promi- rians and aEolians originally inhabited the same nent feature in them, which deserves attention, district, or were united by any relations of peas it cannot be the.mere result of chance. We culiar intimacy, is'exceedingly improbable, beperceive in these 2Eolian settlements a marked cause, not only is there no vestige of such a predilection for maritime situations. Iolcus and connexion in their national legends-no menCorinth are the luminous points from which rays tion of any alliances contracted in this region shoot out in all directions: Orchomenus also between the mythical descendants of Dorus and appears to have been mistress of the neighbour- aEolus-but the people who are the first and ing coast. In the inland districts, as in Phocis, bitterest enemies of the Dorians are represented as the friends and brothers of the LEolians. from it named his son Phytius (the planter; is Physcus, For Herodotus, on the other hand, who adopted the father of Locrus, the same person?). He was the fa- the mythical genealogies in their literal sense, ther of (Eneus, so called from the vine (ol'v), (Eneus, of it was necessary to imagine that Dorus and his 2Etolus." See also Paus., x., 38, 1, who makes Orestheus king of the neighbouring Locris. followers had begun their wanderings from the * Strabo, ix., p. 425. t ix., p. 427.; Scymnus, v., 592. 4 Eustathius (on I1., ii., 531) gives a' genealogy, which, * As Ino-Leucothea and Melicertes-Palemon. We may he remarks, is an ancient one, in which iEtolus is omitted. remark, with reference to a point already noticed, that, as It begins with Amphictyon and Chthonopatra; then follows the rites of Melicertes, who was supposed'to have beer Physcus, from whom the people were once called Physcians: buried in the Isthmus by Sisyphus (Paus., ii., 1, 3), were he is the father of Locrus, Locrus of Opus. For the other nocturnal and mysterious (Plut., Thes., 25), so Neleus was legend, see Pindar, 01. ix., and the Scholia. buried near the same spot, and Sisyphus would not show U Boeckh, Explic. ad Pindar. p. 191. his grave even to Nestor (Paus., ii., 2, 2). THE HELLENIC NATION. 65 land of Hellen. It seems much more probable country at a very remote period by an invasion that they first entered Thessaly on the same of the Encheleans, an Illyrian horde, who plunside where they make their first appearance in dered the temple at Delphi.*- What foundation the historian's narrative, as an independent there may have been for the tradition, that these people from the north; whether up the defile Cadmeans came into conflict with the Dorians of Tempe, or across the Cambunian range, or at the foot of Olympus, it is impossible to deat any point farther to the west, as by the Pass termine; and as little can we pretend to fix the of Metzovo, it would be useless to inquire. exact meaning of Herodotus,'when he says that We have observed that their first enemies the Dorians were a Macednian or Macedonian were a people who are described as allies and race.t Their vicinity to Macedonia was probkinsmen of the./Eolians. This is the people ably the only ground for this appellation, though which makes a prominent figure in the legefida- we do not even know when or by whom it was ry history of Thessaly, under the name of the bestowed on them. Nor is their next migration Lapiths. They are renowned for their victori- very distinctly described by the statement that, ous struggle with the Centaurs, a fabulous race when they gave way to the inroad of the Cad-which, however, may be supposed to repre- means, they fixed their seats in Pindus. But sent the earlier and ruder inhabitants of the it seems most probable that the tract which land-whom they expelled from their seats on Herodotus signifies by this name, is no other the plain, and even on the sides of Pelion, from than that which later writers call Hestiseotis, which, according to Homer, they were driven the division of Thessqly which, according to by Pirithous, the Lapith chief, and forced to Strabo, occupied its western side. It is this take refuge among the _Ethices, on the western which is said once to have borne the name of side of Pindus.* This is, perhaps, only a poeti- Doris:$ and, as it included the upper course of cal description of the conflict, which is related the Peneus, and the towns of Tricca, Ithome, with an appearance of greater historical exact- and C(Echalia, it may not be too bold to conjecness by other authors, who inform us that the ture that it was the irruption of the Dorians Perrhaebians, a Pelasgian race, which once pos- which caused the migration by which these sessed the rich plains on the banks of the Pe- names were transferred to Messenia. The agneus, in the neighbourhood of Larissa, were over- gressions of their northern neighbours, the fierce powered by the Lapiths; and that, while some hordes of Upper Macedonia, or the hostility of continued to dwell there as subjects of the con- the Lowlanders, the Lapiths, whom they cerquerors, others maintained their independence tainly never subdued, may have been the cause in the upper valleys of Olympus.t It would which drove the Dorians to the next stage of seem that the Dorians, issuing from their strong- their wanderings, at the opposite extremity of holds in the northeast corner of Thessaly, had Thessaly, where they made themselves masters endeavoured to wrest a part of these conquests of the land of the Dryopes, which henceforth from them, and perhaps with partial success; retained the name of Doris. It was not conbut, according to their own legends, they were fined to the narrow valley north of the sources very hard pressed, and they cannot have gained of the Cephisus, between Parnassus and (Eta, any permanent superiority. The Dorian king but seems to have extended over a great'part,iEgimius, it is said, unable to defend himself of the CEtmean range towards Thermopylae, and against the Lapiths, called in the aid of Hercu- perhaps over some tracts of the western highles, which he agreed to repay with a third of lands.~ Of the Dryopes, some submitted to the his kingdom.T The invincible hero delivered conquerors; and of these, a part appear to have him from his enemies, and slew their king Co- been transplanted to the southern side of Parronus. Yet this Coronus was celebrated among nassus, as bondmen of the temple at Delphi, and the chiefs who embarked on the Argonautic ex- to have been long distinguished by the name of pedition;~ he was one of those Minyans who, Craugallida.ll Others migrated to Eubceaa and as we have seen, appear to be only the iEolians Peloponnesus, where they established themunder another name. It was probably from the selves on the coast of Argolis, in the towns of Dorian traditions of this conflict that the La- Asine, Hermione, and Eion. The epochs of piths acquired a bad celebrity for their overween- these successive migrations of the Dorians are ing and impious arrogance, and that in Thes- wholly uncertain, as none of the legendary saly they often appear to be identified with the names which we find connected with these sacrilegious Phlegyans. The father of Coronus events throw any light upon their chronology. was the, audacious Cweneus, who defied Apollo (the Dorian god), disdained to pray or sacrifice * Her., ix., 43. Diod., xix., 53. According to Her., v., to the gods, and forced men to swear by his 61, the Cadmeans fled to the Encheleans after their city spear. In other legends perhaps the Dorians wastaken by theEpigoni; butheseemsheretohavefound themselves motay have taken the place of the two different traditions blended together, which in Diodoethemselves may have taken the place of the rus are more correctly kept separate, though the wanderCentaurs. ings of Cadmus in Illyria were very celebrated~in fable. The most obscure part of the history of the See Dion, Per., 390, and Bernhardy's note. Doans is that whih Herodotus relates, by viii., 43. $ Strabo, ix., p. 437; x., p. 475. Dorians is that which'Herodotus relates, by ~ In Antonin. Lib., c. 4, Melaneus, king of the Dryopes, saying that they were ejected from Hestiseotis is said to have reigned over all Epirus. 3y the Cadmeans, and settled in Pindus, being II In Esch. adv. Ctes., p. 68, they are called Acragallidem. then called the Maceydnian people. The Cad- Suidas and Harpocration have the form KpavyaXXIbai or KpavyaoXdaL. Anton. Lib., c. 4, tells a story of Cra aleus, neans are the ancient inhabitants of Thebes, son of Dryops. This, combined with what we read in who are said to have been driven from their Paus., iv., 34, 9,,of the servitude of the Dryopes, whom Hercules dedicated to Apollo, seems to authorize the state ment in the text. * I1., ii., 744. Strabo, ix., p. 434. I To Styra and Carystus. They were also said to have t Strabo, ix., p. 440, 441. wandered to Cyprus (Diod., iv., 37), were found in Cythnus t Apollod., ii., 7, 7, 3. Diod., iv., 37. (Her., viii., 46), and once were seated on the shores of the ~ Ap. Rh., i., 57, and the Scholia. Hellespont. Strabo, xiii., p. 586. VOL.. —I 66 HISTORY OF GREECE. All we know is, that it was from their last-men- late that, after the death of Xuthus, Achweus tioned territory about CEta that the Dorians is- collected a band of adventurers from 2Egialus sued, at a later period, to effect the conquest of and from Athens, and, bending his course to Peloponnesus. Thessaly, with their aid recovered the patrimoSuch, according to Herodotus, is the sum of ny of which his father had been wrongfully dethe early adventures of the Dorians; but some prived.* And, accordingly, the same part of later writers speak of another migration or col- Thessaly in which Phthia and the ancient Helony of this people, much more interesting and las were situate was, at a later period, and important than any of those we have mentioned. after many revolutions, still called Achaia;t We shall have occasion hereafter to inquire how and Homer, though he commonly uses, the far it may be deemed credible, and whether we name of Achaeans for the Greeks in general, must suppose that Herodotus was ignorant of it, yet more particularly designates by it the subor only omitted it as foreign to his immediate jects of Achilles, who reigned in Phthia. We purpose. We now turn to the two other main see, then, that there was one admitted fact: divisions of the Greek nation, which, as we have Achaeans were, in very early times, the preseen, according to the current legend, derived dominant race in the south of Thessaly, and on their names, not from sons, but from more re- the eastern'side of Peloponnesus. But there mote descendants, of Hellen. This, if we admit- were two contrary opinions; one assigning the ted the common genealogy in its literal sense, priority to the northern, the other to the southwould be a difference of little importance; ern Achaeans. It seems clear, however, that but as we believe Hellen, AEolus, Dorus, Achae- the former of these opinions has the greater us, and Ion to be merely fictitious persons, weight of evidence in its favour. For Strabo, representatives of the races which bore their who in one passage relates that Achius fled names, we are led to view it in another light, from Athens to Laconia, and there first ihtroas indicating much more than it expresses, and duced the name of the Achaeans, elsewhere as implying that the Achaeans and Ionians were speaks as if Pelops had first brought the Achaefar more closely connected with one another ans with him into Laconia from Phthia;$ and than with the other two branches of the nation. Pausanias has preserved a more simple tradiAnd this presumption appears to be greatly tion, which tends to the same point: -that Arstrengthened by the accounts which have been chander and Architeles, the sons of Achaeus, transmitted to us of their origin and first estab- came from Phthiotis to Argos, and wedded two lishment in Greece. daughters of Danaus-Automat6 and Scaea; Xuthus, the father of Achaeus and Ion, has Archander named his son Metanastes, to signo part assigned to him in the legends of Thes- nify that he was an emigrant from a foreign saly. To explain this remarkable fact, a story land. was told by some late writers, that his brothers Still, however, the question remains, who had driven him out of Thessaly, on pretence the Achaeans originally were, and whether they that he had taken more than his due share of were so nearly related to the Hellenic race as their common patrimony.* The outcast first the current genealogy seems to infer. And found shelter, it was said, in Attica. There he here we find that some of the ancients took a established himself in the plain of Marathon, very different view of their national affinities. and founded what was called the Tetrapolis, or Dionysius of Halicarnassus, without even nothe four united townships of CEnoe, Marathon, ticing the common tradition, reports one totally Probalinthus, and Tricorythus.t He wedded different; that Achaeus, Phthius, and Pelasgus Creusa, the daughter of Erechtheus, king of At- were the sons of Larissa and Poseidon; and tica, and Achaeus and Ion were the fruit of this that, in the sixth generation after the first Pemarriage. So far most authors agreed; but lasgus, they led the Pelasgians from Argos into some added, that at the death of Erechtheus he Thessaly, drove out the barbarians, and divided was chosen to decide the disputed succession, the country into three parts, which were named, and the preference he gave to Cecrops provoked after them, Achaia, Phthiotis, and Pelasgiotis.11 the other sons of Erechtheus to expel him from Contrary as this account is to the notion of the Attica. He crossed over with his children to Achaeans which the ancients drew from HoPeloponnesus, to the region then called 2Egialus, or the Coast, but which afterward succes- * Paus., vii., 1.3. t Her., vii., 197. t viii.,p. 383,365. sively received the names of Ionia and Achaia, ~ vii., 1, 6. It will immediately occur to every intelliand died there; and now, if not sooner, the gent reader of the Greek author, that not only the name of Metanastes, but those of the daughters and sons-in-law history of his two sons is parted. into separate of Danaus, are significant, and that they manifestly express lines. the relation between rulers and subjects. Only it may-be Beginning with that of Achaeus, we find the doubtful whether this relation is implied in the names of the two brothers, so that Architeles should represent the ancient authors differing very widely in their subject class, or whether they are both of similar import, statements. According to some, he was forced and the inferior relation is only expressed by the names of to quit AEgialus, or Athens, in consequence of their wives, which seem to indicate the differenst effects of voluntary and compulsory submission. To be convinced accidental bloodshed, and led his followers. to vthat these marriages are merely mythological phrases, the eastern side of Peloponnesus, where they which must be interpreted according to analogy under the mingled with the ancient inhabitants of Argolis guidance of etymology, the reader has only to compare and Laconia, or subdued them; and thus arose some other instances, as hter of Polyca Ho ples, his first the Peloponnesian Achaeans, from whom the wife, he afterward weds Chalciop6, daughter of Rhexenor whole of Peloponnesus was sometimes called (Apollod., iii., 15, 6, 2), or of Chalcodon (Athen., xiii., p. the Achwaan Argus, to distinguish it from the 556); but, according to Tzetzes (Lyc., 494), some authors gave him no other wife than Autochthe, daughter of PerPelasgian Argos of Thessaly. But others re- seons. so Eleetryon reigns with his wife Anaxo (Tzetz., Lye., 932); and, at a later period, Procles and Eurysthenes are married to Lathria and Anaxandra (Paus., iii., 16, 6) * Paus., vii., 1, 2. t Strabo, viii., p. 383.! i. 17 THE HELLENIC NATION. 67 mer's use of the name, it seems not to hav'e stood dons, whose memory has been transmitted to alone; for in another genealogy, Phthius, who us chiefly through the fame -of their leader, was generally considered as belonging to the Achilles. The fabulous legend tells that they stock of Pelasgus, was called the son of Achae- first sprang up in 2Egina, where 2Eacus the us.* The result to which these last traditions just, who was born there of Jupiter and a daughlead us is, that the Achaeans were originally no ter of the River Asopus, by his prayers prevailed other than the ancient Pelasgian inhabitants of on his father to people the island with a new Phthia; and perhaps this mode of viewing them race.* It is not improbable that the name, will be found to afford the simplest explanation whatever may have been its origin, arose in of the apparent contradictions in the testimony 2Egina; but it also seems clear that the island of the ancients concerning them. Considered must have received an -Eolian or Achaean coloas a branch of the Pelasgians, who from the ny from Phthia, which. in the generation imremotest times were seated both in Thessaly mediately preceding the Trojan war, is said to and Argolis, they might be' said, by those who have been governed by Actor, a son of Myrmilooked upon Peloponnesus as the earlier settle- don, who married iEgina, the fabled mother of ment, to have migrated thence to the north, XEacus. Hence Peleus, the son of.Eacus, though their name was first heard in Phthia. when he had killed his half-brother Phocus, If, indeed, the name was a descriptive one, and fled to the house of Actor, and succeeded to expressed their situation on the coast, as has his kingdom.t On the other hand, no connexbeen conjectured, it might have been common ion appears to. have subsisted between the to both countries from the beginning. But, in IEginetans and the neighbouring Achweans of any case, the general tendency of the ancient Argolis. traditions leads us to suppose that, at some These latter, however, in course of time, reperiod or other, a part of the tribe really mi- ceived a new colony from the western side of grated from the north to the south, and estab- Peloponnesus. Argos, it is said, continued to be lished themselves in Argolis. Here, however, the sole seat of the house of Danaus until Prcewe observd a remarkable difference between tus and Acrisius, the sons of Abas, contended their history and that of the 2LEolians. Their with one another for the throne. Acrisius leaders, Archander and Architeles, marry the maintained his ground at Argos: Prcetus, at daughters of Danaus, but neither they nor any first driven into exile, returned with a band of of their descendants mount the throne of Ar- Lycian allies, and forced his brother to consent gos, whereas we have seen the.Eolian chiefs to a partition of the disputed territory. The everywhere founding royal dynasties. And this eastern portion fell to Prcetus, who, with the seems to authorize the conclusion that this mi- aid of the Cyclopes, raised the indestructible gration took place before the 2Eolians had be- walls of Tiryns: Acrisius was killed, through a come masters of Phthia, and had begun to be fatal mischance, by Perseus, the son of his also called Achaeans; and that the Pelasgian daughter Danae; though, to avoid his predicted Acheans found in Argolis a kindred people, destiny, he had left Argos, and had retired to among whom they gained admission more, in- the Thessalian Larissa: an indication not to deed, by force than good will, but still without be overlooked of an early intercourse between effecting a total revolution, or overthrowing the the northern and southern Pelasgians. After government of the native kings. On this sup- this disaster, Perseus, that he might not fill the position we shall no longer be perplexed by the throne which his own hand had made vacant, difficulty which chronologers have found in ex- exchanged his patrimony for that of Megapenplaining how the sons of Achmus could marry thes, son of Prctus, and in the neighbourhood the daughters of the ancient Danaus, and we of Tiryns, but on a loftier site, founded a new shall be spared the necessity of inventing a city, Mycenae. But, in the second generation second personage of the same name as a sub- after this transfer, the little western state was ject for this particular affinity. again split into three smaller realms. In the If we take this view of the subject, we must reign of Anaxagoras, grandson of Megapenthes, distinguish between the Achaeans of the north, the women of Argos were struck with phrensy. who, in the period when we first become ac- The king-according to another, and, apparentquainted with them, are no other than the X.Eo- ly, older form of the legend, it was Prcetus, lians, who, among other names, were some- whose daughters had been thus punished for times called by that of the people in whose land their impiety in laughing at the wooden image they established their sway, and those of the of Her6, or- spurning the rites of DionysusAchaean Argos, where not only the bulk of the sought the aid of the seer Melampus, who, by population, but the noble and ruling families, his mother's side, was akin to the royal line. perhaps that of the kings themselves, continued Melampus asked no less a price for the succours to be Pelasgian long after the.Eolians had gain- of his art than a third of the kingdom; and, ed a footing in other parts of Peloponnesus. It like the Sibyl, when the king refused it, rose in must be with reference to the former that Stra- his demands, and only consented to remedy the bo calls the Achecans an XEolian race;t and that evil when he had obtained another third for his Euripides, while he speaks of Xuthus as a son of 2olus, describes him as an Achisan.t To * By transforming the ants (,vppt7KCs, or pspjos) into men these XEolian Acheans belong also the Myrmi- (MvPslsovrc) according to the fable, oocasioned probably by a false etymology, though some writers, ancient and modern (see Strabo, viii., p. 375. Theagenes in Tzetz., * Eustath. on II., ii., 681. "Hellas, he remarks, was found- Lye., 176), have supposed it to have been grounded on the ed by Hellen; not, however, some say, the son of Deucalion, mode of living in caves, which they attribute (on no evibut the son of Phthius, son of Achaeus. A little before he dence, however, save the fable itself) to the ancient inhabspeaks of a Phthius, son of Poseidon and Larissa; and in itants of 2Egina. The curious reader will find the ancient the next page he says that Pelasgus, Phthius, and Achweus history of A2Egina elaborately discussed in K. 0. Muellerhu were the sons of Ha-mon and Larissa..ginetica. t viii., p. 333. T Ion, v., 64. t Eustath. on. 11., ii, 681 68 HISTORY OF GREECE. brother Bias.* Whatever may be the full lation they stood to the other branches of the meaning of these marvellous stories, we see no Greek nation; but it is equally evident that, reason for questioning their historical ground without the help of an historical interpretation, so far as regards the establishment of 2Eolian the story can give us none of the information chieftains in Argolis; and this event may have we desire. contributed to bring the Argive Achaeans nearer According to the most generally received in language and religion to those of Thessaly. opinion, the lonians were a Hellenic tribe, who Tradition throws very little light on the manner took forcible possession of Attica and a part of in which the name of the Achaeans was intro- Peloponnesus, and communicated their name duced into Laconia. We have seen reason to to the ancient inhabitants. It is a distinct believe that it was not here where it first arose, question, whether the conquerors brought this *though this appears to be Strabo's meaning name with them, or only assumed it in their when he says that Acheeus himself settled there. new territories. This last supposition is alone Another statement of the same author, that consistent with the legends of Ion, which all Achaeans came into Laconia with Pelops, stands treat Xuthus as the founder of the power of the too insulated, and too little supported by other Ionians, and never speak of Ion himself as havfacts, to deserve much attention. The event ing migrated into Attica from the north. It may, perhaps, be indicated by the tradition that might, indeed, be easily imagined that the birth Eurotas, who succeeded his father Myles, son of Ion is a mere fiction, and that Xuthus was of Lelex, having no male children, left his king- the real name of an Ionian chief who led his dom to Lacedaemon, son of Jupiter and Tayget6, people from Thessaly to Attica. But in this who had married his daughter Sparte. These case we should have expected, according to the names seem to intimate that a new tribe from usual form of the mythical genealogies, to hear the north had gained the ascendant over the of an elder Ion, or, at least, to find some trace Leleges, who inhabited the plain near the coast, of the Ionian name in the north. But none where their labours are said to have confined such appears in the quarter where we might the river named from their king in an artificial reasonably look for it. Theopompus, indeed, channel. After this we read of no change of derived the name of the Ionian Sea from an dynasty, at least till the Trojan war, and we Ionius, a native of Issa, who once ruled over its find the Lacedaemonian kings allying them- eastern coast;* other writers from an Italianselves by marriage with those of Argolis,+ Iaon.t But these traditions, if they are not which seems to confirm our supposition of an rather mere conjectures, cannot be connected original natural affinity between them. This with our Ionians, because, if their name had view of the Achaeans will perhaps acquire a been so early celebrated, it would assuredly higher de;,ee of probability when we compare have occurred in the legends of Thessaly. the'.~ ts we have received of the origin of Hence, even if it were certain that they were a.lie fourth great division of the Greek nation, Hellenic race in the ordinary sense of the word the Ionians. -that is, that they sprang from the Thessalian The early history of the Ionians, though pe- Hellas-we must still abandon all hope of tra. culiarly interesting on account of its relation to cing the origin of their name to that region, and the ancient institutions of Attica, is, perhaps, must either adopt thle common explanation of the most obscure that has yet come under our it, or suppose that it was derived from some. view. We have already seen the manner in other more probable, but totally unknown cause, which Ion is connected by the current genealo- and the obscure legend of Xuthus will be the. gy with the family of Hellen. The Athenians only link that connects the Ionians by any dilistened with complacency to a different legend, rect evidence with the people of Hellen. more flattering to their national vanity, accord- It may seem, however, that in this case no ing to which he was the son, not of Xuthus, such evidence is wanted, and that the fact is but of Apollo: a story which furnished Euripi- sufficiently ascertained by proofs of a different des with the subject of one of his most inge- kind, yet of irresistible force. Herodotus innious plays. The poet represents Ion, not only forms us that the inhabitants of Attica were as the founder of the Ionian name, but as suc- originally Pelasgians: we know that they were ceeding to the throne of Erechtheus. On the afterward a part of the Hellenic nation, yet the other hand, he recognises in Xuthus a foreign same historian expressly asserts that the Attic chief who had succoured the Atheniains in their Ionians had never changed their seats: and it war with Eubcea, and had thus earned the hand may appear that the only way of reconciling of the king's daughter; and he ventures to con- these facts is to suppose that a body of Hellenic tradict the common tradition so far as to call settlers had established themselves among the Achaeus and Dorus the issue of this marriage. old Pelasgian population, and had given it a All these variations, devised to gratify the new name and a new nature. Herodotus himAthenians, tend to confirm the substance of the self undoubtedly lends some colour to this supcommon story by showing that it kept its ground position. The change of name, indeed, would in spite of the interest which Athenian patriot- not, according to his view, be an argument of ism mi` t have in distorting or suppressing it. any weight; for he asserts that such changes A.m inrT may reasonably suspect that if, in its had repeatedly taken place in earlier times, form, it deviates from the truth, it is rather so while the Pelasgian character of the people as to disguise than to exaggerate the impor- continued unaltered. But.he speaks of a transtance of the event to which it refers. It must tance of therefore evneglected whenich it refers. It must * Strabo, vii., p. 317. Tzetz., Lye., 630. Strabo (p. not, therefore, be neglected when we are inqui- 327) also mentions a river Ion, a tributary of the Peneus, ring who the Athenians were, and in what re- and a town named Alalcomenae on its banks; and there seems to have been a river of the same name in the Pelo* Compare Herod., ix., 34. Paus., ii., 16-18. Apollod., ponnesian Ionia. Dionys. Per., 416, couples it with the ii., 2-4. t Paus., iii., 1, 4. Apollod., ii., 2, 2, 1. Melas and the Crathis. t Eustath.. Dioa. Per.. 92. THE HELLENIC NATION. 69 formation by which the Attic Pelasgians be- of the seven nations which in his time inhabitcame Hellenes; and he infers, from his own ed Peloponnesus, two were aboriginal, and observations on the scattered remnants of the were then seated in the same land where they Pelasgian race which he found elsewhere, that had dwelt of old; these were the Arcadians this event must have been accompanied by a and the Cynurians. The Achaeans, too, he obcomplete change in the language of Attica. serves, had not quitted Peloponnesus, though These are effects which imply some powerful they no longer occupied the same part of it; cause: Herodotus, indeed, does not describe but the Cynurians,,who were an aboriginal the manner in which they were wrought, but it people, appeared to be the only Ionians, though, seems clear that he referred thein to the epoch having become subject to the Argives, they had which was marked by the appearance of Ion; assumed the Dorian character.* Here, again, for to Ion, in common with all other authors, he it is clear that the epithet Ionian is used as attributes not only the introduction of a new equivalent to Pelasgian, or ante-Hellenic. The national name, but also the institution of the authority of Herodotus, therefore, seems to difour tribes into which the people of Attica was rect us to Peloponnesus as one of the earliest anciently divided, and which were retained in seats of the name. And this is also implied in several of the Ionian colonies. Of these tribes the form which the authors, followed by Pausawe shall speak more fully hereafter; we here nias, gave to the story of Ion, for it was told in allude to them only so far as they bear upon the two ways. Ion was said by some to have represent question; and, for this purpose, it will mained in Attica, and to have given his name suffice to mention that one of them was, as its to the country, from which a colony afterward name imports, a tribe of warriors, and that, to migrated to _/Egialus; while others, as we have a very late period, we find in Attica a powerful seen, carried Xuthus himself into Peloponnebody of nobles, possessing the best part of the sus, and supposed that Ion, after having establand, commanding the services of a numerous lished his name and his power there, led an dependant class, and exercising the highest au- army to the aid of the Athenians, and thus exthority in the state. With this we must cornm- tended his influence over Attica. The latter bine the fact, that Ion is described by Herodo- tradition must have been that which Herodotus tus, as well as by other writers, as the leader adopted, for he also speaks of Xuthus as having of the Attic armies:* a title which easily sug- come to Peloponnesus.t This was indeed exgests the notion that the warrior tribe, and the plained by the above-mentioned story, that Xunoble class just mentioned, were no other than thus had been expelled from Attica by the sons the Hellenic conquerors, who are supposed to of Erechtheus; but, unless we admit this grosshave overpowered the native Pelasgians. The ly improbable tale, the result of the whole is, Attic legends may even seem to render it prob- that the Peloponnesian Ionians were, at least, able that this revolution went a step farther, of equal antiquity with those of Attica. And and that, although the break was studiously to this conclusion we are led by the legends of corncealed, the strangers took possession of the the southern Ionia; for here, the only king throne, and put an end to the line of the Pelas- named before the arrival of Ion is a Selinus, gian kings. We are told that Poseidon, the who takes his name from one of the rivers of great national god of the Ionians, destroyed the country, which flowed near Helice, the Erechtheus and his' house;t and Euripides, chief town of the Ionians, so called, it was said, who mentions this tradition,T considers Ion as from the daughter of Selinus, who became the the founder of a new dynasty. wife of Ion.: But, besides this settlement of These arguments would, perhaps, be per- the Ionians on the western side of the peninsufectly convincing, if, on the other hand, there ]a, it is clear that they once occupied a great were not strong reasons for believing that the part of the eastern coast. The legends both name of the Ionians is of much higher antiqui- of Sicyon and Corinth spoke of a very ancient ty than the common legend ascribes to it, and connexion between this region and Attica. that it prevailed in Peloponnesus and in Attica Marathon, it was said, the son of Epopeus, one before the Hellenes made their appearance in of the kings of Corinth, who reigned there beThessaly. We have already quoted a passage fore the arrival of the.Eolids, had first fled to in which Herodotus contrasts the Dorians as a the seacoast of Attica, and afterward, returnHellenic race, with the Ionians as Pelasgians. ing to his paternal dominions, divided his kingIt is true that he adopted the general opinion, dom between his two sons, Sicyon and Corinthat these Pelasgians had been newly named thus;~ and hence the final fall of the'Eolian after Ion; but there would have been no mean- dynasty is said to have been accompanied by Ing in his words if he had believed that the the expulsion of the Ionians.ll Still more disIonians were really a Hellenic tribe, which had tinct traces of an Ionian population appear at given its name to the conquered people. Their Trezen and Epidaurus. The people of Trcezen identity with the Pelasgians was the result of are distinguished in the historical times as the his own researches; the origin of the name kinsmen and firm friends of the Athenians. was an unimportant fact, as to which he was Their city, as we shall see, was the birthplace content to follow the received tradition. His of the great Attic hero; Sphettus and Anameaning appears still more clearly from the phlystus, the sons of Ticezen, founded two of manner in which he speaks of the Cynurians, the Attic towns; the strife between Athene a people who inhabited a little tract situate be- and Poseidon, for the possession of the land, tween Argolis and Laconia. He remarks that, was equally celebrated in the Attic and the * Her., viii., 44, ~rpardpX7cs. Paus., i., 31, 3, 7ro)a{ap- * vii., 73. t vii., 94. t Pans., vii., 1, 4. xom. t Apollod., iii., 15, 5, 1. $ Paus., ii.,, 1. t Ion, 284. He was ingulfed in a chasm which Poseidon I1 Conon., 26. tcavOia; fiK6aXiv -- ica r toS GVV abvroiS opened with his trident. 1 I"wvas. 70 HISTORY OF GREECE. Trcezenian legends, and was commemorated on race. Their mutual relation seems co be ex the ancient coins of Trcezen by the trident and pressed by the tradition that, at the death of the head of the goddess.* At Epidaurus, the Pandion, his twin sons, Erechtheus and Butes, last king before the Dorian conquest, which divided their inheritance, and that Erechtheus will be hereafter related, was said to be a de- succeeded to the kingdom, Butes to the priestscendant of Ion, and, when driven from his own hood of Athen6 and Poseidon.* If these traces dominions, takes refuge with his people in At- do not mislead us, we should be' inclined to distica.t The well-attested antiquity of the Cy- tinguish two periods in the ancient history of nurians seems to warrant the assumption that Attica, one of which might be called the priest the name of the Ionians had, in very early times, ly, the other the heroic, in the former of which prevailed still more widely on the eastern side the priesthood was predominant, while in the of Peloponnesus, and that it was signified by latter, the nobles or warriors gradually rose to the ancient epithet of Argos, the Iasian, which power. The latter period may also be termed appears to have preceded that derived from the the Ionian, and contrasted with the former as Achteans.T Their growing power may, per- the Pelasgian; not, however, because the Ionihaps, have confined the Ionians within narrow- ans were foreign to the Pelasgians, but because, er limits, and have parted states which were during this period, migrations appear to have once contiguous. The early predominance of taken place from Peloponnesus into Attica, the Ionian name in this quarter might then be which tended at once te fix the Ionian name connected with the fact that it is used in the in the latter country, where a variety of appelbooks of Moses as a general description of lations had before been in use, and to strengthGreece. en the hands of the warrior class by the accesBut still it remains to be considered how this sion of new adventurers of the same blood. view of the Ionians is to be reconciled with the There is even a sense in which the second of known state of society in Attica, and with the these periods might not improperly be called various indications which it seems to disclose the Hellenic, not only inasmuch as it was one of a foreign conquest, and of two distinct races. of gradual approximation to the purely martial The question, however, is not whether any for- and heroic character of the genuine Hellenic eign settlers established themselves and be- states, but also as strangers, apparently of Helcame powerful in Attica-for this cannot and lenic origin, now gained a footing in Attica. need not be denied-but whether the genuine For so much, at least, the story of Xuthus Ionians were a different tribe from the aborigi- seems sufficient to prove. The foundation, or nal Pelasgians; and it may certainly be doubt- occupation, of the Marathonian Tetrapolis, ated whether this can be more safely inferred tributed to Xuthus, is evidently connected with from the institutions attributed to Ion, than that war in which he is said to have aided the from his traditional relation to Xuthus. There Athenians against the Eubceans, and renders it seems to be no reason why they might not have probable that he migrated from the island into been formed in the natural internal progress of Attica: this, however, would throw no light society, and have been originally independent upon his origin. Euboea seems to have been of all extraneous causes, though some such inhabited of old by a variety of races, as its may have contributed to ripen and strengthen geographical position would lead us to expect: them. Until it is proved that the Indian, Egyp- it was among the most ancient seats of the Letian, Median castes,~ and other similar institu- leges: its mines very early attracted Phcenitions, both in the ancient and modern world, cian colonists; and it was in Euboea that the all arose from invasions and conquests, which Curetes were said first to have put on brazen established the ascendant of more powerful armour.t Homer describes its inhabitants by strangers over the children of the soil, the the collective name oftheAbantes; as to which, tribes of Ion must be regarded as an equivocal the most learned of the ancients were themsign; and we cannot conclude that the war- selves in doubt whether it was connected with riors alone were of Hellenic, the rest of Pelas- the Phocian town of Abae, or with Abas, the gian origin. Without laying any stress on the Argive hero. A tract in the northern part of form of the legend, which represented all the the island was called Hesti.eotis, and Strabo tribes as named after as many sons of Ion, and believed that this name was transferred from thus placed them all on a level with respect to Eubcea to the north of Thessaly, by a colony their descent, we may observe that some of which had been forced to emigrate by the Per the ancients included a tribe of priests among rhaebians: we should otherwise have presumed the four, and that this opinion is strongly con- that the Thessalian region had been the mothfirmed by the Attic traditions, which are mark- er country. There was also an Attic township ed by traces, scarcely to be mistaken, of an an- named Histiaea, which led some writers to cient priestly caste. This may originally have think that the Eubcean Histiaeans were of Attic had the supreme power in its hands; but here, origin. In the same quarter of Eubcea was a as everywhere else, it could not fail to be ac- town, and perhaps a district, which bore the companied by a class of nobles or warriors, remarkable name of Hellopia, the same which who, however, were undoubtedly not a distinct Hesiod gives to the country about Dodona. It is even said that the whole of Euboea was once * Paus., ii., 30, 6. Plut., Thes., 6. t Paus., ii., 26, 1. called Hellopia; and it is added that it receivt Od., E., 346. Eustath. on Il., iii., 258. Perhaps we ed this name from Hellops, a son of Ion,$ which may connect this with the remark of Pausanias (ii., 37, 3), might seem to confirm the supposition that the that, before the return of the Heracleids, the Argives spoke the same language with the Athenians. 3 Ionians were a Hellenic race, if it were not 4 Her., i., 101. The Magiaus, a Median tribe. -With re- more probable that this legend was occasioned spect to the hypothesis of a conquest, as the origin of the Indian and Egyptian castes, there are some good remarks * Apollod., iii., 15, 1, 1. t Steph. tyz., AL3tl*OS in Bohlilen, Das alte Indien, ii., p. 38. 4 Strabo, x., p. 445. THE HEROES AND THEIR AGE. 71 by the numerous Ionian colonies which passed belonging to this class, who, in the language of over from Attica to the island. But though poetry, are called heroes. The term hero is of this confusion of uncertain accounts about the doubtful origin, though it was clearly a title of early population of Euboea precludes all conjec- honour; hut, in the poems of Homer, it is apture as to the origin of Xuthus, drawn from the plied not only to the chiefs, but also to their folside on which he appears to have entered Atti- lowers, the freemen, of lower rank, without, ca, still the tradition which connected him with however, being contrasted with any other, so the house of /Eolus is strengthened by the pe- as to determine its precise meaning. In later culiar rites which distinguished the inhabitants times its use was narrowed, and in some deof the plain of Marathon, and which seem to gree altered:* it was restricted to persons, mark a Hellenic descent.* The union of Xu- whether of the heroic or of after ages, who were thus and Creusa undoubtedly implies that this believed to be endowed with a superhuman, settlement exerted considerable influence over though not a divine nature, and who were honthe fortunes of Attica, and it was a necessary oured with sacred rites, and were, imagined to consequence that Xuthus and Ion should be have the power of dispensing good or evil to brought into near relation to one another; but, their worshippers; and it was gradually comin any other sense, we see no evidence of a bined with the notion of prodigious strength Hellenic conquest either in Attica or the Pelo- and gigantic stature. Here, however; we have ponnesian Ionia. Of the supposed break in the only to do with the heroes as men. The hissuccession of the native kings, we shall have tory of their age is filled with their wars, expeoccasion to speak again. The force of any ar- ditions, and adventures; and this is the, great. gument drawn from the language of Attica mine from which the materials of the Greek must depend on thy conception we form of the poetry were almost entirely drawn. But tLe original relation between the Pelasgian and richer a period is in poetical materials, the more Hellenic race. The difference between the di- difficult it usually is to extract from it any that alect from which those of Attica and the Asi- are fit for the use of the historian; anti this is atic Ionia issued, and the AEolian or Doric, does especially true in the present instance. Tho,gh not fall much short of tlrat which was to have what has been transmitted to us is, perhbtps, been expected, according to the view here ta- only a minute part of the legends which sp ang ken of the Ionians; and for several generations, from this inexhaustible source, they are suffiit may have been continually lessened by a cient to perplex the inquirer by their multi licigrowing intercourse between Attica and the ty and their variations, as well as by their marneighbouring Hellenic states. vellous nature. The pains taken by the ancient compilers to reduce them to an orderly sy-stem, have only served, in most cases, to d:sguise their original form, and thus to increase the difCHAPTER V. ficulty of detecting their real foundatisan. It would answer no useful purpose to repeat or abridge these legends, without subjecting them THE period included between the first appear- to a critical examination, for which we cannot ance of the Hellenes in Thessaly and the re- afford room: we must content ourselves with turn of the Greeks from Troy, is commonly touching on some which appear most worthy of known by the name of the heroic age or ages. notice, either from their celebrity, or for the The real limits of this period cannot be exactly light they throw on the general character of the defined. The date of the siege of Troy is only period, or their connexion, real or supposed, the result of a doubtful calculation; and, from with subsequent historicalevents. what has been already said, the reader will see We must pass very hastily over the exploits that it must be scarcely possible to ascertain of Bellerophon and Perseus, and we mention the precise beginning of the period; but still, so them only for the sake of one remark. The far as its traditions admit of anything like a scene of their principal adventures is laid out chronological connexion, its duration may be of Greece, in the East. The former, whose estimated at six generations, or about two hun- father, Glaucus, is the son of Sisyphus, having dred years. We have already described the chanced to stain his hands with the blood of a general character of this period as one in which kinsman, flies to Argos, where he excites the a warlike race spread from the north over the jealousy of Prcetus, and is sent by him to Lycia, south of Greece, and founded new dynasties in the country where Prcetus himself had been a number of little states; while, partly through hospitably entertained in his exile. It is in the the impulse given to the earlier settlers by this adjacent regions of Asia that the Corinthian immigration, and partly in the natural progress hero proves his valour by vanquishing ferocious of society, a similar state of things arose in tribes and terrible monsters. Perseus, too, has those parts of the country which were not im- been sent over the sea by his grandfather Acrismediately occupied by the invaders; so that ius, and his achievements follow the same dieverywhere a class of nobles entirely given to rection, but take a wider range: he is carried martial pursuits, and the principal owners of along the coasts of Syria to Egypt, where Hethe land-whose station and character cannot, rodotus heard of him from the priests, and into perhaps, be better illustrated than when compa- the unknown lands of the South. There can red to that of the chivalrous barons of the middle ages-became prominent above the mass * In Homer, it is used as the German Rechen. in the Niof the people, which they held in various de- belungenlied. So, too, in Hesiod (Op. et D., 155-171), all the warriors before Thebes and Troy seem to be included grees of subjection. The history of the heroic under the -name. Afterward it was limited to the most emage is the history of the most celebrated persons inent persons of the heroic age; not, however, to distinguish them from their own contemporaries, but to contrast Paus., i., 15, 3, and 32, 4. them with the men of a later and inferior generation 72 EHISTORY OF GREECE. be no doubt that these fables owed many of their works ascribed to him, so iar as they were realleading features to the Argive colonies which ly accomplished by human labour, may seem to were planted at a later period in Rhodes, and correspond better with the art and industry of on the southwest coast of Asia. But still it is the Phoenicians than with the skill and power not improbable that the connexion implied by of a less civilized race. But in whatever way them between Argolis and the nearest parts of the origin of the name and idea of Hercules may Asia may not be wholly without foundation. be explained, at least in that which we have We proceed, however, to a much more celebra- distinguished as the second class of legends reted name, on which we must dwell a little long- lating to him, he appears, without any ambiguiei —that of Hercules. It has been a subject of ty, as a Greek hero; and here it may reasonalong dispute whether Hercules was a real or a bly be asked, whether all or any part of the adpurely fictitious personage; but it seems clear ventures they describe really happened to a that the question, according to the sense in single person, who either properly bore the which it is understood, may admit of two con- name of Hercules, or received it as a title of trary answers, both equally true. When we honour. survey the whole mass of the actions ascribed We must briefly mention. the manner in to him, we find that they fall under two classes. which these adventures are linked together in The one carries us back into the infancy of so- the common story. Amphitryon, the reputed ciety, when it is engaged in its first struggles father of Hercules, was the son of Alcaeus, who with nature for existence and security: we see is named first among the children born to Perhim cleaving rocks, turning the course of rivers, seus at Mycens. The hero's mother, Alcmeopening or stopping the subterraneous outlets na, was the daughter of Electryon, another son of lakes, clearing the earth of noxious animals, of Perseus, who had succeeded to the kingdom. and, in a word, by his single arm effecting works In his reign, the Taphians, a piratical people which properly belong to the united labours of who inhabited the islands called Echinades, near a young-community. The other class exhibits the mouth of the Achelous, landed in Argolis, a state of things comparatively settled and ma- and carried off the king's herds. While Electure, when the first victory has been gained, tryon was preparing to avenge himself by invaand the contest is now between one tribe and ding their land, after he had committed his kinganother, for possession or dominion; we see dom and his daughter to the charge of Amphithim maintaining the cause of the weak against ryon, a chance like that which caused the death the strong, of the innocent against the oppress- of Acrisius stained the hands of the nephew or, punishing wrong, and robbery, and sacrilege, with his uncle's blood. Sthenelus, a third son subduing tyrants, exterminating his enemies, of Perseus, laid hold of this pretext to force and bestowing kingdoms on his friends. It Amphitryon and Alemena to quit the country, would be futile to inquire who the person was and they took refuge in Thebes: thus it hapto whom deeds of the former kind were attrib- pened that Hercules, though an Argive by deuted; but it is an interesting question whether scent, and, by his mortal parentage, legitimate the first conception of such a being was formed heir to the throne of My6enae, was, as to his in the mind of the Greeks by their own unas- birthplace, a Theban. Hence Bceotia is the sisted imagination, or was suggested to them scene of his youthful exploits: bred up among by a different people; in other words, whether the herdsmen of Citheeron, like Cyrus and RornHercules, viewe#in this light, is a creature of ulus, he delivers Thespiae from the lion which the Greek, or of any foreign mythology. made havoc among its cattle. IIe then frees It is sufficient to throw a single glance at the Thebes from the yoke of its more powerful fabulous adventures called the labours of Hercu- neighbour, Orchomenus; and here we find les, to be convinced that a part of them, at least, something which has more the look of a historbelongs to the Phoenicians and their wandering ical tradition, though it is no less poetical in god, in whose honour they built temples in all its form. The King of Orchomenus had been their principal settlements along the coast of killed in the sanctuary of Poseidon, at Onchesthe Mediterranean. To him must be attributed tus, by a Theban. His successor, Erginus, imall the journeys of Hercules round the shores of poses. a tribute on Thebes; but Hercules mutiWestern Europe, which did not become known lates his heralds wh'en they come to exact it, to the Greeks for many centuries after they had and then marching against Orchomenus, slays been explored by the Phoenician navigators. Erginus, and forces the Minyans to pay twice The nrumber to which those labours are confined the tribute which they had hitherto received.* by the legend is evidently an astronomical pe- According to a Theban legend, it was on this riod, and thus itself points to the course of the occasion that he stopped the subterraneous outsun which the Phenician god represented. The let of the Cephisus, and thus formed the lake event which closes the career of the Greek hero, which covered the greater part of the plain of who rises to immortality from the flames of the Orchomenus.t In the mean while Sthenelus pile on which he lays himself, is a prominent had been succeeded by his son Eurystheus, the feature in the same Eastern mythology, and destined enemy of Hercules and his race, at may, therefore, be safely considered as borrow- whose command the hero undertakes his laAd firon it.* All these tales may, indeed, be re- bours. This voluntary subjection of the right-,arded as additions made at a late period to the ful prince to the weak and timid usurper is replireek legend, after it had sprung up independ- resented as an expiation, ordained'by the Delmntly at home. But it is at least a remarkable phic oracle, for a fit of phrensy, in which Her*oincidence, that the brth of Hercules is as- cules had destroyed his wife and children. signed to the city of Cadmus; and the great This, as a poetical or religious fiction, is very happily conceived; but when we are seeking' See Boettiger, Kunst-.2!ythologie, p. 37. Mueller. in he Rheinisches.Museum, iii,p 28. * Apollod., ii., 4, 1L t Paus., ix., 38, 7 THE HEROES AND THEIR AGE. 73. for an historical thread to connect the Bceotian ing those features in the legend which mani. legends of Hercules with those of Peloponne- festly belong to Eastern religions, to distinguish sus, it must be set entirely aside; and yet it is the Theban Hercules from the Dorian and the not only the oldest form of the story, but no oth- Peloponnesian hero. In the story of each, some er has hitherto been found or devised to fill its historical fragments have most probably been place with a greater appearance of probability. preserved, and perhaps least disfigured in the The supposed right of Hercules to the throne Theban and Dorian legends. In those of Peloof Mycena was, as we shall see, the ground on ponnesus it is difficult to say to what extent their which the Dorians, some generations later, original form may not have been distorted from claimed the dominion of Peloponnesus., Yet, political motives. If we might place any reliin any other than a poetical.view, his enmity to ance on them, we should be inclined to conjecEurystheus is utterly inconsistent with the ex- ture that they contain traces of the struggles ploits ascribed to him in the peninsula. It is by which the kingdom of Mycenae attained to also remarkable, that while the adventures that influence over the rest of the peninsula, which he undertakes at the bidding of his rival which is attributed to it by Homer, and which are prodigious and supernatural, belonging to we shall have occasion to notice when we come the first of the two'classes above distinguished,. to speak of the Trojan war. he is described as during the same period en- The name qf Hercules immediately suggests gaged in expeditions which are only accidental- that of Theseus, according to the mythical ly connected with these marvellous labours, and chronology his younger contemporary, and only which, if they stood. alone, might be taken for second to him in renown. It was not without traditional facts. In these he appears in the reason that Theseus was said to have given light of an independent prince and a powerful rise to the proverb, another Hercules; for not conqueror. He leads an army against Augeas, only is there a strong resemblance between king of Elis, and having slain him, bestows his them in many particular features, but it also kingdom on one of his sons, who had condemn- seems clear that Theseus was to Attica what ed his father's injustice. So he invades Pylus Hercules was to the rest of Greece, and that to avenge an insult which he had received from his career likewise represents the events of a Neleus, and puts him to death, with all his chil- period which cannot have been exactly measdren, except Nestor, who was absent, or had ured by any human life, and probably includes escaped to Gerenia. Again he carries his con- many centuries. His legend is chiefly interestquering arms into Laconia, where he extermi- ing to us so far as it may be regarded as a ponates the family of the King Hippocoon, and etical outline of the early history of Attica. The places Tyndareus on the throne. Here, if any- list which has been transmitted to us of the Atwhere in the legend of Hercules, we might seem tic kings, his predecessors, is a compilation in to be reading an account of real events. Yet which some of the names appear to have been who can believe that, while he was overthrow- invented merely to fill up a gap in chronology; ing these hostile dynasties and giving away others clearly belong to' purely mythical personsceptres, he suffered himself to be excluded ages; not one can safely be pronounced historfrom his own kingdom? ical. Their reigns are no less barren of events It was the fate of Hercules to be incessantly than their existence is questionable. Two ocforced into dangerous and arduous enterprises; currences only are related in their annals which and hence every part of Greece is in its turn may seem to bear marks of a really political the scene of his achievements. Thus we have character. One is the war with Euboea, in already seen him, in Thessaly, the ally of the which Xuthus aided the Athenians; the other Dorians, laying the foundation of a perpetual a contest much more celebrated, between the union between the people and his own descend- Attic king Erechtheus and the Thracian Euants, as if he had either abandoned all hope of molpus, who had become sovereign of Eleusis, recovering the crown of Mycenae, or had fore- where he founded a priesthood, which in later seen that his posterity would require the aid of times was administered by an Athenian house, the Dorians for that purpose. In AEtolia, too, which claimed him as its ancestor. In this war he appears as a friend and a protector of the Erechtheus is said to have perished, either royal house, and fights its battles against the through the'wrath of Poseidon, or by the hand Thesprotians of Epirus.* These perpetual wan- of a mortal enemy; and after his death, accordderings, these successive alliances with so ing to one form of the legend, Ion, intruste'd by many different races, excite no surprise, so the Athenians with the command, terminated long as we view'them in a poetical light, as is- the war by a treaty, in which the Eleusinians suing out of one source, the implacable hate acknowledged the supremacy of Athens, but rewith which Juno persecutes the son of Jove. served to themselves the celebration of their They may also be understood as real events, if rites.* Neither Xuthus nor Ion, however, is they are supposed to have been perfectly inde- enumerated among the kings of Attica. Erechpendent of each other, and connected only by theus was succeeded by a second Cecrops, who being referred to one fabulous name. But when migrated to Euboea, and left his hereditary the poetical motive is rejected, it seems impos- throne to his son, a second Pandion. But sible to frame any rational scheme according to henceforward the Athenian annals are full of which they may be regarded as incidents in the civil wars and revolutions. Pandion is expell life of one man, unless we imagine Hercules, ed from.his dominions by the Metionids-a riin the purest spirit of knight-errantry, sallying val branch of the royal family-and takes refuge foIth in quest of adventures, without any definite in Megara, where he marries the king's daughobject, or any impulse but that of disinterest- ter, and succeeds to the throne.t At Megara ed benevolence. It will be safer, after reject- 8 Apollod., ii.. 15, 4. Pas., i., 38, 3. Strabo, viii., p. VOJL. J.-K' Apollod., ii., 7, 6. 383 Pau., i., 5, 3 VoL,. I — 74 HISTORY OF GREECE. he became the father of four sons; but the le- as captives consecrated to the god, who, by gitimacy of iEgeus, the eldest, was disputed; famine and pestilence, had compelled the Atheand when, after the death of Pandion, he enter- nians to propitiate him with this sacrifice.* *ed Attica at the head of an army, recovered his With the aid of Ariadne, the daughter of Minos, patrimony from the usurpers, and shared it with he vanquished the monster of the labyrinth, and his brothers, he was still the object of their retraced its mazes; but on his homeward voyjealousy. As he was long childless, they began age he abandoned his fair guide on the shore toncast a wishful eye towards his inheritance. at Naxus, where, as poets sang, she was conBut a mysterious oracle brought him to Trce- soled by Dionysus for the loss of her mortal zen, where fate had decreed that the future hero lover. At Delos, too, he left memorials of his of Athens should be born. 2Ethra, the. daugh- presence in sacred and festive rites, which ter of the sage King Pittheus, son of Pelops, were preserved with religious reverence in afwas his mother; but the Trcezenian legend ter ages. His arrival at Athens proved fatal to called Poseidon, not JEgeus, his father. 2Ege- XEgeus, who was deceived by the black sail of us, however, returned to Athens with the hope the victim-ship, which Theseus had forgotten that, in the course of years, he should be fol- to exchange for the concerted token of victory, lowed by a legitimate heir. At parting, he and in despair threw himself down from the showed IEthra a huge mass of rock, under Cecropian rock: his memory was honoured by which he had hidden a sword and a pair of san- the Athenians with yearly sacrifices, of which dals: when her child, if a boy, siould be able the house of the Phytalids were appointed heto lift the stone, he was to repair to Athens with reditary ministers. Many cheerful festivals long the tokens it concealed, and to claim LEgeus as commemorated the return of Theseus, and the his father. From this deposite,.Ethra gave plenty which was restored to Attica when the her son the name of Theseus. wrath of the gods was finally appeased by his The life of Theseus is composed of three enterprise. He himself was believed to have main acts, his journey from Trcezen to Athens, opened the vintage procession of the Oschohis victory over the ~Minotaur, and the political phoria, with two youths, who had accompanied revolution which he effected in Attica. The him in disguise among the virgins, and to have former two achievements, notwithstanding their instituted the harvest feast of the Pyanepsia, fabulous aspect, have probably an historical when the Eiresion6 (an olive branch laden with ground, no less than the third, as to which it the fruits of the year, cakes, and figs, and flasks can only be doubted how far it was the work of honey, oil, and wine) was carried about in of one individual. Instead of crossing the honour of the sun and the seasons. Saronic Gulf when he at length set out to Of the political institutions ascribed to Theclaim the throne of Athens, the young hero re- seus we shall find a fitter occasion of speaking solved to signalize his journey by clearing the hereafter, and we must pass over a great numwild road that skirted the sea, which was her of other adventures which adorn his legend; haunted by monsters and savage men, who though some of them, as the war in which he is abused their gigantic strength in wrong and said to have repelled the invasion of the Amarobbery, and had almost broken off all inter- zons, may not be wholly destitute of historical course between Trcezen and Attica. In the import. We can only spare room for a few reterritory of Epidaurus he won the brazen mace marks on those broader features of the legend with which Periphetes had been wont to sur- which we have here noticed. That part of it prise the unwary passenger. In the Isthmus which relates to the journey from Trcezen he made Sinis undergo the same fate with his seems to be grounded on the fact that the victims, whom he had rent to pieces between coasts of the Saronic Gulf were early occupied two pines; and he celebrated this victory by by kindred tribes of the Ionian race. Hence renewing the Isthmian games, which had been Poseidon, the great Ionian deity, is the father founded in honour of the sea-god Palkemon, and of Theseus, as the national hero: the name of were sacred to Poseidon. Before he left the _IEgeus was probably no more than an epithet Isthmus, he did not disdain to exert his strength of the same god. The journey of Theseus, in destroying the wild sow of Crommyon. In however, must signify something more than a the territory of Megara he was again stopped mere national relation; for its prominent feaat a narrow pass hewn in a cliff, from which ture is a successful struggle with some kind of Sciron delighted to thrust wayfaring men into obstacles. It may, perhaps, be best explained the waves. Theseus purified the accursed by the supposition that a period was rememrock by hurling the tyrant down its side, and bered when the union of the Ionian tribes of cleared the Scironian road of dangers and ob- Attica and the opposite coast of Peloponnesus stacles. So, still struggling and conquering- was cemented by the establishment of'periodfor even in Eleusis and in Attica he met with ical meetings, sacred to the national god, not fresh antagonists-he forced his way to the without opposition and interruption. The lebanks of the Cephisus, where he was first wel- gend seems likewise to indicate that, during comed and purified from all this bloodshedby the same period, perhaps as an effect of the the hospitable Phytalids. RecognisedbyLEgeus, troubles which were thus composed, a change he crushed a conspiracy of his kinsmen, who took place in the ruling dynasty at Athens. viewed him as an intruder; and then sailed to This appears to be implied by the tradition that Crete, to deliver Attica from the yoke of Minos, 2Egeus and Theseus were strangers to the line who, every ninth year, exacted a tribute of of Erechtheus. Both came from Megara to Athenian youths and virgins, and doomed them take possession of Attica; and the accounts to perish in the jaws of the Minotaur. This that Pandion fled from Athens to reign in Mewas the more tragic story: according to anoth- gara, and that Theseus, when he had mounted er tradition, they were only detained in Crete - Plt., Thes., 16. THE HEROES AND THEIR AGE. 75 the throne, added Megara to his dominions, were of Cretan origin. These settlements may be considered as expressing the same fact though they are commonly referred either di in an inverted order. But there seems to be rectly or indirectly to Minos, may easily be con no sufficient ground for referring any of these ceived to have been the work of more than one traditions to a migration by which the Ionians generation. The more interesting and difficult first became masters of Attica. question which they raise is, to what race MiT'he legend of the Cretan expedition, most nos and his people belong! It is interesting, probably, also preserves some genuine histori- because, according to a common opinion, this cal recollections. But the only fact which ap- people possessed institutions which subsequentpears to be plainly indicated by it is a tem- ly became the model of those of Sparta; but porary connexion between Crete and Attica. there are few questions which perplex the inWhether this intercourse was grounded solely quirer more by the conflict of reasons and auon religion, or was the result of a partial do- thorities. We must briefly direct the reader's minion exercised by Crete over Athens, it attention to what seem to be the most imporwould be useless to inquired; and still less can tant points in the inquiry. we pretend to determine the nature of the By Homer, Minos is described as the son of Athenian tribute, or that of the Cretan worship Jupiter and of the daughter of Phcenix,* whom to which it related. That part of the legend all succeeding authors name Europa; and he is which belongs to Naxos and Delos was proba- thus carried back into the remotest period of bly introduced after these islands were occu- Cretan antiquity known to the poet, apparently pied by the Ionians. But the part assigned in as a native hero, illustrious enough for a divine these traditions to Minos, leads us to inquire a parentage, and too ancient to allow his descent little farther into the character and actions of to be traced to any other source. But in a this celebrated personage, who is represented genealogy recorded by later writers, he is likeby the general voice of antiquity as having rais- wise the adopted son of Asterius, a descended& Crete to A higher degree of prosperity and ant of Dorus the son of Hellen, and is thus conpower than it ever reached at any subsequent nected with a colony said to have been led into period. Minos appears in the twofold charac- Crete by Teutamus, or Tectamus, son of Doter of a victorious prince, who exercises a salu- rus, who is related either to have crossed over tary dominion over the sea and the neighbour- from Thessaly, or to have embarked at Malea ing islands, and of a wise and just lawgiver, after having led his followers by land into Lawhoexhibitsto Greece the firstmodelof a well- conia.t It is his son Asterius who marries ordered state. In his former capacity he unites Europa, and leaves his kingdom to her son Mithe various tribes of Greece under his sceptre, nos. This somewhat marvellous migration, raises a great navy, scours the.Egean, and though not expressly mentioned by any very subdues the piratical Carians and Leleges, weighty author, seems to be indirectly recogmakes himself master of the Cyclades, and nised by the testimony of Homer himself, who, plants various colonies, undertakes a success- in the Odyssey, describes the mixed population ful expedition against Megara and Attica, and of Crete as composed of Achaeans, Eteocretes imposes tribute, as we have seen, on his van- (genuine Cretans), and Cydonians; to whom quished enemies: he is even said to have car- are added Dorians, with an epithet denoting a ried his arms into Sicily, where, indeed, he is triple division of some kind, and Pelasgians, cut off by treachery, and his fleet destroyed; yet who are also distinguished by an epithet which his people remain there, and found a settlement seems to show that they are known to the poet which preserves his name. The leading strokes as an independent race. in this outline are confirmed by the concurrent But this evidence, whatever may be its force, testimony of Herodotus, Thucydides, and Aris- would be of secondary moment if it were certotle, and by a crowd of independent traditions; tain that Minos had left monuments of his reign, nor does there seem to be any reason to think which can be ascribed only to a Dorian prince that it greatly exaggerates the truth. Crete, or people. And this opinion, which seems to observes Aristotle,* seems formed by nature, have been entirely unknown to the ancients, has and fitted by its geographical position, for the been maintained by a modern author,+ who has command of Greece; and, indeed, the insignifi- placed it in the most attractive light with which cance to which it was reduced during the his- learning and ingenuity could recommend it. torical period, is more extraordinary than the His elaborate argument mainly turns on the relitransient lustre which falls upon it in the myth- gious institutions which are commonly referred ical ages. to the age of Minos. According to this view, the The dominion of the Cyclades was an almost Cretan settlers who, during that period, spread indispensable condition of the naval power at- over the islands and the eastern shores of the tributed to Minos, and the tradition that they XEgean, introduced there the worship of their were subject to his rule is confirmed by nu- national god-the Dorian Apollo-with his charmerous traces. Two of their towns, as well as acteristic symbols, rites, and oracular shrines: the Isle of Paros, are said to have borne the they founded the numerous temples on the coast name of Minoa. But Cretan colonies were un- of Troas, where he reigned, undoubtedly long doubtedly spread much farther over the islands before the time of Homner, over Chryse and and coasts of the Mediterranean, as in Chios Cilla, as well as the neighbouring island of and Rhodes,t in Caria and Lycia, and even in Tenedos.~ Still more celebrated in after times Lernnos and Thrace; and, according to a le- were his oracles at Didyma, or Branchidw, near gend adopted by Virgil, the Teucrians of Troas Miletus; at Claros, near Colophon; and at Pa* Pol., ii., 10. Il., xiv., 321. t Apollod., iii., 2, 1. Diod., v., 59, 79; and Hoeck, Kreta, t Diod., iv., 60; v., 80. Strabo, x., p. 475. Apolled., vol ii., p. 215-394. iii., o. 1. t C.. Mueller (Dorica-.. in.,.n 76 HISTORY OF GREECE. tara. near the mouth of the Xanthus, in Lycia, then, this argument should appear to fail, very which appear to have been all connected with slight evidence will be left for the Dorian colony Cretan settlements. A very early intercourse of Tectamus. The passage of the Odyssey is between Crete and the Delphic oracle is inti- by no means conclusive. The poet knew of mated by one of the Homeric hymns, in which Dorians in Crete in his own day; and even if Apollo himself is introduced conducting a band he was aware that their settlements were comof Cretans, who came from Cnossus, the city paratively recent, he might not scruple to comof Minos, to Crissa, and to his sanctuary at the plete his description by enumerating them with foot of Parnassus, where he constitutes them the other inhabitants of the island. Indeed, if his ministers. And the substance of this legend he had the age of Ulysses in view, and had ever seems to be confirmed both by the name of heard of Cnossus as the capital of a Dorian Crissa, and by other similar traditions; as that state, to which the rest of Crete was subject in the Cretan Chrysothemis was the first who won the reign of Minos, he would scarcely have the meed of poetry at Delphi, by a hymn in thrown the different races so indiscriminately nonour of the god, and that his father Carmanor together. Yet this passage was probably the had purified Apollo and Artemis after they had occasion of the story about the colony of Tecslain the Python.* Even the Athenian tribute, tamus; and the epithet given to the Dorians and the Cretan expedition of Theseus, present seems to have suggested the fiction that Minos some features which appear to indicate an af- divided the island into three districts, and foundfinity with the religion of Delphi. The number ed a city in each.* of seven youths and seven virgins is the same If, however, Minos and his people are not to as that with which the wrath of Apollo and Ar- be considered as Dorians, it appears to follow temis was anciently propitiated at Sicyon;t that the political institutions of Minos can have and, according to Aristotle, the descendants of been but very slightly connected with those the Athenian captives, who were not sacrificed, which afterward existed in the Dorian states but only detained in Crete to the end of their of Crete, and we therefore reserve our descriplives in sacred servitude, were afterward sent tion of the latter for the period when they were to Delphi with a company-of other hierodules, most probably first introduced into the island. whom the Cretans, in fulfilment of an ancient In this respect no reliance can safely be placed vow, dedicated to the service of Apollo.: The- on the authority of those ancient writers who seus, too, is said to have led a suppliant proces- represent Minos as having furnished a model sion to the temple of the same god at Athens, which was imitated by Lycurgus. The Cretan before he embarked on his voyage to Crete; Dorians, who found -the fame of Minos as a and, according to the Athenian tradition, it was powerful king, a wise lawgiver, and a righteous to discharge a vow which he made on his re- judge, widely spread over their new country, turn, that the sacred vessel called the Theoris may naturally have been inclined to attach so sailed every year from Athens with offerings glorious a name to their own institutions. Nor for the altar of Apollo at Delos.Q need it be denied that there was an historical This will suffice to illustrate the nature of ground for this celebrity; but in a rude age the arguments which have been drawn from the small improvements in the frame of society religious institutions of Crete, for the opinion might afford a sufficient foundation for it. Hence that a Dorian colony existed there in the days it may easily be believed that, as Aristotle of Minos. Their force is very much weakened, seems to intimate,t several usages were here both by the great obscurity which hangs over and there retained during the Dorian period, the origin of all such institutions in Greece, and which had been transmitted from the time of by some indications which point to a different Minos. On the other hand, it is extremely difficonclusion. There is scarcely sufficient evi- cult to conceive that a system of government, dence that the Cretan settlers in Asia intro- such as was established in the Dorian states of duced that worship of Apollo which we find Crete, could have been combinedwith that naval established in later times. But, even when this dominion which Minos is said to have acquired: is admitted, it still remains uncertain how far the later colonists, indeed, are expressly related this worship was ever peculiar to the Dorian to have preferred inland situations;T nor is it race. On the other hand, though there are very intelligible how the people of Minos, if it traces of a very ancient connexion between was a detachment from a small tribe which was Crete and Delphi, it is by no means clear tht long unable to maintain its ground against its the religion of Delphi was predominant in the neighhbours in Greece, could so early have un-. island in the age of Minos; and the legend- of dertaken foreign conquests, and have planted so Minos himself seems rather to belong to a totally many distant colonies. different circle of mythology. The fables of his It is not necessary that we should attempt to birth, and those of the mythical persons by substitute a new hypothesis for the opinion whom he is surrounded-Europa and Pasiphme, which we found ourselves compelled to reject. Ariadne and the Minotaur-transport us into a But, if we might hazard a conjecture on the region wholly foreign to the worship of the subject, we should be inclined to suspect that Delphic god. Minos is a son of Jupiter, not, as the maritime greatness of Crete belonged prina Dorian hero would probably have been repre- cipally to the Phcenicians, with whom Minos sented, of Apollo; nor is it from Apollo, as the appears, both from the common account of his Spartan lawgiver, but from Jupiter, that he is origin, and from the general aspect of the lesaid to have derived his political wisdom. If, gends concerning him, to have been much more nearly connected than with the Dorians. Not, * Paus., x., 7, 2; ii., 7, 7. t Ib., ii., 7, 8. however, as if Phoenicians had ever formed a: Plut., Thes., 16. ~ Plato, Phaed., p. 58. Compare, however, the origin of * Strabo, x., p. 476. Diod., v., 78. t Pol., ii.. 10. the Oschophoria, described by Proclus, ed. Gaisf., p. 388. t Paus., iii., 2. 7. THE HEROES AND THEIR AGE. 77 considerable part *of the population of Crete. been pared down into an historical form, and its We would only suggest that the age of Minos marvellous and poetical features have been all may not improbably be considered as represent- effacea, so that nothing is left but what may aping a period when the arts, introduced by Phce- pear to belong to its pith and substance, it benician settlers, had raised one of the Cretan comes, indeed, dry and meager enough, but not tribes, under an able and enterprising chief, to much more intelligible than before. It still rea temporary pre-eminence over its neighbours, lates an adventure, incomprehensible in its dewhich enabled it to establish a sort of maritime sign, astonishing iA its execution, connected empire. This supposition may, perhaps, afford with no conceivable cause, and with no sensible the easiest explanation of the singular legend effect. The narrative, reduced to the shape in that Minos perished in Sicily, whither he had which it has often been-thought worthy of a sailed in pursuit of Daedalus. This story seems place in history, runs as follows: In the generato have had its origin in the progress of the tion before the Trojan war, Jason, a young Phoenician settlements towards the west. Daed- Thessalian prince, had incurred the jealousy of alus flies before Minos, first to Sicily, and then his kinsman Pelias, who reigned at Iolcos. The to Sardinia.* In Sicily he leaves wondeqrul crafty king encouraged the adventurous youth monuments of his art among the rude natives, to embark in a maritime expedition full of diffiand particularly exerts his skill in strengthen- culty and danger. It was to be directed to a ing and adorning the temple of Venus at Eryx,t point far beyond the most remote which Greek which was most probably founded by Phceni- navigation had hitherto reached in the same cians. According to the Cretan tradition, the quarter; to the eastern corner of the'sea, so disaster of Minos was attended with the total celebrated in ancient times for the ferocity of downfall of Crete's maritime power; and the the barbarians inhabiting its coasts, that it was language of Herodotus seems to imply that it commonly supposed to have derived from them was only after this event that the island was the name of Axenus, the inhospitable, before it occupied by a Hellenic population; his silence, acquired the opposite name of the Euxine, from at all events, proves that he had never heard the civilization which was at length introduced of a migration of Dorians from Thessaly to by Greek settlers. Here, in the land of the Crete.$ Colchians, lay the goal, because this contained Our plan obliges us to pass over a great num- the prize, from which the voyage has been freber of wars, expeditions, and achievements of quently called the adventure of the golden these ages, which were highly celebrated in fleece. Jason having built a vessel of uncomheroic song, not because we deem them to con- mon size —in more precise terms, the first fiftytain less of historical reality than others which oared galley his country had ever launchedwe mention, but because they appear not to and having manned it with a band of heroes, have been attended with any important or last- who assembled from various parts of Greece to ing consequences. We might otherwise have share the glory of the enterprise, sailed to been induced to notice the quarrel which divided Colchis, where he not only succeeded in. the the royal house of Thebes, and led to a series principal object of his expedition, whatever this of wars between Thebes and Argos, which ter- may have been, but carried off Medea, the minated in the destruction of the former city, daughter of the Colchian king.Eetes. and the temporary expulsion of the Cadmeans, Though this is an artificial statement, framed its ancient inhabitants. Hercules and Theseus to reconcile the main incidents of a wonderful undertook their adventures either alone, or with story with nature and probability, it still conthe aid of a single comrade; but in these Theban tains many points which can scarcely be exwars we find a union of seven chiefs; and such plained or believed. It carries us back to a peconfederacies appear to have become frequent riod when navigation was in its infancy among in the latter part of the heroic age. So a numer- the Greeks; yet their first essay at maritime ous band of heroes was combined in the enter- discovery is supposed at once to have reached prise which, whatever may have been its real the extreme limit which was long after attained nature, became renowned as the chase of the by the adventurers who gradually explored the Calydonian boar.S We proceed to speak of two same formidable sea, and gained a footing on expeditions much more celebrated, conducted, its coasts. The success of the undertaking, like these, by a league of independent chieftains, however, is not so surprising as the project itbut directed, not to any part of Greece, but self, for this implies a previous knowledge of against distant lands; we mean the voyage of the country to be explored, which it is very difthe Argonauts, and the siege of Troy, which ficult to account for. But the end proposed is will conclude our review of the mythical period still more mysterious, and, indeed, can only be of Grecian history. explained with the aid of a conjecture. Such The Argonautic expedition, when viewed in an explanation was attempted by some of the the light in which it has usually been consider- later writers among the ancients, who perceived, is an event which a critical historian, if he ed that the whole story turned on the golden feels himself compelled to believe it, may think fleece, the supposed motive of the voyage, and it his duty to notice, but which he is glad to pass that this feature had not a sufficiently historical rapidly over as a perplexing and unprofitable appearance. But the mountain torrents of Colriddle. For even when the ancient legend has chis were said to sweep down particles of gold, which the natives used to detain by fleeces dip* Paus., x., 17, 4 ped in the streams. This report suggested a the Diod., iv., 78. A temple of Venus s also erected over mode of translating the fable into historical lanthe tomb of Minos. Diod., iv., 79. 4 vii., 171. ~ A modern author suspects that this was in reality a guage. It was conjectured that the Argonauts military expedition against some of the savage 2Etolial had been attracted by the metallic treasures of tribes, and that the name of one of them (the Aperanti) i Boggestedi the legend. Plass, i.} p. 40o. the country, and that the golden fleece was a suggested the legend. Plass, i., p. 405. 78 HISTORY OF GREECE. poetical description of the process which they by parallel instances of Greek superstition; and had observed, or, perhaps, had practised; an it scarcely leaves room to doubt that it was interpretation certainly more ingenious, or, at from this religious belief of the people among least, less absurd than those by which Diodorus whom the Argonautic legend sprang up that it transforms the fire-breathing bulls which Jason derived its peculiar character, and that the exwas said to have yoked at the bidding ofiEetes, pedition, so far as it was the adventure of the into a band of Taurians who guarded the fleece, golden fleece, was equally unconnected with piand the sleepless dragon which watched over racy, commerce, and discovery. It closely reit into their commander Draco; but yet not sembled some of the romantic enterprises celemore satisfactory, for it explains a casual, im- brated in the poetry of the Middle Ages, the material circumstance, while it leaves the es- object of which was imaginary, and the direcsential point in the legend wholly untouched. tion uncertain. And so Pindar represents it as The epithet golden, to which it relates, is mere- undertaken for the purpose of bringing back, ly poetical and ornamental, and signified nothing with the golden fleece, the soul of Phrixus, more, as to the nature of the fleece, than the which could not rest in the foreign land to which epithets white or purple, which were also ap- it had been banished. plied to it by early poets.* According to the But the tradition must also have had an hisoriginal and genuine tradition, the fleece was a torical foundation in some real voyages and adsacred relic, and its importance arose entirely ventures, without which it could scarcely have out of its connexion with the tragical story of arisen at all, and could never have become so Phrixus, the main feature of which is the hu- generally current as to be little inferior in ceman sacrifice which the gods had required from lebrity to the tale of Troy itself. If, however, the house of Athamas. His son Phrixus either the fleece had no existence but in popular be offered himself, or was selected through the ar- lief, the land where it was to be sought was a tifices of his stepmother Ino, as the victim; but, circumstance of no moment. In the earlier at the critical moment, as he stood before the form of the legend, it might not have been naaltar, the marvellous ram was sent for his de- med at all, but only have been described as the liverance, and transported him over the sea, ac- distant, the unknown land; and after it had cording to the received account, to Colchis, been named, it might have been made to vary where Phrixus, on his arrival, sacrificed the ram with the gradual enlargement of geographical to Jupiter, as the god who had favoured his es- information. But in this case the voyage of cape;t the fleece was nailed to an oak in the the Argonauts can no longer be considered as Grove of Mars, where it was kept by.Eetes as an insulated adventure, for which no adequate a sacred treasure, or palladium. motive is left, but must be regarded, like the This legend was not a mere poetical fiction, expedition of the Tyrian Hercules, as reprebut was grounded on a peculiar form of religion senting a succession of enterprises, which may which prevailed in that part of Greece from have been the employment of several generawhich the Argonauts are said to have set out tions. And this is perfectly consistent with the on their expedition, and which remained in vig- manner in which the adventurers are most propour even down to the Persian wars. Herodo- erly described. They are Minyans-a branch tus informs us that, when Xerxes, on his march of the Greek nation, whose attention was very to Greece, had come to Alus, a town of the early drawn, by their situation-not, perhaps, Thessalian Achaia, situate near the Gulf of without some influence from the example and Pagasee, in a tract sometimes called the Atha- intercourse of the Phoenicians —to maritime purmantian Plain, his guides described to him the suits. The form which the legend assumed rites belonging to the temple of the Laphystian was probably determined by the course of Jupiter, an epithet equivalent to that under their earliest naval expeditions. They were which Phrixus is elsewhere said to have sacri- naturally attracted towards the northeast, first ficed the ram to the same god. The eldest among by the islands that lay before the entrance of the descendants of Phrixus was forbidden to en- the Hellespont, and then by the shores of the ter the council-house at Alus, though their an- Propontis and its two straits. Their succescestor Athamas was the founder of the city. If sive colonies, or spots signalized either by hosthe head of the family was detected on the for- tilities or peaceful transactions with the natives, bidden ground, he was led in solemn proces- would become the landing-places of the Argosion, covered with garlands, like an ordinary nauts. That such a colony existed at Lemnos victim, and sacrificed. Many of the devoted seems unquestionable, though it does not follow race were said to have quitted their country to that Euneus, the son of Jason, who is described avoid this danger, and to have fallen into the in the Iliad as reigning there during the siege snare when they returned after a long absence. of Troy, was an historical personage. But the The origin assigned to this rite was, that after voyages of the Minyans appear to have been the escape of Phrixus, the Achamans had been bounded by the mouth of the Euxine, or, if they on the point of sacrificing Athamas himself to extended farther, to have been confined to its appease the anger of the gods, but that he was European coast, where Salmydessus, and Cytea rescued by the'timely interference of Cytisso- itself, were originally situated; afterward the rus, son of Phrixus, who had returned from the former name was transferred to the coast of Colchian LEa, the land of his father's exile; Asia, and the latter to Colchis, or Scythia. Hehence the curse, unfulfilled, was transmitted rodotus mentions -LEa (a word signifying a land forever to the posterity of Phrixus. This story, or country), with the addition of the Colchian, strange as it may sound, not only rests on un- as the term of the Argonautic expedition. And questionable authority, but might be confirmed Homer also appears to have heard of LEa, as he had of dEetes, but to have placed his kingt SZchl Ao. llMueller, Orchomenos, p. 164. dom., as well as the mEaean Island, the abode o? ]'Zeb~ ~i,~to~. Mueller, Orchomenos, p. 164. THE HEROES AND THEIR AGE. 79 his sister Circe, in the west.* At all events, to the local legend, she had not murdered her it is very doubtful whether he had ever heard I children; they had been killed by the Corinof Colchis, which he never mentions, though thians; and the public guilt was expiated by:Greece must have rung with the name, if the annual sacrifices offered to'Her6, in whose temArgonauts had really penetrated so far; and he ple fourteen boys, chosen every twelvemonth transports the moving rocks, between which from noble families, were appointed to spend a Her6, for the sake of her favourite Jason, had year in all the ceremonies of solemn mourning. carried his ships, into the Sicilian Sea. The But we cannot here pursue this part of the subconclusion to which we are led by Homer's si- ject any farther. The historical side of the lelence, as well as by all the circumstances of the gend seems to exhibit an opening intercourse case, will be little shaken by the supposed mon- between the opposite shores of the.AEgean. If uments of Phrixus and Jason, which Strabo al- however, it was begun by the northern Greeks, leges as proofs of the actual presence of these it was probably not long confined to them, but heroes in the countries east of the Euxine, with was early shared bythose of Peloponnesus. It any one who reflects how easily such monu- would be inconsistent with the piratical habits ments start up where a legend has once become of the early navigators to suppose that this incurrent. It is not even necessary to suppose tercourse was always of a friendly nature, and that the numerous chapels in honour of Jason, it may, therefore, not have been without a real of which, however, the geographer speaks only ground that the Argonautic expedition was from report, were all either fancied or founded sometimes represented as the occasion of the by Greeks. When the wonderful tale had spread first conflict between the Greeks and Trojans. inland, the barbarians who adopted it would soon WVe therefore pass, by a natural, transition, out be able to produce vestiges of Jason's expedi- of the mythical circle we have just been tracing, tion among them, as at this day some of the into that of the Trojan war; and the light in Caucasian tribes are said to perform a kind of which we have viewed the one may serve to heathen worship at caverns in their valleys guide us in forming a judgment on the historiwhich they imagine to have been consecrated cal import of the other.* by the presence of the Prophet Elias, whom We have already seen in what manner Euthey hold in the highest reverence, and consult rystheus, the son of Sthenelus, had usurped with sacrifices, as an oracular deity, without the inheritance which belonged of right to Herhaving the slightest notion of his character and cules, as the legitimate representative of Perhistory.t Strabo himself believed that Jason seus. Sthenelus had reserved Mycenae and had marched into Armenia, and that this coun- Tiryns for himself; but he had bestowed the try derived its name from his companion, the neighbouring town of Midea on Atreus and Thessalian Armenus; and he saw nothing im- Thyestes, the sons of Pelops, and uncles of probable in the opinion that both Jason and Eurystheus. On the death of Hercules, Eurys.Medea had reigned in Media, which was sup- theus pursued his orphan children from one posed to have been named after the heroine, or place of refuge to another, until they found an her son Medus: a specimen of credulity which asylum in Attica. Theseus refused to surrenat once marks the degree of deference due to der them, and Eurystheus then invaded Attica the geographer's authority in such questions, in person; but his army was routed, and he and the tendency of the fable to widen its geo- himself slain by Hyllus, the eldest son of Hergraphical range. cules, in his flight through the Isthmus. Atreus If; however, it should be asked in what light succeeded to the throne of his nephew, whose the hero and heroine of the legend are to be children had been all cut off in this disastrous viewed on this hypothesis, it must be answered expedition; and thus, when his sceptre dethat both are most probably purely ideal per- scended to his son Agamemnon, it conveyed sonages, connected with the religion of the the sovereignty of an ample realm. While the people to whose poetry they belong. Jason house of Pelops was here enriched with the was, perhaps, no other than the Samothracian spoils of Hercules, it enjoyed the fruits of his god or hero Jasion, whose name was sometimes written in the same manner, the favourite of * In the account here given of the Argonautic expedition, we have adopted the view of the subject which was first Demeter, as his namesake was of Her6, and unfolded, with a profusion of learning and ingenious combithe protector of mariners, as the Thessalian nations, by Mueller, in his Orchomenos, and which still aphero was the chief of the Argonauts. Medea pears to us, in its leading outlines, the only tenable hyphave been originally another form of othesis. No other with which we are acquainted either seems to have been originally another form of explains, or is reconcilable with, all parts of the legend. Her6 herself, and to have descended, by a com- Weichert (who seems not to have seen Mueller's work, mon transition, from the rank of a goddess into though his own was published a year later), in his book that of a heroine, when an epithet had been (Urber Apollonius von Rhodus), endeavours to give a more specious form to the common story, but with little success. mistaken for a distinct name. We have al- He makes the fleece to signify the treasures of Phrixus, ready seen that the Corinthian tradition claim- who flies with them (from some unknown motive), and, of ed her as belonging properly to Corinth, one of all places in the world, to Colchis, where, according to the barbarous usage of the country, he is murdered by 2Eetes the principal seats of the Minyalt race. The Intelligence of this outrage reaches Greece by means of the tragical scenes which rendered her stay there commerce which, notwithstanding the ferocity of the Col so celebrated were commemorated by religious chians, is kept up between them and the 2Eolids; and the heroes embark, not in a single ship, but in a fleet, to avenge rites, which continued to be observed until the the murder, and to recover the treasure. Plass (i., 315, city was destroyed by the Romans. According 416) attempts to combine Mueller's hypothesis with one of his own, about a settlement of the Phwenicians at Orchomenus. They are driven out of the country by the Min* The Fountain of Artacia, a scene so memorable in the yans, and leave behind them a tradition of the riches which Argonautic legend, which fixes it in the neighbourhood of they have carried away (as Plass, following the steps of Cyzicus, is, in the Odyssey (x., 108), together with the gi- Boettiger, supposes) to the northeast; and the Minvans now ants who dwell near it, placed on the coast of Italy. undertake a series of voyages, in the hope of finding and t Klaproth, Tableau du Caucase, p. 99. plundering them. But why not rather make for Phcenicia 7 80 HISTORY OF GREECE. triumphant valour in another quarter. He had with the manners of the age-as if a popula bestowed Laconia on Tyndareus, the father of tale, whether true or false, could be at variance Helen; and when Agamemnon's brother, Mene- with them. The feature in the narrative which laus, had been preferred to all the other suiters strikes us as in the highest degree improbable, of this beautiful princess, Tyndareus resigned setting the character of the persons out of the his dominions to his son-in-law. In the mean question, is the intercourse implied in it bewhile a flourishing state had risen up on the tween Troy and Sparta. As to the heroine, it eastern side of the Hellespont. Its capital, would be sufficient to raise a strong suspicion Troy, had been'taken by Hercules, with the of her fabulous nature, to observe that she is assistance of Telamon, son of.Eacus, but had classed by Herodotus with Io, and Europa, and been restored to Priam, the son of its conquer- Medea, all of them persons who, on distinct ed king, Laomedon, who reigned there in peace grounds, must clearly be referred to the domain and prosperity over a number of little tribes, of mythology. This suspicion is confirmed by until his son Paris, attracted to Laconia by the all the particulars of her legend; by her birth;* fame of Helen's beauty, abused the hospitality by her relation to the divine Twins, whose worof Menelaus by carrying off his queen in his ship seems to have been one of the most ancient absence. All the chiefs of Greece combined forms of religion in Peloponnesus, and especialtheir forces, under the command of Agamem- ly in Laconia; and by the divine honours paid non, to avenge this outrage, sailed with a great to her at Sparta and elsewhere.t But a still armament to Troy, and, after a siege of ten stronger reason for doubting the reality of the years, took and razed it to the ground (B.C. motive assigned by Homer for the Trojan war 1184). is, that the same incident recurs in another Such is the brief outline of a story which the circle of fictions, and that, in the abduction of poems of Homer have made familiar to most Helen, Paris only repeats an exploit also atreaders long before they are tempted to inquire tributed to Theseus. This adventure of the into its historical basis; and it is, consequently, Attic hero seems to have been known to Hodifficult to enter upon the inquiry without some mer; for he introduces.Ethra, the mother of prepossessions unfavourable to an impartial Theseus, whom the Dioscuri were said to have judgment. Here, however, we must not be carried off from Attica when they invaded it to deterred from stating our view-of the subject recover their sister, in Helen's company at by the certainty that it will appear to some Troy. Theseus, when he came to bear her paradoxical, while others will think that it away, is said to have found her dancing in the savouis' of excessive credulity. The reality temple of the goddess, whose image her daughof the siege of Troy has sometimes been ques- ter, Iphigenia, was believed to have brought tioned, we conceive, without sufficient ground, home from Scythia; a feature in the legend and against some strong evidence.. According which perhaps marks the branch of the Laceto the rules of sound criticism, very cogent ar- daemonian worship to which she belonged. Acguments ought to be required to induce us to cording to another tradition, Helen was carried reject, as a mere fiction, a tradition so ancient, off by Idas and Lynceus, the Messenian pair so universally received, so definite, and so in- of heroes who answer to the' Spartan Twins: terwoven with the whole mass of the national variations which seem to show that her abducrecollections, as that of the Trojan war. Even tion was a theme for poetry originally independif unfounded, it must still have had some ade- ent of the Trojan' war, but which might easily quate occasion and motive; and it is difficult and naturally be associated with that event. to imagine what this could have been, unless If, however, we reject the traditional occait arose out of the Greek colonies in Asia; and sion of the Trojan war, we are driven to conin this case its universal reception in Greece. jecture in order to explain the real connexion itself is not easily explained. The leaders of of the events; yet not so as to be wholly withthe earliest among these colonies, which were out traces to direct us. We have already obplanted in the neighbourhood of Troy, claimed served that the Argonautic expedition was Agamemnon as their ancestor; but if this had sometimes represented as connected with the suggested the story of his victories in Asia, first conflict between Greece and Troy. This their scene would probably have been fixed in was according to the legend which numbered the very region occupied by his descendants, Hercules among. the Argonauts, and supposed not in an adjacent land. On the other hand, him, on the voyage, to have rendered a service the course taken by this first (.1olian) migra- to the Trojan king, Laomedon, who afterward tion falls in naturally with a previous tradition defrauded him of his recompense. The main of a conquest achieved by Greeks in this part fact, however, that Troy was taken and sacked of Asia. We therefore conceive it necessary by Hercules, is recognised by Homer; and thus to admit the reality of the Trojan war as a gen- we see it already provoking the enmity or eral fact; but beyond this'we scarcely venture to proceed a single step. Its cause and its is- * Homer describes her as the daughter of Jupiter, but sue, the manner in which it was conducted, does not mention her mother Leda, the wife of Tyndareus. and the parties engaged in it, are all involved The fable, that she was the daughter of Nemesis (Paus., i., 33, 7). sounds to us, who are only familiar with the later in an obscurity which we cannot pretend to idea of Nemesis, as an allegorical fiction; but it may be penetrate. We find it impossible to adopt the quite as ancient as the other, perhaps originally the same poetical story of Helen, partly on account of its as Hesiod's (Schol. Pind., N., x., 150), that she was a daughter of Oceanus and Tethys. inherent improbability, and partly because we t Herod., vi., 61. At Rhodes she was worshipped under are convinced that Helen is a merely mytho- the epithet dvepirtlS, and a legend was devised to account logical person. The common account of the for it (Paus., iii., 19, 10). Compare also the accounts of origin of the war has, indeed, been defended, 6) of the temple f she hrdediates to Ilithzea (Paus., ii., 22, on the ground! that it is perfectly consistent with Plut., Thes., c. 20, 21. THE HEROES AND THEIR AGE. 81 tempting the cupidity of the Greeks, in the can scarcely reconcile the imagination to the generation before the celebrated war; and it transition from the six ships of Hercules to the may easily be conceived, that if its power and vast host of Agamemnon. On the other hand, opulence revived after this blow, it might again there is no difficulty in believing that, whatever excite the same feelings. The expedition of may have been the motives of the expedition, Hercules may indeed suggest a doubt whether the spirit of adventure may have drawn war. it was not an earlier and simpler form of the riors together from most parts of Greece, among same tradition which grew at length into the.whom the southern and northern Achaeans, un argument of the Iliad; for there is a striking der Pelopid and.LEacid princes, took the lead, resemblance between the two wars, not only in and that it may thus have deserved tile charae. the events, but in the principal actors. As the ter, which is uniformly ascribed to it, of a naprominent figures in the second siege are Aga- tional enterprise. The presence of several dis. memnon and Achilles, who represent the royal tinguished chiefs, each attended by a small hand. house of Mycenae and that of the LEacids, so would be sufficient both to explain the celebrity in the first the Argive Hercules is accompanied of the achievement and to account for the event. by the ZEacid Telamon;* and even the quarrel If it were not trespassing too far on the field of and reconciliation of the allied chiefs are fea- poetry, one might imagine that the plan of the tures common to both traditions. Nor, per- Greeks was the same which we find frequently haps, should it be overlooked that, according to adopted in later times, by invaders whose force a legend which was early celebrated in the epic was comparatively weak: that they fortified poetry of Greece,t the Greek fleet sailed twice themselves in a post, from which they con. from Aulis to the coast of Asia. In the. first tinued to annoy and distress the enemy, till voyage it reached the mouth of the Caicus, stratagem or treachery gave them possession where the army landed, and gained a victory of the town. i over Telephus, king of Mysia; but on leaving Though there can be no doubt that the expe. the Mysian coast, the fleet was dispersed by a dition accomplished its immediate object, it storm, and compelled to reassemble at Aulis. seems to be also clear that a Trojan state surThere seems to be no reason for treating this vived for a time the fall of Ilion; for an historian either as a fictitious episode, or as a fact really of great authority on this subject, both from his belonging to the history of the Trojan war. It age and his country, Xanthus, the Lydian, remay have been originally a distinct legend, lated that such a state was finally destroyed by grounded, like that of Hercules, on a series of the invasion of the Phrygians, a Thracian tribe, attacks made by the Greeks on the coast of which crossed over from Europe to Asia after Asia, whether merely for the sake of plunder, the Trojan war.* And this is indirectly con. or with a view to permanent settlements. firmed by the testimony of Homer, who introAs to the expedition which ended in the fall duces Poseidon predicting that the posterity of of Ilion, while the leading facts are so uncer- ZEneas should long continue to reign over the tain, it must clearly be hopeless to form any Trojans, after the race of Priam should be ex' distinct conception of its details. It seems tinct. To the conquerors the war is representscarcely necessary to observe that no more re- ed as no less disastrous in its remote conseliance can be placed on the enumeration of the quences, than it. was glorious in its immediate Greek forces in the Iliad than on the other issue. The returns of the heroes formed a disparts of the poem, which have a more poetical tinct circle of epic poetry, of whidh the Odyssey aspect, especially as it appears to be a compila- includes only a small part, and they.were gention adapted to a later state of things. That erally full of tragical adventures. This calamithe numbers of the armament are, as Thucydi- tous result of a successful enterprise seems to des observed,'exaggerated by the poet, may have been an essential feature in the legend of easily be believed; and, perhaps, we may very Troy; for Hercules also, on his return, was well dispense with the historian's supposition, persecuted by the wrath of Her6, and driven that a detachment was employed in the culti- out of his course by a furious tempest. We vation of the Thracian Chersonesus. "My shall hereafter touch on the historical foundafather," says the son of Hercules in the Iliad, tion of this part of. the story: for the present " came hither with no more than six ships, and we will only remark, that if, as many traces infew men: yet he laid Ilion waste, and made dicate, the legend grew up and spread among her streets desolate.." A surprising contrast the Asiatic Greeks, when newly settled in the indeed to the efforts and the success of Aga- land where their forefathers, the heroes of a memnon, who, with his 1200 ships and 100,000 better generation, had vVon so many glorious men, headed by the flower of the Grecian chiv- fields, it would not be difficult to conceive how alry, lay ten years before the town, often ready it might take this melancholy turn. The siege to abandon the enterprise in despair, and at last of Troy was the last event to which the emiwas indebted for victory to an unexpected fa- grants could look back wxth joy and pride. But vourable turn of affairs. It has. been conjec- it was a bright spot, seen through a long vista, tured that, after the first calamity, the city was checkeredwith manifold vicissitudes, laborious more strongly fortified, and rose rapidly in power struggles, and fatal revolutions. They had come during the reign of Priam; but this supposition as exiles and outcasts to the shores which their ancestors had left as conquerors: it seemed as * Welcker, however (in an essay on the Ajax of Sopho- if the jealousy of the gods had been roused by les, in the Rh. Mus.), thinks that the genealogy by which the greatest achievement of the Achaeans to Telamon was connected with the line of,Eacus was invented after Homer. It was rejected by Pherecydes (Apollod., afflict and humble them. The changes and iii., 12, 6, 8), who represented Telamon as the friend only, sufferings of several generations were naturally not the brother, of Peleus. crowded into a short period following the event t From which it passed into the Cypria of Stasinus, who is probably not later than the eighth century B.C. * Strabo, xiv., 680; xii., 572. VOL. I. —-L 82 HISTORY OF GREECE. which was viewed as their cause, and were manners, and opinions. of this kind of truth represented in the adverse fortune of the prin- the poet's contemporaries were competent and cipal chiefs of the nation. As the rising spirit unbiased judges. A picture which did not corof naval adventure blended itself with these pa- respond to a state of things familiar to them, triotic feelings and recollections, the marvellous they would have found unintelligible and uninregions of the East and West, long objects of teresting. We cannot ascribe either to them dim anticipation and of eager curiosity, were the power of comprehending, or to the poet the dl awn into the pathetic picture; -and the island. ambition of affecting, a learned propriety in his of Alcinous reflected the familiar image of a descriptions, and still less can it be supposed maritime pepple, which combined a keen relish that he drew from any ideal model. It seems for social enjoyments with contempt of danger clear that the generation which he saw was not and hardship, and loved to fill up the intervals parted from that of which he sang by any wide of perilous voyages with the feast, the song, break in thoughts, feelings, or social relations. and the dance. Such a suppositiofi would be not only groundIn discussing thehistorical reality of the Tro- less, but would be at variance with all that we jan war, we have abstained from touching on a know of the gradual progress of change in the question connected with it, which is still a sub- earliest period of Greek history. There may, ject of active. controversy-the antiquity and perhaps, be room for suspecting that he has unoriginal form. of the poems which contain the wittingly passed over some gradations'in the earliest memorial; of.;that event. We have advance of society; that he has sometimes thought it better to;keep: aloof for the present transferred to the age of his heroes what befrom this contioversy; because, in whatever longed properly to his own; and still oftener, manner it may be decided, it does not seem to that he has heightened and embellished the obaffect any of the opinions here advanced. How- jects which he touches; but there is no ground ever near the poet, if he is to be considered as for the opposite suspicion that he has anya single one, may be supposed to have lived to where endeavoured to revive an image of obsothe times of which he sings, it is clear that he lete simplicity, or, for the sake of dramatic cordid not suffer himself to be fettered by his knowl- rectness, has suppressed any advantage in edge of the facts. For aught we know, he may knowledge or refinement which his contempohave been a contemporary of those who had raries possessed. What he represents most fought under Achilles; but it is not the less true truly is the state of Grecian society near to his that he describes his principal hero as the son own day; but if we make due allowance for the of a sea-goddess. He and his hearers most effects of imperceptible changes and for poetprobably looked upon epic song as a vehicle of ical colouring, we are in no danger of falling history, and therefore it required a popular tra- into any material error in extending his dedition for its basis, without which it would have scriptions to the whole period which we term seemed hollow and insipid, its ornaments mis- the Heroic. placed, and its catastrophe uninteresting. But The Homeric world is not a region of enit is equally manifest that the kind of history chantment, called into existence by the wand for which he invoked the aid of the Muses to of a magician; it is at once poetical and real. strengthen his memory, was not chiefly valued In confining our view to its real side, we do not as a recital of real events: that it was one in break the charm by which it captivates the imwhich the marvellous appeared natural, and that agination. The historian's aim, however, is form of the narrative most credible which tend- very different from the poet's: it is the proved most to exalt the glory of his heroes. If in ince of the former to collect what the latter detached passages the poet sometimes appears scatters carelessly and uncorisciously over his to be relating with the naked simplicity of truth, way; to interpret and supply dark and imperwe cannot ascribe any higher authority to these feet hints. For the subjects on which the poet episodes than to the rest of the poem, and must.dwells with delight are not always the most inattribute their seeming plainness and sobriety teresting and instructive to the historical into the brevity of the space allotted to them, rath- quirer, though there are few in which his cuer than to superior accuracy in the transmis- riosity is absolutely disappointed. Homer is sion of their contents. The campaigns of Nes- often minutely exact in describing artificial protor, the wars of Calydon, the expeditions of ductions and technical processes, while the soAchilles, probably appear less poetical than the cial institutions, the moral and religious senbattles before Troy, only because they stand in timents of his age, as things universally underthe background of thepicture as subordinate stood, are never formally noticed, but only begroups, and were, perhaps, transferred into it trayed by accidental allusions. But the light from other legends, in which, occupying a dif- which he affords is confined to the circle into ferent place, they were exhibited in a more which he draws us: it is only one period and marvellous and poetical shape. one stage of society that he exhibits, and lie is But though, when we are inquiring into the wholly silent as to the- steps which led to it. reality of persons and events, we can allow very When we desire to look back to an. antecedent little weight to the authority of Homer, there is period, we are reduced to depend on traditions another more important kind of truth, which we and indications, which are seldom so clear and attribute to his poetry with a conviction which authentic as his evidencewith regard to his own would not be at all shaken, even if it could be age. They are not, however, on that account shown that he was separated from the scenes to be indiscriminately rejected; nor can his siwhich he describes by a longer interval than has lence always, be held conclusive as to things yet been assumed in any hypothesis. The kind which, if they existed, must have come within of truth we mean is that which relates to the his knowledge. From the materials furnished general condition of society, to institutions, by the Homeric poems-examined, however, by GOVERNMENT. 83 the light of historical analogy, and'compared to the general rule.* On the other hand, a with other accounts and vestiges-we shall now broad distinction is drawn between the common endeavour to trace the main features of the freemen and the chiefs, who form two separate Heroic or Homeric form of society. The order classes. The latter are described by various in which we shall review them will lead us suc- titles, denoting their superior dignity, as the cessively to consider the state of government,'best, the foremost, princes, and elders; for this of manners, of religion, knowledge, and arts. last epithet seems already to have been bestowed, with relation rather to the functions of counsellors and judges than to their age. The, essential quality of persons belonging to this CHAPTER VI. higher order was noble birth, which implied no THE GOVERNMENT, MANNERS, RELIGION, KNOWL- thing less than a connexion with the gods themTHE GOVEAND ARTS OF THE REEKS IN THE HERO- selves, to whom every princely house seems to EDGE, have traced its.origin. But though this illustrious parentage constituted one claim of the great I. THE political institutions of the heroic pe- to popular veneration, it would soon have been riod were not contrived by the wisdom of legis- forgotten, or neglected, unless accompanied by lators,.but grew spontaneously out of natural some visible tokens, which were not sought in causes. They appear to have exhibited in every pedigrees or records, but in personal advantapart of Greece a certain resemblance in their ges and merits. The legitimate chief was disgeneral outlines, but the circumstances out of tinguished from the vulgar herd of merely morwhich they arose were probably not every- tal origin by his robust frame, his lofty stature, where the same, and hence a notion of them, his majestic presence, his piercing eye, and founded on thel supposition of their complete sonorous voice, but still more by the virtues uniformity, would probably be narrow and er- which these bodily endowments promised, by roneous. The few scanty hints afforded to skill in warlike exercises, patience under hardus on the transition from the obscure period ship, contempt of dalt.-, and love of glorious which we may call the Pelasgian, to that with enterprises. Pruckr4,c in council, readiness in which Homer has made us comparatively fa- invention, and fluency of speech, though highly miliar, do not enable us to draw any general valued, were not equally requisite to preserve conclusion as to the mode in which it was ef- general respect. But, though the influence of fected. We can'just discern awarlike and ad- the nobles depended on the, degree in which venturous race starting up, and gradually over- they were thus gifted and accomplished, it also spreading the land; but in what relation they needed the support of superior wealth. It was stood to -the former inhabitants, what changes this which furnished them with the means of they introduced in the ancient order of things, undertaking the numerous adventures in which can only be conjectured from the social institu- they proved their valour, while their martial tions which we find subsisting in the later pe- achievements commonly increased both"their riod. These do not, generally, present traces of fame and their riches by the booty which reviolent revolutions and subjugating conquests warded a successful expedition. If the arm of like those of which the subsequent history-of a single chief could often turn the fortune of a Greece furnishes so many examples; yet it is battle, and put to flight a host of common men, natural to imagine that they took place occa- this was undoubtedly owed, not solely to his sionally, and here and there we meet with facts extraordinary prowess, but to the strength of.or allusions which confirm this suspicion. The his armour, the temper of -his weapons, the distinction between slaves and freemen seems fleetness of his steeds, which transported his to have obtained generally, though not, perhaps, chariot from one part of the field to another, universally:* but there is no distinct trace that and secured for him the foremost place, whethit anywhere owed its origin to an invasion er in the flight or the pursuit. which deprived the natives of their liberty. As The kingly form of government appears to soon as war and piracy became frequent, cap- have been the only one known in the heroic tives, taken or bought, were employed in ser- age. Its origin is ascribed by Aristotle to the vile labours, chiefly, it would seem, thoSe of the free choice of the people, which first conferred house; in those of husbandry the poor freemen the royal dignity on the man who had rendered did not disdain to serve the wealthier for hire. some important service to the public by the inBut a class of serfs, reduced to cultivate the troduction of new arts, or by martial achieveland which they had once owned for the benefit ments, or who had collected a body of settlers, of a foreign conqueror, and either bound to it, and assigned to them portions of his own or of or liable to be expelled at his pleasure, if it ex- * Yet, in the Odyssey (iv., 176), Menelaus expresses his isted anywhere, must have been an exception. willingness to give a settlement to Ulysses and his followers by ejecting his own subjects from one of the towns in his * The purchase and use of slaves, indeed, are repeatedly dominions, and planting the Ithacans in their room. This mentioned by Homer: the household of Ulysses is served passage, indeed, has been, condemned as spurious, because by slaves, over whom their master exercises the power of such despotic power seemed inconsistent with the ordinary life and death. But the use of such domestics was, per- relation between king and people in the heroic ages; and haps, nowhere very common, except in the houses of the undoubtedly it would imply a kind of subjection very differgreat, and in several parts of Greece was not introduce, ent from that in which the warriors who fought at Troy till a later period. This is asserted in Herodotus (vi., 137, seem to have stood to their princes: yet, as the result of of the Greeks in general, and of the Athenians in particular peculiar circumstan6es, it. may not be incredible; and the The assertion is repeated by Timaeus (Athen., vi., 86), with less, since Agameninon, whenwhe offers to transfer to Achilparticular reference to the Locrians and Phocians. But les seven towns inhabited by wealthy husbandmen, who when it is said that the Chians were the first Greeks who would enrich their lord by presents and tribute, seems likeused purchased slaves (Theopompus, in Athen., vi., 88), this wise to assume rather a property in them than an authorimust be understood of a regular traffic, as, on the other ty over them. 11., ix., 149. And the same tihing may be hand, Pliny's servitium invenere Lacedaemonii (N. H., vii., intimated when it is said that Peleus bestowed a great pee. 56) -?n-ies only to the Helots. pie, the Dolopes of Phthia, or Phoenix. 11., ix, 483 84 HISTORY OF GREECE. conquered'lands. The latter supposition, un- ploits;'in the division Df the spoils their share less it carries us back to the very beginning of was usually increased by a present previously civil society, is only applicable to the case of a selected'from the common mass. The religious migration or invasion, which implies the previ- rites which they were entitled to delebrate in ous acknowledgment of a prince or chief. But behalt of the people, if they invested their perthat the kingly office was originally bestowed sons with some degree of sanctity, can have addby popular election, as the reward of personal ed little to their real influence. Nor was this merit, seems to be a conjecture which wants greatly increased by their judicial character; historical foundation. Nor do we find among not merely because comparatively few occasions the ancient Greeks any trace of such a distinc- occurred to call it into action, but because it tion as is said to have existed among the an- did not belong to them exclusively. Notwithcient Germans, between kings chosen for their standing the fabulous reputation of Minos and illustrious birth, and commanders chosen for Rhadamanthys, it must be inferred, from the their valour: both qualities were-expected to manner in which Homer describes and alludes meet in the same person: in both, the king was to the administration of justice, that the heroic conspicuous among the nobles, as the latter kings did not usually try causes alone, and that were above the multitude.'; It is, however, in their decisions they expressed the judgment highly probable that the monarchical form of of their assessors, if not of the multitude. In government arose from the patriarchal, with the representation of a trial, which fills one and out of the warlike and adventurous charac- compartnient in the shield of Achilles, the elter of the heroic age. Where the people was ders are seated on the polished stones which almost always in arms, the office of leader nat- were ranged, in a sacred circle, in the marketurally became permanent. The royal houses place; the crowd stands without, kept in order may sometimes have been founded by wealthy by the heralds; but no king appears to preside. and powerful strangers, but it is quite as easy On the other hand, among the royal prerogato conceive -that they often grew, by insensible tives which Telemachus is said to retain in the degrees, into reputation and authority. Homer absence of Ulysses, the judicial office is expressmentions certain divisions of the nation- in a ly mentioned as a source of honour and profit; way implying that they were' elements which not, however, in a way implying that he exerentered into the composition of every Greek cised it alone.. Achilles, swearing by the scepcommunity. Nestor advises Agamemnon to tre which he has received from the herald, marshal his army according to the larger or speaks of it as passing through the hands of smaller bodies in which families were collected, judges in the discharge of their duty, just as we ia order that each might derive aid and encour- see it used by those in the shield. The king agement from the presence of its neighbour:* seems only to have occupied the most distinnot to be included in one is the mark of' an out- guished place on these occasions. So, when law or a homeless vagrant.t It is probable Telemachus convenes an assembly in Ithaca, that, in the heroic age, these tribes and clans he takes his seat in the market-place on his pawere -still regarded more as natural than as po- ternal throne, while the elders reverently make litical associations, and that, in a yet earlier pe- way for him. They must be conceived here to riod, the heads of each exercised a patriarchal occupy a circle, like that of the judges in the rule over its members. The public sacrifices, scene on the shield; the ring of stones may be which in the remotest, certainly not less than fairly presumed to have been a common and in later times, formed the bond of their union, permanent ornament of the public places, where were, it may be supposed, celebrated by the all assemblies, judicial or deliberative, were chief of the principal family, and these priestly held, and it marks the ordinary limits of the functions seem to have been one of the most kingly power. It is evident that the kings took ancient branches'of the regal office,t as they no measures, and transacted no affairs in their were retained the longest. The person to whom official capacity, without the assistance and the they belonged would naturally assume the rest sanction of the chiefs and the people. In the as occasion required. But the -causes wh'ich camp, indeed, Agamemnon frequently summons determined the precedence of a particular fam- a select council of the princes, who may be conily in each tribe and in a state, when several sidered either as his generals or allies. But tribes were united in one body, may have been even there, on great occasions, the whole army infinitely varied, and,'in almost all cases,'lie is assembled, and in peace there seems to beyond the reach of historical investigation. have been no formal and regular distinction beThe nature and prerogatives of the heroic sov- tween a popular assembly and a senate: every ereignty, however, are subject to less doubt public meeting might be regarded in either than its origin. iThe command in war, the per- light. The great men who formed thee inner formance of those sacrifices which were not ap- circle were the counsellors who debated; but propriate to particular priests, and the adminis- no freeman was excluded from the outer space; tration of justice, are mentioned by Aristotle and the presence of the multitude must have as the three main functions of the heroic kings. had some influence on all proceedings. Even It must have been from the discharge of the at the trial the heralds do not prevent them first that they derived the greatest part of their from venting their feelings; and their clamour power. Their authority, if feeble at home, was seems to have had the greater weight, in prostrengthened by the obedience which they were portion as their interests were affected by the able to exact in the field, and, if their enterpri- result of-the deliberation.* ses were successful, by the renown of their ex- Alcinous is described in the Odyssey as king of all the Phaeacians, and yet as only one of i., ii., 362. t 1., ix., 63.__ $ See the whole description )f the sacrifice at Pylus, O)d iii.-I * Cd, iil., 150. 11., ii., 282 GOVERNMENT. 85 thirteen chiefs, who all bear the same title; he the age and character of the person whose birth speaks of himself rather as the first among gave him a claim to the succession. The ordiequals than.as if he belonged to a higher order. nary practice is recognised even in the case of In Ithaca, though there was one acknowledged Telemachus, which forms a seeming exception sovereign, many bore the name of king, and in to it. It is, indeed, represented as uncertain the vacancy of the throne might aspire to the whether the young prince shall finally wield his supreme dignity. There. seems to be no good father's sceptre in his own right; but while the reason for doubting that these instances repre- fate of Ulysses remains unknown, his son consent the ordinary relation of the kings to the no- tinues to enjoy the royal honours and revenues, bles, nor for suspecting that they are less ap- and even Antinous admits that his birth' gives plicable to the earlier times than to a period him a presumptive title to the throne. The unwhen the royal authority was on the decline: certainty, in this instance, seems to have arisen, but here it may be especially necessary to re- not from the want of an acknowledged law or member the remark with which'we set out, and custom to regulate the succession, but from the to be on our guard against laying down any im- peculiar situation of the rightful heir. The genmutable rule and standard for the power of the eral usage is confirmed by the cases in which heroic kings. Though -their functions, indeed, the aged parent resigns the reins of government were pretty accurately determined by custom, to his son, as Ulysses reigns over Ithaca in the the extent of their influence was not regulated lifetime of his father Laertes, and Peleus sinks by the same measure, but must have varied ac- into a private station, in which he needs the cording to their personal character and circum- protection of Achilles. Such instances prove stances. The love anid respect of the people, that personal vigour was necessary to maintain acquired by valour, prudence, gentleness, and the royal dignity; and in general, the king's lemunificence, might often raise the king above gal prerogatives, unless supported by the qualithe nobles by a much greater distance than his ties of the man, were probably a very feeble reconstitutional prerogatives interposed between straint on the independence of the nobles. Most them: though royalty might immediately con- of the great families. seem to have resided in far little solid power, it furnished means which the same town which contained the royal mana vigorous and skilful hand might apply to the sion, which frequently stood on a fortified height, purposes of personal aggrandizement. " It is though we also find frequent mention of their no bad thing for a man," says Telemachus, "to sequestered rural habitations.* But it would be a king; his house presently-grows rich, and appear that a long absence from the town was he himself rises in honour." Some advantages unusual, and was regarded as a kind of exile.< arising from the discharge of the kingly office Homer affords no glimpse of a mode of life have been already mentioned; there were oth- among the heroic nobles at all resembling that ers, perhaps less brilliant, but more definite and of the feudal barons, nor of holds from which certain. The most important of these was the they sallied forth on predatory excursions: domain, which, as it was originally the gift of there may be more room to imagine that, at a the people, seems to have been attached to the distance from the capital, they exercised a sepstation, and not to have been the private pxop- arate jurisdiction, as the heads of their tribes erty of the person; for Telemachus is described or clans. as Setaining the domains of Ulysses; among oth- The word answering to lauw, in the language er rights of the crown, which he was neverthe- of the later Greeks, does not occur in the Holess in danger of losing, if he should not be per- meric poems, nor do they contain any allusion mitted to succeed his father;* but even his en- which might lead us to suppose that any asemy Eurymachus, Who wishes to exclude him semblies ever met for the purpose of legislation. from the throne, declares that no one shall de- Rights, human and divine,T were fixed only by prive him of his patrimony.t Presents appear immemorial usage, confirmed and expounded to have constituted another part of the royal by judicial decisions: in most cases; perhaps, revenue, important enough to be mentioned by the judges had no guide but principles of natuAgamemnon as the chief profit to be expected ral equity. These might have been sufficient from the towns which he proposed to transfer -for such a stage of society if they could have to Achilles; but whether they were stated and been uniformly enforced. But, unless where periodical, or merely voluntary and occasional, the king was able and willing to afford protecis uncertain.T Achilles brands Agamemnon tion and redress, the rich and powerful seem to wiith an epithet signifying that he was one of have.been subject to no more effectual restraint those kings who.devoured the substance of his than the fear of divine anger or of public opinpeople; and Alcinous seems to assert a power ion. These motives were both insufficient to very like that of taxing the Phaeacians at his check the license of the suiters in the absence of pleasure. The administration of justice seems Ulysses. Phcenix, in his youth, had quarrelled always to have been requited with a present with his father, and had thought of murdering from the parties.,The banquets to which the him; hut some friendly deity withheld him, by kings were invited are more than once noticed reminding him of the obloquy, the reproach, and as'a valuable, at least an agreeable, pertinent the foul name of parricide, which he would inof their station. Ii cur by the deed. The state appears not to The crown appears to have been everywhere have interfered in private differences, unless hereditary, according to general usage, though the parties agreed to submit their cause to a the observance of this usage might depend on public tribunal; such a consent is expressly * Od., xi., 185. t oa., i., 402. mentioned in the description of the trial in the f The Xrrapai SEIIa-rTEt, II., ix., 156, may be considered shield of Achilles. The whole community, as stated dues. G Od., xiii., 14. It may, however, mean a purely volun- * O(d., xviii., 358; xi., 188; xxiv., 205; iv., 517. tary contribution. i Od., xi., 185. 11., xii., 311. t Od., xi., 138. t it'6ol sind 1t;s. 86 HISTORY OF GREECE. however, was interested in suppressing quar- I public offences. It may have been originally rels, which threatened to disturb the public connected tAith the same feeling —the desire peace, and must therefore have compelled one of avoiding the pollution of bloodshed, which who had suffered a wrong to accept the cor- seems to have suggested the practice of burypensation established by custom from the ag- ing criminals alive, with a scantling of food gressor Among a people of strong passions by their side. Though Homer makes no menand quick resentment, where the magistrate did tion of this horrible usage, the example of the not undertake to avenge an injury offered to one Roman vestals affords reason for believing that, of his subjects as an offence to himself, there in ascribing it to the Heroic Ages, Sophocles would have been no end of bloodshed, had not followed an authentic tradition. Religious asa more peaceful mode of atonement been sub- sociations seem also to have given rise to the stituted by common agreement. Accordingly, practice, which was likewise common in Greece even the vengeance of a family which had been and Italy, of hurling offenders down a precideprived of a kinsman by violence might be re- pice: they were, perhaps, originally regarded deemed at a stipulated price. Ajax, when he rather as victims devoted to propitiate the anwould set the implacable anger of Achilles in ger of the gods than as debtors to human justice. the strongest light, observes that a man is The mutual dealings of independent states used to accept a compensation from the mur- were not regulated by steadier principles than derter of his brother or his son, so that the one those of individuals. Consciousness of a disremrains in his country after having paid a tinct national existence, and of certain rights heavy price, and the vindictive spirit of the incident to it, manifested itself,.not uniformly kinsman who receives it is stayed. An instinct- and consistently, but only on particular occaive religious feeling, deeply rooted in the bosom sions, and under accidental impulses. It seems of the Greek, though easily overpowered by the not to have exerted itself in restraining individviolence of his passions-a feeling which shrank uals in one community from attacking the memfrom the stain of kindred blood as loathsome bers of another, between which and their own even to the gods —concurred with the motive no hostility had been previously declared, or of general expediency in introducing this usage: known to exist. The case, however, was diffor that feeling, especially in earlier times, em- ferent when two states were not only at peace, braced all freemen who were connected togeth- but in alliance, or intimate amity with each er by the ties of civil society, the rights of.in- other. The people of Ithaca was violently intermarriage, and communion in public worship. censed against the father of Antinous, and was From this feeling also arose a practice, which with difficulty restrained from putting him to Herodotus describes as prevailing among the death and confiscating his property, because Lydians and Phrygians as well as the Greeks, he'had joined the Taphian freebooters in mothat the manslayer withdrew into a foreign lesting the Thesprotians, a friendly nation. land, and did not return to his country till he Piracy was everywhere an honourable occupahad been purified by- some expiatory rites. tion; and' though restitution was sometimes Homer, indeed, though he frequently notices demanded, in the name of the state, for piratithis species of exile, nowhere speaks of reli- cal aggressions which injured persons of high gious ceremonies accompanying it;. but, at station, it is probable that, when the sufferers least, the' antiquity of the religious sentiment were of inferior rank, they were left to right which they imply seems unquestionable.* Le- themselves as they could. - The war between gends which appear to be very ancient, since Pylus and Elis, in which Nestor performed his the custom they refer to is never mentioned first feat of arms, is represented to have arisen in the historical period, describe a voluntary from an unprovoked attack on the part of the servitude as part of the expiation. It is clear Epeans, who took advantage of the defenceless that it would be easier to effect.a compromise condition in which their neighbouts had been in the case of undesigned homicide than of de- left by the invasion of Hercules. In this inliberate murder; yet the voluntary exile seems stance the Pylians. retaliated by a sudden into have been quite as usual in the former as-in road into the E]lean territory. In common the latter. A kind of sanctity seems to have cases, especially where the countries lay wider been attached to the person of the fugitive, and apart, it was, perhaps, more usual first to deit was deemed almost sacrilegious to refuse mand reparation. Heralds, who formed a dishim shelter. tinct class, and whose office was accounted saActs considered as offences against the. com- cred, and seems often to have been hereditary, munity were probably of rare occurrence, and carried on communications between hostile it was only in extraordinary cases that they states; but it does not appear that they were were visited with capital punishment. Eurym- employed, like the Italiain Fetials, to make forachus, in the name of the suiters, threatens mal declarations of war. Halitherses with a mulct for his officious inter- Partial associations among neighbouring ference. It is apparently a sudden irregular states were very early formed, for purposes burst of popular indignation to which Hector partly religious, partly political, of which 1we alludes, when he regrets that the Trojans had shall have occasion to speak hereafter. The not spirit enough to cover Paris with a mantle Trojan war was, or, at least, was very early repof stones. This, however, was also one of the resented as, a national enterprise, and at least ordinary formal modes of punishment for great the legend contributed to awaken the consciousness of a natural unity in the several members depends on thesuch rites distinctly alluded to by Homer of the nation. The name of Hellen, indeed, by depends on the reading of I1., xxiv., 482, where Mueller (Dor., ii., 8, 6, noteo m., in the English translation) infers, which this unity was afterward denoted, had from tho Scholiast, that we ought to read ayvtrEo) for not in the Homeric age become generally prevd(pviov. But propitiatory sacrifices are mentioned, 11., ix., 5un. * Od., xvi., 428. MANNERS. 87 alent, though it seems then already to have erndelicacy.* The father disposed of the maidbeen extended beyond the district of Thessaly, en's hand with absolute authority; but yet it to which it was at first confined, to the whole does not seem that the marriage contract was of Greece north of the Isthmus. Its place is commonly regarded in the light of a bargain most frequently supplied by that of Achaeans. and sale.t Presents were interchanged, probNor does the term barbarous appear to have ably proportioned on both sides to the means of been yet applied to nations, or to have implied the parties. If the connexion was dissolved by any notion of intellectual or moral inferiority: the wife's infidelity, her friends seem to have in Homer it is only used as an epithet of lan- been bound to restore what they had received;$ guage, seemingly, however, to signify, not mere- and if the wife, or the widow,~ was forced, withly a strange, but a rough and uncouth speech; out her fault, to return to her father's house, as the rude sounds of the Sintians are mention- she was entitled to carry her portion back with ed with evident consciousness of a more har- her. But inthis age of heroic enterprise, wealth, monious language. But the poet seems to have and even rank or birth, did not, perhaps, more felt the place which his people filled in the scale powerfully recommend a suiter than strength, of nations, the advantage of their social state. courage, and dexterity in manly sports and marover a solitary Cyclopean life, and over the sav- tial exercises; and these qualities seem often age manners of the Sicels; and on the other to have been tried by a public competition, or hand, the higher rank which the Egyptians and by the undertaking of some difficult adventure.l the Phoenicians had attained in knowledge and It accords with this usage, that in many parts arts. The time was yet to come, though the of Greece, as among ancient Romans, the nuppoet himself was its harbinger, when the con- tial ceremony wore the show of a forcible. abtrast between Greek and barbarian should be duction of the bride.~ thought to swallow up all other distinctions in Homer has drawn a pleasing picture of maidthe human race. enly simplicity, filial tenderness, and hospitable kindness, in the person of the Phaeacian prinII. The laws and institutions of a people can cess Nausicaa, one of his most amiable creations; never be wholly separated from the history of yet he seems to dwell with still greater satisits manners, and are most intimately connected faction on the matronly dignity and conjugal with it in a period when, as among the Greeks devotion, which command our respect and adof the heroic age, law and custom have not yet miration in a Penelope, an Aretd, and an Anbeen discriminated, and are both expressed by dromach6. If, indeed, we should draw our nothe same word. Still it is in the relations which tions as to the state of domestic society in the afford the widest range for individual freedom heroic age from these characters, we might be that national character is most clearly unfolded. in danger of estimating it too favourably. But We shall here touch on a few which may serve the poet himself furnishes hints which may to mark the character of the Greeks, and the serve to correct this impression, especially stage which society had reached among them, when combined with certain mythical tradiin the period which Homer describes. tions, which, however fabulous in their origin, The intercourse between the sexes, though' shbw the view which the later Greeks took of much more restricted than by modern European the manners of their ancestors. The stories of usages, was, perhaps, subject to less restraint the loves of th~ gods, the adventures of a crowd than in the later times of Greece. If it is of heroines, lrke Tyro and _/Ethra, Creusa and entirely destitute. of the chivalrous devotion Coronis, seem clearly to intimate that female which has left so deep a tinge in our manners, purity was not very highly valued. Nausicaa it displays more of truth and simplicity in the calmly declares that she herself disapproves of degree of respect which the stronger sex pays stolen interviews between maidens and their to the. weaker. Before marriage, young per- lovers, and that she is, therefore, the more desisons of different sex and family saw each other rous of avoiding the suspicions which she would only in public, and then at a distance, except certainly incur if she were seen accompanied when some festival might chance to bring them by a stranger on her return into the town. In nearer to each other: as a picture of public re- like manner, numberless tales of the heroic myjoicing in the Iliad exhibits youths and virgins thology, such as those of Helen and (lytanmof rank linked together in the dance, as well as * Thus, in Od., iii., 464, Nestor's daughter is said to have promiscuously joining in a vintage procession.* assisted Telemachus in bathing, anointing, and dressing But the simplicity of the heroic way of life not himself; and in II., v., 905, Hebe appears to render like services to Mars. In Od., vi., 210, we find Nausicaa orderunfrequently drew the maiden out of'doors to ing her female-attendants to attend on Ulysses for the same discharge various household offices, which were purpose; but the hero declines their assistance, expressly afterward confined to slaves; for it was thought on the motive which, according to our feelings, should have prevented it from being offered. Yet almost immediately no more degrading to a young princess to carry after, in the house of Alcinous, he gladly accepts from them her urn to the fountain,t than for her brother the same attendance which his son is described as recei~ving to tend his father's flocks and herds.: It was from Pericaste. A comparison of these data seems to prove to an occasion still more homely, according to that the common usage cannot have included anything grossto an occasion still more homely, according to ly offensive, even to our more refined conceptions of decency. modern prejudices, that Ulysses is represented t Compare, however, Od., xv., 367; xviii., 279, with the as owing his first meeting with the daughter of constant epithet X eaucg6otat. 4 Od., viii., 318. King Alcinous. And it seems to have been not Od., ii., 133, an the commentators. II Apollod., 1. 9,12, 1. unusual for young women of the highest quality O~ This may be inferred, not merely from the Spartan and to attend on the guests of the family in situa- Cretan usages, but from the religious rites and lef, e a tions which appear strangely revolting to mod- founded on this custom, as to which see Welcker, Ueber eine Kretische Kolonie in Theben, p. 68. It is interesting to observe the close resemblance between the Spartan usage * xviii., 567, 593. described by Plutarch (Lycurg, c. 15), and that o.7 the modt Od., vii., 20; x., 107. Pindar, 01., vi., 67. Od., xv., ern Circassians related by Klaproth, Tableau du Caucase, 428.; Od., xiii., 223, and Eustathius, I1., vi., 25. p. 80. 88 HISTORY OF GREECE. nestra, Antaea, Phaedra, and Alcmena, suggest which the mansion can turnish; anda then the the conclusion that the faithlessness of' the inquiries addressed to him imply friendly curi-. wife-which: was undoubtedly often provoked,. osity rather than suspicion or distrust. Indeed, as in the family of Phocenix,* by the inconstan- it was scarcely possible that any disclosure of cy of the husband-was not considered either his condition and.purposes could defeat his as an event of rare occurrence, or an offence claim to friendly entertainment. When Telemof great enormity. And here, again, the Homer- achus arrives at Pylus by sea, after he' has ic poems seem to confirm the inference, not shared the banquet of the Pylians, Nestor asks only by the respect with which we find Helen him whether he is voyaging with any fixed obtreated by the family of her paramour, but' by ject, or merely roving over the sea as a pirate, the manner in which she is introduced in the bent on indiscriminate mischief. ~When the Odyssey, which still more plainly marks the character of a stranger was united with that of wide difference between the feelings of the an- a suppliant, it commanded still greater respect. cient Greeks and those of modern civilized Eu- The stranger and suppliant, says Alcinous to ropeans in this respect. She there appears re- Ulysses, stand in the place of a brother to a stored to her home and to her rank, enjoying man who has the slightest share of right feeling. the unabdted confidence and esteem of her in- It is elsewhere mentioned, as a motive for objured husband, and neither afflicted by the con- serving the laws of hospitality, that the gods sciousness of her fault, nor blushing to allude sometimes visit the cities of men in the liketo it. ness of strangers.* If the suppliant could seat One of the noblest and most amiable sides of himself at the hearth, his person was deemed the Greek character is the readiness with which peculiarly sacred, and his request could scarceit lent itself to contract intimate and durable ly be rejected without impiety. Numerous ocfriendships; and this, is a feature no less prom- casions of this kind were supplied by the chances inent in the earliest than in later times.' It of war, domestic feuds, and sudden provocawas, indeed, connected with the comparatively tions, which, in the quick temper of the Greeks, low estimation in which female society was easily kindled a flame only to be quenched by held; but the devotedness and constancy with blood. And these accidents appear frequently which these attachments were maintained was to have led to a close and permanent connexion not the less admirable and engaging. The he- between families seated in distant lands, which roic companions whom we find celebrated, part- might be transmitted through many generations. ly by Homer, and partly in traditions, which, if In an episode of the Iliad, the ties of hospitality not of equal antiquity, were grounded on the which subsist between the houses of an Argive same feeling,*seem to have but one heart and and a Lycian chief are represented as of suffisoul, with scarcely a wish or object apart, and cient force to restrain them, though before peronly to live, as they were always ready to die, sonally unknown to each other, from a hostile for one another. It is true that the relation be- conflict. An interchange of armour ratifies the tween them is not always one of perfect equal- agreement which the two heroes make to shun ity: but this is a circumstance which, while it each other's'path thenceforward in the battle. often adds a peculiar charm to the poetical de- -The convivial usages of the Greeks present scription, detracts little from the dignity of the an advantageous contrast to the gross intemidea which it presents. Such mere the friend- perance which prevails in the banquets of the ships of Hercules and Iolaus, of Theseus and northern Europeans at a corresponding period Pirithous, of Orestes and Pylades; and though of their social progress. The guests took their these may owe the greater part of their fame places on seats which were ranged along the to the later epic, or even dramatic poetry, the walls'ofthebanquetingroom, andaseparate table moral groundwork undoubtedly subsisted in the was set before each. An ablution, such as is now period to which the traditions are referred. The practised through the East, uniformly preceded argument of the Iliad mainly turns on the affec- the repast. The fare, even in the houses of tion of Achilles for Patroclus, whose love for the great, was of the simplest kind: in the luxthe greater hero is only tempered by reverence urious palace of Alcinous, the only preparations for his higher birth and his unequalled prowess. for a feast, described by the poet, consist of the But the mutual regard which united Idomeneus sheep, the hogs, and the oxen which are slaughand Meriones, Diomedes and Sthenelus, though, tered for the occasion.t A guest sometimes as the persons themselves are less important, sent a part of his portion, as a mark of respect, it is kept more in the background, is manifest- to another table. After the cravings of nature ly viewed by the poet in the same light. The had been satisfied, the bowls, indeed, were reidea of a Greek hero seems not to have been plenished with wine, from which libations were thought complete without such a brother in to be.made in honour of the gods. But the arms by his side. glory of the feast was not held to depend on a It was a natural effect of the unsettled state lengthened carouse; its appropriate ornaments of society in this period, that every stranger were the song and the dance. The. presence ~was looked upon either as an enemy or a guest. of the bard was almost indispensable at every If he threw himself on those among whom he great entertainment; but the time was not came, no other title was requisite to ensure him wholly spent in listening to his strains. Ala hospitable reception. When a traveller ap- cinous, at the conclusion of the banquet, leads pears at the threshold of a princely hall, the only out his guests, after they have been satiated.P..ety of the master of the house is lest he with the lyre and the song of Demodocus in the should.have been kept waiting at his gate. No hall, to an open place, where they first amuse question is asked as to the occasion of his coming until he has partaken of the best cheer * Od., xvii., 485. I t On the fare of the heroes, see Athenmeus, i., c. 46; and T I ix., 450. Compare Od., i., 433. Il., v., 71. compare Od., xii, 332; xix., 113, 536. I1. xvi. 747. MANNERS. 89 themselves with trials of strength in gymnastic boyish game. Phoenix has had great difficulty exercises. A space is then carefully levelled in refraining from murdering his father, to refor a dance, which is exhibited by youths prac- venge a curse which he had himself provoked tised in the art, under the control of judges ac- by a deliberate injury. Ulysses, in one of his customed to preside over such public amuse- fictitious narratives of his own adventures, rements, and accompanied by the bard with a lates that he had lain' in wait with a companion sportive lay, which, perhaps, interpreted the in the dark, and had assassinated a person who movements of the dancers to the spectators. had shown a disposition to deprive him of hit Finally, at the command of Alcinous, two other share In the booty brought from Troy. But even performers, of incomparable agilitjr, execute an such examples are scarcely sufficient to prepare extraordinary feat of leaping and dancing, which us for the extreme ferocity of the usages of war terminates the entertainment amid a tumult of which prevailed among the Greeks of the heroic applause. Even the suiters who are continual- age, and, perhaps, cannot be very well reconly feasting at the expense of Ulysses are never ciled with other features of their social state, represented as drinking to excess;* and among unless it be supposed that they had arisen in a the abusive epithets which Achilles, in the still ruder period, and that custom had conheight of his passion, applies to Agamemnon, tributed to extinguish the sense of humanity, the foremost is, heavy with wine.t which, on other occasions, was quickly awakenHospitality among the Greeks was not con- ed; In battle, quarter seems never to have been fined to the opulent. It was not exercised only given, except with a view to the ransom of the by such men as the wealthy Axylus, who had a prisoner. Agamemnon, in the Iliad, reproachhouse by the wayside, which he kept open to es Menelaus with unmanly softness when he all comers. Eumatus, though in an humble and'is on the point of sparing a fallen enemy, and dependant station, speaks of the relief which he himself puts the suppliant to the sword; and. affords to the distressed as the object which he the poet describes the deed in language which holds of the first importance, next to the neces- shows that he approves of it. The armour of sary provision for his own wants.$ None but the slain constituted a valuable part of the men callous to shame and*piety, like the most spoil, and was uniformly stripped off by the conboorish and ignorant of the Ithacan suiters, are querors. But hostility did not end here; the capable of treating the poor and destitute with naked corpse became the object of an obstinate disrespect, and there are powers, both above struggle; if it remained in the power of the and in the lower world, ever.watching to avenge enemy, it was deprived of burial, and exposed such wrongs.9 No less amiable is the indul- to the vultures and ravenous beasts, and was gence with which slaves, though wholly in the not unfrequently mutilated. It was, indeed, only power of their masters, appear to have been distinguished persons who were subject to such treated in well-regulated families. The visible treatment: an armistice was usually requested, approbation with which the poet mentions the and readily granted to the defeated party, for Kindness shown by Laertes and his wife to the purpose of celebrating the obsequies of their their domestics, I marks the general tone of feel- friends.* But the indignities offered to the ing that prevailed on this subject among his body of I-Iector by Achilles were not an extracountrymen. Even the severity with which ordinary example of hostile rage; for Hector Ulysses punishes the wantonness of his slaves himself intended to inflict similar outrages on seems to imply that their condition left them a the corpse of Patroclus;t and it is mentioned as title to a certain degree of respect, which they a signal mark of respect paid by Achilles to could only, forfeit by their own misconduct. Eetion, whose city he had sacked without any It is the more necessary, for the sake of jus- remarkable provocation, that, after slaying him, tice, to observe all these indications of compas- he abstained from spoiling his remains, and sionate and benevolent affections in the Greek honoured them with funeral rites. On the other character, as it must be owned that, if the hand, the sacrifice which Achilles makes to the friendship of the Greek was warm and his hos- shade of Patroclus, of twelve Trojan prisoners, pitality large, his anger was fierce and his en- whom he had taken alive in the battle for the mity ruthless. He was, indeed, rather resent- purpose of slaughtering them at the funeral ful than vindictive; though easily provoked, he pile, was certainly not authorized by the estabmight be appeased without much difficulty. His lished maxims of warfare, any more than the law of honour did not compel him to treasure up use of poisoned weapons, to which the poet al: in his memory the offensive language which ludes with manifest disapprobation.T might be addressed to him by a passionate ad- The fate of a captured city was fixed in an versary,'nor to conceive that it left a stain equally merciless spirit, and. by a perhaps still which could only be washed away by blood. more inflexible rule. All the males capable of Even for real and deep injuries he was corn- bearing arms were exterminated: the women monly willing to accept a pecuniary compensa- and children were dragged away, to be divided tion.1 But, so long as it lasted, his resentment among the victors, as the most valuable part of overpowered every other feeling, was regard- the spoil. And the evils of slavery were no less of the most sacred ties, and rushed at once doubt often aggravated by a partition, which to the most violent excess. At a very early tore a family asunder, and scattered its -memage Patroclus has killed his young playmate in bers over distant quarters of a foreign land. a fit of passion, occasioned by a quarrel at their Homer describes a scene which was probably familiar to his contemporaries, when Ire corn* Compare Od., i., 150, fell. xvii., 605. Thereseems to f r th otemrarsw e c I pares the flood of tears drawn from Ulysses by be no ground whatever for the conjecture of Eustathius on Od., xx., 391. t Compare Od., xix., 122. his painful recollections, with the weeping of a X Od., xv., 373. 6 Od., xvii., 475. 11 Od., i., 432; xv., 365; xviii., 323; xxi., 225 * 11., vii,, 409. t I1., xviii., 176; compare I1., xvii. 39. I Ii., ix., 635, 526.: Od., i., 263. VOL. I. —M 90 HISTORY OF GREECE. woman, torn from the body of her husband, who thing was to him aosoiuo:ly passive and inert; had just fallen in defence of his city, and hur- in all the objects around him he found life, or tied along by the captors, who quicken her steps readily imparted it to them out of the fulness of by striking her on the back and shoulders with his own imagination. This was not a poetical their spears.* Yet the sanctuaries of the gods view, the privilege of extraordinary minds, but sometimes afforded an asylum which was re- the popular mode of thinking and feeling, cherspected on these occasions by the conquerors. ished undoubtedly by the bold forms, and abThus Maro, the priest of Apollo, was saved, rupt contrasts, and all the natural wonders of a with his family, from the common destruction, mountainous. and sea-broken land. A people so in which the Ciconians of Ismarus were in- disposed and situate is not immediately impell. volved by Ulysses; for he dwelt within the ed to seek a single universal source of being. precincts sacred to the god: yet he redeemed The teeming earth, the quickening sun, the rest. himself by a heavy ransom. The priest of Apol- less sea, the rushing stream, the irresistible lo who occasions the quarrel in the Iliad was storm, every display of superhuman might which not so brtunate: he loses his daughter in the it beholds, rouses a distinct sentiment of relisack of Theb6, and only recovers her through' gious awe. Everywhere it finds deities, which, the extraordinary interference of the god.. however, may not for a long time be distinguish - ed by name from the objects in which their III. It has sometimes been made a question presence is manifested. In the Iliad, Agamemwhether polytheism or monotheism is the more non is calling on the gods to witness a solemn ancient form of natural religion. This is one contract. Among those of Olympus he names of those inquiries, grounded on the contempla-'none but Jupiter; after him he invokes the alltion of human nature in the abstract, which can seeing, all-hearing sun, the rivers, the earth, scarcely ever lead to any safe conclusion. The and, lastly, the gods who punish perjured men form which the religious impressions of a peo- in the realms below. In like manner, we may pie assume, so far as they are not determined suppose the Pelasgians to have worshipped the by tradition or example, must depend on the invisible powers, which, according to the primcharacter and condition of each community. itive belief of the people, animated the various Some tribes of the human race appear to re- forms of the sensible world. ceive from the sensible world only a single dim, That such was, in fact, the eldest form of reundefined feeling of religious awe, which sug-'ligion which prevailed among the Pelasgian gests to them the existence of a superior pow- tribes, is both highly probable in itself, and coner. A monotonous sameness in the aspect of firmed by the example of the ancient Persians. nature, a uniform tenour of life, broken only by In this sense, therefore, we both can underthe exertions necessary to satisfy the simplest stand, and may accept, the statement of Herodanimal wants, probably tend to perpetuate such otus. But it is not quite so easy to follow him a state of glimmering consciousness, which, when he attempts to trace the steps by which however, is something very remote from that this simple creed was transformed into the view of nature which is the foundation of a mon- complicated system of the Greek mythology. atheistic religion. It is, however, equally con- He seems to distinguish two great changes ceivable and consistent with experience, that a which the Greek religion underwent: one propeople of quick sense and fancy, especially if duced by the introduction of foreign deities and placed in a region marked by various and stri- rites, the other by the invention of native poets. king features, may associate its earliest religious His researches had, as he says, convinced him emotions with the multiplicity of surrounding that all the names of the Greek gods had been objects, and may no sooner awake to the con- derived from the barbarians; and the result of sciousness of its situation, than it begins to the information which he had gathered in Egypt people its universe with a corresponding multi- was, that, with a few exceptions, they had all tude of imaginary agents. been transplanted from that country. Some the How far either of these suppositions applies Egyptian priests themselves disclaimed; but the to the earliest inhabitants of Greece, is a ques- rest had, as they asserted, been always known tion on which little certain information can rea- among them; and hence Herodotus infers that sonably be expected from history. The most the excepted names had been invented by the ancient direct testimony, if an opinion may be Pelasgians, all but that of Poseidon, the god of so called, on the subject, is that of Herodotus, the sea, which had been brought over from Afor, rather, that of the priests of Dodona, from rica. It seems necessary to suppose that, by whom he heard that the Pelasgians once sacri- the names of the gods, both Herodotus and his ficed only to nameless deities. Whatever may instructers understood their nature and attribe the authority of this evidence, its meaning butes, and that they conceived the Egyptian apis doubtful; but the least probable of all the in- pellations to have been translated into equivferences that have been drawn from it is, that alent Greek words. But this testimony, or judgthe Pelasgians worshipped a single god. The ment of Herodotus, combined with the various words of Herodotus admit of a very different traditions of Oriental colonies planted in Greece, interpretation, which is confirmed by all the tra- at a time when its inhabitants are supposed to ces of the primitive religion to be found in the have wanted the first rudiments of civilization, later Greek mythology. We have no reason for with the priestly institutions of the East, the imagining -that the first inhabitants of Greece presumed antiquity of the Greek mysteries, and were differently constituted, as to their aptitude of esoteric doctrines transmitted by them, and for religious impressions, from those who sue- coincidences observed in several features of the ceeded them.' The Greek was formed to sym- Greek and the Egyptian mythology, has formed pathize strongly with the outward world: no- the ground of a hypothesis which is still a sub* Od., 5iii. 528.. ject of earnest controversy. ~ It assumes that RELIGION. 91 the colonies which migrated into Greece in the long familiar to the people: and it is only when darkness of the old Pelasgian period were head- Homer and Hesiod are considered as repreed by priests, who long retained the supreme sentatives of a whole line of poets, who were power in their new settlements. They brought the organs and interpreters of the popular creed, with them th.e faith and the wisdom'which they and thus gradually determined its permanent had inherited in their ancient seats, the knowl- form, that this opinion of Herodotus can appear edge of one God, the hidden spring of life and at all-reasonable. intelligence, but infinitely diversified in his at- Though Herodotus couples Homer and Hetributes, functions, and emanations. These siod together, as if they had lived in the same they proposed to the veneration of the ignorant age, and had co-operated towards the same end, multitude, not in their naked simplicity, which not only were they probably separated by a would have dazzled and confounded those un- considerable number of generations, but their enlightened minds, but through the veil of ex- works belong to totally different classes. In pressive symbols and ingenious fables, which the Homeric poems the history of the divine were accepted by the people as literal truths, persons introduced is foreign to the main suband were gradually wrought into a complicated ject, and is only mentioned in casual allusions; mythological system. The sublime dogmas of while the professed design of Hesiod's Theogothe priestly religion were reserved for the cho- ny is to relate the origin of the world and the sen few, who were capable of contemplating gods. It contains a series of rude speculations them in their pure and simple form, and these on the'universe, in which its several parts are alone understood the epithets and images which, personified, and the order of their production in the poetry of the temples, conveyed the ten- represented under the figure of successive genets of the ancient theology. When these priest- erations. The manner in which the poet treats ly governments were everywhere forced to give his subject suggests a strong suspicion that way to the rule of the heroic chieftains, as the this Theogony, or cosmogony, was not the fruit priests themselves drew back into the shade, so of his own invention; and that, although to us their doctrines were more and more confined to it breathes the first lispings of Greek philosophy, the recesses of their sanctuaries, and were re- they are only the faint echoes of an earlier vealed only to those who were admitted to the and deeper strain. Indeed, the Homeric poems rites there celebrated in awful obscurity. Mean- themselves contain allusions which disclose an while a new race of poets started up, and gain- acquaintance with such theories; as when ed the ear of the people-bards who, blending Ocean is termed the origifi of the gods and of heroic legends with religious fables, the ori- all things, though Jupiter is commonly descriginal meaning of which had been lost, intro- bed as the father of gods and men. The Theduced fresh confusion into the mythical chaos. ogony, compared with the hints furnished by The troubles that accompanied the Dorian in- Herodotus, and with the tradition of a great vasion contributed to widen the breach be- body of sacred poetry ascribed to the ancient tween the popular and the priestly religion: the bards already mentioned, who preceded Homer latter, however, was preserved without any ma- and Hesiod perhaps by many centuries, has givterial alteration in the mysteries, which con- *en rise to an opinion that the Greek mythology tinued to be the vehicles of the more enlighten- was derived from philosophical speculations, ed faith down to the latest days of paganism. which in course of time had been misunderBefore we make any remark on this hypoth- stood, distorted, and blended with heterogeneesis, we must consider the view which Herod- ous fictions. According to this view, some elotus takes of the change introduced by native der poet had described the successive stages poets into the Greek mythology: "Whence of the world's history by a series of terms, each of the gods sprang, and whether all of them which, though they sounded like names of perwere always existing, and what were their sons, yet to an intelligent mind conveyed only shapes, on these points the knowledge of the those attributes of the various objects enumerGreeks may be said to be but of yesterday." ated on which, in the poet's conception, their And he subjoins, as a reason, the comparatively mutual relation depended. This series Hesiod late age of Homer and Hesiod, who, as he says, preserved in the main, though broken by occa"were the authors of the Greek theogony, gave sional interpolations, but without comprehendtitles to the gods, distinguished their attributes ing its real import. Etymology alone, it is supand functions, and described their forms; For posed, can furnish the clew to this labyrinth, and the poets, who are said to have been more an- enable the inquirer to trace the Greek theology cient than these two, were, in my opinion, more to its fountain head, where it will be found to recent." This last remark seems only intend- spring up in the simple form of physical specued to condemn the many spurious works which lation. But its purity was soon troubled, when were current in his time, under the names of the vulgar, easily deceived by the slight figuraLinus, Orpheus, Museeus, Pamphus, Olen, and tive disguise of the language, and incapable of other bards, who were believed to have sung perceiving the coherence of the whole system, before Homer. But, besides this critical judg- began to attribute real life and personality to ment, he undoubtedly expresses his conviction each of its parts; and thus arose a wild, disthat Homer and Hesiod had effected an im- jointed mythology, which was continually reportant revolution in the religious belief of their ceiving additions from the fancy of the popular countrymen. This revolution, indeed, is so poets, and nourished a blind and gross supergreat, that it could not, with any probability, be stition, which the ancient sage who unwittingly ascribed to the genius of one or two poets, even laid its foundation so little dreamed of, that if if the Homeric poems did not clearly indicate he himself believed in any Divine nature, he had that their descriptions are founded on concep- carefully excluded it from his system.* tions of the Divine nature which had been * 1rieJf' ueber Hiomer und Hesiodus of HIel:nann alnd 92 HISTORY OF GREECE. We have been induced to notice these mod-. nature, and, consequently, the conceptions formern views of the subject because they profess ed of the gods, differed widely in different reto rest in part on the authority of Herodotus, gions, so in each region it might be long before and to illustrate his meaning. WVe can only the spheres of the several deities were fixed, touch very briefly on the reasons which lead us and their characters and attributes determined. to a different conclusion. ~ The authority of And it may even be imagined that such a period Herodotus is, in fact, little more than that of his answers best to thatwhich Herodotus describes, guides, the Egyptian priests, whose judgment of the nameless gods. To distinguish the provcertainly cannot besthought decisive on the ori- inces and functions of the divine agents was a gin of a foreign mythology, with which they task which might have afforded ample employmust have been very imperfectly acquainted, ment to many generations of sacred bards, who, and. which, even if their information had been however, must be considered only as the organs sufficiently extensive and accurate, their na- and expounders of the popular views and feeltional prejudices, as well as those of their sta- ings. But still two important steps remained tion, must have prevented them from viewing in the formation of.the Greek mythology. The in its true light. The correctness, therefore, of one was that by which the' invisible powers the interpretation by which several of the na- were brought down from their spheres and intional gods of Greece were identified with ob- vested with a human form; the other that by jects of Egyptian worship, is still a questiona- which the local deities of the several tribes ble point, only to be determined by proofs, which were reconciled and united in one family. Each do not appear to have been yet established, of of these steps must have occupied a long perisuch a coincidence as could not have been pro- od; and it is not necessary to suppose that the duced either by an original national community one began after the other had ended. The Piof religious impressions, or by a later, studied erian Thracians seem to have been the people or accidental, conforinity intheir outward signs. in whose poetry Olympus was first celebrated Independently of such proofs, or of other evi- as the common seat of the gods, and hence to dence, there is very. little either in the charac- them. may probably be ascribed the greatest ter or the fables of the Greek deities that raises. share in the process of combination and adjustany suspicion of a foreign origin, or that may ment, which led to that unity which the Honot be referred to well-known elements in the in- meric poems represent as complete. But it tellectual and moral constitution of the Greeks. appears to have been in'the heroic age, and in On the other hand, what has been said in a pre- that school of poetry which arose out of the ceding chapter may serve to render it credible, new spirit of these times, that the principle of if not hi'ghly probable, that the religions of the personification was most active in exhibiting East very early exerted some influence on that the gods in' human shape, and in drawing them of Greece, and even that Egypt may have con- forth from the awful obscurity in which they tributed to this effect, not, however, directly, had been before'shrouded, into familiar interbut only through the intervention of a different course with mankind. And this may, perhaps, people, But that any colonies were led into be properly considered as the most prominent Greece by priests, who were elevated above the contrast between the Pelasgian and the Hellenvulgar by sacred learning or religious philoso- ic period, as to their religious character. phy, is in itself little more than a dream, and is Though in general the Greek religion may particularly improbable with regard to the sup- be correctly described as a worship of nature, posed Egyptian settlers, both for reasons al- and most of its. deities corresponded either to ready given, and because, among the sages certain parts of the sensible world, or to certain who are celebrated as the earliest instructers classes of objects comprehended under abstract of the Greeks, though many are represented as notions, it is by no means clear that several foreigners, none are connected with Egypt. tribes did not acknowledge tutelary gods, who The institution of the mysteries does not re- were neither imbodied powers of nature nor quire any such supposition; and it is extreme- personified abstractions, but who may rather be ly doubtful whether any esoteric doctrines were said to have grown out of the'character and ever delivered in them. history of the community itself, and to have We therefore believe that the religion of the represented nothing but its gen'eral consciousGreeks was in the main purely home-sprung. ness of dependance on a superior Being. No But the supposition that their mythology was instances, perhaps, can be produced-which are derived from the observations and reflections, not ambiguous; but the supposition is both of some superior minds, which determined the probable in itself, and serves to explain some creed of the vulgar, seems repugnant to all seeming incongruities in the Greek theology. analogy, as well as to all internal evidence; and Most of those fables which offended both the it is in a totally different sense that we should Christian fathers and the Greek philosophers, be inclined to adopt the opinion of Herodotus, by the debasing conceptions they suggest of that poets were the authors of the popular the- the Divine nature, and which still render it difology. We think it probable, as has been al- ficult to convey the knowledge of the Greek ready intimated, that the deities of the earliest mythology withdut danger of polluting the Pelasgian period were those whose presence and youthful imagination,* were undoubtedly of power appeared to be displayed in the various physical origin. But by the side of these we operations of nature. But as the aspects of find titles and descriptions which express very pure and exalted notions of the gods and of' Creuzer. The most important of the modern mythological their relation to. mankind, and which may have systems andviews are accurately and impartially described sprung from the other source just mentioned. by Mueller, in his Prolegomena. To the writers there enui merated may be added Gerhard, Grtsndzuege der Archicolo- * It is one among the many merits of Mr. Keightley's gie, in the first pert of the Hyperbotreisc/ Roemoiscrhe Siutdicn, Mythology,.that iee has skilfully steerod clear of this da.nger. RELIGION. 93 This is especially remarkable in the chief of to fate is not uniformly represented in the Ho-'the gods, whose Greek name, Zeus, answering meric poems, and probably the poet had not to the Latin Deus, and simply signifying god, formed a distinct notion of it. Fate is generalmay frequently have been used without any ly described as emanating from his will; but more definite meaning attached to it, though it sometimes he appears to be no more than the was peculiarly assigned to the lord of the upper minister of a stern necessity, which he wishes regions,.who dwelt on the summits of the high- in vain to elude. est mountains, gathered the clouds about him, The fatalism of the Greeks was very remote, shook the air with' his thunder, and wielded the both in its nature and consequences, from the lightning as the instrument of his wrath. From dogma.which, instilled into the minds of feroelements drawn from these different sources, cious and sensual barbarians, sometimes rouses his character, a strange compound of majesty them to a temporary phrensy, from which they and weakness, seems to have been formed by subside into an apathy that unfits them for successive poets, who, if they in some degree useful exertion on ordinary occasions.. The Rlserved the censure of the philosophers, seem belief of the Greeks was the result of their at least not to have been guilty of any arbitrary natural reflections on the apparent order of fictions; while, on the other hand, by estab- the world, the weakness of man, and tle mode lishing his supremacy, they introduced a prin- in which his conduct and success are swayed ciple of unity into the Greek polytheism, which by unforeseen and inexplicable causes. It servwas not, perhaps, without influence on the ed neither as a substitute for courage nor as a speculations of the philosophers themselves, pretext for indolence. It inspired them with though it exerted little on the superstition of resignation to evils when arrived, but did not the vulgar. The Olympian deities are assem- stifle their energies so long as any prospect rebled round Jupiter as his family, in which he mained of escaping by prudence and activity, maintains the mild dignity of a patriarchal king. nor did it divert them from imploring the aid He assigns their several provinces and controls of the gods. The blessed inhabitants of Olymtheir authority. Their combined efforts cannot pus did not disdain to interest themselves in give the slightest shock to his power, nor retard the affairs of mankind, an inferior and unhappy the execution of his will; and hence their way- race, but yet of kindred origin, not always unwardness, even when it incurs his rebuke, can- worthy of their alliance, and never below their not ruffle the inward serenity of his soul. The sympathy. But though the gods were accessitremendous nod with which he confirms his de- ble to prayer, no invariable rule could be ascercrees can neither be. revoked nor frustrated. tained for securing their favour. A hero of the As bis might is irresistible, so is his wisdom most exalted virtue was not safe from the perunsearchable. He holds the golden balance, in secution of a god whom he had innocently prowhich are poised the destinies of nations and voked. The motive, however, by which they of men; from the two vessels that stand at his were believed to be most uniformly, if not exthreshold, he draws the good and evil gifts that elusively impelled, was that of which their alternately sweeten and imbitter mortal exist- worshippers were most frequently consciousence. The eternal order of things', the ground concern for their own interest and honour. of the immutable succession of events, is his, Pride and insolence, the intoxication of wealt-h and therefore he himself submits to it. Human and power, in which men forget their weakness laws derive their sanction from his ordinance: and mortality, were generally odious to them: earthly kings receive their sceptres from his an open affectation of independence and equalhand: he is the guardian of social rights: he ity, a crime which they seldom failed to visit watches over the fulfilment of contracts, the with signal punishment. But even a long conobservance of oaths: he punishes treachery,. tinuance of uninterrupted prosperity roused arrogance, and cruelty. The stranger and the their envy of the man whom it brought too suppliant are under his peculiar protection-: the near to them, however meekly he might bear fence that encloses the family dwelling is in his fortunes.. The milder view of affliction, as his keeping: he avenges the denial and the sent withl the benevolent purpose of averting abuse of hospitality. Yet even this greatest the dangerous consequences of unalloyed feliand most glorious of beings, as he is called, is city, seems to have been long foreign to the subject, like the other gods, to passion and frail- Greek mode of thinking. In general, no quality. For, though secure from dissolution, though ty was so pleasing to the gods as pious munifisurpassingly beautifil and strong, and' warmed cence, and no actions so meritorious in their with a purer blood than fills the veins of men, sight as the observances that related singly to their heavenly frames are not insensible to their service. These were so important, that pleasure and pain; they need the refreshment even an involuntary neglect of them was suffiof ambrosial food, and inhale a grateful savour cient to bring down the heaviest calamities on from the sacrifices of their worshippers. Their a whole people. other affections correspond to the grossness of Such conceptions of the gods, and of their these animal appetites. Capricious love and dealings with mankind, had in themselves no hatred, anger and jealousy, often disturb the tendency to strengthen any moral sentiments, calm of their bosoms: the peace of the Olym- or to enforce the practice of any social duties. pian state might be broken by factions, and Yet they might produce such effects,' whhen the even by conspiracies formed against its chief. sanctity of religion was accidentally or artifiHe himself cannot keep perfectly aloof from cially attached to the exercise of. healthy natutheir quarrels: he occasionally wavers in his ral affections, or to useful institutions. They purpose, is overreached by artifice, blinded by were not unfrequently so applied, with great desire, and,hurried by resentment into unseem- immediate advantage, but at the fearful risk of lv violence. The relation in which he stands involving things really holy and venerable in 94 HISTORY OF GREECE. the contempt incurred by such errors, when de- most interesting scenes in Greek poetry and tected, which, in a half-enlightened age, is usu- history depend entirely on this feeling. When' ally extended to the truths of which they have the soul has made its escape through the lips been auxiliaries. On the other hand, the mis- or the wound, it is not dispersed in the air, but chief resulting from these mean and narrow preserves the form of the living person. But views of the Divine nature was probably much the face of, the earth, lighted by the sun, is no less than might at first sight have seemed like- fit place for the feeble, joyless phantom. It ly to spring from them. The gods, though their protracts its unprofitable being in the cheerless frailties did not abate the reverence which they twilight of the nether world, a shadow of its inspired, were never seriously proposed or con- fobrmer self, and pursuing the empty image of sidered as examples for imitation, nor did their its past occupations and enjoyments. Orion, worshippers dream of drawing a practical infer- like the spectre of the North American hunter, ence from the tales of the popular mythology. is engaged in chasing the disimbodied beasts If the gods were not raised above human pas- which he had killed on the mountains over the sions, they were too great, and too remote from asphodel meadow. Minos is busied in holding earthly affairs, to. be tried by the same rules mock trials, and dispensing his rigid justice to which bind an inferior race. But the interests a race that has lost all power of inflicting wrong. of morality were chiefly connected wvith religion Achilles retains his ancient pre-eminence among by the functions of the powers whose peculiar his dead companions, but he would gladly exprovince it was to exact the penalty due to Di- change the unsubstantial honour, even if it were vine justice for atrocious crimes. Homer sim- to be extended to the whole kingdom of spirits, ply designates the office of the Furies, without for the bodily life of the meanest hireling. Noeither fixing their number or describing their thing was more remote from Homer's philosoform, which the imagination of later poets paint- phy than the notion that the soul, when lightened with terrific exactness; bat the mysterious ed of its fleshly encumbrances, exerted its inobscurity in which he wraps.,their outlines was tellectual faculties with the greater vigour. On perhaps no less awful. Their dwelling-place, the contrary, he represents it as reduced by in the gloomy depths of the invisible world, was death to a state of senseless imbecility.' Alas!" an object of horror to the blessed gods, who exclaimed Achilles, when the spirit of Patro*abode in the perpetual sunshine of Olympus. clus had vanished, "even in Hades there reThey shrouded themselves in darkness when mains a ghost and an image of the dead, but they went forth to execute their work of retri- the mind is altogether gone." Tiresias alone, bution, and, unlike the celestial powers, they among the shades, enjoys a certain degree of could not be propitiated; at least, in the Ho- mental vigour, by the especial favour of Prosel meric age, no rites seem to have been invented pine. It is only after their strength has been to disarm their wrath, and to quiet the alarms repaired by the blood of a slaughtered victim of a guilty conscience. They were especially that they recover reason and memory for a time, vigilant in enforcing the respect due to age, to can recognise their living friends, and feel anxparental authority, and kindred blood; but per- iety for those whom they have left on earth. jury, and probably all other offences proscribed While the greater part of the vast multitude as peculiarly heinous by public opinion, were that peoples the house of Hades merely proequally subject to their inquisition. The awe longs a dreaming, vacant existence, a few great inspired bythese inexorable ministers of ven- offenders are doormed to a kind of suffering most geance was a wholesome check, if not an ade- in accordance with the character of the inferquate counterpoise, to the heedless levity which nal realms-to the torment of unavailing toil the easy and capricious government of the Olym- and never-satisfied longings. A more tremenplan gods tended to encourage. dous prison, removed as far below Hades as The idea of retribution, however, was not earth is from heaven, was. reserved for the generally associated with that of a future state. audacious enemies of Jupiter-the abyss'of Homer views death as the separation of two dis- Tartarus, fast secured with iron gates and a tinct, though not wholly dissimilar substances brazen floor. On'the other hand, a few favour-the soul and the body. The latter has no life ed heroes, instead of descending into Hades, without the former, the former no strength with- were transported to a delicious plain, an island out the latter. The souls of the heroes are sent of Ocean, cooled by perpetual breezes from the'down to the realm of Hades (the Invisible), while west, and exempt from every inclement change they themselves remain a prey to dogs and birds. of the seasons. And when it is said of Hercules that his shade The favour of the gods was believed to be is among the dead, while he himself shares the'obtained by means similar to those which are banquets of the immortal gods, it must be sup- most efficacious with powerful mortals-homposed that his virtue has been rewarded with age and tribute, or, in the language of religion, a new, undecaying body, and a divine soul. worship and sacrifice. Considered from one 4" When a man is dead," says the shade of An- point of view, the sacrifices of the Greeks apticlea, " the flesh and the bones are left to be pear in a highly pleasing light, as an expresconsumed by the flames, but the soul flies away sion of pure, though misdirected piety; viewed like a d!eam." Funeral rites seem not to have from another side, they present only the blind been accounted a necessary condition of its en- impulses of a rude superstition. A simple feeltrance into Hades, but it could enjoy no rest ing of dependance on the Divine bounty natuthere till they had been performed. Hence rally vents itself in the form of an offering, arose the importance attached to'them by sur- which, however trifling in itself, may be an adviving friends, the obstinate contests that take equate symbol of the religious sentiment. In place over the slain, Priam's desperate effort to many of the Greek rites, as in those of domes-, recover the corpse of Hector. Several of the tic worship, in the libations that accompanied RELIGION. 95 the social meal, in the eirisionz and other hbar-. religious principle which suggested them, anid vest offerings, in the votive locks which youths we shall shortly have a fitter occasion Ior speakand virgins frequently dedicated to a guardian ing of them. The holy places and edifices deity, this merely symbolical character is pre- themselves belong to the same head. Though dominant; and these may have been among, the gods abode in Olympus, several of them the earliest forms of devotion. But the same had territories* and domains on the earth, unworthy conceptions of the Divine nature where they sometimes loved to sojourn. The which' led the Greeks to treat the material of- piece of land which was consecrated to a god fering as the essential part of every sacred ser- bore the same namet with that which was asvice, gave birth to more luxurious and less inno- signed for the maintenance of the kingly dignicent rites. The image of earthly kings applied ty, and was viewed in a very similar light. It to the heavenly powers, suggested the persua- seems to have been always distinguished by-an sion that the efficacy of a sacrifice depended on altar, which, when raised in the open air, was its value, and that the feeling which prompted probably sheltered by a sacred grove. The culthe offering was not merely to be expressed, tivated portion served, no doubt, for the supply but to be measured by it. This persuasion was of sacrifices and the support of the priest. It cherished by two popular prejudices: by the was, perhaps, from some of these consecrated notion that the gods were capable of envy and tracts that the poet drew his.description of the jealousy, which men might allay by costly pro- desert island, where flocks and herds of the sun fusion in their gifts, and by the view taken of a were tended by the nymphs, and, though they sacrifice as a banquet for the gods the more bare no young, never experienced any diminuagreeable in proportion as it was rich and tion in their numbers. splendid.*. The nature ofthe Greek religion implied the When the sacrifice was designed to soften existence of persons who exercised the sacred the anger of an offended deity, it would, of functions which it prescribed-of priests, if the course, be unusually sumptuous; for it was word be taken in this general sense. But, un then at once a propitiatory offering and a self- less it be ascertained whether these persons imposed penalty. This mode of thinking might formed a distinct class, what notions were easily lead to the notion that, on some extraor- commonly entertained of their office, and what dinary occasions, the Divine wrath was to be privileges and influence it conferred, the name appeased by no oblation less precious than the may serve only to mislead. None of the acts life of man. And it seems certain that, before which composed the ordinary worship of the the times described by Homer, the Greeks had gods, neither the sacrifice nor the accompanybeen brought, either by their own train of think- ing prayer, were, among the Greeks, appropriaing, or by the influence of foreign example, to ted to any certain order of men. The father of this dreadful conclusion. This high antiquity a family in his household, the prince in.behalf of human sacrifices among the Greeks has been of his people, celebrate all these rites themdisputed, on the ground that such rites are not selves. In poetical or rhetorical language, the mentioned or alluded to by Homer. We con- heroes who were thus occasionally engaged in ceive, however, that Homer's silence would the service of the gods might be called royal not, in the slightest degree, shake the authority priests or priestly kings, as Virgil's Anius was of the numerous legends which speak of human at once king of men and priest of Apollo.$ But victims as occasionally, and even periodically, an expression which combines the two characoffered in certain temples, more especially as, ters, without marking their mutual relations, in the latter case, they record the early sub- explains and defines nothing. The proper use stitution of other victims or of milder rites. of either title depends on the question which Though the practice of dedicating living persons was original and principal, which derivative to a deity, which was unquestionably very an- and subordinate. There can be no doubt that, cient, may not have been originally connected in the Homeric heroes, the sacerdotal character with any effusion of blood, still it indicates the was merely incidental to their public station. prevailing sentiment; and there is nothing in Nestor and Agamemnon sacrifice, but they are the manners of the heroic age to prevent us not priests, like Chryses, and Maro, and Dares, from believing that the same sentiment some- nor are the _Etdlian elders, though qach might times manifested itself in the sacrifice of human be frequently called on to discharge sacerdotal life, even if the practice had not been transmit- functions, priests in the same sense with those ted from earlier times. But, in fact, Homer whom they send to Meleager. Hence Aristohimself appears strongly to confirm the testi- tie distinguishes between the sacrifices which mony borne by later writers to the antiquity of belonged to the kings and those which belonged the usage, when he informs us that Achilles to the priests, in the heroic times. The term immolated twelve Trojan prisoners at the fu- priest always related, not only to some particuneral pile of Patroclus, not to indulge his own lar deity, but to some particular seat of his worvengeance, but to soothe his departed friend. ship; independent of these, it had no more The poet, indeed, considers this as a terrible meaning than the title of king, without a certain display of friendship, but it seems clear that he people or country to correspond with it. In would have found nothing inconsistent with like manner, it may fairly be presumed that, piety or humanity in a similar sacrifice offered whenever a temple or a tract of ground was to the gods. consecrated to a god, a priest was appointed to Offerings of a different kind, designed for the minister to him there: There may have been perpetual ornament of holy places, are impor- a period when no priesthood of the latter kind tant rather in the history of the arts than as affording any new or peculiar illustration of the * KXrpot, Pindar, 01., vii., 101. t T VUevog.:'En., iii. 80. where Servius remarks, MajorUm enin * Od., vii., 203. erat hec consuetud(, ut rex esset etiam sacerdos. 96 HISTORY OF GREECE. existed in Greece, when the domestic hearth organized body, and their insulation was ncf was the only altar, and the house of the chief merely an effect of tli political divisions or the only temple of the tribe. But in the heroic their country: even within the same state they age, though it was still true that every king were not incorporated in any kind of hierarchy, was in some sense a priest, the priestly office and they had neither means nor motives for had so long ceased to be a mere appendage of entering into voluntary associations. Considroyal or patriarchal power, that in the Homeric ered, therefore, in the aggregate, they appear poems we do not find a single instance where absolutely powerless and insignificant; nor are it distinctly appears that one who is described there any traces of a party spirit or fellow-feelas a priest was also, like Virgil's Anius, a king. ing among them, even on occasions which Yet, when a temple was built for the tutelary might have been expected most to have called god of a tribe, the ruling family may often have it forth. The jealous hostility which bBset the been invested with the charge of it, which, of progress of Athenian philosophy, and sometimes course, then became an hereditary office, and broke out into open persecution of its professors, might frequently survive the civil pre-eminence appears neither to have sprung from the machiout of which it arose. Political changes, or nations of the priests, nor to have been chersome of the numberless accidents that are per- ished or directed by them, though the opinions petually varying the course of every popular su- which excited the popular indignation threatenperstition, frequently enlarged the sphere of a ed their peculiar and common interests. But local worship, and transformed it from an ob- though, as an order, the priesthood had no bond scure domestic ritual into a branch of the na- of union, and, therefore, no engine of ambition tional religion. In such cases the hereditary at its command, the several local corporations ministers of the god gained a proportionate in- comprised in it were pedrhaps, on that very accrease in dignity and wealth, and their priestly count, animated with the more lively consciouscharacter would become their most distinguish- ness of their' peculiar character and interest. ing and valued title. On the other hand, a The ministers who were permanently attached priesthood which was originally of a public na- to a temple felt their honours to be intimately ture, and arose with and out of the temple where connected with its renown, and many still more it was exercised, was probably seldom appro- solid advantages often flowed from the control priated to a particular family, except where the of a much frequented shrine. Priestcraft had gift of divination was believed to be likewise in- inducements as effectual, and as large a field, herited, or in cases like that recorded by He- in Greece as elsewhere, and it was not less rodotus. of Gelon's ancestor, Telines, who had fertile in profitable devices, in the invention of composed the civil dissensions of Gela by the legends, the fabrication of relies, and other influence of religion, and stipulated that his de- modes of imposture. The qualifications rescendaints should be hereditary ministers of the quired for the priesthood were as various as deities in whose name'he had prevailed. Ho- the aspects of religion itself. Herodotus was mer himself indicates the mode in which such struck by the contrast which he observed in offices were usually conferred, when he men- this respect between the Greek and the Egyptions that Theano was made priestess of Athene tian institutions: "In Egypt," he says, "no by the Trojans. In the later times of Greece god or goddess is served by a priestess." In the administration of religion embraced an end- his own country, the female ministers of religion less multiplicity of forms: the elective priest- were perhaps as numerous as those of the othhoods were bestowed, sometimes for life, some- er sex; and, the usage appears to have obtained times for a very short term: in the latter case from the most remote antiquity, even in the the citizen evidently acquired no new character temples. of deities whom he supposed to have by the temporary office; but in the former, it been of Egyptian origin. No period of life was might frequently become a profession which excluded on any general grounds, and the completely separated him from the rest of the choice of that which was' preferred in each community.. case was determined by accident or caprice. The most learned of our historians has ob- It was no part of the priest's duties to expoundA served that the distinction between the laity theological dogmas or to deliver moral prdcepts. and the clergy was unknown to the Greeks and Even the memory was but lightly tasked by the Romans. The assertion is true in the sense in liturgical forms, in the repetition of which his which it was meant to be understood; but it ordinary functions consisted, so that Isocrates may be proper here to notice the limitations had room to observe that some men deem the which it requires, and to point out that in kingly office within every one's ability, as if it another sense the distinction was not unknown were a priesthood. The moral character of the to the Greeks. The priestly office in itself in- priest was never viewed with regard to the involved no civil exemptions or disabilities, and fluence of his example or authority on the was not thought to unfit the person who filled minds of others; yet the service of the gods it for discharging the duties of a senator, a was supposed to demand clean hands, and in judge, or a warrior, either on the ground that some degree a pure heart;* it could not be duly these occupations were less pleasing to the performed by one who was polluted by blood gods, or that their s'ervice claimed the dedica- shed or by any atrocious crime. Even celibacy tion of the whole of a man's time and faculties. was frequently required; but in many instances But the care of a temple often required the con- the same end was more wi;ely pursued by the tinual residence and presence of its ministers, selection either of the age when the passions and thus, in effect, excluded every other em- are yet dormant, or that in which they have ployment, and kept them in sacred seclusion, subsided. apart from the ordinary pursuits of their fellow- The most important branch of the Greek re citizens. The Greek priests never formed one * Hornm., I, vi., 266. 2Esch., c. Tim., ~ 188, p. 370, Belk RELIGION r7 ligion, that which more than any other affected phenomena as thunder, lightning, and eclipses. the political institutions, the history, and man- The various appearances of a victim, in the sevners of the nation, grew out of the belief that eral stages of a sacrifice, were believed to inman is enabled by the Divine favour to obtain dicate the mind of the deity to whom it was a knowledge of futurity which his natural facul- offered. Hence arose a system of experimental ties cannot reach. Though the gods rarely divination, which in later times afforded empermitted their own forms to be seen or their ployment for a large class of soothsayers. A voices to be heard, they had a great variety of victim was sacrificed on great occasions, as the agents and vehicles at their disposal for con- eve of an expedition or a battle, for the purveying the secrets of their prescience. Some- pose of ascertaining the event by the inspection times they were believed to impart the prophet- of its entrails. The diviners who interpreted ical faculty, as a permanent gift, to some fa- these signs did not usually pretend to any pervoured person or family, in which it was per- manent or temporary inspiration, but professed mitted to descend; sometimes they attached it to found their predictions, or advice, on rules to a certain place, the seat of their immediate discovered by experience. The flight of birds, presence, which is then termed an oracle. It the changes of the atmosphere, and the heavenly is probable that these oracular sanctuaries be- bodies were likewise, at times, subject to deliblong, for the most part, to that eldest form of crate inspection. But neither augury, nor the religion, which took its impressions from the other'branches of the art, were so studiously natural feature~ of the country, and that they cultivated, and reduced to such a semblance of were not originally viewed as the abode of any scientific exactness by the Greeks as by the deity more definite than the powers which Tuscans; and in the Homeric age, though acbreathed the spirit of divination from springs cidental omens are carefully noted, experimentand caves. But when Jupiter's supremacy al divination seems hardly to be known. We over the Olympian family was generally ac- are even agreeably surprised to find the poet knowledged, and the offices and attributes of putting into Hector's mouth a sentiment which the other deities were distinguished, the father it surpassed the force of Xenophon's mind or of the gods, as destiny was his decree, was character to conceive: One omen is the best: to naturally regarded as the great source of pro- fight for one's country. Dreams also were held phetical inspiration, and Apollo, it is not certain to proceed from Jupiter, and the art of interhow, came to be considered as the general in- preting them gave a name to a distinct class of terpreter of Jupiter's will and the dispenser of diviners. But it does not appear that oracles his prescience. The most ancient and cele- had yet been founded, in which the established brated of the Greek oracles were attached to method of intercourse with the deity consisted the sanctuaries of these deities at Dodona and in nocturnal visions, obtained by passing a night Delphi. The political causes that raised the in his temple. oracle of Apollo at Delphi to its high pre-emi- The worship of heroes, which in after times nence over all similar institutions, belongs to a forms so prominent a feature in the Greek relilater period; but Homer describes it as already gion, is not mentioned by Homer. We are very renowned and wealthy before the Trojan war.. far from adopting the opinion that this worship He is equally, or, rather, more familiar with the was the foundation of the Greek religion'; but personal and hereditary faculty of divination. the views and feelings out of which it arose The shades of the dead were also believed to seem, to be clearly discernible in the Homeric possess the power of revealing the future, and poems. The Greek hero-worship presented there were a few oracles where they might be two sides: it was an expression of religious venconsulted. But these institutions seem not to eration for departed excellence, which had exhave been congenial with the feelings of the alted the deceased mortal above the level of his Greeks, and to have been seldom resorted to, kind; and it was a tribute of affection and gratexcept by those who had been goaded by re- itude to a departed friend, kinsman, or benefacmorse into an unwonted superstition. tor. According to the Homeric theology, emiAnother mode of divination which has pre- nent virtue might raise a mortal even to the vailed, and, perhaps, continues to exist in al- society of the gods, as it had changed the namost all countries of the world, was known in ture of Hercules,* or it might transport him, as the earliest ages of Greece, and survived every Menelaus and Rhadamanthys, to a state of other similar form of superstition, the interpre- blessedness little inferior. In either case, the tation of casual sights and sounds, which, as person who approached so nearly to deity was they derive all their imaginary importance from a fit object for similar worship. The piety of the difficulty of perceiving their connexion with surviving friends displayed itself in the most the ordinary state of things, attract notice pre- costly offerings at the funeral pile; and it was cisely in proportion as they least deserve it. probably usual, at a very-early period, to repeat Every variation, however minute, from the such honours at certain intervals over the grave common and anticipated tenour of life, was re- of the decesed. Thus the tomb griadually begarded as an omen denoting some remarkable came an altar, and sometimes the site of a turn of events, and was observed with the temple. But this kind of worship was indebted deeper interest when it happened to coincide for its wider diffusion to an opinion, which apwith a monentous occasion. Thus, in an as- pears first expressed in the poetry of Hesiod, sembly convened for a grave deliberation, the who speaks of thirty thousand guardian dee-utterance of a word associated with a pleasing mons, spirits of departed heroes, which are or unwelcome thought might suspend or deter- continually walking over the earth, veiled in mine the issue of a debate. The flight and darkness, watching the deeds of men, and disvoice of a bird wa s never witnessed with in- * of Leucothea, also, it is% said (Od., vi., 334) that she difference at a critical juncture; still less, such was once a mortal, but afterward obtained divine honours VOL I -N' :98 HISTORY OF GREECE. pensing weal or wo. The general notion of a in the description of foreign regions he had freedcemon comprehended every species of myste- ly indulged his fancy, his expositors only wasted rious, supernatural agency, which the imagina- their time in labouring to reconcile his accounts tion had not conceived under a distinct form, with later discoveries. Strabo himself professand afforded a basis for the personifying of all es to observe a mean between this irreverent abstract properties and relations, by which they criticism and the excessive zeal of those who acquired an influence over the feelings, inde- ragarded Homer as a master of all arts and pendent of poetical fancy. Whatever, either in sciences; yet, rather than admit that he was nature or in man, excited admiration or won- not acquainted with the rudiments of geograder by its excellence or singularity, was con- phy, he does not scruple to put the most viosidered as partaking of this character. With- lent construction on his words, and to draw out entering into this feeling, we shall be una- the most improbable inferences from them. ble to comprehend the prodigality with which At present, perhaps, there is more danger of heroic honours were conferred by the Greeks, pushing the opinion of Eratosthenes too far, as when we find the people of Segesta erecting than of running into the opposite extreme. a chapel, and instituting sacrifices at the grave Some modern writers seem to have assigned of a slain enemy, with no other motive than his too narrow limits to Homer's knowledge dc the extraordinary beauty.* The heroes, with whom earth; and they have, perhaps, sometimes forgotthe notion of a daemon was thus associated, ap- ten that his conceptions of its unknown regions, proach very near to the fairies and goblins of and of the rest of the universe, were probably other mythologies. Greek superstition repre- very vague and indefinite as well as erroneous, sented them as always active, sometimes be- and have attributed a precision and consistency neficent, but not unfrequently wanton and mis- to his views which he may never have aimed chievous. at. On the other hand, it may be fairly assuWe have dwelt the more largely on this sub- med that his descriptions of these objects are ject.here, because the changes which took place not mere poetical fictions, and that, if they do in the Greek religion after the age of Homer not exactly represent the popular opinion, they affect its external aspect rather than its essen- are never without some groundwork of general tial character. Its relation, indeed, to the belief. The-Homeric cosmology is just such a state, to science, and to morality, did not con- scheme as might have been expected to be tinue always the same: as fresh avenues open- formed by men who gaze upon nature with uned for commerce with foreign regions, some hesitating confidence in the intimations of their new objects of worship were introduced: the senses, and are satisfied with the rudest expeprogress of wealth and art multiplied and re- dients for explaining and reconciling them, and fined its rites; but the germe, at least, of every who willingly allow their imagination to range important religious principle and institution is beyond the bounds of their experience in search visible in the Homeric poems. of the marvellous. If we begin by endeavouring to ascertain the IV. It it not our intention fully to describe extent of the poet's geographical knowledge, the state of knowledge and of the arts in the we find ourselves almost confined to Greece heroic ages, or to combine all the scattered and the 2Egean. Beyond this circle all is fortouches by which Homer has illustrated it' into eign and obscure: and the looseness with which a picture as complete as they might enable us he describes the more distant regions, espeto form. We must confine ourselves to select- cially when contrasted with his accurate deing a few of the most striking, which may serve lineation of those which were familiar to him, to mark the limits of the progress which the indicates that, as to the others, he was mostly Greeks of this period had made in intellectual left to depend on vague rumours, which he acquirements, and in their application to the might mould at his pleasure. In the catalogue, purposes of life. indeed, of the Trojan auxiliaries, which probaA just but indiscriminating veneration for bly comprises all the information which the Homer's genius led the Greeks of later times, Greeks had acquired concerning. fhat part of when science and erudition flourished, but the the world at the time it was composed, the spirit of poetry was nearly extinct, to form names of several nations in the interior of Asia very exaggerated notions of his learning. They Minor are enumerated. The remotest are probcould not bring themselves to believe that the ably the Halizonians of Alybe, whose country divine bard, who for so many centuries had may, as. Strabo supposes, be that of the Chalfashioned the mind of Greece, whose wisdom deans on the Euxine. On the southern side of they had been accustomed to revere from their the peninsula, the Lycians appear as a very infancy, should have been. ignorant of things distant race, whose land is therefore a fit scene which, in their own day, were familiar to the for fabulous adventures: on its confines are vulgar, and that his conceptions of the objects the haunts of the monstrous Chimera, and the which lay beyond the narrow range of his knowl- territory of the Amazons; farther eastward, edge should have been at once mean and ex- the mountains of the fierce Solymi, from which travagant to a degree which a more enlighten- Poseidon, on his return from the Ethiopians, ed age finds it difficult to comprehend. Strabo descries the bark of Ulysses sailing on the employs a considerable space in the introducto- western sea. These Ethiopians are placed by ry part of his -work to refute Eratosthenes, the poet at the extremity of the earth; but as who had presumed to maintain that the poet's they are visited by Menelaus in the course aim was merely to afford entertainment, that of his wanderings, they must be supposed to his geographical information was confined to reach across the shores of the inner sea, and the countries inhabited.by Greeks, and that, as to border on the Phoenician: and it is prob* Her., v., 47. able that the poet assigned no great extent KNOWLEDGE AND ARTS. 99' to the intermediate tract. We find no intirna- countries may have been, his descriptrrun-oftion that Menelaus left his ships on the coast them is extremely well fitted to excite curiosity of Syria to nenetrate inland. Nestor, indeed, concerning them in his countrymen, and to imspeaks of this voyage of Menelaus in terms pel the spirit of adventure in this direction. which, at first sight, might seem to indicate With the opposite quarters of the world the rethat the regions he visited were quite out of the verse is the case. They are either wrapped in reach of ordinary Greek navigation: "He has obscurity, or presented under a forbidding as just returned from parts whence a man could pect, as only to be approached through the never hope te return, when once driven into a midst of perils, which make the courage of the sea so vast and fearful, that even the birds hardiest quail. Strabo argues that Homer must come not back within the same year." This, have been acquainted with the Cimmerian Boshowever, is an exaggeration, which indicates porus, because he speaks of the Cimmerians as only the timidity of the Greek mariners, not an a people on the margin of Ocean, near the enerroneous conception of the distance. For trance of the lower world, who are covered with elsewhere we find Ulysses describing a voyage perpetual mist and cloud, and never see the which he performed in five days, from Crete to light of the sun. In like manner, he concludes Egypt: and the Taphians, though they inhabit that the poet, who has mentioned the European the western side of Greece, are represented as Mysians, cannot have been a stranger to the engaged in piratical adventures on the coast of Danube. Yet he elsewhere remarks, that in,Phoenica. On the other hand, one general the time of Homer the Euxine was regarded as idea, which the poet frequently expresses with another ocean, and those who sailed into it were regard to these eastern lands, can scarcely have thought to roam into as distanta region as those been derived from the experience of his coun- who proceeded beyond the Pillars of Hercules. trymen. He describes their inhabitants as not In fact, it appears highly probable, from the manonly abounding in wealth, but in the highest ner in which Homer describes the voyage of degree hospitable and munificent. The palace the Argonauts, that he was ignorant of the exof Menelaus is filled with the precious presents istence of the northern shores of the Euxine, which he has collected during his stay in the and supposed Jason to have sailed from the land East; and, in the story told by Ulysses, though of Eetes, round the north of Greece and Italy, his comrades have provoked the Egyptians by into the western sea. In later times the Argoplundering their fields, and he surrenders him- nauts were made to go up the Danube, and then self a prisoner, yet not only is his life spared to descend by another arm into the Adriatic. by the king, but he is loaded with treasures by But Homer was probably not so well informed the people. It is, perhaps, of less moment that as to see any need for such a fiction. On the the Phoenicians and Egyptians mentioned have, western side of Europe, the compass of his for the most part, purely Greek names. But as knowledge seems to be bounded by a few points to Egypt, it seems clear that the poet's infor- not very far distant from the coast of Greece. mation was confined to what he had heard of a A modern writer has even attempted to prove river /Egyptus, and a great city called Thebes. that the author of the Odyssey was so imperOf its distance from the'mouth of the river he fectly acquainted with the group of islands seems to have no distinct conception. The among which the kingdom of Ulysses lay, as to fertility of the soil is marked by an abundant assign a totally false' position to Ithaca itself.* growth of poisonous and medicinal herbs, and It seems, however, possible to reconcile his dethe wisdom of the people by their skill in the scriptions accurately enough with its real site.t healing art, in which they are said to excel the The northern part of the Adriatic he appears, rest of mankind. He mentions the Isle of Pha- as we have observed, to consider as a vast open ros, but places it at a day's sail from the mouth sea. The opinion which has generally prevailof the river, and Strabo, to save his credit, is ed among both the ancients and the moderns, forced to suppose that he meant to intimate the that in describing the marvellous island of the enlargement of the Delta, which Menelaus Phaeacians he had Corcyra in view, seems to'might have heard of, and which might have in- have no better foundation than the desire of asduced him to substitute the distance by which signing a definite locality to the poet's fictions:$ Pharos had once been separated from the coast as, in the same object, great pains have been for that at which he must himself have found taken to investigate the abodes of Circe and of it.'What part of Africa Menelaus is conceived Calypso. The situation of Corcyra may have to have visited does not appear. He describes been very well known to him; but it was not it.as a fortunate land, in which the ewes yean that'which he required for his Phaeacians; and twice a year, and the lambs are horned from hence no. conclusion can be safely drawn either their birth. The position of the part of Libya for or against his geographical learning, from where Ulysses found the Lotus-eaters,- whose the freedom with which he has painted the wonfavourite fruit still grows under the name of the ders of their island. Farther westward, Sicily jujube, on the same coast, is more precisely fixed by. its vicinity to the land of the Cyclops; * voelker, Ueber Homerische Geographie, c. iv. The from which it seems that the poet imagined most valuable work on this subject after Voss. It is also less than a day's voyage to intervene between very learnedly treated by Ukert, Geographie der Griechea u. Roemer, vol. i. Sicily and the nearest point of Africa. It seems ut This is the object of a little work, Ueber das Honerische to be implied that a regular traffic subsisted Ithaka, by R. V. L. Ruehle von Lilienstern. between Libya and Phoenicia.* + This has been lately very satisfactorily shown by ProOn the whole; we may observe, and it is a re- fessor Welcker, in a most ingenious and interesting essay on Homer's Phmeacians, in the new series of the Rheinisches mark of some importance, that whatever Ho- Museum, i., 2. But I find it very difficult to assent to his mer's knowledge of these eastern and southern position, which he adopts apparently only on etymological grounds, that the poet does not mean to represent Scheria v 295. as an island. 100 HISTORY OF' GREECE. and the southern extremity of Italy are repre- ible line, admits of much doubt. On the farsented as the limits of all ordinary navigation. ther side, however, is land; but a land of darkBeyond lies a vast sea, which spreads to the ness, which the sun cannot pierce; a land of very confines of nature and space. Sicily itself, Cimmerians, the realm of Hades, inhabited by at least its more remote parts, is inhabited by the shades of the departed, and by the family various races of gigantic cannibals; whether, of dreams. As to the other dimensions of the at the same time, any of the tribes who really earth, the poet affords us no information, and it preceded the Greeks in the occupation of the would be difficult to decide whether a cylinder island were known to be settled on the eastern or a cone approaches nearest to the figure which side, is not certain, though the Sicels and Sica- he may have assigned to it; and as little does nia are mentioned in the Odyssey. The mar- he intimate in what manner he conceives it to vels with which the poet has embellished this be supported. But within it was hollowed anpart of his narrative. were no doubt suggested other vast receptacle for departed spirits, perby some real features in the nature of the scenes haps the proper abode of Hades. Beneath this, described, as the dangers of the straits and the and as far below the earth as heaven was above appearance of the volcanic islands on the north- it, lay the still more murky pit of Tartarus, seerncoast; but the boldness of his fictions seems cured by its iron gates and brazen floor, the to prove that he is only giving shape to an in- dungeon reserved by Jupiter for his implacable distinct rumour. Yet the copper mines of Te- enemies. mesa are already so celebrated as to attract the The waters of Ocean, as they nourish the Taphians, who carry iron to barter for it.* But earth, also renovate and purify the lustre of the Italy, as well as Greece, appears, according to heavenly fires, among which one only never rethe poet's notions, to be bounded on the north. pairs its waste in the refreshing bath. The sun by a formidable waste of waters. rises —it would seem out of a spacious reach When we proceed to inquire how the imagin- which the river makes in the east-to perform ation of the people filled up the void of its ex- his journey over the vault of heaven. The luperience, and determined the form of the un- minary itself is perpetually confounded with the known world, we find that the rudeness of its power which animates it or controls its career. conceptions corresponds to the scantiness of its But the god does not appear under the form of information. The part of the earth exposed to a charioteer, who, as he climbs the heights of the beams of the sun was undoubtedly consid- ether, darts his beams on the earth: nor is it ered, not as a spherical, but as a plane surface, certain how the poet conceived the close of his only varied by its heights and hollows; and as daily task to be connected with its renewal. little can it be doubted that the form of this There is no intimation that he was supposed to surface was determined by that of the visible descend below the surface of the earth, nor, inhorizon. The whole orb is girt by the ocean, deed, would such a revolution be consistent not a larger sea, but a deep river, which, circu- with the other parts' of the mundane system. lating with constant but gentle flux, separates If the necessity of some additional supposition the world of light and life from the realms of to explain the vicissitude of day and night had darkness, dreams, and death. No feature in been observed, it was probably met by a fiction the Homeric chart is more distinctly prominent similar to that which became current in later than this: hence the Divine artist terminates times. The poet Mimnermus, who flourished the shield of Achilles with a circular stripe, rep- between the seventh and sixth century B.C., resenting the mighty strength of the river ocean, may only have expressed an idea which had and all the epithets which the poet applies to it been long familiar to the Greeks, when he sang are such as belong exclusively to a river. It is of the golden bowl which Hephastus had by no means easy to account for this notion, wrought, and furnished with wings, as a floateven if it should be supposed to have arisen be- ing couch for the god of day, who, after finishfore the Greeks were acquainted with the Asi- ing his task, reposes in the enchanted vessel, atic continent: for still they saw nothing but and is rapidly transported over the surface of land to the north; and even if they imagined the water from the abode of the Hesperides to the earth to be encompassed by waters, there the land of the Ethiopians, where he finds anwas nothing to suggest the thought of a limita- other chariot and fresh steeds waiting to rery river. It would rather seem that they must ceive him. have been led to it in endeavouring to explain It does not appear that the poet was aware the origin of the liquid element by tracing it to of any distinction worth his notice between the a single source, which would naturally be fixed northern and the southern half of the terrestrial at the extremity of the earth. And, according- plane; but the regions subject to the immedily, Homer describes all the other rivers, all ate influence of the rising and setting sun are springs and wells, and the salt main itself, as scenes of wonder, and peopled by a peculiar issuing from the ocean stream, which might be. race. The adjacent shores or islands are supposed to feed them by subterraneous chan- blessed with a double portion of light and heat, nels.' Still it is very difficult to form a clear and teem with inexhaustible fertility. The conception of this river, or to say how the poet Elysian plain, though not far remote from the supposed it to be bounded. Ulysses passes into land of darkness and dreams, enjoys an uninit from the western sea; but whether the point terrupted serenity of atmosphere. The people at which he enters is a mouth or opening, or that inhabits these favoured regions of the exthe two waters are only separated by an invis- treme east ahnd west attests the neighbourhood of the sun by their swarthy complexion, which * Od., i., 184. It is not, however, certain that this Te- is expressed by the name of Ethiopians: the mesa was in Italy; the direction in which the speaker is god essed by the name of Ethiopians: the sailing is at least quite as favourable to the opinion of gods themselves sometimes leave their celesthose who took it for a town in Cyprus. But see Eustr:h. tial home to share the plenty of their banquets KNOWLEDGE AND ARTS. 101 and to honour their piety and innocence. It half-decked boats: according to the calculation has been supposed that a rumour of a dark-col- of Thucydides, who seems to suspect exaggeroured race on the eastern shores of the Euxine ation, the largest contained 120 men, the greatmay have suggested the thought of the fabulous est number of rowers mentioned in the cataEthiopians; but their colour was determined logue; but we find twenty rowers spoken of as by their position, and the seats of perfect inno- a usual complement of a good ship. The mast cence and justice could only be fixed at the was movable, and was only hoisted to take adfarthest ends of the earth. These Ethiopians vantage of a fair wind, and at the end of a day's became the model of a similar, perfect, happy, voyage was again deposited in its appropriate and long-lived race, which inhabited a paradise receptacle. In the daytime the Greek mariner in tile extreme north, sheltered from the blasts commonly followed the windings of the coasts, of Boreas by a barrier of mountains; and when or shot across from headland to headland, or the Greeks became acquainted with the African from isle to isle; at night his Vessel was usualtribes, Ethiopia was shifted to the shores of the ly put into port or hauled up on the beach; for southern sea, where, in the reign of Cambyses, though on clear nights he might prosecute his a people was believed to exist of extraordinary voyage as well as by day, yet, should the sky beauty, stature, and longevity, in whose coun- be overcast, his course was inevitably lost. try gold was more plentiful than copper, the ta- Engagements at sea are never mentioned by ble of the sun yielded every day spontaneously Homer, though he so frequently alludes to pia banquet of various meats, and a soft and fra- ratical excursions. They were probably of rare grant spring supplied an elixir of life. occurrence; but, as they must sometimes have Some of the epithets which Homer applies to been inevitable, the galleys were provided with the heaven seem to imply that he considered it long poles for such occasions. The approach as a solid vault of metal. But it is not neces- of winter put a stop to all ordinary navigation sary to construe these epithets so literally, nor Hesiod fixes the time for laying up the merto draw any such inference from his description chant-ship, covering it with stones, taking out of Atlas, who holds the lofty pillars which keep the rigging, and hanging the rudder up by the earth and heaven asunder. Yet it would seem, fire. According to him, the fair season lasts from the manner in which the height of heaven only fifty days: some, indeed, venture earlier is compared with the depth of Tartarus, that to sea, but a prudent man will not then trust the region of light was thought to have certain his substance to the waves. bounds. The summit of the Thessalian Olym- The practical astronomy of the early Greeks pus was regarded as the highest point on the consisted of a few observations on the heavenly earth, and it is not always carefully distin- bodies, the appearances of which were most guished from the aerian regions above. The conspicuously connected with the common ocidea of a seat of the gods-perhaps derived cupations of life. The succession of light and from a more ancient tradition, in which it was darkness, the recurring phases of the moon, not attached to any geographical site - seems and the vicissitude of the seasons, presented to be indistinctly blended' in the poet's mind three regular periods of time, which, though all with that of the real mountain. Hence Hephaes- equally forced on the attention, were not all tus, when hurled from the threshold of Jupiter's marked with equal distinctness by sensible limnpalace, falls from morn to noon, from noon to its. From the first, and down to the age of Sodewy eve, before he drops on Lemnos; and Ju- lon, the Greeks seem to have measured their piter speaks. of suspending the earth by a chain months in the natural way, by the interval befrom the top of Olympus. tween one appearance of the new moon and A wider compass of geographical knowledge the next. Hence their months were of unequal and more enlarged views of nature would duration; yet they might be described in round scarcely have been consistent with the state of numbers as consisting of thirty days; and Henavigation and commerce which the Homeric siod speaks of a thirtieth day as if it belonged poems represent. The poet expresses the com- to every month; a mode of speaking which, mon feelings of an age when the voyages of the though it has occasioned dispute among modern Greeks were mostly confined to the _.Egean, in writers, was not liable to be misunderstood by the language used by Nestor in speaking of the his contemporaries, even if he has not himself wanderings of Menelaus. So, when Troy is furnished a hint for correcting it.* The comsaid to be at a vast distance from the Achaean putation of the days of the month seems to land, this is not to be considered merely as the have been important only in a religious point judgment of an Ithacan shepherd. We find the of view, partly through the popular superstition Greeks, after the fall of Troy, earnestly deliber- which stamped each day of the month with its ating at Lesbos on'the long voyage which lay peculiar character of good or evil omen, and before them, and uncertain whether they -shall partly through the sacred traditions which fixed cross the open sea from the north of Chios to the festivals of certain deities on certain days Eubcea, or steer along the coast of Cape Mirnas. Hesiod devotes a part of his poem on husbandThe former course is adopted, and, on their ar- ry to the days of the month, which he enumerrival at Gerpestus, they offer many victims to ates and describes according to their various Poseidon, in gratitude for having been brought imaginary properties, and he enjoins every in safety over so great a sea. It accords with master of a house to take careful note of them this view of the distance, that the failure of the for the instruction of his domestics. It was first expedition against Troy was attributed to soon observed that the revolutions of the moon a mistake of the pilots, who guided the fleet to were far from affording an exact measure of the coast of Mysia instead of the kingdom of Priam. The vessels of the heroes, and proba- * By the line 766, el r' dv, ic. r. X., according to Ideler's interpretation (Handbuch der Chronologie, i., p. 263), which bly of the poet's contemporaries, were slender, is not overthrown by Goettling's objections. 102 HISTORY OF GREECE. the apparent annual revolution of the sun, and the goddess, who assumes the person of a that, if this were taken to be equal to twelve Taphian chief, professing that she is on her of the former, the seasons would pass in suc- way to Temesa, with a cargo of iron to be excession through all the months of the year.: changed for copper; and in the Iliad, Jason's This in itself would have been no evil, and son, the prince of Lemnos, appears to carry on would have occasioned no disturbance in the an active traffic with the Greeks before Troy. business of life. Seen under the Giteek sky, He sends a number of ships freighted with wine, the stars were scarcely less conspicuous ob- for which the purchasers pay, some in copper, jects than the moon itself: some of the most some in iron, some in hides, some in cattle, striking groups were early observed and named, some in slaves. Of the use of money the poet and served, by their risings and settings, to gives no hint, either in this description or elseregulate the labours of the husbandman and the where. He speaks of the precious metals only adventures of the seaman. But though for such as commodities, the value of which was in all purposes it was not necessary to adjust the or- cases determined by weight. The Odyssey der of the lunar months to that of the seasons, represents Phoenician traders as regularly frethe interests of religion seem to have required quenting the Greek ports:* but as Phoenician that this should be done. The spirit of a cere- slaves are sometimes brought to Greece, so the monial worship prescribes a rigid adherence to Phoenicians do not scruple, even where they the established rites, in all their forms and cir- are received as friendly merchants, to carry cumstances; and, accordingly, it was not held away Greek children into slavery.t sufficient for the due celebration of a sacred The general impression which the Homeric festival among the Greeks, that it took place pictures of society leave on the reader is, that on a stated day of the month, if it did not also many of the useful arts-that is, those subserconform to the ancient rule in the season of the vient to the animal wants or enjoyments of life. year. This is the remark, indeed, of a late — had already reached such a stage of refine: Greek writer, but it is so consistent with the ment as enabled the affluent to live, not merewhole character of the earliest religion of his ly in rude plenty, but in a considerable degree countrymen, that it may safely be adopted, and of luxury and splendour. The dwellings, furapplied to the remotest times.* Hence it is niture, clothing, armour, and other such properhighly probable that, even before the time of ty of the chiefs, are commonly described as Homer, the Greeks had begun to compensate magnificent, costly, and elegant, both as to the for the defect'of the lunar year by the occa- materials and workmanship. We are struck sional addition of an intercalary month. In the not only by the apparent profusion of the predivision of the seasons Homer seems to make cious metals, and other rare and dazzling obno distinction between summer and autumn; jects, in the houses of the great, but by the and the goddesses who preside over them skill and ingenuity which seem to be exerted in the Hours —were originally three in number. working them up into convenient and graceful Their name was not yet given to portions of forms. Great caution, however, is evidently the day; these the poet usually describes by necessary in drawing inferences from these dethe civil occupations belonging to them; as, scriptions, as to the state of the arts in the hethe morning by the filling of the market-place, roic ages. The poet has treasures at his disthe noon as the time when the wood-cutter posal, which, as they cost him nothing, he may rests from his toil and takes his repast, the scatter with an unsparing hand.. It depends, evening as the unyoking of the oxen, or as the entirely upon himself with what degree of magtime when the judge quits the seat of justice. nificence he shall adorn the various scenes In the night, the stars, as they supplied the which he depicts. Nor has he need of any place of a calendar to the husbandman, served real models to enable him~ to give a minute as a clock for those whose habits made them description of the most elaborate works. A conversant with the aspect of the heavens. very rude performance may sometimes be sufCommerce appears, in Homer's descriptions, ficient to suggest to him new combinations, to be familiar enough to the, Greeks of the he- more ingenious and artificial than any which role age, but not to be held in great esteem. his own experience had ever brought under We find Ulysses taunted by one of the Phaea- his eye. These remarks are all applicable to cians, though themselves a maritime people, Homer. The shield made by Hephaestus for as a person whose appearance betokened that Achilles cannot be considered as a specimen he was more used to command sailors in a of.the progress of art, since it is not only the merchant vessel, to take charge of a cargo, and work of a god, but is fabricated on an extraorto keep an eye on the outlays and the profits dinary occasion, to excite the admiration of of a voyage, than to engage in athletic sports. men: and the figures in silver and gold which And in such a capacity Ulysses, relating his adorn the fairy palace of Alcinous, and which, fictitious adventures, describes himself as hav- in part at least, are ascribed to the same divine ing been once employed by a Phaenician; but artist, are undoubtedly such as the poet had in the same narrative he mentions, with pride, never beheld in any human habitation. But, that, though left an orphan, with a very slender besides this doubt as to the degree in which provision, he could never bear to apply himself his imagination may have overstepped reality to any peaceful occupation for acquiring wealth in his descriptions of such objects, another is at home: ships were his delight, and he had suggested by several passages, which might made many expeditions from Crete to foreign lead us to suppose that, even where he had parts, but always with armed comrades, to en- some real patterns before him, they were the rich himself with the plunder of the- coasts productions, not of Grecian, but of foreign art which he visited. Yet in the Odyssey we find Nor should it be forgotten, that if, as is at least * Geminus, Isag., 6, quoted by Ideler, i., p. 256. * Od., xiii., 272 1 Ibid., xv., 452. KNOWLEDGE AND ARTS. 103 most probable, he was an Asiatic Greek, he quently erected for the reception of the treasmay have been familiar with many things which ures amassed by the great;* and they were were very little known among his European probably filled with chariots, vessels, and other countrymen before the Trojan war. The pal- works of art, worthy of such costly receptacles, ace of Menelaus is all glittering with gold and which must have been in great part productions silver, with ivory and amber; but its splendour of native industry. On the other hand, the excites astonishment in Telemachus: though same poems afford several strong indications his father's house is described as a princely that though, in the age which they describe, mansion, and though he had just left Nestor's such arts were perhaps rapidly advancing, they royal residence, he can only compare it with cannot then have been so long familiar to the what he has been accustomed to conceive of Greeks as to be very commonly practised; and Jove's palace in Olympus. We learn, how- that a skilful artificer was rarely found, and ever, that these sumptuous ornaments have for was consequently viewed with great admirathe most part been brought by Menelauq from tion, and occupied a high rankrin society. Thus foreign lands. So the breastplate of Agamem- the craft of the carpenter appears to be exceednon, which is not only singularly rich in its inglyhonourable. He is classed with the soothmaterials, but adorned with elegant figures,. sayer, the. physician, and the bard, and, like was a present which he had received from Cy- them, is frequently sent for from a distance.t prus. Indeed, it is clear that the poet attributes The son of a person eminent in this craft is not such a superiority to several Eastern nations, mixed with the crowd on the field of battle, but more especially to the Phcenicians, not only in comes forward amrong the most distinguished wealth, but in knowledge and skill, that, com- warriors;t and as in itself it seems to confer pared with their progress, the arts of Greece a sort of nobility, so it is practised by the most seem to be in their infancy. The description illustrious chiefs. Ulysses is represented as a of a Phoenician vessel which comes to a Greek very skilful carpenter. He not only builds the island freighted with trinkets, and of the man- boat in which he leaves the Island of Calypso, ner in which a lady of the highest rank, and her but in his own palace carves a singular bedstead servants, handle and gaze on one of the foreign out of the trunk of a tree, which he inlays with ornaments, present the image of such a com- gold, silver, and ivory. Another chief, Epeus, merce as Europeans carry on with the island- was celebrated as the builder of the wooden ers of the South Sea. It looks as if articles of horse in which the heroes were concealed at this kind at least were eagerly coveted, and the taking of Troy. The goddess Athen6 was that there were no means of procuring them at held to preside over this, as over all manual home. arts, and to favour those who excelled in it Such an inferiority may, however, be admit- with her inspiring counsels. ted, without supposing that the Greeks were Though war was the chief business and dealtogether dependant on foreigners even for light of the heroic ages, it appears to have been works which demanded a high degree of skill. very far from being reduced to any form deIt is possible that Homer's pictures of the he- serving the name of an art. This is nearly all roic style of living may be too highly coloured, that we can collect from Homer's descriptions but there is reason to believe that they were of battles and sieges, though military affairs drawn from the life. He may have been some- compose the whole subject of the Iliad. We what too lavish of the precious metals; but learn much as to the combats of the chiefs, but some of the others, particularly copper, were little or nothing as to the engagements of the perhaps more abundant than in later times': armies. Sometimes, indeed, the poet seems to besides copper and iron, we find steel and tin, attach great importance to the compact array which the Phoenicians appear already to have of the troops; and he contrasts the silent and brought frdm the west of Europe, frequently steady advance of the Greeks with the noisy mentioned. There can be no doubt that the march of the Trojans. But the issue of the industry of the Greeks had long been employed conflict is always decided either by the immedion these materials. There is no ground for ate interposition of the gods, or by the personal supposing that the commerce which Homer valour of the heroes. The common warriors represents them as carrying on with the Phe- serve only as figures in the background, to fill nicians was of very recent-origin, and it could up the picture. A single hero of eminent prowscarcely fail soon to rouse their native ingenu- ess can put a whole army to flight. Nestor, as ity to imitate and rival Phcenician art. We the most experienced general, takes lead in the may, therefore, readily believe that, even in the councils; and in the tenth year of the war he heroic times, the works of Greek artisans al- proposes a new order of battle, according to the ready bore the stamp of the national genius. natural or political divisions of the army; but In some important points, the truth of Homer's no result appears to follow from the adoption descriptions has been confirmed by monuments, of this plan. The strength and dexterity disbrought to light within our own memory, of an played by the chieftains in wielding their ponarchitecture which was most probably contem- derous weapons are almost supernatural, yet porary with the events which he celebrated. they are probably not much exaggerated, and The remains of Mycenae and other ancient may be conceived as the effect of a long applicities seem sufficiently to attest the fidelity with which he has represented the general * This opinion as to the destination of the Treasury, as character of that magnificence which the he- it is commonly called, of Atreus, at Mycena, and of other similar structures, which is maintained by Mueller in his roic chieftains loved to display. They seem to Archd'ologie der Kunst and other works, has been strongly show that spacious buildings of a peculiar con- controverted by Welcker in a late review of the Archd'olostruction, lined within with plates of metal, and gie in the Rh. Mus. Yet he admits that, as graves, they may have served to contain treasures. without richly adorned with marble, were fre- t Od., xvii., 386. II., v 60 104 HISTORY OF GREECE. cation to chivalrous exercises; and they serve of Thessaly, where Chiron collected the potent to explain the terror with which a whole host drugs with which he furnished Esculapius.* might be inspired by the presence of a single The name of Ephyra, which anciently belonged enemy. The principal heroes are still more to several parts of Greece, as well as to a town distinguished from the throng by their chariots or district in Epirus, was especially associated or cars, the use of which is the most striking with this belief. The Thesprotian Ephyra, infeature in the heroic warfare: on the field of deed, is only mentioned as a land of poisons; Troy, horses are not employed for any other but the Elean Ephyra was in the kingdom of purpose. It does not appear that they were Augeas, whose daughter Agamede-:like Medea, used, like those of the ancient Britons, to throw who belongs as well to the Corinthian Ephyra the enemy's ranks into disorder. The warrior as to the south of Thessaly-knew every medistood in his car by the side of his charioteer, cine on the.face of the earth.t The same propand sometimes fought in that position; but he erty was attributed, as we have seen, to the commonly alighted at the approach of a formid- soil of Egypt, where Helen received many exable antagonist, and then mounted again for cellent drugs from Polydamna; and among pursuit or flight. But it is not easy to conceive them one, the description of which seems to how these operations were conducted so as to prove that the Greeks, in the time of Homer, avoid extreme confusion and continual disas- were acquainted with the virtues of opium. ters. It is still more surprising to find that the These instances also indicate that, if in Greece Trojans, on one occasion, think of urging their" every man was not a physician, as in Egypt, the horses, which naturally shrink from the danger, art, such as it was, was as frequently and sucover a deep and broad ditch, with palisades, and cessfully practised by the women.. a wall on the opposite side.* No mention oc- We have already seen that several of the arts curs of any artificial means for the attack of which originally ministered only to physical fortified towns. If the walls were too strong, wants had been so far refined before the time or too well defended to be scaled, the besiegers of Homer, that their productions gratified the were compelled to wait for an opportunity of sense of beauty, and served for ornament as effecting an entrance by surprise or stratagem. well as for use. Hence our curiosity is awakenThe walls of Troy are of extraordinary strength, ed to inquire to what extent those arts, which and for years defy the assaults of the Greeks, became in later times the highest glory of though at first greatly superior in numbers. Greece, in which she yet stands unrivalled, Patroclus, however, thrice attempts to mount were cultivated in the same period. Unfortuby one of the outer buttresses, but is repulsed nately, the information which the poet affords by the arm'of the tutelary god. VWhen the on this subject is so scanty and obscure, as to whole of the Trojan army is about to pass the leave room on many points for a wide difference night without the city, Hector directs the boys of opinion. If we begin with his own art, of and old men to keep guard on the walls, to pre- which his own poetry is the most ancient specivent a surprise which they had cause to appre- men extant, we find several hints of ifs earlier hend from a detachment of the enemy; but he condition. It was held in the highest honour does not take a similar precaution for the pro- among the heroes. The bard is one of those tection of his troops, who have no security but persons whom men send for to very distant their own vigilance against a hostile attack. parts; his presence is welcome at every feast; The art of a general seems to have consisted it seems as if one was attached to the service more in concerting ambuscades and other strata- of every great family, and treated with an algems and surprises, than in providing against most religious respect; Agamemnon, when he them. sets out on the expedition to Troy, reposes the The chances of war give occasion as might most important of all trusts in the bard whom be expected, for frequent allusions to the heal- he leaves at home. It would even- seem as if ing art. The Greek army contains two chiefs poetry and music were thought fit to form part who have inherited consummate skill in this art of a princely education, for Achilles is found from their father'Esculapius; and Athilles has amusing himself with singing, while he touches been so well instructed in it by Chiron, that the same instrument with which the bards conPatroclus, to whom he has imparted his knowl- stantly accompany their strains. The general edge, is able to supply their place. But the pro- character of this heroic poetry is also distinctly cesses described in this and other cases show marked; it is of the narrative kind, and its subthat there might often be the least danger from jects are drawn from the exploits or adventures the treatment of the most unpractised hands. of renowned men.T Each song is described as The operation of extracting a weapon from the a short extemporaneous effusion-the newest wound with a knife seems not to have been is said to be the most extolled —but yet seems considered as one which demanded peculiar to have been rounded into a little whole, such skill; the science of the physician was chiefly as to satisfy the hearer's immediate curiosity. displayed in the application of medicinal herbs, There was, however, another kind of poetry by which he stanched the blood and eased the existing at the same period, though probably of pain. When Ulysses has been gored by a wild much earlier origin, and recognised by Homer, boar, his friends first bind up the hurt, and thenr though he notices it much more sparingly, the use a charm for stopping the flow of blood. As sacred poetry, which had, perhaps, been transthe popular credulity excessively exaggerated mitted from the ancient bards, who were celethe virtue of medicinal herbs, so certain regions brated in the Greek traditions as founders of were supposed to be particularly favourable to See Pindar, Pyth., iii., and the fragment of Dic archus their growth, and the same lands were cele- on Pelion, at the end of Creuzer's Meletemata. brated for their deadly poisons. So the south t 11., xi., 741. * Alcinous observes (Od., xi., 368) that Ulysses has told I1., xii., ~e. his story skilfully, like a bard KNOWLEDGE AND ARTS. 105 religious rites, and devoted to the service of the and that they resembled them in several points gods. It was probably with hymns drawn of their internal distribution.* The principal from this source that the anger of Apollo was. features which may be collected from Homer's to be soothed by the Greeks who were sent 1 allusions are, that they were, in general, at with a hecatomb to his temple at Chryse. The least partially roofed:t some, as that of Apollo Odyssey affords a very interesting example of at Delphi, contained great treasures; and that a third kind of poetry, in a little poem with of the same god at Troy had an innermost sancwhich Demodocus entertains the Phaeacians, tuary.$ The doors of the temple of Athen6, at and which is given as if in the very words of Troy, are opened by the priestess when an ofthe bard. It describes not any actions of mor- fering is to be made to the goddess; and, in gen tals, but a scene in Olympus; the narrative is eral, the idea of a temple is constantly associaconducted in a strain of licentious levity, and ted, not only with that of sacrifices, but with that the principal persons are placed in ludicrous of permanent votive offerings,{ consisting of situations. It is not improbable that this speci- robes, vessels, and other valuable productions of men illustrates the manner in which subjects art, which must havQ required both safe custody properly belonging to the sacred poetry were and shelter, and would consequently contribute adapted, by a different mode of treatment, to I to determine the form of the building. All this, profane occasions and to a mixed company. however, though it may serve to illustrate the Poetry and music are, in this period, as they general progress of refinement, does not much long continued to be, almost inseparably united: assist in fixing the station which architecture the latter art commonly appears only as an held among the arts. But if the remains, which humble attendant on the former, which serves we have already noticed, of the buildings known to prepare the audience and to heighten the under the name of Treasuries are rightly referinspiration of the bard. It is uncertain whether red to the heroic ages, they seem to justify the the sound of flutes and pipes, which reaches belief that elegance of design and architectural the ear of Agamemnon from the Trojan station, decorations could not have been whollyiwantought to be considered as an exception. In the ing in the sacred edifices of the same period. II description of a wedding feast in the Iliad, in- An equally interesting and difficult question struments of different kinds are combined to presents itself as to the degree in which Hoe accompany a dance and a choral song. Dancing mer and his contemporaries were conversant was very frequently thus united with music and with the imitative arts, and particularly with reppoetry; and the art appears to have been very resentations of the human form. We find'such carefully cultivated, as that which, on public representations on a small scale frequently deoccasions, formed the youth of both sexes into scribed. The garment woven by Helen conregular groups, and exhibited their agility in tained a number of battle scenes; as one pregraceful and harmonious movements. The early sented by Penelope to Ulysses was embroidered love of the Greeks for such spectacles was un- with a picture of a chase, wrought with gold doubtedly connected with that peculiar percep- threads. The shield of Achilles was divided tion of beauty, which subsequently unfolded it- into compartments, exhibiting many complicaself in their statuary, and had no slight influ- ted groups of figures; and though this was a ence on its development. masterpiece of Hephaestus, it would lead us to It would not be equally clear, if we had no believe that the poet must have seen many less other source of information than Homer's de- elaborate and difficult works of a like nature. scriptions, whether in his time architecture had But throughout the Homeric poems there ocarrived at such a stage as to deserve a place curs only one distinct allusion to a statue as a among the fine arts. There are two kinds of work of human art. The robe which the Trobuildings which he frequently mentions, and jan queen offers to Athen6 in her temple is plawhich afforded the amplest room for the display ced. by the priestess on the knees of the godof architectural skill-the palaces of the chiefs, dess, who was therefore represented in a sitand the temples of the gods. But even with tingposture.~ Even this, it maybe said, proves respect to the private dwellings, which are oftenest described, the poet's language barely en- * Besides the remark in the last note, this may be inferables us to form a general notion of their ordi- red from the word pya pov being common to the temple and nary plan, and affords no conception of the style the house, in the sense of the inner or most private part. finary plan, and- affords no conception of the stl t This has been questioned on very insufficient grounds; which prevailed in them, or of their effect on as when it is observed that Pausanias, viii., 44, mentions a the eye. It seems, indeed, probable, from the temple of Cybele in Arcadia, which remained to his time manner in which he dwells on their metallic or- without a roof. Pausanias, in the same chapter, mentions a temple of Artemis which was in the same state, and psobnaments, that the higher beauty of proportion ably from the same cause, the ravages of time and fortune. was but little required or understood; and it The assertion in the text seems to be clearly proved, both is, perhaps, strength and convenience, rather by the analogy which has been pointed out, and by several than elegance, that he means to commend in passages in H9omer)d the tevrmplein whpch rysEnea s s tendea ~speaking of the fair house which Paris had built by Latona and Artemis can scarcely be imagined without for himself with the aid of the most skilful ma- one. The description of the temple at Delphi.(11., ix., 404). sons of Troy. As to the templeshe dwell- does not in the slightest degree mark that it was roofless; sons of Troy.* As to the temples -the dwell- and with respect to that of Minerva at Athens, the contrary ings or houses of the gods, as they are frequent- must be inferred from the poet's language, Od., vii., 81, zlve ly calledt-the precise nature of their construc-''EpexOloS rvicvbv:66pov, compared with' 11., ii., 549. tion is even still more obscure; though it seems Even Hirt, being led by his theory to underrate the state of the arts in the time of Homer, gives a very unsatisfactory probable that they did not very materially differ 7-iew of this subject in his Geschichte der Baukunst, i., p. 207. in their exterior from the princely mansions, t II., v., 448. I Od., xii., 347. 11 It was, however, not beauty, but massiveness, that Paun * II., vi., 314; compare 242, foell. sanias admired in the treasury of Miinyaa, which he says t vads, dyoloe. The temples were probably intended to was a wonder not inferior to any in the world (ix., 36, 5). resemble the dwellings of the gods in Olympus, which were ST II., vi., 303. It seems not improbable that the phrase considered as so many royal palaces (Od., iv,, 74, foell.). Taiira gav lv yoviacrt iEcrat may have had its origin in VOL. I.-O 106 HISTORY OF GREECE. nothing as to the Greeks; but, not to mention I rude additions to the old symbols, for the purthat the religion and manners of the Trojans I pose of bringing them nearer to the human are entirely Greek, there is no reason for sus- form; and gradually introduced complete figpecting that the numerous legends which as- ures, which, under the hands of successive artcribed an antiquity far more remote than the ists, acquired ihore and more of truth and grace. Trojan war to many of the Greek idols were To others it has appeared that such a gradual grounded on a totally mistaken view of the an- change is highly'improbable in itself, because cient religion. The golden statues of youths, hardly consistent with the veneration paid to erected on altars or pedestals, in the palace of the original symbols; and that it contradicts all Alcinous, to hold the torches which lighted the the best evidence remaining on the subject, hall at night, since, like the silver dogs which which points, not to a progressive alteration of guarded the doors, they must be considered as the primitive symbols, but to an immediate subthe work of Hephaestus, do not, perhaps, strict- stitution of new idols. This substitution, it is ly belong to this inquiry any more than the fe- supposed, was effected by the foreign settlers, male figures which the god had made of the particularly the Egyptian; to whom, in fact, same material, and had endued with motion, the institution of religious rites, and the dedicathought, and speech, to support his steps. They tion of certain images, is ascribed by the Greek can only be admitted as additional indications traditions. as to Danaus,* Cecrops,t and Cadthat the poet was not a stranger to such objects. mus.t This view of the origin of Grecian art But as all accounts agree that the earliest pro- has also the advantage of explaining a fact in ductions of statuary among the Greeks, and, its history which it is otherwise very difficult perhaps, among every other people, were con- to account for. It is universally admitted that secrated to the service of religion, we are here a great revolution took place in the sixth cenonly concerned with the state of this art in the tury before our era, which, in the course of litHomeric age, as applied to its nioblest use, that tle more than a hundred years, brought Grecian of exhibiting the objects of divine worship. On sculpture to its highest stage of perfection. this subject two opposite opinions are still very But that revolution was preceded by a period warmly maintained. It is admitted on both of many centuries, during which the art appears sides that the earliest objects of adoration to have remained, in all its essential points, very among the inhabitants of Greece were not imi- nearly stationary; so that intelligent judges, tative, but symbolical; not idols, but either rude who, like Pausanias, were able to compare the stones, or wooden staves or beams, which were works of all periods, from the earliest to the not even carved into a distant likeness of the latest, considered the artists of the first period as human form. It was thus that the god of Love all belonging to the same school, that of the most was worshipped at Thespiae,* the goddess of ancient sculptor, Daedalus. This long pause is Beauty at Paphos,t the Graces at Orchomenus,$ the more mysterious the higher we estimate Zeus and Artemis at Sicyon,Q the Twins at the industry and skill with which, as we have Sparta.ll Even in the time of Pausanias, the already seen, the Greeks had begun to cultivate inhabitants of Chaeronea paid higher honours to many branches of art, even before the time of a staff, which they believed to be the sceptre Homer. But the enigma is solved if it be supof Agamemnon described in the Iliad, than to posed that in Greece, as in Egypt, during the any of the gods.~ And the same author, after early ages, the influence of religion fettered the relating that at Pharae, in Achaia, thirty square art which was originally devoted to its service, stones were adored, each under the name of a by prescribing a sacred type, which it was separate god, observes that, in ancient times, deemed irreverent to alter; and that the form all the Greeks paid divine honours to rude of the old idol remained so long unchanged, bestones instead of images.** The question, then, cause it had been suddenly introduced, and imis, at what time, and through what course, this mediately acquired an inviolable sanctity in the universal mode of worship was exchanged for eyes of the people, which was extended to all that of the idols which afterward occupied the its parts and proportions. Grecian temples. Some writers conceive that Thus the legends of the Oriental colonists the fact may be sufficiently explained by the would receive unexpected confirmation from a natural progress of the rise and fall of art, which, new side. It may, however, be observed, that on its first awakening, began to make some even if there is nothing improbable in the supthe supplication addressed to a visible image. The ancients pos that te Egyptian idols having once commonly supposed that the Xop6l, which is said, Il., xviii., been dispersed over Greece, their original form 592, to have been made by Daedalus, in Crete, for Ariadne, was everywhere preserved during the same pewas a piece of sculpture;' and Pausanias, ix., 40, 3, believed od, and fromthe same motiv, with equal rigthat, in his own day, it was extant at Cnossus in white marble. K. O. Mueller, however, in his Handbuch der Archi- our, still it is difficult to conceive that the new ologie der Kunst, p. 41, observes that, according to the Ho- worship could have gained universal admitmerlic usage, in II., iii., 394; Od., viii., 260, the word can tance, unless it had been suitedto the religious only mean a placefor dancing. It may perhaps be asked wants and ideas of the people; and in this case whether an area levelled for this purpose, in the manner wants and ideas of the people; and in this case described in the passage of the Odyssey, was such a work it appears very credible that it might have as would be ascribed to Daedalus, or (according to tIirt, sprung up at home, without the intervention of Geschichte der bildenden Kuenste, p. 71) to Hephbestus him- This change may have been one self. I hardly know how to resolve this question, unless by supposing that the poet meant something more artificial; of those which distinguished the Hellenic from perhaps a kind of tesselated pavement, or an inlaid floor. * Paus., ix., 27, 1. * Callimachus, Fr., cv. iIerod., ii., 182. t Maximus Tyrius, viii., 8. Tacit., Hist., ii, 3. t Paus., i., 27, 1. t Paus., ix., 38. O Paus., ii., 9. $ Paus., ix., 12, 2. Compare the accounrt which follows, II Plutarch, De Fraterno Amore, init. of the beam of wood which dropped from the sky, and was ~ Paus.,ix., 40, 11. Compare the sacredlance at Thebes, adorned with.brass by Polydorus, and consecrated under mentioned by Plutarch, De Gen. Socr., 30 the title of Dionysus. ** Pans., vii., 22, 4. Panus., ii 15, 1; iii., 17, 6; v.., 25, 13 KNOWLEDGE AND ARTS. 107 the earlier Pelasgian period, and may have cor- tions any kind of delineation, and there in a responded to another, of which we have some very obscure manner, though he has described more distinct intimation in the national poetry, so many works which imply a previous design. by which the sacred song of the ancient oracu- This remark naturally suggests a question lar bards made way for the heroic style of cel- the most important of any connected with the ebrating the deeds of men and gods.* The progress of knowledge and art, and which we mode in which the change was effected may, have therefore reserved for the last place —the indeed, often, and even generally, have been the question whether the art of writing had been intervention of a new figure, which either at introduced, or to what extent it was practised once, or in process of time, took the place of among the Greeks in the age of Homer. To the old symbol. There were, however, proba- understand the real nature of'the question, it is bly many places where there was no visible ob- necessary to distinguish three points, which, ject of worship, or where some sacred animal though connected by tradition, are in themselves was honoured as the representative of a deity; quite independent of each other: the origin of and in such instances there would be no room the Greek alphabet, the epoch of its introducfor a conflict between old and new forms. But tion, and the period when the Greeks became as all accounts agree that wood was the mate- familiar with its use. On the first of these rial of the most ancient images of the gods, it points there is now no room for dispute. The seems not at all difficult to imagine that they names of most of the letters, their order, and may sometimes have been produced by a grad- the forms which they exhibit in the most anual transformation. An upright beam or plank cient monuments, all confirm the truth of the has always so much resemblance to the human tradition that the Greek alphabet was derived shape, that a few rudely marked lines are suffi- from Phoenicia; and every doubt on this head cient to suggest it to the spectator's fancy. which a hasty view of it in its later state might According to Plutarch's description, the Spar-. suggest, has long received the most satisfactory tan Twins were anciently represented by two solution. Several changes were necessary to parallel vertical pieces of wood, joined together adopt the Eastern characters to a foreign and by two others, also parallel and horizontal. totallydifferent language. The powers of those This was, perhaps, at first a mere symbol of which were unsuited to the Greek organs were union; but a lively imagination, without any exchanged for others which were wanting in the artificial assistance, might have seen in it two Phcenician alphabet; some elements were finalpersons meeting in a fraternal embrace. Much ly rejected as superfluous from the written lanslighter hints have suggested the names of guage, though they were retained for the purmost of the constellations. Even according to pose of numeration; and, in process of time, the this view of the subject, it may be said that peculiar demands of the Greek language were the early Grecian art, after having reached a satisfied by the invention of some new signs. certain low stage, was long kept stationary by The alterations which the figures of the Greek the influence of religion; in other words, the characters underwent may be partly traced to people and the artists were long satisfied with the inversion of their position, which took place the expression of religious ideas, which was ef- when the Greeks instinctively dropped the Eastfected partly by the human form, and partly by ern practice of writing from right to left —a the symbols which, in the ancient statues, were change the gradual progress of which is visible commonly united with it. In the old idols, in several extant inscriptions. This fact, therewhich appear to have been all clothed, the dra- fore, is established by evidence which could pery and symbolical ornaments naturally occu- scarcely borrow any additional weight from the pied the artist's attention more than the lfea- highest historical authority. But the epoch at tures. The capacities of the art were gradually which the Greeks received their alphabet from unfolded by the employment of new materials. the Phoenicians is a point as to which we canThe use of clay and bronze preceded that of not expect to find similar proof; and the event marble; but the first bronze statue was proba- is so remote, that the testimony even of the bly much later than the age of Homer.t The best historians cannot be deemed sufficient imslow progress of sculpture, and the uniformity of mediately to remove all doubt on the question. its early productions, may perhaps be sufficient- We need not here notice the numerous Greek ly explained by'the usage according to which legends concerning the origin of the art of writhe art passed down from generation to genera- ting, which are evidently for the most part po. tion in the same families. But this is a ques- etical, or philosophical, or merely arbitrary fiction which, as it depends on the precise charac- tions. A statement much more deserving atter of the monuments which have been trans- tention, both on account of its author and of its mitted or described to us, can only be deter- internal marks of diligent and thoughtful inquiry, mined by competent judges of such subjects. is given by Herodotus. The Phcenicians, he To pictures, or the art of painting, properly relates, who came with Cadmus to Thebes, inso called, the poet makes no allusion, though troduced letters, along with other branches of he speaks of the colouring of ivory as an art in knowledge, among the Greeks; the characters which the Carian and Maeonian women excelled. were at first precisely the same as those which It must, however, be considered that there is the Phcenicians continued to use in his own only one passage in which he expressly men- day, but their powers and form were gradually changed, first by the Phoenician colonists them* Od, i., 338. selves, and afterward by the Greeks of the adt According to Pausanias (iii., 17, 6), it was the work of Learchus of Rhegium; therefore, not earlier than the latter half of the eighth century B.C. Of Dipmnus and Scyllis, they received their' letters from Phiotnician Pliny says (N. H., xxxvi., 4) that they were the first artists teachers, named them Phoenician letters; and who gained reputation by1ulpture in marble, and that they the historian adds, that in his own time the flourished about the fiftieth Olympiad. 108 HISTORY OF GREECE. Ionians called their books or rolls, though made sive navigation and commerce seems to require from the Egyptian papyrus, skins, because this a considerable use of the art of writing, which was the material which they had used at an they unquestionably possessed, it has been earlier period, as many barbarous nations even thought incredible that they should not have then continued to do. It cannot be denied that communicated it to the Greeks. On the other this account appears at first sight perfectly hand, it might be observed that, though we do clear and probable, and yet there are some not know the exact time at which the Greek points in it which, on closer inspection, raise a commerce with the Phoenicians began, it plainsuspicion of its accuracy. The. vague manner ly appears that, down to the time of Homer, in which Herodotus describes the Ionians, who this commerce was a passive one on the side were neighbours of the Phoenician colony, seems of the Greeks; and there is nothing to show to imply that what he says of them is not ground- that the intercourse between the two nations ed on any direct tradition, but is a mere hypoth- might not have been carried on without the aid esis or inference. The fact which he appears of writing. But it will'be more useful and into have ascertained is, that the Asiatic Ionians, teresting to inquire whether the Homeric powho, as we shall afterward see, were, according ems themselves supply any proofs or traces of to his own view, a very mixed race, were be- the use or knowledge of it among the poet's forehand with the other Greeks in the art of countrymen. This inquiry includes two queswriting: they called their books or rolls by a tions: one, whether the art is mentioned or alname which probably expressed the Phoenician luded to in these poems; and another, whether word for the same thing, and they described it is implied in the existence of the poems themtheir alphabet by the epithet which marked its selves. Oriental origin. But as the historian thought Modern writers, who attribute a high antiquihe had sufficient grounds for believing that it ty to the Greek alphabet, sometimes lay great had been first communicated to the Greeks by stress on'the frequent allusions which the later the Phoenician colony at Thebes, he concludes Greek authors, more particularly the poets, make that the Asiatic Ionians must have received it, to the art of writing as practised in the heroic not directly from the Phoenicians, but through ages. Thus Euripides exhibits Agamemnon their European forefathers..Still, if this was despatching a letter to Clytermnestra; XEschythe process by which he arrived at his conclu- lus describes the shield of one of the chiefs at sion, it would not follow that he was in error. the siege of Thebes as bearing a threatening inBut if we examine the only reasons which he scription in letters of gold. But the most obassigns for his belief that the most ancient vious inference from this fact would seem to Greek alphabet was found at Thebes, we find be, that as the poets who lived when the art that they are such as we cannot rely on, though was familiar to every one were naturally led to him they would seem perfectly demonstra- to introduce allusions to it in their descriptions tive. He produces three inscriptions in verse, of the heroic ages, so, if Homer should be found which he had himself seen, engraved on some nowhere to have spoken of it, his silence would vessels in a temple at Thebes, and in characters be a strong proof that he was very little acwhich he calls Cadmean, and which he says quainted with it. It cannot, however, be said nearly resembled the Ionian. These inscrip- that he is absolutely silent on the subject; for tions purported to record donations made to the there is a celebrated passage in the Iliad in temple before the Trojan war, and to be con- which he certainly may be supposed to have temporaneous with the acts which they record- mentioned it, and which can scarcely be exed. And that they were really ancient need plained without some violence in any othermannot be questioned, though imitations of an ob- ner. It is the history of the calumniated Belsolete mode of writing were not uncommon in lerophon, who is sent by Prcetus, king of Argos, Greece; but their genuineness cannot be safely to his ally, the Lycian king Iobates, with a assumed as the ground of an argument. Other closed tablet, in which Prcetus had traced many grounds he may indeed have had, but since he deadly signs; that is, as the- sequel shows, had does not mention them, they are to us none, given instructions to his friend secretly to deand we are left to form our own judgment on stroy the bearer. We cannot here enter into a the disputed question of the Cadmean colony at minute examination of this passage, which has Thebes. been the subject of controversy, perhaps more Still it may be asked whether letters must earnest than the case deserved. It has been not have been introduced into Greece, if not disputed whether the tablet contained alphabetprecisely in the manner, and at the epoch sup- ical characters or mere pictures. The former posed by Herodotus, yet by the Phoenicians, and seems to be the. simplest'and easiest interpretbefore the time of Homer, and even before the ation of the poet's words: but'if it is admitted, Trojan war. The Homeric poems indicate that it only proves-what could hardly be questiona commerce. had been carried on, at least for ed even without this evidence-that the poet some generations, between Greece and Phoe- was not so ignorant of the art as never to have nicia. Substances are mentioned as familiar heard of its existence. Such a degree of igto the Greeks, which could only have been pro- norance would be almost incredible, after the cured aftef the Phoenicians had begun to make Phoenicians had long frequented the Grecian distant voyages towards the west; for it was ports. And, on the other hand, if the tablet conundoubtedly front them that the Greeks receiv- tained only a picture, or a series of imitative ed their tin and amber.* And as this exten- figures,* it would be evident that, where the * That it is amber, and not a mixture of gold and silver, * It would make no difference in the argument, orwould that Homer neans by the word )XeCKrpov, will probably no strengthen it; to suppose that the characters were convenlonger be doubted by any one who reads Buttmanri's essay tional ciphers; but such a s$position is hardly worth on this subject, in his.Miythologus, ii., p. 3317 mentioi3ag. KNOWLEDGE AND ARTS. 109 want of alphabetical writing was so felt, and had distinctly perceived or enjoyed by any one but begun to be so supplied by drawing, the step himselfl It has likewise been urged by sevby which the Greeks adopted the Phcenician eral modern critics, that the structure of the characters must have been very soon taken; Homeric verse furnishes a decisive proof that and it might be imagined that the poet was only the state of the Greek language, at the time describing a ruder state of the art, which had when these poems were written, was different acquired a new form in his own time. from that in which they must have been comWhen, however, it is considered that through- posed; and by others it has been thought inout the Homeric poems, though they appear to consistent with the law of continual change, to embrace the whole circle of the knowledge then which all languages are subject,.that the form possessed by the Greeks, and enter into so in which these works now appear should differ many details on the arts of life, only one am- so slightly as it does from that of the later biguous allusion occurs to any kind of writing, Greek literature, if it really belonged to the it is scarcely possible to avoid the conclusion, early period in which they were first recited. that the art, though known, was still in its in- These difficulties are, it must be owned, in a fancy, and was very rarely practised. But the great measure removed by the hypothesis that very poems from which this conclusion has each poem is an aggregate of parts composed been drawn would seem to overthrow it, if it, by different authors; for then the poet's mem should be admitted that they were originally ory might not be too severely tasked in retain committed to writing; for they would then seem ing his work during its progress, and might be to afford the strongest proof that, at the time aided by more frequent recitations. But this of their composition, the art had made very hypothesis has been met by a number of ob. considerable progress, and that there was no jections, some of which are not very easil) want, either of materials or of skill, to prevent satisfied. That the Iliad and the Odyssey are it from coming into common use. Hence the, both the work of the same poet, is not, indeed, original form of these poems becomes a ques- now very generally maintained; and indications tion of great historical as well as literary im- have been observed, which seem to distinguish portance. The Greeks themselves, almost uni- the one from the other, both as to the poetical versally, and the earliest writers the most unan- style and the state of society described, and t( imously, believed them both to have been the show that they belong to different bards and tc work of the same author, who, though nothing different periods. But the original unity of was known of his life, or even his birthplace, each poem is maintained by arguments de was commonly held to have been an Asiatic rived partly from the uniformity of the poeticas Greek. The doubt, whether his poems were character, and partly from the apparent single. from the first written, seems hardly to have ness of plan which each of them exhibits. Even been very seriously entertained by any of the those who do not think it necessary to suppose ancients, and in modern times it has been an original unity of design in the Iliad, still congrounded chiefly on the difficulty of reconciling ceive that all its parts are stamped with the such a fact with the very low degree in which style of the same author.* But with others, the art of writing is supposed to have been cul- from the time of Aristotle to our own day, the tivated in the Homeric age. But as it has been plan itself has been an object of the warmest generally thought incredible that a poem of such admiration;t and it is still contended that the a length as the Iliad, or even the Odyssey, and intimate coherence of the parts is such as to still more, that two such should have been pro- exclude the hypothesis of a multiplicity of auduced and preserved without the aid of wri- thors. If, however, the objections to that hyting, most of those who deny that they were pothesis rested here, we should think thatthey originally written have also adopted the hy- might be surmounted without great difficulty. pothesis that neither of them is the work of a For as to the uniformity of style-not to mensingle mind, but that each was gradually cornm- tion that it is far from perfect, and that both anposed of a number of smaller pieces, the pro- cient and modern critics have perceived an apductions of different authors, which were arti- pearance of great inequality in this respect-it ficially fitted together so as to form a whole. might be observed that many examples in our This hypothesis, however, does not rest simply own literature prove how difficult it may often on the doubtful assumption that the art of wri- be to distinguish a difference of style where ting was not sufficiently advanced among the several poets have combined to produce one Greeks in the Homeric age to afford the poet work: and those who admit that the Iliad and the means of penning or dictating an Iliad. For the Odyssey may have been composed by difthere is a farther and greater difficulty in con- ferent poets, have scarcely any ground, so far ceiving how so great a whole should have been as the style is concerned, for insisting that the either written or planned, except for readers. same cannot have been the case with either of Yet all the intimations it contains as to the. them separately. As to the unity of plan, much earlier condition of Greek poetry, and all that must depend on the precise form in which.the we know from other sources of its subsequent disputed hypothesis is presented to the imagiprogress, conspire to assure us that the Ho- nation. If, indeed, the parts out of which the meric poems were designed for, oral delivery. Iliad or the Odyssey was formed are supposed But in this case, how improbable must it have to have been at first wholly independent of each been that an audience should be'found to listen other, the supposition that they could have been for successive days till the recitation of such so pieced together as to assume their present works could be brought to an end! And how could the poet have been led to form so elab- * Such is Mr. Clinton's view: Fasti, vol. iii., p. 375, 379. orate a plan, which he could scarcely hope 4o t This admiration has never been more ably justified make knowne at allland whichhe coul ldsca r e othan by Hug, sn the analysis which he has given in his E' make known at all, and which could never. be fi]duing der Buchstabenschrift. 110 HISTORY OF GREECE. appearance is involved in almost insurmount- on this supposition, have been ouried in an in-m able difficulties. For how, it may be asked, did explicable oblivion. the different poets in each instance happen to According to every hypothesis, the origin of confine themselves to the same circle of sub- the Homeric poetry is wrapped in mystery, as jects, as to the battles before Troy, and the re- must be the case with the beginning of a new turn of Ulysses Must we suppose, with a period, when that which precedes it is very ohmodern critic,* that in our two great poems we scure. And it would certainly be no unparalsee the joint labours of several bards, who drew leled or surprising coincidence if the production their subjects from an earlier Iliad and Odys- of a great work, which formed the most mosey, which contained n6 more than short nar- mentous epoch in the history of Greek literaratives of the same events, but yet had gained ture, should have concurred with either the first such celebrity for their author that the great- introduction or a new application of the most est poets of the succeeding period were forced important of all inventions. Nor can it be thought to adopt his name, and to content tlemselves extravagant to attribute such an application to with filling up his outline l This would be an the poet, who discovers such a range and depth expedient only to be resorted to in a last emer- of observation in every sphere of nature and of gency. But it seems not to be required if we art that was placed within his reach. That the give a different turn to the hypothesis, and con- art of writing already existed, though probably ceive that the Iliad and the Odyssey, after the in a very rude state, before his eyes, it is scarcemain event in each had been made the subject ly possible to doubt; and it may easily be conof a shorter poem, grew under the hands of suc- ceived that, by the new aids which it afforded, cessive poets, who, guided in part by popular it may have roused his genius to a new and tradition, supplied what had been left wanting bolder flight. Perhaps it may not be necessaby their predecessors, until in each case the cu- ry to inquire whether he calculated his work riosity of their hearers had been gratified by a for readers or for hearers. To secure his great finished whole. conceptions from perishing with him might be But though the principal objections which a sufficient motive for a poet, even if he was have been raised against the hypothesis, on the unable to anticipate the future harvest of fame ground just mentioned, may perhaps be silen- which they were to yield. It seems a waste ced in some such way as this, there are some of labour to invent a complicated hypothesis others which are less tractable. If the compo- merely for the sake of postponing such a use sition of the Homeric poems may be explained of the art of writing by a few generations. The without the aid of writing, by breaking them up interval which elapsed between the Homeric age into smaller parts, the mode in which they were and the following period of epic poetry, which transmitted is not yet accounted for. A poem will be hereafter noticed, cannot be precisely which might not be too long for the author him- ascertained; but within this interval, if not beself to retain in his memory without any artifi- fore, the Homeric poems must have been colcial help, might still be of such length that no lected, and, consequently, committed to writing, common listener could hope to make himself because they manifestly formed the basis or numaster of the whole, after any number of reci- cleus of the epic cycle. It is easier to suppose tations, unless they were laboriously adapted by that they were written at first.* the author to this specific purpose. But who can imagine a Homer so employed? This, however, it- has been thought, was the occasion which called forth the astonishing powers of CHAPTER VII. the rhapsodists; a class of persons who, though endowed with some poetical invention, possess- THE RETURN OF THE HERACLEIDS. ed a much more extraordinary tenacity of mem- THE Trojan war, as wse find it described, was ory, which enabled them, after a few hearings, not, according to any conception that may be accurately to remember many hundreds of ver- formed of the magnitude of the expedition and ses. It is still a questionable point whether the conquest, an event that necessarily prosuch a faculty ap this, though found here and duced any important effects on the condition of there in individuals, ever existed in any class Greece. There is no apparent reason why, as of men; and it is equally doubtful whether, in soon as it was ended, all the surviving princes the Homeric age, a class of men existed which and chiefs might not have returned to their dodevoted itself to such an occupation. At the minions, to enjoy the fruits of their victory in same time, it is evident that even the smallest honourable repose, and have transmitted their entire portions into which the Homeric poems sceptres in peace to their children. The Odyscan rationally be resolved, are constructed on sey, accordingly, represents parts of Greece as such a scale, that their authors must have re- continuing, after the war, under the rule of the lied on some sure method of transmitting these treasures to posterity. They do not belong to * Since this question was first agitated by Wolf, it has the same class as the extemporaneo~us effusions, been placed on a very different footing, more especially by the same class as the extemporaneous effusions, the writings of Nitzsch, De Iistoria Homeri ffeletemata, which may have flowed from the lips of a Phe- with which should be compared Mueller's review in the mius and a Demodocus, when suddenly called Goettingen Gel. Anzeigen, Feb., 1831,'and Kreuser (Vorupon to entertain their audience on a given fragen ueber Homeros, but more especially his later work, Hounerische Rhaosoden). Hermann's remarks in the review theme; and one strong objection against assign- referred to in a preceding note are also a valuable contribuing them to a multiplicity of authors is, that the tion. There is a useful review of some other less imporpoet who gave birth to any one of these portions tant works connected with the subject, by BaumgartenCrusius, in Jahn's Jahrbilcherfiir Philooegie, u. P&'dagogik, must have produced much more, which would, 1827. An argument which confines itself to the writings of ~Wolf and Heyne can now add but little to our means of f6rming a judgment on the question, and must keep some * Hermann, in the Wiener Jahrbiicher, vol. liv. of its most important elements out of sight.' RETURN OF THE HERACLEIDS 111 heroes who fought at Troy; and we might in- over the chain of Pindus from Epirus, descend fer from this description, that the great national ed into the rich plains on the banks of the Pestruggle was followed by a period of general neus, and began the conquest of the country, tranquillity. On the other hand, the poet signi- which finally derived its name from them. As fies that, after the fall of Troy, the victors in- they came. from the Thesprotian Ephyra, an curred the anger of the gods, who had before ancient seat of the Pelasgians, it seems probaespoused their cause. The Odyssey is filled ble that they belonged to that race; and this is with one example of the calamities which the confirmed by the fact that, though they never Divine wrath brought upon the Greeks, in the rose to a level in civilization with the other person of Ulysses, king of Ithaca. Menelaus Greeks, they spoke the same language. A few himself, though we find him in the poem reign- slight peculiarities in their national dress, and ing in great prosperity at Lacedaemon, was only the reproach of fickleness, faithlessness, and permitted to reach home after a long course of coarse sensuality, which in after times clung to wandering over distant seas and lands. Ajax, their character, are hardly sufficient grounds son of Oileus, perished in the waves. Aga- for supposing that they were of a totally formemnon was murdered, on his return to Argos, eign origin-an Illyrian tribe, which adopted by ZEgisthus, who in his absence had seduced the speech of the conquered people. Their his wife, Clytaemnestra, and who usurped the fabulous progenitor, Thessalus, was called by throne of the murdered king, which was not re- some a son of Hercules; by others, of Haemon, covered before the end of' several years, by from whom Thessaly had anciently received Orestes, the rightful heir. Neoptolemus, son the name of Haemonia. The motive for inof Achilles, Philoctetes, one of the Thessalian venting the last genealogy may have been the chiefs, D]iomed of Argos, and Idomeneus of wish to establish a legitimate title to their conCrete, are expressly'said to have returned safe quest; and, as migrations appear to have taken with all their followers. But the poet does not place very early from Thessaly to Epirus, their inform us in what state they found their do- claim might not be absolutely unfounded. They minions, or how long they retained possession were likewise said to have been headed by of them; and in the legends of later times they descendants of Antiphus and Phidippus, who are related to have been forced by various causes traced their line through Thessalus to Hercules, to quit their native land, and to settle in foreign though in the Homeric catalogues these two regions. We cannot, indeed, place any reli- chiefs lead their forces from Cos and the neighance on these and other similar traditions, be- bouring islands on the coast of Asia. Here, cause the hint which the Odyssey suggests of too, there may have been truth at the bottom: the disasters which befell the Greeks after their though the nation was Pelasgian, some of their victory* might easily be expanded by the ima- chiefs may have'been of pure Hellenic blood. gination of later poets; and still more, because The Thessalians were always famous-for their the vanity of colonies was always interested in love of horses and their skill in horsemanship; tracing their origin to a remote period and a and it was probably to their cavalry, an arm at renowned name. But in itself it is probable this time new to the Greeks, that they were enough that, in many instances, the long ab- mainly indebted for their success. Their adsence of the chiefs might give occasion to vance, however, was gradual; and they expeusurpations or revolutions, and to the expulsion rienced a long resistance from the Achaeans, or voluntary migration of royal or noble families. Perrhabians, and Magnetes.* Among the tribes Still, how far this was actually the case must which yielded soonest to the shock were the remain uncertain. One inevitable result, how- Bceotians, who inhabited the central territory ever, of such an event as the Trojan war, must of ZEolis, where the _Eolians,: its ancient occuhave been to diffuse among the Greeks a more piers, appear to have been' mingled with a difgeneral knowledge of the isles and coasts of the ferent race, which gave its name to the whole.Egean, and to leave a lively recollection of the population. It was commonly believed to have beauty and fertility of the regions in which their come from Thebes, having been driven thence battles had been fought. This would direct the by the Thracians and Pelasgians, after the city attention of future emigrants, in search of new had been destroyed in its war with Argos:t homes, towards the same quarter; and the fact and this is certainly credible enough in itself; that the tide of migration really set in this di- though here, again, we may suspect a fabricarection first, when the state of Greece became tion, designed to prove that they were not inunsettled, may not unreasonably be thought to truders in their new possessions, but only reconfirm the reality of the Trojan war. conquered Bceotia as their rightful inheritance, For sixty years, however, after the fall of and exercised a just retaliation in expelling the Troy, history is silent as to any great change in Pelasgian usurpers; and hence, though the curthe face of Greece. At the end of that period, rent story is sanctioned by the Homeric cataif not sooner, began a long train of wars, in- logue. and by Thucydides, the fabulous genevasions, and migrations, which finally intro- alogy, which makes their ancestor, Bceotus, a duced a new order of things, both in Greece son of Itonus and of Arn6, daughter of ZEolus, itself, and in most of the surrounding countries. may perhaps convey more simply and faithfully The original source of this memorable revolu- all that was really known of their earlier history tion probably lay out of the limits of Greece, and relations. For Arn6 and Iton were two of and beyond the reach of historical investigation. their principal towns; and the temple of the We are only able to trace it as far as Thess'aly, Itonian Athen6, on the River Coralius, their na. which was the scene of its first visible outbreak. tional sanctuary. The Thessalian conquest Here, how soon after the Trojan war we are was attended with a very general migration of unable to conjecture, the Thessalians, crossing the freemen from _ZEolis: all who remained * Il., 132. * Arist., Polit., ii., 9. t Strabo, ix. p 40. 112 HISTORY OF GREECE. either were, or now became serfs, under the which we shall find the Plataeans retaining peculiar name of Penests.* They directed throughout the whole course of their history, their march towards the country henceforth may have arisen, or have gained strength, from called Bceotia. Its subjugation seems to have the consciousness of a different origin. The been effected slowly, and not without a hard conquest of Boeotia, as that of Thessaly, drove struggle, as may be collected from the story many from their homes; and a great body of preserved by Ephorus, of an armistice conclu- these fugitives, joined by bands of adventurers ded between the Thracians of Helicon and the from Peloponnesus, who were led by descendBoeotians for a certain number of days, which ants of Agamemnon, embarked for Asia. These the former interpreted so strictly that they did expeditions constituted the Xifolian migration, not scruple to surprise the Bceotian camp during so called from the race which took the principal the night; and from the strange legend of the share in it, though it included many others. Its embassy sent by the Boeotians and the Pelas- fortunes will be related hereafter. Many famgians to the oracle of Dodona, which betrayed ilies also sought refuge in Attica and Peloponits partiality to the latter by enjoining their nesus. The Pelasgians; who fortified a part of enemies to perpetrate some impious outrage.t the citadel of Athens, and afterward took posThe Bceotian Arn6, which is celebrated by Ho- session of Lemnos, are said to have migrated mer for its fruitful vineyards, was undoubtedly'from Bceotia.' Their allies, the Thracians, recalled after the Thessalian, and must have been tired westward, and settled for a time in the one of the points first occupied by the invaders. neighbourhood of Parnassus, where they entireIn the time of Strabo, its site was forgotten, ly disappear from the view of history. and' it was only remembered that it had stood It is not clear how far, or in what manner not far from the Lake Copais. Some placed it these events was connected with another still so near the lake as to have been covered by the more important-the migration of the Dorians rising of the waters; some found it on the east- from their seats at the northern foot of Parnasern side, in Acraephion, which was said to have sus to Peloponnesus-which Thucydides fixes been, from the beginning, a part of the Theban twenty years later than the expulsion of the territory: Chaeronea, too, was said to have borne Boeotians from Thessaly. It is not certain the name of Arne; but the most ancient, at least, whether the Dorians were driven out of Thesseems to have stood near Coronea. It was in saly by the same shock to which the Boeotians that neighbourhood that the national festival of gave way, or whether they had previously setthe Pambceotia was celebrated with games, on tled at the' head of the vale of the Cephisus, the banks of a river Coralius, near the temple and in the adjacent region. Causes enough of the It6nian Athen6; na.ies which clearly may be imagined, which in this period of genindicate the earliest establishment formed by eral convulsion might induce them to quit Doris, the invaders, while the scenes which they left though the little tract which afterward bore behind them in the vicinity of the Thessalian that name does not seem to have been infested Arn6 were fresh in their memory.: It would by any hostile inroads. But as it probably formseem to have been from this central position ed only a part of their territory, the rest may now that the Bceotians carried their arms, either have been torn from them, and thus have comsuccessively, or in separate bodies at once, pelled them to seek new seats. The ancient northward against the opulent Orchomenus, and writers, however, assign a motive of a different southward against Thebes. A legend which kind for their migration. They unanimously referred the origin of one of the Theban festi- relate that, after the death of Hercules, his vals to this epoch, intimates that the army children, persecuted by Eurystheus, took refuge which besieged T.hebes was for some time in Attica, and there defeated and slew the tyobliged to content itself with ravaging the sur- rant. When their enemy had fallen, they rerounding country, being unable to make any im- sumed the possession of their birthright in Pelpression on the town.~ The fall of Orchomenus oponnesus, but had not long enjoyed the fruits and Thebes determined the fate of the whole of their victory before a pestilence, in which country. According to the assertion which they recognised the finger of Heaven, drove Thucydides puts into the mouth of the Thebans, them again into exile. Attica again afforded in their reply to the, captive Platreans, Plateea them a retreat. When their hopes had revived, was conquered after the rest of Bceotia. The an ambiguous oracle encouraged them to beThebans there speak of having founded the lieve that, after they had reaped their third harcity, after having ejected a motley race which vest, they should find a prosperous passage previously occupied it; and this was probably through the Isthmus into the land of their fathe current opinion at Thebes, being an argu- thers. But at the entrance of Peloponflesus ment in favour of their claim to supremacy over they were met by the united forces of the Achaethe Platans. But the Plateeans prided them- ans, Ionians, and Arcadians. Their leader, selves on being an aboriginal people: the only Hyllus, the eldest son of Hercules, proposed to kings they remembered were Asopus and Cith- decide the quarrel by single combat; and Echeaeron; and their heroine, Plataea, was the daugh- mus, king of Tegea, was selected by the Pelo*ter of the river god.ll The Breotian name and ponnesian confederates as their champion. language. may have spread farther than the Hyllus fell, and the Heracleids were bound bychange that took place in the population of the the terms of the agreement to abandon their country; and perhaps the hostility to Thebes, enterprise for a hundred years. Yet both Cle odnus, son of Hyllus, and his grandson Aris ~ Ileviarat, labourers. According to some authors (Ar- tomahuhis attempt with no better chemachus in Athen., vi., 85), they were originally called pyvieara, as clinging to the soil. fortune. After Aristomachus had fallen in bat t Strabo, ix., p. 401, 402. t Strabo, ix., p. 411. tle, the ambiguous oracle was explained to his ~ Poclus Chreotom., 20, p. 386, ed. Gaisf. sons Aristodemus, Temenus, and CresDhontes, i Paus:, ix., 1, 2. RETURN OF THE HERACLEIDS. 113 and they were assured that the time-the third and Dymas fell in the last expedition by which generation-had now come when they should their countrymen made themselves masters of accomplish their return; not, however, as they Peloponnesus, and another represents Pamhad expected, over the guarded Isthmus, but phylus as still living in the second generation across the mouth of the western gulf, where after the conquest.* That the royal family the opposite shores are parted by a channel only should claim Hercules for its ancestor, though a few furlongs broad. Thus encouraged, with it was, in truth, of Dorian blood, can only be the aid of the Dorians, Altolians, and Locrians,* thought surprising by those who believe the they crossed the straits, vanquished Tisamenus, exploits ascribed to that hero to have been the the son of Orestes, and divided the fairest por- actions of one real person. But if there was a tion of Peloponnesus among them. Dorian as well as an Achaean, and a Theban The belief that the Dorians yvere led to the Hercules, the motives which led the Dorians to conquest of Peloponnesus by princes of Achaean confound them, after the conquest of their new blood, the rightful heirs of its ancient kings, dominions, may be easily conceived. The Athas the authority of all antiquity on its side. It tic and Arcadian traditions, which appear to had become current so early as the days of confirm the common story, might be adapted to Hesiod; and it was received not only among it, though their foundation, whether real or imthe Dorians themselves, but among foreign nae aginary, was originally different: the worship tions. The protection afforded by the Athe- of Hercules, which was introduced in that part nians to the Heracleids against Eurystheus of Attica where the Heracleids were said to continued to the latest times to be one of the have taken up their temporary abode,t and the most favourite themes of the Attic poets and long struggle between Tegea and Lacedaemon, orators; and the precise district that had been afforded ample room for fiction to play in. But assigned for the abode of the exiles was pointed we have, perhaps, dwelt too long on a doubtful out by tradition. In the Persian war the vic- point, which is, after all, of little moment, since tory gained by Echemus over Hyllus was plead- it does not affect either the history or the instied by the Tegeans as the ground of their title tutions of the conquering race. WVe proceed to an honourable post in the Greek army. Few to relate the issue of their expedition. traditions can boast of higher authority; and The invaders bent their course westward, the fact is in itself by no means incredible, and and ascended upon the coast of the Corinthian admits of various explanations which would re- Gulf near Naupactus, manifestly with the view move its principal apparent difficulties. Though to strengthen themselves with the aid of the the difference between the Dorians, and Achae- JEtolians of Calydon, with whom they had, ans was undoubtedly very wide in almost all perhaps, before entered into amicable relations. points, still it might be expected entirely to dis- as Hyllus was said to be the son of the AEtoliar appear in a few generations after a small body princess Dejanira. The progress of the fierce of one nation had been incorporated in the oth- inland tribes, which finally extinguished the old er. The weak and unsettled state of the Dori- Hellenic race of Calydon, may have been the ans, in the earliest period of their history, ren- principal motive of the migration with both naders it probable that they were then always tions. According to the received legend, the willing to receive foreigners among them, awho Heracleids were guided into Peloponnesus by came recommended by illustrious birth, wealth, Oxylus, an MEtolian chief. and their kinsmanor merit, and that they might either have form- for he belonged to the line of (Eneus, the father ed the Heracleids into a new tribe, or, if they of Dejaifira, who, like 3Egimius had been prowere not numerous enough for this, have ad- tected by the arm of Hercules from a formidamitted-them into one which was afterward call- ble enemy, the Thesprotians of Ephyra.T Oxed by a new name. Nevertheless, possible as ylus alleged a title to Elis, like that under this is, the truth of the story has been question- which his allies claimed the kingdoms of the ed, on grounds which are certainly not light or Pelopids. The base of his statue in the mararbitrary, if they do not outweigh all that have ket-place of Elis bore an inscription, importing been alleged in its support. What is said to that.Atolus, his ancestor in the tenth generahave happened might have been invented, and tion, had quitted Elis, the original seat of his the occasion and motives for the fabrication people,.the Epeans, and had conquered that may be conceived still more easily than the part of the land of the Curetes which afterward truth of the fact, for such facts in the early his- bore the name of 2Etolia; and the truth of this tory of Greece were undoubtedly much less memorial was confirmed by a corresponding common than such fictions. It is much less inscription on the statue of A-ltolus in the -.Etoprobable that the origin of the Dorian tribes, as lian town of Thermi. 2Etolus had migrated of all similar political forms which a nation has because he had chanced to incur the stain of assumed in the earliest period of existence, bloodshed; and a like misfortune had driven should have been distinctly remembered, than Oxylus into exile, when he met with the sons that it should have been forgotten, and have of Aristomachus, and stipulated with them for been then attributed to imaginary persons. his hereditary kingdom of Elis as the price of This is so usual a process, that it might have his guidance, which an oracle had declared to been fairly assumed with regard to the two be indispensable to their success.~ He was tribes which are said to have been named after put into possession of it by the fortunate issue the sons of zEgimius, though, by a singular an- of a single combat between one of his AEtolian achronism, one legend relates that Pamphylus followers and an Epean chieftain.ll It is added * The Locrians are said to have deceived the Pelopon- * Apollod., ii., 8, 3, 5. Pass., ii., 28, 6. nesians, having engaged to give notice by signals if the t Pans., i., 15, 3. t Apollod., ii., 7, 6, 1. Dorians should attempt to cross the straits. They broke $ Apollod., ii., 8, 3, 3. their promise, and the Peloponnesians were taken by sur- I Degnteenus the Epean came armed with a bow, but was prise. Polybius in Mai, $er. Vet., ii., p. 386. levelled with the ground by the sling of the XEtolian PvVOL. 1.-P 1-14 HISTORY OF GREECE. that he used the victory wisely and mildly; and the issue was in favour of the Achaeans. that he permitted the ancient inhabitants, after The Ionians, after their defeat, took shelter in resigning a share of their lands to the _Etolian Helice, their principal town, but at length cainvaders, to retain the remainder as independ- pitulated with the conquerors for leave to quit ent owners; that he granted several privileges the country. Henceforth this part of Peloponto Dius, the deposed king, and maintained un- nesus bore the name of Achaia; according to impaired the sacred honours of Augeas and the one account, Tisamenus was slain in the deciother native heroes. The substance of this sive battle and buried in Helic6, whence, at a account may be well founded, though there can later period, the Spartans, by command of the be little doubt that the new settlement was fol- Delphic oracle, transported his bones to Lacelowed by migration from this as from other daemon;* but another tradition supposed him parts of Peloponnesus. Motives of policy may to have reignedwin Achaia after the departure have concurred with those of national affinity or subjugation of the Ionians.t After some in disposing the Eleans to a friendly union with years, a part of the Achseans, under Agorius, a the followers of Oxylus. They are described descendant of Agamemnon, found a settlement as engaged in constant wars with their south- in Elis, invited, it is said, by Oxylus, who was ern neighbours, the people of Pisa, and the enjoined by an oracle to share his new dominsubjects of Nestor, and they were probably not ions with one of the Pelopids.t The motive unwilling to admit, and even to purchase by of this invitation may have been to establish a some sacrifices, an accession of strength which claim to the possession of Pisa, the ancient seat established their superiority. The conquest of Pelops. The dislodged Ionians first sought produced no other immediate revolution'on the refuge among their kinsmen in Attica, and when northwestern side of the peninsula. The ter- the land became too narrow for them, followed ritory of Pisa continued long after to be gov- the example of the XAolians, and, joined by erned by its native princes, who owned no sub- swarms of fugitives and adventurers of various jection to Elis. The remainder of the coun- races, made for the coast of Asia. try afterward comprised under the name ot After the death or retreat of Tisamenus, the Elis, whether it was still under the dominion poetical legend of the conquest represents the of the house of Neleus, or had changed its mas- Heracleids as only busied with the partition of ters, retained its independence for several cen- his kingdom. Aristodemus, as it was believed turies; though we shall see it occupied, after everywhere, except at Sparta,~ had not lived no long time, by a new colony. to enter Peloponnesus, but had fallen at Delphi It is said that Oxylus, fearing lest the sight by a thunderbolt, or a shaft of Apollo; or, as of the fertile land, which had been promised as another tale ran, by the hands of assassins, rehis reward, might tempt the Heracleids to vio- lated to the house of Atreus.ll He had left late their compact with him, led them, not along twin sons, Procles and Eurysthenes, who sucthe western coast, but through Arcadia into the ceeded to his claim of an equal share with Tc, region which they claimed as their patrimony. menus and Cresphontes. Three altars were We hear of no opposition made to the invaders erected, and on each a sacrifice was made to by the Arcadians; on the contrary, Cypselus, the divine father of Hercules. Then three lots who is called king of the Arcadians, gave his werd cast into an urn filled with water. It had daughter in marriage to Cresphontes. But, as been agreed that the lots were tobe stones, and Arcadia was at this time most probably. divided that the first drawn should give possession of into a number of small states, this friendly dis- Argos, the second of Lacedeemon, the third of position of one does not exclude the possibility Messenia. But Cresphontes, to secure the fairof resistance having been offered by others; est portion, threw a clod of earth into the waand this may have been the beginning of the ter, which, being dissolved, remained at the struggle between Tegea and Sparta. Here, bottom of the vessel while the lots of his comhowever, the invaders effected no settlement, petitors were drawn.~ According to another but proceeded to the conquest of the countries form of the legend, Argos had been reserved for subject to the house of Atreus, and now gov- Temenus, who then conspired with Cresphonerned by Tisamenus, son of Orestes. Tradi- tes to defraud the children of Aristodemus.** tion varied greatly as to the fate of Tisamenus After the partition was completed, each of himself: according to one legend, he fell fight- the three altars was found occupied by a poring against the Heracleids;* according to an- tent, from which the diviners augured the desother,t he withdrew from his territories, and led tiny and'character of the people to which it beall the Achaeans who desired independence longed. A toad was seen resting on that of against the Ionians on the coast of the Corin- Argos; a warning that she must abstain from thian Gulf. He is said, at first, to have pro- ambitious aggression, and remain content with posed to the Ionians to unite his people with her. natural bounds. The restless hostility of them, on condition of being admitted to a fair Lacedaemon was prefigured by a serpent; the share of the land, and that it was only the jeal- craft, which she imputed to her weaker neigh. ousy of the Ioni/an princes, who feared lest Tis- bour, Messenia, by a fox. The descendants of amenus should become sole king of the united Hercules then took quiet possession of their alnation, that prevented his proposal from being lotted shares. accepted. The contest was decided by arms, This poetical legend, as well as other narratives of the same events which wear a more rchmes, Strabo, viii., p. 357. The street Siop (silence),undoubtedly crowded at Elis, was believed to preserve the remembrance of an adventure, which implies that Elis was a walled town, and * Paus., vii., 1, 8. t Polyb., ii., 41. for a time besieged by Oxylus, Paus., vi., 2, 3, 6, -Compare t Paus., v., 4, 3. Herod., vi., 52. Strabo, viii., 337, 358. * Apollodor., ii., c. 8, 3, 5. II Apollod., ii., 8, 2, 9. Pans., iii., 1, 6. t Paus., vi., 1, 8. ~ Apollod., ii., 8, 4, 2. ** Pans., ix., 3, 5. RETURN OF THE HERACLEIDS. 115 transactions together which must have occu- Nice followed its example.* A similar plan pied many years, probably many generations. was pursued by that division of the Dorians The great revolution, which imposed a foreign which undertook the conquest of Argolis. Beyoke on the warlike Achaans, was certainly tween three and four miles from Argos, on the not effected by a momentary struggle. We western side of the gulf, is a hillock, -which, in cannot, indeed, distinctly trace the steps by the time of Pausanias, was still covered with which the conquest was really achieved, but buildings. Among them was a monument of fragments of apparently genuine tradition re- Temenus, whence the place was called Teme main to show what might, indeed, have been nium, which then continued to be honoured safely conjectured in the absence of positive in- with religious rites by the Dorians of Argos. formation, that it was, in general, the tardy The Temenium, says Pausanias, received its fruit of a hard contest. The numbers of the name from Temenus, the son of Aristomachus; Dorians were probably everywhere greatly in- for he took possession of the ground and fortiferior to those of the enemy, and seem to be fied it, and from this position he and his Dorirather over than underrated when they are es- ans carried on the war against Tisamenus and timated at 20,000 warriors. This inequality the Achaeans.t From this account we perceive may have been, in some degree, compensated that Argos was the first object of the invaders' y the advantages which their arms, their mode attack; how long it held out we do not learn, of fighting, tactics, and discipline, may have giv- but the site of the monument of Temenus would en them in the field. The Achvean bands, ac- lead us to infer that the eldest of the Heracleids customed, perhaps, to depend much on the had fallen before his people had effected this prowess of their leaders, and furnished with no conquest; and, in fact, we hear nothing more weapons capable of resisting the long Dorian of his personal exploits. The expeditions by spear and of making an impression on the which the Dorian dominion was gradually exbroad shield, which, hanging from the shoulder tended over the northeast of the peninsula are to the knees, covered the whole body of the ascribed to his successors: to these we shall warrior, may have been easily borne down by return, after having pursued the fortunes of the steady charge of their' deep and serried Cresphontes and the heirs of Aristodemus. phalanx. But, on the other hand, the art of Homer represents Messenia as subject, at the besieging was even in later times foreign to time of the Trojan war, to the house of Atreus, Dorian warfare, and much slighter fortifications for Agamemnon offers seven of its towns'to than those of the Larissa of Argos, of Tiryns, Achilles as the price of reconciliation. It conand Mycene, would have sufficed to deter the stituted a part of the dominions of Menelaus till invaders from the thought of attacking them. his death; after which, the Neleid kings of PyBut, without balancing the resources of the lus, who were probably already masters of the contending nations, we find that, in fact, the western coast, took advantage, it is said, of the issue of the war was not decided either by weakness of his successors to wrest. it from pitched battles or regular sieges. Traditions, them.t At the time of the Dorian invasion, which may be trusted, since they contradict Melanthus filled the throne of Messenia: whethnvtions which had become generally current on er he also reigned over' Pylus and Triphylia the subject, prove that the Dorian chieftains may be reasonably doubted. The people are adopted a different plan for the subjugation of said to have been disaffected towards him as a the country; one which, though tedious, was foreigner, and hence to have offered no resistsafer, and better adapted to their means and ance to the Dorians.~ Melanthus, in consesituation. It consisted in occupying a strong quence, quitted the country and retired to Atpost in the neighbourhood of the enemy's city, tica, where, as we shall see, he' became the and wearing him out by a continued series of founder of a house which supplied the Athenian harassing excursions. The remembrance of annals with many of their most illustrious two such stations was preserved to later ages; names. But the Messenian Pylus seems long and the glimpse they afford of the manner in to have retained its independence, and to have which the conquest was effected, is sufficient been occupied for several centuries by one to show the groundlessness of the common be- branch of the family of Neleus; for descendants lief, that the fall of Tisamenus was attended by of Nestor are mentioned as allies of the Mesa sudden and complete triumph of the Doriatns. senians in their struggle with Sparta in the latThe history of the Turks, at a period when ter half of the seventh century B.C.II There they stood nearly at the same level of civiliza- is, however, some reason for doubting that the tion, affords a not uninteresting parallel. While rest of the country submitted so quietly, as has the Turkish Empire was yet confined to a small been generally supposed, to the rule of Cresdistrict at the foot of the Mysian Olympus, the phontes. Ephorus, indeed, related that he took rich and strongly fortified cities of Brusa and possession of Messenia, and divided it into five Nice excited the ambition of Othman, the districts, fixing his own residence in. a central founder of the Ottoman dynasty. But the force position in the plain of Stenyclerus; and it and skill of his tribe were unequal to the task seems certain that he founded a new capital of reducing them by a direct assault, and he there. But, judging from analogy, we should therefore occupied forts in the neighbourhood suspect that this was the result, not of choice, of each, and pressed them with an irregular but of necessity, because neither Pylus nor Anbut wearisome blockade, which kept the garri- dania, the seat of the ancient kings, were yet in sons in constant fear of a surprise, and cut off his power, and that it was only the first step all their ordinary communications with the sur- towards the conquest'of the whole land. Of rounding country. At the end of ten years, Brusa was so exhausted by this lingering oper- * v. Hammer, Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches, i., p. ation that it capitulated, and in four years more 75 and 101. -t Paus., ii., 38, 1.' Strabo, viii., p. 359. ~ Paus., iv., 3. 6. U Strabo, viii., p. 355. 116 HISTORY OF GREECE. the footing on which the Dorians here stood taken by surprise.* These traditions seem to with the ancient inhabitants, we shall speak justify us in rejecting the statement that Amywhen we reach the period of the Messenian clse revolted from Sparta after the death of Phiwars: lonomus.t If, however, we suppose that it reWe have little more certain information as mained independent till the time of its fall, it to the steps by which the subjugation of -Laco- will be difficult to believe that the case was nia was effected. According to Ephorus, it different with the other districts of Laconia, was completed as quickly as that of Mes'senia. which were remote from Sparta. The most The strength of the Achecans was collected in probable view of the matter seems to be that Amyclke; but this city was betrayed, or its in- the Dorians, who must be conceived to have habitants were induced to capitulate, by the' entered Laconia from the north, first encamped perfidious counsels of one of their countrymen, at Sparta, where they found, perhaps, a few by name Philonomus.'After this, Eurysthenes scattered hamlets, and were detained, by its and Procles divided the whole country into six advantageous situation, at the opening of the districts, over which they set governors, with vale- of the Eurotos. They no doubt immedithe title of kings. That of Amycle they be- ately occupied a tract in the adjacent plain sufstowed on Philonomus, as the reward of his ficient for their support. Amyclae, which lay treachery, while they themselves fixed their only two or,three miles lower down the valley, residence in Sparta. During the reign of Eu- appears to have been the ancient capital of the rysthenes the conquered people were admittpd Achaan kings: there were shown the monuto an equality of political privileges with the ments of Cassandra, of Agamemnon, and ClyDorians; but his successor, Agis, deprived them toemnestra, attesting the popular belief that it of these rights, and, from fellow-citizens, redu- had been the scene of their sufferings and ced them to subjects of the Spartans. The crimes. It also contained a revered sanctuary, greater part submitted without resistance. Only where Apollo was worshipped over the tomb of the inhabitants of Helos, a town on the coast, Hyacinthus, which, even after the city had sunk attempted to shake off the usurped dominion; into a village, continued to be enriched with the but their revolt was quelled, and they lost both most costly offerings by the piety of the Spartheir political independence and their personal tans. Sparta, indeed, is described in the Odysliberty, giving rise and name to the class of sey as the residence of Menelaus: it is, perserfs called Helots, whose condition will be haps, the same place with the hollow, craggy hereafterdescribed.* There are stronggrounds Lacedaemon;t but it is more probable that, in for suspecting that this account disguises a fact the Homeric poems, the name of Amyclse had which the later Spartans must have found it been exchanged for one which had of late bedifficult to conceive, that they became masters, come more celebrated, than that the Pelopids of Laconia only gradually, and after a long should have fixed their seat in an unwalled struggle. It would lead us to imagine that town, such as Sparta appears to have been from Amyclee and its district escheated to the Spar- its origin to the period of its declining greattan kings after the death of Philonomus. But, ness. If Amycl was the Achmean capital, we instead of this, we find traces which strongly can the better understand how it might be able indicate that it continued to form'an independ- to hold out against the Spartans, notwithstandent state for near three hundred years after the ing its close vicinity, and might be reduced only invasion. It is certain that its final conquest after the rest of Laconia had been subdued; was not effected before the reign of Teleclus, though, according to an account which seems towards the close of the ninth century B.C.; as well entitled to credit aS that of Ephorus, and the terms in which this is related seem Helos itself, from which the Achaean serfs are plainly to imply that it had never before sub- commonly supposed to have been named, premitted to'Sparta. "In the reign of Teleclus," served its independence down to the reign of says Pausanias, "the Lacedoemonians took Alcamenes, the son of the conqueror of AmyAmyclae, and Pharis, and Geronthrie, whichli cle. were in possession of the Achaeans. The peo- Besides the Dorians, there were foreigners of ple of the latter two towns were dismayed at other nations who were driven about the same the approach of the Dorians, and capitulated time to Laconia, by the tempest which was now upon condition of being allowed to withdraw sweeping over Greece, and their presence was from Peloponnesus. But the Amyclaeanswere attended by some important consequences, not ejected at the first assault, but only after a though it is not perfectly clear whether they long resistance and many notable deeds; and contributed more to promote or to retard the the Dorians showed the importance they at- conquest. Among these we may reckon the tached to this victory by the trophy they raised Cadmeans, whom the Bceotian invasion had over the Amycleans."t This testimony is forced to quit Thebes. Aristodemus had marconfirmed and illustrated by a tradition of a ried a princess of the line of Cadmus, who belong-protracted warfare, which occasioned the came the mother of Eurysthenes and Procles, proverb that spoke of the silence of Amycle. and on their father's death, Theras, their mothThe peace of Amyclae, we are told, had been so er's brother, undertook the guardianship of the often disturbed by false alarms of the enemy's royal twins. When they grew up to manhood, approach, that at length a law was passed forbidding such reports, and the silent city was * Heyne on Virgil, 3n., x., 564. t Conon, 36. If Lacedaemon is not, rather, the name of the country, *'Strabo, viii., p. 364. Conon, 36. as Eustathius (on Od., iv., 1) understands it, which would t iii., 2, 6. Elsewhere (iii., 12, 9) he observes of the explain the ambiguity which Muller (Dorians, i., 5, 12) same monument, " The temple of Jupiter Tropaeus (the finds in Homer's use of the name. If, however, it is to be.Discomfiter) was built by the Dorians, after they had over- taken for a city, it is clearly another name for Sparta. powered in war both the rest of the Achbeans, who at that Compare Od, ii., 327, 359, with iv., 1. 213. time were in possession of Laconia, and the Amyclaans." i Paus., iii., 2, 7. Phlegon., Meurs, p. 145. RETURN OF THE HERACLEIDS. 117 Theras was unable to bear the thought of de- for a place of refuge; and, accordingly, we are scending from the honours of the regency to a informed by Conon that Philonomus admitted private station, and resolved on leading a colo- inhabitants from Imbros and Lemnos, who must ny to the island then called Calliste, afterward be the Minyan fugitives, into Amycle, and that Thera, which was said to have been peopled by in the third generation they rose up against the followers of Cadmus. He left a son behind him Dorians, but were compelled to migrate. A in Sparta, who became the founder of a house comparison of these different stories seems to which Herodotus, who relates this story, de- afford ground for concluding that these Minyans scribes as a great tribe, named the XAgeids, from shared the fortunes, not of the Dorian conquerZEgeus, the grandson of Theras. But, accord- ors, but of the Achaeans, and that the main body. ing to other accounts, which have stronger in- did not quit Laconia before the reduction of ternal marks of probability, the LEgeids, so call- Amyclue had been completed. The connexion ed after an earlier.Egeus, were a Theban clan* described by Herodotus between them and Thewho accompanied the Dorians, and rendered ras may even seem to justify a doubt whether them important services in' their invasion of the -.Egeids also were not allies of the AchaeLaconia, and especially in their war with Amy- ans.* With regard to them, however, it is clue:t so that we are led to suppose that sev- certainly safer to adhere to the common view, eral noble Cadmean families had migrated, on which is confirmed by the admission of the the approach of the Bceotians, to Doris, where tEgeids among the Spartans; an event much they were' adopted as kinsmen, and followed more intelligible when referred to the time of the fortunes of that division of the Dorians the invasion than after the fall of Amyclhe. It which settled in Sparta, on account of the con- is not necessary to suppose that the Minyans nexion which they had formed with its leader. held so closely together, that a part might not Theras is said to have been joined in his ex- join the expedition of Theras, and the Spartans pedition by a band of Minyan adventurers, the who accompanied him, while their brethren posterity of the Argonauts, who had been driv- whom they left behind fought for the Achaeans. en out of Lemnos by those same Pelasgians The six towns founded by them in Triphylia whom the invasion of Bceotia had forced to take seem to imply that their number was considershelter in Attica, whence the consequences of able; and certainly there is reason to think that their insolence, or the jealousy of the natives, it was sufficient to be of no small moment in compelled them to migrate to a new home. Ac- the contest between the Spartans and the Achae cording to Herodotus, the expelled Minyans ans; it must, however, be remembered that sought Laconia as the land of their fathers, be- Triphylia was already peopled, in part, by a cause some of the Argonauts had'come from kindred race, which may have received them thence, and for the same reason were at first as friends. Besides the colony in Thera, they hospitably entertained by the Spartans, who ad- took part in another expedition, of which we mitted them as kinsmen to the right of inter- shall soon have occasion to speak. We must marriage. When, however, the strangers abu- now take a view of the manner in which the sed their good fortune, encroached upon the priv- dominion of the Dorians was established in othileges of their benefactors, and claimed a share er parts of Peloponnesus. in the succession to the throne, the Spartans Temenus is said to have excited the jealousy were indignant, and determined to put them to of his sons by the favour he showed to Deiphondeath. But they were delivered from prison tes, a Heracleid, but of another line, who had by a pious artifice of their Spartan wivee, whe, rmarried his dag htPr Hvrnetho. and tc whose having obtained admission. to their husbands un- aid he was principally indebted in his conquests. der the pretence of the last farewell, exchanged What the extent of these conquests may have dresses with them, and remained in their stead. been, is, as we have seen, very doubtful: it The fugitives escaped to the heights of Tayge- seems clear, however, that they did not include tus at the very time that Theras was preparing the ancient capitals Tiryns and Mycenae, for'to embark for Calliste. A part of them con- otherwise some tradition could not fail to have sented to share his adventures; but the main been preserved of their fall.t They probably body bent their march to the western coast of long retained their independence; and it is not Peloponnesus, and invaded the land, which even certain that they ever received a Dorian henceforth appears to have borne the name of population. The sons of Temenus plotted Triphylia. They expelled its ancient posses- against his life, and Ceisus, the eldest, succeedsors, the Caucones and other tribes, and found- ed him at Argos. Deiphontes drew a part of ed six towns, which formed as many independ- the Dorians over to his side, and with their aid ent states, under the names Lepreum, Macistus, undertook the conquest of Epidaurus. It was Phrixa, Pyrgus, Epium, Nudium. The reality at this time governed by Pityreus, who is said oe this settlement in Triphylia cannot be rea- to have been a descendant of Ion. He offered sonably questioned; but whether it took place at no resistance to the invaders, but with the printhe time and uinder the circumstances described Miler (Orchomenus, p. 336) treats the affinity of the by Herodotus is extremely doubtful. His ac- JEgeids with the Spartan Heracleids as a mere fiction. count evidently proceeds upon the supposition But he seems to press?ndar's language too closely, who, tnisc. the whole of Laconia was subject to the when he says that the.AEgeids -toon possession of Art"'c'e socf Ar-istoeus. If a great part of it, and (Isthm., vii., 18), probably means only that they ameu - pars ofs de tuse con ges of Lacl&r.&.- Te areauments Amyclae in particular, was still independent of drawn from the honours paid to Timomachus at the HyaSparta, the Minyans would have beer, at no loss cinthia, and from some other indications of a connexion between the Minyans and the ZFEgeids, are not more convin* Schol. Pind., Pyth., v., 101. Isthm., vii., 18. They are t What St-aho says of the subjection of Mycenae to Arhere called bparpila; in Herodotus (iv., 149), Ov)ri. gos (viii., p. 37 2), seems to be merely an inference from the t Pindar and Ephorus, Aristotle, and other authors, quo- common story about the defeat of Tisamenus and its immeed by the Scholiast in the passages last cited. diate consequences. 118 HISTORY OF GREECE. cipal families withdrew to Athens, and Epiqcau- origin of Pythagoras, Hippasus, who settled in rus became at once a Dorian state. On the Samos, was an ancestor of the philosopher. other hand, we find it mentioned, on the author- Cleone seems also to have been occupied by ity of Aristotle, that Ionians from the Attic Te- Dorians, who established there a state indetrapolis accompanied the Dorians in their expe- pendent of Argos, and perhaps hostile to it, as dition, and shared the possession of Epidaurus the ruling family was connected with that ot with them,* a memorable fact, on account of Epidaurus.* the influence it may have had on the Attic tra- The more important acquisition~ of Corinth ditions relating to the return of the Heracleids. was reserved for another dynasty of Heracleids. The success of Deiphontes, however, was im- When the Dorians were on the point of embark bittered by a tragical calamity, brought upon ing at Naupactus, Hippotes, one of their chiefs him by the deadly hatred of his kinsmen. Hyr- and a descendant of Hercules, was thought to netho's brothers resolved to separate her from have incurred the anger of Apollo, which showher husband: only Agraeus, the youngest of the ed itself in a pestilence that afflicted the whole four brothers, refused to concur in the plot. army. Hippotes, as the guilty cause of the caCerynes and Phalces, attended by a herald, lamity, was forced to quit the camp, and spent came to the gates of Epidaurus, and sent to re- many years as a wandering outcast. But his quest an interview with their sister without the son, whom he had named, from his long wanwalls. When she had granted their wish, but derings, Aletes, having grown up to manhood, turned a deaf ear to the persuasions by which collected a band of Dorian adventurers, and dithey sought to prevail on her to accompany them rected his arms against Corinth. The mode in to Argos, they forcibly placed her in their char- which he achieved the conquest is variously iot, and were hastening away, when Deiphon- related. According to one account, the line of tes, informed of her danger, came up to rescue Sisyphus was at this time represented by two her. He instantly slew Cerynes, but Hyrnetho kings, named Doridas and Hyanthidas, who herself fell a victim to the violence with which voluntarily resigned their power to Aletes, and she was detained by Phalces, who made his es- remained at Corinth, while the great body of cape, while Deiphontes and his followers took the people, resisting the invader, were defeated up his sister's corpse. The youngest brother, in battle, and migrated to foreign lands.t But AgrTeus, appears to have conquered the adja- other traditions, apparently of higher authority, cent territory of Trcezea,t where, as at Epidau- seem to indicate a different course of events, rus, the Dorians are said to have been admitted or at least assist us in filling up this outline. without resistance; and perhaps we may infer, Thucydides mentions that the village of Soly*from the part assigned to him in the legend just gia, distant seven or eight miles from Corinth, related, that, in the feuds which seem at this stood on a hill near the Saronic Gulf, where the period to have divided the Dorians in Argolis, Dorians had once encamped while they carried Trcezen and Epidaurus were united against on their war with the ZEolian inhabitants of Argos... Corinth. Here we see traces of a plan similar Phalces subjected Sicyon to-the Dorian sway. to that which the conquerors. of Argos pursued It was already ruled by a prince who traced his whe'n thiey occupied the Temenium. Another origin to Hercules, and who is said to have been legend relates that Aletes surprised the city on this account respected by the Dorians when during the celebration of a funeral sacrifice, and they made themselves masters of: the city by a that the gates were opened to him by the treachnightly' surprise. Phalces contented himself ery of a daughter of Creon, a Corinthian Tarpeia, with sharing his power. In the next genera- whom he tempted by the promise of making her tion, the Dorian arms were carried up the val- his wife.: ley of the Sicyonian Asopfis against Phlius, by The fall of Corinth was attended by another Rhegnidas, son of Phalces. He appears to have expedition, which drew the Dorians to the north been assisted in his expedition by forces sent of the Isthmus, and brought them, for the first from Argos. Yet their united strength seems time, into a conflict with Attica. The Bceotians not lo have been very formidable, or their rnod- had no sooner completed their conquest, than eration was great. Rhegnidas invited the peo- they began to threaten their southern neighple of Sicyon to receive the Dorians as friends, bours. They made inroads on the Attic border, and to make a fair partition of their fruitful ter- and claimed some towns~ as belonging to their ritory with the new settlers. We are not told territory. When the Attic king, Thymcetes, who reigned at this time at Phlius; but Hippa- led an army to meet them, Xanthus, the Bceosus is named as the leading person who oppo- tian leader, proposed to decide the issue of the sed the demands of the Dorians, and endeav- war by single combat. Thymctes shrank from cured to rouse his countrymen to resistance by oured to rouse his countrymen to resistance by This is, indeed, no more than a conjecture drawn from urging the baseness of surrendering so fair an a passage of Pausanias (iii., 16, 6), where he mentions a inheritance without a struggle. But the great- descendant of Ctesippus (Diod., iv., 37), who reigned over er number were inclined to pacific views; the the Cleestonaans (Khsctacrvaiov). If for this unknown name we substitute that of the Cleonmeans, all becomes inproposal of the invaders was accepted, and Hip- telligible, and consistent with the other traditions. pasus, with his party, joined the Ionian emi- t Paus., ii., 4, 3. Doridas and Hyanthidas have been grants who were embarking for Asia. Accord- conjectured, with great probability, to be no more than pering to one of the many traditions concerning the sonifications of the Dorian conquerors and their subjects. Compare the tribe of the Hyatue at Sicyon (IHerod., v., 68), and the ancient names Hyantes and Hyanthis in Boeotia * Strabo, viii., p. 374. and.ZEtolia (Steph. Byz., "Tavrcs, AirTAia). t Ephorus (in Strabo, viii., p. 597) mentions Agasus and + Schol. Pind., Nem., vii., 155, probably from Ephorus. Deiphontes as conquerors of the Argolic acte —the peninsula Another legend (Schol. Pind., 01., xiii., 56) seems manifestincluding Trcezen and E-)idaurus-which, compared with ly to have arisen out of the festival, the originI of which it Paus., ii., 3(, 10, seems to warrant the statement in the professes to explain. text, notwithstanding the slight variation in the namle of ClEnoe (Conon, p. 39), or Celnme (Sc.lol. Aristoph., Agraeus. Acharn., 146). RETURN OF THE HER.ACLEIDS. 119 the risk; but Melanthus, the Messenian king, time only one, though probably the principal who had been honourably received at Athens, among five little townships, which were indecame forward to accept the enemy's challenge. pendent of each other, and were not unfrequentBy a stratagem famous in after-ages, he divert- ly engaged in hostilities, which, however, were ed the attention of his adversary, and slew him so mitigated and regulated by local usage as as he turned to look at the ally whom Melan- to present rather the image than the reality thus affected to see behind him. The victor and the baneful effects of war. They were was rewarded with the kingdom which Thy- never allowed to interrupt the labours of the mcetes had forfeited by his pusillanimity, and husbandmen: the captive taken in these feuds which now passed forever from the house of was entertained as a guest in his enemy's house, Erechtheus. Melanthus transmitted it to his and, when his ransom was fixed, was dismissed son Codrus, who was still reigning, though far before it was paid. If he discharged his debt advanced in years, when some of the Dorian of honour, he became, under a peculiar name,* states, impelled by ambition, or pressed, it is the friend of his host: a breach of the compact said, by a general scarcity, the natural effect dishonoured him for life, both among the stranof long-protracted wars, united their forces for gers and his neighbours; a picture of society the invasion of Attica. Aletes was the chief which we could scarcely believe to have been mover of the expedition; but the Messenians, drawn from life, if it did not agree with other jealous of their old enemies, the Neleids, lent institutions which we find described upon the it active support. The Dorian army marched best authority as prevailing at the same period to Athens, and lay encamped under its walls. in other parts of Greece.. Aletes had previously consulted the Delphic Though we reserve a general survey of the oracle, and had been assured of success, pro- Greek colonies for another place, we must here vided he spared the life of the.Athenian king. mention some which are connected in a pecuA friendly Delphian, named Cleomantis, dis- liar manner with the history of the Dorian conclosed the answer of the oracle to'the Athe- quest. The first of these is that by which.ginians, and Codrus resolved to devote himself for na, hitherto the seat of an.Eolian population, his country in a manner not unlike that which was transformed into a Dorian island. This immortalized the name of the Decii. He went colony was led, by a chief named Triaco,t from out at the gate, disguised in a woodman's garb, Epidaurus, to which LEgina seemed to be asand, falling in with two Dorians, killed one with signed by its situation as a natural appendage, his bill, and was killed by the other. The Athe- though it attained to a much higher degree of nians now sent a herald to claim the body of their prosperity and power than the parent state. king, and the Dorian chiefs, deeming the war The number of the new settlers cannot have hopeless, withdrew their forces from Attica. been great, and they appear to have mingled on Such is the story which continued for centuries equal terms with the old inhabitants, though to warm the patriotism of the Athenians, and their influence was sufficient to introduce the which, therefore, as there is nothing improbable Dorian language, manners, and institutionst$ in its general outlines, we feel loath to criticise, But the colonies which passed from the Pelothough we cannot answer for the truth of the ponnesus into Cretein the third generation after details. To some even this may seem to be the conquest are of still greater importance, confirmed by the fact mentioned by the orator because, though they may not have been the Lycurgus,* that Cleomantis and his posterity first of the Dorian race which settled in the were honoured with the privilege of sharing the island, they appear to have contributedl much entertainment provided in the Prytaneum at more than any previous migrations of the same Athens for the guests of the state. But we people, which, as we have seen, are not even scarcely know how the current tradition is to. sufficiently ascertained'to stamp Crete with.be reconciled with another preserved by Pausa- the character which it retained to the end of nias: that a part of the Dorian army effected its history; and to them, therefore, the influtheir entrance by night within the walls, and, ence which it is commonly believed to have being surrounded by their enemies, took refuge exercised on the institutions and the destinies at the altars of the Eumenides on the Areopa- of the mother-country may, so far as it really gus, and were spared by the piety of the Athe- existed, be most justly ascribed. It is only to nians.t If, however, either must be rejected as be regretted that, though the fact itself is una fabrication, this has certainly the slightest questionable, the sources of our information are claim to credit. But, though this expedition so scanty and turbid as to leave our curiosity was defeated in its main object, it produced unsatisfied on some of the most interesting cirone permanent and important result. The lit- cumstances connected with it. tle territory of Megara was now finally separated Two principal expeditions are said to have from Attica,T and occupied by a Dorian colony, proceeded from Peloponnesus to Crete, about which continued long closely united with Cor- the same time which chronologists fix for the inth as its parent city, or, rather, was held in a beginning of the Ionian migration, sixty years subjection which at length became too oppres- after the Dorian invasion. One of these expesive to be.borne. Megara itself was at this ditions issued from,Laconia, the other from ArL, golis. The Laconian colony is involved'in great ~Leocr., p. 158. t vii., 25, 2. bscurity with regard to its leaders, and to the * Pausanias (i., 39, 4) says that Megaris was wrested obscurity with regard to its leaders, and to the from Athens by the Dorians. But this is inconsistent with people of which it was chiefly composed. The the fragments of Megarian tradition which he has preserved Minyans from Imbros and Lemnos, whom Phiin this and the following chapters of his work, from which lonomus had planted at Amycl, are said to it would seem that the country was not subject even to an d ante Am Attic prince for more than one reign-that of Nisus, son of have revolted against the Dorians in the third Pandion-and that it afterward fell under the power of a different dynasty. Hyperion, a son of Agamemnon, is said * AoptiiEvos, Plut., Qu. Gr., 17 to have been the last king. t Tzetz. on Lye., 176. f Paus., ii., 2t9 5. 120 HISTORY OF GREECE. generation, and, in consequence, to have mi- i adventurers without employment; and those grated anew from Laconia to Crete, accompa- who did not find a settlement in Megara were, nied, however, by some Spartans, and under for the most part, wining to shase the fortunes the command of two chiefs named Pollis and of Althwemenes.* It is said that he was invi-'Delphus.* In their passage they left a portion ted on the one hand by the Ionians, who were of their body in the Isle of Melos, which dated on the point of migrating to Asia; and on the its unfortunate connexion with Sparta from this other by Pollis and his Spartan followers, to epoch. The rest occupied Gortyna (an inland unite his forces with theirs. But he rejected town, but on the south side of the island) with- both proposals, that he might pursue the course out any resistance from the Cretans of the sur- marked out for him by an oracle, which had enrounding district, who became their subjects. joined him to seek the land which should be Another relation of the same events gives a granted to his prayers by Jupiter and by the somewhat fuller account of the issue of the ex- Sun. Rhodes was the island of the Sun; the pedition, but introduces different actors. The god of day had given it to his children when it Lacedaemonians, Pollis, and his brother Cratai- first rose out of the waters: but Crete was the das, are here named as the chiefs; but the peo- birthplace of Jupiter, and Althoemenes, to comple whom they lead from Amyclae are not Min- ply with the oracle, while he himself bent his yans, but their enemies and conquerors, the course to Rhodes, left a part of his followers in Pelasgians. They are said to have defeated Crete. Their conquests must have been conthe natives in several battles, and to have made siderable, for Ephorus spoke of Altheemenes as themselves masters of Lyctus (an inland town, if he had been the sole founder of a Dorian colnot very far from Gortyna), and of other cities.t ony in Crete. Yet we are not distinctly in The substitution of the Pelasgians for the Min- formed in what part of the island they establish yans in this form of the narrative may, perhaps, ed themselves. It may, however, be conjec be safely considered as an error, arising from a tured, from some traditions which cannot be confusion of the stories told of them by Herod- more simply explained on any other supposiotus, though it is said that the legend in this tion, that as the principal settlements of the shape was so current at Lyctus itself, that the Laconian adventurers lay towards the southLyctians held themselves to be kinsmen of the east, so those of the Argives were planted on Athenians by the side of their mothers, because the western side of the island. A legend, which the Pelasgians had carried off Athenian women it is scarcely possible to accept in its literal to Lemnos. A greater difficulty may, at first sense, referred the origin of several Cretan sight, seem to arise from the part which the towns-among the rest, of one named Mycenae Spartans are described as taking in the enter- -to Agamemnon, when, on his return from prise of the Minyans, with whom, according to Troy, he was forced by a tempest to land in all accounts, their intercourse was by no means Crete.t If we might suppose that this legend friendly, at least during, the latter part of the. sprang out of the colonies of Althamenes, it sojourn which these strangers made in Laconia. would direct us to the neighbourhood of the anIf it were necessary to resort to conjecture for cient town of Cydonia, as the quarter in which an explanation of the fact, we might, perhaps they were planted; and there are traces which probably enough, suppose the occasion to have seem to mark that Cydonia itself had received arisen from that state of disorder and discord a part of its population from Argos.t Polyrwhich all writers represent to have prevailed rhenia, on the western coast, near which Agaat Spsrt'a for ariy generations after the con- m.emnon was said to have raised an altar, was quest, and which seems, likewise, to have given first fortifiedbyAchaean and Laconian colonists.~ rise to the expedition oi Tneras. The r:!ing As wev here find Laconians in the west, it seems Spartans were.undoubtedly no less willing to not improbable that the town of P'eist., in the rid themselves of the restless and ambitious eastern quarter of the island, may have been spirits among their own citizens than of their founded by the peonle of Althaemenes. though it enemies,,,hctto. r Mi;ryans or Acntans, who lay in the neighbourhood of Gortyne, and though were desirous of migrating to foreign lands. the Heracleid Phaestus, from whom its name Hence such an expedition, though the bands was derived, was subsequently believed to have which embarked in it were chiefly composed of passed over from Sicyon to Crete before the strangers, might be made under the sanction of Dorian conquest of Peloponnesus.11 Spart ~a and the colonies which it planted would The scantiness -of these accounts, which is regard her as their parent, and be open to all nnt surprising when we consider the period to the influence of the Dorian character. and insti-, v,. hey relate, is no reason for questioning tutions. the importance of the Peioponnesian colonies The history of the other expedition, though in Crete. The numbers, indeed, of the Dorians not fuller, is less perplexed by contradictory who took part in them, appears to have been statements. The domestic feuds which agita- very small, compared with the extent of the ted the family of Temenus are said to have con- island; and their whole force was probably slentinued in the third generation. Althaemenes, der. But the'state in which they found the the youngest son of Ceisus, at variance with country seems to have favoured their undertahis brothers, resolved on seeking a new home. - It was at the time when the failure of the en- * Conon, 47; Eustath. on Il., p. 313, where Alth. is said It was at the time when the failure of the en- to have been driven out of Argos. It is nowhere distinctly terprise of the Dorians against Attica left many stated that he shared the expedition against Attica, though this has sometimes been inferred from the words of Strabo, xiv., p. 653. t veil. Paterc., i., 1. * Conon, 36. The name of De!phus seems to have aris- $ There was, it seems, a Hyllean tribe both at Argos en out of an error of the transcribers (for dadssXy ), if it is and Cydonia (Steph. Byz. and Hesych.). This, however, not a personification, which often occurs, of the oracle strictly proves nothing more than that Cydonia had re which directed the enterprise. ceive( some Dorian inhabitants. ~ Strabo, T., r. 479 t Plut., de IMul. Virt., Tv feivtid. i Paus., ii., 5, 7, and Steph. Byz., (aaro;. RETURN OF THE HERACLEIDS. 121 king, and to have enabled them first to gain a however, this is rejected, the question which firm footing, and then to make a steady prog- divided the ancients as to the relative antiquity ress. The Iliad describes Crete as containing of the Cretan and the Spartan systems falls to a hundred cities;* but the Odyssey reduces the ground of itself, as will be more clearly-seen that number to ninety; and some of the an- when we come to consider the legislation of cients endeavoured to explain the difference by Lycurgus. supposing that ten cities had been lost through The institutions which we shall shortly have intestine feuds after the Trojan war: others to describe under that head are. so similar to believed that ten new ones had been founded those of Crete, that it will be sufficient here to between that event and the poet's time, and give a brief outline of the latter. The inhabiEphorus named Althemenes as the founder. tants were divided into three ranks, slaves, freeThis is, no doubt, an arbitrary fiction; but a Cre- men, and an intermediate class, removed at a tan tradition, apparently quite unconnected with nearly equal distance from the degradation of these attempts at reconciling the two Homeric the one and the privileges of the other. This poems, spoke of the whole island having been class was undoubtedly composed chiefly of the wasted by plague and famine after the Trojan old possessors of the land, who had submitted war, and having been left almost desolate, till without a struggle to the superior force of the its population was replenished by the new race conquerors. The name by which they were which finally retained possession of it.t One distinguished marked their condition-that of a point, at least, appears to be indisputably proved rural population dwelling in open towns or vilby the condition in which Crete is exhibited to lages*-in contrast with the citizens, who resius by the earliest accounts of its subsequent ded in the capital of each territory. Their history: that the Dorian settlers found it divi- lands were subjected to a peculiar tax or tribded among a number of independent states, ute,t from which those of the upper class were kept asunder by the difference of their origin, exempt, but their persons were free and their and, perhaps, by mutual animosity, and sep- industry unrestricted, an advantage which went arately unable to resist the invaders. Yet here, far to counterbalance all the burdens imposed still more than in Peloponnesus, the conquest upon them, and even the privileges from which must have been gradual, arid it must have been they were excluded. These were not only the long before the Dorians had spread over the proper functions of the citizen, those connected whole island, if no part of it was before inhabit- with the enactment of laws, the administration ed by a kindred race. With respect to this of justice, and the government of the state, but question, it is remarkable that none of the tra- also the use of arms, such as the citizen reservditions preserved to us concerning the Argive ed for himself, and the exercises by which he and Laconian colonies make any mention of was trained to them in the public schools.t Cnossus, the ancient seat of Minos; or of any The bow appears to have been the ordinary Dorians previously settled in the island. The weapon of this class, which in all agessupplied renown of Cnossus was transferred to Gortyna the Grecian armies with their best archers. and Lyctus,f and it was in the latter city that They were allowed to retain such of their an Lycurgus was believed to have studied the in- cient national usages as did not interfere with stitutions which he transplanted to Sparta.~ their dependance on their conquerors; and, on Those of the ancients who contended that the the whole, there is no reason to think that their Cretan institutions were derived from SDarta, condition was oppressive. The slaves, with t,,i; Li;etr Chilef argument on the fact that Lyc-: respect to the origin of their servitude, may be tus was her colony, and, therefore, might nat-. probably divided into two classes, one consisturally borrow from the mother city.ll On the ing of those who were already such at the time other hand, those who believed thaythe Spartan of the conquest, the other of freemen taken lapv.iver had copied the model which he found with arms in their hands, who purchased their a* Lvctus. still neo ivYMnose to have been its ori- lives by the sacrifice of their liberty. With reginal author.~[ We have alreaudy o5hervec that I spect tc h2;r situation, such as it continued in this opinion might easily have arisen out of the alter ulnle, ihev were alstlnglzhed bv P'culiar ambition of the Cretan Dorians to appropriate names, which expressed tne i;:t.1ons in which the fame of Minos to themselves, and to hallow, they stood either to individuals or to the state. their own usaes by his revered name. But it Besides the lands which were left in the posmay also not have been entirely destitute of a session of their ancient owners, subject to tribreal foundation, and may only have been erro- ute, and those which were occupied by the citneous in extending to the whole system what izens, each state appears to have reserved a dowas true of no more than a few of its parts, in main for itself, which it cultivated by the hands which vestiges might undoubtedly be preserved of public slaves, who constituted a separate of a more ancient poi;t>y. At, that the social body, called a mnoa,~ and who, probably, likefabric, which struck the ancients by its close wise performed various services of a public naresemblance to that of Sparta, and which they ture within the city. Those who tllieula lse porconcluded must have been either its archtype tions of ground allotted to the individual freeor its copy, was already standing in Crete'- the men were designated by a different title, deperiod of Minos, is an opinion which requires much stronger evidence to support it. When, * IhtiOLKO. t Its amount is uncertain, unless it was the stater, which the slaves, as they are, perhaps, impronerlv called, had to * One Xenion had made out a complete list of the hun- pay towards the public meals. Dosiades in Atr., i;., p. 143. dred cities (Tzetz. on Lye., 1214); it is to be feared that $ Arist., Pol., ii., 5. Aristotle, indeed, is here speaking he may now and then have drawn upon his invention for of the slaves (ov'Xots), but he manifestly uses this as a gen. the sake of making up the number. eral term to describe all who were not citizens. t Herod., vii., 171. 4 Strabo, x., p. 476. pv/ia, /voia, pvcota, or Mtvco'a ao'voso, as it is called Aristot., Pol., ii,, 10. 1] Strabo, x., p, 481. by Strabo, xii., p. 542. The name, however, is more prob ~ Aristot., Pol., ii., 10. I ably connected with the word i6olS tha. with Minos. VOL. I.-Q 122 HISTORY OF GREECE. rived from their peculiar condition.* Slaves number; the first in rank, theprotocosmus, gave of this and the former class might be sold, but his name to the year. This title seems to have not to be carried out of the country. A third been chosen with reference to the most impor. class, which was probably by far the least nu- tant of their functions, that of commanding in merous, and exclusively employed in menial la- war. They also represented the state in its bours, was purchased, as their name imported, intercourse with foreigners, and -held or con from abroad.t It might therefore appear that ducted all deliberations relating.to its general these ought to be discriminated from the for- interests. They were elected by the whole mer classes, as slaves from serfs. The ancient body of the citizens, but out of a certain numauthors, however, place them all on the same ber of privileged houses or families; Aristotle's footing, and do not indicate any difference in censure implies that, in his day at least, little the manner of treating them, unless it be by the attention was paid to any qualities of intrinsic custom which prevailed at Cydonia, and per- worth. They held their office for a year, at the haps in other cities, where the serfs -enjoyed end of which those who had approved themcertain holydays, during which we are told that selves worthy of their station might aspire to they were left in possession of the town, and fill up the vacancies which occurred in the counr might even drive out their masters, if they cil or senate. The senate, or council of elders, would not wait at their table, with the whip, a bore the same name by which bodies exercising perhaps exaggerated description of the Cretan similar functions are described in the Homeric Saturnalia.T poems.* But its number was fixed, as ArisThe contrast between the lot of the slave totle seems to intimate, to thirty; it was unand the Dorian freeman is strongly marked by questionably not'indefinite. They were elected the language of a Cretan drinking song.~ " My by the people from the most deserving of those great wealth is my spear, my sword, and my who had filled the supreme magistracy, and they stout buckler, my faithful guard: with this I retained their office for life. They were the plough, with this I reap, with this I press the councillors of the ten chief magistrates, adminsweet juice of the vine: this is my title to be istered the internal affairs of the state, and master of the tmnoa. They who dare not grasp watched over its tranquillity and order. They the spear, or the sword, or the faithful buckler, were also judges, it would seem, as we hear of fall prostrate at my feet, and adore me as their no distinction, both in civil and criminal causes; lord, and salute me as the great king." To be subject, it is said, to no responsibility, which, free from all labour, save warlike exercises, to perhaps, may only mean that their judgments live upon the toil of his subjects and slaves, to could not be reversed, and their judicial power know no care but the defence of his station, was not limited by any writtenlaw. It cannot, was the glory and happiness of the citizen; and however, be supposed that they were independto secure to him the enjoyment of these priv- ent of all rule and usage, or that they could ileges was the main object of all the institu- with impunity disregard principles hallowed by tions of the state. public opinion. We could wish to know whethThe forms of government established in the er their jurisdiction extended over the subject Dorian colonies in Crete so closely resembled and servile classes; but on this, as on many each other, that we find one only described as other interesting questions relating to them, the aommon to all; a uniformity which shows ancients have not satisfied our curiosity. What lhat they sprang naturally out of the character has been said shows that the Cretan Constitu)f the age and the people, and were not the re-'tion was strictly aristocratical, like those'which sult of accident or design. In fact, they follow prevailed throughout Greece in the heroic ages. rery closely the model exhibited in the Homer- This appears still more clearly when we conic poems, presenting only one material devia- sider the s.,ation occupied by the assembly of tionj and perhaps defining more precisely some the people n the Cretan system. The people, points which, in the heroic states, appear to it must be remembered, are here the conquerhave been left undetermined. The royal digni- ing nation, the Dorians, and their fellow-adventy seems never to have been known in any of turers. Among these we have.seen that certhese colonies; none of their leaders, perhaps, tain families-perhaps those of the pure Dorian were of sufficient eminence to assume it; when blood-were distinguished from the rest, and Aristotle observes that it once existed in Crete, exclusively.entitled to all the jonours of the he had, most probably, the age of Minos in his state. The remainder formed a commonalty, view. In the earliest period to which our in- which, however, was itself inconsiderable in formation goes back, we find the place of the number, compared with the subject population. kings occupied by magistrates, who bore the It might be assembled by the magistrates whenoeculiar title of cosmus.ll They were ten in ever they had any measures to lay before it. But the individual members were not allowed to discuss these reasures; the assembly could.els of land. par- only pronounce upon them as a body. It is t Xpvuarvrrot. As in most other Greek states all the even extremely doubtful whether it had the dlaves were acquired in this manner, this epithet would pox*r of rejecting them, and was not summonshere, have been superfluous; in Crete it marked an excep- ed simply to receive and sanction the decrees ion to the general rule. * Ephorus in Athen., vi., p. 263, compared with Carys- of its rulers. This may seem, indeed, to imply bus, Atben.,-xiv., p. 639, a power of withholding its assent; but, so long This Scolion ofHybrias Mhas hbeen separately edited and as habit retained its sway, this alternative was illustra.," ny Graefenhan, Mulhusae, 1833. II A king of the Cretan town of Axus is mentioned by perhaps never thought of. The common freeLIerodotus (iv., p. 154) as grandfather of the founder of men in the heroic states appear to have enjoyed Cyrene, according to the Cyrenean tradition. But it is not no higher privileges. certain what office may have been described by that name. It may have been substituted for the genuiue Cretan title. * rFpwaria, 3oveU>. RETURN OF THE HERACLEIDS. 123 The principal duties of the' private citizen meals: derived their Cretan appellation from the were to be discharged, not in the popular assem- men who partook of them,* who were divided bly, but in the field of battle: his chief pleasures into companies, originally, perhaps, correspond. were those which he derived' from the society ing to some relations of kindred, but afterward of his equals; and the main end of the institu- associated by mutual inclination and free choice. tions which regulated his private life was to The management of the table was committed prepare him for the one, and to afford him the to a woman, undoubtedly of free birth, who amplest opportunities of enjoying the other. openly selected the choicest part of the fare for The most important feature in the Cretan mode the persons most distinguished for valour or of life is the usage of the Syssitia, or public prudence. One regulation, peculiar to the Cremeals, of which all the citizens partook, with- tan system, is remarkably characteristic of the out distinction of rank or age. The origin of friendly intercourse which prevailed, at least in this institution cannot be traced: we learn, early times, among the Dorian cities of the however, from Aristotle, that it was' not pecu- island. In every town were two public buildliar to the Greeks, but existed still earlier in ings, destined, the one for the lodging of stranthe south of Italy among the CEnotrians.* The gers, the other for the meals of the citizens; Cretan usage, in common with all the rest, he and in the banqueting-room, two tables were attributes to Minos. This, however, must be set apart for the foreign guests. The temperate considered rather as the philosopher's opinion repast was followed by conversation, which was than as an historical tradition. But as we have first made to turn on the affairs of the state; no such reason for questioning his authority and it cannot be doubted that the freedom of with regard to the Italian custom, and as the discussion allowed at the festive board made institution itself bears all the marks of high an- no slight amends for the restrictions imposed tiquity, it would seem probable enough that the on- the deliberations of the public assembly. Peloponnesian colonies might have found it in After this, the discourse fell on valiant deeds Crete, even if no people of the same race had and illustrious men, whose praises might rouse before settled in the island. That they intro- the younger hearers to generous emulation. duced it there could only be proved by showing Whatever may have been the origin of this that it existed in Sparta before the time of Ly- institution, it manifestly answered several imcurgus, or in other Dorian states, and of this portant ends besides that for which it was imthere does not seem to be sufficient evidence, mediately designed. On the one hand, it mainIts analogy with the public banquets of the tained a stricter separation between the ruling Homeric heroes is too slight to authorize us to and the subject classes; it kept alive in the consider it as an old Hellenic usage,t unless, former the full consciousness of their superior indeed, we go back to the patriarchal communi- station and their national character: on the ties in the infancy of society;1 but we then other hand, it bound the citizens together by want an historical deduction to carry it down ties of the most endearing intimacy, taught to the period in' which we find it really existing. them to look on each other as members of one'Still, its uniform prevalence in the Dorian colo- family, and gave an efficacy to the power nies in Crete is a strong argument for believing' of public opinion which must have nearly that they did not adopt it from the mother-coun- superseded the necessity of any penal laws. try. It may have obtained among the Dorians To this we may add, that it provided a main before the invasion of Peloponnesus, and may part of the education of the young. Till have been retained by the Spartans, because it they had reached their eighteenth year, the was adapted to the wants of theirpeculiar situ- sons accompanied their fathers to the public ation, while it soon fell into disuse among their hall with the orphans of the deceased. The brethren. In most of the Cretan cities the ex- younger waited at the table; the rest, seated pense of the public meals was defrayed by the beside the men on a lower bench, received a state, out of the revenue of the domain lands portion suited to their age, of plainer fare, and and the tribute they received from their sub- listened to the conversation. of their elders. jects, so that no distinction could arise between They were here under the eye of an officer pubthe rich and the poor. Each individual received licly appointed to superintend them.t How far, his separate share, out of which he paid his in other respects, the state assumed a direct contributions to one of the public tables and control over their education, does not appear; provided for the females of his household.s In but it seems highly probable that the same offiLyctus a different system seems to have pre- cer who watched over their behaviour in public, vailed: the citizen devoted a tithe of the fruits also enforced the other branches of discipline to of his own land to the same purposes; 11 but per- which they were subject. They were early haps there, as elsewhere, the poor were sup- inured to hardship and laborious exercises: the ported from the public stock. These social same coarse garment served them for summer and winter; and their strength and spirit were *Pol., vii., 9. proved by frequent combats between rival Comt Hoeck, Kreta, iii., p. 121, refers to II., iv., 257, which seems to prove nothing, nor does a passage of Athenmus panies. The intervals of leisure left by this (iv., p. 148), to which he appeals in support of his. position, species of training were filled up by some simthat the usage of the syssitia existed among the Arcadians, ple lessons in poetry and music, and, in later appear to have anything to do with the subject. It evident- tielso in peraduian nlt ly relates to an entertainment given at the public expense times atleast, in the rudiments of letters. The in Phigalea to two choruses, on the occasion of some fes- songs which they learned contained the pretival. cepts and maxims enforced by the laws, hymns: Huellmann (Anfaenge der Gricchischen Geochichie, p. to the gods; and the praises of the illustrious 149) thinks that the syssitia arose out of the occasional social repasts, by which the union of infant communities dead. From the beginning of their eighteenth was cemented, but he is, of course, unable to trace the connexion between them. Aristot., Pol., ii., 10. * They were called'Avdpcea or'Avdpia. II Dosiades in Athen., iv., c. 22 t IIaltov6#oe. Ephorus in Strabo, x., p. 483 ~124 HISTORY OF GREECE. year they were subjected to a stricter rule. different opinions that have been entertained as They were now divided into troops,* each head- to its origin and its author. It has been usual, ed by a youth of some noble family, whose pride both with ancient and modern writers, to conit was to collect the greatest number he could' sider it as the work of a single man-as the under his command. He was himself placed fruit of the happy genius, or of the commanding under the control of some elder person, general- character of Lycurgus, who has generally been ly his father, who directed the exercises of the supposed to have had the merit, if not of introop in the chase, the course, and the wrest- venting it, yet of introducing and establishing ling-school. On stated days the rival troops it among his countrymen. Viewed in this light, engaged in a mimic fight, with movements meas- it has justly excited not only admiration, but asured by the flute and the lyre; and the blows tonishment; it appears a prodigy of art, on they exchanged on these occasions were dealt which we gaze as on an Egyptian pyramid-a not merely with the hand and with clubs, but structure wonderful in its execution, but myswith iron weapons, probably with a view of put- terious in its design. We admire the power ting their skill, patience, and self-command, as which the legislator has exerted over his felwell as their strength, to the trial, by the ne- low-men; but while we are amazed at his bold cessity of defending themselves without inflict- ness and success, we can scarcely refrain from ing a dangerous wound. How long the youths suspecting that he must have been partly swayremained in these troops we are not informed. ed by the desire of raising an extraordinary monAs soon as they quitted them to enter into the ument to his own fame. According to the opsociety of the men, the law compelled each to posite view of the subject, it was not an artifichoose a bride, who, however, was not. per- cial fabric, but the spontaneous growth of a pemitted, it is said, to undertake the duties of a culiar nature, which at the utmost required matron until she was found capable of dis- only a few slight touches from the hand of man, charging them; that is, probably, she continued and the agency of Lycurgus shrinks into so narfor some time to live under the roof of her pa- row a compass that even his personal existence rents. The Cretan institutions sanctioned, and becomes a question of much doubt and of little even enforced, a close intimacy between the moment. The truth will, perhaps, be found to men and the youths, wlfich was undoubtedly lie midway between these two extremes. The designed to revive that generous friendship of reasons which prevent us from unreservedly the heroic ages which was so celebrated in adopting either opinion will be best understood song, and to add a new motive to the love of if we consider,first, the history of Lycurgus himglory in the* noblest spirits. But the usage, self, as transmitted to us by the general consent which was singularly regulated by the law,t de- of the ancients, and then the mode in which generated in later times into a frightful license, they describe the scope and character of his inwhich was often mistaken for its primitive form, stitutions. and consequently attributed to political views, Experience proves that scarcely any amount which, if they had even existed, would have of variation as to the time and circumstances been equally odious and absurd.4 of a fact, in the authors who record it, can ever be a sufficient ground for doubting its reality. But the chronological discrepancies in the accounts of Lycurgus. which struck Plutarch as CHAPTER VIII. singularly great, on closer inspection do not apTHE LEGISLATION OF LYCURGIUS. pear very considerable. Xenophon, indeed, in a passage where it is his object to magnify the WE now return to the Dorians of Pelopon- antiquity of the laws of Sparta, mentions a tranesus, whose history, scanty as is the ilforma- dition or opinion that Lycurgus was a contemtion transmitted to us concerning its earlier porary of the Heracleids.* This, however, ages, is still somewhat less obscure, and much ought not, perhaps, to be interpreted more litermore interesting than that of the other Greek ally than the language of Aristotle, in one of his tribes during the same period. Our attention extant works, where he might seem to suppose will for some time be fixed on the steps by that the lawgiver lived after the close of.the which Sparta rose to a supremacy above the Messenian wars.t Thegreatmass ofevidence, re't cf the Dorian states, which was finally ex- including that of Aristotle and of Thucydides, tended over the hc,.le of Greece. This is the fixes his legislation in the ninth century before most mome.ta cu event of the period rntervening our era; and the variations within this period, between the return of tne Teracleids and the if not mrrerely apparent, are unimportant. There Persian wars. It was, in part, an effect of the was also a disagreement, nmaicaitUlg some ungreat addition which Sparta made to her terri- certainty, as to his parentage. We have altory by swallowing up that of her western ready seen, that after the death of Aristodemus, neighbour. But this conquest may itself be re- the throne of Sparta was shared by his two sons, garded as a result of those peculiar institutions Eurysthenes and Procles. The kingly olcze which, once firmly established, decided her char- continued to be hereditary in their lines, which acter and destiny to h'ale r ferg c political ex- were equal in power, though a certain preceistence, and which are in themselves one of the deuce or dignity was allowed to that of Eurvsmost interesting subjects that engage the atten- thenes, grounded on his supposed priority of tion of the statesman and the philosopher in the birth. It was not, however, from these remote history of Greece. ancestors that the two royal families derived Before we attempt to describe the Spartan their distinguishing appellations. The elder Constitution, it will be necessary to notice the house was called the Agids, after Agis, son of * &y[)at. t Ephorus in Strabo, x., 483. 4 Aristotle, Pol,, ii., 10. * Rep. Lao., x,, 8. t Pol, ii.. 9 LEGISLATION OF LYCURGUS. 125 Eurystnenes; the minor,-the Eurypontids, from their institutions and manners, and conversed Eurypon, the successor of Sous, son of Procles: with their sages. Crete and the laws of Minos a remarkable fact, not very satisfactorily ex- are said to have been the main object of his plained from the martial renown of these prin- study, and a Cretan poet one of his instructers ces, and perhaps indicating a concealed break in the art of legislation; but the Egyptian in each series. Agis was followed by Eches- priests likewise claimed him as their disciple; tratus and Labotas; and, according to Herodo- and reports were not wanting among the later tus, it was during the minority of the latter that Spartans that he had penetrated as far as InLycurgus, his guardian,* governing as regent, dia, and had sat at the feet of the Bramins. employed the power thus accidentally placed in On his return, he found the disorders of the his hands to establish his institutions. This, state aggravated, and the need of a reform more however, contradicts both the received chronol- generally felt. Having strengthened his authorogy and the better attested tradition, that the ity with the sanction of the Delphic oracle, which lawgiver belonged to the Eurypontid line.'He declared his wisdom to transcend the common was commonly believed to have been the son level of humanity, and having secured the aid of Eunomus, the grandson of Eurypon; though of a numerous party among the leading men, the poet Simonides, following a different gene- who took up arms to support him, he succesalogy, called him the son of Prytanis, who is sively procured ~the enactment of a series of generally supposed to have been the father of solemn ordinances or compacts (Rhetras), by Eunomus, and the immediate successor of Eury- which the civil and military constitution of the pon. Eunomus is said to have been killed in a commonwealth, the distribution of property, the fray which he was endeavouring to quell, and'education of the citizens, the rules of their daiwas succeeded by his eldest son Polydectes, ly intercourse and of their domestic life, were who shortly after dying childless, left Lycurgus to be fixed on a hallowed and immutable basis. apparently entitled to the crown. But as his Many of these regulations roused a violent opbrother's widow was soon discovered to be position, which even threatened the life of Lypregnant, he declared his purpose of resigning curgus; but his fortitude and patience finally his dignity if she should give birth to' an heir. triumphed over all obstacles, and he lived to The ambitious queen, however, if we may be- see his great idea, unfolded in all its beauty, lieve a piece of court scandal reported by Plu- begin its steady course, bearing on its front the tarch, put his virtue to a severer test. She se- marks of immortal vigour. His last action was cretly sent proposals to him of securing him on to sacrifice himself to the perpetuity of his work. the throne on condition of sharing it with him, He set out on a journey to Delphi, after having by destroying the embryo hopes of Sparta. Sti- bound his countrymen by an oath to make no fling his indignation, he. affected to embrace her change in his laws before his return. When offer, but, as if tender of her health, bade her the last seal had been set to his institutions by do no violence to the course of nature: "The the oracle, which foretold that Sparta should infant, when born, might be easily despatched." flourish as long as she adhered to them, having As the time drew near, he placed trusty attend- transmitted this prediction to his fellow-citiants round her person, with orders, if she should zens, he resolved, in order that they might nev be delivered of a son, to bring the child imme- er be discharged from their oath, to die in a for diately to him. He happened to be sitting at eign land. The place and manner of his death table with rhe magistrates when his servants are veiled in an obscurity befitting the characcame in with a new-born prince. Taking the ter of the hero; the sacred soils of Delphi, of infant from their arms, he placed it on the royal Crete, and of Elis, all claimed his tomb; the seat, and in the presence of the company pro- Spartans honoured him, to the latest times, with claimed it King of Sparta, and namled it Chari- a temple and yearly sacrifices, as a god. laus, to express the joy which the event diffu- Such are the outlines of a story which is too sed among the people. familiar to be cast away as an empty fiction, Thoiugh proof against such temptation, Lycur- even if it should be admitted that no part of it gus had the weakness, it seems, to shrink from can bear the scrutiny of a rigorous criticism. a vile suspicion. Alarmed lest the calumnies But the main question is whether the view it propagated by the incensed queen-mother and presents of the character of Lycurgus as a her kinsmen, who charged him with a design statesman is substantially correct; and in this against the life of his nephew, might chance to respect we should certainly be led to regard him be seemingly confirmed by the untimely death in a very different light, if it should appear that of Charilaus, he determined, instead of staying the institutions which he is here supposed to to exercise his authority for the benefit of the have collected with so much labour, and to have young king and of the state, to withdraw be- founded with so much difficulty, were in existyond the reach of slander till the maturity of his ence long before his birth; and not only in ward and the birth of an heir should have re- Crete, but at Sparta, nor at Sparta only, but in moved every pretext for such imputations, other Grecian states. And this we believe to Thus the prime of his life, notwithstanding the have been the case with every important part rest and the repeated invitations of his coun- of these institutions. As to most of those, intrymen, was spent in voluntary exile; which, deed, which were common to Crete and Sparta, however, he employed in maturing a plan al- it seems scarcely to admit of a doubt, and is ready conceived for remedying the evils under equally evident, whether we acknowledge or. which Sparta had long laboured, by a great deny that some settlements of the Dorians in' change in its constitution and laws. With this Crete preceded the conquest of Peloponnesus. view he visited many foreign lands, observed It was at Lyctus, a Laconian colony, as Aristotle informs us, that the institutions which Ly* Dionysius Hal., ii., 49, names Eunomus as the ward. curgus was supposed to have taken for his mod 126 HISTORY OF GREECE. el, flourished longest in their original purity; which he applied to them, are nowhere dis. and hence some of the ancients contended that tinctly described, and can only be gathered by a they were transferred from Laconia to Crete; difficult and uncertain process of combination an. argument which Ephorus thought to confute, and inference'.; Herodotus and Thucydides use by remarking that Lycurgus lived five genera- only very general and vague language in detions later than Athaemenes, who founded one scribing the, state of Sparta previous to the leof the Dorian colonies in the island. But un- gislation of Lycurgus. The former says that it less we imagine that each of these colonies pro- was the worst-ordered country in Greece, both duced its Minos or its Lycurgus, we must con- as regarded the mutual relations of the citizens, clude that they merely retained what they and their inhospitable treatment of foreigners; brought with them from the mother-country. a singular remark, since in her best times Whether they found the same system already Sparta was most celebrated for the jealousy established in Crete, depends on the question with which she excluded foreigners from her whether a part of its population was already territory. Thucydides speaks of a long period Dorian. On any other view, the general adop- of civil discord which had preceded the estabtion of the laws of Minos in the Dorian cities lishment of the good government existing in his of Crete, and the tenacity with Which Lyctus own day. Aristotle gives a somewhat more adhered to them, are facts unexplained and dif- definite, though a very obscure hint, when he obficult to understand. We suspect, indeed, that serves, that in the reign of Charilaus the Spartan the contrary opinion rests on a false notion of government changed from a tyranny to an aristhe omnipotence of human legislators, which tocracy.* Plutarch, indeed, is much more exhas been always prevalent among philosophers, plicit, but he seems to have been unable to form but has never been confirmed by experience. a clear conception of the subject. According to It may be reasonably doubted whether the his- him, the root of the evil lay in the relaxation of tory of the world furnishes any instance of a po- the royal authority, which had begun in the litical creation such as that attributed to Minos reign of Eurypon, and had increased until, in or Lycurgus. No parallel is afforded by a le- the time of Lycurgus, the kingly power was regislation in which, as in that of Moses, religion duced to a shadow; and this he thinks the lawis not merely the basis, but the main element giver designed to correct, by instituting a counof the system. Without some such extraordi- cil which should at once support and restrain nary aid, that union of absolute power and con- the kings, and should maintain an equipoise besummate prudence which Plato-thought neces- tween them and the people. The next main sary for the foundation of his commonwealth, cause of disorder described by Plutarch was migLt still be found incapable of moulding and the excessive disproportion in the distribution transforming a people at the will of an individu- of private property; and he informs us that for al. We lay no stress, however, on these gen- this Lycurgus provided an immediate remedy in eral grounds; it is the contemplation of the a new partition of the land, which was not conSpartan institutions themselves that seems to fined to the Spartans, but extended to all the injustify the conclusion that they were not so habitants of Laconia; and that he then proceedmuch a work of human art and forethought as ed to attack the disease in its inmost seat, by a a form. of society originally congenial to the series of regulations tending to abolish all discharacter of the Dorian people, and to the situa- tinctions, and to exclude all enjoyments which tion in which they were placed by their new could supply fuel to private cupidity. Plutarch conquests; and in its leading features not even does not attempt to point out any connexion peculiar to this, or to any single branch of the between these two measures, which, indeed, Hellenic nation. are directly opposite in their tendency; the first This view of the subject may seem scarcely checking popular license by an aristocratical into leave room for the intervention of Lycurgus, stitution, while the second levels all advantages and to throw some doubt on his individual ex- of rank and property. Accordingly, in carrying istence; so that Hellanicus, who made no men- the former, Lycurgus, it is said, was seconded tion of him, and referred his institutions to Eu- by the leading men; while in the latter, he was rysthenes and Procles, would appear to have opposed by the wealthy class with a fury- which been much more correctly informed, or to have threatened his life. There is still greater diffihad a much clearer insight into the truth, than culty in reconciling this account with Aristotle's the later historians, who ascribed everything remark, that the tyranny of Charilaus was folSpartan to the more celebrated lawgiver. But, lowed by an aristocratical government. This, remarkable as this variation is, it cannot be al- indeed, reminds us of what Plutarch relates, lowed to outweigh the concurrent testimony of that the first tumult occasioned by the measures the other ancient writers, from which we must, of Iycurgus alarmed Charilaus so much, that, at least, conclude that Lycurgus was not an fancying a conspiracy formed against himself, imaginary or symbolical person, but one whose he took refuge in the sanctuary of the Brazen name marks an important epoch in the history House, where Lycurgus himself wa, afterward of his country. Through all the conflicting ac- forced to take shelter.t We read, however, counts of his life, we may distinguish one fact, that his fears were quieted, and that he Wven which is unanimously attested, and seems inde- actively joined in promoting the new reform. pendent of all minuter discrepancies-that by If we admit the fact that a revolution of some him Sparta was delivered from the evils of an- kind was really effected by Lycurgus, it seems archy or misrule, and that from this date she necessary, in order to understand the various began a long period of tranquillity and order. descriptions given of it, to suppose that its obBuit the origin and the precise nature of the dis- jects were not precisely such as the language orders which he found existing, and, conseonently, the real aim and spirit of the remedies * Pol., v., 12. t Plut., Ap. Lac., 7 LEGISLATION OF LYCURGUS. 127 of the ancient writers at first sight suggests. subsequently submitted to Sparta may have af. So long as we confine our view to the Dovians forded some of the leading men opportunities of Sparta, we are at a loss to explain the grow-, of enriching themselves at the expense of the ing ascendency of a commonalty, which finally ancient land-owners, and to the exclusion of tramples on the royal prerogatives, and which their less fortunate brethren, who might thus it is found necessary to balance by an aristo- be disposed to favour the pretensions of the Lacratical institution; while, in the same state, a conian provincials. small class preponderates over the rest by its If this supposition at all corresponds to the overgrown possessions, to a degree which state of things which Lycurgus found existing, drives the legislator to the democratical expe- it will not be difficult to understand the double dient of a general repartition. It is true that aspect which his legislation presents. He must such extremes may often be found combined in have had two main objects in view: one, to a stage of society immediately preceding a great maintain the sovereignty of Sparta over the political convulsion; but if such a convulsion rest of Laconia; the other-a necessary condiensues, and the wealthy class is forced to yield, tion of the former-to unite the Spartans by the the result will surely not be a rigid and steady closest ties among themselves. The manner aristocratical government; and it would be at- in which he accomplished this twofold purpose tributing, not wisdom, but magic, to Lycurgus, may not have been the less admirable because to suppose that he extracted such a constitution he found all the instruments he required ready out of such elements. It seems impossible to to his hand, and was seconded by the general comprehend the nature of his reform, unless we wishes of the people. Nothing more, indeed, may be allowed to think that it determined not seems to have been necessary for securing the merely the relations of the Dorians among one harmony and the internal strength of Sparta another or to their kings, but that in which they than that she should return into the ancient stood to their subjects, the provincials of Laco- track, from which she appears for. a time to nia; and that this is not a wholly unauthorized have been drawn, partially aside; that her citiconjecture appears from the tradition that Ly- zens, where they had cast off the habits of their curgus extended his agrarian regulation over forefathers, should resume them; and, sacrithe whole country. Those authors, indeed, ficing all artificial distinctions and newly-acwho represent the conquest of Laconia as com- quired inclinations, should live together after pleted some generations sooner, would lead us the old fashion, as brothers in arms, under the to conclude that the relation between the con- rigid but equal discipline of a camp. This querors and their subjects had been long before mode of life was undoubtedly not only familiar fixed on its ultimate footing. But as we have to the Spartans before the time of Lycurgus, seen reason to suspect that the conquest itself but can never have sunk into very general diswas much more gradual, so it seems not im- use: it had probably been most neglected by probable that it was reserved for Lycurgus final- those whose possessions raised them above the ly to settle the relative position of the several common level, and when this inequality was reclasses. And it must be remembered, that moved, came again almost spontaneously into among them, besides the conquered Achaeans, force. The occasion, however, required that were other foreigners who had aided the Dori- what had hitherto been no more than lax and ans in their enterprise, and might therefore undefined usage, should henceforth be made to seem to have stronger claims to an equality of assume the character of strict law, solemnly political rights. It would be natural, and in ac- enacted, and consecrated by the sanction of recordance with the policy which we find actually ligion. If Lycurgus did no more than this, afpursued by the Dorian lngs of Messenia, if ter having surmounted the obstacles which inthese claims had been favoured by one of the terest and passion threw in his way, he will inroyal houses at Sparta; and it would be no un- deed lose the glory of a marvellous triumph common mistake or perversion of language if over nature, but he will retain the honour of this was the fact indicated by Eurypon's ambi- having judiciously and successfully applied the tion of popularity, by the death of Eunomus, and simplest and most efficacious means which naby the tyranny of Charilaus. Eurypon would ture afforded to a great and. arduous end. be a demagogue, and Charilaus a tyrant, in the While, therefore, we do not wish the reader same sense in which Cresphontes might have to forget that this is no more than a hypothesis,. been called so by his Dorians, whom he wished which must give, way as soon as another more to reduce to the same level with his other sub- probable shall have been proposed, we believe jects; and it may have been in a like struggle that we come nearest to the truth in supposing that Eunonius also lost his life. that the occasion that called forth the legislaThe gradual progress of the conquest may, tion of Lycurgus was the danger which threatperhaps, also serve to explain the inequality of ened the Spartan Dorians, while divided among property among the Dorians, which must be themselves, of losing the privileges which raisconsidered not as an effect of the original dis- ed them above their subjects-rthe common freetribution, nor of successive casual transfers, but men of Laconia: that, consequently, the basis of encroachment and usurpation; and which, of all his regulations was a new distribution of therefore, though tolerated for a time, would property, which removed the principal causes excite discontent and division among the con- of discord, and facilitated the correction of other querors. Though at the first irruption a divis- abuses; that this was accompanied by a more ion of land probably took place in that part of precise determination of political rights; and, the territory which was imrrfediately occupied finally, that this same opportunity was taken to by the Dorian aims-and if so, may have been enforce and to widen all those distinctions of conducted on principles of equality-the subju- education and habits, which, while they separgation of the several towns and districts which ated the citizens from the subjects, bound the, 1-2q HISTORY OF GREECE. higher class more firmly together. Such, at the largest calculation, the military force of the least, appears to have been the aim and ten- Laconians did not exceed 16,000 men.* On -dency of the Spartan institutions, whatever this supposition, Plutarch would/ have been may be thought as to their origin and author; mistaken only as to the number of the allotand we shall therefore follow this order in pro- ments made by Lycurgus, but would be correct ceeding to describe their principal features. as to their proportion —15,000 to 4500. On anAccording to one of the accounts transmitted other very important point, however, his deto us by Plutarch, Lycurgus divided the whole scription suggests a totally erroneous notion; of Laconia into 39,000 parcels, of which 9000 for it supposes, as has been observed, that the were assigned to as many Spartan families, 39,000 parcels were all equal, at least in their 30,000 to their free subjects. Plutarch seems: average dimensions. This was far from being to have supposed that these parcels were all the case. Aristotle appears to intimate that equal, so that the Spartan had no advantage the largest part of Laconia was occupied by over the Laconian, any more than over his fel- the Spartans.t Their share was undoubtedly, low-citizens; for he relates that Lycurgus, hav- as Isocrates expressly remarks, the most fering once returned from abroad, towards the end tile and valuable;4 and, to judge from the popof harvest, gazed with delight on the uniform ulation which it supported, it cannot have been aspect of the corn-fields, and observed that all much inferior to the rest in extent. At Platea, Laconia looked like a heritage newly shared each Spartan was attended by seven Helots; among many brothers. It must, however, be and, on the lowest computation grounded on remembered, in the first place, that in the time this statement, the Helots must at that time of Lycurgus several districts of Laconia were have been to the free Laconians'nearly as three probably independent of Sparta; and next, that, to one. But the Helots are everywhere deeven if this had been otherwise, and with re- scribed as slaves, not of the Laconians, but of gard to the part then subject to the conquerors, the Spartans; so that, even if the greater part the nature of the ground must have rendered a belonged to Messenia, those of Laconia must nicely equal partition for such an age and peo- have required little less than half the country ple utterly impracticable. Nor does it appear for the maintenance of themselves and their what motive could have induced the legislator masters. The whole of the land, however, was to aim at establishing such an equality among not in private hands; the state remained in the Laconians, in whose case the physical dif- possession of a considerable domain, including, ficulty would be the greatest. On the other perhaps, most of the mines and quarries, and hand, we find that it was a question among the the woody mountain tracts, which afforded the ancients whether the 9000 Spartan parcels citizens the exercise of the chase; another were all contained in Laconia itself, or included portion was withdrawn, in scattered parcels, those which were acquired after the age of Ly- from private uses for the service of the numer curgus in Messenia. Plutarch mentions two ous temples. opinions on this subject. According to one, Though what has been said shows that it is 6000 parcels were assigned by Lycurgus him- scarcely possible to ascertain the exact proporself, and 3000 were added by King Polydorus tion in which the Lacedoemonian territory was at the end of the first Messenian war; ac- distributed in the days of Lycurgus, it is highly cording to the other, the original number, 4500, probable that the tendency of his agrarian reguwas doubled by Polydorus. The latter opinion lations-of those, at least, which related to the seems to be strongly confirmed by the plan of Spartans-was towards a general equality of the unfortunate Agis, who proposed to divide landed property. But it is not clear that for the Spartan territory into 4500 allotments, at the this purpose he wa$obliged to remove all ansame time that he assigned 15,000 to the La- cient landmarks, and to make an entirely new conian provincials. And Aristotle, who wrote partition: he may have found it sufficient to after Messenia had been wrested from the do- compel the wealthy to resign a part of their minion of Sparta, speaking of the Spartan land possessions, that perhaps to which they had no in Laconia, appears to say that it is capable of title but an unauthorized occupation. If we maintaining 3000 infantry and 1500 horsemen;' suppose the inequality of property among the adding that the Spartans were reported to have Spartans to have arisen chiefly from acts of ~once amounted to 10,000. Indeed, if there was usurpation, by which the leading men had seized any foundation for the assertion of Isocrates, lands of the conquered Acheans, which, if taken that they originally numbered only 2000, it from their owners, belonged of right to the state, would be scarcely credible that they should by their resumption might afford the means at once any means have attained to much more than of correcting an evil which disturbpd the intertwice that number in the days of Lycurgus: nal tranquillity of Sparta, and of redressing a the causes to which their subsequent increase wrong which provoked discontent among her may have been due will be hereafter explain- subjects. The kings, we are informed, had doed. And as Plutarch's statement seems to mains in the districts of several provincial require correction in this respect, so it may towns;~ similar acquisitions may have been be suspected that it greatly exaggerates the made by many private Spartans before the time amount of the Laconian free population. The of Lycurgus; and his partition, so far as it reproportion which it bore to that of Sparta, in the garded the subject Laconians, may have contime of Lycurgus, was probably nearly the same sisted chiefly in the restoration and distribution as that which Agis endeavoured to restore; of such lands. otherwise an inexplicable decrease must have When, from the division of the territory, we taken place before the Persian war, when, on * See Clinton, Fast. Hell., ii., p. 407. * Pol., ii., 6. According to the reading, rpl'TXLXLdv,- t Pol., ii., 6. Y7raprtarW(v elvat rTv rEIdornv yiv. hich the context seems to require. f Panath., p. 270. 9 Xenoph., De Lac. Rep., o 15 LEGISLATION OF LYCURGUS. 129 proceed to inquire into the condition of its in- pensated by their exemption from many irkhabitants, we find three classes, which must be some restraints and inflictions, which habit separately considered: the Dorians of Sparta; only could render tolerable, to which the ruling their serfs, the Helots; and the people of the caste were forced to submit. If they were provincial districts. These last, who stand compelled to bestow their labour on an ungratemost apart from the rest, will most fitly come ful part of the soil, they, on the other hand, enfirst under our notice. They were a mixed joyed undivided' possession of the trade and race, composed partly of the conquered Achwe- manufactures of the country. It is true that ans, partly of strangers who had either accom- the value of this advantage was very much dipanied the conquerors in their expedition, or minished by the peculiar character of the Sparhad been invited by them to supply the place tan institutions, which banished luxury and its of the old inhabitants. It is possible that there ministering arts from the capital, and discourmlay have been also some Dorians among them, aged, if it did not wholly prevent, all influx of as we learn that the town of Breae was founded strangers; but though the simplicity of the by a chief of the Heracleid race; and that, not Spartan mode of life, and the jealous policy of tong after the time of Lycurgus, Geronthrae, the government, tended to check the industry etracuated by the Acheans, was peopled by a of the artificer, it must have found very profitcolony sent from Sparta.* But as the whole able employment in the public buildings and body of the invaders was barely strong enough festivals which displayed the piety and magnifito effect the conquest, the numbers thus detach- cence of the state: for Sparta yielded to no ed from it must have been extremely small, even Grecian city in her zeal for religion, and forgot when the Spartan franchise was' less valuable her parsimony in the service of the gods. than it became after the subjugation of Messe- Hence the higher as well as the subordinate nia. Isocrates represents the Dorians as pur- arts were cultivated by the provincials, though suing the policy of weakening the conquered they would have been thought all alike degraAchaeans by dispersing them over a great num- ding to. a Spartan; and Laconia contributed ber of miserable hamlets, which they dignified several celebrated names to the list of Grecian with the name of cities, and which lay in the artists. We should be led to form a still highleast productive part of the territory. This is, er estimate of the prosperity of this class, and perhaps, not a mere fiction of the rhetorician; of the respect with which it was viewed, if we though, as the description of a uniform system, might believe that it had sent forth several sucit undoubtedly distorts, or greatly exaggerates cessful competitors to the Olympic games. But the truth, since the population of Beae, for in- the instances which at first sight appear to atstance, is said to have been collected from three test this fact are none of them altogether free' more ancient towns. Still, what Isocrates men- from ambiguity. There are some other intertions may sometimes have happened, and may esting points connected with this subject, on serve to account for the extraordinary number which at present we cannot decide with any of. the Laconian cities, as they were called, greater certainty. The division of Laconia which are said to have amounted to a hundred, into six districts, which Ephorus supposed to and to have occasioned the yearly sacrifice of a have taken place immediately after the conhecatomb; for it does not seem necessary to quest, seems at least to imply that the province suppose that this number included those of was once distributed into cantons, which were Messenia. It is also credible enough that governed by Spartan magistrates; but we know Sparta always viewed the subject towns with neither the precise nature of this institution, jealousy, and'would never have permitted them nor how long it lasted. The example of Cyto attain a very high degree of strength or opu- thera, where we find a Spartan officer under a lence. There is, no doubt, much rhetorical ex- peculiar name (Cytherodices), affords no ground aggeratioin in the description of the territory for any conclusion as to the administration of assigned to the conquered people, as seems Laconia. We may infer from the difference clear from the fact that it included a large part of armour among the provincials engaged at of the crown lands; but still it is unquestion- the battle of Platwea, where each of their menable that the Spartans occupied the best and at-arms was accompanied by a light-armed solfairest portion. dier, that there was a corresponding distinction The provincial land was tributary to the of ranks among them, by which one class, instate; but this tribute was perhaps regarded eluded under the general name of Laconians, less as a soufrce of revenue than as an acknowl- was perhaps no less widely parted from another edgment of sovereignty. The provincials were than the whole body was from the Spartans. subjects; they shared none of the political priv- Whether, however, this was a difference of ileges of the Spartans; their municipal govern- birth-or of occupations, a casual or a permanent ment was under the control of Spartan officers; or>, we have no means of ascertaining. and yet they bore the heaviest share of the In general, the provincials seem to have had public burdens, and were liable to be torn from little to complain of but the want of political their fields and hearths, to shed their blood in independence; and if they were, in great part, quarrels which' only interested the pride or am- strangers who had settled in the country with bition of Sparta. These were their principal the permission of the Dorians, this could not be grievances; but in other respects, and com- considered as a wrong or a hardship. Very pared with the most numerous class of the different was the condition of the Helots, whose population, they were highly favoured subjects, name, according to every derivation of it, reand, on the whole, they might perhaps see little called the loss of personal liberty as the origin to envy in the condition of the Spartans them- and the essential character of their state. The selves. Their political dependance was com- ancients looked upon them as Achaeans, who, -*Paus.,i., 22. min consequence of their obstinate resistance, * Pas., iii., 22. Vo L. I. —R 130 HISTORY OF GREECE. sad been reduced to slavery by the conquerors, dered to the intent that the distinction between and upon their lot as the most wretched and the freeman and the slave might be as conspicdegrading kind of servitude. A modern histo- uous and as deeply felt by each party as possirian views them in a totally different light, as ble. All that belonged to the ruling caste was an aboriginal race, subdued at a very early pe- held to be profaned by the touch of the inferior riod, which immediately passed over as slaves race: a Helot, for instance, would not have to the Dorians, and who suffered no worse dared to be heard singing one of the Spartan treatment than was necessarily incident to their songs,* or to be seen in any but the rustic garb, station, or than they had probably experienced which was the livery of his servitude.t If this under their former masters.* The two ques- was the principle of the policy psued towards tions as to their origin and their treatment are these unfortunate beings, it matters little whethintimately connected. As to the former, we er we believe Plutarch's account of particular have no sufficient direct evidence, and are left outrages inflicted on them, such as that they to the uncertain guidance of etymological con- were sometimes forced to make themselves jectures.t But as to the second point we have drunk, that in this state they might be exposed more satisfactory information; and though the to the derision of their young lords for a practidegree of oppression to which the Helots were cal lesson of sobriety. That in this and in simsubjected may have been sometimes exaggera- ilar stories there is much exaggeration or misted, it is incontestable that they were always conception, cannot be doubted; and this will viewed with suspicion by their masters,'as en- not surprise us when we reflect how difficult it emies who only waited for an opportunity to was for the Greeks themselves of other states revolt; that they were placed under the inspec- to procure accurate information as to the Spartion of a vigilant police; and that measures of tan institutions. So it is impossible to believe atrocious violence were sometimes adopted to as literally true, though it was related by Arisreduce their strength or to break.their spirit. totle, that the Ephors, when they entered on This is very intelligible, according to the com- their office, made a formal declaration of war mon notion of their origin; but if they belonged against the Helots. Whatever may have been to a race which the Dorians, at their first inva- the precise fact thus misrepresented, it was sion, found already enslaved, it is not so easy most probably connected with a commission to explain this hereditary enmity between them which was given every year to a select number and their masters. For, if they did not lose of young Spaytans to range the country in certheir'liberty, they would appear.to have been tain directions secretly with daggers. This gainers by the Dorian conquest. They were was the famous cryptia; a name, if Plutarch's obliged, indeed, to share the produce of the explanation of it is correct, never to be menland which they cultivated with its new lords; tioned without horror. According to him, it but the rent demanded from them was moder- was a system of legal assassination, levelled ate, and it was fixed, so that they could reckon against those of the Helots who excited the on the whole benefit of extraordinary industry,' jealousy of the government by eminent qualities frugality, and prosperous seasons. They were of mind or body. Plutarch himself is unwilling bound to the soil; but, in return, they could to impute such a nefarious institution to Lynot be torn from it, and were secured by ex- curgus, and we may reasonably doubt whether press compact or by unbroken custom from the it ever existed in the form which he describes. danger of being sold to be carried away from But still, it cannot be questioned that the name their homes-a calamity to which the cultiva- expressed a reality, and that this was a kind of tors of the soil were long liable in Attica. A secret commission. A usage somewhat simipart of them was employed in public works, a lar, only without any affectation of secrecy, was part in domestic service: a less profitable oc- established in Attica for the twofold end of excupation, indeed, but one which afforded them ercising the young citizen, and providing for a chance of emancipation, as a reward of zeal the security of the country; and Plato proposes and activity. The same prospect, and oppor- for his Cretan colony an institution in most retunities of enriching themselves with booty, spects analogous, though without anysanguinasweetened their compulsory attendance in the ry purpose, under the same name. The object camp and their share in the dangers of the field. of the Spartan cryptia was undoubtedly not. Hence, unless their political condition had un- merely to inure the young warriors to the harddergone a change, there appears no cause in ships of a military life. The very exaggeratheir ordinary and permanent relations that tions of the ancients seem to show that in lateI should have rendered them impatient of the times, at least, it was chiefly directed against new yoke, which, at least, cannot have been the Helots, and that it was not confined to a heavier than the old one. On the other hand, simple inspection of them. We need not, inthough humanity was not one of the Dorian vir- deed, suppose that victims were regularly marktues, the conquerors would have been deterred ed for midnight assassinations; but, on the other by prudence from using wanton cruelty or con- hand, it is to be feared that the dagger was not tumely towards a numerous class of men, on worn merely for defence, and that the boldest whose submissiveness the existence of the of the disaffected were intimidated by the state depended. But they seem to have been knowledge that their movements were watchconscious that they had no claim to the good- ed, and that they were always liable to the will of their serfs, and that they could only hope to keep them under by a strong arm and a * Plut., Lye., 28. threatening countenance. Hence the usual t Myron in Athen.. xiv., p. 657. Mueller (Dor., iii, 3) threatengofnthenH e se e been ol treats this as a palpable misrepresentation, because it could treatment of the Helots seems to have been or- be no hardship for the tIelots to wear a usual peasants dress. But Welcker.(Theognis, p. xxxv.) very judiciously Mueller, Dor., iii., 3, 1. observes, "Est aliquid tam singulis quam populis galerum * See Goettling's Excursus ad Aristot., Pol., p. 465. villosum et gestare posse, et deponere." LEGISLATION OF LYCURGUS. 131 stroke of an invisible hand. That no scruples all noble. Since, however; such a relative of justice or humanity would have diverted the equality does not exclude internal distinctions government or their agents from giving such of rank, we have. still to inquire whether the warnings where policy might seem to require Spartans were all equal among, themselves. it, is abundantly evident from that deed of That at a period, the history of which is better blood, which, in its singular atrocity, leaves known than that of the age of Lycurgus, but evsry other crime recorded in Greek history when great changes had taken place in their far behind it, and over which Thucydides, condition, there subsisted among them a disthough without leaving room for the slightest parity of rank, which involved the most impordoubt as to the fact, draws a veil of mystery tant consequences, is indisputable; but it is an which serves, to heighten its horror. He in- interesting and difficult question, whether this forms us that, on one occasion, when' the weak- difference was an ancient one, and founded on Lees of Sparta gave reason to dread an insur- their original relations, or was of later growth, rc'tijon of the Helots, all those whose past ser- and introduced by altered circumstances. There vices in war a *ermed to entitle them to freedom were, undoubtedly, certain divisions of the ruwere publiclyv I[::ed to come forward and claim ling class, some as old as the conquest, others their reward.'hc bravest and most aspiring still more ancient; but it is not clear how far presented themselves, aifd, out of the whole these implied any distinction in rank or privinumber, two thousand were selected as the leges. The Dorians, in general, were divided worthiest. They crowned themselves in joy, into three tribes, and a portion of each joined and went round the temples to pay thanks to in the invasion of Laconia. Among these the the gods; and then they were all destroyed, but Hylleans, as that to which the two royal famiwith the decent secrecy which commonly marks lies belonged, would naturally have some prethe proceedings of an oligarchy; so that the cedence in dignity over the Dymanes and Pamhistorian, though he knew well what was done, phylians. But we find no intimation that this was unable to learn the exact manner. pre-eminence, if it existed, was ever, legally Emancipation of Helots was not unfrequent, recognised, or attended with any political adand there appear to have been several degrees vantages. But, besides this division, which was between bondage and the full freedom of a common to the Dorian race, we hear of others Spartan citizen. But the story just mentioned which were peculiar to Laconia. The Cadmean can scarcely be reconciled with the notion that 2Egeids, according to Herodotus, were a great this ascent was open, of right or by custom, tribe (a phyle) at Sparta; and so the Heracleids, to every serf as a reward of merit, which it de- and even the Dorians, are sometimes described oended on his own exertions to earn..It is as separate tribes. It seems, however, most only surprising that a government, which some- probable that this last statement is a mere mii,times granted this boon, should ever have re- take, and that the AEgeids and Heracleids were sorted to so horrible an expedient as the strat- both incorporated in the national threefold diagem related by Thucydides. It must, how- vision. But there appear to have been also loever, be remembered, that there was probably a cal tribes at Sparta, corresponding to the quargreat difference in the treatment which the ters or regions of the capital, or, perhaps, more Helots experienced at different periods. Plu- properly to the hamlets or boroughs of which it &arch observes that, in later times, the Spartans was composed: four are enumerated, but withbecame more jealous, and, consequently, more out including the name of Sparta, which most cruel; and for this there appear to- have bMen probably raised the number to five. All natural more causes than the partial insurrection to or genealogical tribes include sundry subdivis*hich he refers the fact.* We shall also soon ions: at Sparta, the next lower unity bore the have to relate an event which gave rise to a peculiar name of an obe, which originally signinew class of Heiots, who, as they were widely fled a village or district,* though we do not find distinct in position and feelings from those of that it was at all connected with the local tribes. Laconia, were probably dealt with according to There were thirty of these obes - a number different maxims. which corresponds perfectly well with the triple The servitude of the Helots was the founda- division of the nation, but yet is not inconsistion on which the existence of the Spartans, as tent with those of five, six, and ten, which dii a separate people, rested. The subjection of ferent authors have assigned -to the Spartan the rest of Laconia contributed indeed, very tribes. But still, except the hereditary right to materially to their power and security; but the the crown, which was lodged in two families district cultivated by the lIelots, and their ser-'of the Heracleid race, we do not find any privivices in the field and in the city, were required lege attached to any of these bodies, or any to afford the ruling class that leisure which trace of an order of nobles distinct from the was the essential condition of all the Spartan common freemen of Sparta. institutions. To minister by his toil to this It may, however, he thought, that the existleisure was, according to the Spartan system, ence of such an order may be safely inferred the only end for which the Helot existed: to from analogy; and it is certainly probable enjoy it, or to use it in the immediate service enough, whether the Heracleids were foreignof the commonwealth, was the only occupation ers or not, that there were among the Dorians which did not degrade a freeman. In this re- other races, distinguished from the common spect the Spartans were all equal: contrasted mass by their illustrious descent. We would with the serfs who tilled their land and waited not even deny that the division of the three at their table, all gentle; compared with the tribes may have originally imported a political tributary provincials, who were excluded from the couIncils and the government of the state,'I, KL, according to the true reading in Ilesyclh h and perhaps Pas, Kwvag~. The fl supplies the place of * Lyc., 28. digamma. See note 5, p. 801, of Alberti's Hesvcliu. 132 HISTORY OF GREECE. inequality; but it would not follow that this legend that the first council was formed of the should have subsisted after the conquest. The thirty who aided Lycurgus in his enterprise, common enterprise, the glory, and the danger, even without the conclusive fact that two of which, as we have seen, did not immediately the obes were represented by the kings This cease, tended to level all political distinctions privilege of the two royal families might, indeed, among the conquerors; and there seems to be seem to favour the suspicion that Lycurgus, no ground for believing that there was -any though he did not create the senate, effected class intermediate between the kings and the an important innovation in it; and that, before main body of the people; all seem to have his time, the other twenty-eight places were formed one commonalty of nobles. The origi- also filled up by certain families, the most an nal Spartan Constitution, therefore, though it cient or illustrious in each obe. This, however, did not exclude all inequality either of rank or is no more than a conjecture; so far as we property, may be described as a democracy, know, the twenty-eight colleagues of the kings with two hereditary magistrates at its head; were always elected by the people, without reand the institutions of Lycurgus appear to have gard to any qualification besides age and persontended rather to efface than to introduce arti- al merit. The mode of election breathes a ficial distinctions. It will belong to the history spirit of primitive simplicity: the candidates, of a later period to show how this state of who were required to have reached the age of things was changed. sixty, presented themselves in succession to At Sparta, as in all other Greek republics, the assembly, and were received with applause the sovereign power resided in the assembly proportioned to the esteem in which they were of the people, where a Heracleid, however re- held by their fellow-citizens. These manifestaspected for his birth, had no advantage in his tions of popular feeling were noted by persons vote over the common Dorian. In later times appointed for the purpose, who were shut up in we hear of two assemblies, a greater and a an adjacent room, where they could hear the lesser; but this appears to have been an inno- shouts, but could not see the competitors. He vation, connected with other changes to'be who in their judgment had been greeted with hereafter described. The first of the ordinan- the loudest plaudits, won the prize-the highest ces for which Lycurgus procured the sanction dignity in the commonwealth next to the throne. of the oracle-regulating, no doubt, an ancient The senators held their office for life, no procustom-directed that assemblies of the people vision being made for the extraordinary, case should be held periodically in a field near the of decrepitude or dotage, and were subject to city; that the magistrate who convened them no regular respdhnsibility; as men raised above should have the right of proposing measures, suspicion by a long career of honour, and yet and the people the power of approving or re- liable to punishment if convicted of misconduct. jecting. But it appears that the assembly could Their functions were partly deliberative, partly only express the general will by its vote, and judicial, partly executive: they prepared measthat none but persons in office were entitled to ures which were tb be laid before the popular deliver their opinion. The license of amending assembly; they exercised a criminal jurisdica proposition was for a time assumed by the tion, with the power of inflicting death or civil assembly; but it seems to have been consider- degradation, and not confined by any written ed as a departure from the principles of the laws; and they also appear to have interposed Constitution, and, as we shall see, was formally with a kind of patriarchal authority, to enforce abolished in a subsequent reign. The ordinary the observance of ancient usage and discipline. business of the Spartan assembly, especially in But it is not easy to define with exactness the early times, must have been small, and the ex- original limits of their power, particularly T traordinary of rare occurrence: the former, per- the last-mentioned branch of their office, behaps, confined to the election of those magis- cause a part of their functions was very early trates and priests who held their offices for a assumed by a magistracy of later growth, the fixed term, and the latter relating chiefly to ephors, who, as we shall see, gradually reduced questions of war or peace, and to those of im- both the senate and the kings to comparative posts, treaties, and the like, arising out of them. insignificance. Proposed changes in the Constitution and dis- The twenty-eight senators, as we have obputes concerning the succession to the throne, served, were colleagues of the king; and this were also, whenever so singular a subject oc- is one side from which it is necessary to concurred, decided by the same supreme authority, sider the Spartan royalty, in order to underAs it cannot be doubted that assemblies of stand its peculiar nature. In general, we may the people had been held at Sparta long before remark, that what rendered, it so singular an the time of Lycurgus, and that, in this respect, object in later times was At merely that it the oracle did little more than describe what stood alone after the kingly office had been abolhad been always customary, so there is the ished in the rest of Greece, but that, while in strongest reason to believe that, among the most of its functions and attributes it presented Dorians, as in all the heroic states, there was, a lively image of the royalty of the heroic ages, from time immemorial, a council of elders. it was tempered and restrained in a manner unNot only is it utterly incredible that the Spartan known to the Constitution of any of the heroic council (called the gerusia, or senate) was first states. Most of these restrictions weie introinstituted by Lycurgus, it is not even clear that duced after the age of Lycurgus by the growhe introduced any important alteration in its ing power of the ephors: in the early period Constitution or functions. It was composed of there was, perhaps, only one important feature thirty members, corresponding to the number in which the kings of Sparta differed from most of the obes, a division as ancient as that of the of those described in the Homeric poems-the tribes, which alone would suffice to refute the division of the sovereignty between two per LEGISLATION OF LYCURGUS 133 sons. But even this was not peculiar to Spar- of the public roads,* and appointed officers, in ta: the legends of Thebes, as well as numerous the nature of consuls, to protect the interests ot instances in the catalogue of the Iliad, seem to strangers. prove that a diarchy, though less usual than a The honours attached to their office were, monarchy, was' not a very rare form of govern- however, still greater than its power, and sufment, at least in the latter part of the heroic fered little diminution after this had been most ages. It was probably one of the first fruits of reduced. They were revered, not simply as the the jealousy of the nobles, which in the end first magistrates of the state, -but as persons alswallowed up the kingly power. This may not lied to the gods by their heroic descent. But be a sufficient ground for rejecting the sub- the outward marks of this reverence were such stance of the Spartan legend, according to which as it became freemen and Spartans to bestow, the two royal families sprang from the twin and were conformable to the simplicity of the sons of Aristodemus; but it tends to show that heroic times from which they were derived. design had probably as great a share as chance The ensigns of the royal dignity did not consist in producing this institution. Its inevitable ef- in pomp, and ceremony, in personal splendour feet, the rivalry of the two royal lines, was un- and luxury. A king of Sparta was not distindoubtedly not unforeseen; but this rivalry, guished from his fellow-citizens either in his which might have been pernicious if the royal dress or his manner of living; he was subject authority had been greater, was likely to prove to the same laws which regulated the diet of useful to the state,"as that of the Roman con- the common freeman; but the state made an suls, when both parties were placed under due ample provision for the maintenance of his control; and this may have been the result con- household, and for a species of hospitality which templated by those who procured the sanction he exercised rather 1 his character of priest of the oracle for the divided royalty. According than of king. For this purpose, besides the doto those authors, indeed, who believed that the mains which were'assigned to each king in the senate was founded by Lycurgus, the dismem- provincial districts, he was entitled to certain berment of the crown might have seemed ne- payments in kind, which enabled him at stated cessary for the protection of the liberty of the seasons to sacrifice to the gods and to enterpeople; but according to the view we have here tain his friends. At every public sacrifice oftaken of the senate, as an original and essential fered by other citizens, he was of right the most part of the Spartan institutions, the power of honoured guest; to him belonged the foremost the kings can never have been formidable. In place in every assembly; and, before the ephors council the voice of each told for no more than made an exception, every one rose at his apthat of any other senateq: in their absence their proach. In the camp he was surrounded with place seems to have been supplied, according still more state than at home; he was guarded to some regulation which is riot clearly explain- by a chosen band of a hundred men; his table, ed, by the senators of the same tribe; and it is at which he entertained the principal officers, not improbable that the king of the elder house was maintained at the public expense; and had a casting vote.* They also presided in a though he was relieved from every care but separate tribunal, which, before the rise of the that of conducting the general operations of the ephoralty, perhaps exercised a more extensive campaign by a number of inferior functionaries, civil jurisdiction, but was subsequently confined it was provided that they should in no case act to certain questions of inheritance and legal without his express permission. How the two forms connected with the patriarchal character kings shared the command when they both led of the kings. Like all the kings of the heroic the same expedition, we are not distinctly inages, they were the high-priests of the nation: formed. Both the accession and the decease both were priests of Jupiter; but with the dis- of the kings were marked by usages which, as tinction that the one, probably the elder, minis- Herodotus observed, have rather an Oriental tered to the god under his Dorian title, the oth- than a Hellenic aspect. On the'one occasion, er under that which he bore in Laconia, proba-' the public joy was expressed by a release of all bly before the conquest.t They had likewise, debts due from individuals to the state; for the apparently as a branch of the same office, the Spartan treasury, perhaps- no great sacrifice. more important charge of consulting the Del- The royal obsequies were celebrated by a ten phic oracle by officers of their own appointment, days' intermission of all public business, and by and of preserving the answers received. But a general mourning, in which the Helots and the the'most important of all their prerogatives was provincials were compelled to take the most acthe command of the armies, and it was in time tive part; horsemen carried the tidings through of war that the royal majesty was seen in its the country, and thousands of the subject class: highest lustre. Though to make war or peace as well as of the serfs, attended the funeral. rested withthe nation, the kings appear origin- rent the air with their wailings, and p; claimally to have had the unfettered direction of all ed the virtues of the deceased prince superior military operations, assisted, however, by a to those of all his predecessors. council of war; and it was long before any in- The little that is known of the functions of convenience was found to arise from their ta- the inferior magistrates is not important enough king the field together. Their military author- to be here detailed; and; for a different reason,,ty, especially in expeditions beyond the border, we must here confine ourselves to a few reseems to have been nearly unlimited; at home, marks on the office of the ephors, though they in the same capacity of hereditary generals of ultimately acquired the supreme authority in the nation, they provided for the maintenance the state. Neither the name of these magis* This may, perhaps, reconcile the difference between * And hence, perhaps, exercised a special jurisdiction Herod., vi., 57, and Thucyd., i., 20. over the Helots and provincials, on whom the repair of the t Her., vi., 56. highways usually fell Herod., i., 57. 134 HISTORY OF GREECE. trates, nor their original functions, seem to have narrowly limited. The Helots who cultivated been peculiar to Sparta: they occur in other it might rather have been considered as the Dorian cities,* and were, therefore, probably of real owners of it, since they were only charged higher antiquity even than Lycurgus, though by with the payment of an invariable quantity of some authors their origin was referred to him, the produce, with which their lord was to supby others to a later reign. Their number, five, port his household as he could. The average which, so far as we know, was always the same, amount of this rent seems to have been'no was probably connected with that of the local more than was required for the frugal maintetribes or quarters of Sparta.. They were elect- nance of a family of six persons. The' right of ed annually, and appear from the first to have transfer was as strictly confined as that of enexercised a jurisdiction and superintendence joyment: the patrimony was indivisible, inover the Spartans in their civil concerns, which alienable, and descended to the eldest son, and, was, perhaps, never exactly ascertained, and, it would appear, in default of a male heir, to the therefore, admitted of indefinite enlargement. eldest daughter. The object seems to have In the ordinance of the oracle, which contains been, after the number of the allotments bethe general outline of the Constitution as it ex- came fixed, that each should be constantly repisted in the time of Lycurgus, they are not men- resented by one head of a household; but the tioned, from which it may be inferred that no nature of the means employed for this end is new powers accrued to them from any of the one of the most obscure subjects in the Spartan changes which he introduced. It is, at all system. The first difficulty was to provide that events, clear that their political importance the whole number of families to be maintained arose at a later period; and the new character should not exceed or fall short of the number which their office then tssumed appears to be of lots assigned for their support. To guard so intimately connected with the history of the against the evils which might arise, even while times, that it will be most convenient to con- this equality was preserved, from a great dissider both together. proportion between the numbers and the propIn the institutions hitherto described, we have erty of each family, was the second difficulty. found nothing that can with any probability be A superabundant population might have been attributed to Lycurgus, and little that was ori- easily discharged by the ordinary expedient of ginally peculiar to Sparta. But as the Spartans a colony; but, in fact, this was an evil which were at all times chiefly distinguished from the seems never to have been felt or feared at other Greeks by the usages of their civil and Sparta. We read of penalties enacted by Lydomestic life, so it is in these that the influence curgus against celibacy, and of rewards assignof the legislator is generally thought to be most ed, in later times, to thefathers of a numerous conspicuous. And here, as we have already offspring; yet we find that the number of Spargiven reasons for believing that in many points tan citizens was continually decreasing. Hence he reduced habit and custom to rule and law, the common stock was always amply sufficient we have no doubt that, in the same spirit, he for the wants of the community; and the only not only modified and corrected, but also added practical difficulty was to regulate its distribumuch that was new. No one, however, can tion, so as to guard against the extremes of now pretend to distinguish these various ele- wYealth and utter indigence. In the better times ments from each other, except so far as some of the commonwealth, this seems to have been are more, some less accordant with the gen- principally effected by means of adoptions, and eral practice of Greek antiquity. There is, in- marriages with heiresses, which provided for deed, one principle which pervades all the Spar- the younger sons of families too large to be suptan institutions: the citizen is born and lives ported on their hereditary property. It was but for the state; his substance, time, strength, then, probably, seldom necessary for the state faculties, and affections are dedicated to its to interfere, in order to direct the childless service; its welfare is his happiness, its glory owner of an estate, or the father of a rich heirhis honour. But this principle was assuredly ess, to a proper.choice; but, as all adoption renot introduced by Lycurgus, even if he was the quired the sanction of the kings, and they had first Spartan in whose mind it became a distinct also the disposal of the hand of orphan heirthought. It was the necessary result of the esses, where' the father had not signified his circumstances by which a handful of men were'will, there can be little doubt that the magisplaced in a country of which they occupied only trate had the power of interposing on such oca single point, in the midst of a population great- casions, even in opposition to the wishes of in. ly superior to them in numbers, over which, dividuals, to relieve poverty and check the acnevertheless, they were determined to lord as cumulation of wealth. What farther foundaprinces and masters. Lycurgus, however, tion there'may have been for Plutarch's asserseems both. to have recognised it as the su- tion, that every child' at its birth was brought preme principle of his legislation, and in the to. the assembled elders of its tribe, and, if' proapplication of it to have gone some steps farther nounced worthy to live, had one of the 9000 than any one before him. lots assigned for its subsistence,* is now only The sacrifice exacted from the wealthy, matter for very uncertain conjecture. whom he compelled to resign a part of their The institutions which restrained the Sparlands, was an acknowledgment of the preca- tan from every kind of profitable industry, exrious tenure by which every Spartan held his cept so far as the chase might be viewed in that movable property, if, indeed, he could be said light, left him to depend wholly on the produce to have any; for, in fact, he was far from hav- of his land. For the few and simple transacing an absolute control over the portion of land tions by which he provided for the wants of his assigned to him; his interest in it was most household, he needed but little money at a time. * As at Cyrene. Heracl., 4. * Lyc., 16. LEGISLATION OF LYCURGUS. 135, Hence when the progress of tradeand cornm- to the discharge of household duties as to the merce had occasioned the coining lM the pre- citizens which they were to give to the comcious metals in Greece, no need of them was monwealth. They were to be the mothers of a yet felt at Sparta for the common business of robust race, and hence were early subjected to life; they were regarded as a dangerous nov- the same athletic exercises as the harder sex elty, and the possession of them was forbidden. and it even seems to have been the legislator's Iron, the native produce of Laconia, prepared intention that they should be looked upon only so as to be of no use for other purposes, at first in this light, and should excite no affection diin little bars, afterward in a more convenient rected to any other object. It was, perhaps, form, continued to the latest times the only le- not without design, though probably with one gal currency at Sparta, unless we may believe very different from that which Plutarch suppowhat some authors relate, that leather was ap- ses, that their persons were frequently exposed plied to the same use. This restriction has in public processions and dances in a manner been often ascribed to Lycurgus, but must have which, to modern feelings, would betoken the been introduced later, if, as seems most prob- last stage of public licentiousness.* Yet it is able, the coinage of silver money was unknown certain that, in this respect, the Spartan morals to the Greeks for more than a century after were at least as pure as those of any ancient, him. With regard to gold, indeed, the prohibi- perhaps of any modern people. These spectation would in his time have been superfluous, cles, probably a relic of a primitive usage, and since it is certain, from two well-attested facts,* connected with the rites of religion, were far that, down to the Persian wars, this metal was from lowering the Spartan virgin in the esteem so rare as to be quite out of the reach of a pri- of the other sex; and the praise or blame which, vate Spartan. It seems, however, that the ac- on such occasions, she was permitted to disquisition of gold or silver money was interdict- pense to the by-standers, was found one of the ed only to private Spartans; for the provincials, most efficacious means of quickening the emuwho were not debarred from commerce, it must lation of the youths. A Spartan marriage rehave been indispensable; nor can it have been tained the form which had, no doubt, been given the design of the legislator to impose any such to the' ceremony in the Dorian Highlands, and restriction on the state itself: whether the which to this day prevails among the Circassian kings were originally exempt from it, or only tribes. The bride was considered as a prize of owed the privilege, which they undoubtedly courage and address, and was always supposed exercised, of amassing wealth, to subsequent to be carried off from the parental roof by force changes in the commonwealth, is a more doubt- or stratagem. The Spartan matrons appeared ful question. This prohibition must certainly in public much more rarely than before marhave contributed to preserve the simplicity of riage; and, though the pleasures of domestic the ancient manners; but it seems to have been society were little valued at Sparta, where it attended with another consequence, which was was even disreputable for the young husband to often very injurious to the public interests. be seen in company with his wife, they were The tendency of human nature to hanker after treated with a respect, and exercised an influall that is forbidden renders it probable that this ence which seemed to the other Greeks extravwas the secret spring of that venality, of which agant and pernicious; but it became such only, we find so many remarkable instances in Spar- if at all, after the whole nation had degenerated. tan history. Avarice appears to have been the In the better times they alone among the Greek vice to which the Spartan was most prone; women show a dignity of character which money, for which he had scarcely any use, a makes them worthy rivals of the Roman mabait, which even the purest patriotism could trons. Adultery was long unknown at Sparta; seldom resist. yet so little sanctity was attached to the nupThe same spirit which exercised this abso- tial compact, that it was sacrificed without scrulute control over private property appears in ple, and in a manner which shocks our notions all the regulations by which the citizen was to of decency, to maxims of state policy or private be trained to the service of the state, and even expedience.t in those which laid the foundation of the family From his birth every Spartan belonged to the itself. The character of the Spartan system is state, which decided, as we have seen, whether nowhere more conspicuous than in its mode of he was likely to prove a useful member of the determining the relations. of the sexes. The community, and extinguished the life of the treatment of the women may serve to illustrate sickly or deformed infant.: To the age of sevthe manner in which old Hellenic usages were en, however, the care of the child was delegahere modified by the peculiar design of the legis- ted to its natural guardians, yet not so as to be lator. The freedom they enjoyed, and the def- left wholly to their discretion, but subject to erence paid to them, which were censured as certain established rules of treatment, which excessive in later ages, when they'formed a guarded against every mischievous indulgence contrast to the custom then prevalent in Greece, of parental tenderness. At the end of seven were vestiges of remote antiquity, and conform, years began a long course of public discipline, able to the habits described in the Homeric po- which grew constantly more and more severe ems. But it was more especially the liberty allowed to the young unmarried women that disa- Yet it seems necessary to distinguish between the prirvate exercises, in which they laid aside all covering, and tinguished the Spartan institutions. Their ed- the public exhibitions, in which they wore the species of ucation was conducted with a view not so much half-open tunic (the oXtLrdg Xtriv), which procured for them the epithet of atlVoyjpltE&. t Plut., Lye., 15. See also some remarks of Mr. Lewis * The Spartans send to Lydia for a small quantity; Hie- in the Philological Museum, vol. ii., p. 70, note 43. so to Architeles the Corinthian, the only man.in Greece $ It was exposed in a glen of Taygetus, hence called the who had amassed a considerable stock. Theopompus in'Airo0ihat. The twelve tables contained a similar enac* Athen, vi., p. 232, ment. Cic., De Leg., iii., 8. 136 HISTORY OF GREECE as the boy approached towards manhood. The ger, to forage in the fields or houses whi6n they education of the young was in some degree the might conrive to enter by stealth. The inge business of all the elder citizens; for there was nious and successful pilferer gained applause none who did not contribute to it, if not by his with his booty: one who was detected was active interference, at least by his presence and made to smart, not for the attempt, but for the inspection. But it was placed under the espe- failure. It seems a gross, though not an un cial superintendence of an officer* selected from common mistake, to treat this practice as a vithe men of most approved worth; and he, again, olation of property and an. encouragement to chose a number of youths, just past the age of theft; it was a preparation, not more remarkatwenty, and who most eminently united cour- ble than many others, for the hardships and age with discretion,'to exercise a more imme- shifts of a military life. The hateful cryptia diate command over the classest into which the was apparently a similar institution, but made boys were divided. The leader of each class subservient to a political end. directed the sports and tasks of his young troop, The Muses were appropriately honoured at and punished their offences with military rig- Sparta with a sacrifice on the eve of a batour, but was himself responsible to his elders tie, and the union of the spear and the lyre was for the mode in which he discharged his office. a favourite theme with the Laconian poets, and The Spartan education was simple in its ob- those who sang of Spartan customs. Though jects: it was not the result of any general view bred in the discipline of the camp, the young of human nature, or of any attempt to unfold its Spartan, like the hero of the Iliad, was not a various capacities; it aimed at training men stranger to music and poetry. He was taught who were to live in the midst;of difficulty and to. sing, and to play on the flute and the lyre: danger, and who could only be safe themselves but the strains with which his memory was while they held rule over others.. The citizen stored, and to which his voice was formed, was to be always ready for the defence of him- were either sacred hymns, or breathed a marself and his country, at home and abroad; and tial spirit; and it was because they cherished he was, therefore, to be equally fitted to cornm- such sentiments that the Homeric lays, if not mand and to obey. His body, his mind, and introduced by Lycurgus, were early welcomed his character were formed for this purpose, and at Sparta; for the same reason Tyrtseus was for no other; and hence -the Spartan system, held in honour, while Archilochus, the delight making directly for its main end, and rejecting of Greece, was banished, because he had not all that was foreign to it, attained, within its been ashamed to record his own inglorious flight own sphere, to a perfection which it is impos- from a field of battle.*. As these musical exersible not to admire. The young Spartan was cises were designed to cultivate, not so much perhaps unable either to read or write; he an intellectual as a moral taste, so it was probscarcely possessed the elements of any of the ably less for the sake of sharpening their ingearts or sciences by which society is enriched or nuity than of promoting presence of mind and adorned; but he could run, leap, wrestle, hurl promptness of decision, that the boys were the disc or the javelin, and wield every other led into the habit of answering all questions weapon, with a vigour, agility, and grace which proposed to them with a ready, pointed, sentenwere nowhere surpassed. These, however, tious brevity, which was a proverbial characterwere accomplishments to be learned in every istic of Spartan conversation. But the lessons Greek palaestra: he might find many rivals in which were most studiously inculcated —ramore, all that he could do; but few could approach indeed, by example than by precept-were those him in the firmness with which he was taught of modesty, obedience, and reverence for age to suffer. From the tender age at which he and rank; for these were the qualities on which, left his mother's lap for the public schools, his above all others, the stability of the commonlife was one continued trial of patience. Coarse wealth,reposed. The gait and look of the Sparand scanty fare, and this occasionally withheld; tan youths, as they passed along the streets, a light dress, without any change in the depth observed Xenophon, breathed modesty and reof winter; a bed of reeds, which he himself serve. In the presence of their elders they gathered from the Eurotas; blows exchanged were bashful as virgins and silent as statues, with his comrades; stripes inflicted by his gov- save when a question was put to them. It ernors, more by way of exercise than of pun- was, as Plutarch supposes, to signify the imishment, inured him to every form of pain and portance of these virtues that the Temple of hardship. One test of this passive fortitude Fear was erected near the mansion-house of was very celebrated among the ancients. In theephors.t In truth, the respect for the laws, early times, probably before the Dorian con- which rendered the Spartan- averse to innovaquest, human victims appear to have been of- tion at home, was little more than another form fered in Laconia to an image of Artemis, which of that awe with which his early habits inspired Orestes was believed to have brought with him him for the magistrates and the aged. With from Scythia. Lycurgus, it is said, abolished this feeling was intimately connected that quick this bloody rite, but substituted for it a contest and deep sense of shame, which shrank from little less ferocious, in which the most generous dishonour as the most dreadful of evils, and enyouths, standing on the altar, presented them- abled him to meet death so calmly, when he selves to the lash, and were sometimes seen to saw in-it the will of his country. expire under it without a groan. Another usage, The interval between the age of twenty and not less famous, served to train the Spartan boys thirty was looked upon as a stage of transition at once to suffering and to action. They were at times compelled, either by the express com- * Plut., Inst. Lac., 33. Valerius Maximus (vi., 3, E. 1) mand of their leader or by the cravings of hun- assigns a different and, much less probable motive, but refers the expulsion, which, according to Plutarch, befell the * The rasJovdpos. t iy)XKt, as in Crete. poet himself, to his works. I Cleom. 9 LEQISLATION OF LYCURGUS. 13" from boyhood to manhood. During this period peditions against the same enemy: a precat the young Spartan was released, indeed, from tion, it is supposed, against the danger of train the discipline of the classes, but he was not yet ing a weak adversary, by repeated attacks, int( permitted to appear among the men in the as- a bold and skilful one. Plutarch thinks that sembly, and was, perhaps, chiefly employed in Sparta's first great reverse was owed to the vio all military service which might be required lation of this rule. But it is difficult to name anJ within the frontier. But his education could period of history during which it appears t( scarcely be said to have ceased even after he have been observed. It must, however, be ad had reached his full maturity, and had entered mitted, that caution was a prominent quality in on the duties of a husband and a father. The the Spartan character, and, combined with the life of the Spartan, in time of peace, was one of consciousness of superiority, it may sometimes leisure, for this was essential to the dignity of have supplied the place of humanity in soften a freeman; but it was not one of ease and in- ing the ferocity of warfare. A wholesome su dolence, for this would have unfitted him for perstition, which respected certain religious the duties of a citizen and a warrior. His time, festivals as sacred armistices, contributed to little occupied by domestic cares when not en- the same end. But the martial spirit of the gaged by any public service, was principally di- Spartan institutions is evinced, not only by the vided between the exercises of the palkestra whole system of education, but still more strongand the toils of the chase. From these he rest- ly by the care taken to render war as attractive ed at the public meals. Of this institution, as possible. As the city, in many respects, rewhich Sparta, in common with.Crete, retained sembled a camp, so the life of the camp was to the latest times, we need here only speak to studiously freed from many of the hardships point out one or two features which were pe- and restraints imposed on that of the city. Wai culiar to the Spartan usage. At Sparta the en- was the element in which the Spartan seems to tertainment was provided at the expense, not have breathed most freely, and to have enjoyed of the state, but of those who shared it. The the fullest consciousness of his existence. He head of each family, as far as his means reach- dressed his hair and crowned himself for a bated, contributed for all its members; but the cit- tie as others for a feast; and the mood in which izen who was reduced to indigence lost his he advanced to the mortal struggle was no less place at the public board. The guests were di- calm and cheerful than that in which he entervided into companies, generally of fifteen per- ed the lists for a prize at thepublic games. sons, who filled up vacancies by ballot, in which This spirit, in itself almost invincible, was unanimous consent was required for every elec- seconded by a system of tactics which Xeno tion. No member, not even the kings, was per- phon praises for an admirable simplicity in the mitted to stay away, except on some extraor- midst of seeming intricacy, and which he de dinary occasion, as of a sacrifice or a lengthen- scribes with a minuteness which we do not ven ed chase, when he was expected to send a pres- ture to imitate. Its principles were probably ent to the table: such contributions frequently derived from an antiquity even more remotG varied the frugal repast, which was constantly than the conquest of Peloponnesus, and perhaps enlivened by sallies of tempered mirth and contributed mainly to that event; but it was friendly pleasantry.*'The'sixtieth year closed undoubtedly perfected by the experience of sucthe military age. The period which ensued was ceeding generations. We subjoin some details one of peaceful repose, yet not of monotonous on the organization of the Spartan army in a inaction: it was cheered by the natural reward note,* and shall here content ourselves with a of an honourable career, by respect, and prece- few general remarks. The strength of the dence, and autlority: it found a regular and Spartan army lay in its heavy-armed infantry, gentle employment, if not in the affairs of the and no other kind of service was thought equalstate, in the superintendence and direction of ly worthy of the free warrior, because none callthe young. When disabled from more active ed forth courage and discipline in the same derecreations, the old man could still enjoy the gree. Hence little value was set on the cavalsociety of his equals in the lesche, a place ded- ry; and, though in the Peloponnesian war it icated at Sparta, as in most Greek cities, to was found necessary to pay greater attention meetings for public conversation, where he to it, it never acquired any great efficacy or repmight beguile the evening of his life with recol- utation. The name of horsemen was, indeed, lections of his well-spent youth. a title of honour borne by a band of 300 picked The ancient authors who most admired the youths, chosen by three officers appointed for Spartan institutions, condemned their exclu- that purpose by the ephors, who served in the sively warlike tendency; and it can scarcely be field as the king's body-guard; but, notwithdenied that the life of a Spartan was a continual standing the title, they fought on foot, and, if preparation for war, though undoubtedly it was they were mounted, used their horses only on something more. It is, perhaps, only in this a march, or in executing the king's commissense that the military system of Sparta can be sions.t On the same principle, the Spartan properly ascribed to Lycurgus, though he is shrank from the assault of fortified places, in said to have introduced several technical im- which, as I ycurgus was reported to have obprovements. It has been more generally be- served, a brave man might fall by the hand of lieved that he was the author of a maxim of policy which is said to have been sanctioned * See the Appendix, II. by one of his oracular ordinances, and which t From Thucyd., v., 72, the title would appear to be merely nominal. Wachsmuth, ii., I., p. 378, supposes it to tended to restrain the martial ardour of his have been derived from the ages when the chiefs fought in countrymen within the bounds of prudent mod- chariots; and this may seem to be confirmed by Ephorus eration. It forbade them to make frequent ex- (Strabo, x., p. 481), where they are spoken of as an apXhi. But Dionysius, R. A., 13, and Herodotus, viii., 124, seem * Hence the name tb;rtoa, according to Plut,, Lyc., 12. to prove that they were mounted. VOL. I. -S 138 HISTORY OF GREECE. a woman or a child. Hence, too, the sea was to his age; and those who did not shun him an element never congenial to the spirit of might strike him with impunity. "I am not Spartan warfare, and the Helots were mostly surprised," says Xenophon, "that men prefer employed in the sea-service, as on land they death to such a life." served as light troops, or attended the camp in Lycurgus, it is said, committed none of his a menial capacity. The superiority of the Spar- laws to writing, and even enjoined, by one of tan infantry depended on a nicely graduated sys- his ordinances. that they should never be in-tem of subordination, by means of which the or- scribed in any ocher kind of tablet than the ders of the general were rapidly transmitted, hearts and minds of his countrymen. It is unand executed with ease and precision. The certain whether in his days letters were yet leader of the enomoty, the lowest subdivision, known or used at Sparta; afterward we find or first element of the whole body, was at once titles there which seem to imply written laws.* the organ which communicated the word of But, undoubtedly, it was early perceived that command to his company, and the pivot of the the security of the Spartan institutions dependvarious movements by which its position was ed, not on stones or parchments, but on the naadapted to the exigencies of the march or the tional feeling in which they lived; and it was, field. The promptness with which its evolutions perhaps, chiefly with the view of preserving this were performed, and the harmonious combina- in its full strength and purity, that citizens were tion of the movements of the several subdivis- forbidden to go abroad without leave of the maions, were greatly promoted by the choral dan- gistrates, and that the presence of foreigners ces, more especially the war dance, called the was discouraged. Whether they were excluPyrrhic, in which the Spartan youth were ha- ded by a standing ordinance, from which the bitually exercised. We have already remarked, magistrate alone could grant an exemption, or that the caution of the Spartan character may were only subject to be sent away at the mahave dictated the general maxim, which, how- gistrate's pleasure, is a point not quite clear, ever, was very far from being constantly ob- but of little practical moment. served, of avoiding repeated conflicts with the Our ignorance as to the internal condition of same enemy. The same prudence appears in the other Dorian states in the period to which the care taken to keep the force of every expe- the legislation of Lycurgus is referred, renders dition secret, and in all the regulations of the it impossible to ascertain how near their insticamp. And to thfe like motive we may proba- tutions may once have approached to those of bly ascribe the rule, which we learn from Thu- Sparta..It has been inferred, from a hint casucydides was really enforced, of pursuing a flying ally preserved by an ancient writer, that the enemy no farther than was necessary for secu- usage of the syssitia continued to subsist in still ring the victory. We should be glad to believe later times at Corinth.t This inference, which that humanity had any share in this practice; would lead to other conclusions affecting the but it seems no more to deserve this praise than personality of Lycurgus, is perhaps not suffianother injunction peculiar to Spartan warfare, ciently warranted; but it seems highly probawhich forbade the stripping of the slain before ble, that if we could distinguish all the parts of the end of the battle. If the Spartans abstain- the Spartan system which it had in common ed from suspending the spoils of the dead in with other ancient states,- those which were their temples, this may have arisen from a reli- properly exclusively its own would be found gious scruple. The reason that the spoils of comparatively few. The character of the Docowards were not a fit offering for the gods, rian race, which was stamped on its arts, its was worthy of the frantic insolence of the first language, and its religion, was undoubtedly disCleomenes.* In the days of their glory, the tinguished, by many peculiar features; from that Spartans were too little used to defeat to be of the other Hellenic tribes; and much that is much elated with the success of their arms. most singular in their manners and institutions The tidings of an important victory were cele- must be ascribed to this, as the last inscrutable brated with the sacrifice of a cock, and procured cause which bounds all inquiry. But the groundno greater reward for the bearer than a dish of work of the Dorian commonwealth belongs to meat from the table of the ephors.t During the old Hellenic frame of society, and the ruthis period, the watchword- of the Spartan war- ling ideas and feelings by which the form of rior was " victory or death;" or, as the Spar- government and the habits of life were detertan matron is said to have expressed it,t he mined, were transmitted from the heroic ages. was to bring his shield home, or to be borne The conquerors of Peloponnesus, with the marupon it. To survive its loss was to incur dis- tial spirit, retained the political maxims of their grace such as no generous spirit could endure. ancestors, which were those of the whole HelThe recreants who had separated his lot from lenic nation. They considered the possession that of his fellow-combatants was degraded from of arms as the highest privilege of a freeman, all the privileges of society, and became a butt the exercise of them as the only employment for public scorn and insult. He was excluded that became him. According to the rules of from every honourable place and company, and the heroic equity, he who excelled in this nowas compelled to appear with his beard half blest of arts was born to command; the race shaved, in a dress of shreds and patches. His that showed itself inferior in warlike virtues daughters, if he had any, found no husbands; was destined to obey and to serve; the most if unmarried, he could not hope for a wife, and yet was'condemned to the legal penalties of * NoaaKEs. voluntary celibacy. The young owed no respect t Mueller collects this from the story of JEthiops (Athen., iv., c. 63), who, in the voyage to Sicily with Archias, the founder of Syracuse, sold his portion of land for a honey * Plut,, Apophth, Lac., Cleom., x-;iii. cake to his messmate (ro avro i avov:roT). But the custom t Plut., Agesil., 33. at Corinth cannot be proved byv the fact that two persons $ In five words: xi raV,' E7ri r?;. I rpifaa;. mnessed together during th~e voyage. THE MESSENIAN WARS. 1395 perfect order of things was that in which the tribes, and which was a conspicuous feature in higher class was occupied by no care or labour the character of the Spartan Dorians, tempered, that did not contribute to the species of excel- however, by a natural love of freedom, and by lence which was the supreme end of its being, the feeling of independence produced by the and where the subject ranks were mere instru- need of constant exertion. ments, only needed to relieve the higher from Considered from this point of view, the comnecessary but degrading toil: a view of society parison drawn by some of the ancients between not peculiar to any race of mankind, though the Spartans and the Sabines, though connected among the nations in which the same maxims with an idle fancy of a real kindred between have not been hallowed by superstition, none the two nations, was by no means inappropriappears to have been governed by them more ate.* But what has been here said is equally uniformly than the ancient Hellenes, and no applicable to all the Dorian conquerors of PeloHellenic tribe applied them so steadily and con-' ponnesus, and would not suffice to explain the sistently as the Dorians.* The predominance singular rigour of the Spartan discipline, and of this military spirit in the early period of a na- the minute exactness with which the Spartan tion's history, though accompanied byean aver- system regulated details, which in most comsion and contempt for the arts of peace, ought munities are considered beyond or below the not certainly to lower any race in our esteem. attention of the state. Those who attribute It has appeared most signally in the noblest the whole system to Lycurgus can give no betportions of our species; and is in itself no more ter general view of his legislation than by sayinauspicious sign for the future growth of intel- ing that he transformed Sparta into a camp. ligence and humanity, than the overflow of ani- But it seems nearer to truth to say that Sparta mal spirits, the impatience of mental applica- was a camp from the beginning of the conquest. tion, and the petulance of superior strength and For no description can better suit an unwalled activity in a vigorous boy. But a neglected or city, occupied by an invading army, in the midst vicious education, or untoward circumstances, of a hostile and half-subdued people; and hence, may disappoint the intention of nature, check to the latest times, the Spartan, throughout the the growth of the higher faculties, or confine military age, was said to be on guard.t A'comthem to a single direction and a narrow corn- munity which had taken up this position, and, pass; and may thus detain nations and individ- as seems to have been the case with Sparta, uals in a state of intellectual infancy, ripe and was compelled to retain it until it became harobust only in its passions and physical'powers. bitual and agreeable, was also constrained to -Such a misfortune, which has sometimes been adopt its institutions to its situation. A rigid celebrated as a singular advantage, or as the discipline, a vigilant superintendence, which alnoblest fruit of legislative wisdom, befell the Do- lowed the least possible room for the discretion rians in Crete and Sparta. of individuals in the employment of their time, In the Dorian race, the primitive Hellenic. uniform rules for all the stages and transactions character had been moulded, by the circumstan- of life-this'artificial state of society was a ces under which the people was formed and necessary conseq ence of its forced posture, trained, into a peculiar form. Before the inva- and requirel rio extraordinary genius to pire. sion of Peloponnesus, the conquerors had pass. scribe the form which it should assume. ed through a severe school. In the mountaii tracts, where they:had wandered and settled, - they had maintained a long struggle with danger and hardship; and they undoubtedly brought CHAPTER IX. the habits and feelings which grow out of such THE MESSENIAN WARS AND AFFAIRS OF SPARTA a discipline along with them into the happier THE ESSENIAN WARS AND AFFAIRS OF SPARTA seats in which they finally established their DOWN TO THE SIXTH CENTURY B.C. dominion. Many of the Spartan virtues and TOWARDS the first Olympiad (B.C. 776), Lavices seem to have flowed from this source. conia was subdued and tranquil; the Spartans A people inured to poverty and toil learns to were united by the institutions of Lycurgus, and pride itself in the fortitude with which it meets their warlike youth ready, and, perhaps, impaprivation and suffering; it places its point of tient for new enterprises. Until the fall of honour in disdaining all superfluous enjoyment, Amyclme and the other conquests of Teleclus and shinks from whatever serves merely to had secured the submission of Laconia, they grace and refine life, as unmanly and pernicious were iprobably too much occupied at home to luxury. This austere simplicity, though not enter into any' wars with their neighbours inconsistent with kindly affections, is almost in, which might require a long-continued exertion separable from a proportionate coarseness and of their strength. We find them, indeed, very harshness of sentiments, which is careless of early engaged in contests on the side of Arcadia all the more delicate observances of social in- and Argos; but these were not very vigorously tercourse, and is too apt to degenerate into fe- prosecuted, or attended with very important rerocity and cruelty. A strong tendency to super- Isults. An expedition of Sous, son of Procles, stition, which several causes contribute to cher- against Cleitor, in Arcadia, in which he is said ish in the mountaineer, distinguished the Spar- to have delivered his army from jeopardy by a tans, even among the Greeks, down to a late stratagem, stands unexplained as an isolated period of their history: a habit of mind closely fact. Jealousy soon sprang up between Sparta allied, or, it may be said, substantially one'with and Argos, and disturbed the harmony which the attachment to ancient usages, the venera- the family compact should have secured. In tion for established rights, privileges, and au- the reign of Echestratus, son of Agis, the Sparthority, ivhich generally prevails in -mountain. tans bad made themselves masters of Cynuria, * Herod., ii., 167, * Dion H., ii., 49, * ppcpops. 140 HISTORY OF GREECE. where a remnant of the old. Ionian population that had separated them from the rebellious had preserved its independence. Having thus Dorians. The successors of.Epytus, who revbecome neighbours, they soon became enemies erenced him as the founder of their dynasty, of the Argives. The quarrel broke out in the inherited his maxims; at least the principal reign of Prytanis, son of Eurypon; and his suc- acts ascribed to them indicate a desire to concessors, Charilaus and Nicander, made inroads ciliate the affections of the whole people, and on the Argive territory; the Dryopes of Asin6 to soothe alUhostile feelings. We find them were induced to aid the Spartans, whose sub- dedicating temples and instituting rites in honjects had been excited to revolt by the Argives; our of the old Messenian gods and heroes, apbut the Asinaeans were shortly after punished parently for the purpose of effacing national diswith the loss of their city, and were forced to tinctions by a common worship. A like motive take refuge in Laconia.* The same Charilaus may have led one of them to direct the attenwho invaded Argolis carried his arms into Ar- tion of his subjects towards the sea, by works cadia, deceived, it is said, by an oracle, which and buildings at the port of Mothond. In a subseemed to promise the conquest of Tegea. sequent reign, we hear that the Messenians sent Herodotus saw there the fetters which the a chorus, of men, with a sacrifice, across the Spartans had brought with them for the Tege-. sea to Delos: the hymn with which they apans, and in which, when they were defeated, proached the altar of Apollo was preserved to the prisoners were forced to till the enemy's after ages, and was regarded as the only genu. land. For many generations they continued to ine work that remained of the Corinthian poet war against Tegea, but always with like ill suc- Eumelus. Thus the country prospered; the cess. arts of peace flourished; but the more united An easier and more inviting conquest now the nation, the less did any one class aim at exoffered itself to them on another side. They celling in the use of arms; and hence, perhaps, had, perhaps, long observed,-with inward dis- in military skill and discipline, the Messenians content, how much fairer the land which, by were inferior to the people of Lycurgus. chance or fraud, had fallen to the share of When two neighbouring states are disposed Cresphontes was than their own. Under cir- to war, they never are long at a loss for provocumstances different from those by which the cations or reasons to justify it. Sparta did not Spartans had been formed, the Messenians had draw the sword till she had injuries and insults become a different people. The Achaeans of to allege which cried aloud for vengeance. Messenia are said to have submitted without The Messenians, on the other hand, held Sparta reluctance to their new sovereigns, and the to have been the aggressor in the quarrel, and Heracleid kings appear to have adopted a wise believed that she was impelled by no motive but and liberal system of government. Cresphontes her restless, ambition. At a place called Limnae either did not share the prejudices of his Dori- (the pools), on the western skirts of Taygetus, aas, or he rose above them. He fixed his resi- was a temple of Artemis Limnatis, which, Ience, indeed, in a new capital, which he found- standing on the confines of the two nations, was ed in the plain of Stenyclerus-a central posi- a common sanctuary for both, and open to no tion, far from Andania and Pylus, the ancient other people even of the Dorian race. In the seats of the Messenian kings; but he divided reign of Teleclus, the seventh from Agis, the the country into five districts, and designed Spartans sent a company of virgins to celebrate that their chief cities should enjoy equal rights a festival at this temple, and Teleclus went with Stenyclerus; the Dorians, however, shrank with them. Some Messenians who were presfrom all intermixture with the old inhabitants, ent offered violence to the maidens; a fray and compelled their king to collect them in the arose, and the king himself was slain in atcapital, and to reduce all the other towns to the tempting to protect them from dishonour. Such rank of dependant villages. But, though thwart- was the Spartan story; but, as the Messenians ed in his first plan, he seems not to have gave out, Teleclus had laid a stratagem for taabandoned his generous policy; and the favour king off some of their noblest citizens at the he showed to the lower class of his subjects- festival, and for this purpose had disguised a by which we are probably to understand the old band of Spartan youths as women, and had hi4Messenians-is said to have provoked a con- den daggers under their dress; but the plot spiracy among the rich (the Dorian oligarchy), being detected, he and they fell by the hands by which he was cut off with his whole family, of their intended victims, and their countrymen, except one son. The surviver,.Epytus, whose conscious of their injustice, made no demand mother, Merope, was the daughter of Cypselus, of reparation. king of Arcadia, or of some Arcadian canton, ~ Before this grudge was healed, a fresh one escaped into the dominions of his grandfather. broke out. Alcamenes had succeeded his faAt a riper age, with the assistance of the other ther Teleclus; Theopompus was his colleague; Heracleid kings,t he recovered his hereditary and two brothers, Androcles and Antiochus, sat throne, and punished the murderers of his on the throne of Messenia, when the wrongs father, whose example he seems to have fol- and the revenge of a private man kindled a fatal lowed with better success; for the honours and war between the two nations. A Messenian boons with which he is said to have won the named Polychares, a man of great note among nobles and the commonalty of Messenia proba- his countrymen, who had gained the prize at bly consisted in the abolition of the distinctions the Olympic games, possessed some cattle for which he had no pasture, and contracted with * Paus., iii., 2, 3, and 7, 4. a Spartan* named Euaephnus, to feed them on t The Spartans seem to have had a legend that the sons of Cresphontes ceded the sovereignty of Messenia to * So he is called by Pausanias; but all the incidents of them as the price of their assistance, Isocrates, Archid., the story, unless it has been entirely disfigured, show;hat p. 120. he must have been a Laconian of the subject class. THE MESSENIAN WARS. 141 the latter's land. Euephnus sold both the cat- I appears to have been chiefly'.ndebted for the tle and the herdsmen to some traders who had I details he communicates. Both of them flourtouched at one of the Laconian ports, and went ished late, probably after Alexander. One, to Polychares with a plausible tale of pirates Rhianus, of Bend, in Crete, related the princithat had landed and carried all off. While the pal events of the second war in an Epic poem; lie was in his mouth, one of the herdsmen, who the other, Myron, of Priene, wrote a prose hishad escaped from his confinement, came back tory of the first war, beginning from the surto his master and related the truth. Euuphnus, prise of Amphea. From the poet it would be overwhelmed with fear and shame, entreated unreasonable to expect historical accuracy, and Polychares to be satisfied with the price of the Pausanias charges him with a gross anachrooxen, and to send his son along with him to re- nism. But he gives a still more unfavourable ceive it. Suspecting no farther treachery, the notion of the prose writer, and expressly accuMessenian consented: the youth went with ses him of generally neglecting truth and probEuuephnus; but when they were on Laconian ability. It need not be obsermed that a narrative ground, the Spartan, instead of making restitu- drawn- from such sources cannot be entitled to tion, took away the life of his companion. The full confidence; it may rather- be questioned injured father first sought redress at Sparta; whether it deserves a'place in history; for the but when the kings and ephors were deaf to his importance of the Messenian wars would not complaints, he took his revenge into his own justify an historian in admitting a fictitious dehands, waylaid passengers on the border, and scription, though he might have no other way spared no Lacedaemonian that fell into his of filling up a large blank. But, though little power. reliance can be placed on the circumstances The Spartans now, in their turn, sent to de- related by Pausanias, there seems to be enough mand that Polychares should be given up to of truth in the whole history to claim room for them. The Messenian kings held an assembly it here. Its general outlines may be safely to deliberate on their answer: opinions were depended on; and of the rest, it cannot be divided, and the two kings took opposite sides. doubted that many, perhaps most, touches beAndrocles was willing to surrender Polychares long to a very ancient popular tradition, which, to justice; Antiochus thought it hard that a notwithstanding its poetical colouring, faithfully man so grievously injured should suffer, while transmitted the genuine spirit of the men and the aggressor remained unpunished. -The pas- the times. This-the essence, probably, of sions of the contending parties grew warm; heroic songs, which cheered the outcast nation force took the place of argument; and a bloody in its exile, and kept alive the hope of better conflict ensued, in which Androcles and some days till they came-it would be unwisely fasof the chief men on his side lost their lives: his tidious to reject, because it is mixed up with children fled to Sparta. Antiochus, now sole much that is false and worthless; and this neiking, sent proposals to Sparta for settling the ther Rhianus nor Myron can be supposed to dispute by the decision of some impartial tribu- have entirely perverted or corrupted. The latnal, such as the Argive Amphictyony or the ter has probably injured it most by arbitrary Athenian Areopagus. Sparta made no reply, and tasteless interpolations: he seems to have but silently resolved to cut the knot. In the been a rhetorical historian, who selected this course of a few months Antiochus died, and half-mythical subject, which, after the restora-. was succeeded by his son Euphaes. In the be- tion of Messenian independence, excited a genginning of his reign, in the second year of the eral interest in Greece, as an exercise for his ninth Olympiad (B.C. 743), the Spartans first pen, and, like Dionysius of Halicarnassus, filled bound themselves by an oath never to cease up the intervals of a long period, in which he from warring against Messenia, let the struggle found'only a few insulated poetical incidents, be -long or short, fortune fair or foul, till they with wordy harangues, and elaborate descriphad made the whole land their own by the right tions of great battles that produce no conseof conquest. After this, without declaring war quences. Yet, careless as he may have been by a herald, they crossed the border under the about any higher object than this display, nei. command of Alcamenes, in the dead of nigh, ther he nor Rhianus can have spun their mateand marched against Amphea, a fortified town rials wholly out of their own brains, and, therein the adjacent part of Messenia. Its gates fore, we may still listen to them, in the hope of were open, as in time of peace; and the inva- catching many sounds that breathe the life of ders,' entering without resistance, massacred ancient days. the defenceless inhabitants in their beds or at When the Messenians heard of the surprise their altars. As Amphea stood on a high hill, of Xmphea, they knew that they must prepare supplied with copious springs of water, the for a long and hard struggle, and they turned Spartans determined to make it their place of their thoughts more than before to warlike arts arms, from which to carry the war at all sea- and exercises; but, seeing themselves unequal sons into the heart of the enemy's country. to their enemy in the field, they avoided battle, This was the beginning of the first Messenian and sheltered themselves behind the walls of war. their towns. These the Spartans were unable Before we proceed, a word must be said as to force; but they made inroads into the heart to the evidence on which the following narra- of the country from Amphea, a:nd began already tive rests. Almost everything we know of the to look upon Messenia as their own; for they first two Messenian wars is drawn from Pau- spared the farmhouses, and the vines, and olivesanias, who, besides the general histories of trees, and only carried away the fruit, and corn,. Ephorus and others, had before him the works and cattle, and slaves. The Messenians, on of two writers who selected the Messenian their part, were not inactive, but made incurwar~ as their peculiar subject, and to them he sions into Laconia, and infested its coasts. 142 HISTORY OF GREECE. In the fourth year of the war, the Messenians I wished him well, persuaded them that the oraare said to have gathered courage so far as to I cle had been duly obeyed. So, believing that take the field; but their king, Euphaes, still did they had made their peace with the gods, they not venture to face the Spartans on even ground. celebrated the event with joy and feasting. He intrenched himself in a strong position, The new ground which the Messenians had where they could not attack him without great taken, and the report of their awful rites, disrisk, and, after a few skirmishes of the light couraged the Spartans; and it was only in the troops, the two armies parted as they met. sixth year after Ithom6 had been fortified that IThe next year a great battle is said to have the king Theopompus led an army against it. oeen fought, in which the Spartans were as- The Messenians gave battle; but as before, Fisted by Cretan archers, and by the Dryopes, though the fight lasted till nightfall, no victory whom Argos had expelled from Asin6: but nei- was gained. Only the chiefs came forward,,.her side raised a trophy; and they buried their like the heroes of old, and proved their prowess lead, not by leave prayed, but by mutual con- in single combat. Euphaes himself attacked sent. Theopompus, and fell: he was rescued by his Thus the war crept on, and every year Mes- friends, but died soon after of his wounds withsenia suffered more and more from the enemy's out an heir. The people elected Aristodemus presence. It was necessary to keep garrisons to succeed him, though the soothsayers warned in all the towns at great cost; the husbandmen them to beware of a man who would bring the had scarcely heart to till the ground, and the stain of blood upon the throne of AEpytus. The slaves ran away to the Spartans. Diseases, new king, however, won the hearts of high and such as commonly attend upon war and scarci- low by his good government; and he sent to ty, began to spread their ravages through the obtain succour from his neighbours the Arcadi-' unhappy land. The Messenians now resolved ans, and from Argos, and Sicyon. The Arcato try a new plan:'not to scatter their forces dians joined the Messenians in ravaging Lacoover the country, but to collect them in an im- nia; for besides petty inroads, which never ceaspregnable hold, where they might keep the en- ed to be made from time to time, each hostile emy in check, and cover the region that lay be- nation regularly invaded the other's territory hind them\ On the western side of the vale of before the harvest. Argos and Sicyon waited the Pamisis rise two lofty hills, connected to- for a fit occasion. gether by a narrow ridge about half a mile long. In the fifth year of the reign of Aristodemus, The southern hill is Mount Evan; the northern, the Spartans are said to have been defeated in Mount Ithom6. The latter towers high above a great battle. at the foot of Ithome. Their all in its immediate neighbourhood, and com- spirit began to sink, and they sought advice mands a view over all Messenia from the south- from Delphi. The oracle promised success to ern to the western coast. It descends steeply stratagems, and Sparta tried many in vain; but to the south and the west; but on the side of Aristodemus also was warned by the god to the river, and towards the north, its summit is beware of Spartan cunning, and it was darkguarded by precipitous cliffs. On this summit ly'announced that prodigies should mark the a little town had been built in early times, prob- approaching fall of Ithome. These warnings ably by the. Aolian settlers from the north of were not understood till the year arrived in Thessaly; and now the Messenians resolved to which Messenia was overtaken by the destined enlarge the ancient circuit, or to join a new city calamity. The city was now closely besieged at the foot of the hill to the citadel on its top. by the Spartans; but Apollo declared to the But at the same time, lest any secret anger Messenians that their land should belong to of the gods should render these precautions vain, the nation which should first dedicate a hundred they sent to consult the oracle at Delphi. The tripods at the altar of Jupiter in Ithom6. While god declared that an unsullied virgin of the they were preparing the offering, for which, in blood of LEpytus, selected by lot, must be made lack of brass, they were forced to use wood, a the victim of a nocturnal sacrifice to the powers Spartan, who had heard of the oracle, stole into below; should the lot fall wrong, one willingly the temple by night, and placed a hundred small offered must suffer instead. The lot was drawn, earthen tripods round the altar. And now ruand fell on a daughter of Lyciscus; but a sooth- mours spread of portents, which seemed to ansayer forbade the sacrifice, for he knew by his swer to the oracular warning; and Aristodemus art that the maid was not of the lineage of Agpy- himself was dismayed by many visible signs of tus: meanwhile, in the midst of the general impending ruin. His daughter, too, appeared amazement, Lyciscus carried her away, and fled to him as he slept, clad in black, and, showing to Sparta. Hereupon Aristodemus, an X py- her wounds, took away his arms, and adorntid also, and renowned for valour, freely offered ed him, as for his obsequies, with a golden his own daughter, though he had already be- crown and a white robe. Thus certain of his trothed her, and the day fixed for her marriage own fate, and of that which he could no longer was at hand. The disappointed lover, after -avert from his country, he slew himself at his many unavailing remonstrances, forged a tale daughter's tomb. After his death, the hopes to defeat the father's purpose, by showing that of the'Messenians sank, but not their courage. the maid would not be an unsullied victim, that They chose a chief, though without the royal she was about to become a mother. Aristode- title, and, when they were hard pressed by fammus, furious or impatient, killed his daughter ine, made a vigorous sally; but their scale had with his own hand; her honour was cleared, kicked the beam; their bravest leaders fell, and but the soothsayer pronounced that a murder at length, in the twentieth year of the war, the was not a sacrifice, that a fresh victim must be first of the fourteenth Olympiad, they fled, as sought. The people was enraged with the ca- Tyrteeus sang, from the great mountains of' lumnious lover; but the king, Euphaes, who Tthom6, leaving their rich fields in the posses THE MESSENIAN WARS. 143 sion of the conquerors. Such was the end of ken by the Spartans, not to return home before the first Messenian war (B.C. 723). the war should be ended.* The colony which From the romantic history which records founded Tarentum, in the interval between the this event, we do not learn the precise circum- first and second Messenian wars, is said to have stances of the flight from Ithome, whether the been a band of youths, the offspring of such unbesieged effected their retreat by force, or by equal marriages, who, finding themselves excapitulation, or by sufferance. But we hear cluded from the rank of citizens, were only dithat only a few withdrew into foreign lands; verted from a dangerous conspiracy against the the men of higher rank, who were connected state, which they had concertedwith the Helots, by hospitable ties with Sicyondor Argos, or any by the proposal that they should seek a new of the Arcadian towns, took refuge there; the country, and by the promise that, if the'expedipriestly families retired to Eleusis, but the main tion failed, they should, on their return, obtain.a body of the besieged is said to have dispersed, fifth part of Messenia. Theopompus, however, and to have settled in those parts of Messenia had related that the Spartans supplied the lossfrom which they had been collected in Ithom6. es they sustained in the war with the MesseniThe Spartans, however, after the fall of this ans by giving the widows of the deceased to city,: which they razed to the ground, soon made Helots, whom they afterward admitted to the themselves masters of all the other Messenian franchise under a peculiar name.t This incitowns, except, it would seem, Mothon6 and Py- dent, indeed, may properly belong to the second lus, and disposed of the country at their pleas- war, in which such a measure is said to have ure..They repaid the services of their allies, been adopted on the advice of Tyrtaeus; but it the Dryopes, by giving them a portion of the may serve to illustrate the state of things in coast near the western cape of the Messenian the former period. Should we, however, believe Gulf, where they founded another Asind, in that Polydorus increased the number of the which, to the time of Pausanias, they fondly Spartans by a considerable body of new citizens, preserved their national name and recollections. drawn from the servile or the subject class of The descendants of Androcles were restored to Laconians, or from the issue of marriages formtheir country; a district called Hyamia was as- ed between such persons and Spartan women, signed to them by the conquerors. What treat- it would still remain to be explained how this ment the rest of the nation-the bulk of it, at act of wise liberality could be connected with least-experienced, we knbw from the unsus- that discontent, which is uniformly mentioned, picious evidence of Tyrteeus, who, in the third certainly not without some historical ground, generation after the conquest, roused the pride as the occasion of the migration to Tarentum. of the Spartans by reminding them how their And this seems inexplicable, unless we supancestors had forced the vanquished to stoop pose that a distinction was made between the like asses under wearisome'burdens, and to new and the old citizens, which provoked a part pay to their masters one half of the fruits of of the former to attempt a revolution, and comthe land which they were allowed to till. In a pelled the government to adopt one of the usuword, they were reduced to the same condition al means of getting rid of disaffected and turbuwith the Laconian Helots, but on more rigorous lent subjects. It must be remembered that the terms; like them, they were compelled to at- Lacedaemonian settlers formed only a part of tend, with their wives, as mourners at the obse- the colony at Tarentum, where, as at Croton quies of the Spartan kings. and Locri,.they were blended with other Greeks. The conquest of Messenia was the event We know that in later times a distinction, the which, more than any other, determined the nature and origin of which' has* never been character and,the subsequent history of Sparta. clearly explained, existed at Sparta between It appears to have been also connected with two classes, one termed the Equals or Peers,t some important changes in the Spartan Consti- the other the Inferiors.~ It seems not improbtution, though in a manner which it is scarcely able that this distinction may have arisen when possible to collect with certainty from the scan- the franchise was extended in the reign of Polty and confused traditions which remain on the ydorus, and it may easily be conceived that it subject. There can be no doubt that the great- was not established without opposition. To er part of the conquered land was divided among the Equals, who appear to have composed a seSpartan citizens; but it is a question whether lect assembly, 1 the election of the senate seems these were the'old citizens, or were now for the to have been exclusively reserved; but the first time admitted to the franchise. We have al- lower franchise must have entitled to a vote in ready seenthat, according to someaccounts, Pol- the general assembly which elected the Ephors. y.dorus, one of the kings under whomthe conquest This, too, was perhaps the occasion of an orwas completed, doubled, or at least augmented dinance enacted under the sanction of Delphi by a third, the number of the portions of land in the reigns of Theopompus and Polydorus, by possessed by the,Spartans; andthese accounts which the powers of the general assembly were plainly imply that the number of the citizens expressly limited to the simple receiving or rewas at the same time similarly increased. And jecting of propositions presented to it, without this supposition is in some degree eonfirmed by change or addition.~ the various legends concerning the foundation The assumption of such an enlargement and of Tarentum, so far as they agreein indicating consequent graduation of the franchise would that the emergencies of the war had induced also afford the easiest way of reconciling the the Spartans to relax the'rigou-r of their princi- * Antiochus and Ephorus, in Strabo, vi., p. 278-280 ples, by permitting marriages between Spartan compared with Theopompus, in Athen., vi., 271. wonlen and Laconians of inferior condition. t 7rEtuaKVroL. So, too, Diodorus (i., Mai, Vet. Scr., xi. Some storie~ connect these marriages, in a p. 10) calls the partisans of Phalanthus lcsvvaKrTo manoer. vidntly ictitious, ith the oath ta-otovc man'er evidently fictitious, with the oath ta- K.~:7p a IF ~Plut., Lyc., 6 144 HISTORY OF GREECE. various accounts of the origin of the ephoralty. in later times possessed that of convoking: t.e Herodotus ascribes the institution of this office assembly of the people, of laying measures beto Lyeclrgus, perhaps only in a sense in which fore it, and of acting in its name; and it was we might also do so, if Lycurgus be considered undoubtedly this representative character which as a, representative of the ancient Spartan Con- afforded them the principal means of encroachstitution. Other writers, with as good reason, ing on the royal prerogatives, and of drawing describe the ephoralty as an innovation intro- the whole government of the state into their duced by Theopompus, the colleague of Polydo- hands. rus, who is said to have been reproached by his This last, the most important branch of their queen with having thus, parted with the best authority, may have arisen in the reign of Theohalf of the royal prerogatives, and to have vin- pompus, and from the cause to which Cleomenes dicated his prudence by alleging, that by this assigned the institution of the office itself-the concession he had secured the remainder to temporary absence of the kings. That it was his successors. In the latest times of Sparta, unknown in earlier times seems to follow from Cleomenes endeavoured to spread an opinion the two ordinances cited by Plutarch, which there that the ephors had been originally ap- regulated the assembly of the people, and which pointed by the kings, when occupied by- the are silent as to the functions of the ephors. Messenian war, to fill their place at home in But still it may be reasonably doubted whether the seat of justice, but that these new magis- that enormous increase of their power, by which trates made their authority first independent, it came to overshadow all others in the commonand then paramount over that of the kings wealth, was derived solely or mainly from any themselves. Asteropus is named as the ephor such accident, and whether it was on this acwho contributed most to strengthen the power count that the reign of Theopompus was fixed of the college; but he is said to have lived on as the epoch of their creation. But if in this many generations after their first institution.* reign the franchise was extended to a body of This account of the origin of the office, though new citizens, who nevertheless were not, adnot improbable in itself, is rendered very doubt- mitted to a complete equality of privileges with ful both by the example of Cyrene, by the num- the old ones, the ephors, as representatives of her of the ephoral college, and by the analogy the whole people, would henceforth stand in a of other states, which seems to indicate that at new position with respect to the kings and the Sparta the civil and criminal jurisdictions were senate, which was elected from and by the' originally separate from each other, and that higher class. The comparison which Cicero neither was ever wholly in the hands of the draws between the ephoralty and the Roman kings. And as the criminal jurisdiction be- tribunate would in this case be more closely longs to the senate; it is most probable that the applicable than he himself suspected, and it will civil was, from the first, exercised by the ephors. serve to throw light on a seeming contradiction And this may very early have been united with which strikes us in the character of the ephors, a censorial authority, such as we find was pos- who are all-powerful, though the class which sessed by the ephors of Cyrene. The antiquity they more especially represent enjoys only a of this branch of the Spartan office seems to be limited franchise. But as the relations of the proved by the obsolete symbolical language of several classes of Spartan citizens underwent the edict with which the ephors regularly en- great changes in the course of their history, the tered upon it, in which they bade the citizens causes which maintained the stability of these shave the upper lip, and obey the laws.t This relations-in later times will demand a different general superintendence over the execution of explanation in its proper place. Here we may the laws was an attribute of the ephoralty which observe that Aristotle speaks of the mode in might often bring it into collision with the royal which the ephors were elected as no less authority, and, in the hands of a dexterous and puerile than that adopted in the case of the enterprising man, might alone have proved an senate; from which we must infer that there instrument of unlimited power. - It may have was little difference between the two, and are been by virtue of this that the ephors received led to suppose that. an allusion of Plato's, by an oath (if we may believe Xenophon, every which he seems to intimate that chance had month) from the kings that they would govern some share in the creation of the ephors, does according to law, and in return bound them- not refer to the form of the election, but to anselves and the nation to a conditional obedi- other mark of a democratical office;* for such ence, in terms not unlike those used on similar the ephoralty appeared to. the ancients when occasions by the Aragonese. Another prerog- considered with respect to its origin, though it ative of the ephors, which enabled them, at the was tyrannical in the extent of its power. This end of every eight years-a period observed for seems never to have been defined, and theremany purposes from early times by the Dorian fore probably varied, with the character of the race-to suspend the functions of the kings, men who held it, and the state of the times. would seem to have been connected with a But it is remarkable that, with the substance, religious rather than a political character of the ephors assumed the outward signs of the their office. They chose, it is said, a clear but supreme authority. The royal dignity was moonless night to observe the sky, and the ap- forced on all occasions to bow to them; and pearance of a meteor in a certain quarter was as they could control the proceedings of the regarded as a token of the displeasure of the gods against the kings, who were forthwith in- * Leg., iii., 11, iyyis rig KXCqpoirisc 3vvadco. Goettling terdicted from the discharge of their office, adrd supposes that lot decided between candidates who had been elected; but the words may refer to the democratical clhar. could only be restored by the intervention of an acter of the electors, which, according to Plato's view, renoracle. But, besides these powers, the ephors dered their choice as capricious and uncertain as if it had been determined by lot; and, indeed, Aristotle speaks of the * Plut., Cleom., 10. t Ibid., 9. ephors as ol rvXdYrEc. THE MESSENIAN WARS. 145 kings by their orders, could fine them for slight heard of their heroic deeds. The Messenians oflirnces at their discretion, and could throw who had been exempted, by the policy or the them into prison to await a trial on graver generosity of Sparta, from the servile condition charges, so they alone, amorng all the Spartans, to which their countrymen were reduced, felt kept their seats while the kings were passing, the exception to be ignominious, as the price of whereas it was not thought beneath the majes- slavish submission. Many born in exile were ty of the kings to rise in honour of the ephors; eager to recover their patrimonies. When a]! and it was their acknowledged duty to attend, hearts were full, all spirits roused to expect the at least on the third summons, before the signal for revolt, the destined champion appearephoral tribunal. It will, however, be seen ed: a second Aristodemus arose in Aristomethat, even when the power of the ephors was nes. at its greatest height, the kingly station con- His birth was noble, like that of the elder tinued to' confer important prerogatives and hero, for he also sprang from the race of 2Epymeans of extensive influence; and Agesilaus, tus: it was even thought to have been half diwho went beyond all his predecessors in the vine, like that of Hercules and Theseus. In respect which he showed to the ephors, was strength and courage he surpassed Aristodemus, the most powerful prince of his house. and no fearful remembrance weighed upon his It has probably been owing to the poetical soul. From Andania, his birthplace, he cheerform in which the events of the first Messenian ed the hopes of the exiles, fanned the indignawar have been transmitted to us, that we hear tion of the oppressed people, and drew promises so little of the part which Argos took in it. of aid from foreign cities. Argos and Arcadia But it appears from some facts which have been were more than ever hostile to Sparta, and Elis, accidentally preserved, that, as might have been too, was ready to assist in the deliverance of expected, she was far from remaining inactive Messenia. In the thirty-ninth year after the while her enemy was engaged in the struggle capture of Ithome, the fourth of the twentywith Messenia, but that she seized this oppor- third Olympiad (B.C. 685), the second'Messetunity of recovering Cynuria. And there is nian war began.* even reason to believe that it was at this peri- The first battle was fought before any sucod she made herself mistress of the whole east- cours had come from abroad; the victory was ern coast of Laconia as far as Cape Malea, and not clear on either side; yet the valour of Arisof the island of Cythera, which, as we learn tomenes struck fear into his enemies, and infrom Herodotus, once formed part of her terri- spired his countrymen with confidence. They tory. These conquests may probably be attrib- offered him the crown, but he declined the reuted to Pheidon, who is usually called tyrant of gal title, and contented himself with the labours Argos, but was, in fact, a hereditary ruler, the and dangers of the supreme command. To tenth from Temenus, though he had broken prove himself worthy of it, and to open the war through the restraints which limited the kingly with a happy omen, he crossed the mouintains, power at Argos.* It seems to have been Thei- came down at night on the plain of Sparta, and don's aim to assert the supremacy of his house fixed a shield which he had taken in the battle over the other branches of the Heracleid race, against the temple of Athene, surnamed Chaland to enforce all the titles which he derived cicecus (of the brazen house); an inscription from his mythical descent.t On this ground, in declared that Aristomenes had dedicated it from the eighth Olympiad, he deprived the Eleans Spartan spoils. of their presidency at the Olympic games, which, The Spartans saw that they had no common as legends told, had been founded by his divine enemy to contend with, and they sent to Delphi progenitor, and conferred it on the Pisans. It for advice. The god bade them seek an Athemay have been in prosecution of this vast plan nian counsellor. No dealings, friendly or hosthat he furnished his brother Caranus with the tile, had passed between Attica and Laconia means of founding a little kingdom, which be- from the ancient times, when the twin sons of came the core of the Macedonian monarchy. Jupiter were said to have carried back their This powerful and active prince introduced a sister Helen, after storming the Attic town of new system of weights and measures, which Aphidnae. From the same place an ally and a bore his name, and replaced the old rude money counsellor now came to the aid of Sparta; for, by a more convenient coinage, called the iEgi- according to the most credible accounts, this netan, because it was in.LEgina, which formed was the birthplace of Tyrtoeus. The legendaa part of his territories, that he established his ry character of Tyrteeus is almost as marvellous mint. He may also have extended his domin- as that of Aristomenes. It is, however, perions along the western coast of the Argolic fectly certain, both that the hero fought, and Gulf as far as Malea; a rocky, barren tract of that the poet sang; for a few fragments of his little value, except as it affords a passage into poetry remain, full' of the spirit with which he the heart of Laconia. warmed his hearers. But the popular tradition At the death of Pheidon his genius and for- in later ages was that the Athenians, divided tune seem to have deserted the Argives; and between their reverence for the Delphic god these conquests, whatever may have been their and their reluctance to further the cause of extent,' fell back to Sparta. Her territory had Sparta, thought they could not better effect theii thus reached its utmost.lirjts: but power found- purpose than by selecting a lame man, who ed on wrong, and used without mercy, is never taught letters in the village of Aphidnse, for the secure. A new generation sprang up in Messe- counsellor whom they were requested to send. nia, which, while it groaned under a degra- The truth has evidently been distorted, though ding yoke, remembered nothing of the evils of it is impossible to restore its genuine features the war which their fathers had waged, but with certainty. The only fact in the story * Arist., Pol., v., 8. t Strabo, viii., p. 358. * But see Clinton, Fast., i., uD 2: VOL. ].-T 146 HISTORY OF GREECE. which there is no reason to doubt, is that Tyr- king Anaxander when he came to its relief, and taeus came from Aphidnae to Sparta. But the was only stopped in t.he pursuit by an accidental oracle may have grown, as usual, out of the wound. When this was -healed, he meditated event, and Tyrteeus was probably neither lame an attack on Sparta itself; but Helen and the nor a schoolmaster. He taught, indeed, but tutelary Twins interposed, and in a dream adverses, like Pindar or Simonides; and perhaps monished him to drop his design. He, howevrthe unequal lines of the couplets to which he er, laid a successful ambush for the Spaltan married his fiery thoughts may have suggested virgins, who were celebrating the worship of the thought of a personal defect, or it may Diana with festive dances at Caryze, a town have been simply the form in which tradition among the hills near the sources of the Euroexpressed the fact that he served the Spartans tas, and carried them over the border. Generwith his mind more than with his* body. The ous as brave, he protected them from the viomotive that led him to devote his muse to their lence of his young followers, and restored them, cause is still more doubtful: we can only sus- though not without a heavy ransom,,to their pect that it was connected with the above-men- kinsmen. At _Egila he made a similar attempt tioned mythical legend concerning the invasion with different fortune; for the first time he fell of the Laconian twins. We know that in the into the hands of an enemy; he was surroundlater times of Greece, political relations were ed by the women, who were celebrating the sometimes contracted on grounds not more sol- rites of Demeter, stunned by their blazing torchid: Aphidnus, the hero who was thought to es, and fettered; but in the night he snapped the have/given his name to the birthplace of Tyr- cords that bound him, or they were loosened by teenus, had, it was said, adopted the brothers of the compassion of the priestess, and he returnHelen as his sons: Aphidnae may have regard- ed safe to Messenia. ed their country with feelings of kindred, and In the third year of the war Sparta again premay have sent Tyrteeus, whether as warrior or pared for battle; but now, distrustful of her as bard, to raise his arm or his voice in behalf own strength, she stooped to seek victory from of the Spartans. unworthy arts. The Messenians were joined They were also joined by auxiliaries from on this occasion by no allies but the Arcadians, Corinth and from Lepreum, which gladly as- who were commanded by Aristocrates, son of sisted the enemies of Elis. The Messenians, Hicatas, king, some say, of Arcadia, but more on the other hand, were re-enforced by their probably of Orchomenus. He was seduced by exiled countrymen, who brought with them the Spartan bribes, drew off his men in the heat o; ministers of the Eleusinian rites, and by their the battle, and, after throwing the Messeniar allies from Sicyon and Argos, Arcadia and Elis; ranks into disorder by his retreat, left themex for the issue of the contest was to determine posed on all sides to superior numbers. Even which state should have the mastery in Pelo- the valour of Aristomenes and his little band ponne~us. A great battle was fought in the could not save the day. After a great slaughplain of Stenyclerus, at a place called, from an ter, in which many of the noblest. Messqnians ancient legend, the Boar's Pillar. The Mes- perished, he collected the fugitives,,a feeble senian priests and Tyrteeus kept iloof from the and disheartened remnant, in Andania. All fight, and only animated the combatants by their looked to him for counsel: he advised them to voice. But Aristomenes, at the head of a little do as their ancestors had done-to collect all band of the bravest Messenian youths, success- the remaining strength of Messenia in a mountively broke each division of the Spartan forces ain citadel, where they could defy the attacks of till all were scattered in disorderly flight. He a Spartan army; not, however, in Ithom6 (which pursued the routed foe with impetuous ardour, was, perhaps, in the enemy's power), but in and forgot the warning of the soothsayer, The- Mount Eira, at the foot of which the Neda sepoclus, who had enjoined him not to pass a tree arates Messenia from Triphylia. Here, therewhich he pointed out to him in the plain, where fore, they fortified themselves, while the Sparthe Twins, as he said, were sitting, doubtless to tans, masters of the whole country except Pyprotect the retreat of their countrymen. The lus and Methone, and the adjacent coast, lay at hero passed the limit, and dropped his shield: the foot of Eira, hoping soon to reduce it by it was carried away by an invisible hand, and force or famine. while he searched for it the fugitives escaped. While they were reckoning on a speedy surBut Messenia was freed for a time from the render, Aristomenes was planning new attacks. presence of her enemy; and when Aristomenes He increased his band to the number of three returned to Andania, the women, as they strew- hundred, forced or turned the Spartan lines, ed fillets and flowers on his head, sang, in strains and swept the vales, of Messenia and Laconia that were remembered and repeated for a thou- without distinction-for, except a few little sand years, how he had chased the Lacedaemo- nooks, both alike were Sparta's-and returned, nians over the Stenyclerian plain, and up to the laden with spoil, to Eira, The Spartans, thus top of the mountains. The lost shield, too, compelled to feed the enemy whom they wishadorned with the device of a spread eagle, he ed to starve, resolved to turn Messenia and the recovered shortly after, when, by the direction Laconian border into a desert, and forbade theii of Apollo, he descended into the cavern of Tro- citizens to till their lands in all this region until phonius at Lebadea. On his return from this the war should be ended. But this ordinance, journey he took a threatening instead of a de- when enforced, produced a general scarcity, fensive posture, and hanging like a dark cloud and the owners of the land murmured at their over the trembling Spartans, fell with the sud- loss. Civil broils would have ensued, but Tyrdenness of lightning on their towns and villa- teens, who, after the disaster of the Boar's Pilges. With his chosen companions he surprised lar, had roused the sinking courage of the Sparand plundered Phare, put to flight the Spartan tans by his stirring strains, now touched a dif THE MESSENIAN WARS. 147 ferent chord, and allayed their angry passions by He fed them on the banks of the Neda, which celebrating the blessings of concord and obedi- were still open to the garrison of Eira. Here ence to the laws. he caught the eye of a Messenian woman as, Imboldened by his success, Aristomenes she came to draw water; she admitted him aimed at a higher mark. He sallied forth late into her house while her husband was guarding in the evening, and by a wonderfully. rapid the citadel. On a rainy night the Messenian march reached Amyclwe before the next sun- suddenly returned home, and related the cause rise; ere succour arrived from Sparta he had that had drawn him off his post to his wife, gathered his booty and was gone. But in a while her paramour overheard him from a hisecond inroad he found the Spartans better pre- ding-place. Aristomenes was prevented by a pared; half of their whole force, with both the wound from making his usual rounds; in his kings at their head, opposed his retreat. His absence the discipline of the garrison had relittle army was surrounded; he himself long laxed; in foul weather the sentinels left their kept his enemies at bay: at length, weakened by stations to seek shelter, and abandoned the loss of blood, he was stunned by a stone, and walls to the protection of the elements. The made prisoner with, fifty of his companions. herdsman resolved to turn this discovery to acAll were condemned, as the vilest malefactors, count, by carrying it, as the price of forgiveness to be thrown down a high rock into a pit called and favour, to his master Emperamus, who, in the Ceadas. The rest were dashed to pieces the absence of the kings, had the command of by the fall; he alone came to -the ground un- the Spartan army at Eira. Under his guidance harmed; saw the sky above, the naked sides the Spartans scaled the walls of the citadel, and of the precipice that enclosed him, and a cav- before the alarm was given were already withern dark as night at its foot, and wrapped him- in. The besieged, however, were still deterself in his field-cloak to wait for death. But mined to dispute every inch of ground that reon the third day a sound of life caught his ear: mained, and Aristomenes, in spite of his wound, uncovering his face, he perceived that a fox and though he had lost all hope, urged them to had found its way into thecave, through a pas- the conflict. As soon as the returning light ensage, therefore, which he might thread. Mo- abled the assailants to push forward, a fierce tionless he awaited its approach, caught hold and obstinate combat arose in the streets and of its tail, and guided by it as it struggled to open places. Even the women took a share in escape, crept on till he saw a glimp~e of light it; and as the violence of the tempest prevented in the bowels of the rock, enlarged the opening them from mounting on the roofs, to hurl stones with his hands, and the next day was again in and tiles on the enemy below, they armed Eira. themselves and fought among the men. But It would be long to relate all the other ex- the fury of despair was fain to yield to fate: ploits and adventures of the invincible hero: the rain poured down in torrents; the lightning how he cut to pieces a Corinthian army which seemed to flash in the eyes of the Messenians; was marching to join the Spartans; afterward, the thunder sounded like the voice of an angry in time of truce, fell into an ambush of Cretan god in their ears. Still, for three days and bowmen, and was taken, but again burst his nights they maintained the hopeless struggle; bonds, through the pity of a maid, whom he while the Spartans were relieved by fresh rewarded with the hand of his son Gorgus. troops, their little band, fighting continually Thrice Aristomenes offered to Jupiter of Ithone without rest, food, or shelter, dwindled and the extraordinary sacrifice called Hecatompho- flagged from wounds and weakness. At length nia, because it was reserved for the warrior Theoclus, after exhorting Aristomenes to alanwho had slain a hecatomb of foes. But he was don the useless strife with destiny, and to save said to have provoked the anger of the twin the last hopes of Messenia, and warning the Protectors of Sparta by impiously counterfeit- Spartans that their triumph would not be pering their appearance, and disturbing a festival petual, rushed into the thickest of the fight, and which the Spartans were celebrating in their fell amid heaps of slain enemies. Then Arisnonour with bloodshed.* The gods turned tomenes checked the ardour of the foremost their faces away from Messenia. The eleventh among his warriors, bade them. form themselves year of the siege of Eira brought with it a sure into a hollow square, enclosing their wives and sign that the end of the contest was approach- children, and himself advanced towards the ening. " When a goat shall drink the water of the emy, and by his gestures demanded a free pasNeda," so the oracle had spoken, " the destruc- sage. The ~Spartans, fearing to drive him to tion of Messenia is at hand." But in the dia- the last extremity, opened a road through their lect of Messenia, the same word signified a ranks for the fugitives, who, retreating in good goat and a wild fig-tree. One of these trees order, safely gained the borders of Arcadia. overhung the stream, and at length stretched Here they were received with hospitable its boughs down into the water. When Theo- kindness: their generous allies would even clus the seer saw this, he knew that the oracle have shared their own lands with them; but was accomplished, and that the fated term of the thoughts of Aristomenes were bent, not on resistance had arrived, and he warned Aristom- rest and ease, but on a new enterprise: while enes to resign himself to the loss of his coun- the Spartans were securely gathering the fruits try. of their recent victory, he meditated an expeThe will of the gods was accomplished dition to surprise Sparta itself, and thus to take through treachery and female weakness. The hostages for the moderation of the conquerors. herdsman of a Spartan high in rbnk had gone But the plan was betrayed by the faithless Arisover to the enemy with his master's cattle. tocrates, whose repeated treachery was now proved by an intercepted answer, in which the * Polyenus, xi., 31, 3. Suartan king Anaxander thanked him for his 148 HISTORY OF GREECE. ancient and his present services. When the not ever since the return of the Heracleids, beassembly of the Arcadian people heard this, tween Elis and Pisa. The latter state had they stoned the traitor to death, and raised a more than once successfully asserted, not only monument inscribed with a record of his crime its independence, but its claim to the right of and of his punishment. presiding at the sacred games which were celAfter this disappointment fifty of the exiles, ebrated on its territory; first, as we have seen, with a kinsman of Aristomenes at their head, with the aid of Pheidon in the eighth Olympiad, secretly crossed the border, fell upon the Spar- and again in the 34th, when it was governed by tans, who were still plundering Eira, and died, a native prince named Pantaleon. Pantaleon sword in hand, in the land of their fathers. had also led succours to the Messenians in the Thus, in the first year of the twenty-eighth second war; and it is probable that, by so doOlympiad (B.C. 668), ended the second Messe- ing, he determined his enemies, the Eleans, to nian war. As many of the Messenians as re-. abandon the Messenian cause and to ally themmained in the country became Helots, but prob- selves with Sparta. She requited their serviably few freemen submitted to this lot. Those ces by reducing the whole country that separaof Pylus and Methone, seeing no hope of re- ted the Hollow Elis from Messenia, under subtaining their independence after the fall of Eira, jection to them. Pisa was still ruled by her betook themselves to their ships and sailed to native kings, but they were now vassals of Cyllene, the Elean port. Methone was given Elis; and Demophon, son of Pantaleon, was by the Spartans to the Nauplians, whom Argos compelled to soothe the jealousy of the soverhad expelled from their own town: arrived in eign state by the most abject submission. His Elis, the Messenians sent to Aristomenes, and successor, Pyrrhus, excited some of the Tridesired him to lead them to a new country. phylian and other towns to revolt; but the He, however, could not yet abandon the task struggle ended in the complete subjugation of he had chosen for his life- to wage ceaseless all the insurgents. war with Sparta —but he appointed his two The old contest with Tegea, from which sons, Gorgus and Manticlus, to be the founders Sparta had hitherteq reaped only shame and of the intended colony. The question was to loss, was at length terminated in her favour. what land they should steer their course. One Towards the middle of the sixth century before of their leaders proposed that they should seize our era, in the reigns of Ariston and AnaxanZacynthus, and from its ports infest the coasts dridas, an oracle bade the Spartans, if they of their conquerors. Manticlus bade them drop would prevail in the war, bring the bones of the thoughts of revenge and continual war, and Orestes, son of Agamemnon, to Sparta. Ansail 1o the great island of Sardinia, a rich and other mysterious answer directed them to easy conquest. Neither advice prevailed: one search for the relics at Tegea. Some gigantic band, however, under the two sons of Aristom- remains were accordingly dug up there and enes, sought the city of Rhegium, on' the carried away. Tegea had now lost her pallastraits that separate Italy from Sicily. There dium; the arms of her enemy prospered, and they found some of their kinsmen, who had set- she sank into the rank of a dependant ally of tled there at the end of the former war. At a Sparta, distinguished only by the privilege of later period, in the 71st Olympiad, one of their occupying one of the wings in the armies of hei countrymen, named Anaxilaus, raised himself confederate. The rivalry of Argos was not so to the supreme power in Rhegium: with his easily subdued: she still could not brook the aid they made themselves masters of the town loss of Cynuria; the growth of the Spartan of Zancle, on the opposite side of the straits, power rendered this little tract valuable as a which a band of Samian exiles had already barrier against its inroads. But, about the wrested from its rightful owners. They named same time that Tegea yielded, Sparta accomit Messene —it is still called Messina-and flour- plished this conquest by an effort which made ished there till many were induced to leave it for the name of Othryades immortal. He was cela new Messene in their ancient land. ebrated in the songs of the Spartan youth as Many, however, of the exiles remained in the hero who alone, of three hundred Spartans, Greece, waiting for an opportunity of vengeance, survived the battle which they fought with as which came, though long delayed. Aristome- many Argives, to decide the dispute about Cynes himself died in peace, at Rhodes, in the nuria, and, while the two remaining champions house of his son-in-law, Damagetus, who had of Argos hastened home with the tidings of been directed by the Delphic oraclq to ally him- victory, raised a trophy which he inscribed with self to the best of the Greeks. The Rhodians his blood, and then fell on his sword, that he honoured him with a noble monument, and with might share the fate of his comrades. The the sacred rites due to a hero: his posterity fame of Sparta spread so far, that Crcesus, the were long the most illustrious family in the isl- great king of Lydia, when he was directed by and. This tradition, at least, seems less fabu- the Delphic oracle to make the most powerful lous than one which, founded, perhaps, on a po- of the Greeks his friends, sent his ambassadors etical epithet, related that the Spartans had with gifts to court her alliance. And Sparta opened his body and found in it a hairy heart. was not slow to accept the Lydian gold, and The yoke appeared now to be fixed on Mes- willingly entered into a strict league with Crcesenia forever; and henceforward Sparta con- sus; she would, perhaps, even have assisted tinued to rise towards undisputed pre-eminence him with her arms when he was threatened by in Peloponnesus and in all Greece. She re- Cyrus, but his sudden ruin frustrated her inwarded her friends, humbled her rivals, and tentions, and the conflict in which she seemed punished her enemies. Soon after the close on the eve of engaging with PeIsia was put off of the war she stepped in to decide a quarrel to another season. that had subsisted for more than a century, if NATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 149 CHAPTER X. pact. The only exception that seems to have NKA2IONAL INSTITUTIONS AND FORMS OF GOVERN- been admitted to this supposed law of nature was where the division by which two tribes of the same race were separated into distinct THE series of migrations and conquests by communities had either not lasted long enoughwhich tbhe Thessalians, Bceotians, and Dorians to efface the consciousness of their original became masters of the countries which they connexion, or had taken place under circumfinally occupied, was attended by changes of stances which, notwithstanding their political two kinds one affecting the internal condition independence, kept them united as members of of Greece itself, the other the foreignlands in the same kindred. Where this tie subsisted, which the numerous colonies, which received it undoubtedly excluded ordinary incentives to their first impulse from the revolutions of the discord, and restrained wanton sallies of unpromother-country, successively settled. We shall voked hostility; so that though, between two take a review of the colonies in another chap- tribes so linked together, occasional quarrels ter; in the present we will.notice some of the might break out into war, peace was the habitmost important effects produced by the above- ual and regular condition of their mutual intermentioned causes on the state of Greece. This course. Such appears to have been the degree subject will fall under two heads. We shall of union which once subsisted among'the infirst consider some national institutions, which habitants of Attica, and in Megaris and Eueither sprang up in this new period, or assumed bcea; and in the two latter instances the mode a new character in it, and shall then inquire and terms of civil warfare were prescribed by into the political changes which took place ancient custom.'A similar effect to that which within particular states, in the interval be- in these cases was, produced by the feeling of tween the Return of the Heracleids and the affinity, arose in others out of accidental neightime when we shall see Greece first engaged bourhood. Perpetual warfare, pushed to the in a struggle with Persia. last extremity of hostile rage, would in no long We have hitherto made scarcely any mention time have consumed or ruined the little tribes of institutions tending to imbody the Greeks in whose territories occupied only a few adjacent one nation. In the Trojan expedition, indeed, valleys, always open to invasion: the necesas it is described by Homer, we see them uni- sity of mutual forbearance for general safety ted by a common language, a common religion, would naturally suggest the prudence of enterand a common enterprise. The former two ing into friendly associations, without any ultewere permanent bonds of union, but the latter rior views, either of aggrandizement cr of prowas an accidental and transitory one; nor does tection against a* common enemy. Such an the poet indicate any which could supply its association, formed among independent neighplace. The causes which kept the Greeks bouring tribes for the regulation of their mutual asunder, notwithstanding their community of intericourse,'and thus distinguished on the one language and religion, have been already point- hand from confederations for purposes offensive ed out in the natural features of the country and or defensive, and on the other from the con-the equable distribution of strength by which tinued friendly relations subsisting among indethe neighbouring tribes were enabled to balance pendent members of the same race, is the one each other, and to preserve mutual independ- properly described by the Greek term amphicence. We have also alluded to partial associ- tyony. ations formed among neighbouring states, part- This Greek word, which we shall be obliged ly for religious, partly for political purposes. to borrow, has been supposed by some ancient Of these associations in general, and particu- and modern writers to have been derived from larly of one among them, which widened its the name of Amphictyon, the son of Deucalion, original range so as to assume the aspect of a who is said to have founded the most celebrated national confederacy, we shall now speak, prin- of the Amphictyonic associations —that which cipally to explain the causes which prevented is always to be understood under the title of the it from becoming, in reality, What it appeared Amphictyonic Confederacy. There can, howto be. ever, be scarcely any reasonable doubt that this From the earliest times, the divided and un- Amphictyoiis a merely fictitious person, insettled state of Greece afforded abundant occa- vented to account for the institution attributed sions of hostility among neighbouring tribes: to him, the author of which, if it was the work there were always temptations to rapine, dis- of any individual, was probably no better known puted claims, public or private encroachments, than those of the other Amphictyonies, which injuries unredressed, or too violently retaliated. did not happen to become so famous. It Would The transition from the earlier period to that be a coincidence too marvellous to be ascribed new order of things which is represented by to chance, that his name, with the change of a the diffusion of the sons of Hellen, most prob- single letter, should be significant of the instiably tended to multiply these feuds, and the tution itself, which is not only his sole title to consequent alternation of wrongs and revenge.' celebrity, but the whole groundwork and esThis actual relation, in which most communi- sence of his mythical being. The term amphicties were placed to each other, naturally sug- tyony, which has probably been adapted to the gested the notion that enmity and war were the legend, and would be more properly written amnecessary state of mankind, unless where there phictiony, denotes a body referred to a local was some express agreement to restrain or- centre of union, and in itself does not imply any temper it, and that the right of each state to national affinity; and. in fact, the associations overpower its neighbours, and to exercise the bearing this name include several tribes which superiority thus acquired in whatever maer r were but very remotely connected together by it might see fit could only be limited by com- descent. But the local centre of union annears 150 HISTORY OF GREECE. to have been always a religious one-a cor- or council, This last appellation refers to the mon sanctuary, the scene of periodical meet- fact that the affairs of the whole amphictyonic ings for the celebration of a common worship; body were transacted by a congress composed and this, among the Greeks, especially in the of deputies sent by the several states, accordearliest times, implies the belief of a certain de- ing to rules established from time immemorial. gree of kindred, which, as far as we know, was One peculiar feature of this congress Oas, that always confirmed by community of language. its meetings were held at two different places. It seems, therefore, not unreasonable to consid- There were two regularly convened every year: er the amphictyonic associations as founded on one in the spring, at Delphi, the other in the the same principle which united tribes of the autumn, near the little town of Anthela, within same race in peace and amity, though distance, the Pass of Thermopylae, at a temple of Demeor other accidental causes, might exclude some ter. This diversity of the places of meeting which, by blood, were as well entitled to share suggests a great variety of difficult questions as in the union as those which entered into it. to the origin of the league. It is very improbIt is probable that many amphictyonies once able that they were selected together, and it is existed in Greece, all trace of which has been not easy to determine which of them was aplost; and even with regard to those which hap- pointed first. The ancients seem to have conpen to have been rescued from total oblivion, sidered Delphi as the original centre of the our information is, for the most part, extremely union; and this opinion is confirmed by its andefective. One is merely mentioned by Stra- cient sanctity and the early renown of its orabo as having held its meetings at Onchestus in cle; whereas the choice of Thermopylae could Bmeotia, probably in the sanctuary of Poseidon, only have been dictated by its peculiar position, where a periodical festival appears to have been the importance of which was not connected celebrated with chariot; races. No account is with any of the ordinary objects of the league. given of the states which composed it, or of any On the other hand, the name of Pylea, which other particulars. Another, our knowledge of was applied as well to the assembly held at which we owe to the same author, must, if we Delphi as to that of Thermopylae, seems strongmay judge from the names of its members, have ly to indicate the priority of the latter place of been once of considerable importance. Its meeting; nor, if Delphi had been the earlier, is place of congress was also a sanctuary of Po- it easy to imagine why the other should ever seidon, long a revered and celebrated asylum, have been chosen. The readiest mode of recin the island of Calaurea. It included seven onciling these conflicting arguments may be to states, three towns of Argolis, Epidaurus, Her- suppose that there were originally two distinct mione, and Nauplia, Prasiae in Laconia, the confederations; one, perhaps, formed of inland, island of YEgina, Athens, and the Bceotian Or- the other of maritime tribes; and that, when chomenus. It seems clear that this confedera- these were united by the growing influence of cy must have been founded for a political rather Delphi, the ancient places of meeting were rethain' for a religious purpose, since Trcezen, tained as a necessary concession to the dignity though so near to the place of congress, and of each sanctuary. This conjecture seems to though Poseidon was its tutelary god, was not be confirmed by the legends which couple the a party to it. Its antiquity is attested by the name of Acrisius, king of Argos, with that of names of its members; for Orchomenus must Amphictyon, in the history of the council. He have entered into it while still independent and is said to have founded the assembly at Delphi powerful; that is, before the AEolian conquest in emulation of that which Amphictyon had of Bceotia. But the motives which gave rise to founded at Thermopylae, and then to have comthis association, among states so remote from bined the two, and to have regulated them by one another, and apparently so little connected new laws.* This account might be substanby interest, can only be matter for very uncer- tially correct, though the agency of Acrisius tain conjecture. It has been suspected* that should have been referred to the wrong point, the weaker states —those of Peloponnesus- as we are elsewhere informed that he founded sought the protection of the more powerful the temple at Anthela, which would indicate against some formidable neighbout; but we that he was more immediately connected witl. do not venture so to fill up a blank in history. the congress of Thermopylae. That he was All that is certain is, that after the political re- the first who brought the confederacy into orlations out of which the confederacy arose had der, fixed the number of its members, the disbeen entirely altered, and it had sunk into utter tribution of the votes in the council, and the nainsignificance, Argos stepped into the place of ture of the causes which were to be subject to Nauplia, and Sparta into that of Prasine, for the its jurisdiction, is likewise mentioned by Strabo performance of the religious ceremonies, which as a received opinion. But the main question, became the sole object of the league. how Argos acquired such influence, or what These are not the only instances by which power Acrisius more properly represents, is we are led to conclude that amphictyonic asso- left in almost total obscurity: we can only susciations were anciently much more numerous pect that he may, in this legend, have belonged than appears from the scanty notices left of' rather to the northern than to the southern them in history. There seems to have been Achaeans. one in Argolis distinct from that of Calaurea;t The more important part of the subject is and another, of which Delos was the centre,'at- that which relates to the constitution, functions, tained to considerable celebrity. But of all and authority of the council. It is said to have such institutions, the most celebrated and im- been originally composed of deputies sent by portant was the one known, without any other twelve tribes or nations, each of which might in-'ocal distinction, as the Amphictyonic League elude several independent states. The confeder. * By MUller, XEginetica, s. 8. t Paus., iv., 5. * Schol. Eur., Orest., 1087 NATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 151 ate tribes are variously enumerated by different f as a Hellenic confeaeracy, and this may have authors. A comparison of their lists enables us been the cause from which the Achaeans of to ascertain the greater part of the names, and Phthia were not designated, in the proceedings to form a probable conjecture as to the rest; of the council, by the name of Hellenes, which but it also leads us to conclude that some chan- is peculiarly applied to them in the Homeric ges took place at a remote period in the consti- poems; but there seems to be no reason for retution of the council, as to which tradition is si-'ferring a title which is sometimes given to the lent. The most authentic list of the Amphic- council in later times, of a general congress of tyoriic tribes contains the following names: the Hellenes, to the period when the Hellenic Thessalians, Bceotians, Dorians, Ionians, Per- name was confined to a few northern states, the rhebians, Magnetes, Locrians, CEtaeans, or Eni- original members of the confederacy. anians, Phthiots, or Achaeans of Phthia, Ma- After the Return of the Heracleids, the numlians or Melians,* and Phocians. The orator ber of the Amphictyonic tribes-then, perhaps, AEXschines, who furnishes this list, shows, by already hallowed by time-continued the same; mentioning the number twelve, that one name but the geographical compass of the league was is wanting. The other lists supply two names increased by all that part of Peloponnesus which to fill up the vacant place, the Dolopes and the was occupied by the new Dorian states. And Delphians. It seems not improbable that the though a considerable part of Greece was still former were finally supplanted by the Delphians, not included in it-for Arcadia, Elis, Achaia, who appear to have been a distinct race from JEtolia, and Acarnania never belonged to itthe Phocians. t the power of the league, if measured by the exThe mere inspection of this list is sufficient tent of its territory, or unanimously exacted, to prove at once the high antiquity of the insti- would have been sufficient to command the tution and the imperfection of our knowledge obedience of the other states; and it might, with regard to its early history. It is clear that therefore, have been looked upon as a national the Dorians must have become members of the confederation. The causes which prevented it Amphictyonic body before the conquest, which from really acquiring this character will be evidivided them into several states, each incom- dent when we consider the mode in which the parably more powerful than most of; the petty council was constituted, and the nature of its northern tribes, which-possessed an equal num- ordinary functions. The constitution of the her of votes in the council. It may, however, council rested on the supposition-once, perbe doubted whether they were among the ori- haps, not very inconsistent with the fact-of a ginal members, and did not rather take the place perfect equality among the tribes represented of one of the tribes which they dislodged from by it. Each tribe, however feeble, had two their seats in the neighbourhood of Delphi, per- votes in the deliberation of the congress; none, haps the Dryopes. On the other hand, the Thes- however powerful, had more. The order in salians were probably not received into the which the right of sending representatives toleague before they made their appearance in the council was exercised by the various states Thes'saly, which is commonly believed-to have included in one Amphictyonic tribe was, pertaken place only twenty years before the Do- haps, regulated by private agreement; but, unrian invasion of Peloponnesus. It is, therefore, less one state usurped the whole right of its highly probable that they were admitted in the tribe, it is manifest that a petty tribe, which room of some other tribe which had lost its in- formed but one community, had greatly the addependence through the convulsions of this vantage over Sparta or Argos, which could only eventful period; and this may have been one be represented in their turn, the more rarely in of those which inhabited Boeotia -before the proportion to the-magnitude of the tribe to which.Eolians from Arne gave their name to the they belonged. This right wouldhave been of country-the Minyans of Orchomenus, or the still less value if it had been shared among all Cadmeans of Thebes. But so scanty is our in- the colonies of an Amphictyonic tribe; and this formation, that it has been conjectured,f per- was the case with the Ionians: but the lEolian haps with equal probability, that they did not and Dorian colonies seem not to have claimed gain entrance into the league before the sixth the same privilege. With regard to other decentury B.C., when they took an active part in tails less affecting the general character of the a war, which will be hereafter mentioned, be- institution, it will be sufficient here to observe tween the Amphictyons and the town of Crissa. that the council was composed of two classes Hence it would appear that, before the Return of representatives called pylagores and hieromof the Heracleids, the Amphictyonic body cornm- nemons, whose functions are not accurately dis prehended most of the Greek states north of tinguished. It seems, however, that the for the Isthmus; but, probably, notwithstanding the mer was the body.intrusted with the power of mention of Acrisius, none of those within it. It voting, while the office of the latter consisted may already, at that time, have been considered in preparing and directing their deliberations, and carrying their decrees into effect. At * It is not certain whether these are names of two different races, or variations of the name of one tribe *nor, in Athens three pylagores were annually elected; the former case, which is the right name. From Diodor., one hieromnemon was appointed by lot: we do xviii., 11, it would seem that the Melians included the Ma- not know the practice of other states. Besides lians, who were seated more to the north of the Malian the council, which held its sessions either in Gulf. the council, which held its sessions either in t They disclaimed the name of Phocians (Paus., iv., 34, the temple or in some adjacent building, there 11), and appear, before the Peloponnesian war, distinct was an Amphictyonic assembly,* which met from them in their interests and political relations, con- in the open nected by the latter with Sparta as the Phocians with Athens (Thuc., 1, 112). Hence, and from other indica- sons residing in the place where the congress tions, it has been inferred that the Dorians formed the ruling class at Delphi: a suspicion which is confirmed by the *'KKXGTaL' riY'A4ture6vwYv, described by Elschine, local dialect., By Wachsmuth, i., 119. Ctes., 0 124. 152 HISTORY OF GREECE. was held, and of the numerous strangers who in these it might safely reckon on general co. were drawn to it by curiosity, business, or de- operation from all the Greeks. Thus it could votion. It would seem, however, that this as- act with dignity and energy in a case where a sembly was only called together in extraordi- procession, passing through the territory of Menary cases, as when its aid was required for gara towards Delphi, was insulted by some Mecarrying the measures decreed into execution, garians, and could not obtain redress from the or when it was thought necessary to appoint an government, the Amphictyonic tribunal punishextraordinaryconventioninthe intervalbetween ed the offenders with death or banishment.* A the two regular times of meeting. much more celebrated and important instance It is evident that a Constitution such as we of a similar intervention was that which gave have described could not have been suffered to occasion to the war above alluded to, which is last if it had been supposed that any important commonly called the Crissaean, or the first sacred political interests depended on the decision of war. Crissa appears to- be the same town the council. But, in fact, it was not common- which is sometimes named Cirrha. Situate ly viewed as a national congress for such pur- on that part of the Corinthian Gulf which was poses; its ordinary functions were chiefly, if called from it the Gulf of Crissa, it commanded not altogether, connected with religion, and it a harbour, much frequented by pilgrims from the was only by' accident that it was ever made west, who came to Delphi by sea, and was also subservient to political ends. The original ob- mistress of a fruitful tract called the Cirrhaean jects, or, at least, the essential character of the plain. It is possible that there may have been institution, seem to be faithfully expressed in real ground for the charge which was brought the terms of the oath, preserved by lEschines, against the Crissmans of extortion and violence which bound the members of the league to re- used towards the strangers who landed at their frain from utterly destroying any Amphictyonic port or passed through their territory; one an-'city,, and from cutting off its supply of water, cient author, who, however, wrote nearly three even in war, and to defend the sanctuary and centuries later,t assigned as the immediate octhe treasures of the Delphic god from sacrilege. casion of the war an outrage committed on some In this ancient and half-symbolical form we female pilgrims as they were returning from the perceive two main functions assigned to the oracle. It is, however, at least equally probacouncil: to guard the temple, and to restrain ble that their neighbours of Delphi had long the violence of hostility among Amphictyonic cast a jealous and a wishful eye on the customs states. There is no intimation of any confed- by which Crissa was enriched, and considered eracy against foreign enemies, except for the all that was there exacted from the pilgrims as protection of the temple; nor of any right of taken from the Delphic god, who might otherinterposing between members of the league, wise have received it as an offering. A comunless where one threatens the existence of plaint, however founded, was in the end preanother. It is true that this right, though ex- ferred against Crissa before the Amphictyons, pressly'limited to certain extreme cases, might who decreed a war against the refractory city. have afforded a pretext for very extensive in- They called in the aid of the Thessalians, who terference if there had been any power capable sent a body of forces. under Eurylochus; and of using it; but so far was the obligation of the their cause was also actively espoused by Cleoath from being strained beyond its natural im- isthenes, tyrant of Sicyon, and, according to the port, that no period is known when it was en- Athenian tradition, Solon assisted them with forced even in its simplest sense. The object important advice. They consulted the offended of mitigating the cruelty of warfare among the god, who enjoined, as the condition of success Amphictyonic tribes was either never attained in the war, that they should cause the sea to or speedily forgotten. In the historical period beat upon his domain. In compliance with this the remembrance of the oath seems never to oracle, at the suggestion of Solon, they vowed have withheld any of the confederates from in- to dedicate the Crissaeans and their territory to flicting the worst evils of war upon their breth- the god by enslaving them, and making their ren, much less could it introduce a more hu- land a waste forever. If the prospect of such mane spirit into the nation. signal vengeance animated the assailants, the.A review of the history of the council shows besieged were no doubt goaded to a more obthat it was almost powerless for good, except, stinate defence by the threat of extermination. perhaps, as a passive instrument, and that it The war is said to have lasted ten years, and was only active for purposes which were either at length to have been brought to a close by a unimportant or pernicious. In the great na- stratagem, which we could wish not to have tional struggles it lent no strength to the cornm- found imputed to Solon. He is reported to mon cause, but it now and then threw a shade have poisoned the waters of the Pleistus, from of sanctity over plans of ambition or revenge. which the city was supplied, and thus to have It sometimes assumed a jurisdiction, uncertain reduced the garrison to a state in which they in its limits, over its members; but it seldom were easily overpowered. When the town had had the power of' executing its sentences, and fallen, the vow of the conquerors was literally commonly committed them to the party most fulfilled. Crissa was razed to the ground, its interested in exacting the penalty. Thus it harbour choked up,.its fruitful plain turned ipto punished the Dolopes of Scyrus for piracy, by a wilderness. This triumph wps coinmemorathe hands of the Athenians, whocoveted their ted by the institution of gymnnatic games, callisland.* But its most legitimate sphere of ac- ed the Pythian, in the room of a more ancient tion lay in cases where the honour and safety and simple festival. The Amphictyons, who of the Delphic sanctuary were concerned; and * Plut., Qu. Gr., 59. * Plut., Cim., 8. t Callisthenes. Athen., xiii., p. 560. NATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 153 ceebrated the new games with the spoils of them and the Dorians, their companions in Crissa,* were appointed perpetual presidents. arms, was consecrated to Jupiter, who had an As the Delphic oracle was the object to ancient temple and oracle at Olympia; and that, which the principal duties of the Amphictyons in the time of Lycurgus, their king, Iphitus, in related, it might have been imagined to have concert with the Spartan lawgiver, and with been under their control, and thus to have af- the sanction of the Delphic oracle, as a remedy forded them an engine by which they might, at for the disorders of Greece, revived the festileast secretly, exert a very powerful influence val, and ordained a periodical suspension of over the affairs of Greece. But, though this hostilities throughout the nation, to enable, engine was not unfrequently wielded for politi- Greeks from every land to attend it without cal purposes, it appears not to have been under hinderance or danger. Though, however, the the management of the council, but of the lead- legends fabricated or adopted by the Eleans to ing citizens of Delphi, who had opportunity of magnify the antiquity and glory of the games constant and more efficacious access to the deserve little attention, there can be no doubt persons employed in revealing the supposed that, from very early times, Olympia had been will of the god. In early times the oracle was a' site hallowed by religion; and it is highly often consulted, not merely for the sake of probable that festivals of a nature similar to learning the unknown future, but for advice and that which afterward became permanent had direction, which, as it was implicitly followed, been occasionally celebrated in the sanctuary really determined the destiny of those who re- of Jupiter. Without supposing some such traceived it. The power conferred by such an in- ditional title to veneration attached to the strument was unbounded, and it appears, on ground, it would be difficult to explain why it the whole, not to have been ill applied; but the was adopted bythe Eleans for the purpose to honour of its beneficial effects must be ascribed which it was finally dedicated. For Olympia, almost entirely to the wisdom and patriotism not so much a town as a precinct occupied by of the ruling Delphians, or of the foreigners a great number of sacred and public buildings, who concerted with them the use of the sacred originally lay in the territory of' Pisa, which, machinery. But the authority of the oracle it- for two centuries after the beginning of the self was gradually weakened, partly by the Olympiads, was never completely subject to progress of new opinions, and partly by the Elis, and occasionally appeared as her rival, abuse which was too frequently made of it. and excluded her from all share in the presiThe organ of the prophetic god was a woman, dency of the games. The celebration of the of an age more open to bribery than to any ancient festival had probably been long interother kind of seduction;t and, even before the rupted by the troubles consequent on the DoriPersian wars, several instances occurred in an invasion, and its renewal may have been which she had notoriously sold her answers. suggested as well by political as by religious The credulity of individuals might, notwith- motives. Pestilence is mentioned as one of the standing, be little shaken; but a few such dis- evils which it was designed to relieve, by proclosures would be sufficient to deprive the ora- pitiating the displeasure of the gods, and the cle of the greater part of its political influence. sacred truce might seem a happy expedient for The character of a national institution, which stilling the fierce passions of hostile tribes. the Amphictyonic council affected, but never This, however, is little more thah conjecture; really acquired, more truly belonged to the pub- nor do we venture to speak with much greater lic festivals, which, though celebrated within confidence of the authors of the measure. Iphicertain districts, were not peculiar to any tribe, tus, Lycurgus, and Cleosthenes of Pisa* are rep-'but were open and common to all who could resented as the persons who were most active in prove their Hellenic blood. The. most impor- bringing it about; and the names of I.phitus and tant of these festivals was that which was sol- Lycurgus were inscribed on a disk, which was emnized every fifth year on the banks of the Al- preserved as a kind of charter, and as evidence pheus, in the territory of Elis; it lasted four of their solemn compact.t But all that can safedays, and, from Olympia, the scene of its cele- ly be inferred from this tradition, which has beed bration, derived the name of the Olympic con- embellished with a variety of legends, seems to test or games, and the period itself' which in- be, that Sparta concurred with the two states tdrvened between its returns was called an most interested in the plan, and mainlycontribOlympiad. The origin of this institution is in- uted to procure. the consent of the other Pelovolved in some obscurity, partly by the lapse of ponnesians. time, and partly by the ambition of the Eleans It is probable that the northern Greeks were to exaggerate its antiquity and sanctity. As not, at first, either consulted or expected to all its lustre was reflected on them, its minis- take any share in the festival; and that, though ters and directors, they endeavoured to estab- never expressly confined to certain tribes, in, lish the belief that it had been founded, and the manner of an Amphictyonic congress, it from tinme to time renewed, by gods and heroes, gradually enlarged the sphere of its fame and long before the Trojan war; that after the attraction till it came to embrace the whole na-.2Etolians had effected a settlement in Elis, tion. The sacred truce$ was proclaimed by their whole territory, by a compact between officers sent round by the Eleans:~ it put a * Hence, at the'first celebration, valuable prizes were stop to warfare from the time of the proclaman given (it was an ay(iv Xpiyarirns), for which chaplets tion, for a period sufficient to enable strangers were substituted in the following Pythiads (it became ars,- to return home in safety. During this period,avirvls). the territory of Elis itself was, ofcpurse, regard t The Pythias had once been a maiden, chosen in the flower of youth;, but this practice having been attended..... with inconvenient consequences, women were appointed * Phlegon, p. 139, who mentions Peisus as the first foundwho had passed the age of fifty, but still wore the dress of er. of the games. t Plut., Lye., A. Paus., v., 20, 1. virgins. Diodor., xvi., 26 $ s~Xtptpia.' c~roZdoropot. Voj,. I.-LT 154 HISTORY OF GREECE. ed as inviolable, and no armed force could trav- cessful competitors for the like prize. No acerse it without incurring the penalty of sacri- cidents of birth or station could affect the lege. But the Eleans, with a bold contempt of inherent dignity of contests in which the historical evidence, which seems to have de- most renowned of the heroes had excelled and ceived many writers, ancient and modern, pre- delighted. In one respect, those of the later tended that, by the original contract, their land period were more honourable than those of the and persons had been made forever sacred, and heroic ages. In the games described by Homer entitled to enjoy perpetual peace. Unless we valuable prizes were proposed, and this prac-could suppose that such a privilege might have tice was once universal; but after the seventh existed, without imposing a corresponding obli- Olympiad, a simple garland, of leaves of the gation, we have the strongest proof that it was wild olive, was substituted at Olympia as the never recognised by the other Greeks; for they only meed of victory. The mainspring of emuthemselves did not abstain from the use of arms, lation was undoubtedly the celebrity of the festhough their situation and political circum- tival, and the presence of so vast a multitude stances tended to keep them generally exempt of spectators, who were soon to spread the from war.* After the fiftieth Olympiad, Elis fame of the successful athletes to the extremity had the whole regulation of the festival, and ap- of the Grecian world. But other honours and pointed the judges of the contest, who were in- advantages were annexed to this triumph by structed and exercised in the duties of their the pride or policy of particular states. Even office, for ten months before the'time of their the most powerful city regarded an Olympic presidency, by Elean magistrates.t But, origi- victory, gained by one of its citizens, as reflectnally, it is probable that Pisa had an equal share ing additional lustre on its name; and the vicin the administration of the festival and the tor was sometimes solicited to let himself be election of the presiding officers; and this seems proclaimed as the citizen of a town not his own: to have been the main cause of those feuds so Astylus of Croton, who had won the foot-race which were carried on for several centuries be- in three successive Olympiads, was induced by tween the two states, and ended only with Hiero, the Syracusan tyrant, to transfer the the destruction of Pisa. The presiding people honour of the last two victories to Syracuse; possessed a jurisdiction in matters connected an affront for which his countrymen revenged with the festival, by virtue of which it might themselves by taking down his statue, and turn, impose penalties on individuals and on states, ing his house into a prison.* At Athens, by a and might exclude all who resisted its decrees. law of Solon, a citizen who had gained an But this authority might be considered as a Olympic prize was rewarded with five hundred trust held by on-e tribe for the benefit of the drachmas, and with the right to a place at the whole nation, to which the festival really be- table of the magistrates in the prytaneum: at longed. It was very early frequented by spec- Sparta he was honoured with a conspicuous tators, not only from all parts of Greece itself, post on the field of battle. The Altis, as the but from the Greek colonies in Europe, Africa, ground consecrated to the games was called at and Asia; and this assemblage was not brought Olympia, was adorned with numberless statues together by the mere fortuitous impulse of pri- of the victors, erected, with the permission of vate interest or curiosity, but was, in part, com- the Eleans, by themselves or their families, or posed of deputations which were sent by most at the expense of their fellow-citizens. It was cities as to a religious solemnity, and were con- also usual to celebrate the joyful event, both at ~sidered as guests of the Olympian god. Olympia and at the victor's home, by a triumphal The immediate object of the meeting was the procession, in which his praises were sung, and exhibition of various trials of strength and skill, were commonly associated with the glory of which, from time to time, were multiplied so as his ancestors and his country. The most emiro include almost every mode of displaying bodi- nent poets willingly lent their aid on such ocy activity. They included races on foot and casions, especially.to the rich and great. And with horses and chariots; contests in leaping, thus it happened that sports, not essentially throwing, wrestling, and boxing; and some in different from those of our village greens, gave which several of these exercises were com- birth to master-pieces of sculpture, and called bined, but no combats with any kind of weapon. forth the sublimest strains of the lyric muse. The equestrian contests, particularly that of the The celebrity of the Olympic games gave ocfour-horsed chariots, were, by their nature, con- casion to several other festivals of a similar nafined to the wealthy; and princes and nobles, ture. Of the Pythian, which were celebrated vied with each other in such demonstrations of in every third Olympic year, we have already their opulence. But the greater part were open spoken. The Nemean and Isthmian were celeto the poorest Greek, and were not, on that ac brated each twice in every Olympiad, at differcount, the lower in public estimation. One of ent seasons of the year: the former in the plain the most celebrated pugilists, Glaucus of Carys- of Nemea, in Argolis, under the presidency of tus, had first given proof of his uncommon Argos; the latter on the Corinthian isthmus, strength while he was following the plough;$ under the presidency of Corinth. These, like but the most illustrious family in Rhodes, those the Pythian and Olympic games, claimed a very Diagorids, who boasted of the blood of Aristom- high antiquity, though the form in which they enes, gloried in having produced many suc- were finally established was of late institution; and it is highly probable that they were really *. Phlegon, p. 145, relates that the Eleans, when about to suggested by the tradition of ancient festivals, aid the Spartansc in redi.cing Helos, were enjoined by the which had served to cement an Amphictyonic Delphic oracle to abstain from war. Strabo, viii., p. 358, w racy. These four contests were chiefly represents the sanctity of the Elean territory as having been confederacy. These four contests were chiefly first violated by Pheidon, after which, therefore, from the distinguished from. the numerous games cele8th Olympiad, the Eleans no longer refrained from the use of arms t Paus., vi., 24, 3. t lb. vi 10, I. Pas., vi., 13, 1 NATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 155 brated in other parts of Greece, which never doubtful; but that literary works were not unrose to the dignity of national festivals, by the frequently thus published, is unquestionable, nature of the prize, which, in the former, was a Such effects were independent of the declared garland, in the latter, something of greater in- object of the festival, and must have resulted trinsic value, but which, on that account, seems from any occasion which drew Greeks from all to have had less power of kindling emulation. parts of the world together in periodical meetTo estimate the importance of the Olympic ings. The impulse given to poetry and statua. festival, which may be taken as the representa- ry by the events of the contest was more tive of all the rest, we must consider it in more closely connected with the nature of the insti. than one point of view. Its value must depend, tution, though still only an accidental conse. partly on the degree in which it answered the quence, and one which did not depend on its purpose of a bond of national union, and partly particular form. The most material question, on the share it had in forming the national char- with a view to the effects which it produced acter. Viewed in the former light, it appears on the national character, is whether the arto have possessed so little efficacy that it can dent emulation excited by the honours of an scarcely be looked upon as anything more than Olympic victory was wisely directed. It must an opportunity, which, for want of a disposition be owned that the merit of such exertions as to use it, was destined to lie forever barren. those which earned the prize at Olympia was The short periodical interruption of hostilities greatly overrated in the popular opinion; and hardly lessened the effusion of blood, and did that no religious sanction, no charms of art, not at all allay the animosity of warring tribes. can ever really ennoble a mere display of man's The contrast, indeed, between Greeks and for- animal powers. Some philosophical Greeks, eigners was placed in a stronger light by a scene however, not only refused their respect to the in which the spectator saw himself surrounded exhibitions which the vulgar admired, but conwith objects which recalled, more especially to demned them as pernicious. It was observed the mind of those who came froin the more dis- that the training which enabled the competitors tant regions, the most peculiar features of the at the games to perform their extraordinary religion, the arts, and manners of his country- feats tended to unfit them for the common dumen. There was, perhaps, no other occasion ties of a citizen.* This remark was perhaps on which the Greek was so forcibly impressed more particularlyj applicable to the preparation with the consciousness of the distinctions which for the pugilistic contests, and the pancratium, separated him from the barbarians; none, there- in which boxing and wrestling were combined; fore, which so much tended to strengthen the and it was probably on this account, more than feelings which bound him to his race. All on any other, that Sparta forbade her citizens foreigners were excluded from competition at to engage in either. For, though one or two Olympia, and the kings of Macedonia were only instances of savage ferocity are recorded,t and admitted after strict proof of their Hellenic ori- others may have occurred in these conflicts, gin: it is even probable that the final preva- this cannot have been the motive which caused lence of the name of Hellen was mainly deter- them to be prohibited at Sparta, where battles mined by the use made of it there. But, on the of a like nature were among the habitual exerother hand, there was no place where the Greek cises of the young. On the other hand, there vas less able to bury his local and domestic were intelligent and thoughtful observers among patriotism in a more comprehensive sentiment. the Greeks who believed that the gymnastic The business of the festival itself ministered games were intimately connected with the constant fuel to the selfish and malignant pas- whole system of national education;t and that, sions of rival cities, each of which felt its hon- though the training of the competitors might our concerned in the success of the individual be' useless, or even mischievous, in other recompetitors. Among the indications of this spects, still the honours conferred on them spirit of emulation, which so easily degenerated were well applied, as they encouraged the cul among the Greeks into envy and jealousy, may tivation of the manly exercises to which the be numbered the separate treasuries, built at Greek youth devoted the greatest part of his Olympia, as at.Delphi, by several states, for the time. And it cannot be denied that these ex reception of their offerings, which were often ercises were not only an important part of edumonuments of their mutual enmity. At every cation, where every citizen was a soldier, but step there was as much to recall the political that they contributed to the healthiness, freshdisunion of the Greeks to their remembrance as ness, and vigour of the Greek intellect itself. their national affinity. But, instead of holding Oat the alacrity with The remote and contingent effects produced which they were prosecuted in the private by the institution were probably much' more schools was a result of the honours bestowed important than any which were contemplated on the victorious masters of the gymnastic art by its founders. The scene of the Olympic at the public games, we should be inclined to festival was, during the holy season, a mart of consider the former as the cause, the latter as busy commerce, where productions, not only of a natural, perhaps inevitable, but not very demanual, but of intellectual labour, were exhibit- sirable effect; which, however, may have reed and exchanged. In this respect it served acted on its cause, and have strengthened the many of the same purposes which in modern attachment of the Greeks to that part of their times are, more, effectually indeed, answered ancient usages out of Which it arose. by the press, in the communication of thoughts, Viewed merely as a spectacle designed for inventions, and discoveries, and the more equa- public amusement, and indicating the taste of ble diffusion of knowledge. The story that the people, the Olympic games might justly Herodotus read his history at Olympia has been * Aristot., Pol., vii., 14, 8. Athen., x., p. 413. disputed on grounds which certainly render it t Paus., viii., 40. Lucian, Anacharsis. 156 HISTORY OF GREECE. claim to be ranked far above all similar exhi- general state of things was such, that the influbitions of other nations. It could only be for ence of the royal houses was sure to be diminthe sake of a contrast, by which their general ished, that of the nobles increased, by every purity, innocence, and humanity would be revolution; and in the period just mentioned placed in the strongest light, that they could almost every part of Greece underwent some be compared with the bloody sports of a Roman violent changes. The enterprises of the heroic or a Spanish amphitheatre. And the tourna- age, as we see from the example of the Trojan ments of our chivalrous ancestors, examined war itself, often led to the extinction or expulby their side, would appear little better than sion of a royal family, or of its principal membarbarous shows, widely removed from the bers; and no principle appears to have been simplicity of nature, and yet immeasurably in- generally recogwised which rendered it necesferior to the Greek spectacle.in the genuine sary in such cases to fill a vacant throne or to refinement of art, if this comparison did not establish a new dynasty, while every such caremind us of the law by which women were lamity inevitably weakened the authority of the forbidden, under pain of death, to be seen at kings, and made them more dependant on the Olympia during the games,* and did not thus nobles, who, as an order, were not affected by present the m,ost unfavourable aspect in which any disasters of individuals. But the great conthey can be viewed. vulsions which attended the Thessalian, BceoThe institutions thus described, though, un- tian, and Dorian migrations contributed still der other circumstances, any one of them might more effectually to the same end. In most perhaps have become an instrument for uniting parts of Greece they destroyed or dislodged the the Greeks-those, at least, who were seated line of the ancient kings, who, when they were between the _LEgean and the Adriatic-in a able to seek new seats, left behind them the confederacy strong enough to prevent internal treasures and the strongholds which formed wars, yet so tempered as not to encroach on the main supports of their power; and though their domestic liberty, were so far from effect- the conquerors were generally accustomed to a ing this object that they do not seem even to kingly government, it must commonly have lost have suggested. the idea of it. The mutual something of its vigour when transplanted to a jealousy which stifled this natural thought was new country, where it was subject to new convery early heightened by the great diversity of ditions, and where the prince was constantly the forms of government which rose up in the reminded, by new dangers, of the obligations several Greek states. The same cause, in- which he owed to his companions in arms. deed, at a later period, mainly contributed to Yet even this must be considered rather as the the formation of alliances, by which parts of the occasion which led to the abolition of the heroicG nation were intimately united together under monarchy than as the cause; that, undoubtedly, one head. But these partial combinations, as lay much deeper, and is to be sought in the they were perpetually widening the breach out character of the people-in that same energy of' which they arose, only served to render a and versatility which prevented it from ever general union more hopeless, ahd war the habit- stiffening, even in its infancy, in the mould of ual state of Greece. A minute account of all Oriental institutions, and from stopping short, the forms of government adopted in the Greek in any career which it had once opened, before cities, both of the mother-country and the colo- it had passed through every stage. nies, would be. inconsistent with our plan and'-It seems to have been seldom, if ever, that limits; but the present seemp a fit place for a royalty was abolished by a sudden and violent description of the general outlines under which revolution; the title often long survived the these forms, notwithstanding the infinite varie- substance, and this was extinguished only by ty of their particular features, may be classed; slow successive steps. These consisted in diand this we shall illustrate both by occasional viding it among several persons, in destroying examples and by a sketch of the internal histo- its inheritable quality, and making it elective, ry of some of the states next in importance to first in one family, then in more; first for life, Sparta and Athens, down to the Persian wars. then for a certain term; in separating its func-.:.We have already seen that the Constitution, tions, and distributing them into several hands. which, so far as we can'collect from Homer, In the course of these changes it became more was universally prevalent in the heroic states, and more responsible to the nobles, and frewas a monarchy, limited both by ancient cus- quently, at a very early stage, the name itself.tom and by a body of powerful chiefs, who were was exchanged for one simply equivalent to rueverywhere raised much higher above the level ler or chief magistrate.* The form of governof the people than they were below that of the ment which thus ensued might, with equal prokings. It was, in fact, to use a term which we priety, be termed either aristocracy or oligar-. shall hereafter more exactly explain, an aris- chy; but, in the use of the terms to which these tocracy with a hereditary prince at its head. correspond, the Greek political writers made a Many,of the learned men who hold that the distinction, which may at first sight appear Odyssey belongs to a later period than the Iliad, more arbitrary than it really is. They taught think that it represents the monarchical power -not a very recondite truth-that the three, as on the decline, and already sunk below the forms of government, that of one, that of a few, position in which it appears in the earlier poem. and that of the many, are all alike right and Without relying much on-this opinion, we may good, so long as they are rightly administered, observe, that in the first two or three centuries with a view, that is, to the welfare of the state, following the Trojan war, causes were at work and not to the interest of an individual or of a which tended to reduce the power and to abol- particular class. But, when any of the three ish the title of royalty throughout Greece. The loses sight of its legitimate object, it degener* Paus., v., 6, 7. Compare MElian, V, x,,, 1. * Apxv, Iipravs~ (connected with 7ropi0s). FORMS OF GOVERNMENT. 157 ates into a vicious species, which requires to internal relations of the state tnan an extensive be marked by a peculiar name. Thus a mon- transfer of property, and the introduction of a archy, in which selfish aims predominate, be- new body of nobles, and, perhaps, a new royal comes a tyranny. The government of a few, dynasty: the nature of the government might conducted on like principles, is properly called continue the same, and might be liable to no an oligarchy. But, to constitute anraristocracy, other changes than it would otherwise have it is not sufficient that the ruling few should be passed through. But where a rigid separation animated by a desire to promote the public was made between the new and the old inhabigood: they must also be distinguished by a cer- tants, so that the former only were citizens, or, tain character; for aristocracy signifies the rule in the highest sense, freemen, the latter sub. of the best men. If, however, this epithet is jects or slaves, there the Constitution assumed referred to an absolute ideal standard of excel- an ambiguous-aspect: it might appear from one lence, it is manifest that an aristocratical gpv- point of view an oligarchy, while from another ernment is a mere abstract notion, which has it might be considered as a monarchy, an arisnothing in history or in nature to correspond to tocracy, or a democracy. The freemen were it. But if we content ourselves with taking equally raised above their inferiors, but they the same terms in a relative sense, we shall, might, or might not, be all on a level with one perhaps, be able to assign a definite, intelligible another: they might form an aristocracy, or an value to them, and to fix, with sufficient precis- oligarchy within an oligarchy; and, indeed, this ion, the place which belongs to aristocracy in was the natural tendency of things in a state the order of the Greek constitutions, and the where one class was in continual jealousy and line by which it is separated from oligarchy. apprehension of the other. Aristocracy, in this sense, will be that form of An oligarchy, in the sense which we have asgovernment in which the ruling few are distin- signed to the word, could only exist where there guished from the multitude by illustrious birth, was an. inferior body which felt itself aggrieved hereditary wealth, and personal merit. But the by being excluded from the political rights which kind of merit required in our notion of the an- were reserved to the privileged few. Such a clent Greek aristocracies is not to be tried by feeling of discontent might be roused by the raany ideal, or any very high practical standard. pacity or insolence of the dominant order, as we It included only-such a superiority as common- shall find to have happened at Athens, and as ly resulted from the advantages of fortune en- was the case at Mitylene, where some members joyed by the wealthy nobles: excellence in of the ruling house of the Penthalids went arms, and in all warlike exercises; the posses- about with clubs, committing outrages like those sion of some kinds of knowledge, more especi- which Nero practised for a short. time in the ally of that relating to sacred things, which streets of Rome.* But, without any suchprov. could not be acquired without leisure; together ocation, disaffection might arise from the cause with such a degree of mildness. and justice as which we shall see producing a revolution at was necessary to.prevent the government from Corinth, where the aristocracy was originally degenerating, which could not be very rare in an established on a basis too narrow to be durable; age of simple manners, when wants were few, as Aristotle relates of the Basilids at Erythram and neither the cupidity nor the jealousy of the that, though they exercised their power well, rulers was often provoked'by the governed. they could not retain it, because the people Whenever such a change took place in the would no longer endure that it should be lodged character or the relative position of the ruling in so few hands.t In general, however, it was body, that it no longer commanded the respect a gradual, inevitable change in the relative po. of its subjects, but found itself opposed to them, sition of the higher and lower orders which conand compelled to direct its measures chiefly to verted the aristocracy into an oligarchical fac' the preservation of its power, it ceased to be, tion, and awakened an opposition which usual-: in the Greek sense, an aristocracy; it became ly ended in its overthrow. In the natural proga faction, an oligarchy. ~ But, more distinctly to ress of society, while the ruling body remained understand the- peculiar nature of the Greek stationary, or was even losing a part of'it oligarchies, it is necessary to consider the vari- strength, the commonalty, the class which, ety of circumstances under which they arose. though personally free, was at first excluded By the migrations which took place in the cen- from all share in the government, was constanttury following the Trojan war, most parts of ly growing in numbers and wealth, was becomGreece were occupied by a new race of con- ing more united in itself, more conscious of its querors. Everywhere their first object was to resources, and more disposed to put forward secure a large portion of the conquered land; new claims. One of the steps which led to this but the footing on which they placed themselves result was the increase which took place in the with regard to the ancient inhabitants was not population of the cities when the inhabitants of everywhere the same: it varied according to several scattered hamlets were collected with-the temper of the invaders or of their chiefs, to in the same walls. This continued at all times their relative strength, means, and opportuni- to be considered as one of the most effectual ties. In Sparta, and in most of the Dorian methods of' shaking the power of an oligarchy, states, the invaders shunned all intermixture and the most fatal blow which could be inflicted with the conquered, and deprived them, if not on the interests of the commonalty was to disof personal freedom, of all political rights. But perse it again over the country in open villages. elsewhere, as in Elis, and probably in Boeotia, In the maritime towns the class which'drew its no such distinction appears to-have been made; subsistence from manufactures, trade, and comthe old and the new people gradually melted merce, made still more rapid strides than in the into one. Where this was the case, the con- - quest scarcely produced any other effect on the * Aristot.,.Pol., v., 10. t Pol v 6 -158 HISTORY OF GREECE. inland districts, and, though more despised by the standard adopted. When this was high, the nobles, was less inclined to reverence their and especially if it was fixed in the produce of hereditary privileges than the cultivators of the land, the constitution differed little in effect from lafid. the aristocratical oligarchy, except as it opened But, notwithstanding the growing strength a prospect to those who were excluded of raisof this formidable adversary, an oligarchy, if ing themselves to a higher rank. But when not excessively narrdw, might be able, by pru- the standard was placed within reach of the dence and moderation, long to maintain its middling class, the form of government was ground, unless it was weakened by unforeseen commonly termed a polity, and was considered disasters, or divided in itself, and betrayed by as one of the best tempered and most durable: its own members. The precautions which were modifications of democracy. The first stage; used by the ruling class, when it began to per- however, often afforded the means of an easy ceive its danger, were of various kinds. The transition to the second, or might be reduced most simple and congenial to its spirit were to it by. a change in the value of the standard. those by which it provided against inward de- Another expedient, which seems to have been cay, and preserved the original foundation of tried not unfrequently in early times, for preits power, as much as possible, unimpaired. serving or restoring tranquillity, was to invest This was the object of the laws by which, in an individual with absolute power, under a peseveral oligarchical states, restraints were laid culiar title, which soon became obsolete: that on the alienation of landed property, tending to of cesymnete. At Cuma, indeed, and in other prevent any change in the number of the estates cities, this was the title of an ordinary magisinto which the country had been once parcelled, tracy, probably of that which succeeded the heand to keep the same estates always in the reditary monarchy; but when applied to an exsame families; and these regulations were cornm- traordinary office, it was equivalent to the title monly coupled with others, designed to guard of protector or dictator. It did not indicate any against any material increase or diminution in disposition to revive the heroic royalty, but only the numbers of the privileged body. Of the last the need which was felt, either by the commontwo the former was the most dangerous change, alty of protection against the nobles, or by all since it burdened the state with citizens who parties of a temporary compromise, which inwere unable to maintain their hereditary rank, duced the adverse factions to acquiesce in a and might, therefore, easily become hostile to neutral government. The office was conferred the government. So long as means could be sometimes for life, sometimes only for a limited found to preserve the established proportion be- term, or for the accomplishment of a specific.tween the property and the numbers of the ru- object, as the sage Pittacus was chosen by uni - ling freemen, the oligarchy might be said to be versal consent* at Mitylene, when the city was in the fulness of its natural vigour, which was threatened by a band of exiles, headed by the often farther secured by an exclusive right to poet Alceeus and his brother Antimenidas. Oththe use of a certain kind of armour, and by the er persons, who are said to have been elsewhere possession of numerous strongholds, more espe- armed with like powers, as Phcebias at Samos, cially of a citadel in the capital itself. These, Chaeremon at Apollonia on the Adriatic, though together with the actual exercise of the powers otherwise unknown, are described as men qualwhich were the main object of contention be- ified by their eminent virtue to calm the rage tween the two parties, formed its natural de- of civil discord.t They were surrounded with fences. a body of guards for the maintenance of their;But the utmost which it could effect in this authority; but it is expressly observed that this way, by the highest degree of energy and pru- force was always cautiously limited to the numdence, was to keep itself stationary. It could ber which seemed to be required for the public neither prevent the growth of the commonalty, safety.t As the choice was always grounded nor meet it by a corresponding expansion of its on the extraordinary merit of the individual, own frame..Hence, when the ancient relation which probably, in all cases, suggested the expebetween the two classes had been so far altered dient, so we do not hear that it was ever abused that even the least discerning could not but per- for the foundation of a permanent dynasty; and ceive the necessity of some change of system, it never proved more than a palliative of the other expedients were resorted to for averting evils against which it was directed, though Pitan open struggle. The extreme rigour of the tacus, and perhaps other eesymnetes, was the exclusive principle was relaxed by concessions, author of some laws which were lasting monuwhich were calculated to appease discontent ments of his administration. with the smallest possible sacrifice on the part The fall of an oligarchy was sometimes acof the powerful. It was perhaps sometimes celerated by accidental and inevitable disasters, sufficient for this purpose to impart certain po- as by a protracted war, which at once exhaustlitical rights to the mass of the commonalty, as ed its wealth and reduced its numbers; or by a share in the election of magistrates and the the loss of a battle, in which the flower of its enactment of laws. But it was more frequent- youth might sometimes be cut off at one blow, ly found necessary to widen the oligarchy itself and leave it to the mercy of its subjects; a case by the admission of new families, and to change of which we shall find a signal instance in the the principle of its constitution by substituting history of Argos. But much more frequently wealth for birth as the qualification of its members... gThe form of government in which the Of the commonalty (Altens in Aristot., Pol., iii., 14). bers.. The form of government in which the Welcker (Jahn's Jahrbiicher, xii., p. 16) observes that the possession of a certain amount of property was case of Pittacus is an exception to Wachsmuth's account of the condition of all, or, at least, of the highest the wesymnety (i., p. 280) as proceeding from the condescenpolitical privileges, was sometimes called a ti- sion of the higher orders. political privileges, t Theod. Metochita, quoted by Neumann on Aristot., rnccracy, and its character varied according to Pol., p. 1~3. Aristot., Pol iii., 15. FORMS OF GOVERNMENT. -159 the revolutions which overthrew the oligarchi- might be converted into a tyranny by an illegal cal governments arose out of the imprudence forcible extension of its powers or of its duraor misconduct, or the internal dissensions of tion; and we are informed by Aristotle that the ruling body, or out of the ambition of some this was frequently the case in early times, be-, of its members. The commonalty, even when fore the regal title was abolished, or while the really superior in strength, could not all at once chief magistrate, who succeeded under a differshake off the awe with which it was impressed ent name to the functions of royalty, was still by ages of subjection. It needed a leader to invested with prerogatives dangerous to liberty. animate, unite, and direct it; and it was sel- Such was the basis on which one of the ancient dom that one capable of inspiring it with confi- tyrants, most infamous for his cruelty, Phalaris dence could be found in its own ranks. But if of Agrigentum, established his despotism. the oligarchy had unwisely narrowed its pale, But most of the tyrannies which sprang up. and shut out some who felt themselves the nat- before the Persian wars owed their existence ural equals of those who enjoyed its privileges; to the cause above described, and derived theil or if, while its form remained the same, the peculiar character from the occasion which gave substance of power was engrossed by a few them birth. It was usually by a mixture of vioverbearing families; or if, as i#said to have olence and artifice that the demagogue accormhappened at Chios and Cnidus, it excited the plished his ends. A hackneyed stratagemindignation of the more moderate among its which, however, seems always to have been members by its insolence or injustice; or if successful —was to feign that his life was feuds arose within it, in which the weaker par- threatened, or had even been attacked, by the ty was unable to obtain redress for its wrongs, fury of the nobles, and on this pretext to proor either thought itself aggrieved by a legal sen- cure a guard for his person from the people. tence; or if the heir of a noble house had lost This band, though composed of citizens, he or wasted his patrimony, and was unable either found it easy to attach to his interests, and to endure poverty, or to repair his fortunes by with its aid made the first step towards absoany legitimate means; or, finally, if among the lute power by seizing the citadel: an act which oligarchs there were restless spirits, impatient might be considered as a formal assumption of of equality even in the highest rank, or desirous the tyranny, and as declaring a resolution to of a new field of action-in all these cases a maintain it by force. But in other respects chief could not long be wanted to espouse the the more politic tyrants set an example which cause of the commonalty; and the ablest cham- Augustus might have studied with advantage. pion of popular rights was he who asserted them Like him, they as carefully avoided the ostenagainst the interests of his own order. But as tation of power as they guarded its substance. the motives by which this new ally was impell- They suffered the ancient forms of the governed were generally very distinct from patriotic ment to remain in apparent vigour, and even in zeal, it frequently happened that the defeat of real operation, so far as they did not come into the oligarchy, achieved with such aid, was not conflict with their own authority. They assuimmediately a triumph of the commonalty, but med no title, and were not distinguished from only a step by which the popular leader exalted private citizens by any ensigns of superior rank. himself, above both parties, to supreme power. But they did not the less keep a jealous eye In many cases, indeed, it is probable that the on all whom wealth, or character, or influence bulk of the people was not merely passive, but might render dangerous rivals, and commonly hailed with pleasure a revolution which placed either forced them into exile or removed them the helm of the state in the hands of a man in by the stroke of an assassin. They exerted whose character they confided, and who, per- still greater vigilance in suppressing every kind haps, by his birth as well as by his personal of combination which might cover the germ of qualities, revived the welcome image of the he- a conspiracy. The lowest class of the commonroic royalty, which was hallowed by long-cher- alty they restrained from license, and provided ished tradition and by epic song. Such was with employment. For this purpose, no less the origin of most of the governments which than to gratify their taste or display their magthe Greeks described by the term tyranny-a nificence, they frequentlyadorned their cities term to which a notion has been attached, in with costly buildings, which required years of *modern languages, which did not enter into its labour from numerous hands; and, where this original definition.., A tyranny, in the Greek expedient did not suffice, they scrupled not to sense of the word, was the irresponsible do- force a part of the population to quit the capital, *minion of a single person, not founded on he-.arid seek subsistence in rural occupations. On,reditary right, like the monarchies of the heroic the same ground, they were not reluctant to enages and of many barbarian nations, nor on a gage in wars which afforded them opportunifree election, like that of a dictator or Tesym- ties of relieving themselves, inna less invidious nete, but on force. It did not change its char- manner, both from troublesome friends and from acter when transmitted through several gen- dangerous foes, as well as of strengthening and erations, nor was any other name invented to extending their dominion by conquest. describe it when power, which had been acqui- Such was the ordinary policy of the best tyred by violence, was used for the public good; rants; and by these arts they were frequently though Aristotle makes it an element inthe def- able to reign in peace, and to transmit their ~inition of Tyranny, that it is exercised for self- power to their children. But the maxims and isti ends. ~'"But, according to the ordinary Greek character of the tyranny generally underwent a notions, and the usage of the Greek historians, change under their successors, and scarcely an a mild and beneficent tyranny is an expression instance was known of a tyrannical dynasty which involves no contradiction. On the other that lasted beyrond the third generation. The hand. a government legitimate ia its origin youth who was bred up to enjoy the power 160 HISTORY OF GREECE. which his father had acquired, even if he was tution most in conformity to her own. But not inferior to him in ability, seldom imitated the example of Athens will show that she was his prudence; and, even when he began with sometimes instrumental in promoting the tri-' good intentions, he might be precipitated by one umph of principles more adverse to her views false step into a career of crime where he could than those of the tyranny itself. When, hownever stop. If even he was not the slave of his ever, the struggle which had been interrupted passions, and was hot conscious of incurring by the temporary usurpation was revived, the general contempt or hatred by the manner in parties were no longer in-exactly the same poswhich he indulged them, he might be alarmed ture as at its outset. In general, the commonby some attempt to shake off his yoke, and alty was found to have gained in strength'and might be rendered remorseless and cruel by his in spirit even more than the oligarchy had lost, fears. Thenceforth the whole aspect of the and the prevalent leaning of the ensuing period government was changed. The new tyrant was on the side of democracy. Indeed, the deplaced his sole' reliance on foreign troops, and cisive step was that by which the oligarchy of on the means he possessed of weakening, divi- wealth was substituted for the oligarchy of birth. ding, and overawing his subjects. He endeav- This opened the door for all the subsequent inoured to level all that was eminent in birth, novations bytvhich the scale of the timocracy wealth, or merit, by death, banishment, and con- was gradually lowered, until it was wholly abolfinement; lent an ear to flatterers and inform- ished. The term democracy is used by Arisers, sent his spies into every social circle, and Itotle sometimes in a larger sense, so as to inrewarded the treachery of faithless slaves or dclude several forms of government, which, notunnatural relatives. These features may per- withstanding their common character, were dishaps belong more generally to the tyranny of tinguished from each other by peculiar features; later times than to that of the period which we at other times in a narrower, to denote a form are now considering-the century or two pre- essentially vicious, which stands in the same ceding the Persian wars; yet, in a greater or relation to the happy temperament to which he less degree, they appear to have been common gives the name of polity, as oligarchy to aristocto both. But, even where' the tyrant did not racy, or tyranny to royalty. We shall not conmake himself universally odious, or provoke the fine ourselves to the technical language of his vengeance of individuals by his wantonness or system, but will endeavour to define the notion cruelty, he was constantly threatened by dan- of democracy, as the word was commonly used gers both from within and from without, which by the Greeks, so as to separatethe essence of it required the utmost vigour-and prudence to the thing from the various accidents which avert. The party which his usurpation had have sometimes been confounded with it by supplanted, though depressed, was still power- writers who have treated Greek history as a ful, more exasperated than humbled by its de- vehicle for conveying their views on questions feat, and ever ready to take- advantage of any of modern politics, which never arose in the opportunity of overthrowing him, either by pri- Greek republics. It must not be forgotten, that vate conspiracy, or by affecting to make com- the body to which the terms oligarchy and demon cause with the lower classes, or by call- mocracy refer formed a comparatively small ing in foreign aid.. And in Greece itself such part of the population in most Greek states, aid was always at hand: the tyrants, indeed, since it does not include either slaves or resiwere partially leagued together for mutual sup- dent free foreigners. The sovereign power report. But Sparta threw all her might into the sided wholly in the native freemen, and whethopposite scale. She not only dreaded the con- er it was exercised by a part or by all of themtagion of an example which might endanger her was the question.which determined the nature own institutions, but was glad to extend her in- of the government. When the barrier had been fluence by taking an active part in revolutions thrown down by which all political rights were which would cause the states restored by her made the inheritance of certain families-since intervention to their old government to look up every freeman, even when actually excluded to her with gratitude and dependance as their from them by the want of sufficient property, natural protectress.,Ands accordingly, Thucyd- was by law capable of acquiring them-democides ascribes the overthrow of most of the tyr- racy might be said to have begun. It was adannies which flourished in Greece before the vaneing as the legal condition of their enjoyPersian war to the exertions of Sparta; though ment was brought within the reach of a more neither he, nor any other ancient author, has numerous class, but it could not be considered left an account of the manner in which it was as complete so long as any freeman was deeffected, and only a few instances of her inter- barred from them by poverty. Since, however, ference are mentioned by Plutarch in a casual the sovereignty included several attributes allusion.* Her co-operation to this end was which might be separated, the character of the undoubtedly very important to her own inter- Constitution depended on the way in which ests, and may have laid the immediate founda- these were distributed. It was considered. as tion of her subsequent greatness; but it proba- partaking more of democracy than of oligarchy bly only hastened the natural course of events, when the most important of them were shared which, nearly at the same time, without her by all freemen without distinction, though a part aid, led to a similar general revolution in many was still appropriated to a number limited either of the western colonies. by birth or fortune. Thus, where the legislaThe Immediate effect produced by the fall of tive, or, as it was anciently termed, the delibthe tyrants depended on the hands by which it erative branch of the sovereignty was lodged in was accomplished. Where it was the work of an assembly open to every freeman, and where Sparta. snue wouli aim at introducing a Consti- no other qualification than free birth was re* De Ier. Mal., 21. quired for judicial functions and for the elec FORMS OF GOVERNMENT. 161 tion of magistrates, there the government was of exercising his franchise; and as the sum called democratical, though the highest offices which could be afforded for this service was neof the state might be, reserved to a privileged cessarily small, it attracted precisely the persons class. But a finished democracy, that which whose presence was least desirable. A farther fully satisfied the Greek notion, was one in application of the same principle was, as much which every attribute of sovereignty might be as possible, to increase the number, and abridge shared, without respect to rank or property, by the duration and authority of public offices, every freeman. and to transfer their power to the people in a More than this was not implied in democra- mass. On the same ground, chance was subcy; and little less than this was required, ac- stituted for election in the creation of all magiscording to the views of the. philosophers, to t~ates whose duty did not actually demand constitute the character of a citizen, which, in either the security of a large fortune, or pecuthe opinion of Aristotle, could not exist without liar abilities and experience. In proportion as a voice in the legislative assembly, and such a the popular assembly, or large portions detachshare in the administration of justice as was ed from it for the exercise of judicial functions, necessary to secure the responsibility of the drew all the branches of the sovereignty more magistrates. But this equality of rights left and more into their sphere, the character of their room for a great diversity in the modes of ex- proceedings became more and more subject to ercising them, which determined the real na- the influence of the lower class of the citizens, ture of a democratical constitution. There which constituted a permanent majority. And were, indeed, certain rights, those which Aris- thus the democracy, instead of the equality totle considers as essential to a citizen, which, which was its supposed basis, in fact establishaccording to the received Greek notions, could ed the ascendency of a faction, which, although in a democracy only be exercised.in person. greatly preponderant in numbers, no more repThe thought of delegating them to accountable resented the whole state than the oligarchy representatives seems never to have occurred itself; and which, though not equally liable to either to practical or speculative statesmen, fall into the mechanism of a vicious system, except in the formation of confederacies, which was more prone to yield to the impulse of the rendered such an expedient necessary. Where moment, more easily misled by blind or treachall the powers of the state were lodged in a cer- erous guides, and might thus as frequently, tain number of citizens, though they were elect- though not so deliberately and methodically, ed bg the whole body of the people, the govern- trample not only on law and custom, but on ment was looked upon as an oligarchy; and, in justice and humanity. This disease of a defact, it seems that in all such cases the func- mocracy was sometimes designated by the. term tions so assigned were held for life, and with- ochlocracy, or the dominion of the rabble. out any responsibility. But still, even in the A democracy thus corrupted exhibited many purest form of democracy, it was not necessary features of a tyranny. It was jealous of all that all the citizens should take an equally active who were eminently distinguished by birth, forpart in the transaction of public business; and tune, or reputation; it encouraged flatterers the unavoidable inequality in the advantages of and sycophants; was insatiable in its demands fortune and of personal qualities fixed a natural on the property of the rich, and readily listened limit to the exercise of most political rights. to charges which exposed them to death or The class which was raised by its station above confiscation. The class which suffered such the need of daily labour seemed to be pointed oppression, commonly ill satisfied with the prinout by nature for the discharge of all offices and ciple of the Constitution itself, was inflamed duties which required leisure' and freedom of with the most furious animosity by the mode in thought. It could only be on extraordinary oc- which it was applied, and regarded the great casions that. the poor man could be willing to mass of its fellow-citizens as its mortal eneleave his field or his workshop to take his place mies. But the long series of calamities which in the' legislative assembly or the court of jus- flowed from this. source, both to particular tice; and the control which his right, however states and to the whole nation, more properly rarely it might be called into action, gave him belongs to a later period; and we have even over the public officers, who were the men of gone a few steps beyond the limits of this part his.choice, was a sufficient safeguard against of our history in pointing out their origin, which, every ordinary'danger to be apprehended from however, could not be omitted here without them. leaving this sketch of the subject imperfect and But the principle of legal equality, which was obscure. the basis of democracy, was gradually constru- Aristotle's survey of the Greek forms of goved'in a manner which inverted the wholesome ernment, which we have taken as our guide in order of nature, and led to a long train of per- the foregoing sketch, was founded on a vast nicious consequences. The administration of store of information which he had collected on the commonwealth came to be regarded, not as the history and constitution of more than a a service in which all were interested, hut for hundred and fifty states, in the mother-country which some might be qualified better than oth- and the colonies, and which he had consigned ers; but as a property, in which each was enti- to a great work now unfortunately lost. Our tied to an equal share. The practical applica- knowledge of the internal condition and vicistion of this view was the introduction of an ex- situdes of almost all these states is very scanty pedient for levelling, as far as possible, the in- and fragmentary; but some of the main facts equality of nature, by enabling the poorest to concerning them, which have been saved from devote his time, without loss, or even with oblivion, will serve to throw light both on the profit, to public affairs. This was done bygiving picture just given and on several parts of the him wages for his attendance on all occasions ensuing history. VOL.. -X 162 HISTORY OF GREECE. We have scarcely anything to say, during ed to two Elean officers by lot, a proof that roythis period, of the state of parties, or even the alty was then extinct. The Constitution by forms of government, in Arcadia, Elis, and which it was replaced seems to have been rigidAchaia. If Arcadia was ever subject to a sin- ly aristocratical, perhaps no other than the nargle king, which seems to be intimated by some row oligarchy described by Aristotle;* who obaccounts of its early history, it was probably serves, that the whole number of citizens exeronly, as in Thessaly, by an occasional election cising any political functions was small conor a temporary usurpation. The title of king, fined, perhaps, to the six hundred mentioned by however, appears not to have been everywhere Thucydides;t and that the senate, originally abolished down to a much later time, as we composed of ninety members, who held their find a hint that it was retained at Orchomenut office for life, and filled up vacancies at their even in the fifth century before our era.* That pleasure, had been gradually reduced to a very the republican Constitutions were long aristo- few. Elis, the capital, remained in a ollndition cratical can scarcely be doubted, as the two like that of the above-mentioned Arcadian principal Arcadian cities, Tegea and Mantinea, towns until the Persian war, when the- inhlabwere at first only the chief among several small itants of many villages were collected In its hamlets, which were at length united in one precincts.$ This was probably attended by othcapital. This, whenever it happened, was a er changes of a democratical nature - perhaps step towards the subversion of aristocratical by the limitation which one Phormis is said to privileges; and it was no doubt with this view have effected in the power of the senate~ and that the five Mantinean villages were incorpo- henceforth the number of the Hellanodicae corrated by the Argives, as Strabo mentions with- responded to that of the tribes or regions into out assigning the date of the event. But it is which the Elean territory was divided; so that, not probable that Argos thus interfered before whenever.any of these regions was lost by the her own institutions had undergone a like chance of war, the number of the Hellanodicae change, which, as we shall see, did not take was proportionately reduced.ll So, too, the place before a later period than our history has matrons-who presided at the games in honour yet reached. Whether the union of the nine of Her6, in which the Elean virgins contended villages, which included Tegea as their chief, at Olympia, were chosen in equal number from was effected earlier or later, does not appear. each of the tribes.~ But, after she had once acknowledged the su- In Achaia, the royal dignity was transmitted premacy of Sparta, Tegea was sheltered by in the line of Tisamenus down to Ogyges,,whose Spartan influence from popular innovations, and sons, affecting despotic power, were deposed, was always the less inclined to adopt them and the government was changed to a democwhen they prevailed at Mantinea; for as the racy,** which is said to have possessed a high position of the two Arcadian neighbours tended reputation. tt From Pausanias, it would rather to connect the one with Sparta and the other seem as if the title of king had been held by a with Argos, so it supplied occasion for intermi- number of petty chiefs at once.tt If so, the nable feuds between them, especially as the revolution must have had its origin in causes contiguous plains, which formed the main part more general than those assigned to it by Poof their territories, were liable to be much dam- lybius. It was probably accelerated by the aged by the waters that descended from their number of Achean emigrants who sought refmountains, which might easily be diverted to- uge in Achaia from other parts of Peloponnewards either side.t At a much later period a sus, and who soon crowded the country, till it like incorporation took place, through Spartan was relieved by its Italian colonies. WVhat Pointervention, at Heraea, which had also been lybius and Strabo term a democracy, may, howthe chief of nine hamlets.$ It was probably af- ever, have been a polity, or a very liberal and ter this event that the Constitution of Hereea well-tempered form of oligarchy. Of its details underwent the changes mentioned by Aris- we know nothing; nor are we informed in what totle,$ and produced by the extraordinary heat relation the twelve principal Achaian townsof competition for public offices, which render- a division adopted from the Ionians -stood to ed it necessary to fill them up by lot, instead 0 the dincient mode of election. But, in gen- * Poli., v., 6. In the comparison with the Spartan Ge eral. the history of the western states of Area- rusia, a negative seems to have dropped out of the text. dia is wrapped in deep obscurity, which was t v., 47. $ Strabo, viii., p. 337. only broken, in the fourth century B.C., by the Plutarch, Reip. Ger. Prec., c. 10. only broken, in the foundationurofBaCnewbArcadian Paus., v., 9. The text of Pausanias manifestly requires foundation of a new Arcadian capital. some correction in the date assigned to the appointment of In Elis the monarchical form of government nine Hellanodicm, in the room of the two who are said tb continued for some generations in the line of have filled that office for averylong time (Eirc Ecrov) af but appears to have ceased there earlier ter the 50th Olympiad. But it is doubtful what numbe Oxylus, but appears to have ceased there earlier ought to be substituted for that which is found in the man than at Pisa, which, at the time when it was uscripts — 01. 25. Mueller, in an interesting essay on the conquered and destroyed by'the Eleans, was subject, in the new Rheinisches Museum, ii., 2, p. 168, proruled by chiefs, who were probably legitimate poses O1. 75 as the epoch mentioned by Pausanias. HIe has ruled by chiefs, who were probably legitimate there rendered it highly probable, that of the tweive rekings. Immediately after the conquest, in the gions which composed the Elean territory in its greatest fiftieth Olympiad, the dignity of Hellanodices, extent, four belonged to the proper, or hollow Elis, fur to which had been held by the kings of ElPis or Pisa, and four to the Triphylian states. It was th;s last s portion that often changed masters in the wars be'ween shared by them with those of Pisa, was assign- Elis and her neighbours, and thus occasioned the vatation in the number of the Hellanodicae. Yet it is remarkable, * Plut., Paral., 32. The story of the murder of Romulus that the nine, who were appointed when the number was transferred to Arcadia. The whole being so palpable a fic- first enlarged, had not all one office, but presided, three tion, I should hardly have thought it a sufficient ground over the chariot race, three over the pentathlon, and three even for the renlark'in the text, if it had not been cited over the other contests. (Paus., v.,9, 5.) with confidence by Mueller, Dor., i., 7, 10, n. 6. ~ Paus., v., 16, 5. ** Polybius, ii., 41 t Thuc., v., 65. t Strabo, viii., p. 337. $ Pol., v., 3. tt Strabo, v., iiii., 384. 4I vii., 6, 2. FORMS OF GOVERNMENT. 163 the hamlets, of which each had seven or eight but certainly expressive of contempt. Towards in its territory, like those of Tegea and Manti- the end of the seventh century B.C., and the nea.* As little are we able to describe the beginning of the next, Epidaurus was subject constitution of the Confederacy in which the to a ruler named Procles, who is styled a tytwelve states were now united. rant, and was allied with Periander, the tyrant More light has been thrown by ancient au- of Corinth. But nothing is known as to the orthors on the history of the states in the north- igin and nature of his usurpation. He incurred east quarter of Peloponnesus, those of Argolis the resentment of his son-in-law Periander, in the largest sense of the word. At Argos it- who made himself master of Procles and of self, regal government subsisted down to the Epidaurus. It was, perhaps, this event which Persian wars, although the line of the Heracleid afforded 2Egina an opportunity of shaking off princes appears to have become extinct towards the Epidaurian yoke. But, had it been otherthe middle ofthe preceding century. Pausanias wise, the old relation between the two states remarks that, from a very early period, the Ar- could not have subsisted much longer. LEgina gives were led by their peculiarly independent was rapidly outgrowing the mother-country, spirit to limit the prerogatives of their kings so was engaged in a flourishing commerce, strong narrowly as to leave them little more than the in an enterprising and industrious population, name. We cannot, however, place much reli- enriched and adorned by the arts of peace, and ance on such a general reflection of a late wri- skilled in those of war. The separation which ter. But we have seen that Pheidon, who, soon after took place was imbittered by mutual about the year 750 B.C., extended the power resentment, and the lEginetans, whose navy of Argos farther than any of his predecessors, soon became the most powerful in Greece, realso stretched the royal authority so much be- taliated on Epidaurus for the degradation they yond its legitimate bounds that he is some- had suffered by a series of insults. But the times called a tyrant, though he was rightful same causes to which they owed their national heir of Temenus. After his death, as his con- independence seem to have deprived the class quests appear to have been speedily lost, so it which had been hitherto predominant in lEgina is probable that his successors were unable to of its political privileges. The island was torn maintain the ascendency which he had gained by the opposite claims and interests arising out over his Dorian subjects, and the royal dignity of the old and the new order of things, and bemay henceforth have been, as Pausanias de- came, as we shall see, the scene of a bloody scribes it, little more than a title. Hence, too, struggle. on the failure of the ancient line, about B.C. At Corinth, the descendants of Aletes retain560, -Egon, though of a different family, may ed the power and the title of royalty for five have met with the less opposition in mounting generations, after which, according to Pausathe throne. The substance of power rested nias, the sceptre passed into another family, callwith the Dorian freemen; in what manner it ed the Bacchiads, from Bacchis, the first king was distributed among them we can only con- of their race, and was transmitted in this line jecture from analogy. Their lands were culti- for five generations more, when Telestes, the vated by a class of serfs, corresponding to the last of these princes, having been murdered, Spartan Helots, who served in war as light- the kingly office was abolished, and in its place,'armed troops, whence they derived their pecu- yearly magistrates, with the title of prytanes, liar.name, gymnesians. They were also sov- were elected, exclusively, however, from the ereigns of a few towns, the inhabitants of which, house of Bacchis. This account, indeed, canlike the Laconians subject to Sparta, though not be reconciled with Strabo's, that the Bacpersonally free, were excluded from all share chiads, as a body, ruled 200 years, which, if addin their political privileges. The events which ed to the ten generations of Pausanias, would put an end to this state of things, and produced bring down the termination of the Bacchiad dy an entire change in the form of government at nasty more than a century too low. But we Argos, will be hereafter related. do not know the grounds of Strabo's calculation, Among the states of the Argolic acte, Epidau- and it seems not improbable that his 200 years rus deserves notice, not so much for the few may include a period during which the Bacfacts which are known of its internal history, chiads permitted members of their house to exas on account of its relation to.Agina. This ercise an authority which may have been gradisland, destined to take no inconsiderable part ually limited, as at Athens. The Bacchiads in the affairs of Greece, was long subject to must not be considered as a single family, but Epidaurus, which was so jealous of her sov- probably comprehended many, which, though ereignty as to compel the 2Eginetans to resort bearing a common name, were but distantly to her tribunals for the trial of their causes. It connected by blood. On the other hand, they seems to have been'as a dependency of Epidau- undoubtedly included only a small part of the rus that 2Egina fell under the dominion of the Dorian freemen, and they appear to have esArgive Pheidon. After recovering her own in- tranged themselves as much from the great dependence, Epidaurus still continued mistress body of their countrymen as from the conquered of the island. Whether she had any subjects 2Eolians; for they not only engrossed all polition the main land standing on the same footing, cal power, but intermarried exclusively with we are not expressly informed. But here, like- one another. It seems natural to suppose that wise, the ruling class was supported by the ser- the effect of this exclusion would be to efface vices of a population of bondmen, distinguished the distinctions which before separated the othby a peculiar name (Conipodes, the dusty-foot- er classes in the state, and to leave only two ed), designating, indeed, their rural occupations, orders, conscious of different views and inter* Strabo, viii., p. 386, who remarks, oi uiv IwcV 1KOCWlr$1 ests, the dominant caste and their subjects. eofovv, ofi A' 2'arozi aXes~ EKTWanv. The situation of Corinth inviting the commerce '164 HISTORY OF GREECE. of the east, and stimulating its people to ex- having banished many citizens, and with havtend it towards the west,'the influx of stran- ing deprived many of their property, and still gers, augmented from time to time by the na- more of their lives; and a later author asserts tional games celebrated on the Isthmus, and that, in the course of ten years, he took away the consequences hence arising to the numbers, the whole amount of the property of the Co. the condition, and habits of the industrious rinthians in taxes,* and, in pursuance of a vow, class, must have contributed to the same result. dedicated it to Jupiter; and a statue of pure With the wealth of Asia, Corinth seems very gold at Olympia, which was celebrated as his early to have admitted Asiatic vices and luxu- offering, though it was not in his lifetime inry, which flourished under the shelter of an ex- scribed with his name,t and the costly works otic superstition.* The ruling class itself was with which he adorned other Grecian temples,I not exempt from this contagion. The great must have seemed to confirm a part of these wealth attributed to the Bacchiad Demaratus, accusations. The fact may have been, that in the Roman story, indicates that the Corin- Cypselus did not spare the oligarchs whom he thian nobles did not disdain to enrich themselves had overthrown, but that he maintained himby commerce. Aristotle, indeed, speaks of a self by the confidence and affection of the peovery ancient Corinthian legislator, named Phei- ple, which continued to regard him as its dedon, who had endeavoured so to regulate and liverer and protector to the end of his life. limit the acquisition of property and the num- He was succeeded by his son Periander a bers of the citizens as to preserve either the very celebrated person, but the subject of so same amount or the same proportions. But many contradictory accounts that it is extremethese institutions, which probably related only ly difficult to discover his real character. He to the nobles, if they were ever adopted, seem was famed for his wisdom, and was even frenot to have been durable. quently numbered among the seven most emiIt would have been scarcely possible that so nent sages of his age: he was a lover of poenarrow an oligarchy could have kept its ground try, and himself made it a vehicle of moral long under such circumstances, even if it had or political instruction; his administration is used its power with the utmost moderation and praised by Plato's scholar, Heraclides, as pruwisdom. But the Bacchiads seem not to have dent, just, mild, and even paternal, for he is been sufficiently careful to preserve the respect said to have' shown a tender solicitude, not of their subjects,t though they were, probably, merely for the prosperity, but for the moral by no means negligent of precautions for secu- well-being of his subjects. On the other hand, ring the stability of their government, among he is described as a man incapable of self-comwhich may be numbered the colonies, by which mand, who made himself and others miserable they discharged a'part of their growing popula- by the indulgence of his passions; and, in his tion on the coasts of the western seas. The public capacity, as a rapacious, oppressive, and revolution by which they were overthrown, cruel despot. It is, however, added, by those abcut the year 660 B.C., though it only served who'treat his character most unfavourably, that for a time to raise another dynasty in their it underwent an unhappy change in the course room, was undoubtedly the work of the com-n. of his reign, and was good and amiable before monalty, which had grown weary of their usur- it was corrupted. According to one view, pation. Cypselus, the author of this revolution, which Herodotus found prevalent, this change was a man of an opulent and very ancient farm- was produced by the' evil counsels of a conily, though'of.AEolian, not Dorian nobility; for temporary tyrant, Thrasybulus of Miletus; ache traced his descent to Ceeneus, a king of the cording to another view, it was the effect of a Lapiths, and one of his nearer ancestors had dreadful domestic calamity.~ But Aristotle, been an associate of Aletes in the conquest of without seeming to know of any such change, Corinth.t The legend which explained, and, observes that Periander was reputed to be the perhaps, grew out of his name,9 represents him first of the Greek tyrants who had reduced the as sprung from a daughter of the Bacchiads, policy of despotic government to a system, and and as, from his birth, an object of their jeal- that the acts by which he provided for the staousy. For thirty years he ruled Corinth, and, bility of his power, and which had been of old in the language of a later, generation, is termed familiar to the courts of the East, consisted in sometimes a king,i} sometimes a tyrant. But devices for depressing and destroying the most Aristotle calls him a demagogue, and assigns, eminent and aspiring of his subjects, for inpovas a proof of his real character, that he never erishing the wealthy and trampling on the low, employed guards about his person;1 yet a Co- for scattering the seeds of general discord and rinthian orator in Herodotus charges him with distrust among different orders; and severing all * Strabo, viii., p. 378. Kreuser, in a little work called the ties by which the noblest spirits were united Der Hellenen Priesterstaat, p. 71, labours hard to destroy and in which they might find the means of rethe credit of Strabo's assertion as to the Corinthian Hiero- sistance. II It is impossible perfectly to reconcile dules, but has not observede how strongly it is confirmedunts, and the utmost we can atthe passage of Athenaus, containing the fragments of Pindar's Scolion, xiii., c. 33. See Boeckh on Pindar, iii., p. tempt is to trace some of the more prominent 611. features in Periander's character. We ought t See the story of Archias in Fr., Diodor., 1. viii.; and in not to receive without distrust the tragical M. Tyrius, 241; and that of IDiocles and Alcyone, Aristot., Pol., ii., 9; and Zlian, V. H., i., 19. story of his private life, which has probably X Pans., ii., 4; v., 18, 2. passed through the hands of a hostile party; ~ From the coffer (KUevTn) in which he had been con- but still it seems clear that, if he was unfortueealed by his mother, which was said to be preserved at Olympia. The' one dedicated by his family as a relic and a monument of his deliverance was of cedar-wood, inlaid * Pseudo-Aristot., CEcon., 2. t Paus., v., 2, 3 with gold and ivory, and adorned with many groups of i As that of Delphi. Plut., Sep. Sap. Conv., c. 21. igures.' Parthenius, 17. Diog. Laert., Periand., 94. I4 I the oracle in Herod., v., 92. ~ Pol. v., 9. 1 Pol., v., 11. FORMS OF GOVERNMENT. 165 nate, he was by no means virtuous or innocent. that it was a part of his policy to drain the opuThe fatal excess of his mother's passions did lent of their wealth for works consecrated to not teach him to moderate his own. In a fit the gods,* which at the same time furnished of anger or jealousy he killed his beautiful wife, employment to the poor; and this may not be Lysis, or Melissa, the daughter of Procles, inconsistent with the statement of HeracJ.aes, whom he loved with passionate fondness; took that he contented himself with the revenue dea horrible revenge on the persons who had in- rived from the customs of the port and the dustigated him to the deed, and sought refuge ties of the market. But, according to Arisfrom his remorse in the darkest rites of a bar- totle's view, it is difficult to understand with barous superstition. The latter part of his life what motive he could have instituted a court was imbittered by the implacable aversion of a to prevent any of his subjects from indulging in favourite son, to whom Procles had revealed expenses beyond their income. Yet it seems the secret of his mother's fate. He punished clear that he established some sumptuary regProcles, as we have seen, but lost the child of ulations, which; may have had a financial as his hopes, to whom he was on the point of re- well as a moral object; and this was, perhaps, signing his power, through the hatred or dread the foundation of the story so variously related, witr which his own character had impressed that he stripped the Corinthian women of the the people of Corcyra, who are said to have de- ornaments with which they appeared at some stroyed the son in order to avoid the presence sacred festival. His reign lasted upward of of the father. It would therefore seem, that if forty years, and yet is said to have been shortPeriander merited the title of Wise, it can only ened either by violence or by his grief for the have been by his political prudence; but wheth- loss of his son. He was succeeded by a nephew er this was the instrument of an odious tyran- or a cousin, Psammetichus, the son of Gordias, ny, or of a gentle and beneficent rule, would names which apparently indicate the relations still remain a question. Perhaps we shall not maintained by the Cypselids with princes of be far wrong if we suppose that, as he had not Phrygia and Egypt. With his reign, which the same claims with his father on the grati- only, lasted three years, the dynasty ended, tude of the commonalty, so he was less dis- about 582 B.C., overpowered by Sparta, which, posed by nature to depend upon their good will, nearly at the same time, dislodged another and that he early showed a resolution of reign- branch of the family from Ambracia. This reving by force, and not, as Cypselus had done, by olution was not followed by the restoration of popular favour. He secured his person by a the Bacchiads, but apparently by the establishguard of mercenaries, and strengthened his ment of a more comprehensive oligarchy, the state by alliance or friendship with foreign ty- exact constitution of which is unknown, but rants, and even with barbarian kings; and he which long kept Corinth in close alliance with must have maintained a force which enabled Sparta. The period of Corinth's highest proshim, by other expeditions besides that which we perity closed with the government of the Cyphave mentioned against Epidaurus, to earn the selids; and the loss of Corcyra, which had been praises bestowed by Aristotle on his military kept in subjection by Periander, but revolted skill. The new position in which he stood to- soon after his death, proved a blow to her powwards the commonalty is indicated by his regu- er from which she never recovered. lations for preventing the influx of new inhab- The history of Sicyon presents a series of itants into the city, or for compelling some of revolutions, in many points resembling those of the poorer sort to quit it.* If, however, he lost Corinth. At what time, or in whose person, the affections of the people, he had the more royalty was there extinguished, and what form cause to apprehend the enmity of the noble of government succeeded it, we are not expressfamilies, and was thus, perhaps, driven to the ly informed; but as we know that there was a acts described by Aristotle, without needing the class of bondsmen at Sicyon answering to the counsels of Thrasybulus, of whom, indeed, it Helots, and distinguished by peculiar names, de. was not known whether he had sent or received rived from their rustic dress or occupation;t the famous warning which one of these tyrants there can be little doubt that other parts of the was believed to have given the other,t by stri- Dorian system were also introduced there, and king down the tallest ears in a corn-field. It subsisted until a fortunate adventurer, named has been supposed, apparently without sufficient Orthagoras, or Andreas,T overthrew the old ground, that it was Periander's object to abol- aristocracy, and founded a dynasty which lastish the Dorian institutions at Corinth.$ We * According to Ephorus, in Diog. Laert. (Periander), it can only collect from Aristotle that he kept an was he who dedicated a golden statue at Olympia, for eye of watchful jealousy on all eminent individ- which he seized the women's ornaments; and this seems to aals and all aristocratical combinations which agree better with the story in Paus. (v., 2) about the inscription. might threaten his safety. But it is easier to t They were called either Catonacophori, from the Catona3ee how, by the measures which he may have ca, a dress bordered at bottom with sheepskin; or Coryne-'aken to avert such dangers, he might incur the phori, club-bearers, which Mueller (Dor., iii., 4, 3) supposes to relate to their military service, while Ruhnken (Ti*harge of injustice and cruelty, than to decide s,,,i p. 214) conceives the club to have been merely a low far he deserved it. Aristotle intimates badge of their pastoral occupation. If it was considered as a weapon, we should be inclined to suspect that the tyrant of Sicyon had employed guards, taken from the peasantry, * Diog. Laert., Periand., 98. ovfc eca e faar Tv.7'o- and armed like those of Pisistratus, who bore the same vXousvyovs: from Ephorus and Aristotle. name. t Aristotle, in two passages of the Politics, makes Peri- $ Herodotus (vi., 12, 6) omits the name of Orthagoras mder the adviser of Thrasybulus. among the ancestors of Cleisthenes, and only goes back as f This has been inferred by Mueller (Dor., i., 8,. 3) and far as Andreas. But from the fragment in Mai (11, p. 12), )thers from the mention of the syssitia in Aristot., Pol., v., it seems evident that Diodorus had described Andreas as the 11; but the passage no more warrants such a conclusion founder of the dynasty, and he also calls him a cook. Hence than the story of JEthiops in Atheneus, iv., p. 167, which Mueller (Dor., 1, 8, 2, n. x.) justly infers that Andreas and MuelleI elsewuere advances for the same purpose. - Orthagoras are the same person. 166 HISTORY OF GREECE. ed a century: the.ongest period, Aristotle ob- nected with a war in which he was engaged serves, of a Greek tyranny. Orthagoras is said with Argos, and it impelled him to various poto have risen from a very low station-that of a litical and religious innovations, the real nature cuok,* and was, therefore, probably indebted for of which can now be but very imperfectly unhis elevation to the commonalty. The long du- derstood. One of the most celebrated was the ration of his dynasty is ascribed by Aristotle to change which he made in the names of the Dothe mildness and moderation with which he rian tribes, for which he sulstituted others, deand his descendants exercised their power, sub- rived from the lowest kinds of domestic animitting to the laws, and taking pains tb secure mals;* while a fourth tribe, to which he himthe good-will of the people. His successor, My- self belonged, was distinguished by the majesron, having gained a victory in the Olympic tic title of the Archelai (the princely). Herodchariot-race in the thirty-third Olympiad, erect- otus supposes that he only meant to insult the ed a treasury at Olympia, which was remarka- Dorians; and we could sooner adopt this opinble for its material, brass of Tartessus, which ion than believe, with a modern author, that he had not long been introduced into Greece; for took so strange a method of directing their atits architecture, in which the Doric and Ionic tention to rural pursuits.t But Herodotus adds, orders were combined; and for its inscription, that the new names were retained for sixty in which the name of Myron was coupled with years after the death of Cleisthenes and the that of the people of Sicyon.t It may be col- fall of his dynasty, when those of the Dorian lected, from an expression of Aristotle's, that, tribes were restored, and, in the room of the though Myron was succeeded, either immedi- fourth, a new one was created, called, from a ately, or after a short interval, by his grandson son of the Argive hero Adrastus, the _EgialeCleisthenes, son of Aristonymus, this transmis- ans. This account leads us to suspect that the sion of the tyranny did not take place without changes made by Cleisthenes were not coninterruption or impediment;* and, if this arose fined to the names of the tribes, but that he from the Dorian nobles, it would explain some made an entirely new distribution of them, perpoints in which the government of Cleisthenes haps collecting the Dorians in one, and assign. differed from that of his predecessors. He ing the three rustic tribes to the commonalty, seems to have been the most able and enterpri- which, by this means, might seem to acquire a sing prince of his house, and to have conducted legitimate preponderance. Afterward, perhaps, many wars, besides that in which we have seen this proportion was inverted; and when the him engaged on the side of the Amphictyons, Dorians resumed their old division, the com with skill and success; he was of a munificent monalty was thrown into the single tribe (called temper, and displayed his love of splendour and not from the hero, but from- the land), the: Egiaof the arts both in the national games and in leans. his native city; where, out of the, spoils of Cris- - We do not know how this dynasty ended, and sa, he built a colonnade, which long retained the can only pronounce it probable that it was overname of the Cleisthenean.~ The magnificence thrown at about the same time with that of the with which lie entertained the suiters who came Cypselids (B.C. 580), by the intervention of from all parts of Greece, and even from foreign Sparta, which must have been more alarmed lands, to vie with one another, after the ancient and provoked by the innovations of Cleisthenes fashion, in manly exercises, for his daughter's than by the tyranny of Periander. It would hand, was lo'ng so celebrated, that Herodotus seem, from the history of the tribes, that the gives a list of the competitors. It proves how Dorians recovered their predominance, but gradmuch his alliance was coveted by the most dis- ually, and not so completely as to deprive the tinguished families; and it is particularly re- commonalty of all share in political rights. markable, that one of the suiters was a son of On the other side of the Isthmus, the little Pheidon, king of Argos, whom Herodotus seems state of Megara passed through vicissitudes to have confounded with the more ancient ty- similar to those of Corinth and Sicyon, but atrant of the same name. Still Cleisthenes ap- tended with more violent struggles. Before the pears not to have departed from the maxims by Dorian conquest, royalty is said to have been which his predecessors had regulated their gov- abolished there after the last king, Hyperion, ernment with regard to the commonalty, but, son of Agamemnon, had fallen by the hand of in the midst of his royal state, to have carefully an enemy, whom he had provoked by insolence preserved the appearance, at least, of equity and and wrong; and a Megarian legend seems to respect for the laws. On the other hand, to- indicate that the elective magistrates, who took wards his Dorian subjects he displayed a spirit the place of kings, bore the title of csyitnetes.t of hostility which seems to have been peculiar The Dorians of Corinth kept those of Megara, to himself, and to have been excited by some for a time, in the same kind of subjection to personal provocation. It was, probably con- which 2Egina was reduced by Epidaurus; and the Megarian peasantry were compelled to solLibanus,reas 111, p. 251, Reiske, and Diodorus, who relates emnize the obsequies of every Bacchiad with that Andreas had in this capacity attended a company of Sicyonians, who were sent to consult the Delphic oracle, marks of respect, such as were exacted from and that he had also served the magistrates, either as po- the subjects of Sparta on the death of the king.~ lice officer or executioner (aacryoopSv). If,howeveras This yoe, however, was cast of at an earl Mueller seems to think, the term coolk was only a nicknamen early applied to him by the nobles (of which Libanius affords no period, and Argos assisted the Megarians in rehint), it would not even prove that he was not of an ancient covering their independence.11 Henceforth it is family, and could only be understood as an allusion to his probable Megara assumed a more decided supolitical measures, like some of those, which Aristophanes makes to the craft of his hero in the Knights. t Paus., vi., 19. * From the sow, the ass, and the pig:'TYrat,'OvedTat, t Pol., v., 12. He says that one tyranny is sometimes Xopnearat. Herod., v., 68. t Mueller, Dor., iii., 4, 3. exchanged for another, as at Sicyon that of Myron for that t Or aesymni, Paus., i., 43, 3. of Cleisthenes. 0 Paus., ii., 9, 6. ~ Schol. Pind., n. vii., 155. U Paus., vi., 19, 14. FORMS OF GOVERNMENT. 167 periority over the hamlets of her territory, which causes which had exasperated the commonalty had once. been her rivals; and she must have against the nobles, who probably had exacted made rapid progress in population and in power, their debts no less harshly than the Athenian as is proved by her flourishing colonies in the Eupatrids. But, in this period of anarchy, neieast and west, and by the wars which she car- ther Justice nor religion was held sacred: even ried on in defence of them. One of her most temples were plundered; and a company of pilillustrious citizens, Orsippus, who, in the fif- grims, passing through the territory of Megara, teenth Olympiad, set the example of dropping on their way to Delphi, was grossly insulted; all encumbrances of dress in the Olympic foot- many lives even were lost, and the Amphictyrace, also conducted her arms with brilliant onic council was compelled to interpose, to prosuccess against her neighbours-probably'he cure the punishment of the ringleaders.* It is Corinthians-and enlarged her territory to the unquestionably of this period that Aristotle utmost extent of her claims.* But the govern- speaks, when he says that the Megarian demament still remained in the hands of the great gogues procured the banishment of many of the Dorian landowners, who, when freed from the do- notable citizens,t for the sake of confiscating minion of Corinth, became sovereigns at home; their estates; and he adds, that these outrages and they appear not to have administered it and disorders ruined the democracy, for the exmildly or wisely; for they were not only de- iles became so strong a body that they were prived of their power by an insurrection of the able to reinstate themselves by force, and to commonalty, as at Corinth and Sicyon, but were establish a very narrow oligarchy, including evidently the objects of a bitter enmity, which those only who had taken an active part in the cannot have been wholly unprovoked. Theag- revolution. Unfortunately, we have no means enes, a bold and ambitious man, who put him- of ascertaining the dates of these events, though self at the head of the popular cause, is said to the last-mentioned reaction cannot have tahave won the confidence of the people by an at- ken place very long after 600 B.C.: During the tack on the property of the wealthy citizens, following century, our information on the state whose cattle. he destroyed in their pastures.t of Megara is chiefly collected from the writings The animosity provoked by such an outrage, of the Megarian poet, Theognis, which, howwhich was probably not a solitary one, rendered ever, are interesting not so much for the historiit necessary to invest the demagogue with su- cal facts contained in them, as for the light preme authority. Theagenes, who assumed they throw on the character and-feelings of the the tyranny about 620 B.C., followed the exam- parties which divided his native city and so pie of the other usurpers of his time. He many others. Theognis appears to have been adorned his city with splendid and useful build- born about 01. 55, not long before the death of ings,t and, no doubt, in other ways cherished Solon, and to have lived down to the beginning industry and the arts, while he made them con- of the Persian wars., He left some poems, of tribute to the lustre of his reign. He allied him- which considerable fragments remain, filled self, as we shall see, to one of'the most emi- with moral and political maxims and reflecnent families of Athens, and aided his son-in- tions. We gather from them, that the oligarchy, law, Cylon, in his enterprise, which, if it had which followed the period of anarchy, had been succeeded, would have lent increased stability unable to keep its ground; and that a new revoto his own power. The victories which deprived lution had taken place, by which the poet, with the Athenians of Salamis, and made them at others of the aristocratical party, had been last despair of recovering it, were probably stripped of his fortune and driven into exile. gained by Theagenes. Yet he was at length He, appears to have been a man of rank, and expelled from Megara; whether through the speaks of the warm reception he had met with discontent of the commonalty, or by the efforts at Sparta, and in other foreign lands into which of the aristocratical party, which may have been he had wandered, which, however, could not encouraged by the failure of Cylon's plot, we soothe his impatient longing to return to his are not distinctly informed. Only it is said country, and be revenged on his political adverthat, after his overthrow, a more moderate and saries, whose blood he wishes to drink. ll Yet his peaceful spirit prevailed for a short time, until keen sense of his personal sufferings is almost some turbulent leaders, who apparently wished absorbed in the vehement grief and indignation to tread in his steps, but wanted his'ability or with which he contemplates the state of Megara, his fortune, instigated the populace to new out- the triumph of the bad (his usual term for the rages against the wealthy, who were forced to commonalty) and the degradation of the good throw open their houses, and to set luxurious (the members of the old aristocracy). Someentertainments before the rabble, or were ex- times he speaks as one divided between the!osed to personal insult and violence.~ But a hope and the fear that some new tyrant may much harder blow was aimed at their property make himself master of the city; and then, as by a measure called the palintocia-which car- if such a usurper had already appeared, charges reed the principles of Solon's seisachtheia to an him to trample on the senseless people, to strike it iniquitous excess-by which creditors were re, with the sharp goad, and to plant the hard yoke on quired to refund the interest which they had re- its neck.' But his complaints betray a fact ceived from their debtors. This transaction, at which throws some doubt on the purity of his the same time, discloses one, at least, of the patriotism, and abates our sympathy for his mis* See the inscription (1050) in Boeckh, Corpus Inscr. Gr., * Plut., Qu. Gr., 59. t Pol., v., 5. rT7 yvt.pi#owv. which Boeckh supposes to have been written by Simonides. X Welcker (Theognis, p. xiii.) thinks that Theagenes t Aristot., -Pol., v., 5. Mr. Malden (Hist. of Rome, p. may have continued to rule down to 01. 50, or even later; 153) supposes that these pastures were public lands, and but it must be remembered that Cylon, his son-in-law, that this appears from Aristotle. It may have been the gained his victory at Olympia in 01. 35 (B.C. 640). Ease, but we cannot find any hint to that effect in Aristotle. Q Welcker, p. xvi. t Paus., i., 40, 1, and 41, 2. ( Plut., Qu. Gr., 18. 11 miv EciL yp1av alsa mrccv (v., 785, Welcker). ~ v., 717. 168 HISTORY OF GREECE. fortunes. It is not merely the license and in- described, but seems to be indicated by the pesolence of the bad that provoke his invectives, culiar title of his laws.* It may be collected but the growing corruption and degeneracy of that he aimed, on the one hand, at preserving the good; many of whom, it appears, had so the number of families by some provision for far relaxed the rigour of their aristocratical the adoption of children, and, on the other, at principles as to mingle their blood with that of limiting the number of individuals in each famwealthy upstarts. Hence he complains, such ily by establishing a legal mode of relieving inconfusion had arisen that it was difficult to dis- digent parents from the support of their offtinguish the good from the bad: the people in spring.t He too was, perhaps, the author of Megara was no longer the same; for the class the law which excluded every Theban from which, in the good old times, had worn the goat- ptulic offices who had exercised any trade withskin as the badge of its condition, and had kept in the space of ten years.$ It is probable aloof from the city, as a stag from the haunts of enough that his code also embraced regulations men, was now admitted into assemblies and courts, for the education of the higher class of citizens; to take a part in the business of making and ad- and it may have been he who, with the view, ministering the laws.* Hence it would seem as Plutarch supposes, of softening the harshthat the party to which the poet bolonged did ness of the Bceotian character, or to counternot comprehend all, nor, perhaps, even the balance an excessive fondness for gymnastic greater part of those who by birth and: station exercises, to which the Thebans were prone, had the same title to political privileges with made music an essential part of the instruction himself; and that, while he insisted on main- of youth.~ We hear of another Theban law, taining the ancient barrier of law or custom, which imposed certain restrictions on painters which separated the families of the noble caste and sculptors in the design or execution of their from those of the lower order, there were oth- works; 11 but if this was in any way connected ers who had sacrificed their prejudices on this with the legislation of Philolaus, its real meanhead, not, it may be, to any sordid motives, but ing appears to be lost.1 to their conviction that, without this concession, Our information on the other B.ceotian towns there could be no prospect of union or peace. is still scantier as to their internal condition; If his exile was caused or prolonged by his re- but we may safely presume that it did not differ sistance to such salutary innovations, however very widely from that of Thebes, especially as we may respect his firmness, we cannot think we happen tQ know that at Thespiae every kind highly of his wisdom. of industrious occupation was deemed degraThe peculiar circumstances under which Bee- ding to a freeman:** an indication of aristocratotia was conquered by a people who had quitted ical rigour which undoubtedly belongs to this their sative land to avoid slavery or subjection, period, and may be taken as a sample of the would be sufficient to account for the fact that spirit prevailing in Boeotia. The Bceotian states royalty was very early abolished there. It were united in a confederacy which was repremay, indeed, be doubted whether the chief sented by a congress of deputies, who met at named Xanthus, who is called king, sometimes the festival of the Pambcaotia, in the temple of of the Bceotians, sometimes of the Thebans, the Itonian Athene, near Coronea, more, perand who was slain by the Attic king Melanthus, haps, for religious than for political purposes. was anything more than a temporary leader. There were also other national councils, which The most sacred functions of the Theban kings deliberated on peace and war, and were, perseem to have been transferred to a magistrate, haps, of nearly equal antiquity, though they who bore the title of archon, and, like the. ar- were first mentioned at a later period, when chon-king at Athens, was invested rather with there were four of them.tt It does not appear a priestly than a civil character. From the how they were constituted, or whether with death of Xanthus down to about 500 B.C., the reference to as many divisions of the country, Constitution of Thebes continued rigidly aristo- of which we have no other trace. The chief cratical, having probably been guarded from in- magistrates of the league, called Bocotarchs, novation as well by the inland position of the presided in these councils, and commanded the city as by the jealousy of the rulers; and the national forces. They were, in later times at first change of which we have any account was least, elected annually, and rigidly restricted to one which threw the government into still their term of office. The ancient festival of fewer hands. But, about the thirteenth Olyl- the Dcedala, in which, at the end of a cycle of piad, it seems as if discontent had arisen among 60 years, fourteen wooden images were carried the members of the ruling caste itself, from the up to the top of Cithaeron at the expense of the inequality in the division of property, which Boeotian cities,T$ seems to indicate that this had, perhaps, been increased by lapse of time was the original number of the confederate until some of them were reduced to indigence. Not long after that Olympiad, Philolaus, one of * Ndisot SsertcoL. Aristot., Pol., ii., 12. the Corinthian Bacchiads, having been led by a t Jlian, ii., 7. The subject of this law, which is probably not accurately described by Afilian, seems to afford private occurrence to take up his residence at -ufficient ground for ascribing it to Philolas. Thebes, was invited to frame a new code of f Aristot., Pol., iii., 5. Plut., Pelop., 19 laws; and one of the main objects of his insti- II AElian, iv., 4. tutions was to prevent the accumulation of es- ~ Mueller, who (Orchom., p. 408) refers it to Philolaus, seems to have been too much swayed by a saying of Alcidatates, and to fix forever the number of those mas, quoted by Aristotle (RheV., ii., 23), that Thebes fl Aourinto which the Theban territory, or, at least, ished when philosophers were its leading men (xpooTdral). the part of it occupied by the nobles, was divi- But it is much more probable that this was an allusion to Epaminondas than to Philolaus. If the law was meant tc ded. This object was intimately connected interdict caricatures, such as Biupalus made of IIipponax, with another, which is not, indeed, distinctly the age of Philolaus seems too early fcr it. f ** Ieracl. Pont., 42. tt Thlc., v., 38. v., 19. ft Paus, ix., 3. FORMS OF GOVERNMENT. 169 states, and that of the Bceotarchs was, perhaps, several islands, among the rest of Andros, Teonce the same. It was afterward reduced, and nos, and Ceos; and, in the days of her prosperunderwent many variations. Thebes appears ity, could exhibit 600 horsemen, 3000 heavyearly to have had the privilege of appointing armed infantry, and 60 chariots in a sacred protwo, one of whom was superior in authority to cession.* Chalcis and Eretria were long rithe rest, and probably acted as president of the vals, and a tract called the Lelantian plain, board.* ~ which contained valuable copper mines, affordAs to the institutions of the Locrian tribes in ed constant occasion for hostilities. These Greece very little is known, and they never hostilities were distinguished from the ordinary took a prominent part in Greek history. Down wars between neighbouring cities by two pecuto a late period the use of slaves was almost liar features —the singular mode in which they wholly unknown among them, as well as among were conducted, and the general interest which the Phocians, This fact, which indicates a they excited throughout Greece. They were people of simple habits, strangers to luxury and regulated, at least in early times, by a compact commerce, and attached to ancient usages, may between the belligerants, which was recorded by lead us to the farther conclusion that their in- a monument in a temple, to abstain from the stitutions were mostly aristocratical; and this use of missile weapons. But, while this agreeconclusion is confirmed by all that we hear of ment suggests the idea of a feud like those them. Opus is celebrated, in the fifth century which we have seen carried on, in an equally B.C., as a seat of law and order by Pindar;t mild spirit, between the Megarian townships, from whom we also learn that, among its noble we learn with surprise from Thucydides that families, of which a hundred seem to have been the war between Eretria and Chalcis divided distinguished from the rest, perhaps by political the whole nation, and that all the Greek states privileges,T there were some which boasted of took part with one or the other of the rivals.t their descent from its ancient kings. It has been suspected that the cause which Equally scanty is our information as to the drew.this universal attention to an object apgeneral condition of the Phocians. Their land, parently of very slight moment was, that the though neither extensive nor fertile, was divi- quarrel turned upon political principles; that ded among between twenty and thirty little the oligarchy at Eretria had very early given commonwealths, which were united like the way to democracy, while that of Chalcis, threatAchaians and the Bceotians, and sent deputies, ened by this new danger, engaged many states at stated times, to a congress which was held to espouse its cause.$ Ve are informed, inin a large building called the Phocicum, on the deed, that the Eretrian oligarchy was overroad between Daulis and Delphi.~ But Delphi, thrown by a person named Diagoras, of whom though lying in Phocis, disclaimed all connexion we also hear that he died at Corinth while on with the rest of the nation.ll1' Its government, his way to Sparta, and that he was honoured as was to be expected under its peculiar cir- with a statue by his countrymen.s It is also cumstances, was strictly aristocratical, and was certain that the oligarchy at Chalcis, though in the hands of the same families which had more than once interrupted by a tyranny, was the management of the temple, on which the standing till within a few years of the Persian prosperity of the city and the subsistence of a wars. But we dq not know when Diagoras great part of the inhabitants depended. In lived, and, without stronger evidence, it is difearly times the chief magistrate bore the title ficult to believe that the.revolution which he of king, afterward that of prytanis. But a effected took place before the fall of thire Athecouncil of five, who were dignified with a title nian aristocracy, an epoch which appears to be marking their sanctity,~ and were chosen from too late for the war mentioned by Thucydides. families which traced their origin —possibly Thessaly seems, for some'time after the con through Dorus-to Deucalion, and held their quest, to have been governed by kings of the offices for life, conducted the affairs of the or- race, of Hercules, who, however, may have been acle. only chiefs invested with a permanent military In Euboea an aristocracy or oligarchy of command, which ceased when it was no longer wealthy landowners, who, from the cavalry required by the state of the country. Under which they maintained, were called Hippobo- one of these princes, named Aleuas, it was dita,** long prevailed in the two principal cities, vided into the four districts, Thessaliotis, PeChalcis and Eretria. The great number of col- lasgiotis, Phthiotis, and Hestiseotis. And, as onies which Chalcis sent out, and which attests this division was retained to the latest period its early importance, was probably the result of of its political existence, we.may conclude that an oligarchical policy. Its Constitution ap- it was not a merely nominal one, but that each pears to have been, in proper terms, a timocra- district was united in itself, as well as distinct cy: a certain amount of property was requisite from the rest. As the- four Bceotian councils for a share in the government.tt Eretria, once seem to imply that a like division existed in similarly governed, seems not to have been at Boeotia, so we may reasonably conjecture that all inferior in strength. She was mistress of each of the Thessalian districts regulated its internal affairs by some kind of provincial coun* Thuc., ii., 2; iv., 91; and Dr. Arnold's note. Hence, cil. But all that we know with certainty is, in Pollux, i., 128, the Theban Bceotarch is compared with that the principal cities exercised a dominion the Thessalian Tagus. over several smaller towns, and thattheywere t Ol., ix. Thuc., i., 108. over several smaller towns, and that they wer ~ The building seen by Pausanias (x., 5, 1) may have themselves the seat of noble families, sprung stood on an ancient site. II Paus, iv., 34, 11. from the line of the ancient kings, which were ~ Oalot (Sacrosancti), Plut., Qu. Gr., 9. ** This title was probably common to both cities, though at Eretria the same class is called n7rxreT. * Strabo, x., p. 448. t i., 15. tt The Ilippobotie are described by Strabo, x., p. 447, as + This hypothesis is very ably maintained by C. F. Herb ar, Tltii'( optoTroKparoLKS dipxovrEC. mann iln the Rh. Mus,, 1832 Heracl. P., xii. ea Ye P,7 xii. 170 HISTORY OF GREECE. generally able to draw the government of the factions; but, being intrustea with a body cf whole nation into their hands. Thus Larissa troops, made himself master of both.* This was subject to the great house of the Aleuadae, event took place two generations before the who were considered as descendants of the an- Persian war;t but the usurpation appears to cient Aleuas; Crannon and Pharsalus to the have been transitory, and not to have left any Scopadae and the Creondae, who were branches durable traces, while the factions of Larissa of the same stock.* The vast estates of these continue to appear from time to time throughnobles were cultivated, and their countless out the whole course of Grecian history. flocks and herds fed, by their serfs, the Penests, We must here conclude this survey; for the who at their call were ready to follow them into western states of Greece are, during this perithe field on foot or on horseback. t They main- od, shrouded in so complete obscurity, that we tained a princely state, drew poets and artists cannot pretend to give any account of their conto their courts, and shone in the public games dition. With respect to the LEtolians, indeed, of Greece by their wealth and liberality. We it is uncertain how far they are entitled to the are not informed whether there were any insti- name of Greeks. The Acarnanians, as soon as turions which provided for the union of the four they begin to take a part in the affairs of Greece, districts, and afforded regular opportunities for distinguish themselves as a finer and more civconsultation on their common interests. But, ilized people, and it is probable that the Coas often as an occasion appeared to require it, rinthian colonies on the Ambracian Gulf may the great families were able to bring about the have exerted a beneficial influence on their soelection of a chief magistrate, always, of course, cial progress. 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 CHAPTER XI. military than civil; nor of its constitutional extent, which, perhaps, was never precisely as- CIVIL HISTORY OF ATTICA TO THE EXPULSION OF certained, and depended on the personal char- THE PISISTRATIDS. acter and the circumstances of the individual. WE have already taken a survey of the leThe population of Thessaly, besides the Pe- gends relating to the origin of the people of Atnests, whose condition was nearly that of the tica, and to the events of their history down to Laconian Helots, included a large. class of free the Ionian migration. We must now look back subjects, in the districts not immediately occu- to the same period, in order to trace the progpied by the Thessalian invaders, who paid a ress of their political institutions, from the certain tribute for their lands, but, though not earliest times to the establishment of that form admitted to the rights of citizens, preserved of government under which the Athenians were their personal liberty unmolested. But above living when they first came into conflict with this class stood a third, of the common Thessa- the power of Persia. lians, who, though they could not boast, like Among the few facts which we are able to the Aleuadae and the Scopadae, of heroic de- collect with regard to the state of Attica in the scent, and had therefore received a much small- earliest times, there are two which seem to be er portion of the conquered land, still, as the so well attested, or so clearly deduced from aupartners of their conquest, might think them- thentic accounts, that they may be safely adselves entitled to some share in the administra- mitted. We read that the territory of Attica tion of public affairs. Contests seem early to was originally divided into a number of little have arisen between this commonalty and the states; and tradition has preserved the names ruling families, and at Larissa the aristocracy of some petty chiefs who are said to have ruled of the Aleuadae was tempered by some institu- in these districts with the title of king.t These tions of a popular tendency. We do not know, communities were independent of each other indeed, to what period Aristotle refers when he and of Athens in their internal government, speaks of certain magistrates at Larissa who and sometimes even made war on their neighbore the title of guardians of the freemen,: and bours. On the other hand, we are informed exercised a superintendence over the admission that attempts were made at a very early peof citizens, but were themselves elected by the riod to unite the forces of the whole nation for whole body of the people, out of the privileged the purpose of mutual defence. It was Cecrops, order, and hence were led to pay their court to according to an Attic antiquarian,s who first esthe multitude in a manner which proved dan- tablished a confederacy among the inhabitants gerous to the interests of the oligarchy. It of Attica, to repel the inroads of the Carian piseems not improbable that the' election of a ta- rates, and of the Bceotians, who invaded it on gus, like that of a dictator at Rome, was sometimes used as an expedient for keeping the * Ar., Pol., v., 6. The context seems to require this incommonalty under. But the power of the oli- terpretation, since the distrust of the oligarchs towards one garchs was also shaken by intestine feuds; and, another is here manifestly contrasted with their distrust of garchs was also shaken by intestine feuds; and, the commonalty just before mentioned. Yet Kortuem under the government of the Aleuads, such was (Hellenische Staatsverfassungen, p. 79) supposes that Aristhe state of parties at Larissa, that, by common totle is speaking of a struggle between the oligarchical and agreement, the city was committed to the care democratical parties. t I3uttm., p. 252, 279. ~ Colxnus at Myrrhinus (Paus., 1.31, 5). Porphyricn at of an officer, who was chosen, perhaps, from the Athmonia (Paus., 1. 14,7). Crocon, whose palace had stood commonalty, to mediate between the opposite near Rheiti (Paus., 1. 38, 1). Compare Plut., Thes., 32. Thucydides, ii., 15. But it is not clear that there is any * Theocr., xvi., 34, f. Buttmann on the Aleuadwe Mythol., reference to this state of things in the tradition that Cra11, xxii. + Dem., De Contr., p. 173. naus, when dethroned by Amphictyon, fled to the deme of * 7roXtvrov'aKxKs, Pol., v., 6. It is not clear whether Lamptrae, and was buried there (Paus., ]. 31, 3); which. their office differed from that of the letovpyoi, mentioned Platner (Beitraege, p. 25) considers as another.example. Pol, iii., 1.. Philochorus in Strabo, ix., p. 397. CIVIL HISTORY OF ATTICA. 171 the land side. The same author, indeed, speaks without much violence, to make the three aboveas if Cecrops, with this view, had founded twelve mentioned divisions tally with each other.* But cities, or had divided the country into twelve we have so little assurance that they are anydistricts, which were members of this confed- thing more than arbitrary combinations, invent eracy: and this it was necessary to suppose, ed by writers whp transferred the form of instiif Cecrops was believed to be sovereign of At- tutions which existed in the historical period to tica. But, though we reject this opinion, we the mythical ages, that the attempt is scarcely need not; on this account, question the existence worth making. of the league itself. The number (one which Even if we believe that, in the period reprepredominates in the Ionian institutions) was sented by the reigns of Cecrops and Cranaus, made up, according to Philochorus, of the fol- Attica comprehended four main divisions, de lowing names: Cecropia, Tetrapolis, Epacria, scribed by any of the above-mentioned names, Decclea, Eleusis, Aphidna, Thoricus, Brauron, it will not follow that the term tribe is correctly Cytherus, Sphettus, Cephisia, Phalerus. The applied to them in a sense implying the existfirst of these names probably represents the ence of a political unity pervading the whole town which afterward became the capital, but nation. They may still have been connected which may not have been more ancient than by no bond but the temporary fear of a common several of the others in this list, nor for a long enemy. The fourfold distribution of the countime more powerful. Among the rest, the try is the foundation of another tradition, which Tetrapolis (which contained the four villages distinctly asserts the absolute independence of (Enoe, Marathon, Probalinthus, Tricorythus) and the several parts. The four sons of Pandion Sphettus were, according to other traditions, share his dominions among them, and rule their founded long after the time of Cecrops. It respective portions with supreme authority. seems to be a similar event, if it is not the But all these divisions were finally superseded same, that is implied in the name of the Attic by one much more celebrated and lasting, which king Amphictyon. This may be probably in- is said to have been instituted by Ion, the proterpreted to signify the foundation of an Am- genitor of the Ionian race, and to have derived phictyonic congress, such as appears to have its names from his four sons. This last feature subsisted in early times in almost every part in the tradition, indeed, though it is adopted of Greece. But the influence attributed to Ce- with perfect confidence by Herodotus, excited crops, and the mention of Amphictyon among the suspicion of many even among the ancients, the kings of Athens, indicate that Athens was who perceived that the names of the tribes acknowledged as the head of this confederacy. founded by Ion were all, or mostly, descriptive The periodical meetings of its council were of certain occupations.t They were the Teleprobably held in Cecropia, and the religious ontes (or, as it is also found written, Gelecntes rites, which were invariably connected with or Gedeontes), the- Hopletes, the Jgicores, and such associations, celebrated in the temple of the Argades. With regard to the second and the Athenian goddess. third of these names, there is no question that It is not so clear what kind of foundation the former denotes a class of warriors; and ought to be attributed to other accounts, in there seems to be as littl6 room to doubt that which the whole country, or people, is said to the latter was once applied to the race which have been divided into four tribes, which tended its flocks on the Attic hills. And this is changed their names, if not their constitution, ground sufficient for inferring that the two othunder several successive kings. Thus, in the er names are similarly significant; but their reign of Cecrops, these tribes received the precise meaning is still the subject of a contronames Cecropis, Autocthon, Actaea, and Paralia. versy which is not likely to be ever decided,'Under Cranaus, either a new distribution was because each of the conflicting opinions may be made, or the old one was designated by the easily connected with a plausible theory. With new names Cranais, Atthis, Mesogea, Diacris. the assistance, however, of other descriptions Under Erichthonius, again, each tribe took its left by the ancients of these divisions, we pername from a god; they were then called Dias, ceive that the last name, which will signify Athenias, Posidonias, Hephtestias. It must be labourers in general, must have been applied observed, that as the last series of names is en- in this case either to a class of husbandmen, tirely derived from the religion of the country, or to one employed in other laborious occupaso in the two preceding some of the names re- tions. Our choice between these meanings late to. the natural features of the land (Actsa, must depend on that which is to be assigned to Paralia, Mesogaea, Diacris, and perhaps Atthis), the first name, which is, unfortunately, both others to the origin or political relations of its in- variously written, and, according to each way habitants (Cecropis, Autocthon, Cranais). We of writing it, ambiguous inense; and the difmay readily believe that the inhabitants'of Attica were very early distinguished from one an- * The reader may see how this has been done for the first two divisions by Dr. Arnold (Thucyd, i., p. 656), and other by various names, according to the differ- for the third by Platner in a little dissertation, De Gentilbus ent stocks from which they sprang; which may, Atticis. perhaps, be indicated by the names of some of t With the highest respect for Mr. Malden's judgment, we cannot be satisfied with his assertion (History of Rome, their mythical kings, as Cranaus and Cecrops; p. 140), that "the notion that the four Ionic tribes were or according to the, nature of the regions which castes, deriving their names from their employments, is they occupied, in the plains, or the highlands, founded on nothing but bad etymologies." He should at least have proposed sofhe better etymology for "O1rv)0rer or the coast; or, according to the habits and lend Ahaepropos. Niebuhr's objection, from the order in pursuits belonging to these various situations; which the names occur, is weighty, but not conclusive. or, finally, according t~o the deities who weire On a point of etymology, Buttmalm's authority is at least exclusively or pre-eminently objects of worship sufficient to shelter those who agree with him from the suspicion of having fallen into any very palpable erior. See among them. And it would not be difficult, his Mythologus, ii., p. 318. 172 HISTORY OF GREECE. ference amounts to nothing less than the whole maintain their independence against the warinterval between the summit and the base of rior tribe, notwithstanding the advantages it the social scale. For, according to one opinion, may have possessed iq its weapons, or' its arthe Teleontes or Geleontes were a sacerdotal mour, or its closer and more orderly array. caste; according to another, they were peas- We have. spoken of the priestly tribe as a ants, who tilled the land of their lords, and paid caste; and if there was such a tribe, it can a tribute or a rent for the use of it. scarcely be considered in any other light. This question is subordinate to another as to Hence we are naturally led to apply the same the origin and nature of these divisions; for it term to the other three: and undoubtedly there is doubtful in what sense they are to be called may have been a period during which the occutribes.'The mythical story describes Ion as pations from which they derived their names their founder, just as Romulus is said to have continued hereditary in the same families. But instituted the distinction between the patricians we have no ground for believing that this sepand the plebeians at Rome. This supposition aration was ever enforced by any religious sancneeds not now be refuted; but we still have to tion, or was anything more than the natural reinquire whether these four tribes were, from sult of situation and circumstances. We have the beginning, comprehended under a higher no reason to imagine that the four tribes connational unity, or whether they remained insu- stituted a hierarchy,'after the manner of the Inlated and independent of each other down to dian or Egyptian; on the contrary, it is probathe period represented by the reign of Theseus. ble that, in proportion as they became more One of the four names-that of the pastoral closely united in one body, the primitive distribe-implies a geographical separation, and it tinctions to which they owed their names were must have been contrasted in the same sense gradually obliterated by mutual intercouise. to one of the rest, that which describes the till- The difficulty of conceiving how this may have ers of the plain. This leads us to believe that been effected with regard to the priests is rather the other two were similarly separated from an objection to the hypothesis that they once each other and the rest, though a tribe of war- formed a caste, than a ground for doubting that riors or priests was not necessarily connected they had ceased to be one before they became with any peculiar habitation. If, however, the a part of the Attic nation. For if they once ocwarrior tribe was chiefly composed of foreign cupied such a station by the side of the warrior conquerors, it may easily be imagined that it tribe, it could only have been through some conmay have occupied a separate district, and that vulsion, of which no trace is left in history, it was thus locally distinguished from the rest. that they lost their sacred character, with its But here we' find ourselves perplexed by the consequent privileges and influence. Such a ambiguity of the name Geleontes, which in He- revolution may undoubtedly have occurred; but rodotus stands first, and by this position seems if so, it must have preceded that settlement of to confirm the opinion that it denoted a priestly the Attic population which is designated in the caste. In this case, no reason can be assigned legend by the arrival and the institutions of Ion; for limiting it to any situation distinct from the for from this epoch we must date the comothers. Still, it is not impossible that it may mencement of a heroic age in Attica, during have occupied a territory of its own; and it is which the state of society became more and not an improbable conjecture that this territory more similar to. that described in the Homeric was the hallowed land of Eleusis. On this poems, when a priestly caste was utterly unsupposition, the four tribes would correspond known in Greece, or, at the utmost, all that reto a geographical division of Attica, which may mained of such a one were a few scattered fragbe compared with that which is attributed to ments-sacred functions appropriated to certain the sons of Pandion, and which may also be families —affording doubtful traces of a long easily adjusted to that which we find at a much past existence. later period determining the state of political The four tribes of Ion, then, were perhaps parties in Attica-the threefold division of the originally not members of one body, but dis-, plain, the highlands, and the coast. On the tinet communities, long kept apart by differenother hand, if'the tribe which has been taken ces of descent, of situation, of pursuits, and of for a priestly caste was really composed of a religion, yet still connected by neighbourhood, dependant peasantry, they cannot so well have by affinities, closer or looser, of blood and lanbeen locally distinguished from the warriors, guage, and by the occasional need of mutual asfor these must then have been the lords whose sistance. Thus was their gradual interfusion lands they tilled; as, on the other supposition, prepared and promoted, while the superiority both the priests and the warriors must be con- of the race which occupied Athens, as it beceived to have emjloyed the services of a sim- came more and more felt, disposed all to look ilar class of subjects in cultivating their pos- to their city as the natural centre of political sessions; and it would, therefore, be necessary union. The time at length arrived when the to suppose either'that the warriors were con- effect of all these causes became visible in the fined to the town and a district in its immedi- important change which is commonly described ate vicinity, while their serfs inhabited the coun- as the work of Theseus, by which the, national try, or that the Geleontes were a tribe of free unity was consolidated, and many of the germs husbandmen, who occupied. a different part of were fixed out of which the institutions to the Attic plains. But, in ay case, we perceive which Athens owed her greatness finally unthat no political union is implied by the four folded themselves. tribes of Ion. The Eleusinian priesthood, in- Theseus is said to have collected the inhabdeed, might only be protected by its sanctity; itants of Attica in one city, and thus forever to but the inhabitants of the mountains and of the have put an end to the discord and hostilities maritime valleysmight have been able long to which had till then prevented them from cork CIVIL HISTORY OF ATTICA. 173 sidering themselves as one people. The sense is entirely groundless, thougn -the former is in which this account is to be understood is more simply and evidently true. Theseus is probably not that any considerable migration said to have accomplished his purpose partly immediately took place out of other districts to by force, partly by persuasion. With the lower Athens, but only that Athens now became the classes, we read, he found no difficulty, but the seat of government for the whole country; that powerful men were only induced to comply. with all the other Attic towns sank from the rank of his proposals by his promise that all should be sovereign independent states to that of sub- admitted to an equal share in the government, jects; and that the administration of their af- and that he would resign all his royal prerogafairs, with the dispensation ofjustice, was trans- tives except those of commanding in war and ferred from them to the capital.* The courts and of watching over the laws. The promise he councils in which the functions of government fulfilled in his regulation of the state, when he had hitherto been exercised throughout the rest laid aside his kingly majesty, and invited all the of Attica were abolished, or concentrated in citizens to equal rights. But, on the other hand, those of the sovereign city. This union was ce- to guard against democratical confusion, he inmented by religion, perhaps by the mutual recog- stituted a gradation of ranks and a proportionnition of deities, which had hitherto been honour- ate distribution of power. He divided the peoed only with a local and peculiar worship, and ple into three classes-nobles, husbandmen, certainly by public festivals, in which the whole artisans;* and to the first of these he reserved people assembled to pay their homage to the tu- all the offices of the state, with the privilege of telary goddess of Athens, and to celebrate the ordering the affairs of religion, and of interpretmemory of their incorporation.t That this ing the laws, human and divine. This same event was attended with a great enlargement division, however, is also represented to have of the city itself might be readily presumed, been made in each of the four tribes, so that even if it was not expressly related. Thucyd- each included a share of each class. This can ides fixes on this as the epoch when the lower only be conceived possible on the supposition city was added to the ancient one, which had that the distinctions which originally separated covered little more than the rock which was af- the tribes had become merely nominal, and that, terward the citadel, though it still retained the although the occupations from which two of name of the city. And hence there may seem them at least derived their names were always to have been some foundation for Plutarch's held ignoble, there were families among them statement that Theseus called the city Athens, no less proud of their antiquity than the most if this name properly signified the whole enclo- illustrious of the warriors or the priests. Still sure of the Old and the New Town. But though, we need not imagine that the numbers of the after this revolution, new temples and other noble class were equal in each of the tribes. buildings, public and private, must have contin- The nobles of the tribe to which Athens itself ued to rise at the foot of the Cecropian rock, it belonged may have formed the main body, and is not necessary to suppose that any considera- may, on that account, have been the less unwillble addition was immediately made to the pop- ing to extend and strengthen their power on ulation of Athens. It is probable that the fam- condition of admitting a few additional partners. ilies who were induced by the new order of The.privileges which Theseus is said to have things to change their abode were chiefly those conferred on his nobles were undoubtedly the of the highest rank, whose members had con- same which they had enjoyed, in narrower stituted the ruling class in their respective spheres, before the union. His institutions states, and were admitted to a similar station were aristocratical, because none were then under the new Constitution. known of any other kind. The effect of the This leads us to consider the ambiguous light union would even be, in the first instance, to inwhich Theseus is represented bythe ancients, increase the influence of the noble class by conon the one hand as the founder of a govern- centrating it in one spot; and hence it proved ment which was for many centuries after him too powerful both for the king and the people rigidly aristocratical, and on the other hand as In this sense, we may say, with Plutarch, that the parent of the Athenian democracy. If we Theseus gained the assent of the great men to make due allowance for the exaggerations of his plan by surrendering his royal prerogatives, poets or rhetoricians, who adorn him with the which they shared equally among them. The latter of these titles in order to exalt the an- king was no more than the first of the nobles: tiquity of the popular institutions of later times, the four kings of the tribes,t all chosen from we shall, perhaps, find that neither description the privileged class, were his constant assessors, and rather as colleagues than as counsellors. The principal difference between them * Dr. Arnold (Appendix iii. to Thucydides, i., p. 662) seems to think that residence at Athens was the condition and him appears to have consisted in the duraon which the nobles were admitted to a share in the gov- tion of their office, which. was probably never eminent; and that those parts of the population of Attica long enough to leave them independent of the which still remained in their original habitations were not included in the tribes at all. We conceive both these points body from which they were taken, and to which to be very doubtful, and the second extremely improbable. they returned. Indeed, the former proposition is a little qualified in a sub-.But there was also a sense in which Theseus sequent page (664), where it is said the Eupatridcw seem might, without d th mostly to have resided at Athens; and as it is there admit- ight, without impropriety, be regarded as th ted that some inhabitants of the country were enrolled in founder of the Athenian democracy, both with the tribes, it does not appear in Dr. Arnold's statement on respect to the tendency and remote consequenwhat principle the rest were excluded. es, and to the immediate effect of the institut The XvvoiKta (Thuc., ii., 15, and Steph. Byz., voc. ces, and to the immediate effect of the instituA6iva), Panathernea, Festival of Aphrodite Pandemus tions ascribed to him. The incorporation of (Pausan., 1. 22, 3). To the same head may perhaps be re-. ferred the introduction of the worship of Dionysus, which * Evrapiat, Ftewdpot, plautovpyoi. is said'to have taken place under Amiphictyon. t 4)vXo3asciXea Pollux, viii., i11. M, 174 HISTORY OF GREECE. several scattered townships in one city, such as race of men; but we are expressly informeQ took place in Attica, was in many, perhaps in that, in the language of the Athenian Constitumost parts of Greece, the first stage in the tion, it did not imply a community of descent growth of a free commonalty, which, thus ena- among the pdrsons comprehended under it. bled to feel its own strength, was gradually en- By this arrangement, therefore, Theseus, or couraged successfully to resist the authority of whoever its author. may have been, introduced the nobles. And hence, in later times, the dis- a new principle, which tended to level the dismemberment of a capital, and its repartition tinctions that had previously existed among the into a number of rural communities, was es- different classes of society. In the little states teemed the surest expedient for establishing an into which Attica was originally divided, though aristocratical government. But as, in using the similar associations undoubtedly existed, they name of Theseus, we would be understood to were probably of natural growth, rather than speak rather of a period than of an individual, created by a deliberate enactment, and comthough without questioning that the name may prised a much smaller number of families, whose have been borne by one who contributed the claims to political privileges rested, perhaps, largest share, or put the finishing hand to the chiefly on this basis.: But the freemen who change which is commonly considered as his were admitted into the phratries, which also work, we may be allowed to conjecture that it contained these noble houses, though they did was really a democratical revolution, in some- not immediately share all their privileges, were thing more than this its general character and at least placed on a footing of equality with them tendency. We read that the four tribes were as citizens of Athens. Besides the religious divided into a certain number of smaller bodies, rites which were peculiar to some of the houses, which continued to subsist and to exercise and which gave their members a right to the their functions long after the tribes themselves exclusive exercise of certain priestly offices, had been abolished. Each tribe contained there were others common to all, and which, three phratries (a name in its origin equivalent by their very nature, suggested the sentiment to a fraternity,* and in its political relations anal- of a domestic rather than of a merely political ogous to the Spartan-obe and the Roman curia); cohnexion. The worship of Zeus and Apollo each phratry was subdivided into thirty sec- was the symbol and the seal of this intimate tions, which bore a name exactly answering to union: of Zeus, as the guardian of households; the Roman gens,t and nearly equivalent to the of Apollo, as the progenitor of the Athenian terms sept, clan, or house, taken in its larger people.* signification as an aggregate of families. The Beyond this we have no means of ascertaingenos, or house, was again made up of thirty ing the exact relation between the nobles and gennetes, or heads of families, the last elements the two inferior classes, or that in which the, of the whole body amounting, therefore, in the latter stood to one another. Even their names whole, to 10,800 persons. It is, however, by no are not free from ambiguity; for that which means certain that these numbers, which were we have expressed by husbandmen may signievidently adopted for the sake of symmetry, fy either independent landowners, or peasants perhaps with reference to the parts of the year, who cultivate the lands of their lords. It and certainly were not the result of any exact seems, however, unnecessary and inconvenient account taken of the population, included the to limit it to the latter sense, which would imwhole body of citizens. We find mention of a ply that the nobles were owners of the whole class of Athenians who were not comprehended soil of Attica. There is no reason for denying in any of the numbered families;t and it has that this class may have contained a number been conjectured, with some probability, that of freemen who cultivated their own land, but they were entitled to be admitted into the phra- were not entitled by their birth to rank with tries as vacancies occurred, without, however, the nobles, and in other respects were, perhaps, being debarred in the mean time from the other but little raised above those who, possessing no rights of citizenship. property of their own, depended on the rich, We are informed that this division of the whose estates they occupied as tenants. The tribes was made by Theseus; but we have third class comprehended all those who substrong reasons for referring it to the period sisted on any other kind of industry besides when the inhabitants of Attica were united into that connected with agriculture. The name one people; for it is difficult to conceive that of this class comprehended a great variety of it can have taken place either earlier or later. occupations,which were held in very different Its uniformity seems to imply that it could not degrees of esteem; and as these'were not conhave happened so long as the four tribes were nected with the soil, it has been suspected that independent of each other; and if it had been those who exercised them were considered as effected by any subsequent innovation, this and sojourners,t who, like the resident aliens of laits author could scarcely have escaped the no- ter times, needed the protection of a patron. tice of history. Now this division, whenever Plutarch observes of this class that it had the it took place, was purely artificial, and framed superiority in numbers, as the second had in the for political purposes. The word, indeed, which importance of its labour, and the first-in the luswe have rendered house, properly signifies a tre of its rank. But we hear of no political dis-,* 4paTpia, or Op~Trpl, etymologically connected with frater, brother ( pgrwop, oprn7p): it seems to have been * ZeiS "EpKEton.'A7rdXXwv fnarpOoi. K. O. Mueller, an Ionian word. There is another less probable derivation, however, conceives that the latter worship was originally from.cpdap, a well, according to which it would signify confined to the Ionian Eupatrids, and was only shared by persons associated by the use of a common spring. the other families after the archonship was thrown open. t rFzvoc, genus, gens: its members yEvlrat, or yimvrirat, Dor., ii., 2, 15. also called b#oyTAactrsg. Pollux, viii., 111. t This is the view which WVachsmuth, 1. i., p. 233, takes l lIesych..'ATrptlKacorot. See Boeckh, Corp. Inscript., of the Jplytovpyoi, who, he observes, are also, alled ~Irtye.i.. p. 10. Wachsmuth, 1. i., p. 238. topoot in Etym. M., Ervrarpida. CIVIL HISTORY OF ATTICA. 175 tinction between the second and the third class, its privilege, and the supreme magistracy was and it is possible that none such existed. The thrown open to the whole body of nobles. This distance which separated both from the first change was speedily followed by one much was so great, that all slighter gradations may more important. When Tlesias, the successor have been lost in it. Accordingly, Dionysius of Eryxias, had completed the term which his of Halicarnassus, comparing the early institu- predecessor had left unfinished, the d uration of tions of Rome and Athens, notices only two the archonship was again reduced to a single classes in the latter, one corresponding to the year; and, at the same time, its branches were Roman patricians, the other to the plebeians.* severed, and distributed among nine new ma. We may, perhaps, safely conclude from anal- gistrates. Among these, the first in rank re. ogy, that even while the power of the nobles tained the distinguishing title of the archon, and was most absolute, a popular assembly was not the year was marked by his name.* He repunknown at Athens, and the example of Sparta resented the majesty of the state, and exercised may suggest a notion of the limitations which a peculiar jurisdiction —that which had belongmight prevent it from endangering the privi- ed to the king as the common parent of his leges of the ruling body. So-long as the latter people, the protector of families, the guardian reserved to itself the office of making or decla- of orphans and heiresses, and of the general ring, of interpreting and administering the laws, rights of inheritance. For the second archon as well as the ordinary functions of government, the title of king, if it had been laid aside, was it might securely intrust many subjects to the revived,t as the functions assigned to him were decision of the popular voice. Its first contests those most associated with ancient recollecwere waged, not with the people, but with the tions. He represented the king as the highkings. Even in the reign of Theseus himself priest of his people; he regulated the celebrathe legend exhibits the royal power as on the tion of the mysteries and the most solemn fesdecline. Menestheus, a descendant of the an- tivals; decided all causes which affected the cient kings, is said to have engaged his brother interests of religion, and was charged with the nobles in a conspiracy against Theseus, which care of protecting the state from the pollution finally compelled him and his family to go into it might incur through the heedlessness or imexile, and placed Menestheus on the throne. piety of individuals. The third archon bore the After the death of this usurper, indeed, the title of polernrch,$ and filled the place of the crown is restored to the line of Theseus for king, as the leader of his people in war, and the some generations. But his descendant, Thy- guardian who watched over its security in time meetes, is compelled to abdicate in favour of of peace. Connected with this character of his Melanthus, a stranger, who has no claim but office was the jurisdiction he possessed over his superior merit. After the death of Codrus, strangers who had settled in Attica under the the nobles, taking advantage, perhaps, of the protection of the state, and over freedmen. opportunity afforded by the dispute between his The remaining six archons received the comsons, are said to have abfolished the title of mon title of thesmothetes,~ which literally signiking, and to have substituted for it that of ar- fies legislators, and was probably applied to chon. This change, however, seems to have them, as the judges who determined the great oeen important, rather as it indicated the new, variety of causes which did not fall under the precarious tenure' by which the royal.power cognizance of their colleagues; because, in the was held, than as it immediately affected the absence of a written code, those who declare nature of the office. It was, indeed, still held and interpret the laws may be properly said to for life.; and Medon, the son of Codrus, trans- make them. mitted it to his posterity,t though it would ap- These successive encroachments on the royal pear that, within the house of the Medontids, prerogatives, and the final triumph of the nothe succession was determined by the choice bles, are almost the only events that fill the of the nobles. It is added, however, that the meager annals of Attica for several centuries. archon was deemed a responsible magistrate, Here, as elsewhere, a wonderful stillness sudwhich implies that those who elected had the denly follows the varied stir of enterprise and power of deposing him; and, consequently, adventure, and the throng of interesting charthough the range of his functions may not have acters that present themselves to our view in been narrower than that of the king's, he was the heroic age. Life'seems no longer to offer more subject to control in the exercise of them. anything for poetry to celebrate, or for history This indirect kind of sway, however, did not to record. Are we to consider this long period satisfy the more ambitious spirits; and we find of apparent tranquillity as one of public happithem steadily, though gradually, advancing to- ness, of pure and simple manners, of general wards the accomplishment of their final object harmony and content, which has only been ren- a complete and equal participation of the dered obscure by the absence of the crimes and sovereignty. After twelve reigns, ending with the calamities which usually leave the deepest that of Alcmaeon,t the duration of the office traces in the page of history 1 We should willwas limited to ten years; and through the guilt ingly believe this if it were not that, so far as or calamity of Hippomenes, the fourth decennial the veil is withdrawn which conceals the occurarchon,~ the house of Medon was deprived of rences of this period from our sight, it affords us * ii., 8. t Pans., iv., 5, 10. *'O ApXwv,'Apxov?7rovvlos, or a E7rd'vvyoS. The successors of Medon were Acastus, Archippus, t "Ap%(ov BaoetXcs. Wachsmuth Suspects, with great Thersippus, Phorbas, Megacles, Diognetus, Pherecles, probability, that the title had never been dropped. Ariphron, Thespieus, Agamiestor, 2Eschylus, Alcmtedh (01. t IIoXiapos (commander-in-chief). vii., 1, B.C. 752).. OeEaotdrat. OcEaoi is used for laws in the ancient - His predecessors were Charops, 2Asimedes, Clidicus; oath of the Attic soldier, Pollux, viii., 105, which was probhe was succeeded by Leocrates, Apsander, and Eryxias. ably earlier than Solon, whose laws are commonly said to Creon, the first annual archon, enters upon his office B.C. have been distinguished by the name of vdiot, from Draco's 684 SeeCoI. 176 -HISTORY OF GREECE. glimpses of a very different state of things. In only modified or enlarged their jurisdiction. the list of the magistrates who held the undivi- I)emades was thought to have described the ded sovereignty of the state, the only name character of his laws very harpily when he said with which any events are connected is that that they were written, not in ink, but in blood. of Hippomenes, the last archon of the line of He himself is reported to have justified their Codrus. It was made memorable by the shame severity by observing that the least offences of his daughter, and by the extraordinary pun- deserved'death, and that he could devise no ishment which he inflicted on her and her par- greater punishment for the worst. This sounds amour.* Tradition long continued to point out like the language of a man who proceeded on as accursed ground the place where she was higher grounds than those of expediency, and shut up to perishfrom hunger, or from the fury who felt himself bound by his own convictions of a wild horse, the companion of her confine- to disregard the opinions of his contemporaries. ment. The nobles, glad, perhaps, to seize an op- Yet it is difficult to believe that Draco can have portunity so favourable to their views, deposed been led by any principles of abstract justice to Hippomenes, and razed his house to theground. confound all gradations of guilt, or, as has been This story would seem, indeed, to indicate the conjectured* with somewhat greater probabiliausterity, as well as the hardness of the ancient ty, that, viewing them under a religious rather manners; but, on the other hand, we are in- than a political aspect, he conceived that in formed that the father had been urged to this every case alike they drew down the anger of excess of rigour by the reproach that had fallen the gods, which could only be appeased by the upon his family from the effeminacy and disso- blood of the criminal. It seems much easier to luteness of its members. Without, however, understand how the ruling class, which adopted drawing any inference from this insulated story, his enactments, might imagine that such a code we may proceed to observe that the accounts was likely to be a convenient instrument in transmitted to us of the legislation of Draco, their hands for striking terror into their subthe next epoch when a dream of light breaks jects, and stifling the rising spirit of discon through the obscurity of the Attic history, do tent which their cupidity and oppression had not lead us to suppose that the people had en- provoked. We are, however, unable to form a joyed any extraordinary measure of happiness well-grounded judgment on the degree in which under the aristocratical government, or that equity may have been violated by his indistheir manners were peculiarly innocent and criminate rigour; for'though we read that he mild. enacted the same capital punishment for petty The immediate occasion which led to Draco's thefts. as for sacrilege and murder, still, as there legislation is not recorded, and even the mo- were some offences for which he provided a tives which induced him to impress it with that milder sentence,t he must have framed a kind character of severity to which it owes its chief of scale, the wisdom and justice of which we celebrity are not clearly ascertained. We know, have no means of estimating. however, that he was the author of the first The danger which threatened the nobles at written laws of Athens; and as this measure length showed itself from a side on which tended to limit the authority of the nobles, to they probably deemed themselves most secure. which a customary law, of which they were the Twelve years after Draco's legislation,: a console expounders, opposed a much feebler check, spiracy was formed by one of their own number we may reasonably conclude that the innovation for overthrowing the government. Cylon, the did not proceed from their wish, but was ex- author of this plot, was eminent both in birth torted from them by the growing discontent of and riches. His reputation, and, still more, his the people. On the other hand, Draco undoubt- confidence in his own fortune, had been greatly edly framed his code as much as possible in raised by a victory at the Olympic Games; and conformity to the spirit and the interests of the he had farther increased the lustre and influruling class, to which he himself belonged; and ence of his family by an alliance with Theage. hence we may fairly infer that the extreme rig- nes, the tyrant of Megara, whose daughter he our of its penal enactments was designed to married.' This extraordinary prosperity elaoverawe and repress the popular movement ted his presumption, and inflamed his ambition which had produced it. Aristotle observes that with hopes of a greatness which could only be Draco made no change in the Constitution, and attained by a dangerous enterprise. He conthat there was nothing remarkable in his laws ceived the design of becoming master of Athexcept the severity of the penalties by which ens. He could reckon on the cordial assistance they, were sanctioned. It must, however, be of his father-in-law, who, independently of their remembered, that the substitution of law for affinity, was deeply interested in establishing custom, of a written code for a fluctuating and at Athens a form of government similar to that flexible tradition, was itself a step of great im- which he himself had founded at Megara; and portance; and we also learn that he introduced he had also, by his personal, influence, ensured some changes in the administration of criminal the support of numerous friends and adherents. justice by transferring cases of murder, or of ac- Yet it is probable that he would not have relied cidental homicide, from the cognizance of the, on these resources, and that his scheme would archons to the magistrates called ephetes;t never have suggested itself to his mind, if the though it is not clear whether he instituted, or general disaffection of the people towards their -* --- -'rulers, the impatience produced by the, evils * The precise nature of the extraordinary punishment inflicted on the seducer can only be conjectured from the *./Vachsmuth, ii., 1, p. 240. description of Heraclides Ponticus, 1, who says that Hip- t Loss of franchise for an attempt to change one of his pomenes put him to death by yoking him to a chariot. laws. Demosth., Aristocr.,p. 640: a mulct of the value The occurrence is mentioned by.2Eschines, Timarch., 182. of ten oxen, Pollux, ix., 61. t'Egirat (Pollux, viii., 125). Courts of appeal: KpiatS $ 01. 42, 1. Draco's archonship, in which his laws won tiacLo;5. enacted, is placed 01. 39, 1, B.C. 624. CIVIL HISTORY OF' ATTICA. 177 for which Draco had provided so inadequate a der the safeguard of the goddess, who had thus remedy, and by the irritating nature of the rem- visibly rejected their supplication, and immediedy itself, and the ordinary signs of an ap- ately proceeded to arrest them. His words proaching change, the need of which began to were the signal of a general massacre, from be universally felt, had not appeared to favour which even the awful sanctity of the neighhis aims. At this period scarcely any great en- bouring altars did not screen the fugitives: terprise was undertaken in Greece without the none escaped but those who found means of sanction of an oracle; yet we cannot but feel imploring female compassion.* some surprise when we are informed by Thu- If the conduct of the principal actors in this cydides that Cylon consulted the Delphic god bloody scene had been marked only by treachery on the means by which he might overthrow the and cruelty, it would never have exposed them government of his country, and still more at the to punishment, perhaps not even to reproach. answer he is said to have received: that he But they had been guilty of a flagrant violation must seize the citadel of Athens during the of religion; and Megacles and his whole house principal festival of Zeus. Cylon naturally in- were viewed with horror, as men polluted with terpreted the oracle to mean the Olympic Games, the stain of sacrilege. All public disasters and the scene of his glory; and Thucydides thinks calamities were henceforth construed into signs it worth observing that the great. Attic festival of the Divine displeasure; and the surviving in hon6ur of the same god occurred at a differ- partisans of Cylon did not fail to urge that the ent season. At the time, however, which ap- gods would never be appeased until vengeance peared to be prescribed by his infallible coun- should have been taken on the offenders. Yet sellor, Cylon proceeded to carry his plan into if this had been the only question which agitaeffect. With the aid of a body of troops fur- ted the public mind, it might have been hushed nished by Theagenes, and of his partisans, he without producing any important consequences. made himself master of the citadel. We hear But it was only one ingredient in the ferment nothing more of his Megarian auxiliaries, and which the conflict of parties, the grievances of perhaps, when his first object was accomplish- the many, and thelambition of the few, now cared, he dismissed them, relying on the favourable ried to a height that called for some extraordidispositions ofthepeople. But the insurrection nary remedy. Hence Cylon's conspiracy and seems not to have been judiciously concerted. its issue exercised an influence on the history Those who had most cause to wish fdr a change of Athens which has rendered it forever mem-r had no reason to believe that this was designed orable, as the event which led the way to tho for their benefit, and the co-operation of the legislation of Solon. foreigners was sufficient to deter all patriotic Solon, son of Execestides,t was sprung from citizens from espousing his cause. Cylon and the line of Codrus. His father had reduced his his friends soon found themselves besieged by fortune by his imprudent liberality; and Solon, the forces which the government called in from in his youth, is said to have been compelled, in all parts of the country. The greater part of order to repair the decay of his patrimony, to these were soon dismissed, as the blockade embark in commercial adventures: a mode of proved tedious, and only a small body was left acquiring wealth which was not disdained by under the command of the nine archons, to wait men of the highest birth, as it frequently affordtill famine should compel the insurgents to sur- ed them the means of forming honourable allirender. In the mean while Cylon and his ances in foreign countries, and even of raising brother effected their escape. Their adherents themselves to princely rank as the founders of seem never to have entertained any hopes of colonies. It was, however, undoubtedly not mercy. ~ When their provisions were all spent, more the desire of affluence than the thirst of and some had died of hunger, the remainder knowledge that impelled Solon to seek distant abandoned the defence of the walls, and took shores; and the most valuable fruit of his travrefuge in the temple of Athend. The archon els was the experience he collected of men, manMegacles and his colleagues, seeing them re- ners, and institutions. We are unable to asduced to the last extremity of weakness, began certain the precise time at which he returned to be alarmed lest the sanctuary should be pro- to settle in Athens; but if, as is most probable, faned by their death. To avoid this danger, it was in the period following Cylon's conspirathey induced them to surrender on condition cy,T he found his country in a deplorable condithat their lives should be spared. Thucydides tion, distracted within by the contests of exassimply relates that the archons broke their perated parties, and scarcely able to resist the promise, and put their prisoners to death when they had quitted their asylum, and that some * Plut., Sol., 12. Herodotus, v., 71, tells the story somewome hat differently. According to him, the magistrates called were even killed at the altars of the dread god- prytanes of the Naucraries (Trpvrdvi avs rV avKpadpav), of desses, as the Eumenides, or Furies, were call- whose power he speaks in terms very similar to those ed, to which they had fled in the tum~ult. Plu- which Thucydides, i., 126, applies to the archons (liE/vov rdre rdl'A0aso —Tsdre rT7,roWtr rvleAtrnixsv irrpacraov), tarch adds a feature to the story, which seems entered into the engagement with''Te suppliants, who too characteristic of the age to be considered as were afterward murdered by the Alcmoeonids. Wachsmuth a later invention. More effectually to ensure (1. i., p. 246) ingeniously reconciles these accounts by the their safety, the suppliants, before they descend- suwere apposition that the magistrates mentioned by Herodotus were assessors of the first archon, and were therefore, in ed from the citadel, fastened a line to the statue public proceedings, identified with him and his colleagues. of Minerva, and held it in their hands as they Dr. Arnold's explanation, Thuc., i., p. 664, seems to create passed through the midst f their enemies. new difficulties, and to fail in reconciling Iterodotus with passed through the midst of their enees. Thucydides. But the line chancing to break as they were t Only one writer, of little note, called him the son of Eu. passing by the sanctuary of the Eumenides, phorion, Plut., Sol., 1. IMegacles, with the approbation of his* cobl As he can scarcely have been born much earlier or la-'Megacles, with the approbation of his col- ter than B.C. 638, he would be about twenty-six at the time leagues, declared that they were no longer un- of the conspiracy, B.C. 612 See Clinton's Fasti, i., p. 301. VOL. I.-.-Z 178 HISrORY OF GREECE. attacks of its least powerful neighbours. Even cision of an impartial tribunal. An extraordi: the little state of Megara was at this time a for- nary court of Three Hundred persons, chosen midable enemy. It had succeeded in wresting from their own order, was commissioned to try the island of Salamis from the Athenians, who them. Under such circumstances their conhad been repeatedly baffled in their attempts to demnation was inevitable: those who had surrecover what they esteemed their rightful pos- vived went into exile, and the bones of the de session. The losses they had sustained in this ceased were taken out of their graves, and transtedious war had broken their spirit, and had ported beyond the frontier. In the mean while driven them to the resolution of abandoning for- the Megarians had not relinquished their preever the assertion of their claims. A decree tensions to Salamis, and they took advantage of had been passed, which, under penalty of death, the troubles which occupied the attention of the forbade any one so much as to propose the re- Athenians to dislodge their garrison from Ninewal of the desperate undertaking. Solon, sama, and to reconquer the island, where five who was himself a native of Salamis, and was, hundred Athenian colonists, who had voluntarily perhaps, connected by various ties with the isl- shared Solon's first expedition, had been reand, was indignant at this pusillanimous poli- warded with an allotment of lands, which gave cy, and he devised an extraordinary plan for them a predominant influence in the governrousing his countrymen from their despondency. ment. It seems probable that it was after this He was endowed by nature with a happy poeti- event that the two states, seeing no prospect of cal talent, of which some specimens are still ex- terminating by arms a warfare subject to such tant in the fragments of his numerous works, vicissitudes, and equally harassing to both, now which, though they never rise to a very high that their honour had been satisfied by alternate degree of beauty, possess the charm of a vigor- victories, agreed to refer their claims to arbious and graceful simplicity.'He now composed tration. At their request the Lacedarnonians, a poem on the loss of Salamis, which Plutarch appointed five commissioners to try the cause. praises as one of his most ingenious productions. Solon, who was the chief spokesman on the To elude the prohibition, he assumed the de- side of the Athenians, maintained their title on meanour of a madman; and rushing into the the ground of ancient possession by arguments market-place, mounted the stone from which which, though they never silenced the Megarithe heralds were used to make their proclama- ans, appear to have convinced the arbitrators. tions, and recited his poem to the by-standers. The strongest seem to have been derived from It contained a vehement expostulation on the the Athenian customs, of which he pointed out disgrace which the Athenian name had incur- traces in the mode of interment observed in Salred, and a summons to take the field again, and amis, as well as inscriptions on the tombs, vindicate their right to the lovely island. The which attested the Attic origin of the persons hearers caught the poet's enthusiasm, which they commemorated. He is also said to have was seconded by the applause of his friends, appealed to the authority of the Homeric cataand particularly by the eloquence of his young logue of the Grecian fleet, and to have resorted kinsman Pisistratus. The restraining law was to a patriotic fraud, by forging a line which derepealed, and it was resolved once more to try scribed Ajax as ranging the ships which he the fortune:mf arms. brought from Salamis in the Athenian station; Solon not only inspired his countrymen with and he interpreted some oracular verses which hope, but led them tovictory, aided in the camp spoke of Salamis as an Ionian island in a simias in the city by the genius of Pisislratus. The lar sense. Modern criticism would not have stratagem with which he attacked the Megari- been much better satisfied with the plea, which ans is variously related; but he is said to have he grounded on the Attic tradition, that the sons finished the campaign by a single blow, and cer- of the same hero had settled in Attica, and had tainly succeeded in speedily recovering the isl- been adopted as Athenian citizens, and, in reand. We may even conclude that the Atheni- turn, had transferred their hereditary dominion ans at the same time made themselves masters over the island to their new countrymen. The of the port of Megara, Nisaea, since it is said to weight, however, of all these arguments deterhave been soon after reconquered by the Mega- mined the issue in favour of the Athenians; rians.* The reputation which Solon acquired and it seems more probable that the Megarians by this enterprise was heightened, and more acquiesced in a decision to which they had themwidely diffused throughout Greece, by the part selves appealed, than that, as Plutarch reprehe took in the sacred war, which ended with sents, they almost immediately renewed hostilthe destruction of Cirrha.t But already before ities. this he had gained the confidence of his fellow- Party feuds continued to rage with unabated citizens, and had begun to exert his influence in violence at Athens. The removal of the men healing their intestine divisions. The outcry whom public opinion had denounced as objects ot against Megacles and his associates in the mas- the divine wrath was only a preliminary step tosacre had risen* high, that it became evident wards the restoration of tranquillity, but the evil that quiet could never be restored until they had was seated much deeper, and required a differexpiated their offence, and had delivered the ent kind of remedy, which was only to be found city from the curse Which they seemed to have in a new organization of the state. This, it is brought upon it. Solon, with the assistance of probable, Solon already meditated, as he must the most moderate nobles, prevailed on the par- long have perceived its necessity. But he saw ty of Megacles to submit their cause to the de- that, before it could be accomplished, the minds of men must be brought into a frame fitted foi * It was taken by Pisistratus, Herod., i., 59. Plut., So- its reception, and that th's could only be done ion, c. 12. with the aid of religion. There were superstit This war began B.C. 600, four years after the recovery with the aid of religion. There were superstiof Salamis. See Clinton, F. IH., ii., p. 196. tious fears to be stilled, angry passions to be CIVIL HISTORY OF ATTICA. 179 soothed, barbarous usages, hallowed by long will, if not endowed with the faculty of penetraprescription, to be abolished; and even the au- ting, as often as he wished, into the depths of thority of Solon was- not of itself sufficient for futurity. He was a poet, too, as well as a prophthese purposes. He therefore looked abroad et, and the descriptions given of his works atfor a coadjutor, and fame directed his view to test the fecundity of his genius. It seems, a man peculiarly qualified to meet this emer- however, that he did not disdain to heighten gency. Orete at this time boasted of a person the respect which these advantages procured whom his contemporaries regarded as a being for him, by assuming an exterior which distinof a superior nature, and who even to us ap- guished him from the rest of mankind, and by pears in a mysterious, or at least an-ambiguous affecting an Oriental austerity of habits. It was light, from our inability to decide how far he said that no one ever saw him eat, and when himself partook in the general opinion which he appeared in public the awful gravity of the ascribed to him an intimate communion with sage was announced by the length of his flowhigher powers. This was Epimenides,' a na- ing hair. tive, it is said, of the town of Phnstus, but, as This venerated person was now publicly inhis history seems to show, a citizen of Cnossus, vited to Athens, to exert his marvellous powers the ancient capital of Minos. His origin seems in behalf of the distracted city. His visit to to have been obscure, for, like the ancient sage Athens, as it was the most memorable event of Musaeus, he was said to be the son of a nymph, his life, is also that which gives us the clearest a kind of parentage which in both cases implies view of his character, and shows that, though the popular belief of inspired wisdom in those he may not have a claim to the title of a phito whom it was ascribed. His youth, and even a losopher, it would be equally unjust to consider great part of his manhood, according to a legend him as a juggler and an impostor. The measwhich seems to have been current even in his ures he adopted on his arrival consisted in great own time, passed away in a preternatural slum- part of religious rites, which, as they finally alher: he had been sent by his father to fetch'a layed the fears of the superstitious, were unsheep from the country, but having turned aside doubtedly as efficacious as any that could have into a cave for shelter from the noontide heat, been devised. We regret, indeed, to find that, he was overtaken by sleep. He woke uncon- among other propitiations, he prescribed the scious of any change, and it was only by that sacrifice of a human victim: it was, perhaps, which he gradually discovered in the persons demanded by the public opinion, in which he and things around him that he found more than may himself have partaken. A youth, named half a century had elapsed since he left his fa- Cratinus, voluntarily devoted himself for his ther's house. Many of the ancients perceived country, and was joined in death by his friend that this marvellous tale was not without a Aristodemus.* A stillmore significant and immeaning, though they were not unanimous in portant act was the foundation of a temple to their interpretation of it. The greater part of the Eumenides, on the Areopagus-a hill althem, however, drew from it the probable infer- ready hallowed by the most ancient court of ence that Epimenides had spent the early part criminal justice-and the consecration of two of his life in obscurity-either that of voluntary altars to appease the baneful Powers, whose seclusion or of distant travel - and that the malignant influence had stifled in the breasts of time during which he thus withdrew himself the citizens the respect they owed to each othfrom the eyes of his countrymen was employed er and to the laws.t But Epimenides appears in acquiring those stores of knowledge by which not merely as a founder of sacred rites and monhe afterward excited their astonishment. He uments; he also introduced some regulations, seems to have studied the healing virtues of which, though not wholly foreign to Religion, plants, and thus to have made some proficiency had manifestly a political object, and were probin an art which enabled him to confer solid ben- ably framed either at the suggestion of Solon, efits upon mankind. But this was not the main or in order to meet his views. They imposed foundation of his fame, nor probably that which restraints on the profuse expense with which he himself considered as the most precious re- private persons celebrated the worship of the suit of his solitary meditations. His rude at- gods, and on the wild and unseemly signs of tempts to explore the secrets of nature, by open- grief which the women had been accustomed ing new sources of wonder to his inquisitive to display at funerals. These, to us, may seem mind, served, perhaps, to nourish that credu- trifles, but Solon thought them worthy objects lous enthusiasm, from which some of the great- of his legislation; and as the last was perhaps est intellects of this period were not exempt, not unconnected with the cause of the disorders and which was rather strengthened than so- which had called for the presence of Epimenibered by the first essays of philosophical spec- des, so no less an authority may have been reulation. He sought a more direct road to knowl- quisite for innovations which seemed to enedge in the favour of the gods, which he strove croach upon the most sacred privileges. to win, both by the diligent practice of old ob- Epimenides had been received with a reverservances, and by the institution of new and ence which ensured the success of his benefimore acceptable rites. Thus, in the opinion cent work, and when it was accomplished he of his countrymen, and probably in his own, he was dismissed with tokens of the warmest gratrose to the dignity of a priestly seer, profoundly itude. The Athenians decreed gold and signal learned in mystic ordinances, eminently skilled honours to their benefactor, but he had too in the art of propitiating the anger of heaven high a sense of the sanctity of his office to acwhen provoked by impiety or neglect, and hon- * Athenmus, p. 602. Diagenes Laertius, i., 110, names cured with frequent revelations of the Divine Cratinus and Ciesibius. t'Y6pts and'Avaslta, insolence and impudenoe, Con* On the history of Epimenides there is a useful little tumelia and impudentia, in Cicero, De Leg.,-ii., 11, waxh work by Heinrich: Epimenides aus Kreta. speaks of a temple; other authors know only of alta rs. 180 HISTORY OF GREECE. cept such rewards. The only boon he request- country, which, from time Immemorial, had deed was, for himself, a branch from the sacred termined the pursuits and the character of its olive-tree which grew on the citadel, the gift, inhabitants; and this now separated them into it was believed, of Athen6, when she claimed three distinct parties,* animated each by its pethe land as her own, and for his country a de- culiar interests, views, and feelings. The poscree of perpetual friendship and alliance be- sessions of the nobles lay chiefly in the plains. tween Athens and Cnossus. This pleasing As a body, they desired the continuance of the monument of his visit seems to have subsisted existing state of things, on which their power in the time of Plato,* and a statue of the Cre- and exclusive privileges depended; but, as we tan sage long adorned one of the Athenian have seen,. there were among them some modsanctuaries. But though the visit of Epimeni- erate men, who were willing to make concesdes was attended with the most salutary con- sions to prudence, if not to justice, and to resign sequences, so far as it applied a suitable reme- a part for the sake of securing their possession dy to evils which were entirely seated in the of the rest. The inhabitants of the highlands, imagination, and though it may, have wrought in the eastern and northern parts of Attica, do still happier effects by calming, softening, and not seem to have suffered any of those evils opening hearts which had before only beaten which the rapacity and hard-heartedness of the with wild and malignant passions, still it had powerful had inflicted on the lowland peasantry; not produced any real change in the state of but, though independent, they were probably, for things, but had, at the utmost, only prepared the the most part, poor, and had, perhaps, been less way for one. This work remained to be achiev- considered than their neighbours in the distried by Solon. bution of political rights. They generally wishThe government had long been in the hands ed for a revolution which should place them on a of men who appear to have wielded it only as level with the rich; and, uniting their cause with an instrument for aggrandizing and enriching that of the oppressed, they called for a thorough themselves. They had reduced a great part of redress of grievances, which they contended the class whose industry was employed in the could only be afforded by reducing that enormous labours of agriculture to a state of abject de- inequality of possessions, which was the source pendance, in which they were not only debarred of degradation and misery to them and their from all but, perhaps, a merely nominal share fellows.t The men of tlie coast, who probably of political rights, but held even their personal composed a main part of that class which subfreedom by a precarious tenure, and were fre- sisted by trade, by the exercise of the mechani-' quently reduced to actual slavery. The small- cal arts,.and, perhaps, by the working of the er proprietors, impoverished by bad times or wnines, and now included a considerable share casual disasters, were compelled to borrow of affluence and intelligence, were averse to viomoney at high interest, and to mortgage their lent measures, but were desirous of a reform in lands to the rich, or to receive them again as the Constitution which should promote the prostenants upon the same hard terms as were im- perity of the country by removing all grounds posed upon those who cultivated the estates of of reasonable complaint, and' should admit a the great landowners. The laws made by the larger number to the enjoyment of those rights nobles enabled the creditor to seize the person which were now engrossed and abused by a of his insolvent debtor, and to sell him as a few. slave; and this right had been frequently exer- It is probable that the wiser nobles now recised: numbers had been torn frommtheir homes, gretted the blind eagerness with which their and condemned to end their days in the service an6estors abolished the regal dignity, under of a foreign master; others were driven to the which they might, perhaps, still have retained still harder necessity of selling their own chil- their power, even if they had been compelled to dren. One who travelled at this time through exercise it with greater moderation. The peoAttica saw the dismal monuments of aristocrati- ple in general felt the need of a leader, and cal oppression scattered over its fields, in the would have preferred even the despotic rule of stone posts,t which marked that what was once one man to the tyranny of their many lords. a property had become a pledge, and that its As Solon's established reputation pointed him former owner had lost his independence, and out as the person most capable of remedying was in danger of sinking into a still more de- the disorders of the state, so he united all the graded and miserable condition. Such specta- qualities which could fit him for coming forward cles had frequently struck the eye of Solon, and as the protector of the commonalty without exthey undoubtedly moved him no less than that citing the fears of the nobles. He belonged to which roused the holy indignation of the elder the latter by birth and station, and he recomGracchus against the Roman grandees.t mended himself to the former by the proofs he Those who groaned under this tyranny were had shown of activity, prudence, justice, and only eager for a change, and cared little about humanity. He was therefore chosen, with the,the means by which it might be effected. But unanimous consent of all parties, to mediate bethe population of Attica was not pimply com- tween them, and arbitrate their quarrels; and, posed of these two classes. We have already under the legal title of archon, was invested noticed an ancient geographical division of the with full authority to frame a new Constitution and a new code of laws. (01. 46, 3-B. C. 594.) * De Leg.,i., 11. Though Plato's chronology is enor- Such an office, under such circumstances, conmously wrong-he places the visit of Epimenides only ten ferred almost unlimited power, and an ambitious years before the Persian war, about B.C. 500 —we may re- easily ha ceive his testimony in the fact stated in the text, which is man might easily have abused it to make himalso mentioned by Diogenes Laert., i., 111. a t "Opol. They were inscribed with the amount of the * The lowlanders were called IIlEcL7g or HIEaot: the debt and the name of the creditor. highlanders ALdKpLxr: the men of the coast, Ildpasol. $ Plut., Tib. Gracchus, c. 8. t Plut., Sol., 13, 29 CIVIL HISTORY OF A'rTICA. 181 self absolute master of the state. The contend- Solon himself, in a poem which he afterward ing parties would probably have acquiesced composed on the subject of his legislation, spoke without much reluctance in such a usupration, with a becoming pride of the happy change as an evil less than those which some suffered which this measure had wrought in the face of and others feared. Solon's friends exhorted Attica, of the numerous citizens whose lands him to seize the opportunity of becoming tyrant he had discharged, and'whose persons he had of Athens; and they were not at a loss for fair emancipated, and brought back from hopeless arguments to colour their foul advice. They slavery in strange lands. He was only unfortubade him consider that the name of a tyranny nate in bestowing his confidence on persons was harmless, and the thing salutary, so long who were incapable of imitating his virtue, and as it was wisely and justly administered; and who abused his intimacy. At the time when they reminded him of recent instances-of Tyn- all men were uncertain as to his intentions, nondas in Eubcea, and Pittacus at Mitylene, and no kind of property could be thought secure, who had exercised a sovereignty over their fel- he privately informed three of his friends of his low-citizens without forfeiting their love. Solon determination not to touch the estates of the saw through their sophistry, and was not tempt- landowners, but only to reduce the amount of ed by it to betray the sacred trust reposed in debt. He had afterward the vexation of dishim; and he consoled himself for the taunts covering that the men to whom he had intrustwith which they reproached his want of spirit ed this secret had been base enough to take adand prudence by the approbation of his con- vantage of it, by making large purchases of science, the esteem of his countrymen, and.the land, which at such a juncture bore, no doubt, honour with which his name has come down to a very low price, with borrovwed money. Forposterity. Instead of harbouring any schemes tunately for his fanie, the state of his private of selfish aggrandizement, he bent all his affairs was such as to exempt him from all susthoughts and energies to the execution of the picion of having had any share in this sordid great task which he had undertaken. transaction. He had himself a considerable This task consisted of two main parts: the sum out at interest, and was a loser in proporfirst and most pressing business was to relieve tion by his own enactment. the present distress of the commonalty; the We have here followed that account of Sonext, to provide against the recurrence of like lon's measures of relief, which seems the most evils, by regulating the rights of all the citizens probable in itself, and is confirmed by the best according to equitable principles, and fixing evidence. There was, however, another, adoptthem on a permanent basis. In proceeding to ed by some ancient writers, which represented the first part of his undertaking, Solon held a him as having entirely cancelled all debts, and middle course between the two extremes- as having only disguised the violence of this those who wished to keep all, and those who proceeding under a soft and attractive name. were for taking everything away. The most It does not appear that the ancients saw any-' violent or needy would have been satisfied with thing to censure in his conduct according to nothing short of a total confusion of property, either view. On the other hand, in our times followed by a fresh distribution of it. They de- there will, perhaps, be some who will consider sired that all debts should be cancelled, and that such a change in property and contracts, even the lands of the rich should be confiscated and upon the mildest interpretation, as unjust in parcelled' out among the poor. Solon, while he principle, and as a precedent pregnant with conresisted these reckless and extravagant de- sequences the most dangerous to society. But mands, met the reasonable expectations of the the example of Solon cannot be fairly pleaded public by his disburdening ordinance,* and re- by those who contend that either public or prilieved the debtor, partly by a reduction of the vate faith may be rightly sacrificed to experate of interest, which was probably made ret- diency. He must be considered as an arbitrarospective, and thus in many cases would wipe tor to whom all the parties interested submitoff a great part of the debt, and partly by lower- ted their claims, with the avowed intent that ing the standard of the silver coinage, so that they should be decided by him, not upon the the debtor saved more than one fourth in every footing of legal right, but according to his own payment.t He likewise released the pledged view of the public interest. It was in this light lands from their encumbrances, and restored that he himself regarded his office, and he apthem in full property to their owners; though it pears to have discharged it faithfully and disdoes not seem certain whether this was one of creetly. The strongest proof of the wisdom the express objects of the measure, or only one and equity of his measures is that they subjectof the consequences which it involved. Finally, ed him to obloquy from the violent spirits of he abolished the inhuman law which enabled both the extreme parties. But their murmurs the creditor to enslave his debtor, and restored were soon drowned in the general approbation those who were pining at home in such bondage with which the disburdening ordinance was reto immediate liberty; and it would seem that ceived: it was celebrated with a solemn festihe compelled those who had sold their debtors val, and Solon was encouraged, by the stronginto foreign countries to procure their freedom est assurances of the increased confidence of at their own expense. The debt itself in such his fellow-citizens, to proceed with his work; cases was, of course, held to be extinguished. and he now entered on the second. and more difficult part of his task. t Plutarch (Sol., 15) says that he made the mina, which He began by repealing all the laws of Draco, before contained 73 drachms, to contain 100; that is, he except those which concerned the repression made 73 old drachms to be worth 100 new. Boeckh, Staash., of bloodshed, which were, in fact, customs halii., p. 360, thinks that he meant to reduce the value ot the lowed by time and by r.ligion, and had been drachm only by one quarter, but that the new coin proved lighter than was expected. retained, not introduced, by his predecessor. .182 HISTORY OF GREECE. As a natural consequence, perhaps, of this meas- their privileges, or to ascertain whether in their ure, he published an amnesty, or act of grace,' political rights one had any advantage over the which restored those citizens who had been other. They were at least distinguished from deprived of their franchise for lighter offences, each other by the mode of their military seiand recalled those who had been forced into vice: the one furnishing the cavalry, the other exile; and it seems probable that this indul- the heavy-armed infantry. But, for their exclugence was extended to the house of Megacles, sion from the dignities occupied by the wealthy the Alcmaeonids, as they were called from a'few, they received a compensation in the comremote ancestor, the third in descent from Nes- parative lightness of their burdens. They were tor, and to the partners of his guilt and punish- assessed, not in exact proportion to the amount ment: the city, now purified and tranquillized, of their incomes, but at a much lower rate, the might be supposed to be no longer polluted or nominal value of their property being, for this endangered by their presence; and it was al- purpose, reduced below the truth-that of the ways liable to be disturbed by their machina- knights by one sixth, that of the third class by tions, so long as they remained in banishment. one third.* The fourth class was excluded The four ancient tribes were retained, with all from all share in the magistracy, and from the their subdivisions; but it seems probable that honours and: duties of the full-armed warrior, Solon admitted a number of new citizens; for the expense of which would in general exceed it is said that he invited foreigners to Athens their means: by land they served only as light by this boon, though he confined it to such as troops; in later times they manned the fleets. settled there with their whole family and sub- In return, they were exempted from all direct stance, and had dissolved their connexion with contributions, and they were permitted to take their native land.* The distinguishing feature a part in the popular assembly, as well as in of the new Constitution was the substitution the exercise of those judicial powers which of property for birth, as a title to the honours were now placed in the hands of the people. and offices of the state.t This change, though We shall shortly have occasion to observe how its consequences were of infinite importance, amply this boon compensated for the loss of all would not appear so violent or momentous to the privileges that were withheld from them. the generation which witnessed it, since at this Solon's classification, as we see, takes no notime these two claims generally concurred in tice of any other than landed property; yet, as the same person. Solon divided the citizens the example of Solon himself seems to prove into four classes, according to the gradations that Attica must already have carried on some of their fortunes, and regulated the extent of foreign trade, it is not unlikely that there were their franchise, and their contributions to the fortunes of this kind equal to those which gave public necessities, by the amount of their in- admission to the higher classes. But it can comes. The first class, as its name expressed, hardly be supposed that they placed their pos. consisted of persons whose estates yielded a sessors on a level with the owners of the soil; nett yearly income or rent of 500 measures of it is more probable that these, together with the dry or liquid produce.t The qualification of newly-adopted citizens, without regard to their the second class Wvas three fifths of this amount; various degrees of affluence, were all included that of the third, two thirds, or more probably in the lowest class. half, of the latter. The members of the second Solon's system then made room for all freeclass were called knights,~ being accounted able men, but assigned to them different places, vato keep a war-horse: the name of the third rying with their visible means of serving the class, whom we might call yeomen, was derived state. His general aim in the distribution of from the yoke of cattle for the plough, which a power, as he himself explains it in a fragment farm of the extent described was supposed to which Plutarch has preserved from one of his require. II The fourth class comprehended all poems, was to give such a share to the commonwhose incomes fell below that of the third, and, alty as would enable it to protect itself,t and to according to its name, consisted of hired la- the wealthy as much as was necessary for retainbourers in husbandry.~ The first class was ing their dignity-in other words, for ruling the exclusively eligible to the highest offices, those people without the means of oppressing it.t He of the nine archons, and, probably, to all others threw his strong shield, he says, over both, and which had hitherto been reserved to the nobles: permitted neither to gain an unjust advantage. they were also destined to fill the highest com- The magistrates, though elected upon a differmands in the army, as in later times, when ent qualification, retained their ancient authorAthens became a maritime power, they did in ity; but they were now responsible for the exthe fleet. Some lower offices were undoubted- ercise of it, not to their own body, but to the ly left open to the second. and third classes, though we are unable to define the extent of * As the price of the medimnus was estimated by Solon at a drachm, the lowest income of the first class was equiv* This appears to be the foundation of Plutarch's state- alent to 500 drachms, the twelfth part of a talent; and the ment, Sol., 24, which is, literally, that no foreigners could property which yielded this income was rated at a talent, be adopted as citizens but those who had either settled in and taxed accordingly. But the property of persons in the Attica as above mentioned, or were banished from their second class, instead of being rated at twelve times the own countries for life. He seems to suppose that such amount of their income, or 3600 drachms, was rated at only aliens had a legal right to the freedom of the city. 3000; that of the yeomen at 1200 instead of 1800. For the t Niebuhr. takes a very different and peculiar view of full proof and illustration of these statements, see Boeckh's this subject (History of Rome, v. ii., ed. 2, p. 305, of the Public Economy of Athens (book iv., ch. v.), which first English translation: " By his constitution of the classes, threw light on this subject. Solon removed all the indigent eupatrids from the govern- t tl~C p#v yap o':Ka rdcov Kparos &arov'7rapcatv. Niement without letting in the rich members of the demus." buhr (ii., p. 305, transl. of 3d edit.) gives a different interVol. i., n. 1017.) See Appendix I. pretation: Solon had conceded (to the demus) only so muc4 4 lIevraKoaslospc' yvot. The medimnus exceeds the bushel authority in the state as could not be withheld from it. by six pints and a fraction. I Ot' EcXov vvaptYv cKai Xprjlaadv 7cayv a)}ro I KaL'vOS 4'Isnr7r. I1 Znu'ytra1. ~ 0lre. S- bpaodparv IRva thELKES SXEv CIVIL HISTORY:OF ATTICA. 183 governed. The judicial functions of the a.- were all contained in three of the tribes it chons were perhaps preserved nearly in their seems to raise a strong objection against the full extent; but appeals were allowed from their supposition that the real number exceeded this jurisdiction to courts numerously composed, by sixty or a hundred; since in that case, on and filled indiscriminately from all classes.* both the occasions just mentioned, we should Solon could not foresee the change of circum- probably have heard, not of the Three Hundred, stances by which this right of appeal became but either of 360 or 400 members of those aristhe instrument of overthrowing the equilibrium tocratical assemblies. We are therefore led which he hoped to have established on a solid to suspect that the old Athenian council came basis, when that which he had designed to ex- nearer in numbers to the Spartan gerusia. But ercise an extraordinary jurisdiction became an it is possible that, besides this, the eupatrids ordinary tribunal, which drew almost all causes held general assemblies of their order, either peto itself, and overruled every other power in the riodically, or as occasions arose for them. The state. He seems to have thought that, while council of Four Hundred was perhaps intendhe provided sufficiently for the security of the ed to replace both these institutions. It succommonalty, by permitting the lowest of its ceeded to the ancient council in the regular members to vote in the popular assembly, and management of public affairs, and its number to sit in judgment on cases in which the parties was probably fixed with a view to admit as were dissatisfied with the ordinary modes of many of the citizens to a share in the governproceeding, he had also ensured the stability of ment as it appeared safe to intrust with it. It his new order of things by two institutions, was apopular body as compared with an aswhich appeared to be. sufficient guard against sembly of the eupatrids; for its members were the sallies of democratical extravagance-an- taken from the first, three classes, each tribe chors, as Plutarch expresses it, on which the furnishing one hundred; but, on the other hand, vessel of the state might ride safely in every it was aristocratical, inasmuch as it excluded storm. These were the two councils of the one large division of the people. And there is Pour Hundred and the Areopagus. even room to suspect that it may have been The institution of the Four Hundred was uni- composed in a manner which rendered it more iormly attributed to Solon. But as the founda- subject to the influence of the eupatrids than Lion of the Areopagus was likewise attributed has been generally believed; for it does not So him by most of the ancients, though it is cer- seem that entire reliance can be placed on the tain that he only made some changes in its con- opinion that the success of the candidates was stitution, there is ground for inquiring whether determined, as in the latter practice, by lot.* a similar mistake may not have prevailed in the If they were elected, it would be easy to conother case. It is, indeed, highly probable. that ceive that the noble families might generally be an aristocratical council existed before Solon; able to bring in men of their choice. But the but we have neither evidence nor any sure an- competitors, however appointed, were obliged alogy to guide us in determining its numbers; to give proof of their legal capacity in a previnor can we decide whether it represented the ous examination.t To the security for their four tribes, or any of their subdivisions. If we fitness afforded by the prescribed qualification knew how the eupatrids were distributed among of fortune, was added that of a mature age, none the tribes, it might be possible to arrive at some being eligible under thirty. They were chanprobable conclusion on this point; but so long ged every year, and at the end of this term were as there is room for the present diversity of liable to render a general account of their conopinions with regard to the composition of the duct, and to meet all charges that might be tribes, there can be little hope of ascertaining brought against them, and even during its conthe nature of the council, as it stood before the tinuance they might be expelled for misconduct time of Solon. There are, however, two well- by their colleagues. As the council was prinattested facts which appear to have a bearing cipally designed to restrain and conduct the enon this question, and which, we believe, have larged powers of the popular assembly, commitbeen hitherto overlooked. We have seen that ted as they now were to a multitude of inexpethe cause of the Alcmaeonids was referred to an rienced hands, the main part of its business aristocratical tribunal of Three Hundred per- was to prepare the measures which were to be sons; and we shall see that when the chief of submitted to the votes of the assembly, and to -the Alcmaeonids had substituted a new council preside ov(er its deliberations. - It was divided in the room of Solon's, his political antagonist into sections, which, under the venerable name having suppressed it, established one of Three of prytanes, succeeded each other throughout Hundred in its stead. This can hardly be a the year as the representatives of the whole merely casual coincidence. Even if it does not body. Each section during its term assembled warrant the conclusion that three hundred was daily in their session-house, the prp/taneum, to the number of the ancient council-which, in- consult on the state of affairs, to receive ifiteldeed, cannot be imagined, unless the eupatrids ligence, information, and suggestions, and instantly to take such measures as the public in* Plut., Sol., 18. Plutarch's statement on this subject seems to be generally rejected as erroneous: Wachsmuth * Wachsmuth, 1. 1, p. 257, refers to a collection of au does not even notice it; and Platner, Beitr., p. 59, thinks it thorities in Tittmann relating to the council of Five Hun clear that Plutarch confounded the avicpLaLSg with an EbEaLS dred, and contents himself with adding, there is no trace -the magistrate's preliminary investigation with an appeal that Solon originally appointed an election of the council. from his sentence. This would be a singular mistake. But it seems doubtful whether this is the right way of staWhereas the appeal, of which Draco had left a precedent ting the question, and whether, in the absence of evidence in the institution of the Ephetes, seems in itself by no to the contrary, it ought not to be presumed that this was means improbable, as a transition from the original pleni- Solon's regulation. WVhere the thing itself is so probable, tude of the magistrate's judicial power to its subsequent we might perhaps be justified in laying some stress on Plucomparative nullity. Still it must be owned that on such tarch's expression (Sol. 19): a7r svxro fKdCers E Krr ardv a point Plutarch's authority is not weiphtv av6pl e T7XAeidaeCvoE. t AoKtipacia. 184 HISTORY OF GREECE. terest rendered it necessary to adopt without stitution. A body of 6000 citizens was every delay. Like the ancient magistrates of the year created by lot for a supreme court, called same name, they were entertained at a com- Helinea,* which was divided into several smallmon table, together with the other guests of er ones, not limited to any precise number of the state who enjoyed that privilege either by persons. The qualifications required for this virtue of some office or as a reward of merit. were the same with those which gave admisBesides, however, the function of prompting sion into the general assembly, except that the and directing the proceedings of the popular as- members of the former might not be under the sembly, the council possessed others connected age of thirty. It was therefore, in fact, a select with the finances and other objects of adminis- portion of the latter, in which the powers of the tration, which it exercised without any restraint larger body were concentrated, anrid exercised except its general responsibility. In this capa- under a judicial form. That Solon himself city it had the power of issuing ordinances, not viewed it in this light, and designed it much unlike the edicts of the Roman magistrates, rather to be the guardian of the Constitution which continued in force for the current year, than the minister of the laws, appears from the and of inflicting fines at its discretion to a cer- oath which he prescribed to its members.t It tain amount. relates, for the most part, to their political duAccording to the theory of Solon's Constitu- ties of resisting all attempts to subvert the detion, the assembly of the. people was little more mocracy, and to substitute any other form of than the organ of the council, as it could only government, and all measures tending to that act upon the propositions laid before it by the end; and only after these obligations have been latter.* But, besides the option of approving or fully described, proceeds to enumerate those rejecting, it seems always to have had the which belong to the judicial character, of repower of modifying the measures proposed, jecting bribes, hearing impartially, and deciding without sending them back for the acceptance faithfully. It is not, indeed, clear that Solon of the council in their altered form. There intended wholly to transfer ordinary cases from was, however, a mode by which the council the cognizance of the archons to that of the might become the organ of the assembly, or, popular courts, though subsequently the magisrather, the channel through which measures trates only retained the functions of conducting were introduced into it by private individuals. causes to that stage in which they were ripe This happened when the council received a for the decision of the jurors, of presiding at the proposition not emanating from its own body, trial, and executing the judgment.4 But the and merely clothed it with the legal form and peculiar sphere of action in which the jurors sanction.t These two cases probably did not appeared in the plenitude of their power, as enter into Solon's plan, and perhaps, if he had the representatives of the people, and carried foreseen them, he would have endeavoured to into effect the proper intention of the legislator, guard against them. In his time their impor- lay in, questions relating to political offences, tance could scarcely have been perceived. The which were brought before them chiefly by ordinary assemblies,$ which at first, perhaps, means of the prosecutions instituted against the were not held oftener than once a month, seem authors of illegal measures. The person who then not to have excited so lively an interest had succeeded in causing a law or a decree to as in after-times. The attendance of the citi- be passed which was afterward found to be inzens seems to have been considered by the consistent either with other laws that remaingreater number as a burdensome duty rather ed in force or with the public interest, was still than a privilege; and it was necessary to en- held responsible for his conduct, and, if conforce it by marking and fining those who were victed within a year after his proposition had seen to pass through the streets in a different been carried, was liable to a punishment dedirection at the hour of meeting. No fixed pending on the pleasure of his judges, and number.of voters was necessary, except in a measured by their opinion of the motives or few cases, which required the presence of at consequences of his act. They decided at'once least 6000 citizens. The votes on public meas- on the fact and the law, and the grounds of ures were taken by show'of hand, and without their verdict might embrace the widest field any distinction of classes: the vote of the poor- connected with the foreign or domestic policy est peasant weighed in itself as much as that of the state. This jurisdiction enabled them, at of the richest noble, though the latter might the same time, to punish the individual, and command many by his personal influence.'Eve- warn others from following his example, and to ry voter was allowed to speak. The exercise reverse the proceedings of the legislative as-'of this right began after the age of twenty; but, sembly, though they had been adopted on maamong his other precautions against the dan- ture deliberation, with a full consciousness of gers that might arise from ignorance and rash- their nature, and a strict adherence to all the ness, Solon provided that in every assembly the legal forms. crier should invite those who were past fifty to Another important provision by which Solon speak first on each question. The president endeavoured to secure the stability of his instihad the power of repressing and punishing all tutions, without depriving them of the flexibilibreaches of order and decorum. ty necessary for a continual adaptation to alterBut the judicial power which Solon had lodg- ed circumstances, consisted in the regulations ed in the hands of the people was the most by which he subjectec them to a perpetual repowerful instrument on which he relied for cor- vision. It was-a part of the ordinVy business recting all abuses, and remedying all mischiefs that might arise out of the working of his Con- * "HMala, an assembly. Herod., v., 29, has the form - _. ait77. t Demosth., Timocr., p. 746 llIpo'ovAevdpara. t See Tittmano, Staatsv., p. 184.'AveKPItrt, and 7yesto1la SKacarr7piov. t Kvpiat i:KKXc7alat opposed to O6yKXrTOLt and KaTaKAr7oLaL. p Fpaa raopavdsonv. CIVIL HISTORY OF ATTICA. 185 ot the first assembly held every year, to receive selves to the study of the law as a profession; the proposals that might be made by individu- the only persons who there corresponded in als for a change in the existing laws. If these some degree to the Roman jurists were the exappeared sufficiently well grounded to merit pounders of the traditional rules and forms confarther investigation,'the third ordinary assem- cerning religious observances.* It was Solon's bly of the year might direct the appointment of wish to accustom every citizen to consider hima committee of legislation,* drawn by lot from self as personally concerned in the maintenance the whole body ofjurors, to compare the relative of the laws: the best state, he is reported to merits of the old law with that which was pro- have. said, is that in which all who witness posed to be substituted for it. The latter, in wrong are no less active in procuring its rethe mean while, was exposed to a conspicuous dress and the punishment of -the aggressor than place for the inspection of every citizen, to en- the sufferer himself. Hence he permitted and able them to determine the numbers of the le- encouraged every citizeni to come forward as gislative committee, and the time to be allowed prosecutor in cases affecting the interests of for their task, during which they received a sti- the state; and he multiplied the avenues to pend from the treasury. The committee pro: justice by affording the means of choosing ceeded according to the forms of a legal trial. among a great variety of modes of proceeding. Five advocatest were chosen to defend the old But how far removed he was from any design law; if they failed in making out their case, of cherishing litigation, sufficiently appears from that which was approved came immediately his institution of the public arbitrators;t a body into force, though its author was still responsi- of persons annually created by lot, but who ble for his measure. But as this kind of ref- were required to have passed the age of sixty, ormation depended on the vigilance and sagaci- before each of whom all private causes might ty of private citizens, Solon added a more cer- be brought, and from whom, when they were tain provision for correcting defects and incon- selected by the common consent of the parties, gruities, which might creep in through error no appeal was allowed. The motive which led and inadvertency. The thesmothetes, who Solon to direct that so great a number of jurors were naturally led by their judicial practice to as composed each of the Heliastic courts, nevnotice the imperfections of the law, were offi- er amounting to less than several hundreds,$ cially authorized to review the whole code, and should sit together on the same cause, must be to refer all statutes which they deemed void, referred to the view he took of them as reprecontradictory, or superfluous, to the legislative sentatives of the people. Hence, to ensure that committee, in order that the law might be re- the spirit with which they were animated should stored to its pristine simplicity. always be in accordance with the opinions and The wisdom and ingenuity displayed in many sentiments of the whole body, it might seem of these arrangements must command our ad- necessary to collect them in large masses. For miration; but it may appear surprising that so the same reason they were free from all legal cautious and temperate a statesman as Solon responsibility; and they were screened from should have thought it safe to commit such ex- disgrace, not only by the greatness of their tensive powers to so numerous a body, taken numbers, but by the secrecy of their votes. It indiscriminately and by chance from the great might reasonably have been expected that the mass of the people, without any peculiar ad- danger arising from the certainty of impunity vantages of fortune and education, or any spe- accompanying the exercise of almost absolute cial training to prepare them for the execution power would have been in some measure comof such apparently arduous and delicate tasks. pensated by the security which seemed to be He manifestly believed that no higher qualities afforded by the same causes against venality were requisite for, the discharge of the duties and corruption. We learn, however, that means he assigned to them than the ordinary degree of were at length discovered of eluding these. obintelligence and integrity which might be ex- stacles, and that the practice of bribery in the pected in every citizen, {jded by that practical courts of justice was reduced to a regular sysexperience which it was Tie great object of his tem.S institutions to impart equally to all. Nothing Solon was the less apprehensive of any danseems more directly opposite. to his views and ger, as he had provided the state with a second to the genius of his system than the design at- anchor in the council or court of Areopagus. tributed to him by Plutarch, who fancies that The Areopagus, or, as it was interpreted by an he wrapped his laws in studied obscurity for ancient legend, Mars' Hill, l was an eminence on the purpose of multiplying the causes of litiga- the western side of the Acropolis,~T which from tion. It is possible that their antique simplicity time immemorial had been the seat of a highlyitself may have laid them more open to be revered court of criminal justice. It took cogwrested by chicanery than those framed in ages nizance of charges of wilful murder, maiming, of greater refinement. But the legislator him- poisoning, and arson. Its forms and modes of self assuredly thought their sense so plain as to Tim., Plat., Lex., and uhken be within the reach of the commonest capacity. The ai, on whom there is a useful treatise by Hence he was not led to draw that nice dis- Hudtwalcker. tinction which is so familiar to us, between the, The ordinary number seems to have been 500 (Wachprovince of the judge and the jury: hence ev- smuth, ii., 1, p. 315, has made a curious mistake in referring to Pollux, viii., 124), but in some cases to have been ery magistrate, within whose sphere of admin- as low as 400 and 200. See Boeckh, in a note at the end os istration legal controversies might arise, was Suevertn's Essay on the Clouds of Aristophanes. empowered to preside over the court to which ~ First contrived, according to Aristotle, by one Anytus. empowered topresideoverthecou w icHarpocration, zlicdIov. they were referred: hence at Athens there 11 Meier (in an Essay in the Rhein. Mus., ii., p. 266) conwas no class of men who dedicated them- siders'ApGtos as equivalent to sovtCdS6. S Hence the council was sometimes called the upper* NodOerat. t EVvtsK1o. si avow 3ove — to distinguish it from the Four Hundred. VOL. I. —A A ..186 HISTORY OF GREECE. proceeding were peculiarly rigid and solemn. ter of his patrimony, and entered upon what It was held in the open air,* perhaps that the may be considered either as the beginning of judges might not be polluted by sitting under his military service or his apprenticeship in the same roof with the criminals. The' de- arms. He was sent into the country to keep.fendant was kept closely to the point at issue, watch and ward in the towns and fortresses and restrained from all rhetorical digressions on the coast and frontier, and to perform any and appeals to the passions. Both parties, be- other tasks which might be imposed upon him fore the pleadings began, were bound to affirm for the protection of Attica. It appears to the truth of their allegations with the most aw- have been on this occasion that he took the ful oaths. But before sentence was passed, the military oath,* by which he pledged himself culprit might withdraw out of its reach into vol- never to disgrace his arms nor to desert his untary exile. comrade; to combat to the last in defence of It is not certain whether Solon introduced, or Attica, its altars, and its hearths; to leave his only retained the regulation which fixed the country not in worse, but in better plight than manner in which the court was henceforth com- he found it; to obey the magistrates and the posed. It was filled with the archons who had laws, and resist all attempts to subvert them discharged their office with approved fidelity, and to respect the religion of his ancestors. and they held their seats for life. The venera- This service lasted two years; at the end of it ble character of the court seems to have deter- he was admitted to share all the rights and dumined Solon to apply it to another purpose; ties of a citizen, for which the law had not preand, without making any change in its original scribed a more advanced age: they included jurisdiction, to erect it into a supreme council, that of voting and speaking in the general asinvested with a superintending and controlling sembly. Till the end of his sixtieth year he authority, which extended over every part of was liable to be called out to military duty. the social system. He constituted it the guar- Solon also made regulations for the government dian of the public morals and religion, to keep of the other sex. All their details are not perwatch over the education and conduct of the fectly intelligible; but their general object was citizens, and to protect the state from the dis- to restrain the license it had hitherto enjoyed, grace or pollution of wantonness and profane- and often abused, to the detriment of the public ness. He armed it with extraordinary powers morals and decency, and peculiar officers were of interfering in pressing emergencies, to avert appointed to enforce the observance of them.t any sudden and imminent danger which threat- They seem to prove that at this time, at least, ened the public safety. The nature of its func- the Attic women were far from being subject tions rendered it scarcely possible precisely to to that jealous seclusion by which it has often define their limits; and Solon probably thought been supposed that they were rigidly confined it best to let them remain in that obscurity to their homes. They were forbidden to go which magnifies whatever is indistinct. The abroad.with more than three changes of appastrength of the council rested on public opinion, rel and a stated quantity of provisions; to pass not on the letter of the law. It could only ex- through the streets by night otherwise than in ercise its trust with advantage so long as it re- a carriage, and with a light carried before them; tained the confidence of its fellow-citizens; to disfigure their persons, and to wail with franwhen that was lost, it became time that its le- tic or studied vehemence at funerals, and were gal authority should cease. still more closely restricted in their attendance We cannot here attempt to give anything on the obsequies of a neighbour. more than a very general outline of Solon's in- Solon appears first distinctly to have perstitutions, especially as we have still to notice ceived the peculiar advantages of the maritime some changes which before long were intro- position of Attica, which had either been unnoduced in them. We therefore abstain from en- ticed, or studiously kept barren by the aristotering upon a survey of his civil and penal codes, cratical government. He appears to have laid our whole knowledge of which is scanty and the foundation of th4 Attic$ navy by charging fragmentary, and made up of particulars which the forty-eight sectidhs, called naucraries,: into are often obscure and disputable. We shall which the tribes had been divided for financial only remark on a few points connected with the purposes, each with the equipment of a galley, progress of society, and the, state of manners as well as with the mounting of two horsemen. and, education at Athens. Solon had neither He also gave active encouragement to trade the means nor the inclination to exercise the and manufactures, and with this view invited same degree of control over the pursuits and foreigners, who brought with them any branch the domestic habits of his people as the Spartan of useful industry, to settle in Attica, by the aslawgiver had found to be practicable and politic. surance of protection, and by larger privileges. To the age of sixteen the education of the Athe- These resident aliens~ were still, indeed, as nian boy was left entirely to the care of his pa- they had always been, and were throughout rents or guardians. During the next two years the state seems to have interfered, to compel * Pollux, viii., 105. t IrvrKovaKVoc(, or yvvaLKoK6cIot. or yvvaLKo~ro 6ot, Polhis attendance at the gymnastic schools, where lux, viii., 112. From Philochorus, in Athen., vi., p. 245, it he was trained to manly exercises under mas- seems that they acted as ministers of the Areopagus. ters publicly appointed,t and subject to a dis- t NavKpapiat. That they existed before Solon seems cipline not much less severe than that of Spar- proved by the mention of them in Her,, v, 71. But the name seems to have had nothing to do with navigation, but ta. At eighteen the youth might become mas- to be derived from vaio. NaIaKpapos is another form of vavKXrVpos, in the sense of a householder, as it is interpret And, according to Lucian (Herm., 64, De Dom., 18) and ed by Pollux, x., 20, as yvoav was used for the rent of a Clearchus in Athen., vi., p. 255, F., in the dark-an ab- house, ivotutoV; though it does not follow that vaos itself surdity which has been often repeated by modern writers, ever signified a house, as Hernsterhuis supposes. On their as if it rested on the best authority. relation to the rptrr6Es, see Wachsmuth, 1. 1, p. 239, or Dr t- Kd6oaurat, awopoviaarai, yvpvaarao,?radrp6Gat. Arnold, Thuc,, i., p. 663. ~ MiETOCOL CIVIL HISTORY OF ATTICA. 187 Greece, distinguished by a broad line from the and that the changes they have wrought are excitizens. They were restrained from acquiring empt from the general condition of mutability property in land: their burdens were heavier, But the very provisions which he made for the and some peculiar to themselves. Each was continual revision and amendment of his laws compelled to purchase the shelter he received seem to show the improbability of Plutarch's from the state by the payment of a small annual account, that he enacted them to remain in sum*-in default of which he was liable to be force for no more than a century. They were sold as a slave —and to place himself under the inscribed on wooden tablets, arranged in pyramguardianship of a citizen, who was his formal idal blocks turning on an axis,* which were representative in the courts of justice.t The kept at first in the Acropolis, but were afteraliens were also subject to some duties, which ward, for more convenient inspection, brought seemed designed to mark the inferiority of their down to the Prytaneum.t According to Plucondition. In certain solemn processions, as tarch, Solon, after the completion of his work, at the Panathenaic festival, they were compell- found himself exposed to such incessant vexaed to bear a part of the sacred utensils, and tion from the questions of the curious and the their wives and daughters to pay a kind of ser- cavils of the discontented, that he sought and vile attendance on the Attic women.+ This, obtained permission to withdraw from Athens however, may have been an innovation of a la- for ten years, and set out on the travels in which ter period, when the value of the civic franchise he visited Asia Minor, Cyprus, and Egypt, colhad risen with the power of the state. Solon lecting and diffusing knowledge, and everyis said to have admitted many to the freedom where leaving traces of his presence in visible *of the city, and those who had earned the fa- monuments, or in the memories of meri. But vour of the people might be rewarded with an there is some difficulty in reconciling this story immunity which relieved them from their pe- with chronology, since it supposes him to have culiar burdens; and placed them, with respect found Crcesus reigning in Lydia, who did not to taxation, on a level with the citizens.~ It mount the throne within twenty or thirty years may be considered as an indication of the same after, and the alleged occasion of the journey spirit in which Solon cherished commerce and is very doubtful, though it is in substance the manufactures, that he removed one of the re- same with that assigned by Herodotus. It is straints which had before been imposed on the probable that Solon remained for several years alienation of property, and permitted the child- at Athens, to observe the practical effect of his less testator to leave his estate out of his own institutions, and to second their operation by family and house, which anciently had an inde- his personal influence. He was undoubtedly feasible claim to the vacant inheritance. well aware how little the letter of a political It is not certain how far Solon may have de- system can avail until its practice has become ferved the praise of introducing the humane familiar, and its principles have gained a hold saws whicn, in Attica, mitigated the lot of the on the opinions and feelings of the people, and slave. The peculiar causes which rendered his that this must be a gradual process, and liable condition there generally less wretched than ill to interruption and disturbance. Hence it could most other parts of Greece arose in later times. not greatly disappoint or afflict him to hear voiBut he was early entitled to claim the protec- ces raised from time to time against himself, tion of the law against the cruelty of a brutal and to perceive that his views we're not fully or master, who might be compelled to transfer him generally comprehended. But he may at length to another owner. As little are we able to de- have thought it prudent to retire for a season termine whether the legislator expressly sane- from the public eye, the better to maintain his tioned, or only tacitly permitted, that horrible dignity and popularity; and as he himself declabarbarity in the treatment of these unhappy be- red that age, while it crept upon him, still found ings, which is one of the foulest stains on the him continually learning, we need not bb surmanners of Greece, though common to it with prised if, at an unusually late period of life, he the rest of the ancient world, and one with' set out on a long course of travels. which few nations of modern Europe have a On his return he found that faction had been right to reproach it. It is to be feared that he actively labouring to pervert and undo his work. recognised and approved of the atrocious abuse The three parties of the plain, the coast, and to which the slave was subject in the Athenian the highlands had revived their ancient feuds, courts, where, at the discretion of either of the though the grounds of their mutual animosity parties, evidence might be wrung from him by could not have been the same as before, and torture, without even the excuse of necessity, perhaps were almost reduced to a name, which, or of so much as a probable advantage; for however, would serve the purpose of their lead though he might be willing, to offer it freely, it ers as well as more solid objects of contention. was rejected as worthless until it had been sift- The first of these parties was now headed by ed by the rack. There is the less reason to Lycurgus, the second by Megacles, a grandson doubt that in this respect Solon did not rise of the archon who brought the stain and curse. above the prejudices of his age and country, as upon his house, the third by Pisistratus, sn of even resident aliens were exposed to the same treatment, though, in their case at least, policy * WAooves, KPGEtLS. According to some authors, the a(ovE; contained the civil laws; Kicvp6L;, the canon, or laws per as well as humanity should have induced him taining to religion. Plut., Sol.,'5. to prohibit it. t Pollux, viii., 128. Ephialtes is said to have been the Solon was not one of those reformers who authorof this measure. Harpocrat., b K4roTeO vidog. The dream that they have put an end to innovation, Prytaneum, in later times, stood below the Acropolis, near the Acyopd.-Pausan., i., 18, 3. But the most ancient must have stood on the Acropolis, and it seems to have been * MerosluOV. t HpoardrtI. there that Solon's laws were deposited. Perhaps their ret llian, vi., 1, and Perizonius, p. 409. moval was only a natural consequence cf the erection of a T They then became ioorctnS. new Prytaneum on the lower site in tl: time of.Pericles 188 HISTORY OF GREECE. Hippocrates, the kinsman of Solon, and the and felt. He made no visible changes in the friend of his youth, whom we have already seen Constitution,'but suffered the ordinary magissupporting Solon's measures by his eloquence trates to be appointed in the usual manner, the and his military talents. Solon had early de- tribunals to retain their authority, and the laws tected the secret designs of Pisistratus, and is to hold their course. In his own person he afsaid to have observed of him, that nothing but fected the demeanour of a private citizen, and his ambition prevented him from displaying the displayed his submission to the laws by appearhighest qualities of a man and a citizen. But' ing before the Areopagus to answer a charge it was in vain that he endeavoured to avert the of.murder, which, however, the accuser did not danger which he saw threatened by the struggle think fit to prosecute.* He continued' to show of the factions, and used all his influence to rec- honour to Solon, to court his friendship, and oncile their chiefs. This was the more diffi- ask his advice, which Solon did not think himcult, because the views of all were perhaps self bound to withhold where it might be useful'equally selfish, and none was so conscious of to his country, lest he should appear to sanction his own sincerity as to rely on the professions the usurpation which he had denounced. He of the others, Pisistratus is said to have listen- probably looked upon the government of Pisised respectfully to Solon's remonstrances, but tratus, though at variance with the principles he waited only for an opportunity of executing of his constitution, as a less evil than'would his project. He had resolved to renew the en- have ensued from the success of either of the terprise of Cylon, in which his illustrious birth, other parties; and even as a good, so far as it eminent abilities, and winning manners, and the prevented them from acquiring a similar prepopularity he had acquired by his munificence ponderance. Still, it must have been with towards the poorer citizens, gave him a better mournful feelings that he viewed a state of prospect of success. His schemes also were things in which such an alternative could seem more artfully laid. When they appeared to be the best, and certainly can have set little value ripe for action, he was one day drawn in a' on a liberty which had no security but the modchariot into the public place, his own person eration of one man. It is not certain how long and his mules disfigured with recent wounds, he survived this inroad upon his institutions: inflicted, as the sequel proved, by his own hand, one account,t apparently the most authentic, ~which he showed to the multitude, while he places his death in the year following that in told them that on his way into the country he which the revolution took place (B.C. 559). had narrowly escaped a band of assassins, who The leisure of his retirement from public life had been employed to murder the friend of the was to the last devoted to the Muses; and, if people. While the indignation of the crowd we might trust Plato's assertions on such subwas fresh, and from all sides assurances were jects, he was engaged at the time of his death heard that they would defend him against his in the composition of a great poem, in which he enemies, an assembly was called by his parti- had designed to describe the flourishing state sans, in which one of them, named Aristo, came of Attica before the Ogygian flood, and to celeforward with a motion that a guard of fifty citi- brate the wars which it waged with the inhabzens, armed with clubs, should be decreed to itants of the vast island which afterward sank protect the person of Pisistratus. Solon, the in the Atlantic Ocean. On the fragments of only man who ventured to oppose this proposi- this poem preserved in the family, Plato, himtion, warned the assembly of its pernicious con- self a descendant of Solon, professes to have sequences. But as all those who were not blind founded a work which he left unfinished, but in to the danger shrank from facing it, his argu- which he had meant' to exhibit his imaginary ments were unavailing, and the body-guard was state in life and action. It is certainly not imdecreed. The smallness of its numbers and the- probable that Solon, when the prospects of his simplicity of its weapon may have seemed suf- country became gloomy, and his own political ficent security that it would be applied to no career was closed, indulged his imagination other purpose than that of necessary defence. with excursions into an,ideal world, where he But the people, which eagerly passed the decree, may have raised a social fabric as unlike as did not keep a jealous eye upon the mode of its possible to the reality which he had before his execution, and Pisistratus took advantage of eyes at home, and perhaps suggested by what it to raise a force which enabled him to make he had seen or heard in Egypt. It is only imhimself master of the citadel. Perhaps his par- portant to observe that the fact, if admitted, tisans represented this as a necessary precau- can lead to no safe conclusions as to his abtion, to guard it against the enemies of the peo- stract political principles, and can still less be ple. Megacles and the Alcmmeonids left the allowed to sway our judgment on the design city. Solon, after an ineffectual attempt to and character of his institutions. rouse his countrymien against the growing pow- Pisistratus did not long retain his power. er which was making such rapid strides towards The party of Lycurgus, discovering that singly tyraWniy, is said to have taken down his arms, it was not strong enough to attack him, entered and Iaid them in the street before his door, as into a coalition with the exiled Alcmamonids, a sign that he had made his last effort in the and their united forces compelled him to leave cause of liberty and the laws. Lycurgus and his party seem to have submitted quietly for a * An anecdote is related in Diodorus (Mai, Vet. Script., time to the authority of Pisistratus, waiting, as ii., p. 28) of his forbearance towards a youth who had taken the event showed, for a more favourable oppor- the liberty of saluting his beautiful daughter as she was walking in a public procession. Plutarch, Apophth., gives a turnity of overthrowing him. different version of the story.. The usurper was satisfied with the substance t That of Phanias of Lesbos. Heraclides Pont. asserted of power, and endeavoured, as much as possi- that he lived- much longer. Phanias seems to have been more accurate in his dates, and his account is in itself the ble, to prevent his dominion from being seen most probable. See Clinto's F. H., ii., p 301. CIVIL HISTORY OF ATTICA. 189 Athens. But:,they had soon occasion to per- which increases the improbability of the view ceive how formidable he continued to be after which Herodotus takes of the story, but which, this defeat; for when his property was exposed as we know nothing with certainty of her preto public sale, no one could be found bold enough vious rank,* may have been perfectly natural to bid for it but Callias, an ancestor of the cele- on the other. brated Alcibiades.* The two factions had no Pisistratus, restored to power, nominally per. sooner accomplished the object of their tempo- formed his part of the compact by marrying the rary union, than they began to quarrel for the daughter of Megacles, but it was soon discovprize which they had wrested from their com- ered that he had no intention of really uniting. mon enemy, and at the end of five years, Mega- his blood with a family which was commonly cles, finding himself the weakest, made over- thought to be struck with an everlasting curse, tures of reconciliation to Pisistratus, and offered and that he treated his young wife as one only to bestow on him the hand of his daughter Cao- in name. The Alcmaeonids were indignant at syra, and to assist him in recovering the station the affront and at the breach of faith, and once he had lost. As Herodotus describes the bar- more they determined to make common cause gain, Megacles sent to know whether Pisistra- with the party of Lycurgus. Once more the tus would take his daughter, on condition of balance inclined against Pisistratus, and, unabeing reinstated in the tyranny. Megacles was ble to resist the combined force of his adversaprobably desirous of the match, because the old ries, he retired into exile to Eretria in Euboea. stain still clung to his house, and he hoped that Here he deliberated with his sons whether he it might be effaced by the lustre of the new alli- should not abandon all thoughts of returning to ance. Pisistratus accepted the proposal, though Attica. They appear to have been divided in he was now long past the prime of life, and the their wishes or opinions, but Hippias, the elfather of three sons and a daughter by a former dest, prevailed on his father again to make head marriage. When the contract was concluded, against his enemies. He possessed lands on the two parties concerted a plan for executing the River Strymon in Thrace, which yielded a the main condition, the restoration of Pisistra- large revenue, and his interest was strong in tus. For this purpose Herodotus supposes them several Greek cities, especially at Thebes and to have devised an artifice, which excites his Argos. He now exerted it to the utmost to astonishment at the simplicity of the people on gather contributions towards his projected enwhom it was practised, and which appears to terprise: the Thebans distinguished themselves him to degrade the national character of the by the liberality of their subsidies. By the end Greeks, who, he observes, had of old been dis- of ten years he had completed his preparations; tinguished from the barbarians by their superior a body of mercenaries was brought to him from sagacity. Yet in itself the incident seems nei- Argos, and Lygdamis, one of the most powerful ther very extraordinary nor a proof that the men in the Isle of Naxos, came to his aid, with contrivers reckoned on an enormous measure all the troops and money he could raise. In of credulity in their countrymen. In one of the the eleventh or twelfth year-after his last exAttic villages they found a woman, Phya by pulsion he set sail from Eretria, and landed on name, -of unusually high stature, and comely the plain of Marathon, to recover his sovereignform and features. Having arrayed her in a ty by open force. The two adverse parties comp]l te suit of armour, and instructed her to were firmly united by their common interest maintain a carriage becoming the part she was and the deadly hatred of the Alemaeonids; but to, assume, they placed her in a chariot, and their government was not popular, and Pisistrasent heralds before her to the city, who pro- tus had many friends in the country and in claimed that Athene herself was bringing back Athens, who, on his arrival, flocked to his camp. Pisistratus to her own citadel, and exhorted the His enemies, who had viewed his preparations Athenians to receive the favourite of the god- with supine indifference, now hastily collected dess with good-will. Pisistratus rode by the their forces and marched to meet him. But woman's side. When they reached the city, they showed as little of vigilance and activity the Athenians, according to Herodotus, believ- in the field, as of forethought in their counsels. ing that they saw the goddess in person, adored The two armies were encamped near each othher, and received Pisistratus. This story would er, and not far from Athens. At noon, when indeed- be singular, if we consider the expedi- the Athenians from the city, after their meal, ent in the light of a stratagem, on which the had turned, some to dice, others to sleep, Pisisconfederates relied for overcoming the resist- tratus suddenly fell upon the camp, killed many, ance which they might otherwise have expect- and put the rest to a complete rout. This first ed from their adversaries. But it seems quite success he followed up by a step which showed as probable that the pageant was only designed a spirit worthy of his fortune. Instead of pushto add extraordinary solemnity to the entrance ing his troops forward, to deal slaughter among of Pisistratus, and to suggest the reflection that the flying enemy, he senthis sons on horseback it was by the especial favour of Heaven he had to overtake the fugitives, and proclaim a genbeen so unexpectedly restored. The new coali- eral amnesty on condition of their dispersing tion must have rendered all resistance hopeless. quietly to theirth6mes. The leaders of the hosAs the procession passed, the populace no doubt tile factions now found themselves deserted by gazed, some in awe, all in wonder; but there is all but their most zealous adherents, who, with no reason to think that the result would have them, abandoned the city, and left Pisistratus been different if they had all seen through the undisputed master of Athens. artifice. Pisistratus is said to have rewarded What he had so hardly won, he prepared to Phya for her services by giving her in marriage to his son Hipparchus-a kind of recompense * According to Athen., xiii., p. 609, she was a garlandseller. If so, it is hard to believe that Pisistratus married * Her., vi., 121. her to his son. 190 HISTORY OF GREECE. hold henceforward with a firmer grasp. He no Olympian Jove, of which he onlr lived to cowoi longer relied on the affections.of the common plete the substructions, and which remained unpeople, but took a body of foreign mercenaries finished for 700 years, exciting the wonder, ar d into constant pay, and seizing the children of sometimes the despair of posterity, by the vastsome of the principal citizens, who had not made ness of the design, in which it surpassed every their escape, and whom he suspected of being other that the ancient world ever raised in hon ill-disposed towards him, he sent them to Nax- our of the father of the gods. Among the monos, which he had reduced under the power of uments in which splendour and usefulness were h(s friend Lygdamis, to be kept as hostages. equally coinbined, was the Lyceum, a garden at Among the exiles was Cimon, the father of the a short distance from Athens, sacred to the Lycelebrated Miltiades. He afterward obtained cian Apollo, where stately buildings,. destined permission to return to Athens, on condition of for the exercises of the Athenian youth, rose transferring to Pisistratus the honour of a vic- amid shady groves, which became one of the tory which he had gained in the chariot race at most celebrated haunts of philosophy, and the Olympia.* He appears to have maintained a fountain of Callirhoe, which, from the new chanconsiderable naval force; for, besides the con- nels in which Pisistratus distributed its waters, quest of Naxos, he engaged in another expedi- was afterward called the fountain of the Nine tion in a more distant quarter, the object of Springs.* To defray the expense of these and which may have been partly to provide a place his other undertakings, he laid a tithe on the of retreat for his family against any new turn produce of the land: an impost which seems to of fortune, but which was, no doubt, principally have excited great discontent in the class affectdesigned to increase his reputation and popular- ed by it, and, so far as it was applied to the pubity at home. He revived the claim of the Athe- lie buildings, was, in fact, a tax on the rich for nians to the town of Sigeum on the Hellespont, the employment of the poor; but which, if we which was then in the possession of the Mity- might trust a late and obscure writer, was only lenaeans, but to which the Athenians pretended revived by Pisistratus after the example of the a title grounded on their supposed share in the ancient kings of Attica.t. He is also believed Trojan war. Already,- about half a century be- to have been the author of a wise and beneficent fore, it had been the subject of war between the law, which Solon, however, is said to have sugsame cities, memorable for the victory which gested, for supporting citizens disabled in war the sage Pittacus gained in single combat, by a at the public expense. According to a tradition new device,t over the Athenian general Phry- once very generally received, posterity has been no, and for a defeat of the Mityleneans, in indebted to him for a benefit greater than any which the poet Alceus left his shield a trophy which he conferred on his contemporaries, in to thle enemy. This war had been terminated the preservation of the Homeric poems, which by the mediation of Periander, the ruler of till now had been scattered in unconnected rhapCorinth, who awarded Sigeum to Athens. Pi- sodies. After every abatement that can be resistratus now took it from the Mitylenaeans, quired in this story for misunderstanding and and committed it to the keeping of his bastard exaggeration, we cannot doubt that Pisistratus son Hegesistratus, who successfully defended at least made a collection of the poet's works, it against their long-continued attacks. As the superior in extent and accuracy to all that had ruler of Athens, the chief city of the Ionian preceded it, and thus certainly diffused the name, Pisistratus undertook the purification of knowledge of them more widely among his Delos, which was enjoined by an oracle, and countrymen, perhaps preserved something that was effected by the removal of all the bodies might have been lost to future generations. In that had been buried within sight of the temple either case, he may claim the same merit as a of Apollo. At home he still preserved the forms lover of literature; and this was not a taste of Solon's institutions, and courted popularity which derived any part of its gratification from by munificent largesses, and by throwing open the vanity of exclusive possession. He is said his gardens to the poorer citizens.t At the to have been the first person in Greece who same time he tightened the reins of govern- collected a library, and to have earned a still ment, and he appears to have made use of the higher praise by the genuine liberality with authority of the Areopagus to maintain a rig- which he imparted its contents to the public. orous police. He enforced Solon's law, which On the whole, though we cannot approve of the required every citizen to give an account of his steps by which he mounted to power, we must means of gaining a subsistence, and punished own that he made a princely use of it; and may idleness; and hence, by some, he was supposed believe that, though under his dynasty Athens to have been the author of it. It afforded him could never have risen to the greatness she afa pretext for removing from the city a great terward attained, she was indebted to his rule number of the poorer sort, who had no regular for a season of repose, during which she gained employment, and for compelling them to engage much of that strength which she finally unfoldin rural occupations, in which, however, he as- ed. Pisistratus retained his sovereignty to the sisted the indigent with his purge.9 The same end of his life, and died at an advanced age, policy prompted him, no less, perhaps, than his thirty-three years after his first usurpation love for the arts, to adorn Athens with many.* - useful or magnificent works. Among the latter letter of P isistratus to S olon in Diog. Laert., was a temple of ApoUo, and one. dedicated to the 53. There is an anecdote on this subject in Diodorrls, Mai, ii., p. 28. Pisistratus sees a man at work on some poor, rug * See p. 154. ged ground on Hymettus, and sends to inquire what his t Pittacus came, it is said, into the field armed with a land yields him. The man answers, toil and trouble (KaKes casting net, a trident, and a dagger. He first entangled, lvcvas), but that he does not mind, so long as Pisistratus and then despatched his antagonist. t Athen., xii., 44. has his share of the produce (roarwov ro P-Sdpo IHctleurTptr'T AElian., ix., 25, says he supplied them with cattle and 6stdvae.) Pisistratus laughs, and takes the tax off from his seed. - land; whence 4he proverb o? c0aKCeo0 7roosVal airnXEarav CIVIL HISTORY OF A: TICA. 191 (B.C. 527). His power was so firmly rooted having recalled the happiness cf the golden age, that his sons, Hippias, Hipparchus, and Thes- seems almost justified by the sober praise of salus. succeeded him in the government with- Thucydides, when he says that these tyrants out any opposition. The'authority of Thucyd- most diligently cultivated virtue and wisdom. ides seems sufficient to prove that Hippias was The country was flourishing, the people, if not the eldest, though his reasons are not of them- perfectly contented, was certainly not impatient selves convincing, and the current opinion in of the yoke, and their rule seemed likely to last his own day gave the priority to Hipparchus.* for at least another generation, when an event As the eldest, Hippias would take his father's occurred which changed at once the whole asplace at the head of affairs; but the three pect of the government, and led to its premabrothers appear to have lived in great unanimi- ture overthrow. ty together, and to have co-operated with little The names of Harmodius and Aristogeiton, outward distinction in the administration of the the persons who indirectly brought about this state. Their characters are described as very revolution, have been immortalized by the igdifferent from each other. Hippias seems to norant or prejudiced gratitude of the Athenians; have possessed the largest share of the qualities in any other history they would, perhaps, have of a statesman. Hipparchus inherited his fa- been consigned to oblivion, and would certainly ther's literary taste; but he was addicted to never have become the themes of panegyric. pleasure, and perhaps to amusements not be- Aristogeiton was a citizen of the middle rank; coming the dignity of his station;t' of Thessa- Harmodius, a youth distinguished by the comelus, the youngest, we hear only that he was a liness of his person; they were both sprung high-spirited youth.t The successors of Pisis- from a house supposed to have been of Phcenitratus for some years trod in his steps and cian origin, were, perhaps, remotely allied to prosecuted his plans. They seem to have di- one another by blood, and were united by ties rected their attention to promote the internal of the closest intimacy. The youth had reprosperity of the country, and the cultivation of ceived an outrage from Hipparchus, which, in letters and arts. One of their expedients for a better state of society, would have been deemthe latter purpose, the credit of which seems to ed the grossest that could be offered to him: it have belonged principally to Hipparchus, was to roused, however, not so much his resentment erect a number of Hermae, or stone busts of as the fears of his friend, lest HipVarchus should Mercury, along the side of the roads leading abuse his power to repeat and aggravate the from the capital, inscribed on one side with an insult. But Hipparchus, whose pride had been account of the distance which it marked, on the wounded by the conduct of Harmodius, conother with a moral sentence in verse,S probably tented himself with a less direct mode of rethe composition of Hipparchus himself, though venge, an affront aimed not at his person, but he often received the first poets of the age un- at the honour of his family. By his orders the der his roof. To him also is ascribed the es- sister of Harmodius was invited to take part in thblishment of the order in which the Homeric a procession, as bearer of one of the'sacred vespoems continued in after times to be publicly sels. When she presented herself in her festal recited at the Panathenaic festival. The broth- dress, she was publicly rejected and dismissed ers imitated the sage policy of their father, in as unworthy of the honour. This insult stung dropping the show of power as much as was Harmodius to the quick, and kindled the indigconsistent with a prudent regard to securing nation of Aristogeiton: they resolved not only the substance. Yet it seems that they were to wash it out in the blood of the offender, but not scrupulous about the means they employed to engage in the desperate enterprise, which to get rid of persons who had incurred their re- had already been suggested by different mosentment or roused their jealousy; for Herod- tives to the thoughts of Aristogeiton, of overotus relates as a notorious fact, that Cimon, af- throwing the ruling dynasty. They communiter he had been restored, as we have seen, by cated their plan to a few friends, who promised Pisistratus, was murdered by assassins who their assistance, but they hoped that, as soon were hired by his sons. They kept up a stand- as the first blow was struck, they shoild be ing force of foreign mercenaries;ll but they joined by numbers, who would joyfully seize the made no change in the laws or the forms of the opportunity of recovering their freedom. The Constitution, only taking care to fill the most conspirators fixed on the festival of the great important offices with their own friends. They Panathennea as the most convenient season for even reduced the tax imposed by Pisistratus to effecting their purpose. The festival was cela twentieth, and, without laying on any fresh ebrated with a procession, in which the citiburdens, provided for the exigencies of the zens marched armed with spears and shields, state, and continued the great works which and was the only occasion on which, in time their father had begun. The language of a la- of peace, they could assemble under arms withter writer,~[ who speaks of their dominion as out exciting suspicion. It was agreed that Harmodius and Aristogeiton should give the * Krfsser, Rhaps., p. 209, assumes that Thucydides isignal by stabbing Hippias, while their friends mistaken, without condescending to assign any reason. kept off his guards, and that they should trust t It is probable that what Idomeneus, ill Athen., xii., p. to the general disposition in favour of liberty 532, related of both the elder brothers, applied, so far as it for the farther success of their undertaking was well founded, principally to Iipparchus. Heracl., p. 1, calls hinm rattlUs, as well as IportKos and btXodovaos. When the day came, the conspirators armed t Heracl. P.,,paas-. themselves with daggers, which they concealed ~ Pseudo-PlatoinHipparch. andHarpocratio. TptKEipa- in the myrtle boughs which were carried on 1I Who seem, according to Aristotle (in the Scholiast of this occasion.* But while Hippias, surrounded Aristoph., Lys., 664), to have been distinguished by a uniform frodm which they acquired the name of Wolves'-feet * Perhaps by a part of the younger citizens, as olive (tArcdrouJES). If The author of the Hipparchus, p. 229. branches were by the old men, though it does not appear 192 HISTORY OF GREECE. by his guards, was in the suburb called the Ce- now hear of frequent executions, of extraordi. ramicus, directing the order of the procession, nary imposts, and of artifices by which he filled one of the conspirators was observed to go up his treasury at the expense of all classes of the to him-for he was easy of access to all-and people. At the same time, he entered into a to enter into familiar conversation with him. foreign alliance, not so much with the view of The two friends, on seeing this, concluded that strengthening his power as of providing a place they were betrayed, and that they had no hope of retreat for himself or his family, whenever left but of revenge. They instantly rushed into the reverse which he foreboded should befall the city, and meeting with Hipparchus, killed him. He gave his daughter Archedice in marhim before his guards could come up to his as- riage to the son of Hippoclus, tyrant of Lampsistance. They, however, arrived in time to sacus, a match which Thucydides looks upon revenge his death upon Harmodius: Aristogei- as so great a disparagement, that lie thinks ton escaped for the moment through the crowd, Hippias. could never have submitted to it if he but was afterward taken. When the news was had not believed he should soon need an asybrought to Hippias, instead of proceeding to the lum. Hippoclus stood high in the favour of the scene of his brother's murder, he advanced with Persian king Darius, and Hippias already began a composed countenance towards the armed to turn his views towards that quarter. procession, which was yet ignorant of the event, He was threatened, not only by the disconand, as if he had some grave discourse to ad- tent of the people at home, but from without by dress to them, desired them to lay aside their the machinations of powerful enemies, who weapons and meet him at an appointed place. were instigated by the strongest motives, both He then ordered his guards to seize the arms, of interest and resentment, to.spare no effort and to search every one for those which he for his destruction. The banished Alcmaeonids might have concealed upon hiM person. All were not the less formidable, because, after the who were found with daggers were arrested, last breach between the houses, Pisistratus or together with those whom on any other grounds' his successors had confiscated their estates in he suspected of disaffection. Attica, and had caused their mansions to be The fate of Aristogeiton may be easily im- razed to the ground and their sepulchres to be agined: he was put to death, according to some demolished. They had secured so many reauthors, after torture had been applied, to wring sources abroad, that they were able to comfrom him the names of his accomplices.* It is mand every kind of assistance that money said that he revenged himself by accusing the could purchase. After the death of Hipparchus, truest friends of Hippias, and that a girl of low the growing unpopularity of Hippias had encondition, named Leaena, whose only crime couraged them to renew their attempts at a was to have been the object of his affection, revolution; but though they had taken possesunderwent like treatment; she was afterward sion of a stronghold on the frontier of Attica,* celebrated for the constancy with which she they were repulsed by his energy and vigilance endured the most cruel torments. It was now with considerable loss. They now looked round seen how little the happiness of a people is them for foreign aid, and the influence they had worth, when it depends on the virtue and wis- acquired over the Delphic oracle enabled them dom of one man. Hippias had displayed both to obtain it. The temple at Delphi had been qualities in an eminent degred so long as he destroyed some years before by a fire, probably had no injury to avenge and no fears for his accidental, but which was imputed to the Pipersonal safety. On a sudden, from a mild, af- sistratids by their enemies, and the Alcmaeonids fable, and beneficent friend, he was turned into had contracted with the Amphictyons to rea suspicious, stern, and cruel tyrant, who re- build it on certain terms. With politic liberalgarded all his subjects as secret enemies, and, ity, they executed their undertaking in a style instead of attempting to conciliate them, aimed more magnificent than the letter of the agreeonly at cowing them by rigour. But as, the ment prescribed, and-in the front of the temple more conscious he was of deserving their ha- substituted Parian marble for the less costly tred, tihe less secure he could feel from its ef- stone of which the whole was to have been fects, he seems to have henceforth considered built. This munificence, while it raised their Attica as a domain held by a precarious tenure, reputation throughout Greece, secured the useand to have thought only of profiting as much ful gratitude of the Delphians, who were the as possible by his uncertain possession._ We chief gainers by it, and Cleisthenes, now the head of the house, found means of making the that there is any mention of this custom except in the fa- h ead of the house, found means of making the mous drinking song, iv iviprov KXadi ro lioos Bopiaw, K.. Pythian priestess the instrument of his designs. A. Athen., xv. By his direction, as often as any Spartans came * Though the torture is expressly mentioned only by late to consult the oracle, whether on public or priwriters, as Polyomnus, Justin, and Seneca, the fact is strong- vate affairs, they received but one answer, bidly confirmed, if not fully established, by the emphatic expression of Thucydides: he was not gently treated (oi Ali- ding them restore Athens to freedom. These os isrEIO?), which would be absurd if it only meant that repeated exhortations at length produced the the assassin was not caressed by the friends of Hipparchus. desired effect on the Spartans, whose*everWe can only smile at the partiality which could suggest such a construction. But we hardly know whether even ence for the oracle was unbounded, and, though partiality for a despot ought to be considered as a sufficient the family of Pisistratus was connected with excuse for so gross a misrepresentation as that by which them by the ties of public hospitality, they deThucydides has been made to say that Aristogeiton was ta-hem by t es of public hosp ity, they deken by the people, when he distinctly informs us that it was termined to send an army to expel it. This owing to the concourse of the people that he was not at first taken by the guards: rosc Jopv06povs Tr avJrila dlasedyTs * Lipsydrium. Aristotle described it as on the heights of b'Al., svvspa6vTro s 7Oa 0XXO)os, calit OarEpov XOEcS c ob Aa[iws Parnes (biropavso Hcipv70oc. Schol. Aristoph., Lysistr., ItSrc'Ol. If it rested on the utterly unauthorized conjecture 665). Herodotus, as nrip Hatovbtg, v., 62, which-wheth. of Portus, who proposed to insert de after Svvdpapdvros, why er this or IIaLovtdio be the true reading-seems to relate was not the reader apprized that this reading was at least to a place which was a family seat of the Paeonids, who uncertain l I were kinsmen of the Alcmeonids. Paus., ii., 18, 9. CIVIL HISTORY OF ATTICA. 193 force was placed under the command of An- his own faults and merits, and those of his chimolius, a man of high reputation, though not house. of the royal blood, and was transported over The expulsion of the Pisistratids left the demsea to Attica, and debarked at the port of Pha- ocratical party, which had first raised them to lerum. But the Athenian government had re- power, without a leader. The Alcmaeonids had ceived intelligence of their meditated expedi- always been considered as its adversaries tion, and had sent to Thessaly, with which it though they were no less opposed to the faction had formed an alliance, for succours. The of the nobles, which seems at this time to have Thessalians sent a thousand horse under Cin- been headed by Isagoras. It was still powereas, whom Herodotus entitles king,; and who ful, not only in its wide domains, but in the inwas probably either tagus, or one of their most fluence derived from birth, which was strengthpowerful nobles. He routed the Spartans, slew ened by the various ties, civil and religious, that their commander, and drove them to their ships. united the old subdivisions of the tribes. CleisThe Spartans now sent out a greater force, un- thenes found himself, as his party had always der their king Cleomenes, to invade Attica by been, unable to cope with it; he resolved, thereland. This time the Thessalian cavalry was fore, to shift his ground, and to attach himself to defeated, and though their loss was small, they that popular cause which Pisistratus had used immediately abandoned their allies and returni- as the stepping-stone of his ambition. His ed home.* Hippias was unable to face Cle- aims, however, were not confined to a tempoomenes in the field, and even. to defend the rary advantage over his rivals: he planned an' city, but he maintained himself in the citadel,' important change in the Constitution, which" which: was' well supplied with stores. The should forever beak the power of his whole orSpartans, who were not prepared for ~a siege, dee by dissolving some of the main links by would have retired in a few days if Hippias had which their sway was secured.' For this purnot, by an excess of precaution, afforded. them pose, having gained the confidence of the coman unexpected triumph. He ordered his chil- monalty and obtained the sanction of the Delphic dren -to be conveyed out of the country to a oracle, he abolished the four ancient tribes, and place of safety; oh their way they fell into the made: a fresh geographical division of Attica hands of the enemy, and he could only redeem into ten new tribes, each of which bore a name them on condition of quitting Attica within five derived from some Attic hero. The ten tribes days. In the fourth year after his brother's were subdivided into districts of various extent, death (B.C. 510), Hippias set sail for Asia, called demnes, each containing a town or village where he fixed his residence, for a time, in his as its chief place. According to Herodotus, hereditary principality of Sigeum. After his there were at first but a hundred of these towndeparture many severe measures were taken ships, ten in each tribe; but as in later times against his adherents, who appear to have been they amounted to upward of 170, and there are for a long time after a formidable party. They no distinct traces left in history of the change were punished or repressed, some by death, by which so great an addition was made to the olhers by exile or by the loss of their political original number, the accuracy of this statement privileges.t The family of the tyrants was has been doubted. On the other hand, it has condemned to perpetual banishment, and ap- been thought to afford ground for concluding pears to have been excepted from the most that the tribes of Cleisthenes did not include comprehensive decrees of amnesty passed in the whole of Attica.* This is one of the queslater times.t On the other hand, the fortunate tions which depends entirely on the view we tyrannicides received almost heroic honours. take of the ancient tribes. But it seems to They were either the first, or among the first be at least possible that changes may have mortals to whom statues were erected at the taken place after the time of Cleisthenes in the public expense as the reward of virtue.~ Their interior of Attica, which made it convenient to names never ceased to be repeated with affec- 4ivide many of the demes.t It is more difficult tionate admiration inf the convivial songs of. to explain the origin of the transposition through Athens, which assigned them a place in the which demes belonging to the same tribe are islands of the Blessed by the side of Achilles found at opposite extremities of Attica. Cleisand Tydides; l and when an orator wished to thenes appears to have preserved the ancient suggest the idea of the highest merit and of the phratries;t but as. they were now left insulated noblest services to the cause of liberty, he nev- by the abolition of the tribes to which they beer failed to remind his hearers of Harmodius longed, they lost all political importance, and and Aristogeiton. It is probable enough that retained no other office than that of watching much of this enthusiasm was spurious and arti- over the legitimate succession of their memficial as well as misplaced, and that the popular bers, and registering their title to their heredihatred was studiously inflamed against the ex- tary civil rights. All the political functions iled family by their personal enemies and polit- previously discharged by the subdivisions of the ical rivals. But still, these efforts would have ancient tribes, particularly those connected with been vain, had not Hippias, in the latter years the demands of the state on the property of the of his government, laid a real foundation for the citizens,~ were now transferred t'o the newly obloquy which indiscriminately overwhelmed incorporated townships, each of which was governed by its local magistrate, the demarch, and * This seems to be the battle towhich Andocides alludes, held its assemblies for the transaction of its peDe Myst., 106, as fought Er2 IHIahXhvhp, in which the pa- culiar affairs, and for ascertaining and recording triots were headed by his great-grandfather Leogoras, and the number of its members. It was necessary Charias his father-in-law. t Andocides, De Myst., 0 106. t Andoc., De Myst., f 78. * Niebuhr, ii., p. 806. See Appendix. t See Appendix. 0 Plin., N. H., xxxv., 9. See Wagner, ad Chronicon Pa- t For a contrary opinion of Platner, see Appendix A. iam, ep. 65. Athen., xv., p. 695. 4 The naucraries VOL. I.-B B 194 HISTORY OF GREECE. for every citizen, dt least for all who were not citizen into exile for ten years. Such an ex natives of Athens itself, to be entered in the pedient marks the weak and unsettled state of register of some township, which was the a government which could find it necessary for foundation of all his political rights and duties, its safety, but repugnant, as it is, to the abstract as admission into the phratries was of those principles of justice, and only to be palliated BIy which belonged to him in his private capacity. the peculiar dangers to which a Greek democraCleisthenes at the same time increased the cy was exposed; and though it was often misstrength of the commonalty by making a great chievously abused, it may be questioned whether many new citizens, and he is said- to have en- it was not a salutary precaution, not only as it franchised not only aliens-and these both resi- proved a timely check on the ambition of aspidents and adventurers from abroad-but slaves:* ring individuals, but as it allayed or gave vent a step to which it would seem he could only to the public uneasiness, which might otherwise have been urged by the exigences of his posi- have broken out into violence and bloodshed. tion, which may have forced him to purchase These changes, and the influence they acsuch support on such terms; and, in that case, quired for their author, reduced the party of Isagit proves the strong hold which the opposite oras to utter weakness, and they saw no prosparty kept on a great body of the people, and pect of maintaining themselves but by foreign which it was the object of his other measures aid. Isagoras had courted the favour of Cleomto loosen. enes, when he came on his last expedition, as We are too little acquainted with the ma- was reported, by overlooking his familiarity chinery of the system which Cleisthenes broke with his wife. He now solicited his assistance, up, to form a very distinct notion of the im- and at his suggestion the Spartan king sent a portance of his innovation; but we know enough herald to Athens, to revive the old imputation to convince us that it was not, as Herodotus against the Alcmaeonids, and to require the eximagined, capricious, or prompted by the mere pulsion of the accursed race. Cleisthenes, love of change. It had the effect of transform- against whom the attack was principally directing the commonalty into a new body, furnished ed, either dreading the cry which had so often with new organs, and breathing a new spirit, proved disastrous to his house, or unwilling to which was no longer subject to the slightest expose his country to invasion on his own accontrol from any influence, save that of wealth count, withdrew from Athens; but Cleomenes, and personal qualities, in the old nobility. The encouraged rather than appeased by this conwhole frame of the state was reorganized to cession, soon followed his herald to take adcorrespond with the new division of the coun- vantage of it, and to reduce the Athenians under try. The Senate of the Four Hundred was in- the dominion of Isagoras. He brought but a creased to Five Hundred, that fifty might be small force with him; yet the people, dismayed drawn from each tribe, and the rotation of the by the absence of their leader, suffered him at presidency was adapted to this change, the fifty first to act as if he was absolute master.. He c.uancillors of each tribe filling that office for began by banishing 700 families designated by thirty-five or thirty-six days in succession, and Isagoras, and then proceeded to suppress the nine councillors being elected, one from each Council of the Five Hundred, and to lodge the of the other tribes, to preside in the Council and government in the hands of Three Hundred of the Assembly of the People, which was now his friend's partisans. When, however, the called regularly four times in the month, certain councillors resisted this attempt, the people business being assigned to each meeting. The took heart, and, Cleomenes and Isagoras havHeliaea was also distributed into ten courts; ing occupied the citadel, rose in a body and and the same division henceforth prevailed in besieged them there. As they were not premost of the public offices, though the number pared to sustain a siege, they capitulated on of the archons remained unchanged. To Cleis- the third day: Cleomenes and Isagoras were thenes also is ascribed the formal institution of permitted to depart with the Lacedaemonian the ostracism,t a summary process, by whici troops, but they were cbmpelled to abandon the people was enabled to rid itself of any citi- their adherents to the mercy of their enemies. zen who had made himself formidable or suspi- All were put to death, and Cleisthenes and the cious, without any proof, or even imputation of 700 banished families returned triumphantly to guilt, and though his influence was the legiti- Athens. mate fruit of superior ability or merit. Solon It was soon heard that Cleomenes was making had enacted that no law relating to the rights active preparations to avenge his humiliating of individual citizens (in the nature of the Roman defeat and to restore Isagoras. The Atheniprivilegium) should be passed by less than a ans, in their first alarm, sent envoys to Sardis majority of 6000 voices. But the power tacitly to conclude an alliance with Persia, or, rather, conferred by this restriction was now expressly to seek its protection. As this embassy -was defined or enlarged, so,as to permit not merely not attended with any frmlediate effect, it will an absolute, but a relative majority of the same be more fitly noticed when we come to the hisnumber, by secret votes, to send any obnoxious tory of the events which led to the Persian war. Cleomenes having collected all the forces he * Aristot., Pol., iii., 1, 10. 7roXX o4s vX)rwcvE ~vovs Ka could raise in Peloponnesus, and being joined oiXovs 1ErTObKOVS. As this reading gives no sense, most of by his colleague Demaratus, invaded Attica on the commentators insert another Kau after dob6ovq. But it the side of Eleusis, while the Thebans, who seems clear that the slaves could not have been mentioned, took between the two classes of free foreigners. Niebuhr trans-had concerted their operations with him, took poses cat loXAovs after pcEroiKOVe, and interprets the ac- the towns of CEnQe and Hysiae, on the northern count in a sense conformable to his peculiar hypothesis (ii., frontier, and the Chalcidians, crossing over from p, 305, note 2). Goettling would either strike out oiAsovs, Eubca, ravaged the eastern coast. The Atheor chane it the present neglecting these new en-. 1~ Alian., V. I-I., xiii., 23, and Perizonius.j nians, for the present neglecting these new en CIVIL HISTORY OF ATTICA. 195 emies, marched with all their forces against the parts of the Attic coast, plundered many of the Spartans. But before battle was joined, the maritime towns, and did great damage. The Corinthians, ashamed of being made the instru- Athenians were preparing to retaliate without ments of Cleomenes in an unjust quarrel, quit- delay on 2Egina, in spite of an oracle, dictated ted the army and returned home, and Demara- apparently by a cautious policy rather than by t.us, perhaps on the ground that he had not been any unfriendly spirit, which bade them put off informed of the object of the expedition, refused their vengeance for anther generation, when his concurrence. The rest of the Peloponne- their attention was diverted from this quarter sian allies, seeing the two kings at variance, by intelligence of a new danger. The Spartans followed the example of the Corinthians, and had by this time detected the fraud that had Cleomenes was compelled to abandon his enter-' been practised on them through the contrivance prise. His resentment against his colleague of Cleisthenes by the Pythian priestess, and produced important consequences; the imme- deeply regretted that they had been induced to diate effect of their disagreement was a law: ruin their old friends, the Pisistratids, for the which the Spartans passed, that their two kings sake of a thankless people. Their regret was should never in future take the field together. imbittered by the discovery of some ancient The Athenians, now at liberty to punish the predictions which Cleomenes professed to have aggression of their northern neighbours, march- found in the citadel of Athens when it was ed towards the Euripus to attack Chalcis. In abandoned by the Pisistratids, and which threatBceotia they were met by the Thebans, whom ened Sparta with manifold injuries from the they defeated with great slaughter, and took Athenians. Seeing, then, Herodotus observes, 700 prisoners. The same day they crossed the that the Athenians were growing powerful, and Straits and won a victory over the Chalcidians, were by no means willing to submit to them, from which they reaped a very important ad- and reflecting that if they were left at liberty vantage. It enabled them to parcel out the es- they would become a match for Lacedaemon, tates of the great Chalcidian landowners among but that, if they were made to stoop to a tyran4000 Attic colonists, who still retained their ny, they would be weak and, submissive, for connexion with' Athens, and, as often as they these reasons they sent to Sigeum, where Hipwould, might exercise their franchise there. pias was then dwelling, and invited him to SparThis addition to the Attic territory was the ta. When he arrived, they summoned a conmore valuable, because, while it provided so gress of deputies from their Peloponnesian almany families with a maintenance, it afforded lies, and in their presence lamented the wrong means of raising a body of cavalry, the force in they had done to the Pisistratids, and the hu;t which Attica was most deficient. The fetters which had thence ensued to themselves, ar.'l in which the Theban and Chalcidian prisoners proposed, as the onlymeans of curbing the growgroaned till.they were ransomed, were hung up ing insolence of the Athenian people, that all on the walls of a temple in the citadel, as a should unite their forces in an expedition against monument of Athenian valour, and a brazen Attica, for the purpose of restoring Hippias to chariot was dedicated to Athen6 as a tenth of the station from which they had deposed him the ransom, with an inscription commemorating The greater part of the allies, however, appear this first achievement of the emancipated cornm- to have perceived that, though it might well monwealth. The event draws a remark from suit the interest of Sparta to keep Attica subHerodotus worthy to be quoted. " The Athe- ject to a creature of her own, they should reap nians then," he says, "grew mighty. And it no fruit but shame from the part they were call is plain, not in one matter only, but in every ed upon to take in this act of injustice. No way, that liberty is a brave thing; seeing that one, however, ventured to declare his dissent, the Athenians, so long as they were lorded over, till the Corinthian deputy Sosicles, in vehementwere no whit better men at feats of arms than language, remonstrated with the Spartans on any of their neighbours, but as soon as they their inconsistency in establishing at Athens were rid of their lords they got far ahead. This, a form of government directly contrary to the therefore, shows that, while they were kept spirit of their own institutions, and recited the under, they cared not to conquer, as men toiling calamities which Corinth had endured under for a master;: but when they were set free, the tyranny of Periander. His eloquence ennone grudged his' labour for his own good' couraged the other deputies to declare their The Thebans burnedto revenge their disgrace, sentiments, and all, with one accord, loudly but, disheartened by their late defeat, they be- exclaimed against the Spartan proposal. The took themselves to the Delphic god; for advice. Spartans were forced to yield to the unanimous By the usual course of an unintelligible oracle wishes of their allies and to abandon their deand an ingenious interpretation, they were di- sign. Hippias, before the congress broke up, rected to seek aid from 2Egina, which at this is said to have'prophesied that the time would time had attained to its highest pitch of pros- come when the Corinthians would have the perity, and was crowded with an industrious greatest cause to regret that they had saved population, enriched by commerce, and adorned Athens from the Pisistratids. He soon after with the finest works of early art. They bore returned to Sigeum, and thence proceeded to a mortal grudge against the Athenians from the the court of Darius, where he remained for many recollection of what they had done and suffered years, nourishing hopes which were destined in an old quarrel that had arisen between the to be signally disappointed. But, before we betwo states on the subject of Epidaurus, and gin to relate the events by which he was brought they now readily promised their aid to the The- once more to Attica, it will be necessary to turn bans;'- and while the latter renewed their hostil- for a while from Greece itself, to take a view ities on the northern frontier, crossed over with of the state and progress of the Greeks in oth. a squadron of galleys of war, landed on various er parts of the world. 196 HISTORY OF GREECE. CHAPTER XII. from Peloponnesus towards the East had begun before the Dorian conquest. Orestes himself THE COLONIES OF THE GREEKS, AND THE PROGRESS was sometimes said to have led an Achaean OF ART AND LITERATURE FROM THE HOMERICw OF ART AND LIERATURE OFRO THE HOMERSIC colony to Lesbos or to Tenedos; according to AGE TO THE PERSIAN WAR.' others, he. only began the expedition, and died THE history of the Greek colonies is connect- in Arcadia; but it was prosecuted by his son ed but partially, and io varying degrees, with Penthilus, who reached Thrace. Archelaus, that of the mother-country. A complete de- son of Penthilus, crossed the Hellespont, and scription and enumeration of them would be Gras, the son of Archelaus, first conquered Lesforeign to our present. purpose. But a general bos.. Another band, conducted by Cleves ana survey of them is necessary to give an adequate Malaus, likewise descendants of Agamemnon, conception of the magnitude of the' Grecian is said to have set out about the same time world, when, dilated btyond its original bounds, with that of Penthilus, but to have been long it comprised extensive tracts of coast on -the detained in Locris, near Mount Phricium. On seas enclosed by the three'ancient continents; its arrival in Asia, it found Pelasgians still in and a sketch of the most prominent features of possession of the coast, but reduced to great their ordinary condition and relations to their weakness by the Trojan war. The invaders at parent states is requisite to place them in the length took their chief town, Larissa, by means proper light, and will contribute to illustrate the of a fort built in its neighbourhood, which, as a Greek character, and its habits ol thinking and city, preserved the name of' Neon Teichos feeling. Some of them, howevtr,will demand (Newcastle). They then founded'Cuma, which, more particular notice, partly on account of the from their sojourn near the Locrian Mountain, effects produced by them on the course of obtained the epithet Phriconis, and became the events in Greece, and partly on account of. the principal of the AEolian cities on the continent. -opulse which they gave to the intellectual The inference which we should be inclined progress of their nation and of the human race. to draw from these accounts is, that the _Eolian We pass over the doubtful legends of.the migrationr'may not improbably be regarded as, colonies planted by several of the heroes on or in its origin, a continuation of the earlier enteratert their return from the siege of Troy, as by prises of the Achaean chiefs against the same Agame'mnon and Calchas on the coast of Asia, part of Asia, or, at all events, as an effect, not by the sons of Theseus in Thrace, by Ialmenus of necessity, but of the attractive influence of in the Eixifne, by Diomed, Philoctetes, Epeus, the rich and beautiful land from which the heMenestheus, and others in Italy, and by the roes of a former generation had returned laden never-.resting wanderer Ulysses in the remoter with spoil and glory. But it would seem that, regions ofWthe. West.,We have already intima- for more than a century after the arrival of the ted that;'-thbough'it is impossible to distinguish first colonists, new adventurers continued to between' tfrih.a'n'd': falsehood in these stories, flock in, driven from home, as well as attracted they' app'ea'not to'have been wholly groundless. by the distant region. The ancient 2Eolian citut t`he e'arlie~istG'reek colonies which can safe- ies on the mainland, those of zEolis, as it was ly' be:pr'onounced historical were those which sometimes called, amounted to eleven; but issued ou:' the' ev'nehnt, or, rather, the series of about thirty others were founded or occupied events,-commonly called the Eolian.migration. by Cuma and Lesbos in the territory of Priam, This hias generally been'considered as the first which the Lesbians seem to have claimed as of the great movements produced by the irrup- legitimate heirs to the conquests of Agamemtion of the./Eolians into Bi&otia, and of the Do- non. rians into Peloponnesus. Achteans, driven from Southward, from the Hermus to the MIcantheir homes, and seeking new'seats in the East, der,- a tract which, in the opinion of Herodotus, are believed to have been joined in Boeotia, if not so exuberantly fruitful as the vale of the through which they'were passing to their place Caicus and the adjacent plains of lEolis, enjoyof embarcation,.by a part both of the ancient ed a still happier climate, fell to the lot of the inhaoitanits of Bceotia and of their A.Eolian con- adventurers who embarked in the Ionian miquerors. The latter seem to have been pre- gration. They were mostly Ionians, who, when dominant, not in numbers, probably, but in in- dislodged by the Achaeans from their seats on fluence, for from them the migration is said to the Corinthian Gulf, took refuge in Attica, and have' been called the Bceotian as well as the probably assisted in repelling that invasion of.AEoliain. The emigrants were headed by chiefs the Dorians in which Codrus devoted himself who claimed descent from Agamemnon,* and for his country. Here they seem to have been the main':body embarked at the port of Aulis, joined by other fugitives and soldiers of fortnne from which he had led the Greek armament from various parts of Greece, in particular by a against Troy. They took the same direction, considerable band of Phocians. Attica could and settled first on the Isle of Lesbos, where not afford a permanent abode for these stranthey founded six cities. Other detachments gers, and a dispute which arose after the death occupied the opposite coast of Asia, from the of Codrus about the succession to the throne, foot of Ida to the mouth of the Hermus. That gave them leaders from the royal family, and, this was the real origin of the greater part of perhaps, hastened their departure. Medon, the these iEolian settlements, there is no reason to heir-apparent, was lame; and his brother Nedoubt; but it does not seem necessary, on this leus contended that this defect disqualified him account, to reject the tradition that a migration for reigning. But when the Delphic oracle decided. in favour of Medon, Neleus, with several An Agamemnon, king of Cuba, is mentioned by Pol- of his brothers and of their Pylian clansmen, Ur, ix., 83, whose daughter De8~i]ic6 was said by somef at the head of the In authors to have married Midas the Phrygian, and to have put himself at the head of the emigrants. oined the first money. their passage across the.LEgaean many formed THE COLONIES. 197 settlements in the Cyclades ana other islands, ants, among whom were women said to have and in process of time Delos became a common sprung from the Amazons, its reputed founders. sanctuary of the Ionian race. The Asiatic Colophon was in the possession of Cretans, who coast, henceforth called Ionia, and the neigh- had taken the place of the earlier Carian popubouring islands of Chios and Samos, were at lation. With them the Ionians, under Damathis time inhabited by tribes of various origin, sichthon and Promethus, sons of Codrus, agreed some of which, as the Carians, the Leleges, to dwell on terms of equality. Another son of and the descendants of the Cretan colonists, Codrus, Andreemon or Andropompus, drove the had been long in possession of the country, Carians out of Lebedus. Strabo seems to in-,hile others had been recently driven from timate that he was obliged to take up a position'~eece by causes similar to those which pro- at a neighbouring place called Artis, before he dMced the Ionian migration. The new invaders could make himself master of the town. Teos appear readily to have united with all but the had been previously occupied by Minyans from Carians and the Leleges, who were commonly Orchomenus, led by a chief called Athamas, expelled or exterminated. Twelve independent who is said to have been a descendant of the states were gradually formed, which, notwith- ancient hero of that name. They were interstanding the widely-different elements of which mingled with the Carians; and the Ionians, on they were composed, a diversity no doubt con- their arrival, were peaceably admitted to a share nected with that of the dialects which they in the colony, which not long after received a spoke in the time of Herodotus, all assumed fresh band of adventurers from Attica, comthe Ionian nawe, and were regarded as parts manded by chiefs of the line of Codrus, and an of one nation. Herodotus thinks that they were other from Bceotia., It seems to have been designedly confined to this number, which was later before ErythrTe became a member of the that of the Peloponnesian towns abandoned to Ionian body; for Cnopus, or Cleopus, son of the Achaans, and which appears to have pre- Codrus, is said to have settled there with a vailed from the" earliest times in the Ionianin- band of followers collected from all the Ionian stitutions; yet we shall see reasons for doubt- cities. He found, it is said, a population coming whether they were not accidentally reduced posed of Cretans, Carians, Lycians, and Pamto it.. phylians,* with whom he formed an amicable These twelve colonies were Samos, Chios union. (the chief town in each bore the name of the All these towns were in existence, some perisland), Miletus, Myus, Priene, Ephesus, Colo- haps flourishing, before the Ionian migration; phon, Lebedus, Teos, Erythrex, Clazomene, and- but Clazomenae and Phocwea owed their origin Phocea. The accounts left to us of their found- to that event. Clazomenae- was founded by ation are scanty, and not always easily recon- Ionian wanderers, mingled with a larger body cited. We shall notice some of them, to show of emigrants, who had quitted Cleonte and Phlithe mixed character of the population. Herod- us after the Dorian invasion: a coalition indiotus seems to consider Miletus as the place eating a national affinity, which is confirmed by where'the original settlers might boast of the the early history of Peloponnesus. Phocaea, purest Ionian blood. This was the seat chosen lying at the northern extremity of Ionia, was by Neleus himself. His followers massacred built on ground obtained by compact from the all the males whom they found there-Carians, Cumaeans by a colony of Phocians. They had according to Herodotus-and forced the women been furnished with the means of transport by to become their wives.* Herodotus does not two'Athenians, Philogenes and Damon, who mention the Cretans, who, according to Epho- shared their: fortunes. Yet the Ionians would rus, inhabited the old town'of Miletus, while not acknowledge them as brethren until they Neleus fixed on a'site nearer to the sea, com- had accepted princes of the line of Codrus from manding four harbours, all since filled up by the Erythtee and Teos. depositions of the Maeander, one of which was It is difficult to determine what'share the capable of containing a fleet. Myus and Priene Ionians from Attica had in the population of.were also wrested from the Carians, the former Chios. The poet Ion, a native of the island, by Cydrelus,'a bastard son of Codrus: in Priene, and contemporary of Herodotus, related, that at the Ionians, headed by'2.Epytus, son of Neleus, the time of the migration it was inhabited by are said to have been associated with Thebans, Carians, Abantes from Eubcea, and Cretans, all led by Philotas, who are, perhaps, no other than governed by a prince named Hector, who, though the Cadmeans mentioned by Herodotus among of Eubcean origin, made war on the Carians and the foreign tribes who shared the Ionian con- Abantes, and expelled them from the island; quest. The same dialect was. spoken in these after which he was admitted into the Ionian three towns. Androclus,'son of Codrus, led confederation. Strabo, on the other hand, says his followers to Ephesus, which was inhabited that Egertius led a mixed' multitude to Chios, chiefly by Leleges and Lydians, who were ex- but does not mention- the quarter from which pelled by the Ionians. But the temple of the it came. - It seems most probable that the islgoddess (probably of Asiatic origin) in whom and received colonists from Erythrae, which lay the Greeks recognised their Artemis, afforded on the opposite coast, as we find' it taking a an asylum to a considerable"' number of. suppli- partein the revolutions of Erythrai,t and as they * Niebuhr (i., p. 133) considers"this'as' an example of:* Pausanias tells us (vii., 3, ~7) that the Carians had setthe ordinary practice of the early Greek colonists.'Herod- tled as friends, the Lycians as kinsmen, of the Cretans, otus (i., 146) seems to speak of it as an unusual case, and who were believed to have been followers of Erythrus, son adds that the women transmitted the resentment with of Rhadamanthys; and that the Pamphylians were:Greeks which they viewed their rude lovers to their daughters, who had wandered with Calchas after the fall'of Troy. whom they bound by oaths never to share their meals with Their name probably marked a tribe composed of many their -husbands, nor to salute them by their names; perhaps races. a legendary explanation of some peculiar features in the t Athenmus, vi., p. 259, from Hippias, an Erythraan aurelations between the sexes at Miletus. thor, who related that Cnopus was murdered at sea by 198 HISTORY OF GREECE. were distinguished from all the other Ionian founded by Dorians from Trcezen, and Cmndus, cities by a peculiar dialect. We do not find on the same coast, by others from Laconia: a any more distinct account of the mode in which third band from Epidaurus took possession of' Samos attained to the same rank, though in the island of Cos, which'rivalled its parent in other respects its early history seems somewhat the worship of Esculapius. These six colonies clearer. It had received an Ionian colony ori- formed an association, from which several othginally sprung from Epidaurus, which shared it ers of the same race, and in their neighbourwith its ancient inhabitants, the Leleges. The hood, were excluded, and which, after HalicarEphesians, under Androclus, made war on the nassus had been compelled to withdraw from new settlers, and succeeded in driving them out it, was distinguished by the name of the Doria of the island. A part crossed the sea to Sam- pentapolis. Rhodes was probably the parent othraVe (which, according to some authors, most of the Greek colonies on the south co't'derived its name from them, having been be- of Asia Minor, several of which were ascribed'fore called Dardania), and there united with the to Argos, from which she herself sprang. She Tyrrhenian Pelasgians; but another body seiz- may also have contributed to form the Greek ed a place called Anaea, on the opposite shore population of Lycia, a race renowned for its heof Asia, and there waited for an opportunity of roic valour, and for the wisdom of its political returning to Samos. They found means of do- institutions; though there is no reason to quesing so ten years after, and ejected the Ephe- tion its Cretan origin, and its early connexion sians. It must have been after this event that with Greece, which appears both in the Homerthey took their place in the Ionian body, to ic story of Bellerophon, and in the legend that which, indeed, their origin gave them a claim, the country owed its name -to LIcus, son of the though they were not governed by Attic. prin- Attic king Pandion. We even find traces of ces, but by the descendants of the -old Epidau- Greek adventurers far inland, in Pisidia, where rian kings. It was, perhaps, a necessary con- the Leleges formed part of the ancient popucession to the' power and importance of the isl- lation, and Selge, the most considerable of the and. We are the less entitled to suppose that Pisidian towns, and Sagalassus, boasted a Laany other Ionians were blended with them, as conian origin. the dialect of Samos was peculiar to itself. To the same period-the century following the To these twelve cities another was subse- Dorian conquest-may probably be referred the quently added, which has had the extraordinary Greek colonies in Cyprus, though most of them fortune to retain its name and its prosperity to claimed a much higher antiquity, and ascribed the present day. This was Smyrna: according -their foundation to the heroes who had fought to Herodotus, originally an iEolian colony, at Troy: as Paphus to the Arcadian Agapenor; treacherously seited by a body of exiles from Amathus' and others to followers of AgarnemColophon; but another account, resting appa- non; Soli to the sons of Theseus; Salamis to rently on better authority, represents it as first Teucer, whose son Ajax was believed to have founded by Ionians from Ephesus, where a part founded the temple of Jupiter at Olbe, in the of the ancient town once bore the name of mountains of Cilicia, where the priests, who Smyrna.* It was wrested from these settlers were also princes of the surrounding district, by the LEolians, and the Colophonian refugees, long assumed the names of Ajax or Teucer.* though they acquired it by violence, might be We must here' drop the history of the Asiatic considered as asserting a rightful claim. It is, colonies, to which we shall shortly return to perhaps, only a distorted form of the same ac- observe their condition and progress., A long count, which describes Smyrna as having suc- interval seems to have elapsed before the state ceeded to the place of a town called Melite, of the mother-country gave occasion to new the thirteenth of the list, which was destroyed migrations, and then they took, for the most by the common consent of the other txelve.t part, an opposite direction. It was in the course But the whole story raises a doubt as to the of the century following the beginning of the reason assigned by Herodotus for the number Olympiads that the Greeks established themof the Ionian states. selves on the coast of Sicily, and spread so far The southwest corner of the Asiatic peninsu- over the south of Italy that it acquired the name la, and the neighbouring islands, were occupied of Great, or the Greater Greece. These colonearly at the same period by colonists of a dif- nies, like those of Asia, were of various origin, ferent race. Several of the Dorian conquerors some 2Eolian or Achaean, some Dorian, some themselves were drawn into the tide of migra- Ionian. The Ionians led the way; and the city tion, and led bands, composed partly of their of Chalcis in Eubcea, perhaps originally inhabown countrymen, and partly of the conquered ited by an Ionian race, but which is said to have Achecans, to the coast of Asia. The most ceel- received Athenian settlers both before and after ebrated of these expeditions is that which we the Trojan war, sent out, if not the first Greek'have already had occasion to mention, of the adventurers who explored the Italian and SicilArgive Alth~emenes, who, leaving one division ian coast, yet the first who were known to have of his followers in Crete, proceeded with the gained a permanent footing there. Indeed, acrest to Rhodes, where, according to a legend cording to a generally-received tradition, Czma, which probably arose out of this colony, the in the part of Italy afterward called Campania, Heracleid Tlepolemus had founded the cities of was founded by a Chalcidian colony, in the midLindus, Ialysus, and Camirus before the Trojan dle of the century following the return of the war. About the same time Halicarnassus was Heracleids; and one of the dates assigned for some false friends, who, with aid afforded by the tyrants of its foundation would even make it precede that Chios, Amphiclus and Polytecnus, established an oppres- of the LEolian Cuma, from which the Campanisive oligarchy at Erythrm, which was afterward overthrown an city was believed to have derived both its by Hippotes, brother of Cnopus. * Strabo, xiv., p. 633. t Vitruvius, iv., 1. * Strabi), xiv., p. 672. THE COLONIES.' 19 name and a part of its population. It seems j tradition, by observing that the Chalcidians unbetter to suppose that its antiquity has been I der Theocles were the first Greeks who gained greatly exaggerated than that it owed its name a footing in Sicily. to a third Cuma in Eubcea, which is otherwise The Sicels and the Phcenicians gradually retotally unknown. But it is singular that, ac- treated before the Greeks, whose colonies, in cording to the common calculation, for three the course' of a century, covered the eastern centuries no adventurers followed in the same and southern sides of the island. But the Sitrack; and that even then, if we may believe eels maintained themselves in the island and on Ephorus, the first Greek settlement in Sicily the north coast, and the Phoenicians, or Carthawas the result of a. fortunate chance, which re- ginians who succeeded them, established themvealed the richness of the country and the selves in the west, where they possessed the weakness of its inhabitants to Theocles, an towns of Motya, Solus, and Panormus, destined, Athenian, who was driven upon its coast. Till under the name of Palermo, to become the capthen the Greeks are said to have been deterred ital of Sicily. The Chalcidians of Naxos soon no less by the ferocity of the islanders than by after planted the new colonies of Leontium and the Etruscan pirates who infested their waters. Catana, and the two cities which command the On his return to Greece, Theocles first endeav- straits were also of Chalcidian origin. The oured to induce his fellow-citizens to send out peculiarly advantageous site of Messina had bea colony to Sicily, and when he failed in this fore attracted the Sicels, who, from the form of attempt, addressed himself to the Chalcidians, its harbour, gave their town the name of Zanwith whom he was more successful.* Chalcis cle (a sickle). It was then seized by pirates was at this time, as for more than two centuries from the Italian Cuma, who were afterward afterward, under the government of the great strengthened by new adventurers from Chalcis. landowners, who seem to have had political Rhegium -is said to have been founded, under motives for encouraging emigration among the the immediate direction of the Delphic oracle, poorer 6itizens. It had, perhaps, already plant- by a band of Chalcidians, who had been conseed several colonies in the Peninsula, which, with crated to Apollo, after the manner of the Italian the three branches that it throws out towWds Sacred Spring, to avert a famine, and were jointhe southeast, forms so remarkable a feature in ed by Messenian exiles forced to quit their counthe aspect of the A.Egaean Sea, and which hence try on the fall of Ithom6.* acquired the name of Chalcidici, though a con- But the Greek cities in Sicily which rose to siderable part of its Greek population was deri- the highest pitch of prosperity and renown were ved from Eretria, the neighbour and rival of of Dorian foundation. Of these, Syracuse was Chalcis. The Isle of Naxos also took a part in founded the year after Naxos, by Corinthians, the colony which Theocles led from Chalcis to under a leader named Archias, a Heracleid, and the west-a part so important that the name of probably of the ruling caste, who appears to Vaxos was given to the town which it founded have been compelled to quit his country to avoid on the eastern coast of Sicily, though Chalcis the effects of the indignation which he had exwas acknowledged as its parent. The date of cited by a horrible outrage committed in a famthis event may be most probably fixed at 01. xi., ily of lower rank.t He was accompanied by 2, B.C. 735.t another Heracleid, Chersicrates, whom he left Sicily was at this time inhabited by at least with a division of his followers in the island of four distinct races: by Sicanians, whom Thu- Corcyrf, then inhabited by Liburnians, and by cydides considers as a tribe of the Iberians, who, a colony of Eretrians, who were expelled by the sprung perhaps from Africa, had overspread Corinthians. Corcyra was only one, thoughthe Spain and the adjacent coasts, and even remote most important of a series of colonies planted islands of the Mediterranean; by Sicels, an by Corinth on the eastern coast of the Adriatic Italian people, probably not more fore'gn to the and the Ionian Sea. Syracuse became, in course Greeks than the Pelasgians, who had been driv- of time, the parent of other Sicilian cities, among en out of Italy by the progress of the Oscan or which Camarina was the, most considerable. Ausonian race, and in their turn had pressed Megara, which had not long become independthe Sicanians back towards the southern and ent of Corinth, followed her ancient sovereign western parts of the island, and' themselves oc- in this field of enterprise, though, as her posicupied so large a portion of it as to give their tion naturally directed her attention to an opponame to the whole. Of the other races, the site quarter, her mnost flourishing and celebrated Phcenicians were in possession of several points colonies lay on the coasts of the Propontis and on the coast, and of some neighbouring islets, the Bosporus, where, about a century after the from which they carried on their commerce foundation of Rome, she planted the future riwith the natives. The fourth people, which val of the eternal city, Byzantium. In Sicily, inhabited the towns of Eryx and Egesta, or Se- Megarian adventurers, after many vicissitudes, gesta, at the western end of the island, and bore succeeded in establishing themselves at Hybla, the name of Elymians, was probably composed which was betrayed to them by a Sicel chief, of different tribes, varying in their degrees of and was henceforth called the Hyblcean Megara, affinity to the Greeks; though we cannot adopt but became most famous as the mother of the the Grzeuk legend which represented them as aspiring and ill-fated Selinus (B.C. 628). Forfugitives fitr)m Troy, mixed with Phocians, or ty-five years after Syracuse, Gela was founded with followers of Philoctetes; and Thucydides himself seems to mark the uncertainty of the * Strabo and Heraclides assign a different epoch and motive for this Messenian migration, which they refer to the * Strabo, vi., p. 267. civil dissensions in Messenia which preceded the first war t This, however, cannot be safely inferred from Conon, But the Messenians who went into exile as partisans of An. 20. There is no proof that Conon's Theoclus is, as Raoul droclus seem, from Pans., iv., 14, 3 (quoted by Mueller, Dor., Rochette asstues (Iist. de Col. Gr:, iii., p. 202), the same i., 7, 9), not to have left Peloponnesus. person with Theocles the founder of Naxos. t Plutarch, Am. Narr., ii. 200 HISTORY OF GREECE. by a band collected from Crete and Rhodes, civil discord;* and this, though seemingly at chiefly from Lindus, and about a century later variance with the traditions of the two places (B.C. 582) sent forth settlers to the banks of where the truth might have been supposed to the Acragas, where they built Agrigentum. Hi- be best known,t is not more inconsistent with mera, long the only Greek'city on the north side them than they are with each other, and differs of the island, was peopled by a colony composed from them chiefly in the most marvellous and of Chalcidians from Zancld, and of Dorians, ex- improbable particulars of the story. Our curiiles from Syracuse. osity might be more reasonably excited to inWithin half a century after the Greeks first quire how it happened that no Greek colonists set foot in Sicily, they founded most of the great had taken the same course before. A rumour, cities in the south of Italy. The rivals Sybaris at least, of tht fertility of Libya had reached the and Croton were both of Achtean origin, though Greeks in the time of Homer, as appears fromn,in the former the Achwean colonists were ac- the fable of the Lotus-eaters, and from the mancompanied by Trcezenians, whom theyl after- ner in which he speaks of it in describing the ward expelled, and the latter received settlers wanderings of Menelaus. Yet in the legend from Laconia, who may have been accompanied of Battus it is supposed to have been still an by some Dorians. Such seems also to have unknown country at Thera when he embarked been the case with Locri, called, from the neigh- on his expedition, and to have been discovered bouring promontory, Zephyrium, the Epizephyr- only under the especial guidance of the Delphic ian. The ancients themselves were not agreed oracle. The part of Africa where the Theraewhether it was founded by the Locrians of Opus ans finally settled, after a short sojourn on a or by those of the Crisseean Gulf. It seems small island near the coast, was the singular clear that it owed a part of its population to table-land which rises on the eastern border the aristocratical jealousy of the parent state, of the greater Syrtis. Enclosed between the which excluded the offspring of marriages con- sea and the desert, and defensible on the side tracted between parties of unequal birth from where it is least difficult of access, this favourthe enjoyment of political rights.* At Locri, ed region seems destinbd by nature for the seat also, the Achaeans, and perhaps the Dorians of off powerful maritime state. Blessed with inLaconia, took a share in the colony. Taren- exhaustible sources of wealth, and with a pure tumrn, occupied, on the occasion already related, and temperate air, it seemed, beyond almost by Laconian settlers at the eVd of the first Mes- every other shore of the Mediterranean, to insenian war, seems to have been still earlier vite the industry of a people like the Greeks to peopled by a Hellenic race, though they are draw forth its manifold treasures. But it is.variously described as Cretans or Achaeans. still more remarkable that it appears to have Subsequently Sybaris invited a new colony of been also overlooked or neglected by the PhoeAchaeans to take possession of Metapontum, nicians; perhaps because their attention was which, according to the common Greek tradi- early drawn from Sicily to the opposite coast tion, had been before founded, in the general of Africa, and thence to the west of Europe. dispersion of the Return from Troy, by follow- At the distance of ten miles from a part of the ers of Nestor: Ephorus, perhaps on better his- coast which, with a little aid of art, afforded a torical ground,'related that its first founder was commodious harbour, near the gushing spring a chief named Daulius, who ruled at Crissa. of Cyre, the Greeks founded Cyrene, and soon The dominion of the Greeks in this region was converted the adjacent land into a luxuriant extended and secured by several flourishing garden, while they extracted from its rocky colonies of the greater cities, among which Po- basis the materials of imperishable monuments. sidonia (Paestum), by its ruins, still attests the Cyrene became, as Pindar expresses it, the root ancient power and magnificence of Sybaris. of other cities —perhaps of several which have In the latter half of the seventh century be- been forgotten. Four of them-its port Apollofore our era, a country perhaps still richer and nia, Barce, Tauchira, and Hesperis, which seem more delightful than any hitherto mentioned ed by its fortunate position to rival or realize was opened to the Greeks. We have already the fabulous garden of the Hesperides-com given an account of the migration in which posed, with the capital, what in later times wat Theras led a colony, chiefly of the Minyan race, called the Cyrenaic pentapolis. from Laconia to the island then called Callist6, The tribes which preceded the Greeks in the which is said from him to have taken the name possession of this region appear to have made of Thera.t We do not venture, amid the con- room for them without any struggle: they are tradictory statements of the ancient authors on even said to have served as guides to the new a subject in its own nature: obscure, to deter- settlers, whom they probably found useful neighmine the causes which, between four and five bours, as a European colony'would be to the centuries later, induced Battus, one of the prin- Bedouins who now range over the same tracts. cipal citizens of Thera, to undertake an expe- But their habits must have kept the two races dition to the north coast of Africa. One' ac- completely apart, from each other; and the lecount represents his enterprise as the result of gend of the sons of Antenor,' who had accompanied Helen from Troy,' and terminated their See Heyne, Opusc., ii., p. 46. The new fragments of wanderings in the vicinity of Cyrene, where Polybius (Mai, ii., p. 384) represent the Locrians to have been allies of Sparta in the first Messenian war, which is they afterward received religious honours, may also intimated by Eustathius on Dion., p. 364; but it does have been founded simply on the relation subnot appear how they otherwise confirm the participation of sisting between the Greeks and the friendly Sparta in the colonization of Locri, as Mueller remarks in barbarians, in whose land they had peaceably a note, vol. i., p. 146, of the English translation. t The change of name has also been accounted for by the supposition that Calliste was a corruption of the Phoenician. Schol. Pind., Pyth., iv., 10. word signifying the chase, which is also the meaning of the t For the traditions of Thera and Cyrene, see Herod, Greek name Thera iv., 150-157. THE COLONIES. 201 fixed their seats.* - Afterward, however, in the ed the old model, and it is not impronable that reign of a second Battus,'grandson of the first, the priests who ministered to them were somethe colony was increased by a great influx of times brought from their ancient seats.* The adventurers from various parts of Greece, who sacred fire, which was kept constantly burning were invited by the Cyreneeans, under the sanc-'on the public hearth of the colony, was taken tion of the Delphic oracle, to share the fertile from the altar of Vesta in the council-hall of soil. But these new settlements could not be the elder state. - The founder of a colony, who formed without encroaching on the neighbour- might be considered as representing its parent ing Libyans, who, too weak to defend their ter- city, was honoured after'his death with sacred ritory, sought aid from Egypt. The' Egyptian rites, as a being of a higher order; and when king Apries sent them succours, which, how- the colony in its turn became a parent, it usuever, were repulsed by the Greeks with a ter- ally sought a leader from the original motherrible slaughter, and the Greek dominion was country to direct the planting of the new set-. firmly established in Cyrenaica. tlement. The same reverential feeling manifest. We have not yet surveyed the whole extent ed itself more regularly in embassies and offerof the colonies founded by the Greeks during ings sent by the colony to honour the festivals this period. But as those which remain to be of the parent city, and in the marks of respect mentioned will be included in the view which shown to its citizens who represented it on we are about to take of the progress of the Asi- similar occasions in the colony: But the most atic Greeks, it may be most convenient to pause valuable fruit of this feeling was a disposition here for the purpose of making a few remarks to mutual good offices in seasons of danger and on certain general features of the Greek colo- distress. nies.' The points we' mean to touch upon are -- With, regard to the position of the colonists in' the relation in which the colonists mostly stood their'new country, it must be' observed, that to the parent state, and the political forms which they almost everywhere established themselves arose out of their new'condition. - - as conquerors in a land already inhabited and The'migrations of the' Greek colonists were cultivated, and partially, if not entirely, disposcommonly undertaken with the approbation and'sessed its ancient owners.: The terms on which encouragement of. the states from which they they might live with those of the old inhabitants issued; and it frequently happened that'the'who vwere suffered -to remain, would depend on motive of the expedition was one in which'the an' infinite'variety of circumstances. But in interest of the mother-country was mainly' con- general; it may be, safely presumed that even cerned, as when the object was to relieve it of where the'first people was' not reduced to bondsuperfluous hands, or of discontentedand turbu- age or.to absolute subjection, the conquerors lent spirits. But it was seldomthat the parent; would maintain a superior station in their postate looked forward to' any more reniote' ad- litical institutions.' But between these classes vantage from the colony, or that the colony ex- many otner gradations of rank were frequently pected or desired any from' the'parent state. introduced, by the accession of new adventuThere was,'in most cases, nothing to suggest rers,;who, though-willingly received, could selthe feeling of/dependance on the one side, or' a dom be admitted on a footing of perfect equaliclaim of authority on the other. - The sons, ty with' the first s'ettlers.':On the other hand, when they left their homes to shift for'-them- the maritime. position and pursuits of the coloselves on a foreign shore, carried with them nies, and the -very: spirit in which they were only the blessing of their fathers,: and felt them- founded, was highly unfavourable to the permaselves completely emancipated from their con- nence of an aristocratical ascendency. A powtrol.' Often the colony became more powerful erful and enterprising commonalty soon sprang than its parent, and the distance between'them up, and the natural.tendency of the state towas generally so great as to'preclude all at-' wards a complete democracy could seldom be tempts to enforce submission.' But though they restrained, except by the adoption of a liberal were not connected by the bands' of mutual'in- standard of property as the measure of political terest, or by a' yoke laid by the powerful on the rights... weak, the place of such relations was supplied - - As in the period of the early migrations which by the' gentler and nobler ties of filial affection followed the'return of the Heracleids, the moand, religious reverence, and by usages which; narchical form of government was almost evespringing out of these -fe~elings, stood in'their rywhere prevalent in Greece itself, it was probroom, and tended to suggest them where'they ably very generally established in the colonies. were wanting.' -Except in'the few cases where But the cause just noticed, incident to their pethe emigrants were forced as'outcasts from culiar situation,'tended in the first instance to their native land; they cherished the remem- restrict'the power of the hereditary.chiefs, and brance of it as a duty prescribed not' merely by gradually to reduce it to a mere shadow, which nature, but by religion.'' The colony regarded itself finally disappeared.. The- history of Cyits prosperity as'mainly depending on the favour rene affords a remarkable illustration of the of the'tutelary gods of'the state'to which it manner in which this change may have'been owed its'birth. They were -invited. to share effected in many other cases which are not rethe newly-conquered land, and temples were corded. The kingly government had been precommonly dedicated'to them in the new citadel, served in the Isle of Thera long after it had resembling as nearly as' possible, in form and po- -been. almost universally abolished elsewhere sition, those with which they Mwere hondured in - the mother-country: their imageshere renew- The existence of this custom, however, rests only on an the mother-country: their images here renew- assertion of the scholiast of Thucyd., i., 25, which may have been no more than an erroneous inference from his authors''~ Pindar, Pyth., v.,'78, anrid Thrige, Cyrene, p. 79. An- words; but it is in some degree confirmed by analogy, and tenor may have been looked upon as the type of friendly perhaps by what Tacitus (Ann., ii., 54) says of the priestnatives in a foreign land. - hood at Claros, which has abeen referred to this usage. VOL. I.-C C 202 HISTORY OF GREECE. among the Greeks. The same form was re- an opportunity for political deliberation when tained at Cyrene for some generations without occasion called for it.'With regard to the ZEoany diminution of the royal authority. But af- lians, however, it is not certain that they poster the great addition to the numbers of the col- sessed even such a centre of union; and it is ony, made, as we have mentioned, in the reign on the ground of analogy only, and not on direct of the founder's grandson, the second Battus, evidence, that they have been supposed to have the people seem to have become dissatisfied held annual assemblies near a temple of Apolwith the existing institutions. This disposi- lo, the seat of an ancient oracle, at Grynium.* tion, perhaps, found no opportunity of manifest- The fact is left rather suspicious by the silence ing itself with effect uinder his successor, Ar- of Herod'otus, who mentions'the periodical cesilaus II., who was involved in a domestic meetings of the Dorians and Ionians. Those quarrel, which occasioned a revolt of his Libyan of the Dorians took place near the temple of subjects, from whom he suffered a disastrous Apollo, who derived his epithet from the T: iodefeat, and he was soon after murdered by one pian headland, where it stood: games were of his brothers. His son and hleir, Battus III., celebrated within the sacred precincts, and the was lame, and this defect afforded an occasion victors were enjoined to dedicate their prizes, or pretext for a great political change, the need bronze tripods, to the god. It was the breach of which must have been generally felt before. of this ordinance which caused the separation The Delphic oracle was consulted on the means of Halicarnassus from the five cities, which with of remedying the disorder of the state, and un- it formed the original Dorian KHexapolis. We der its sanction a citizen of Mantinea, named may hence infer how slight the connexion must Demonax, pointed out, no doubt, by his previous have been. The meetings of the Ionians were reputation, was invited to assume the office of held in a spot at the northern foot of Mount Mymediator-in other words, to frame a new con- cale, called, from its destination-that of restitution. He began by determining the re- ceiving the whole Ionian body-Panionium, and spective rights of the old and the new colonists, consecrated to the national god Poseidon. In and distributed them into three tribes, of which them, too, the religious or festive object was the descendants of the original settlers formed almost exclusively predominant. Yet it would the first, probably with-some peculiar privileges. appear that in early times there was among the He then proceeded to deprive the king of all his Ionians a tendency of disposition and of circumsubstantial prerogatives, leaving him only the stances towards a closer union than subsisted ensigns of royalty, a domain, and certain priest- among either their northern or their southern ly offices. This part of the work of Demonax, neighbours. All the Ionian cities, except Saindeed, was destroyed in the following reign by mos, were ruled, as we have seen, by princes a counter-revolution, effected with the aid of of the house of Codrus, and this was made an foreign auxiliaries, and the government then indispensable condition of admission into the became, in fact, a tyranny; but this accidental confederacy. But there is also some ground result does not affect the case, as an example for believing that the eldest prince of this house of a general tendency, and of the mode of its enjoyed a supremacy over the rest. Strabo reoperation. lates, on the authority of Pherecydes, that EpheThe Greek'colonies which covered so large sus was anciently the capital of Ionia, as the, a part of the coast of Asia Minor, though com- seat of Androclus, who was considered as the prising a great number of tribes very distantly common leader of all the Ionian settlers; and related to each other, were distributed, as we he mentions that, even in his own day, there have seen, into. three principal masses, each were at Ephesus descendants of the ancient bearing a name indicating a supposed unity of kings, who were distinguished by certain endescent. The Ionians, moreover, recognised signs of royalty, and exercised some sacred Athens as a common parent-a relation which functions which were originally attached to it. could not be claimed in so strict a sense either No great stress, indeed, can be laid on this fact; by Thebes with regard to the 2Eolians, or by for similar vestiges may have been long preArgos or Sparta with regard to the Dorians. served in the other Ionian cities, and have disIn each case, however, the feeling or the as- appeared only when the privileged line became sumption of a national affinity was strengthen- extinct. But the active interference of Androedby an unbroken geographical connexion; and clus in the affairs of other Ionian cities may be it might have seemed an almost inevitable con- allowed strongly to confirm this statement of sequence of such proximity of origin and posi- Pherecydes; and when we find him dislodging tion, that even if the three main divisions were the Epidaurians from Samos, and afterward prokept apart from one another, each in itself tecting Priene against the Carians-the entershould have formed a compact political body. prise which cost him his life-he may seem to But causes similar to those which kept the Eu- be acting as chief of the whole body. But un~ropean Greeks asunder, operated here to the doubtedly the Ionian cities were soon completesame effect; and at the time of the migration, ly insulated; and Miletus in particular, even if there was no power in the neighbourhood of Neleus was really the younger brother,; would the new colonies formidable enough to suggest not have long borne the superiority of Ephesus, the thought of a permanent combination of their which it soon greatly surpassed in wealth and forces. In fact, it does not appear that any po- power. ~ No provision was made either for de- litical union, properly so called, was ever es- fence against foreign enemies, or for the maintablished even among the cities of the same tenance of internal tranquillity: there was no name; the nearest approach to one consisted common treasure, nor tribunal, nor magistrate, in periodical meetings, founded simply with a nor laws. Yet it may have been very early, religious object, for the celebration of festivals though the time is uncertain, that the Lycians in honourof a tutelary god,-but which afforded * Strabo, xiii., p. 622. Paus., 1, 21,7. THE COLONIES. 203 set an example of the manner in which the ad- the limits of the Grecian world, ana opening an vantages of a close federal union might be rec- intercourse between its most distant regions. onciled with mutual independence. They dis- How far political changes were connected with tributed their twenty-three cities into three the prime spring of that wonderful activity classes: the cities of the first rank possessed which was displayed by the Asiatic Greeks, each three votes, those of the second two, those more especially the Ionians, in the seventh and of the lowest one, and each contributed to a sixth centuries before our era, can only be concommon fund in proportion to its weight in the jectured. It seems probable that the fall of the common council. This was held, not in any ancient aristocracies which succeeded the hefixed place, so as.to raise one city to the rank roic monarchy, and the emulation between a of a capital, but in one appointed for the time growing commonalty and an oligarchy which by common consent. A supreme magistrate grounded its political claims solely on superior and other officers were here elected, and a court wealth, were conditions without which the Iowas instituted for the decision of all disputes nian genius would not have found room to exthat might arise between members of the con- pand itself so freely. On the other hand, the federacy, the cities contributing, in proportion inferior degree in which the Dorians and.Eoto their rank, to fill the places in the national lians were animated with the spirit of commerjudicature and niagistracy. In the same as- cial adventure may have been owing to their semblies were discussed all questions relating political institutions not less than to a differto peace and war, and the general interests of ence in their national character. It is, howev the united states. Had the Greeks on the west- er, certain, that in the two centuries just menern coast of Asia adopted similar institutions, tioned, the progress of mercantile industry and their history, and even that of the mother-coun- maritime discovery was coupled with the cultitry, might have been very different from what it vation of the nobler arts and the opening of became. new intellectual fields, in a degree to which But whatever ill effects may be attributed to history affords no parallel before the beginning their want of union, it does not seem imme- of the latest period of European civilization. diately to have checked the growth or to have Among the secondary impulses which fordiminished the prosperity of the several cities. warded this progress, one may be thought to They may, perhaps, have shot up the more vig- have proceeded from the mother-country. Thuorously and luxuriantly from the absence of all cydides fixes the beginning of the seventh cenrestraint. This advantage undoubtedly also re- tury B.C. as the epoch of a considerable imsuited from the abolition of the monarchical provement in the art of shipbuilding, which was form of government, which probably took place first adopted in Corinth, and was imparted by a everywhere within a few generations after the Corinthian named Ameinocles to the Samians. first settlement, though the good was balanced It seems to have been after this epoch, yet not by great evils. From the scanty fragments re- much later, that the Milesians began to plant a maining of the internal history of the Asiatic series of colonies on the eastern coast of the colonies, it may be collected that they passed Propontis, though Cyzicus, the most important through the various stages. of which we have of them, is referred to an earlier origin.* The given an outline in a preceding chapter, and that rivalry of the Phocaeans, who founded Lampsathey suffered much from intestine discord. cus on the same coast, and that of the MegariThus it is related that Miletus, after the over- ans, who occupied the most advantageous posithrow of a tyrannical dynasty, was split into tions on the European shore, may have urged'two factions, designated by names which seem them to push forward into a wider field of ento indicate an oligarchy and a commonalty.* terprise, and to explore the coasts of the longThe former gained the ascendant, but was dreaded sea, which was supposed to have been forced to take extraordinary precautions to pre- traversed many centuries before by the Argoserve it.. Again we read of a struggle between nauts, but seems to have been now first opened the wealthy'citizens and the commonalty, ac- for ordinary navigation by the Milesians. To companied with the most horrible excesses of them is attributed the glory of having changed cruelty on both sides.t It is uncertain wheth- its name from the Inhospitable to the Hospitaer this is the period to which Herodotus refers ble, the Euxine; and it was to the struggles when he speaks of a civil war which lasted for which they had to maintain with the barbarous tyvo generations at Miletus, and reduced it to hordes on its coasts that they owed their once great distress, and was at length terminated by proverbial reputation for valour.t Here they the mediation of the Parians, who seem to have planted the greater part of their numerous colcommitted the government to those landown- onies, which, according to Pliny, amounted to ers who had shown the greatest moderation, or no less than eighty, and, according to Strabo, had kept aloof from the contest of the parties.T lay almost exclusively on the Propontis and the These convulsions took place within the same Euxine..These colonies, unlike most of those period in which Miletus rose to the summit of hitherto mentioned, were undoubtedly founded her greatness as a maritime state, and in which hei colonies and her commerce were extending * Eusebius gives two dates, B.C. 756 and B.C. 675. Mr. Clinton, F. H., 1, a, 756 and 675, supposes the first to be* Plut., Qu. Gr., 32, IIXovrts (H1Xovtr; 1) and XEcpoydxa. long to a Milesian, the second to a Megarian colony, menThe oligarchs held their councils on shipboard. tioned by Lydus, De Mag., iii., 70, where, however, unless t Athen., xii., 524, from Heraclides Ponticus. Here the we adopt the conjecture obaioavrcE, it may be doubted whethcommonalty bears the name ripytOes-that of the remnant er there is sufficient authority for saying that Cyzicus was of the ancient Teucrians in the Troas. Strabo, xiii., p. 589. founded by the Megarians. The planting of other Milesian Herod, vii., 43. Athen., vi., 256.-They are a rustic pop- colonies in the neighbourhood, which took place nearlyt ulation, and crush the children of their adversaries to death the same time, as Abydos, Priapus, and Proconnesus, seeThs on their threshing-floors: the opposite party revenges it- to render it probable that Miletus had at least a share in the self by burning them alive with their children. second settlement of Cyzicus. $ Herod., v., 28. t IIXat 7ror' qmav XiKAmot MiMo'not. Athen., xii., 26. 204 HISTORY OF GREECE. with a distinct view to commercial advantages, I B.C., they gained access to Etruria, and, as apand probably remained for a time in close con- I pears from the story of Demaratus, were soon nexion with the parent city. And there is followed by the Corinthians. Herodotus also some ground for believing that during the same seems to ascribe the still more important disperiod, Miletus was regarded as the common covery of Iberia and Tartessus-the delta of the protectress of the Greek settlers in this region. Guadalq.uivir-to the Phocteans. But perhaps Hence perhaps the parental title, a valued dis- he may only mean that their example encourtinction, may in some instances have been trans- aged other adventurers, who finally outstripped ferred to her, and her fecundity may have been them. For in the thirty-fifth Olympiad a fortuexaggerated at the expense of some of the oth- nate Samian, named Colaeus, reached Tarteser cities which established colonies on the same sus, and found, as Herodotus says, a virgin coast. Thus Strabo attributes to Miletus the mart, from which"he carried home the most foundation of the Pontic Heraclea, the most profitable cargo ever imported by a Greek merwestern of the Greek colonies on the Asiatic chant. But if the Samian led the way, the Phoside of the Euxine; and adds that the settlers caeans did not long remain behind; and they acreduced the Mariandynians, the ancient inhabi- quired so great favour with the Tartessian king tants, to a state of bondage exactly resembling Arganthonius, that he is said to have' invited that of the Spartan Helots. But this very fact the whole -people to leave Ionia, and settle in strongly confirms the testimony of other writers, his dominions. The Rhodians appear very earwho describe Heraclea as a Megarian colony,* ly to have pursued the same direction, though in which we may expect to find Dorian institu- we must reject as a fabulous legend the statetions. The earliest Milesian settlement seems ment that they visitei the coasts of Spain many to have been'planted much farther eastward; years before the Olympiads,' and even settled in for Sinope, though' its history is involved in the Balearic isles soon after their return from great obscurity, has apparently the best claim Troy. But there is no reason to doubt that to this precedence.t It became, in its turn, the they founded Parthenope, perhaps in conjuncmother of several flourishing-cities. Amisus, tion with the Cumaeans, as its later name, Ne-'on the same coast, is also assigned to the Mile- apolis, was derived from a new colony of Chalsians by Strabo, on'the authority of Theopom- cidians and Athenians. Hence we may the pus, but perhaps with no better ground than more readily believe that they established themHeraclea; other authors ascribe it to the Pho-'selves'at Rhode' or Rhodos (Rosas, in Catalocaeans, and-fix the epoch of its foundation four nia) before the Phocaeans had gained a footing years previous to that of Heraclea.T Yet it is on the'neighbouring coast at Emporime (Ampunot absolutely certain that the southern side of rias), and we may even suspect that the Rhone the Euxine was the earliest occupied by the'(Rhodanus) was named after them. If so, they Greek colonists; and it is possible that before' must' here also have preceded the Phocweans, they had circumnavigated that great projection -who about 600 B.C. founded their most celebraof the Asiatic coast which terminates'towards ted colony, Massilia, perhaps on Ligurian ground,! the north in Cape Carambis, they may have where they maintained themselves with the aid. been carried across to the Tauric Chersonesus, of the Celtic tribes, whose -good-will they gain-' which became in later-times one of the'princi- ed:and'requited by diffusing among them the pal granaries of Greece, and the seat of a pow-' arts of civilized life, and Grecian usages'and erful state.'. letters.: Miletus, however; did not neglect the The Euxine had already lost a part of its ter- commerce'of the -West; her fleeces,' which rors. before any Greek navigator ventured to ex- were of singular fineness, supplied the luxury plore'the recesses of the Adriatic,: or to launch of Sybaris with clothes, carpets, and tapestry,'out beyond Sicily into the'western seas.'! The'and became the occasion of so close an' alliance' Phocaeans had the glory of opening these new between the two cities, that the Milesians distracks of commerce,. in'which, however, they played their grief for the fall of Sybaris by a pubwere soon followed by bold and active rivals. lie mourning. ~ - -'' In the Adriatic they were probably attracted to' Nearly at the same time that the Phocaeans the mouth of the Po by the lucrative traffic in were'making their first excursions in the west amber, for which this river —which at length of the Mediterranean, the country from which, was' identified with the fabulous Eridanus,' the according to general belief,: Gi-eece'had in anscene of the fall of Phaethon, over which his cient times received'the- germs of her arts, yesisters dropped their glittering tears'-had long ligion, and civility, but which had long been been a real channel. The date of their first ad- jealously closed against foreign settlers;'was'venture in the Adriatic cannot be precisely fix- thrown open for permanent and friendly intered; but it'was probably not later than'the be- course to the Greeks.::About 650 B.C., a band'ginning of their voyages to the western coasts composed of Ionians and Carians chanced, in the of Italy,. where, early in the Seventh century course of a piratical expedition, to land on the coast of Egypt,'and were induced by great of~ Seymnus, Fr., 230. Bceotians also took part in it. t Scymnus, Fr., 210, speaks of a Milesian, named Am- fers to enter into the service of Psammetichus, bron, as the:.first founder after the mythical times, or, at who established himself on the throne by their least, as having been cut off, before he had accomplished aid. - He not only rewarded them with a grant his undertaking, by the Cimmerians. While this people of land was overrunning Asia, in the reign of the Lydian king Ar- s on the Nle, but gave all their countrydys, between 678 and 629 B.C., a new colony seems to have men free access to his dominions;* and, to pro..been fonuided with better success by Milesian exiles. According to some accounts, they were headed by a Coan na- * This account of the matter in Herod., ii., 154, is nm dled Critias or Critines. Steph: B., stvorr.' Eustath. on doubt substantially correct, and yet it may not be a sufficien' Dionys., p. 772. ground for rejecting the date assigned by Eusebius to the t Scymnus, 181. Not forty years, as is stated both by foundation of Naucratis, which, according to'him, was Raoul Rochette (Col. Gr.', iii., p. 334) and by M.ueller (Or- founded bj Milesians, 01. vi., 4, confirmed by the story'is chom., p. 291). 4 Hyginus, F., 154. Athenaeus, xv, c. 18. i~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ THE COLONIES. 205 mete their commerce with his subjects, consign- found employment at home in the arts by whicl ed a number of Egyptian boys to their care, to their private and public life was cheered and be instructed in the Greek language, so as to adorned. Among the cities of Greece perhaps form' a permanent class of interpreters. His Corinth alone can be compared to them. There successors adhered to the same policy; and the4overthrow of the Bacchiads was attributed thus Greeks of various classes were drawn to to their luxury, which probably formed a conEgypt, in the pursuit of knowledge as well as of trast to, the plainness and frugality that prevailgain. Of the impression produced on an inquis- ed in the other Dorian states. - But though the -itive and intelligent Greek by the sight of this Dorian character and institutions were adverse wonderful land, which even by its ruins, and in to luxury, they did not exclude the highest deits lowest state of degradation, has never ceased gree of magnificence in works either consecrato inspire astonishment and awe, we are able ted to the gods, or designed for the service of to judge from the testimony of Herodotus. Even the state. And hence even where, as at Sparif the effects of the intercourse between the two ta, the Dorian freemen were not permitted themnations had been limited to those of a purely selves to cultivate any of the arts, artists of vamaterial traffic, they would have been incalcu-'rious kinds were well received, and found abunlably great, because to this traffic Greek litera- dant employment; and schools of art occur ture was indebted for one of the most important more frequently in Dorian than in Ionian cities. outward conditions of its development-a cheap The first steps' in the arts of drawing,' of paintand commodious material for writing, which ing, of moulding figures in clay, were commonwas supplied by the'Egyptian papyrus; but, un-' ly attributed to the Corinthians, who, as they doubtedly, these effects did not terminate here, afterward gave their name to one of the three though it is difficult to estimate them, and the orders of architecture, made the earliest imopinions of learned men are divided as to.their provement in the form of the Doric temple.* nature and extent. - But Sicyon disputed the honour of some of these Though we have not yet brought the political inventions with Corinth, and was more celebranistory of the Asiatic colonies down to the pe- ted than her wealthier neighbour for her school riod at whuich we dropped that of the mother- of sculpture. Those of Argos and Lacedaemon, country, just before the beginning of the great of Rhodes and Crete, and, above all, of.Egina, struggle between Greece and Asia<, as the pres- were fruitful and renowned, while that of Athent seems to be the most suitable place for ta- ens, though it boasted Daudalus as its founder, king a view of the progress of art and literature, and transmitted his art in an uninterrupted sucwhich was so intimately connected with the cession of families, seems to have been barren rise of those colonies, we shall not scruple, for in great works, as it was in illustrious names. the sake of continuity, to trace it down to the But the Ionians were not behind-hand either in Persian war. the richness of their productions or in the gloWe have seen that several arts, subservient ry of new inventions. They began early to vie either to the enjoyment of the great and afflu- with one another in the magnitude and splen-,ent, or to the uses of religion, had been cultiva- dour of their sacred buildings, and, consequent ted by the Greeks before the time of Homer ly, in all the arts which served to adorn them. with a considerable degree of activity and sue- The temple of Her6 at Samos, the largest of all c:ess, and it may easily be conceived that their that Herodotus had seen, appears to have been.jprogress kept pace with the advance of public begun in the eighth century B.C., or earlyin the:and private prosperity. The increase of wealth seventh.' It was built in the Doric style, which and refinement appears to have been much more soon after generally gave way in the Asiatic rapid in the Asiatic colonies, particularly in Io- tbmples to the lighter Ionic. Its architect, Rhcenia, than among the Greeks of the mother-coun- cus, a native of the island, was the father of t;ry, where it was not equally favoured by na- Theodorus, who was equally celebrated as the'ture, and was long checked by the troubles builder of the Lemnian labyrinth, and the author'which followed the Dorian conquest. The Io- of several memorable inventions. The most nian cities were probably, at an early period, dis- important was the art of casting metal statues, tinguished by a degree of luxury before unknown which before had been formed of pieces wrought to the Greeks, and hence Lycurgus is said to with the hammer, and nailed together. Theodohave visited them in order to observe the con- rus exerted his ingenuity in overcoming the diftrast between their magnificence and the' Cre- ficulties presented by the nature of the ground, tan simplicity.* The same fact is indicated by in laying the foundation of the great temple of the legend that the daughter of Neleus, the Artemis at Ephesus.t It would seem, too, that founder, was seduced by one of the barbarians,f the art of painting had made considerable progand is, most probably, the ground of the picture ress in Ionia, while it was in its first rudiments which Homer has drawn of the Phweacians, in at Corinth, if we may believe the account that whom it is scarcely possible to avoid recogni- a picture of Bularchus was purchased at a high zing his Ionian countrymen. About the begin- price in the eighth century by the Lydian king aing of the Olympiads, the fall of Magnesia on Candaules,; and can reconcile this fact with the Maander was ascribed by poets of the same the Corinthian tradition, that the earliest essays;entury to the prevalence of effeminate habits.t in colouring were made by Cleophantus, at the Ne have seen, however, that the Ionians did time of the overthrow of the Bacchiads.~ ot abandon themselves to indolence, and the *.See Boeckh on Pindar, 0. xiii., p. 214..ctive spirit which led them to pursue their t l)iog. L., ii., 103. He suggested the use of charcoal ommercial adventures into unknown regions,for this purpose. regions, Plin., N. H., vii., 39; xxxv., 34. It represented the destruction of Magnesia on the Moeander, probably that which * Plut., Lye., 4. it suffered from the Cimmerian tfibe, the Treres. about 01. t Tzetzes ad Lye., 1385. Eudocia, p. 145. xviii. Candaules is said to have paid its weight in gold. t Athen., xii., c. 29. 0 Plin., Nat. Hist., xixv., 5. He, or another artist of the 206 HISTORY OF GREECE. It will not be expected that we should enter er, of the evidence which the Homeric poems afinto the history of the fine arts in their various ford, to elevate our conceptions of the earlier branches, or that we should fill our pages with state of Greek art, descriptions have been left the names of the masters, and with the accounts to us of several elaborate works, which, though preserved by the ancients of their works.'Our their date cannot, perhaps, be precisely ascerobject is only to point out the connexion be- tained, appear to belong to the period precetween the progress of these arts, and that which ding the opening of a regular intercourse with the Greeks made during the same period in oth- Egypt, and would prove that the Greeks cannot er spheres, of intellectual exertion. And for have been much indebted to the Egyptians duthis purpose it will be sufficient to observe the ring this period for instruments or processes ot manner in which one art —the most important, art. A tenth of the profits made by Colaeus in as an indication of the genius of the people, of his voyage, which we have already mentioned, all those which were occupied with the creation to Tartessus, was dedicated, probably not long of visible forms-which, to avoid the reference after, to Her6, in the shape of a huge vessel of to the nature of' its materials implied in the brass, adorned with figures of griffons round its word sculpture, is better termed statuary, rose border, and supported by three colossal statwithin this period nearly to the summit of its ues.* The magnificent coffer of cedar-wood, perfection. We have already, in our view of covered with groups of figures, some of the the Homeric age, had occasion to notice a very same wood, others of ivory, others of gold, which difficult question relating to the origin of this was consecrated at Olympia by the Cypselids, art-the uncertainty whether it sprang up, and was said to be the very same in which the inwas gradually formed in Greece, or was intro- fant Cypselus had been. concealed from the duced from the'East in a stage of comparative search of the Bacchiads, and if so, had been, no maturity, at which it remained for centuries, doubt, long one of the family treasures.t The fixed by the control of religion. It happens, by colossal throne of Apollo at Amyclae, which was a singular coincidence, that the epoch at which constructed for the Spartans by a company of the Greeks opened or renewed their intercourse artists from Magnesia on the Meeander, and with Egypt was also that in which statuary was richly adorned with sculptures, seems with was on the point of breaking through its ancient great probability to be referred to the eighth cenrestraints and of entering on a new career, in tury B.C., in. which, after Magnesia had been which it arrived, within little more than anoth- destroyed by the Cimmerians, these artists may er century, at its highest point of attainable ex- have taken refuge, and sought employment in cellence. It is not surprising that two facts Greece.: which in time came so nearly together, should It seems, at all events, certain that there have been thought to be related to each other were other causes which operated much more as cause and effect. And hence it may seem efficaciously than the intercourse with Egypt, a probable opinion that the Greek artists, as to urge the rapid progress of statuary in the soon as they were able to visit Egypt, were in- century preceding the Persian wars. Among structed by the Egyptians in various technical these causes might be mentioned the preferprocesses which had been long familiar to them, ence which Uvs generally given to brass and but hitherto unknown to the Greeks, and that, marble over the ancient material, wood, which by this fortunate assistance, Greek art advanced henceforth, when employed, was commonly at once from a degree of extreme rudeness to overlaid with more precious substances, as& the same level which it had attained in Egypt ivory and gold. This change arose in part out. through the persevering labour of numberless of the invention of Theodorus, which gave a. generations. There is a celebrated story which new command over the metals. The use of has been thought to confirm this opinion: that marble for statues is said to have been introthe Sarnian Theodorus, and his brother Tele- duced in the fiftieth Olympiad by two Cretan. cles, having studied in Egypt, on their return artists named Dipeenus and Scyllis, but was, made a statue of Apollo, in such exact conform- probably, most promoted by the closer alliance ity to the rules which they had learned, that the with architecture into which statuary began to one half, which Telecles executed at Samos, be brought, and by the increased sumptuoustallied with the other, on which his brother had ness of the temples, in which, as in that of been employed during the same time at Ephe- Delphi, when rebuilt by the Alcmmeonids, marsus, as exactly as if the whole had been the ble frequently took the place of ordinary stone. work of one artist.* But if the truth of this sto- It may, however, be conceived, that the techry was certain, the inference would lose all its nical rules taught by the Egyptians had first force, if, as there are strong reasons for believ- enabled the Greeks to treat the harder material ing, the two brothers flourished in the eighth with ease and freedom. But this substitution; century B.C.;t and we should then be driven though an important step, did not of necessity to a supposition which the language of Herodo- involve any change of style, and would not of tus seems directly to contradict,$ that Egypt itself have prevented the art from remaining had been visited by Greek artists before the stationary at the stage to which it had been reign of Psammetichus. Independently, howev- carried by the Egyptians themselves. A cause same name, was said to have followed Demaratus into of still greater efficacy was the enlargement Italy. * Diodor., i., 98. which it experienced in the range of its sub t On the age of the brothers, see Thiersch, Epoch., p. jects, and the consequent multiplicity of its pro 181, not. 94. On the story itself, p. 51, not. 42. ductions. As long as statues were confined t t It is not clear how Thiersch, who maintains the prob- the interior of the temples, and no more wer ability of the story, gets rid of this difficulty, since he seems the interior of the temples, and no more wet, to admit (p. 27, n. 15) that the ancient intercourse which he believes to have existed between Greece and Egypt was * Herod., iv., 152. suspended between the time of Homer and the reign of t Paus., v., 17, 5, and Thiersch, p. 167, n. 66'Psammetichus. Thiersch, p. 176, n. 83. PROGRESS OF ART AND LITERATURE. 2c' seef in each sanctuary than the idol of its wor- sufficient reason for denying that the name ship, there was little room and motive for in- properly belonged to one eminent person, yet it novation; and, on the other hand, there were seems clear that it was extended to many othstrong inducements for adhering to tWe practice ers of less note. Thus much appears to have of antiquity. But, insensibly, piety or ostenta- been generally admitted by the ancients; and tion began to fill the temples with groups of in the great number of works attributed to Hegods and heroes, strangers to the place, and siod, one only was held to be genuine by the guests of the power who was properly invoked inhabitants of the district in which he is be. there. The deep recesses of their pediments lieved to have'lived.* We are thus led to conwere peopled with colossal forms, exhibiting sider him as a poet who exercised an influence some legendary scene, appropriate to the place similar to that of Homer over his contemporaor the occasion of the building. The custom, ries and posterity, or as the founder of a poetiwhich we have already noticed, of honouring cal school, and to inquire by what means he obthe victors at the public games with a statue- tained such influence, and what was the charan honour afterward extended to other distin- acter of his school. In the same poem, which guished persons -contributed, perhaps, still was alone recognised by his countrymen, the * more to the same effect; for, whatever re- poet has given some account of his private constraints may have beei imposed on the artists dition, by which it appears that he was a native in the representation of sacred subjects, either of the Bceotian village of Ascra, at the foot of by usage or by a religious scruple, were re- Helicon, to which his father had migrated, for moved when they were employed in exhibiting the sake of bettering his fortune, from C(uma in the images of mere mortals. As the field of A/olis. It has been suspected,t not on very the art was widened to embrace new objects, solid ground, that the harsh epithets which he the number of masters increased: they were applies to his native village were prompted by no longer limited, where this had before been resentment at some wrong which he had sufferthe. case, to families or guilds: their industry ed in the division of his small patrimony, about. was sharpened by a more active competition which he had a dispute with his brother. In and by richer rewards: as the study of nature another poem he describes himself as tending a became more earnest, the sense of beauty grew flock on the side of Helicon. Unless we entirequicker and steadier; and so rapid was the ly reject the authority of these passages, we march of the art, that the last vestiges of the must believe that he was born in an humble staarbitrary forms which had been hallowed by tion, and was himself engaged in rural pursuits; time or religion had not-yet everywhere disap- and this perfectly'accords with the subject of peared, when the final union of truth and beau- the poem which was unanimously ascribed to ty, which we sometimes endeavour to express him, the Works and Days, which is a collection by the term ideal, was accomplished in the of reflections and precepts relating to husbandEchool of Phidias. ry and the regulation of a rural household. We The same observant and inquisitive spirit have, perhaps, only some disjointed portions of which was the inmost spring of this new life in the original work, interpolated with passages the world of art, gave birth, about the same which did not belong to it. But what we have time, to new branches and forms of poetry. is sufficient to afford a distinct notion of the The first period of Greek poetry which is known spirit and character of the whole, and it excites to' us otherwise than by tradition is entirely our surprise and curiosity as to two points. filled by the names of Horner and Hesiod. Nothing can be conceived much more homely, WThen these names are regarded as represent- or more sparingly enlivened with poetical ornaatives of a period, they may not improperly be ments, than this didactic work, which nevercoupled together, as they are by Herodotus, theless appears to have been the sole or the and in the legend which describes the two po- main basis of Hesiod's reputation. That it ets as engaged in a poetical contest. But the should have raised him to such celebrity is the works which have been transmitted to us under more remarkable, as the subject itself was not their names lead to the conclusion that the one which possessed any dignity or attraction name of Homer marks the beginning, that of in the eyes of the warlike races which became Hesiod the close of the period. This, how'ever, the lords of Greece after the Return of theHeris not the sole, or the main distinction between acleids. In the dull fiction, indeed, which dethem: it may rather be said that they approach scribes a contest between Homer and Hesiod, one another only in the outward forms of versi-. the prize is awarded to the latter, on the ground fication and dialect, but in other respects move that he had dedicated.his strains to the encourin two totally different spheres. The Homeric agement of rural and peaceful labours, not to poems, therefore, stand, throughout the whole the description of battles and carnage. But of this period, completely alone. Yet it cannot when we remember that at Thespiae, to which be imagined that they exhibit more than a very the poet's birthplace was subject, agriculture small part of its poetical produce; and the si- was held degrading to a freeman,T and how lence of history as to the rest would be sur- contemptuously the Spartan Cleomenes spoke prising, if it were not probable, not only that of Hesiod as the Helot's poet, in contrast with the names of many contemporary bards have Homer, the delight of the warrior,~ we may been lost in the lustre of Homer's, but that conceive with how little favour such a productheir works frequently served as a basis for tion as the Works and Days was likely to be celebrated labours of subsequent poets, and received by the wealthy and powerful among hence were soon neglected and forgotten. the poet's contemporaries. Another difficulty The collection which passes under the name of Hesiod contains works or fragments of many * Paus., ix., 31, 4. t By Goettling, in his edition of Hesiod, p. iv. different authors; and though there may not be, Heracl. Pont., 42. $ Plut., Apoph. Lac. Cleom., i. HISTORY OF GREECE. arises, if we suppose that this was not his only all the political convulsions and consequent work, and that, even if the others'which have changes of dialect which took place after the come down to us under his. name did not pro- Trojan war. ceed directly from him, they nevertheless rep- The twocenturies following the beginning of resent the real themes of his song. The most the Olymplads were still very rich in epic song; considerable of them, the Theogony, turns upon and this may. be considered as the close of that subjects which might have been thought' the poetry wvhich- issued in natural and unbroken most foreign of all to the poet of the plough. succession from the schools of Homer and HeIt ascends to the birth of the gods and the ori- siod, though it was revived from time to time'. gin of nature, and unfolds the whole order of in every subsequent age of Greek literature. the world, in a series of genealogies, which per- The epic poets of the period just mentioned, or sonify the beings of every kind contained in it. a part of hem, are usually comprehended under In a third poem, of which only a few fragments' the title of the Cyclics, or poets of the Cycle, remain, the poet has not taken a flight quite so terms probably of late invention, and the prelofty; but still, in a vein not more pastoral, he cise meaning of which has been the subject of assigns the. birth of. the most illustrious he- much dispute. It seems, however, most probaroes to the mortal mothers who drew the in- ble that the word Cycle denoted a collection of habitants of.Olympus down to the earth. Some epic poems, the subjects of which were confined explanation.is. necessary to account for the to a certain range of time, and were so distribuchoice of -arguments apparently so incongru- ted as to form one compact body, though there ous; and the most satisfactory seems to be that is no reason to think that the design of such a which is suggested by the legends of the. poet's whole entered into the mind of any one of the parentage and education. It was on Helicon, authors. The period over which their subjects the ancient seat of.the Thracian Muses, that he were spread began with the union of Heaven was born and bred, and the genealogy which and Earth, or the origin of all things, and ended traced his origin, through a long line of their with the latest adventures of Ulysses in Ithaca, favourites and worshippers, to Apollo himself, the close of the heroic age. The poems themmay be looked upon as a pleasing veil of an in- selves are all lost; but the titles of between teresting truth. He was the poet, not of the twenty and thirty have been preserved, and in Boeotian conquerors, but of the people, of the a few instances a short account of their conpeasantry; which, though overpowered by a tents.* Theworksthusdistinguishedwerethose foreign race, preserved its ancient recollections, which related to the story of Troy, and were and a rich treasure of sacred and oracular poe- manifestly designed to fill up the blanks lcft by -try. For this people he collected, in a fuller, the Iliad and Odyssey. Thus one poett sang perhaps, and a more graceful. body, the precepts of the events which took place between the with which the simple wisdom of their forefa- death.of Hector and that of Achilles: anothert thers had ordered their rural labours and their supplied those of the interval which followed domestic life. From the songs of their earlier down to the burning of Troy: a third~ carried bards, and the traditions of their temples, he the heroes to their homes; while a fourthllwent probably drew the knowledge of nature and of back to the secret origin of the fatal feud, the superhuman things, which he delivered in the counsel of Jupiter to lighten the earth, which popular form of the Theogony; and this subject groaned under the numbers and the arrogance naturally brought him to the birth of the heroes, of mankind, and showed how his purpose was which connected his poetry with the chivalrous accomplished, through the weakness of Helen, epic of Homer. His fame became thus estab- the treachery of the Trojans, and the union of lished as a teacher of Divine and human wis- the Greeks. The whole Cycle was conceived dom, and his name represents the whole poeti- by the Greek critics to depend entirely on Hocal growth of the Bceotian and Locrian schools mer:. it was sometimes said to be his work;~ -for Locris likewise claimed him by the legend and some of the principal poems were expressof his death and his grave* —from the Trojan ly ascribed to him;** and even where, as hapwar to the.beginning of the Olympiads. pened in a few cases, chiefly those of the poets If this explanation is sufficient to account for of what may be called the Trojan cycle, the the contrast between Homer and Hesiod in the name of the real author had been preserved choice of their subjects, it may also serve to from oblivion, he was sometimes represented throw some light on another point no less ob- as. Homer's disciple or son-in-law.tt Yet it scure-their resemblance in that peculiar form seems to have been only on the poets of the of the Greek language which continued ever af- Trojan cycle that Homer exerted any direct inter to be appropriated to the use of epic poetry. fluence. The others chose their ground in the. This resemblance between two poets so near to wide field which lay open to them, probably with each other in time, and so widely separated by as little reference to him as to one another, and situation, and still more by their genius and some of them may perhaps be more properly aims, may be considered as an indication of the regarded as disciples of Hesiod, since we find common origin from which their poetry was that their poems were chiefly filled with heroic derived. It was probably among the countrymen of Hesiod, bythe labours of the bards from * See Wuellner, De Cyclo, or Kreuser, Rhaps., p. 179190.' Arctinus of Miletus, in the'.Ethiopi's. whom he is said to have sprung, in the oracular A Lesches of Mitylene, i en his little I'iad. shrines of Helicon and Parnassus, that the epic ~ Augias'or Hagias of Trcezen, in his N6sTOt (Returns), style was formed, and hence passed over into the only epos perhaps known under that name (Nitzsch, Asia with the JIonians, while it was preserved Melet., p. 116), though there were several on the same in Bceotia and the rest of Greece unaffected by e Stas.inus or Hegesias (or Dicaogenes? Aristot., Poet. 16), in the Cypria. Jr Procl., Gaisf., p. 468. * As Stasinus, Arctinus, Creophylus. Paus., ix., 31, 5. Plut., Sep. Sap. Cony., 19. tt Paus., ix., 9, 5. Herod., ii., 117; iv., 32. PROGRESS OF ART AND LITERATURE. 209 genealogies.* The legends of Argos, of Cor- thing less than a most lively and faithful picture inth, of Thebes, and Orchomenus, the adven- of the whole life of the nation, political, religious, tures of Hercules, of Theseus, and the Argo- and domestic, from the greatest to the minutest nauts, supplied abundant materials for all. The features, for two or three most interesting cenremark of a Greek critic,t that the poems of the turies, during which we are very scantily supepic cycle was valued by most readers, not so plied with information from other sources. This much on account of their excellence as for the will, perhaps, be the better understood if we connexion of their contents, though it does not cast a look at the nature, origin, and progress imply that they were deficient in poetical merit, of this species of poetry. It was the expression may intimate that the poetical interest, which of the thoughts and feelings belonging to the in the' Homeric works is predominant, if not ex- various occasions of life, public and private, elusive, was in them subordinate to one of a sacred and profane, or to the poet's individual different kind, which concerned the succession character and situation.; in all cases, however, of events. And in this sense the Cycle may be designed not, like the lyrical poetry of modern considered as a prelude to history, and as an times, for the enjoyment of solitary readers, but indication of a tendency to historical research, to awaken the sympathy of some larger or narwhich, however, did not manifest itself more rower social circle. In this sense a lyrical distinctly till near the close of this period. poetry undoubtedly existed among the Greeks As the principal parts of the mythical outline from the earliest times, partly sacred, partly were gradually filled up, and the public taste popular. The former probably did not differ, in began to be satiated with subjects similar in its metrical form, from the epos, which in this their kind, and treated with a great uniformity respect appears to have adhered to the model of tone and style, the poetical genius of the na- of the ancient hymnody. The popular poetry tion took a new direction, and though it did not was undoubtedly free from the fetters of art, as abandon the epic field, yet both ranged over it it borrowed none of its aids. But the period with greater freedom, and explored many fresh between the beginning of the Olympiads alud regions. The period in which the lyrical poe- the Persian wars was one of great excitement, try of the Greeks was carried to its highest of growing refinement, and of manifold innovaperfection includes the last stage in the career tions. New dynasties and new forms of govof the epic Muse. After the beginning of the ernment were continually springing up; comOlympiads, the Cycle seems to have become mercewas spreading, wealth and luxuryincreasless and less attractive, while for upward of ing; discoveries and inventions were rapidly three centuries a series of great masters of multiplied. All these changes ministered fresh lyric songs were continually enlarging and en- occasions and subjects for lyric song, and the riching the sphere of their art. Their names poets who cultivated it vied with each other were not obscured, like those of the Cyclic in the variety of forms which they applied to poets, by the lustre of Homer's; but of their them. works, those of Pindar excepted, only a few In the Ilorian states poetry and music were scanty fragments remain to justify the admira- generally looked upon principally, if not exclution they excited. Yet even these fragments sively, as instruments of education, and hence would be sufficient to confirm the unanimous the watchfulness with which their character judgment of antiquity, if its authority left room was regulated by the magistrate or the law. for any doubt, and to afford the melancholy con- The themes of the poets were chiefly religious, viction that the loss we have suffered in the martial, and political: in Crete and at Sparta, master-pieces of Greek lyrical poetry is, in a the spirit of the laws and the inaxims of the literary point of view, not inferior to any which Constitution were delivered in verse. Thus we have to deplore in the whole range of an- Lycurgus, though by an anachronism, was said cient literature. The extant works of Pindar, to have employed the services of the Cretan admirable as they are, neither compensate for poet Thaletas; and Tyrtueus and Terpander this loss, nor enable us to estimate its full ex- really seconded the views of the legislator, by tent. Even if it was certain that his genius describing and commending his institutions. was unequalled, still it could not replace the Though the Spartans themselves, perhaps, disfreshness which we might expect to find in the dained the labour of poetical composition, they earlier gushes of the lyric vein, nor the peculiar were keenly sensible of the charms both of character which distinguished each of the other music and poetry, and warmly encouraged such poets, nor that which belonged to the several foreign poets as were willing to adapt their schools formed by the great tribes or branches strains to Spartan principles. Archilochus was of the nation; and which, if we had been per- excluded because he did not fulfil this condimitted to compare the happiest productions of tion; but Alcman, though of Lydian origin, the _/Eolian, the Dorian, and the Ionian lyre, earned a rank next to that of a Spartan citizen would undoubtedly have added much to the by his genius, which may still be discerned in charm of each. And the Theban poet himself the scanty fragments of his works. Here, as is only known to us by works of one class out elsewhere, emulation was kindled by solemn of a great number, each of which must have contests, which -took place at certain festivals, exhibited a different exertion of his pdwers, for the display of poetical and musical talents. and have heightened their effect by variety and The tyrants likewise cherished the lyric contrast. But we have, perhaps,,still more to Muse, though in a different manner, and from regret in an historical point of view; for what different motives. We are not, indeed, prewe have lost in the Greek lyrical poetry is no- pared to adopt the opinion of a modern author,* who thinks that they strove to wean their sub* As Asius of Samos, Eumelus of Corinth, Cinvatho the jects from the heroic poetry, because it celeLaconian, Chersias of Orchomenus. - t Proclus, p. 378, Gaisf. * Wachsmuth, iii., 397. VOL. I.-SD D 'S10 HISTORY OF GREECE. brated the old legitimate monarchy. Without enabled better to understand the nature of the any such grounds of policy, they were the natu- influence which she exerted over her female ral patrons of the lyrical poets, who cheered contemporaries, and might have obtained an intheir banquets, applauded their success, and ex- sight into a side of Greek society-the intertolled their magnificence. We have already course of intelligent and accomplished women observed in a preceding chapter that the Olym- -which, from its obscurity, has been very little pic and other games afforded constant themes observed. The list of Greek poetesses,* who, for poetical panegyrics, which delicately inter- as might have been expected, cultivated scarcewove the praises of the victor with those of his ly any but the lyrical vein, was by no means ancestors, his country, its gods, and heroes. scanty, and included several very celebrated This was only one of the numerous occasions names, which, unhappily, are to us nothing more. for the exertion of poetical powers supplied by During the same period a considerable body of the enterprising and liberal spirit of these fortu- didactic poetry, under various forms, of fable, nate usurpers, who took the lead in the favour- proverb, pithy sentences, or longer moral lesite pursuits of their age. But all the main sons, indicated' the growing tendency of the epochs and'leading situations in the life of the age to habits of observation and abstraction,'and great were deemed to need the aid of song to marked the connexion between its poetical and enliven and adorn them. The war-march, the philosophical spirit. religious and convivial procession,* the nuptial The early Greek poetry was designed, as we ceremony, the feast, and the funeral, would have already observed, for exhibition, more or have appeared spiritless and unmeaning with- less public, and it was late before any one apout this accompaniment. pears to have thought of writing, without any This, however, was only' one side of the spa- view to recitation, for the satisfaction of indicious and richly varied lyrical field. On this side vidual readers. This could only be the case its limit, by which it bordered on the epic, may when instruction, not pleasure, was the immedibe said to have been occupied by the great choral ate end proposed; and hence the rise of a prose compositions, which imbodied many high sub- literature among the Greeks coincides with that jects of heroic song in a new shape; were early of historical inquiry and philosophical speculacarried to perfection by the art of Arion and Ste- tion. When the object of the authors was' no sichorus; and, uniting the attractions of music longer to work on the feelings and the imaginaand action with those of a lofty poetry, formed tion, but simply to convey knowledge or reathe favourite entertainment of the Dorian cities. sonings, they naturally adopted the style of This appears to have been the germ out of familiar discourse, which was gradually enwhich, by the introduction of a new element- nobled and refined, till in the art of composition the recitation of a performer, who assumed a it equalled the most elaborate productions of character, and, perhaps, from the first, shifted the national poetry. If we may rely'on the his mask so as to exhibit the outlines of some tradition of later times as to a point which must simple story in a few scenes parted by the in- have been always obscure, Pherecydes, a native tervening song of the chorus-Thespis and his of the Isle of Scyros, who flourished about the successors gradually unfolded the Attic tragedy. middle of the sixth century B.C., was the first On the other hand, there was a great mass of prose writer:t his work seems to have been lyrical poetry, which only breathed the thoughts partly mythical, partly philosophical. Cadmus and feelings of individual minds. This kind, of Miletus is said first to have applied prose to which may be called the sentimental lyric, was an historical subject. chiefly cultivated in the Ionian and 2Eolian When, however, we speak of a rising spirit states. In this the resentment of Archilochus, of historical inquiry in the period preceding the Hipponax, and Alceus, kindled by private or Persian wars, we must be careful to limit our public quarrels, found vent in bitter sarcasm or notions on this head with due regard to the open invective. The delights of the senses character of the people and the circumstances awakened strains of almost delirious rapture in of the age. The first essays at historical comAnacreon and Ibycus, while the recollection position among the Greeks appear to have been of their fugitive nature melted Mimnermus into subordinate on the one hand to poetry, on the a sadness perhaps too gloomy to be pleasing. other to the study of nature. The works of the It is remarkable that the elegy which he adopt- early historians, so far as we can judge of them ed as the organ of his voluptuous melancholy, from the general accounts of Strabo and Dionysand which, in later times, was almost exclusive- ius of Halicarnassus, and from the fragments ly dedicated to similar purposes, had been in- or slight notices which have been preserved vented by another Ionian poet, Callinus, as the of their contents, seem to have been, in part, vehicle of martial and patriotic enthusiasm. professedly mythological, and to have given, But the tenderness of Sappho-whose charac- perhaps, in a more connected form, and with ter has been rescued, by one of the happiest some traditional supplements, the substance of efforts of modern criticism, from the unmerited a large portion of the epic cycle. It is appareproach under which it had laboured for so rently to this class that Strabo alludest when many centu-iest —appears to have been no less he says that Cadmus, Pherecydes, and Hecapure than g' owing. It is not merely her poeti- tteus only got rid of the metrical restraints of cal celebrity, nor the exquisite beauty of the their poetical predecessors, but in other respects little that has been left to justify it, that excites our regret for the rest of her works. Had they * See that of Tatian, c. Griecos, c. 33. been preserved, we should probably have been t Plin., N. H., vii., 57. Apuleius, Flor., p. 130, ed. Bip.. But Anaximander, who flourished a little earlier, is, perhaps, better entitled to the honour; and if Polyzelus the * Kigos-. Messenian, the father of the poet Ibycus, wrote his history t By Welcker, in his little work (published 1816), Sappho in prose (Suidas, "I6vcoS), his claims would be still strongesl won cinem he7rschenden Vorurtheil befreyt. $ i., p. 34. EARLY SCHOOLS OF PHILOSOPHY. 211 adhered to them so closely as even to retain and became the subject of. several pleasing lethe character of their diction. But there was gends, among which the most celebrated is that another, and perhaps a larger class of works, of the golden tripod, which, having been drawn which might have been more properly referred up out of the sea, was, by command of the orato the head of geography or topography than to cle, to be given to the wisest, and, after it had that of history, in which the description of a been. offered to each of the seven, and modestly country or a city served as a thread to connect declined by them, was dedicated to the Delphic, its traditions. It must have been this class that or Didyrtuean god., The men who gained such Dionysius had in view* when he spoke of the renown were all actively engaged in the affairs historians who preceded Herodotus as confining of public life, as statesmen, magistrates, or lethemselves to local limits, and contenting them- gislators; and the sayings ascribed to them selves with simply recording the legends, wheth- breathe a purely practical wisdom, apparently er sacred or profane, of each region or district, drawn from their commerce with the world however incredible, in a style which, though rather than from any deep meditation on the concise and artless, was clear and not ungrace- nature of man. Their celebrity may, perhaps, ful. Though we must not construe this lan- be more properly considered as indicating the guage so strictly as to suppose that these his- novelty and rudeness than the prevalence of torians never interposed their own judgment on philosophical reflection. the matters which they related, it is certain It can excite no surprise that, in a period that the faculty of historical criticism, which, such as we are now reviewing, when thought indeed, was never very generally awakened and inquiry were stimulated in so many new among the Greeks, and never attained any high directions, some active minds should have been degree of vigour, was long almost entirely dor- attracted by the secrets of nature, and should mant. In the selection and arrangement of have been led to grapple with some of the great their materials, they were probably governed, questions which the contemplation of the visiin most cases, by no higher principle than the ble universe suggests. There can, therefore, desire of gratifying patriotic vanity, or the popu- be no need of attempting to trace the impulse lar taste for the marvellous. But whenever by which the Greeks were now carried towards they aspired to the more difficult and glorious such researches to a foreign origin. But it is task of unravelling any of those mythical webs an opinion which has found many advocates, which Aust often have perplexed them, they that they were indebted to their widening incould scarcely fail to aggravate the real confu- tercourse with other nations, particularly with sion by a false show of an artificial harmony Egypt, Phoenicia, and the interior of Asia, for and order. It is doubtful how far they com- several of the views or doctrines which were monly descended into the later political vicissi- fundamental or prominent parts of their early tudes of the countries which they described. philosophical systems. The result, however, But before the Persian wars the Greeks did not of the maturest investigation seems to show suspect the importance of their own history, and that there is no sufficient ground even for this it was not till long after that either its highest conjecture.* On the other hand, it is clear that interest or its practical uses began to be dis- the first philosophers were not wholly indetinctly understood. pendent of the earlier intellectual efforts of Philosophy may, perhaps, be said to have their own countrymen, and that, perhaps unbegun to dtwn among the Greeks in the ear- consciously, they derived the form, if not, in liest period to which their history or their le- part at least, the substance of their speculations, gends go back; for not only do the subjects on from the old theogonies or cosmogonies. We which the men commonly distinguished as the do not mean to enter into the discussion of subfirst Greek philosophers, speculated, appear to jects which properly belong to the history of have been, in a great measure, the same with philosophy, and must therefore confine ourthose which employed the meditations of the selves to a few general observations on the ancient sages, but the remains which have character, tendency, and influence of the philobeen preserved to us among the works of He- sophical schools which preceded that of Athens. siod-if we may venture to view them in this The eldest of these schools —called the Ionian, light-of those early essays in thinking, dis- because, with one or two exceptions,t the phicover traces, though under a poetical or mythical form, of a system, or, at least, of a connect- Thales, Bias, Pittacus, Solon. Hermippus reckoned up ed investigation of causes and effects. Still, thirteen more, from which the remainder of the Seven were selected by various authors. Among them may be the sixth century B.C. has justly been consid- noticed the Spartan Aristodemus, to whom Diogenes refers ered as the period in which Greek philosophy the lines of Alcseus, which Niebuhr (vol. i., not. 1007) betook its rise, because then, for the first time, lieved tohave related to the ancient Heracleid. It seems, indeed, evident that the poet is not speaking of a contemit began to be separated qom poetry and reli- porar. gion, with which it had been before blended: it * We allude to Ritter (Geschiclte der Philosophie), who was then first cultivated by men who were not (i., p. 159-173) has weighed all the arguments which have bards, or priests, or seers: it was exhibited in been alleged in behalf of this opinion with an even hand. t Diogenes of Apollonia, in Crete, and Archelaus, of a natural form, without any artificial ornament whom it is uncertain whether he was a Milesian ( r an or disguise, and it continued thenceforward to Athenian. This, indeed, would make no difference, and unfold itself in a steady and uninterrupted prog- the epithet commonly given to the school itself would be unfold itself in a steady and uninterrupted prog- improper, if, according to a strange fancy broached by ress. The character of this age, in its relation Kreuser in his work on the Rhapsodists, p. 105, Miletus is to philosophy, is marked by the fame of the not to be regarded as an Ionian city, because there was a Seven Sages, who were variously enumerated,t legend that, about the time of Minos, it received a colony, perhaps of Dorians, from Crete. Admitting the fact, we might prove, by parity of reasoning, that there was no real* De Thuc., Jud., v. ly Dorian state in Peloponnesus, where the early inhabit According to Dicoearchus (Diig. La., i., $ 41), there tants all belonged to different races. With like acuteness were only four names which were universally admitted: (if he does not contradict himself in the same page), Kreu 212 ~ HISTORY OF GREECE. losophers who belonged to it were natives of erable influence on some of the later schools, Ionia-may be said to have.been founded by as they present a remarkable coincidence with Thales of Miletus, a contemporary of Solon, in- one of the most recent theories of modern sciasmuch as he introduced a method which, not- ence.* withstanding. great diversities in their theories, It is scarcely possible to refrain from smiling was retained by his successors. But how far at the boldness with which these first adventuany personal intercourse existed among them, rers in the field of speculation, unconscious of is extremely uncertain, though, on the author- the scantiness of their resources or of the difity of some writers of little credit, they have ficulty of the enterprise, rushed at once to the been commonly represented as forming an un- solution of the highest problems of philosophy. broken chain of teachers and scholars. The But, to temper any disdainful feeling which point in which they agreed was, that they fixed their temerity may excite, it should be rememtheir attention to a primeval state of things, bered that, without the spirit which prompted to which they mounted by such steps as they this hardihood, philosophy would probably nevcould find, and from which they endeavour- er have risen from its cradle. The direction ed to deduce the later order of nature. This which it took towards outward objects was the feature, which was common to their systems, most conformable to the natural tendency of seems to betray the influence of the poetical the human mind, and to the peculiar character cosmogonies, from which it was probably bor- and genius of the Ionian race; and, that we rowed, though the mythical form was discarded. may not undervalue the importance of these Whether it was from the same source that early attempts, or turn away from them with Thales derived the distinguishing tenet of his indifference, on account of their intrinsic fuphilosophy, according to which water, or some tility, it may be proper to cast a look on the reliquid element, was the origin of all things, is suits to which they led, on the manner in which much more doubtful. But it is still less proba- they affected the views of subsequent inquirers, ble that he adopted this dogma from an Orien- and the influence they exerted on the public tal mythology, though his personal connexion mind. With regard to the study of nature, inwith Phcenicia, whence his family is said to deed, the utmost; perhaps, that can be said in have sprung, has been supposed strongly to fa- their favour is, that they did not materially vour this suspicion. Aristotle* —it would seem check, confine, or pervert it. Most of these much more judiciously-considers it as the re- early philosophers were diligent as well as sasult of some very simple observations on the gacious inquirers-a praise which has been beuses of moisture in the nourishment of vegeta- stowed on them by one of the most eminent of ble and animal life, which were probably con- our own dayt-and enriched the knowledge of nected with a traditional belief that the earth their age with some important discoveries; and rested on an abyss of waters,t bounded by the though their explanations of natural phenomena river ocean, the immediate cause of earth- are often extremely rude, it does not appeai quakes, which were therefore ascribed to the that they attempted to accommodate their ob power of Poseidon. It seems to have been by servations to their systems, which, indeed, were a similar process that, half a century later, probably not so mature as to require such a Anaximenes of Miletus was led to substitute a sacrifice. But in another point of view these new principle for the liquid element of Thales. systems were pregnant with more important To him, air, as it encompassed and sustained consequences. Thales evolved his* world out the earth and the heavenly bodies which float of a single simple substance, to which he at. in it, appeared also as the universal source of tributed the power of passing spontaneously life-the breath of the world, which animates through the various transformations necessary all the beings that live in it. And it was appa- for the multiplicity of natural productions; but rently by an analogy of the same kind that fire he does not seem to have attempted accurately -not the visible element, but some more subtle to define the nature of these transformations: fluid-was preferred for the same purpose by and so most of his successors, who set out the Ephesian Heraclitus, who, in other respects, from a similar hypothesis, contented.themselves stands apart from the other philosophers of the with some vague notions or phrases about the school: an original thinker, who, by a peculiar successive expansions or contractions of the and ingenious theory, endeavoured to reconcile original substance. But as the contemplation the constant flux of all sensible objects with of animal life had led'Anaximenes to adopt air the permanency of a single intelligible sub- as the basis of his system, a later philosopher, stance. To him the order of nature appeared Diogenes of Apollonia, carried this analogy a as the momentary equipoise of conflicting im- step farther, and regarded the universe as issu pulses, which he illustrated by the tension of ing from an intelligent principle, by which it the bow and the lyre, or by an image which, was at once vivified and ordered-a rational as singularly enough, occurs also in the philosoph- well as sensitive soul-still without recogniical poetry of India, as the play of the infinite sing any distinction between matter and mind. Being, from whom all things proceed, and to Much earlier, however, Anaximander of Milewhom, in successive periods, all things return. tus, who flourished not long after Thales, and HIis followers seem to have formed a separate is generally considered as his immediate dissect, and his opinions to have- exerted consid* La Place's Wtat primitif (Systime du Monde, p. 433) ser, in his antipathy to the Ionians, would deprive them of comes near to the JpX/ of Heraclitus on the one side, as all share in the glory of their most illustrious citizens, who, the 7rip rEXltKdV of the Stoics did on the other. like Xenophanes and Anacreon, migrated to other regions. t Sir J. Herschel (Discourse, p. 107). But the remarks * Met., i., 3. in the next.page, so far as they impute unphilosophical mo t Plut., De P1. Phil., iii., 15. Orig., Phil., 1. Sir J. tives of vanity or ambition to these same inquirers, will not Herschel (Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy, be readily adopted by'any one who is conversant with the p. 107) suggests a different occasion. history of Greek philosophy. EARLY SCHOOLS OF PHILOSOPHY. 213 ciple, seems to have been struck by the diffi- One Being was the Deity.* The changes which eulty of accounting for the changes which a Thales attributed to the One Being appeared simple substance must be supposed to undergo to him inconsistent with the character of the in order to produce an infinite variety of beings. Deity and unintelligible in themselves. He He found it easier, in conformity with some of found it -impossible to conceive that anything the ancient cosmogonies, to conceive the prim- could come into being or could cease to be; itive state of the universe as a vast chaos-for nevertheless, it does not appear that he absowhich he had no other name than the infinite- lutely denied the reality of external objects, or containing all the elements out of which the regarded their varying aspects as mere illuworld was to be constructed by a process of sions. But the precise mode in which he atseparation and combination, which, however, tempted to reconcile their multiplicity and manhe considered as the result of motion, not im- ifold transformations with the unity and unalpressed on it from without, but inherent in the terable identity of the Deity, who, though all mass. This hypothesis, which tended to give mind, was still one with the world, is a point an entirely new direction to the speculations of which cannot be determined from the fragmentthe school, seems to have been treated with a ary remains of his works, and on which we are neglect which it is difficult to explain, and left to form uncertain conjectures. If, as some which has raised a suspicion that some less accounts might lead us to believe, he for this celebrated names may have dropped out of the purpose made a distinction between the senses list of the Ionian philosophers.* But, a century and the reason, he would have the honour of after Anaximander, Anaxagoras of Clazomenae opening a new and very important field of specrevived his doctrine, with some very fanciful ulation, as the earliest inquirer into the faculties additions and one very important change. He of the human mind; and, at all events, he sugcombined the principle of Anaximander with gested the distinction, which was more strongthat of his contemporary Diogenes, and ac- ly insisted on by his follower Parmenides. knowledged a supreme mind, distinct from the Xenophanes was not so immersed in his ontochaos to which it imparted motion, form, and logical speculations as to neglect the study of order. The pantheistic systems of the Ionian nature, and had formed a system which seems school were only independent of the popular ndt to have been very far removed from that creed, and did not exclude it. The language of Thales, as he was led by geological observaof Thales.and Heraclitus, who declared that the tions to similar conclusions on the primitive universe was full of gods,t left room for all the state of the world.t He was the first Greek fictions of the received mythology, and might philosopher who openly rejected the popular sueven add new fervour to the superstition of the perstition, which he referred to its true source, vulgar. But the system of Anaxagoras seems the tendency of man to assimilate the objects to have been felt to be almost irreconcilable of his worship to his own nature, and he inlwith the prevailing opinions, and hence, as we veighed against Homer and Hesiod for attribushall find, drew upon him hatred and persecu- ting to the gods actions unworthy of the divine tion. character. He also attacked several doctrines While philosophy was thus cultivated in of his philosophical contemporaries or predecesIonia, two schools arose in the western colo- sors,T and seems to have satisfied himself betnies, of widely different characters, though both ter in refuting their opinions than in establishwere founded by the Ionians, and one in the ing his own. seat of an Ionian population. This was the Parmenides, a native of Elea, whose early Eleatic, which took. its name from the town of youth seems to have coincided with the advanElea or Velia, on the western coast of South- ced age of Xenophanes, though it is not certain ern Italy, a settlement of the Phocaeans, the that he received his personal instructions, purorigin of which will be hereafter noticed, and to sued the same direction. But he set out, not which Xenophanes, the founder of the school, like (enophanes, from the idea of deity, but migrated, it is believed, about 536 B.C. from from the notion of being; he expressly groundhis birthplace, Colophon. We mention it first, ed his system on the distinction between sense because it seems to have been connected, and reason, as means of arriving at truth, and, though by a polemical relation, with the school on the one hand, went so far as to deny the reof Thales, and its history, in one important ality of time, space, and motion, while on the point, presents a contrast to that of the Ionian other hand he admitted so much of a real foundphilosophy; for the Eleatic began where the ation for the appearances of nature as rendered other ended, with the admission of a supreme them not unworthy of attention, and even conintelligence; and it even seems probable that structed a peculiar physical theory to explain Xenophanes was guided in the formation of his them. But it is to be lamented that in his system by a religious rather than by a purely philosophical interest. As Thales saw gods in * Met., i., 5, Els Trbv Sov ovipavov aiiroGXdra ra Ev eival all things, so it may be said that Xenophanes Oiii Tyr Oedv. saw all things in God. Aristotle described his t He supported his opinion that earth and sea were once mingled in one mass by referring to sea-shells found in midpredominant thought or feeling with remark- land regions and in the bowels of mountains, to the impresable liveliness and simplicity, by saying that he sions of fish in the quarries of Syracuse, and to similar gazed upon the whole heaven, and said that the phenomena observed in the Isle of Paros and elsewhere. X,______________ Origen:, Phil., 14 This seems to imply that no preceding philosopher had made the same use of the like observations. * Ritter, i., p. 289. But see Brandis in the Rhein. Mus., See above, p. 212, not. t, col. 2. iii., p. 118, fol. Ritter (i., p. 452) finds an allusion to Pythagorean doe t According to Aristotle,.De Anim., i., 5, this was the trines, where it would seem that Xenophanes might have very expression of Thales. Heraclitus conveyed the same had Anaximnander's ix'7rcpov in view. The Pythagorean thought in another form when he bade his guests enter, tenets which he is supposed to have controverted, even if saying, "Here, too, are gods." Aristotle, De part. anim., they were formed so early, seem, according to Ritter's own i., 5. observation (p. 356), to have been kept longer secret 214 HISTORY OF GREECE. case, as in his master's, we are left in the dark after times as to demand notice here. In an as to his mode of reconciling these seemingly other point of view-as a man who combined Inconsistent views.' His fellow-citizen, friend, philosophy with religion and an ascetic moraliand disciple, the courageous and unfortunate ty, assumed a priestly character, possessed an Zeno, and Melissus of Samos, who united great insight into some secrets of nature unknown to military talents and experience with his philo- his contemporaries, and by all these means acsophical pursuits, chiefly exercised their dia- quired a powerful ascendant over them, and lectic subtlety in combating both the dogmas of wag regt*ded with a religious awe —Empedoother philosophers and the opinions of the vul' cles belongs to the same class with Epimenigar; and though there is no reason to doubt des and Pythagoras, the founder of the second, that they were earnest in search of truth, they and the most celebrated of the Western schools, seem too often to have descended to sophistical which, indeed, might perhaps claim precedence paradoxes, which need all the indulgence that by a few years of the Eleatic.* We have recan be claimed for an early stage of science. served it for this place, both as less intimately Zeno himself was sometimes ranked among the connected with the Ionian schools, and because sophists, whose pernicious influence -we shall it will lead us to take a view of the political hereafter have occasion to notice; and thus the condition of some of the Greek cities in Italy Eleatic school, which in its outset was distin- which we have already mentioned. guished by a religious philosophy, insensibly The history of Pythagoras is obscured by a contracted a close affinity with a class of men cloud of legends, through which little can be who laboured to destroy both philosophy and distinguished beyond the leading outlines of his religion. life and character. He was a native of Samos, We may bhire mention a remarkable feature born about B.C. 570, and by his mother's side in the history of the early philosophical litera- is said to have been connected with one of the ture, which corresponds to the character of most ancient families in the island. But his the several schools and systems. Of Thales father, Mnesarchus, was generally believed to:t is not certainly known whether he wrote any- have been a foreigner, and not of purely Greek thing, nor whether some verses —about two origin, though it was disputed whether he was hundred-which were attributed to him, con- a Phoenician, or belonged to the Tyrrhenians tained an account of his physical doctrines, or of Lemnos or Imbrus-to a branch, therefore, of were merely a collection of practical maxims the Pelasgian race. Like uncertainty hangs and precepts, such as were ascribed td all those over the early life of Pythagoras, the sources who were numbered among the Sbven Sages. of his knowledge, or the aid he received in the His younger contemporary, Anaximander, un- cultivation of his mind. -But there seems to be no folded his theory in a prose work, and his ex- reason to doubt that he travelled in the East, at ample appears to have been followed by all the least in Egypt, and that he derived some instrucphilosophers of the same school. The speci- tion from Pherecydes of Scyros, if not from Anmens left of their writings show that their loss aximander.t To his stay in Egypt he was most is to be regretted in a literary point of view, as likely indebted, not so much for any positive well as on account of the information which knowledge or definite opinions, as for hints they would have afforded. Their style seems which roused his curiosity, and impressions to have resembled that of the early historians: which decided the bias of his mind. In the sciits simplicity was relieved by the bold poetical ence of the Egyptians he perhaps found little to images in which their thoughts were frequently borrow; but in their political and religious instiveiled. On the other hand; Xenophanes and Parmenides explained and defended their sys- * He was commonly classed among the Pythagoreans (see tems in verse, which scarcely deserves the Sturz, Empedocles, i 3). But Ritter has established his name of poetry, though the former was the connexion with the Eleatics by a careful comparison of his remains with those of Parmenides. Perhaps the other opinauthor of several moral elegies, which.were not ion was suggested by the resemblance between his characdeficient in poetical merit, and of a historical ter and that of Pythagoras. Yet, besides his doctrine conepic, perhaps the first of its kind, on the found- cerning the soul, his Sphere-god, which absorbs and assimilates portions of the reahii of strife, and his two opposite ation of Colophon and the migration to Elea. prinatples, porthich are subordinate to a higher unity, seem The remains of the philosophical poems breathe to come nearer to some peculiar features of the Pythagorea strain of oracular solemnity and obscurity, an philosophy. By others, again, both ancients and modand to contemporary readers must have suppli- erns (as Reinhold, Geschichte der Philosophie, i., p. 66), he suppli- has been assigned to the Ionianr school, as a disciple of ed the absence of all purely poetical appeals to Anaxagoras. He may probably be looked upon as the first the imagination and the feelings by the interest author of an eclectic system. But see Brandis, in the'esof new and mysterious trains of thought, strugf Apollon. ap. Porphyr., De Vit. Pyth.,: 2 Tradition, ingling in vain for an adequate expression. But deed, can have but little weight on a point of this nature. a metrical vehicle did not so well suit Zeno's di- But as to Pherecydes, the ancients appear to have been alectic genius, and he adopted a more appropri- unanimous. As to Anaximrander and Thales, who is also mentioned among the teachers of Pythagoras, our belief ate instrument of controversy in the -dialogue, must rest chiefly on the probability, whatever it moay be, which in his hands was probably a very dry that he became acquainted with the persons most eminent form, and utterly destitute of the attractions forkeowledgeand wisdominhis-day. WithregardtoPherecydes, the tradition may seem to be confirmed'by anothwhich were afterward imparted to it by the er, accrding to which he was the first Greek who taught highest efforts of Attic eloquence. the immortality of the soul. But no traces of an intercourse The Eleatics appear likewise to have sug- with Thales or Anaximander can be discovered in any of features of the system framed the doctrines ascribed to Pythagoras, and therefore the gested some features of the system framed question is one which it is equally unimportant and difficult about the middle of the fifth century by Emped- to decide. This is still more the case as to the other alocles of Agrigentum, which he also unfolded in leged teachers of Pythagoras, as Bias of Priene, and oba poetical form. It neither has so much philo. scure names, such as Creophilus and Hernlodamas. Ritter has made some judicious remarks on this sulbject in his sophical interest, nor exerted such influence in Geschichte der Pythagorischen Philosophie, p. 15, folio. EARLY SCHOOLS OF PHILOSOPHY. 215 tutions he saw a mighty engine, such as he might of his system, as it is almost certain that he wish to wield for nobler purposes. It is equally never committed it to writing; and it is excredible that he was initiated in- several of the' tremely difficult, in the doctrines which are most ancient Greek mysteries, even if there called Pythagorean, to distinguish what belongs should be no ground for the conjecture that he in- to him, and what to his disciples and their folherited some secrets of a mystic lore from Pelas- lowers.: We can 6nly venture to make a few gian ancestors.* We may here remark that remarks on its character and tendency, so far among the various opinions which have been en- as they may be collected with some degree of tertained by the learned as to the Greek myste- safety. It seems clear that Pythagoras not ries, none seem more probable than that which only conceived that numbers represented the esholds them to have been the remains of a wor- sence and properties of all things, but attribuship which preceded the rise of the Hellenic ted to them such a real objective existence as mythology and its attendant rites, grounded on rendered them capable of serving as materials a view of nature less fanciful, more earnest, or elements in his construction of the universe; and better fitted to awaken both philosophical a process, of which no satisfactory account has thought and religious feeling. It is extremely yet been given, which does not imply that he doubtful how far they were ever used as a ve- confounded, first a numerical unit with a geohicle for the exposition of theological doctrines metrical point, and then this with a material differing from the popular creed. But it seems atom.. He thus, on one side, pointed the way to not improbable that, in the century which fol- the physical theory afterward maintained by lowed the opening of a regular intercourse be- Leucippus, Democritus, and Epicurus, though it tween Greece and Egypt, some attempts were is by no means certain that this was the source made to connect the mystic legends, which from which it was derived. But it is extremewere either exhibited in mimic shows or con- ly improbable that either he, or any of his folveyed in hymns, with a sort of speculative sys- l^ers, ever caught a glimpse of the atomic tem, which may here and there have contained theory of modern science. On the other hand, some features derived from the East; and that he seems to be justly chargeable with a large the authors of this new learning endeavoured part of the absurdities and superstitions which to recommend it by the authority of Orpheus, claimed the sanction of his name in the latest and other venerable names of Thracian, Lycian, period of Greek philosophy, and which exerted or Hyperborean bards and prophets. It was such a powerful and mischievous influence over now, perhaps, that the views of the initiated the opinions of many succeeding ages; for, inbegan to be extended beyond the present life, nocent as he may have been of such an intenand that the doctrine of the immortality of the tion, he probably opened a door for all these soul was made a basis for the assurance of chimeras, not only in the mysterious virtue higher privileges than had before been held out which he attributed to numbers, but likewise in to them. Whether it was from a domestic or the still more abstruse speculations by which a foreign source that Pythagoras drew the pe- he ascended to the first principles of nurmber itculiar form of this doctrine which he adopted- self, in which he discovered a contrast variousthat of a transmigration of souls-we cannot ly expressed by his followers as one between determine; Pindar's allusions seemr to indicate light and darkness, or between good and evil, that in his time it had been long familiar to the and perhaps equivalent to that between mind Greeks.t and matter, reason and sense.* These oppoPythagoras is said to have been the first site principles were represented, indeed, as subGreek who assumed the title of a philosopher. ordinate to a higher unity, but also as issuing If this was so, he probably did not intend, as has out of it. And thus the First Cause itself was been commonly imagined, to deprecate the rep- drawn into the conflict, and engaged in a strug-' utation of wisdom, but to profess himself devoted gle with its own original imperfection. to the pursuit of it; though, on the other hand, It is not improbable that the philosophy of the well-known story which explains the origin Pythagoras would have been more sober, and of the name, suggests an entirely false notion might not have been the occasion of so many of his view of life so far as it implies tfat he re- incoherent dreams, but for the symbolical and garded contemplation as the highest end of hu- mystic veil which he threw over it,. and which man existence.t His ardent thirst of knowl- was, perhaps, necessary for the success of his edge he shared with many of his contempora- plans, though it could not secure them against ries; but he was distinguished by his strong the revolution by which they were at last frusbent for mathematical studies, and for all con- trated. For the history of the human mind his nected with them. Several remarkable dis- institutions are, perhaps, less interesting than coveries in geometry, music, and astronomy his philosophy; but for the history of Greece are attributed to him,~ and his whole philoso- his philosophy is chiefly important, as it throws phy was the result of this predilection. We are some light on the character of his institutions. the less inclined to enter into an explanation The accounts whlich have been preserved of * Ritter, i., p, 350. But the story of the mystagogue Ag- * Aristotle, Met., i., 5, enumerates ten pairs of these oplaophamus, who is said to have admitted him to the Orphic posite principles, which, according to some Pythagoreans, mysteries at Libethra, where he learned the rudiments of on account of the virtue ascribed to the number ten, incluhis arithmetital theology, is perhaps a fable not much more ded all or the most important elements of the universe ancient than the time of Iamblichus. See Lobeck, Aglaoph. We subjoin the list, which may give some notion of the t See Dissen. on Pindar, 01., ii., 68, and FraoTn. Thren., 4. character of the system and of the ease with which it might t The philosopher is like the spectator at the Olympic adapt itself to the most fanciful combinations. They are: games, who, while others are attracted by ambition or gain, Limit and Unlimited; Odd and Even; One and Many; comes only to gratify a liberal curiosity. See Cicero, Tusc Right and Left; Male and Female; Still and Moved Disp., v., 3, and Davis's note. Straight and Curve; Light and Darkness; Good and Evil; ~ See Professor Powell's History of Natural Philosophy, Square and Oblong. These, as the ancients perceived, are in this Cyclop'dia, p. 19, 21. only ten different aspects of one vague idea 216 HISTORY OF GREECE. their origin and their fate, though perplexed by tensions, which, he must have been conscious, many contradictions, serve for a time to break had no real ground, and which, we must susthe obscurity which commonly rests upon the pect, were calculated to attract the veneration affairs of the Greek cities in Italy. of the credulous. The most famous of these Pythagoras is generally believed to have was the claim he laid to the privilege-confound Polycrates ruling at Samos on his return ferred on him, as he asserted, by the god Herfrom his travels in the East, and his aversion mes-of preserving a distinct remembrance of to the tyrant's government was sometimes as- many states of existence which his soul had signed as the motive which led him finally to passed through: an imposture attested by his quit his native island. If there was any founda- contemporary Xenophanes, who, as his charaction for this story, it must probably be sought, ter in this respect stands much higher than that not in any personal enmity between him and of Pythagoras, appears to have treated it in his Polycrates-who is said to have furnished him elegies with deserved ridicule.* with letters of recommendation to Amasis-but What were the precise motives which induced in his conviction that the power of Polycrates -him finally to fix his residence among the Italwould oppose insuperable obstacles to his de- ian Greeks, and particularly at Croton, is only signs. For it seems certain that, before he set matter for conjecture. The peculiar salubrity out for the West, he had already conceived the of the air of Croton, its aristocratical governidea to which he dedicated the remainder of ment, a state of manners which, though falling his life, and only sought for a fit place and a far short of his idea, was advantageously confavourable opportunity to carry it into effect. trasted with the luxury of Sybaris, might sufWe, however, find intimations that he did not fice to determine his choice, even if there were leave Samos until he had acquired some celeb- no other circumstances in its condition which rity among the Asiatic Greeks* by the intro- opened a prospect of successful exertion. In duction of certain mystic rites which HerodoIs fact, however, the state of parties in Croton at represents as closely allied to-the Egyptian, and the time when he arrived there seems to have td those which were celebrated in Greece un- been singularly favourable to the undertaking der the name of Orpheus as their reputed found- which he meditated. Causes of discord were at er. But as we cannot believe that the es- work there, as in most of the neighbouring cities, tablishment of a new form of religion was an very similar to those which produced the strugobject that Pythagoras ever proposed to him-.gle between the partricians and the plebeians self apart from his political views, we could at Rome. There was a body, called a senate, only regard these mysteries, supposing the fact composed of a thousand members, and probably ascertained, in the light of an essay or an ex- representing the descendants of the more anperiment by which he sounded the disposition cient settlers, invested with large and irrespon-. or the capacity of his countrymen for the recep- sible authority, and enjoying privileges which tion of other more practical doctrines. The had begun to excite discontent among the peofame of his travels, his wisdom, and sanctity, ple. The power of the oligarchy was still prehad probably gone before him into Greece, ponderant, but apparently not so secure as to where he appears to have stayed some time, render all assistance superfluous. The arrival partly, perhaps, to enlarge his knowledge, and of a stranger, outwardly neutral, who engaged partly to heighten his reputation. It was no the veneration of the multitude by his priestly doubt for the former purpose that he visited character, and by the rumour of his supernatuCrete and Sparta, where he found a model of ral endowments, and was willing to throw all government and discipline more congenial to his influence into the scale of the government, his habits of thinking than he could have met on condition of exercising some control over its with anywhere else but in Egypt or India. If, measures, was an event which could not but be as is highly probable, he stopped on the same hailed with great joy by the privileged class; journey at Olympia and Delphi, it was, perhaps, and, accordingly, Pythagoras seems to have less from either curiosity or devotion than from found the utmost readiness in the senate of the desire of. obtaining the sanction of the ora- Croton to favour his designs. cles, and of forming a useful connexion with The real nature of these designs, and of the their ministers. Thus we are told that he was means by which he endeavoured to carry them indebted for many of his ethical dogmas to into execution, is a question which has exerThemistoclea of Delphi, probably the priestess. cised the sagacity of many inquirers, and has The legends about his appearance at Olympia- been variously solved, according to the higher where he is said to have shown a thigh like degree of importance which Pythagoras has the shoulder of Pelops, of gold or ivory, and to been supposed to have attached to religion, or have fascinated an eagle as it flew over his to philosophy, or to government. But it seems head-may very well be connected with this clear that his object was not exclusively, or journey, and would indicate that he was looked even predominantly religious, or philosophical, upon as a person partaking of a superhuman or political, and that none of these objects stood nature, and as an especial favourite of Heaven. in the relation of an end to the other two, as its How far he excited or encouraged such a delu- means. On the other hand, we cannot be satsion, is, as in all such cases, very difficult to isfied with the opinion. of a modern author,t determine; but it seems unquestionable that that the aim of Pythagoras was to exhibit the he did not rely solely on his genuine merits and * Diog., viii., 36. Pythagoras is represented as interceacquirements, but put forward marvellous pre- ding for a dog which was howling under the lash, on the ground that he recognised the voice of a deceased friend, whose soul had migrated into the animal. * Ritter infers this from the story that Zamolxis had t Mueller, Dor., iii., 9, 15. He goes beyond F. Schlegel, served Pythagoras in Sanros (Herod., iv., 95), and also from who, in his essay on Plato's Diotima (Werk., iv., p. 109), the fact that the fame of his learning had reached Heracli- had noticed the Dorian character of the Pythagorean insti~1 Neither argument is decisive. tutions. INSTITUTIONS OF PYTHAGORAS. 217 ideal of a Dorian state. This is, perhaps, in singularly foreign to the business of a states. onesense, more, and in -another less, than he man; but we know that some of the greatest, really attempted, and the opinion seems to af- both in ancient and modern times, have been feet the character of the Dorians rather than the nourished in such speculations, and the effects views of Pythagoras. His leading thought ap- of the exercise are not to be measured by the pears to have been, that the state and the individ- importance of the scientific results. ual ought, each in its way, to reflect the image of It' is certain that religion was intimately conthat order and harmony by which he believed the nected with the institutions of Pythagoras, and universe to be sustained and regulated; and he it may not be too much to say,* that it was the only expressed the religious side of this thought centre in which they rested, or the corner-stone when he said that the highest end of human ex- of the whole fabric, and the main bond of union istence was to follow or resemble the Deity. among his followers. But it is by no means But he was aware that this sublime idea can clear either what kind of religion it was, or in never be fully imbodied in this sublunary world, what manner it acted. And its importance and that a wise man will be content with slow- may have been the cause of this obscurity; foi ly approaching the unattainable mark, and in it is highly probable that the secrecy in which working upon others will adapt his exertions' to the proceedings of the fraternity were envelopthe circumstances in which he is placed, and ed related not to its philosophical doctrines, nor to the imperfection' of those whom he has to even to its political designs, but to its religious deal with. He had before him the example of observances. In what relation, however, this Lycurgus, and,'still nearer, those of Zaleucus mystic religion stood to that of the public temand Charondas, who had legislated, not many ples is very doubtful. Pythagoras is said to generations earlier, the one for Locri, the other have inveighed as bitter as Xenophanes against for Catana, on principles so agreeable to his own, Homer and Hesiod for degrading their divine that in the traditions of later times they were personages,t but he professed the highest revnumbered among his disciples. This, however, erence for the objects of the popular superstiwas probably something more than the state of tion. It is true that he reduced the gods to so affairs which he found at Croton would have many numbers; but this was a theological nicepermitted him to undertake, and yet less than ty, and did not concern the multitude which saw he might hope to accomplish by different means. him bow at their altars. There is no reason to He did not frame a constitution or a code of think that these mysteries conveyed any doclaws, nor does he appear ever to have assumed trines inconsistent with the common opinions. any public office. He instituted a society-an It is most probable-and the story which was order we might now call it-of which he became current among the Greeks on the HIellespont the general. It was composed of young men about the imposture of Zamolxis seems to concarefilly selected from the noblest families, not firm this conjecturet-that the chief object of only of Croton, but of other Italiot cities. Their the mysteries was to inculcate the dogma of number amounted, or was confined to three the immortality and migrations of the soul, hundred; and if he expected by their co-oper- which might be easily applied to the purpose of ation to exercise a sway firmer and more last- strengthening a generous enthusiasm. But ing than that of a lawgiver or a magistrate, first there can be no doubt that religion was made over Croton, and in the end over all the Italian to hallow all the relations into which the assocolonies, his project, though new and bold, ciates entered, that it cemented their mutual ought not to be pronounced visionary or extrav- attachment, and exalted their veneration for agant. their master. It is also important to observe According to our view of this celebrated so- that the mysteries appear to have been open, ciety, it is not surprising that it should have though perhaps not in their last stage, to perpresented such a variety of aspects as to mis- sons who were not members of the political lead those who fixed their attention on any one society. Thus women seem to have been adof them, and withdrew it'from the rest. It was mitted to them, and hence we find a long list ot at once a philosophical school, a religious broth- female Pythagoreans. It is easy to imagine erhood, and a political association; and all how much the influence of the institution must these characters appear to have been insepara- have been enlarged by such an accession. bly united in the founder's mind. It must be Whether Pythagoras had formed any definite considered as a proof of upright intentions in political theory is another disputable point. It Pythagoras, which ought to rescue him from all is not even certain that he wished to see his suspicion of selfish motives, that he chose for disciples placed in public offices, though the his coadjutors persons whom he deemed capa- state was to be their proper and highest sphere ble of grasping the highest truths' which he of action-much less that he designed they could communicate, and was' not only willing to should constitute a separate body, clothed with teach them all he knew, but regarded the ut- legal authority. His preference of one form of most cultivation of their intellectual faculties government to another probably depended on as a necessary preparation for the work to the facility with which it lent itself to his views; which he destined'them. His lessons were but that, in general, his sentiments were rigidly certainly not confined to particular branches of aristocratical, could scarcely be doubted, even mathematical or physical science, but were if there were no direct evidence of the fact.~ clearly meant to throw the fullest light on the greatest questions which an occupy the hu- * With Ritter, in both' the works above referred to. greatest questions which can occupy the hu- t Diog. Laert,, viii., 21. On the other hand, see Porpbh man mind. Those who were to govern others De V. P., xxxii. were first to contemplatb the world, and to com- t Her., iv., 95. Compare the story told by Hermippua prehend the place which they filled in it. The in Diog., Viii., 41. PhOne is rather surprised at the tone of uncertainty with Pythagorean philosophy may, indeed,'appear which Iitter (i, p, 352) expresses himself o this poiat VoL I. —E1 218 HISTORY OF GREECE. The candidate who sought admission into Hundred who were admittea to the last secrets, the order, if his first appearance satisfied the religious, philosophical, and political, that their eye of the master, who is said to have placed master had to unfold, were bound together and great reliance on his judgment of physiogno- to him by an oath, which was perhaps. invested mies,* had to pass through a period of probation with peculiar solemnity by its mysterious form.* and discipline. Various accounts are given of It was a precept ascribed to Pythagoras to show the term and the rules of this novitiate, and of respect to an oath, to be slow in taking it, and the classes into which the disciples were dis- steadfast in keeping it.t tributed.t It seems to be plainly implied by all The ambition of Pythagoras was assuredly, the traditions on the subject that, for a time at as we have already remarked, truly lofty and least, they exchanged their domestic habits for noble: he aimed at establishing a dominion a new mode of life, which was regulated in its which he believed to be that of wisdom and minutest details by the will of Pythagoras. In virtue, a rational supremacy of minds enlightthese regulations he may have been guided by ened by philosophy and purified by religion, and the Dorian practice, which he is said to have characters fitted to maintain an ascendant over witnessed in Crete and Sparta; though the at- others by habits of self-command. Yet the failtention which he paid to music and gymnastics ure of his undertaking, which, however, must as the two main elements of. education, was not be considered as a total one, seems to have both conformable to national usage, and might been owing not altogether to the violence and have resulted spontaneously from his philosoph- malignity of the passions which he had to conical views. No dependance can be placed on tendwith, but in part, also, to the weakness and the stories which are told of the abstinence rudeness of the instruments which he employwhich he is said to have prescribed.T To pre- ed. He found or thought himself compelled to serve the vigour of body and mind by strict tem- become a party in a contest where the right perance was no doubt his first object; but it is certainly did not lie all on one side. We are probable enough that he also restricted the diet informed that at first he obtained unbounded of his followers by several prohibitions which influence over all classes at Croton, and effecthad no other than a symbolical meaning, and ed a general reformation in the habits of the were intended to impress some moral or reli- people, and that in other Italian cities he gaingious truths. It must, however, be observed, ed such a footing as enabled him either to counthat among his other accomplishments he was teract revolutionary movements, or to restore famed for his medical skill, and he has even aristocratical government where it had given been thought to have founded the first scientific way to tyranny or democracy. The senate of school of medicine, which before his time had Croton is said to have pressed him to guide it been almost exclusively cultivated by the priest- with his counsels,T which may signify that he hood of certain temples, which were frequented was invited to accept the office of a chief magisfor the sake of miraculous cures. And his char- trate, or even a dictatorial authority. But he acter might incline him to follow many fanciful seems always to have remained in a private analogies in the regulation of diet, which is rep- station; and the conjecture that his ThTee Hunresented as the main point to which he applied dred formed a legal assembly, which was raised his art. If his disciples shared their ordinary above the senate,~ is the more improbable, bemeals together, after the Spartan custom, we cause they are said to have included several can be at no loss to account for the fabulous citizens of other states.ll Yet they had gained exaggeration by which they are said to have a predominance, both at Croton and elsewhere, thrown all their possessions into a common which had perhaps excited both the hostility of stock. Their -union was more intimate than the party whose interests they opposed and the that of kindred; according to some authors, it jealousy of that which they espoused, long beexcited the jealousy of their relatives, who fore the event which was the immediate occasaw themselves treated comparatively as stran- sion of their ruin. We do not venture to decide gers;11 and many interesting anecdotes are re- what foundation there may have been for the lated of the purity and constancy of their friend- charge which was brought against them, of atship. WVe can readily believe that the Three tempting to abolish the popular assembly, which seems from the first to have been very narrow* Gell, N. A., i., 9. ly limited in its powers. But the charge would t The most general distinction seems to be that between not be refuted by any professions of attachment the Exoteric and Esoteric: some authors believed that the same distinction was expressed by the terms Pythaorist and Pythagorean. These terms only signify certain grada- have made when innovations were proposed tions, without marking the nature of the subject as religious, on the side of democracy,~[ even if it related to philosophical, or political. Whereas others spoke of a divis the eriod preceding their final breach with the ion into sebastici, politici, and mathematici, or a class of religion, a class of politics, and a class of science; but to this commonalty. It would seem, however, that they added three gradations: Pythagorici, Pythagorei, Py- they fell chiefly through an overweening confithagriste, according to the more or less familiar intercourse dence in their own strength. enjoyed with the master. Ritter conceives that the distinc- The s r eng tion of classes related only to the religious mysteries. Yet he civil dissensions of Sybaris had at length there seems to be nothing improbable in such a scale of de- come to a head, and broke out in a general ingrees in philosophy as Gellius describes (i., 9) under the surrection against the oligarchs, who probably names Acustici, 3Mathematici, Physici. -: Some authors represent him as forbidding all animal food, others all kinds of fish, others beans; whereas Aris- * The terpaKtv;. t Iambl., 144. toxenus, a writer of great credit, asserted that he preferred $ Val. Max., viii., 15, E. 1. beans to all other vegetables. It seems probable that he 4 Niebuhr, Hist. of Rome, i., p. 158 (transl. of ed. 3d), enly interdicted certain parts of animals and certain kinds conjectured that the Three Hundred Pythagoreans were the of fish, and perhaps of pulse. senate. He could scarcely Dhean that they superseded the 0 Wachsmulth, H. A., iii., p. 487. Schlosser, 1. i., p. 399, Thousand. 11 Iambl., 241. supposes him to have found a school of medicine at Croton. If Iambl., 257. Yet great stress is laid on this fact by U lamrblich., De P. V., 255. Krische, De Societatis a Pythagora conditc Scope, p 88. INSTITUTIONS OF PYTHAGORAS. 219 drew the supplies of their proverbial luxury to reap its fruits. When the question arose as from encroachment, either violent or fraudu- to the distribution of the spoil and of the conlent, on the popular rights. The insurgents, quered land,* they insisted on retaining the headed by a leader named Telys, who was whole in the name of the state, and refused to most likely a member of the ruling class, and concede any share to those who had earned it had some private animosity to gratify, did not all by their toil and blood. It may have been observe the modesty of the Roman plebeians. now that they thought they saw a favowuable They not only compelled their lords, to the opportunity of silencing all opposition by supnumber of five hundred, to quit the city,* but, pressing the popular assembly. But if this was when the exiles had taken refuge at Croton, the case, they probably miscalculated the efsent an insolent message to demand that they fects of the public success, which may have should be surrendered. Pythagoras is said to raised the spirits of their domestic adversaries have exerted his influence with the senate and as high as their own. The commonalty was the people of Croton to induce them to reject not awed, but only irritated by the attempt. Its this imperious requisition, and on this occasion fury was directed against the society, chiefly, he must have had the good feelings of all par- it is said, by Cylon, a noble and wealthy man, ties on his side. It would, indeed, be a strong who is believed to have been rejected by Pyindication of the progress of discontent at thagoras, when he sought to be admitted among home, if on such a point he had any opposition his followers. A tumult took place, in which to encounter. The summons, however, was the populace set fire to Milo's house, where the resisted, and Croton accepted the challenge Pythagoreans were assembled. Many perished, which accompanied it, and armed for war. Syb- and the rest only found safety in exile. It is aris is said to have sent three hundred thou- not clear whether Pythagoras himself was at sand men, perhaps her whole serviceable popu- Croton during this commotion; the general belation, into the field. Thefforces of Croton lief seems to have been that he died, not long amounted to no more than V hird of this num- after, at Metapontum. The rising at Croton ber; but they were commanded by Milo, a dis- appears to have been followed by similar scenes ciple of Pythagoras, who seems to have united in several other Italian cities, as at Caulonia, the abilities of a general with the bodily strength Locri, and Tarentum, which would prove the for which he was celebrated above all his con- extensive ramifications of the order, and that it temporaries. They were also animated by the everywhere disclosed the same political charpresence of Callias, a seer sprung from the gift-, acter. Many of the fugitives took refuge in ed lineage of Iamus, who came over to them Greece, but confusion and bloodshed continued from Sybaris with tidings that their enemies to prevail for many years in the cities which were threatened by adverse omens;t and there had been seats of the society. Tranquillity was a tradition that they were exasperated by was at length restored by the mediation of the the cruel fate of thirty of their citizens, who Aeheans of the mother-country, and sixty of had been sent on an embassy to Sybaris, and the exiles returned to their homes. But their were barbarously murdered there.t The spirit presence seems, to have given rise to fresh thus infused into them would better explain troubles, perhaps through their opposition to the issue of the conflict than either the prowess the democratical institutions which Croton and of Milo, to which Diodorus absurdly attributes other cities adopted from Achaia;t and at a lait, or the singular stratagem by which they ter period we find some celebrated Pythagowere reported to have thrown the enemy's cav- reans in Greece, who had been driven out of airy into disorder.S The two hosts met on the Italy by their political adversaries, while others banks of the Trionto, and victory declared it- remained there, and endeavoured, with partial self for Croton. It was probably after the bat- success, to revive the ancient influence of the tle that a reaction, which, if it had happened order.$:sooner, must have put a stop to hostilities, took sooner, must have put a stop to hostilities, took * It seems clear that the conquered land was the principlace at Sybaris, in which Telys and his prin- pal subject of contention. The many desired rnv aOPOKcrscipal partisans were massacred at the altars. l roV KaraKXnpovxlO7vrat, according to Apollonius in iambliBut this sally of revenge or despair came too chus, 255. t Polyb., ii., 39. late to save the unfortunate city from its doom. 4 On the history of Pytnagoras and his society, the princilate to save the unfortunate city from its doom. pal sources of information are the accounts of his life in The conquerors advanced with irresistible force, Diogenes, Porphyrius, and Iamblichus, which, however, reand resolved to sweep Sybaris away from the quire to be read with great caution. They are carefully face of the earth. She was emptied of her re- sifted by Ritter in the two works above mentioned. On the political character of the society there are some excellent maining inhabitants, sacked, and razed to the remarks in Welcker's Introduction to Theognis, p. xlv.-l. ground, and a river (the Crathis) was turned This is also the main subject of Krische's Essay De Scopo, through the ruins, to obliterate all traces of her &c., which, though written with a strong bias, will convey more Information than Micali's diffuse and rhetorical narradeparted greatness.qT tive. We cannot close this slight sketch of the vast and The senate of Crotws and the Pythagorearni deeply interesting subject treated in the present chapter, associates seem to have been elated with this without expressing our regret that it has not yet employed some able hand in a separate work worthy of its magnitude victory, and to have fancied that it was the tri- and importance. M. Raoul Rochette's history, we are comumph of their cause, and that they alone were pelled to say, notwithstanding our respect for-its industrious and intelligent author, will be chiefly useful to his suc* It is possible that these may be the Trcezenians men- cessor as an example of almost all the faults which he tioned by Aristotle, Pol., v., 2, 10. But it is not so clear from ought to avoid. At least one half of it is a mass of the dull. the context as Wesseling (on Diod., xii., 9) represents. est and most unpoetical fictions, expanded into the empty t Her., v., 44. The Sybarites consoled themselves with form of a political history; and in the remainder we should the belief that their conquerors had been also aided by the seek in vain for any of the facts which alone render the arms of Dorieus, ihe younger brother of the Spartan king subject interesting. No view of any social relations enliCleomenes.; Phylarchus in Athen., xii., p. 521, D. vens the dry investigation of dates, events, and persons. ~ Aristotle in Athen., p. 520, D. This, however, is not to be considered as a defect, but as a 11 Heracl. Pont. in Athen., p. 521 F. limit which the author prescribed to himself. But it is to ~'Strabo, vi., p 263. be hoped that some one will be found to undertakle and aso 220 HISTORY OF GREECEh CHAPTER XIII. ers passed like a tempest over the land. The fiercest of these were the Treres and the Cims oF TE ST GREES TO THE E merians, who are so described as to make is B.C. 521. doubtful whether they were distinct nations or WHILE the Greek colonies on the coast of branches of the same race. The fragments Asia were flourishing in freedom, commerce, preserved of the most ancient elegiac poetry wealth, arts, and arms, a power was growing express the terror with which the Ionians, and up by their side, which, strong in their disunion, Ephesus in particular, viewed the approach of gradually encroached on their territory, and in the Cimmerians, who had taken Sardis, and the end crushed their independence. Between were encamped with their wagons on the banks the foot of Mount Tmolus and the River Her- of the Cayster, when the Ephesian poet Callimus, on the right bankof the torrent Pactolus, nus earnestly implored Jupiter to save his narises a lofty hill, looking down on a broad and tive city from their ferocious host. At a later fruitful plain, into which the vales of the Her- period, in the reign of Candaules, Magnesia, on mus and the Cayster open towards the east. the Maeander, was utterly destroyed by the This hill, steep on all sides, on one precipitous, Treres, and the cruelty of the savage invaders had been from very early times the citadel of a made the calamity of the ruined city proverbial; race of kingswho reigned over the surrounding but their inroad was only transient, and the region, and the city of Sardis had sprung up at next year the Milesians took possession of the its foot. The people whose capital Sardis had vacant site. The Cimmeriairs, however, afbecome in the period when Grecian history flicted the peninsula during a longer term; and, begins to be genuine and connected, were the issuing from their strongholds in the mountains Lydians; but their settlement in this tract was of Paphlagonia, more than once overran the comparatively recent; for some generations fertile plains of the south. In the reign of after the Trojan war, the Maeonians, apparently Ardys, the successor of Gyges, they again took a Pelasgian tribe, occupied the same seats; Sardis, all but theRtadel; they were, perhaps, and the Lydian monarchy seems to have been called away by tidings which they may have founded on a conquest, by which the ancient in- heard of the still fiercer Scythians, who had habitants were either expelled or subdued. This entered Asia, it is said, in pursuit of them, revolution, however, is nowhere expressly re- along the shores of the Caspian. The grandson corded; it can only be inferred from the silence of Ardys, Alyattes, was powerful enough finally of Homer as to the Lydians, from the probabil- to deliver Asia from the Cimmerians, about the ity that the Maeonians, as mfst of the other same time that it was freed by the Medes from tribes that were scattered over the western the presence of the Scythians. side of Asia Minor before the Trojan war, were In the mean while the kings of Lydia were more nearly allied to the Greeks than the Lyd- growing more and more formidable to their ians, and, finally, from the certain fact that, in Greek neighbours. The people was warlike, the period to which the Lydian conquest of yet conversant in the arts of peace, and ready Maeonia, if admitted, must be referred, great to profit by Grecian inventions, as well as to changes frequently occurred in the population blend Grecian usages with their native Asiatic of this part of Asia. Herodotus only explains manners. The country was rich, especially in the later name of the country, by relating that the precious metals, and it was from the -Lydithe Maeonian people came to be called Lydians ans that the Ionians first learned the art of after Lydus, son of Atys; but, according to his coining them. It is possible that they were calculation, this event must have happened be- also indebted to them, if not for the art, for the fore the Trojan war; for the dynasty of the earliest materials of writing. The farther the Heracleids, which succeeded the descendants Lydians pushed their conquests into the heart of Lydus, is said to have reigned five hundred of Asia, the more impatient they naturally grew years before it gave way to that of the Merm- of being separated from the sea, and the more nadae, the beginning of which precedes the sev- ambitious of subjecting the flourishing cities on enth century before our era. It is probable, the coast to their empire. The incursions of though only to be received as a conjecture, the northern barbarians long thwarted their that the accession of this last dynasty ought to plans, and for a time preserved the independbe considered as the real foundation of the ence of the Greek colonies; but when they had proper Lydian monarchy, and that this is the rid themselves of this obstacle, there was no historical substance of the tradition that Gyges, power in the' west of Asia that could any longer the first of the Mermnadae, dethroned his mas- bar their progress. Gyges is said to have taken ter Candaules. He is said to have been aided Colophon, and to have invaded the territories by Carian auxiliaries, and the Carians looked of Smyrna and Miletus. He made himself masupon the Lydians as a kindred race, and ac-,ter of the whole of the Troas, and the Milesians knowledged Lydus as the brother of Car, as were obliged to obtain h~ permission befoie they well as of Mysus. founded Abydos on the northern extremity of It is, however, more certain and more impor- that region.* His son Ardys prosecuted-the war, tant that, with the commencement of this new and made himself master of PrienL. The third dynasty, a new period opened for the Asiatic king, Sadyattes, bent his attacks chiefly against Greeks. Hitherto the inland regions had been Miletus, and his successor Alyattes continued continually disturbed by the irruption of Thra- these hostilities. They were not, however, cian and other barbarous hordes, some of which carried on so as either to threaten the safety of permanently established themselves, while oth- the city, or to inflict any deep' wound on her prosperity. During eleven successive years, complish something more and better. Perhaps a greater five of which belonged to the reign of Alyattes, number of particular histories - monographies, as the Germans call thea —is wanted to prepare a foiundation, * Strabo, xiii., p 590, WARS BETWEEN LYDIA AND IQNIA. 221 the Lydian army marched every summer into with his father in the government, and, perhaps, the Milesian territory to the sound of festive flushed with'recent victory, when he warned music, as if for purposes of revelry. It wasted him of the inconstancy of fortune, and disclosed the fruits of the husbandman's labour, but left to him the secret of human happiness. the houses standing, that he might not be de- Crcesus became king at the age of thirty-five terred from tilling the land. Beyond this, ex- (B.C. 560),'and now, at least, if not before, he cept when they ventured to meet the enemy in accomplished all that his father had undertaken. the field, the Milesians suffered no harm; their He began, by laying siege to Ephesus, which town was secure from attack, and the sea sup- was then ruled by the tyrant Pindarus, whose plied them with provisions in abundance. It mother was a daughter of Alyattes. By his adis probable, however, that the Lydian kings vice the citizens commended their town to the reckoned on the effect these inroads might pro- protection of their tutelary goddess, by fasten duce in disposing the citizens, when they should ing a rope between its walls and those of her grow weary of a lingering war that deprived temple, which stood nearly a mile off. Crcesus them of the enjoyment of their gardens and is said to have treated them with great lenity, vineyards, to submit to their powerful neigh- but to have compelled Pindarus to resign has bour. In the twelfth of these yearly expedi- power to his son.* With like success, he attions an accident happened, which, for a time, tacked, one after another, all the Greek cities relieved the city from this vexation. The Lyd- on the continent that still retained their- indeions had set fire to a field of ripe corn near a pendence. The mildness of the terms he offertemple of Athene; the flames spread till they ed, his personal reputation, and the character of caught and consumed the sacred building. At his government, may have contributed to make the end of the campaign the king fell sick, and, the conquest easy. He was satisfied with a ascribing his illness to the sacrilege committed moderate exercise of substantial power, with a by his troops, listened to the admonition of the tribute which was rather a sign of submission Delphic oracle, which commanded him to repair than a sensible burden; but in every other rethe insult offered to the sanctuary. This alarm spect he appears to have permitted his new seems to have inclined his thoughts to peace; subjectsto regulate their own concerns. Where for it is hardly conceivable that he should have the supreme authority had before been in the been deceived by the stratagem related by He- hands of one man, the tyrant, sure of protection, rodotus.* Miletus.was at this time governed would generally be glad to maintain his station, by Thrasybulus, who, informed of the oracle though with a slight sacrifice of dignity, under that Alyattes had received, made preparations, the safeguard of a powerful prince; and probait is said, to play upon the envoy whom he ex- bly the spirit of freedom was nowhere-so active pected from him. A herald came to demand an that the secure enjoyment of the existing conarmistice till the temple should be rebuilt: he stitution and laws might not seem cheaply purwas instructed to mark the signs of the famine chased by the acknowledgment of dependance and distress which the king believed must by on a foreigner. this time prevail in the city; but Thrasybulus When Crcesus had thus become master of the took such measures that nothing but tokens of whole western coast, he began to cast a longing plenty and rejoicing met his eye. When Aly- eye on the adjacent islands. He was preparing attes heard the report of his messenger, he is to raise a fleet for the.purpose of subduing said to have been so disheartened that he not them, when a wise Greek diverted him from only built two new temples in the place of the his design, by reminding him that he was about one burned, but concluded a treaty of peace and to expose his Lydians to the chances of an unalliance with Miletus. equal conflict, on an element to which they.After this event, according to the same his- were strangers. He therefore turned his views torian, he reigned more than fifty years, and at to a different side; and.. enlarged his dominions last died without gaining any other advantage on the main land, till they included all the naover the Greeks than the reduction of Smyrna. tions that dwelt westward of the River Halys, But in his lifetime his two sons, by different the Lycians and Cilicians excepted. The Lydian mothers, Crcesus and Pantaleon, disputed the empire, when it had attained this compass, was succession, and he declaredin favour of Crcesus, the greatest and most flourishing that the Greeks on whom he is said to have conferred the gov- had yet known, otherwise than by distant and ernment of Adramyttium and the plain ofThebe. uncertain rumour. The fame of Croesus reIt may have been at this period that Crcesus sounded through Greece. The streams of Lydia was engaged in a war, mentioned by Strabo, were believed to roll over golden sands; the with the Bithynian prince Prusias, who founded bowels of the mountains to be filled with silver; Prusa (Brussa), at the foot of the Mysian Olym- and as the king's treasure was large, his hand pus. We also read that Crcesus took a share was open: he loved the Greeks, and gladly rein an expedition which his father made into ceived them at his court, respected their oraCaria, though with what success is not record- cles, and enriched them with magnificent offered. But those who would fain find historical irrgs, and was disposed to cultivate the friendtruth in a delightfiul story told by Herodotus, of ship of their leading states. The Lacedaea visit paid by Solon to the court of Crcesus, are monians wanted gold to adorn the image of a Willing to collect from these hints that the god, and sent to Sardis to purchase it; Crcesus Athenian sage, though he could not, on any rea- gave them all they required. The Athenians sonable calculation, have seenthesonofAlyattes Alc aeon had befriended the king's envoys al on the throne, might have found him associated Delii: Crcesus invited him to his capital, and * It should, however, be thought conclusive against the * Herodotus does not mention either Pindarus, or the fact, that a similar stratagem is said to have been played event of the siege, which can only be collected from the ac off by Bias at Prien6. Diog. Laert., i., 83. counts of _Elian, iii., 26, and Polyanus, vi., 50 222 HISTORY OF GREECE. permitted him to take as much gold-dust as he changes that have befallen the Asiatic empires was able to carry out of the royal treasury; have been effected. The Persians occupied a smiled at the artifice by which he contrived to mountainous land, separated by a more fertile make the precious burden as heavy as possible, tract from the shores of the gulf which bears and rewarded his ingenuity by doubling the their name. They were divided into several present.* If the needy were attracted by the tribes, differing from each other in their habits hope of experiencing this munificence, the wise and their rank: the greater numbei were wanalso came, to see, to learn, and to teach. So. dering shepherds: three were accounted more either Pittacus or Bias had given the advice noble than the rest, and one of these contained which deterred Croesus from the imprudent en- the house of the Achoemenids, which was reterprise on which he was embarking against the garded by the whole nation with peculiar revislanders. So it was believed that Solon, in'the erence. In language and character this people course of his travels, was drawn by curiosity to was much more closely allied to the Medes than Sardis, and hospitably entertained by the king; to the Assyrians. Their manners were simple that he alone gazed without envy or admiration and pure: the land afforded few temptations to on the wonders of the palace, and surprised luxury, and the youth even of the higher classes Crcesus by preferring death, after high duties were accustomed to plain food and a homely well discharged, to a life brightened only by the dress. They were trained from their childhood smiles of fortune, and still subject to her frown. to ride, to draw the bow, to speak truth, and The lesson was forgotten till the prosperity of pay every one his due. They worshipped the Crcesus had roused the envy of the gods to dis- elements, the heavens, and the orbs of day. and turb it by domestic calamities and a humbling night, but without temples, altars, or images. reverse. The former do not belong to history: Each sacrificed for himself; and when the victhe latter was brought about by the Persians. tim was to be offered to the supreme God, it In the earliest times to which the Greeks was taken up to the top of the highest hill. could trace the course of events in Western The only office of the priest was to accompany Asia, the Aramaean, or Assyrian race had estab- the rite with a prayer or a hymn. lished a powerful monarchy, the capital of which While the Medes were a conquering nation, was, perhaps, first seated on the Euphrates, the Persians submitted to them. But under Asafterward, when another tribe of the same na- tyages the vigour of his people seems to have tion gained the mastery, on the Tigris. Subse- declined in an interval of undisturbed peace anmt quent revolutions broke this empire into two prosperity, and when the Persian mountaineers parts; and Babylon and Nineveh became each took up arms with a bold and active leader at the capital of an independent kingdom. The their head, they easily wrested the sovereignty Medes, a people of widely different blood, man- from their old masters. Cyrus, the hero under ners, and religion, when they perceived that the whom they fought, was one of their native prinpower of the Assyrians was falling to decay ces; but the circumstances of his birth, and the through wealth and luxury, shook off their immediate occasion of his revolt, are concealed yoke, united their forces under one ruler, came under a heap of fabulous and discordant tradidown from their mountains on the south coast tions.* The dethroned king Astyages was, as ofthe Caspian, and began, in their turn, to make we have seen, allied to Crcesus by marriage; conquests in the west of Asia. Inthe reign of and if this connexion was not a sufficient moAlyattes their dominions reached as far as the tive to induce Crcesus to avenge the injury done River Halys, afterward the boundary of the to his kinsman, he had others which it might Lydian empire. Nineveh trembled before the serve to cover as a pretext. The empire of Median king Cyaxares; he was only interrupt- Asia was at stake; he himself seemed to have ed in his designs against it by the irruption of as fair a prospect of winning it as an obscure the Scythians, who during eight-and-twenty and upstart race of shepherds. But if he alyears plundered the richest provinces of Asia. lowed them to secure their conquest, he might Cyaxares exterminated them by'a treacherous expect to see his own kingdom invaded by a sumassacre; but even before this event he had perior power. It appeared wiser to attack in made himself master of Nineveh, and through- time than to defend too late. He did not, howout the whole extent of the ancient Assyrian ever, venture on this step before he had caremonarchy Babylon alone remained independent. fully explored every avenue through which the A war then broke out between the Median and gods afforded a glimpse of futurity to man. He Lydian kings, the end of which is marked by an sent trusty messengers round to consult the eclipse, which Thales had predicted.t Through most celebrated Grecian oracles; not, however, the mediation of their common allies, the kings with blind faith, but after he had put their proof Cilicia and Babylon, peace was concluded, phetic virtue to the most rigorous trials. That and sealed by a marriage between the daughter of Delphi proved itself above all worthy of his of Alyattes and Astyages, the son of Cyaxares. confidence, and its answer encouraged him to In the reign of Astyages a new revolution prosecute his designs with the assurance of suechanged the face of Asia: a new people rose cess. Yet if he had not interpreted it by his up and overthrew the Medes, by the same hopes, it would have left him in darkness and means through which they had overpowered doubt; for it only predicted what he already the Assyrians, and by which almost -all the knew, that his. enterprise must end in the ruin of his enemy, or inr his own. Grateful for the * If we might believe JElian, V. H'., iv., 27, -gsus, seeming favour of the god, he filled his treasury luring his father's life, received a small present frtllone Pamphaes, a citizen of Priene, and requited it, when he same to the throne, with a wagon-load of silver. * His original and proper name was one which Strabo t On the various dates assigned to this eclipse, see Mr. wrote Agradat'us; that of Cyrus, which signified the sun, Clinton, F. H., i., p. 418, who prefers the opinion which seems to have been the title he assumed when he mounted fiXes it in May, B.C. 603. the throne. See Heeren, Ideen, 1. 1, p. 402. FALL OF THE LYDIAN MONARCHY. 223 with gold and silver, and even showered mu- Caspian: till they should be subdued or humnificent presents on the Delphians, who requi- bled, his eastern provinces could never enjoy ted him with all the honours and privileges that peace or safety. These objects demanded his a Greek city could bestow. He then collected own presence; the subjugation of the Asiatic an army from his subject provinces, and march- Greeks, as a less urgent and less difficult entered against Cyrus. prise, he committed to his lieutenants. Before He crossed the Halys into Cappadocia, not, he quitted Sardis he had received envoys from however, with the intention of pushing forward the XEolian and Ionian cities, who offered subinto the dominions of his adversary, but of chal- mission on the same terms as had been granted lenging him to a conflict, and waiting for his to them by Crcesus. But the conqueror re-. approach. The Persian speedily came up with minded them of his rejected invitation, and a superior force, swelled from the various na- taunted them for their tardy acquiescence with tions that lay in his way. Before he tried the a significant fable. "The fisherman stood by strength of Croesus, he sent envoys to the Ioni- the seaside and played upon his flute; but the an cities, inviting them to seize the opportunity fish would not listen, and kept still in the water. of throwing off the Lydian yoke. But they had Then he took his net and drew them out on the found it too light to be anxious for a change shore, and they quivered and leaped; but it was which would only transfer them to another mas- in the agonies of death."* The Greeks, when ter, and they were deaf to his summons. A they heard that they had'no choice between war battle took place between the hostile armies; and slavery, began to prepare for resistance. neither could claim a decided advantage; but But Cyrus in his anger had been politic enough Crcesus believed that his preparations had not to exempt Miletus from his stern demand of beein sufficient to accomplish the decree of des- unconditional submission, and to content himtiny, and he resolved to return to Sardis, to as- self with the tribute she had paid to Crcesus, semble a larger force during the winter, and to and thus severed her from the cause of her renew his expedition on the following spring. brethren. The other Ionians of the coast-for Arrived in his capital, he despatched his en- the islands were secure from invasion —assemvoys to the kings of Egypt and of Babylon, for bled at the Panionian temple to consult for the both were his allies, and called upon them for common weal, and resolved to send ambassasuccours; at the same time, he requested aid dors to beg assistance from Sparta. The Sparfrom Sparta. When he had taken these ineas- tans, however, did not deem themselves conures, he disbanded his army, ordering all his nected with the suppliants by ties strong enough vassals to hold themselves in readiness for the to draw them into a contest with Persia, and next campaign. It never came. Before tidings they refused to take up arnms in their behalf. Yet reached Sardis of the motions of Cyrus, he was either for the sake of learning something about seen encamped before its walls. Crcesus had the Persians and the state of Ionia, or under no force at his command but his Lydian caval- the simple belief that their name would carry ry. With this, however, he still tried his for- weight with Cyrus, they sent an envoy to his tune in a desperate battle; he lost it, and was court, and in language rather of command than shut up in his citadel, and closely besieged by of intercession desired that he would refrain the Persians. The fortress was surprised on from doing harm to any Grecian city. The its strongest and least guarded side, and Crce- shepherd-king, who had never heard of Sparta, sus, with his treasures and his kingdom, fell but supposed it was like the Ionian towns, a into the hands of the conqueror. mart of busy traffic, bade the messenger return, According to a legend which, in the form in and tell his countrymen that Cyrus despised which it is reported by Herodotus, could only the threats of men who had a public place in have become current among the Greeks through their city set apart for the purpose of false their ignorance of the Persian customs and swearing and mutual deceit. Such in his eye modes of thinking, the life of the royal captive was the Greek agora: what other ends it servwas at first threatened, but finally spared. Cte- ed, what high thoughts might there spring up sias had heard something of a similar story, but in the minds of freemen, and be cherished by he adds a fact which has all the air of truth, the interchange of words, and ripen into great that a Median city near Ecbatana was assigned actions-this was beyond the imagination of to Crcesus for his residence: here he probably an Eastern despot to conceive. closed his checkered life. Mazares, the same general-and it is worth The conquest of Lydia established the Per- observing that he was a Mede, not a Persiansian monarchy on a firm foundation; an insur- whom Cyrus appointed to quell the insurrection rection which soon after broke out there was of the Lydians, after. he had reduced them to speedily quelled, and that it might never recur, obedience, proceeded to punish and subdue the the vanquished people were deprived of their Ionians, who had aided them in their attempt arms, and compelled to abandon themselves to to shake off the Persian yoke. But he onlylived the arts of peace and luxury. Cyrus had been to take Priene and Magnesia, and to ravage the called away to the East by vast designs, and by vale of the Maeander. On his death Harpagus the threats of a distant and formidable enemy. (likewise a Mede) succeeded to'the command, Babylon still remained an independent city in and vigorously pressed the Ionian cities. His the heart ofhis empire; to reduce it was his first and most pressing care. On another side * Her., i., 141 According to Diodorus (Mal, ii., p. 27), he was tempted by the wealth and the weak- it was Harpagus who received the application, and who an swered it by a different story. He told the Greeks that he ness of Egypt; while his northeast frontier was once sought the hand of a maiden whose father betrothed disturbed and endangered by the fierce barbari- her to a more powerful person; but afterward, seeing Harans who ranged over the plains that stretch pagus high in favour at court, offered him his daughter. But Harpagus said that, if he accepted her now, it should from. the skirts of the Indian Caucasus to the be, not as his wife, but'as hisf concubiep 224 HISTORY OF GREECE. method of besieging appears to have been new which they had been afterward expelled by the to the Ionians, though it is the same which had Thracians. The Teians now took possession been long used in the civilized states of Asia.* of the vacant site, and the new city Abdera It consisted, according to Herodotus, in casting flourished like Elea, innocently renowned for a up mounds against the walls. We hear nothing peculiar school of philosophy. Before the Perof. battering engines, though these, too, were sian invasion, Thales is said to have recomalready known in the East; and we may there- mended Teos to the Ionians as an advantageous fore conclude that Harpagus relied entirely on position for a new capital, and to have advised his superiority in numbers, which enabled him them to concentrate their forces there, and reto raise his mounds above the walls of the city, duce the other cities of their confederacy to the to clear them by showers of missiles, or to ef- rank of provincial towns, depending on it as fect an entrance by filling up the intervening the general seat of government. This scheme space. The first he attacked was Phoceea. Its shocked too many prejudices and partial interstrong walls were of no avail against the con- ests to be well received. The Ionian cities fell tinuallabours ofthePersians; their workswere successively under the attacks of Harpagus, steadily advancing, and Harpagus sent a taunt- and even the islanders thought it prudent to ing message to the besieged, ", that he would be disarm the irresistible conqueror by voluntary content if they would but throw down a single submission. While their new fetters were still battlement, and convert one dwelling into holy galling them, Bias gave them a counsel similar ground." The Phocaeans, in reply, asked for a to that of Thales: to make a common expediday to deliberate, and desired Harpagus, in the tion, and found a single Ionian state in the great mean while, to draw off his troops. He saw island of Sardinia. But all were not capable through their design, and connived at it. Du- of the heroism of Phoceea and Teos; and when ring the armistice he granted, they freighted they had recovered from the disasters of the their ships with the most sacred and precious war, the Persian dominion proved, perhaps, not of their treasures, embarked with their wives much more burdensome than that of Crcesus. and children, and steered for Chios. The Per- The worst part of their lot was, that they were sians, when they returned, found the city empty. now compelled to carry the arms which they The Phocaeans first proposed to purchase from had so often turned against one another in the the Chians a small group of adjacent islands service of a foreign master, and to assist him called the (Enussae. But the Chians feared in reducing freemen and Greeks under the same lest their commerce might suffer from so close yoke. a neighbourhood of such active and enterprising After _Eolis and Ionia were subdued, Harparivals, and refused their consent. The Pho- gus pushed his conquests along the southern caeans then resolved on a longer voyage in coast. The Carians submitted without a strugsearch of a new settlement in the same west- gle; only Pedasa, the ancient seat of the Leleern sea where they had already planted some ges, strong by nature and in the bravery of its flourishing colonies. But before they abandon- inhabitants, held out long after all around had ed their country they once more sailed home, yielded. The Dorians of Cnidus had also medand surprised and slew the Persian garrison. itated resistance, and while the Persians were Then they dropped an iron bar into the sea, and still detained in Ionia, had begun to dig through swore that, till it should rise up to the surface, the neck of land, about half a mile broad, which they would not return to Phocaea. Yet before connected their peninsula with the continent. they had left the /EGgean, the larger half; unable But the undertaking was interrupted by relito endure the loss of their native city, repented gious scruples, and the Delphic oracle declared of their vow, and remained behind. The rest it contrary to the will of Jove: the work was bent their course to Corsica, where, twenty abandoned, and Cnidus surrendered at the first years before, they had founded a town called summons of Harpagus. In Lycia the spirit of Alalia, and settled among their kinsmen. But freedom was more resolute and reckless; the they were soon engaged in war with the Car- men of Xanthus marched out of their city thaginians and the Tyrrhenians of Agylla, and against the Persian host, and when their little lost the greater part of their fleet. After this band was overpowered by numbers, and forced disaster they took their families on board their back within the walls, th'ey collected their wives, remaining ships, and made for Rhegium. While and children, and treasures in the citadel, and they rested there and repaired their shattered set it on fire. While the flames were blazing, navy, they heard of a site on the coast after- the husbands and fathers, having bound themward conquered by the Lucanians, but where, selves by a solemn vow, again sallied forth, and at that time, Sybaris was mistress. Under her died sword in hand. Only a few families, which protection, to the southeast of Posidonia, they happened to be absent during.the siege, afterfoinded Elea, which bqcame, as we have seen, ward returned to their country, and perpetuated a celebrated seat of arts and learning, and, after the race of the ancient Xanthians. Caunus made its neighbours had fallen under the yoke of the a like display of unavailing courage. Whatev barbarians, long preserved the independence er did not bend to the will of the conqueror, which its founders had bought so dearly. was broken and ground to dust; and after a few The men of Teos followed the example of struggles, the sovereignty of Persia was peacethe Phocaeans: when the Inound of the Per- fully acknowledged throughout the whole of sians had risen to the top of their walls, they Lesser Asia. took to their ships, and sailed to the coast of While the lieutenants of Cyrus were execuThrace, where some time before a band of Io- ting his commands in the West, he was himnian adventurers had founded a town, from self enlarging and strengthening his power in 2 Sam., xx., 15. 2 Kings, xix., 32. Jeremiah, vi., 6. the East. After completing the subjection of Iiabakkuk, i., 10. the nations west of the Euphrates, he laid siege PERSIAN INVASION OF EGYPT. 225 to Babylon. The voluptuous and unwarlike troops of his predecessor Apries by the supepeople were protected by impregnable walls, rior numbers of his Egyptian forces; but he and provided with stores for many years; and, was not the less convinced of their value: he if we might believe the account of Herodotus, removed them from their old quarters near Pethey would, perhaps, have worn out the patience lusium to Memphis, that they might guard his of Cyrus, had he not found it easier to turn the person; and he distinguished himself by the faEuphrates out of its course than to force their vour he showed to their nation. He assigned defences. It seems doubtful, however, wheth- the city of Naucratis to the Greek settlers, and er he stormed the city either in this or any other gave lands for the building of Grecian temples. manner, and did not rather owe his success to When that of Delphi had been burned down, he some internal revolution, which put an end. to contributed largely to its restoration; and mliy the dynasty of the Babylonian kings. In Xen- other Grecian sanctuaries were adorned by his ophon's romance Cyrus is made to fix his resi- munificence. He cultivated the friendship of dence at Babylon during seven months in the Sparta, and honoured her with a present which year: perhaps we cannot safely conclude that was at the same time a specimen of the skill this was ever the practice of any of his succes- and ingenuity of his people. sors; but it is highly probable that the reduc- It was against this prince that Cambyses had tion of this luxurious city contributed more than prepared an expedition, which he himself conany other of the Persian conquests to change ducted in the fifth year of his reign. Amasis the manners of the court and of the nation. Cy- was conscious of his weakness, and he had enrus himself scarcely enjoyed so long an interval deavoured to avert the hostility of the Persian of repose. The protection he afforded to the kings by every mark of obsequious respect. At Jews was probably connected with his designs the request of Cyrus he had sent an Egyptian upon Egypt; but he never found leisure to car- physician to his court, and he did not even ven ry them into effect. Soon after the fall of Bab- ture to refuse the demand of Cambyses, when ylon he undertook an expedition against one of he asked the daughter of Amasis for his harem. the nations on the eastern side of the Caspian- He is said, indeed, to have substituted the according to Herodotus, it was the Massagetee, daughter of Apries for his own; and the anger a nomad horde, which had driven the Scythians of Cambyses, when he detected the fraud, was before them towards the West-and after gain- imagined to have occasioned the invasion of ing a victory over them by stratagem, he was Egypt. The motive, however, that impelled defeated in a great battle and slain. The event Cambyses to this undertaking, undoubtedly lies is the same in the narrative of Ctesias; but the much nearer the surface. It was one which people against whom Cyrus marches are the his father had meditated, but which more pressDerbices, and their army is strengthened by ing cares had prevented him from accomplishtroops and elephants furnished by Indian allies; ing. The manner in which the conquest was and the death of Cyrus is speedily avenged by effected is variously related. Ctesias ascribes one of his vassals, Amorges, king of the Saci- it to the treachery of an Egyptian eunuch, who ans, who gains a decisive victory over the Der- abused his master's confidence, and opened the bices, and annexes their land to the Persian passes to Cambyses on condition of being apEmpire. This account is so far confirmed by pointed to the government of tie kingdom. Herodotus, that we do not hear from him of Herodotus, whose authority must be held greatany consequences that followed the success of er in the affairs of Egypt, seems to know nothe Massageta~, or that the attention of Camby- thing of such intrigues; he only relates that ses, the son and heir of Cyrus, was called away Cambyses was aided by the counsels of a Greek towards the north. The first recorded measure who had deserted the service of Amasis. The of his reign was the invasion of Egypt. chief difficulty which the invading army had to The old. Egyptian monarchy had been long overcome was the passage of the desert that ripe for destruction, ready to fall at the first separates Palestine from Egypt. At the sugblow struck by a vigorous hand, and protected gestion of the Greek,. Cambyses secured the only by the obstacles that nature interposed assistance of an Arabian chief whose tribe wanagainst its invaders. The only sure foundation dered over the Syrian desert, and was enabled of national independence had sunk under the to cross it in safety. But before he arrived in oppressive and corrupting dominion of the Egypt Amasis died; his son Psammenitus, priesthood, which had wasted and stifled the whom Ctesias names Amyrtoeus, awaited the energies of the people. The caste of warriors, approach of the Persians with an army, the the privileged hereditary militia, was so feeble main strength of which probably consisted in and helpless that it could not defend itself, when the Greek auxiliaries. They were earnest in a priest who had mounted the throne deprived the Egyptian cause; and an act of savage feit of its honours and its lands. The effect of rocity, by which they took vengeance on their the new intercourse opened with Greece in the countryman who had betrayed it, while it proves seventh century B.C. by Psammetichus, appear- their zeal, seems also to imply'that they had ed in the reign of his successor Necho, who con- lost much of their national character among the certed vast plans of corrimerce and navigation, barbarians: they murdered his children whom in which, however, he seems to have been he had left behind him in Egypt before his eyes, thwarted by the arts of the priesthood: but he and mixed their blood in the bowl out of which displayed his respect for the Greeks by dedica- they drank, while the hostile armies stood in ting the armour in which he had gained a great battle array. The Egyptians, however, Were victory over the Jewish king Josiah in the tem- defeated with great slaughter, and Psammeniple of Apollo at Branchidae. The usurper Ama- tus threw himself into Memphis, where he was sis, who was on the throne of Egypt at the besieged and taken. He was mildly treated by aeath of Cyrus, had overpowered the Greek the conqueror, like Crcesus and Astyages; and VOL. I.-F F 226 HISTORY OF GREECE. Herodotus observes that such respect for fallen zeal; for, though the Egyptian superstition was greatness was a maxim with the Persians: if repugnant to all the Persian modes of thinking, so, it is the less probable that the clemency we have no reason to suppose that Cambyses shown by Cambyses was, any more than that viewed it with any other feeling than contempt. of Cyrus in the case of Croesus, the effect of a The effect, however, produced on the people by sudden fit of capricious compassion. these insults was the same, to whatever cause The possession of Egypt opened a boundless they were imputed, and the frequent attempts field for wild and unprofitable adventures; it which the Egyptians afterward made to shake also afforded an opportunity for some useful and off the Persian yoke may be probably ascribed important conquests. The temper of Cambyses to the- remembrance of these unpardonable inclined him no less to the former than the latter: wrongs. he aimed at all, and accomplished nothing. An During the reign of Cambyses, the Greek army which he sent over the Libyan Desert to cities of Asia Minor remained quietly subject subdue the Oasis, where the temple of Jupiter to their Persian governors. Even without any Ammon was the centre of a little independent direct and formal constraint, they naturally fell state, was buried in the sands; another, which under that kind of domestic rule, tyrannical, or, he led in person up the Nile, was near perish- at least, oligarchical, which was most congenial ing from hunger. Some of the adjacent African to the character of the monarchy under which tribes, however, acknowledged his sovereignty they lived. The adjacent islands, though they by sending gifts and tribute, and the Greeks of had likewise made professions of obedience, Barce and Cyrenb followed their example. But and probably continued to pay tribute to Persia, Cambyses, either because he had resolved to were really more independent, because the sabecome absolute master of these flourishing traps on the coast had no naval force at their cities, or was dissatisfied with the amount- of command to enforce their will. Among them their presents, contemptuously scattered their none had risen to a higher pitch of prosperity gold among his troops. His views were drawn than Samos. Its political constitution had passstill farther to the west by the growing fame of ed through a series of changes such as we have Carthage, and he had now a navy at his com- already seen pretty uniformly occurring in the mand which seemed to afford him the means of Grecian commonwealths. The ancient kingly reducing it under his power. The Phoenicians government had given way to a small number had submitted to the Persian dominion without of wealthy landowners, who had become hatea struggle, and had sent a fleet to second the ful to the great body of the people, and were invasion of Egypt. Cyprus, too, which had be- not formidable or prudent enough to suppress fore been tributary to Amasis, revolted from their discontent. They had sent a fleet to the aid him when his throne seemed ready to fall, and of their colony Perinthus, which was threatenjoined its forces to the invading army. Cam- ed by the Megarians: the Samians gained the byses now oflered the Phoenician fleet to sail victory, and sailed back with six hundred Meto the attack of Carthage; but the Phoenicians garian prisoners. But before they entered their were too pious or too politic to lend their aid harbour they had reflected on the folly of fightin destroying the independence of their own ing for a few men, who reaped all the profit and colony, and Cambyses was compelled to accept honour of their success without sharing the danthe plea with which they covered their refusal. ger, and they resolved to set their captives at The situation of Egypt and the character of liberty, and with their aid to rid themselves of its people evidently required that it should be their lords. The rulers were surprised in the ruled with a firm, yet, gentle hand; but the con- council-chamber, and. put to death, and a demoqueror felt too secure in his irresistible power cratical constitution was established.* But toto respect the feelings and opinions of his sub- wards the end of the reign of Cyrus, a bold and jects. He had even trampled on the laws of fortunate man, named Polycrates, supported by Persia by an incestuous union with his sisters, a few armed followers whom Lygdamis, the tyand he sported with the lives of the first men rant of Naxos, had sent to his aid, made himin the nation. His tyranny was so wild and self master of the city. At first he shared his capricious that it seemed like the effect of mad- power with his two brothers, but afterward ness, and he was believed to have lost his rea- put one of them to death, and forced the other son in habitual drunkenness, or to have been into exile. Thus become absolute master of deprived of it by the gods whom his impiety the island, he took a thousand bowmen into his had provoked. The actions ascribed to him pay as his lifeguards, and raised a fleet of a are, however, not more extravagant than those hundred galleys. With this he protected the recorded of other despots whose minds were Samian commerce, and enriched himself by pionly disturbed by the possession of absolute ratical excursions, subdued many of the islands, power. We hear that he ordered the body of and took several towns on the continent. He Amasis to be taken out of the royal sepulchre, made war on Miletus, and defeated a Lesbian and loaded it with gross indignities; that he armament sent to its relief in a seafight. These plundered and wantonly defaced the monuments expeditions involved him in hostilities with Perof Egypt, disturbed the'most solemn festivals, sian; and though the Persian power was secure violated the most revered sanctuaries, and laid enough from his attacks, still he too could sacrilegious hands on the persons of the priests, safely defy it on his own element. Since the and even of their god, the sacred calf. Perhaps fabled maritime empire of Minos, no navy had these outrages have not been greatly exaggera- rode on the._Egean so formidable as that of ted, and to a Greek who, like'Herodotus, re- Polycrates. In the mean while he adorned his garded the Egyptian worship with reverence, island with magnificent and useful works; they must have appeared acts of phrensy. They were certainly not meant as proofs of religious * Plut., Qu. Gr., 57. POLYCRATES-TYRANT OF SAMOS. 22; among which were probably an aqued,:ct and a. though she bore no good-will to the Samians, mole, which Herodotus reckoned among the by whose piracies she had suffered, and though greatest wonders of Greece. He had employed she appears to have had no ground of complaint the prisoners he took in his seafight with the against Polycrates, was generally hostile to a Lesbians in digging a ditch round'the walls of tyrannical government, and ready to take every his capital; but his great buildings also served occasion of establishing oligarchy in its room. the purpose of furnishing employment to the This motive was stronger.with her than -the poorer class of his subjects, perhaps at the ex- love of liberty. The envoy of the Ionians, when pense of t~e rich. He himself lived in royal they were threatened with slavery, had in vain state and luxury; though when we hear that he exerted all his eloquence to rouse her sympathy imported dogs from Epirus, goats from Scyros, in their behalf; but the Samian exiles were sheep from Miletus, and swine from Sicily,* we only rebuked for using many words, when a recagnise the mind of a wise and active prince, simple prayer would have been immediately bent on conferring solid benefits on his country. granted. The Corinthians also. lent their aid; He cherished the arts for which Samos had and, thus re-enforced, the Samians renewed been long renowned, and drew the most cele- their a tempt to overthrow the tyrant; but afbrated artists from other parts of Greece by ter fighting a sharp battle, and sustaining a munificent rewards. The poets whose strains siege for forty days, he appeared so strong that were devoted to love and wine were the most the Peloponnesians abandoned the undertaking welcome guests at his court, and the compan- in despair, and their friends were compelled to ions of his leisure. If Amasis gave him a les- resign themselves to the loss of their native son on the instability of his high fortune, it was land, and to seek a new home. After ranging probably from Ibycus and Anacreon that he for some time, as pirates, over the _LEgean, they sought the practical conclusion. Yet, in pur- took possession of Cydonia in Crete, and floursuing the pleasures which were long celebrated ishe'd there till they were conquered and enslaby the verse of the bard of Teos, he did not abuse ved by the _Eginetans. Such was the issue of his power, or disturb the domestic peace of his the first expedition sent out by the Spartans to subjects,t nor did he forget his ambitious aims the coast of Asia. and his plans of conquest. His hopes extended The power of Polycrates seemed to be r6oteven beyond the command of the islands, and ed more firmly than ever after the vain efforts he began to think it possible that he might unite made by his enemies to shake it, and all domesall the Ionian cities under his dominion. tic opposition being quelled, he again turned his But his authority at home rested on a basis views to the enlargement of his dominions. which was always liable to be shaken or under- But when he thought himself on the point of mined. Polycrates felt that he was feared and reaching the pinnacle of his ambition, he fell, as respected more than he was loved, and that suddenly as he had risen, by a fate as cruel and there was a party. in Samos which. only waited ignominious as his fortune hitherto had been for a favourable opportuity to revolt. Fortune high and fair. Amasis had warned him against seemed, however,' to throw a fair occasion in the envy of the gods, but he was not on his his way for ridding himself of these covert ene- guard against the envy of man. One whom he mies decently and safely. While Cambyses was not conscious of having ever injured or was making his preparations for the invasion provoked had secretly planned his ruin. This of Egypt, Polycrates offered to assist him with was Orcetes, the satrap of Sardis. The motive a squadron of ships. The Persian king gladly that prompted his design was certainly, as the accepted the re-enforcement, and the tyrant event proved, one in which some malignant feelequipped forty galleys, on which he embarked ing had a larger share than zeal for his own all the persons who had incurred his suspicions, honour or his master's service. Polycrates, inat the same time,. by a private message, re- deed, was the ally of Cambyses, and the vague questing his royal ally to take care that they projects of ambition which he was believed to should never return to Samos. But the Sami- harbour scarcely afforded a pretext for attackan malecontents, who probably had the entire ing him. It was so much the easier to draw command of the fleet, resolved to turn the force him into the snare. The satrap sent him a which had been placed in their hands against message pretending that he had himself fallen Polycrates himself. They sailed back, but found under the displeasure of Cambyses, and saw no him on his guard, and some actions took place, hopes of safety but in the protection of Polycin which they were finally worsted, yet not be- rates: " Save me," hoe said, " and share my fore they had put the tyrant in such jeopardy treasures: with them you may be master of that he was forced to take the precaution of Greece: if you doubt their amount, send a trusty shutting up the wives and children of the other servant, and satisfy yourself by his report.' citizens in the arsenal, and threatening to set it Polycrates caught at the bait: his messenger on fire if any attempt was made in favour of the went, and came back from Sardis with a deinsurgents. But, though defeated in their im- scription of the satrap's treasury, which so inmediate design, they were not crushed; and flamed his master's cupidity, that, in spite of alL when they could no longer make a stand in the the warnings of his friends, and the entreaties island, they sailed away to obtain foreign suc- of his daughter, he resolved to make a journey cours. It was to Sparta that they addressed to Sardis himself. He set out with a numerous themselves, though she had before refused to train, but when he arrived at Magnesia on the interpose in behalf of their brethren against Cy- Meander, he was arrested by the order of Orce. rus. But Hippias was ruling at Athens, and tes, and hung upon a cross. The Samians wh( from him they could not expect assistance in accompanied hnii were dismissed, and the sa. such an enterprise. Sparta, on the other hand, trap made no attempt to take advantage of hiE * Athen., xii, p. 540. t Athen., u. s. death by any expedition against Sarmow. 228 HISTORY OF GREECE. Soon after this event Cambyses died, accord- ging, still, in the reign of Darius, it approached ing to Herodotus, as he was marching through more nearly to the nature of an oligarchy than Syria against a usurper who had assumed the it had done before, while the whole Persian naname of a deceased son of Cyrus. The death tion, or at least its leading tribes, assumed a of Cambyses left the impostor in undisputed position in respect to the rest of the empire possession of the throne, which he retained till similar to that of the sovereign people in a his fraud was detected. A conspiracy was then Greek democracy with regard to dependant formed against him by some noble Persians, towns. Whether the election of the new king who killed him in his palace, and chose one of was committed, as Herodotus relayes, to the their own number to reign in his stead. It is will of Heaven, that is, to chance or fraud, or, not improbable that the account which Ctesias as is more probable, was the unanimous act of gave of these occurrences, and which differs *the conspirators, it is equally certain that they from the story told by Herodotus in the names reserved for themselves privileges which tendof the principal actors, and in some other points ed at least to make them independent of the of no great moment, was drawn from th_ Per- monarch, and even to keep him dependant upon sian court chronicles, and may therefore be en- them. One o'f their number is even said to titled to greater credit than the narrative of the have formally stipulated for absolute exemption earlier historian. Nevertheless, it is the latter from the royal authority as the condition on who enables us to form the clearest notion of which he withdrew his claim to the crown: and the general nature of the revolution, which, the rest acquired the right of access to the though it was only a temporary change of dy- king's person at all seasons without asking his nasty, was attended with consequences very leave, and bound him to select his wives eximportant both to Persia and to Greece. The elusively from their families. How far the powusurper, who is said to have reigned for a few er of Darius, though nominally despotic, was months under the name of the brother of Cam- really limited by these privileges of his granbyses, was a Magian: a member of a sacerdo- dees, may be seen from an occurrence which tal caste, which Herodotus numbers among the took place in the early part of his reign. Intribes that composed the Median nation. He taphernes, one of the seven, appeared one day was supported by all the influence of his class, at the gate of the palace, and claimed admission and though he passed for the legitimate suc- to the royal presence: the king was in his hacessor of Cyrus, he undoubtedly promoted the rem, the only privacy into which even the partinterests of his nation as far as he could do it ners in the conspiracy, by the terms of the oriwithout dropping his mask. We are informed ginal compact, were forbidden to intrude. The that he opened his reign by a general remission door-keepers accordingly stopped Intaphernes; of tribute and military service for three years, but disbelieving the excuse they alleged, and and that his death was regretted by all his sub- indignant at their pertinacity, he drew his cimjects throughout Asia, except the Persians. eter and mutilated their faces. Darius, indeed, They, it is probable, were deprived of the priv- revenged himself for t/is outrage by putting Inileges and distinctions they had enjoyed as the taphernes to death, and almost entirely extirconquering people, and were reduced to a level pating his family. But before he ventured to with the rest of the empire. The counter-rev- take this step, he thought it necessary to sound olution by which the Magian was dethroned the rest of the six, and to ascertain whether was effected by Persians of the highest rank, they would make common cause with the ofand was accompanied by a general massacre fender. He was probably glad to remove men which their countrymen made among the Ma- so formidable to distant governments; and it gian tribe, and which continued long after to be may easily be conceived, that if their power was commemorated by a yearly festival. The per- so great at court, it was still less restrained in son whom this event placed on the throne of the provinces that were subjected to their auCyrus, and whom the Greeks knew by the name thority. of Darius, son of Hystaspes, belonged to the Nevertheless, Darius was the greatest and royal house of the Achmemenids, and his father most powerful king that ever filled the throne had been governor of the province of Persis du- of Persia, and even the disasters he experienring the preceding reigns. In relating the de- ced but slightly clouded the remembrance of his liberations of the conspirators after the death wisdom and his prosperity. Cyrus and Camof the usurper, Herodotus introduces an episode, byses had conquered nations: Darius was the which, as it is evidently fictitious, seems also, true founder of the Persian state. The dominat first sight, strangely misplaced. He repre- ions of his predecessors were a mass of counsents them as discussing the relative merits of tries only united by their subjection to the will the democratical, the oligarchical, and the mo- of a common ruler, which expressed itself by narchical forms of government, with arguments arbitrary and irregular exactions: Darius first not unlike those employed by the Corinthian organized them into an empire, where every Sosicles in the congress of Sparta, and as final- member felt its place and knew its functions. ly persuaded by Darius to retain the hereditary His realm stretched from the AEgean to the Inpatriarchal Constitution. This imaginary de- dus, from the steppes of Scythia to the cataracts bate seems, however, to have been suggested of the Nile. He divided this vast tract into by a real fact;* it is clear that, although the twenty satrapies or provinces, and appointed government preserved its monarchical form, the tribute which each was to pay to the royal which no one could ever have dreamed of chan- treasury, and the proportion in which they were to supply provisions for the army and for the * The substance of this remark is due to Heeren, 1. i., p. king's household. The proper Persis alone 415, who, however, places it in a somewhat different light, and attributes a higher degree of historical accuracy to the was exempt from the new system of taxation, story in Herodotus than we are able to recognise. and was only charged with its ancient custom. GOVERNMENT OF DARIUS HYSTASPES. 22 ary gifts. The rest, besides the fixed amount the revenues of whole cities to a wife or a faof'- the precious metaJs, contributed a certain vourite, he did not give up any portion of his portion of their peculiar and most valuable pro- own dues. And the discharge of all these staductions; among these were herds of eunuchs, ted exactions did not secure his subjects from boys, and virgins. A high road, on which dis- the arbitrary demands of his satraps and their tances were regularly marked, and spacious officers. buildings were placed at convenient intervals If the people suffered from the establishment to receive all who travelled in the king's name, of these mighty viceroys, their greatness was connected the western coast with the seat of not less injurious to the strength of the state' government: along this road couriers, trained and the power of the sovereign. As the whole to extraordinary speed, successively transmit- authority, civil and military, in each province ted the king's messages. The satraps were ac- was lodged in the hands of the satrap, he could countable for the imposts of their several prov- wield it at his pleasure,'without any check inces, and were furnished with forces sufficient from within; and if he was unwilling to resign to carry the king's pleasure into effect. it, it was not always easy to wrest it from him. Compared with the rude government of his The greater his distance from the court, the predecessors, the institutions of Darius were nearer he approached to the condition of an inwise and vigorous: in themselves, unless they dependent and absolute prince. He was selare Considered as foundations laid for a struc-'dom, indeed, tempted to cast off his nominal cure that was never raised, as outlines that allegiance, which he found more useful than were never filled up, they were weak and bar- burdensome, or to withhold the tribute which barous. He had done little more than cast a he had only the task of collecting; but he might bridge across the chaos over which he ruled; often safely refuse any other services, and defy he had introduced no real uniformity or subor- or elude the king's commands with impunity,; dination among its elements. The distribution and least of all was he subject to control in any of its provinces, indeed, may have been ground- acts of rapacity or oppression committed in his ed on relations which we do not perceive, and legitimate government. Xenophon, indeed, in may therefore be less capricious than it seems. his romance,* represents the founder of the But it answered scarcely any higher end than monarchy as having provided against this evil that of conveying the wealth of Asia into the by a wise division of power. Cyrus is there royal treasury, and the satraps, when they were said to have appointed that the commanders most faithful and assiduous in their office, were of the fortresses and of, the regular troops in really nothing more than farmers of the reve- each province should be independent of the nue. Their administration was only felt in the satrap, and should receive their orders immeburdens they imposed: in every other respect diately from court. And a modern author finds the nations they governed retained their pecu- traces of this system in the narrative of Herodliar laws and constitution. The Persian Em- ottis himself.t But it seems clear that if the pire included in it the dominions of several vas- conqueror designed to establish such a balance sal kings, and the seats of fierce independent of power, it was neglected by his successors, hordes, who preyed on its more peaceful sub- and that the satraps engrossed every branch of jects with impunity. In this, however, there the royal authority within their governments. was much good, and comparatively little mis- Soon after the accession of Darius, an occurchief. The variety of institutions' comprehend- rence took place, which, as it illustrates the oped within the frame of the monarchy, though eration of the system just described, and is conthey were suffered to stand, not from any en- nected, though remotely, with Grecian history, ]arged policy, but because it would have been deserves to be mentioned here. We have seen difficult or dangerous to remove them, and that Orcetes, without having received any comthere was nothing better to substitute for them, mission, and apparently without any view to did not impair, but rather increased its strength; the public service, put the king's ally to an igand the independence of a few wild tribes was nominious death. For this act he was never more a symptom than a cause of weakness. called to account: during the usurpation of the The worst evil arose from the Constitution of Magian he was still more reckless: he had the satrapies themselves. The provinces were quarrelled with the governor of the adjacent taxed not only for the supply of the royal reve- province, and he now contrived to seize him nue, and for the maintenance of the royal army and his son, and murdered'them both. Even and household, but also for the support of their after this outrage he would perhaps have esgovernors, each of whom had a standing force caped punishment, if he had not also wayin his pay, and of whom some kept up a court laid and murdered a courier who had brought rivalling in magnificence that of the king him- him an unwelcome message from Darius. And self. The province of Babylon, besides its reg- the king would have been forced to send an ular tribute, and the fixed revenue of its satrap, which was equal to that of a modern European * Cyrop., v., 6. In (Econ., iv., 6, also the civil and miliprince of the first rank, defrayed the cost of a tary authority are said to be kept separate in the Persian stud and a hunting equipafgfe for his private use, provinces. But it is added, 11, that where a satrap is apsuch as no European prince was ever able to pointed, he superintends both classes of officers. See such as no European prince was ever able to Schneider's note on Cyr., viii., 6, 3. maintain. Four laxge villages were charged t Heeren, Ideen, 1. 1, p. 403, remarks that in Lydia, Mawith the nourishment of his Indian dogs, and zares commanded the army, and Tabalus the garrison of exempted from all other taxes. It must, how- Sardis, while Pactyas had the care of the treasure. But Pactyas seems only to have been charged with a temporary ever, be observed, that when an extraordinary commission,- Her., i., 153, and Mazares was only sent to burden was thus laid on a particular district, quell the revolt. The same remarkmaybe made on anoththe rest of the province was not, relieved, but er instance which he alleges, at p. 491, from Her., v., 27. torest ohheavily loaded. When the king granted bWhat can be inferred as to this point from Arri tn, is., 2, we more heavily loaded. When the king granted do not understand. 230 HISTORY OF GREECE army against him, had he not been surrounded ly resembling the Spartan. They may have by a guard of a thousand Persians, whose rev- been accustomed to spare- diet and hard toil, erence for the royal name was stronger than and trained to the use of horses and arms. their attachment to Orcetes. This was discov- These exercises do not create, and are not sufered by a trusty servant of Darius, who with ficient to keep alive the warlike, spirit of a natheir aid put the satrap to death in his palace tion, any more than rules and precepts to form at Sardis, and carried away his treasures to its moral character. The Persian youth may Susa. still have been used to repeat the praises of Thus the huge frame of the Persian Empire truth and justice from their childhood, in the was disjointed and unwieldy, and the spirit that later period of their history, as they had when pervaded it was as feeble as its organization Cyrus upbraided the Greeks with their artifices was imperfect. The Persians, when they over- and lies; and yet, in riper years, they might threw the Medes, adopted their laws, religion, surpass them, as at Cunaxa, in falsehood and and manners; their own, though they may have cunning, as much as they were below them in resembled them in their principal features, were skill and courage. Gradually, however, the ancertainly more simple and better fitted to a con- cient discipline either became wholly obsolete, quering people. The religion of the two na- or degenerated into empty forms; and the nations was probably derived from a common tion sank into that state of utter corruption and source; but, before the Persian conquest, it imbecility which Xenophon, or the author of the appears to have undergone an important change chapter which concludes his historical romance, in the reformation ascribed to Zoroaster. In has painted, not as the rest, from his imaginawhat points his doctrines may have differed tion, but from the life. from those of the preceding period, is an obscure questioe. with which we have no concern; but it -seim.:ertain that the code of sacred laws whitch Lh introduced, founded, or at CHAPTER XIV'. least enlarged, the authority and influence of the Magian caste. Its members became the FROM THE ACCESSION OF DARIUS HYSTASPES TO keepers and expounders of the holy books, the THE BATTLE OF MARATHON. teachers and counsellors of the king, the oracles DARIUS HYSTASPES was not a conqueror like from whom he learned the Divine will and the Cyrus or Cambyses: the ruling maxim of his secrets of futurity, the mediators who obtained government seems to have been, to aim rather for him the favour of Heaven or propitiated its at consolidating and securing his empire than anger. How soon the tenets of their theology at enlarging it; and though he was engaged in may have been introduced into Persia is not wars almost throughout his whole reign, they clear; but as they were a Median tribe, it is all partook of a defensive character, and were only with the union of the two nations uriler the result of prudence, or necessity, or chance, Cyrus that they can have begun to occupy the rather than of deliberate ambition. Hence it station which we find them filling at the Persian arose that his attention was chiefly turned tocourt. If the religion of Zoroaster was origi- wards the western side of his dominions, where nally pure and sublime, it speedily degenerated, accidental causes brought him into collision and allied itself to many very gross and hideous with the Greeks, and produced those memoforms of superstition; and if we were to judge rable events which we are now about to relate. of its tendency by the practice of its votaries, Had his genius resembled that of his predeceswe should be led to think of it more harshly or sors, he would probably have directed his views more lightly than it may probably have desery- towards the East, where the kingdoms of India ed. The court manners were equally marked lay open to his arms. On this side, the Indus by luxury and cruelty: by luxury, refined till it appears to have been the boundary of his emhad killed all natural enjoyment; and by cruel- pire, and the Indians who composed the twentity, carried to the most loathsome excesses that eth satrapy, and whose tributes, according to perverted ingenuity could suggest. It is, above Herodotus, exceeded a third of that of all the all, the atrocious barbarity of the women that remainder, were probably the inhabitants of the fills the Persian chronicles with their most hor- modern Candahar, and Cabul, and the adjacent rid stories; and welearn from the same sources lands west of the Indus. Of the vast and rich the dreadful depravity of their character, and country beyond he knew only by report, which, the vast extent of their influence. Cramped however, had undoubtedly spread the fame of by the rigid forms of a pompous and wearisome its wonderful fertility and opulence; but though ceremonial, surrounded by the ministers of their he employed a Greek navigator, Scylax of Caryartificial wants, and guarded from every breath anda, to follow the Indus into the ocean, and to of truth and freedom, the successors of Cyrus survey the coast from its mouth westward, he must have been more than men if they had not does not seem to have formed any settled debecome the slaves of their priests, their eunuchs, sign of conquest in this quarter. and their wives. Soon after his accession to the throne he was The contagion of these vices undoubtedly invited to turn his arms against Greece, and the spread through the nation: the Persians were invitation came from Greeks in whom a selfish most exposed to it, as they were in the imme- interest had overpowered all patriotic feelings.,diate neighbourhood of the court. Yet there is The occasion arose out of the misfortunes of no difficulty in conceiving that, long after the Polycrates. When, he fell into the hands of people had lost the original purity and simplicity the satrap of Sardis, he was accompanied, not of their manners, the noble youth of Persia may only by Samians, blut by a number of attendhave been still educated in the severe discipline ants, natives,of other countries, who in various of their ancestors, which is represented as near- ways had become retainers of his court The DEMOCEDES-SYLOSON. 231 Samians, as we have seen, were dismissed, but driven into exile, had taken refuge in Egypt. the foreigners were kept in prison at Sardis till There he met with Darius, who was serving the death of Orcetes, when they were transport- among the guards of Cambyses, and was lucky ed, with his confiscated treasures, to Susa. enough to oblige the future king of Persia by Armong these captives was a physician named presenting him with a cloak which had chanced Democedes, a native of Croton. He had gain- to catch his fancy. When he heard of the reved so high a reputation in Greece, that, having olution which had placed a man who was inbeen driven by domestic troubles from his na- debted to him on the throne of Persia, Syloson tive town, he was first engaged by the:/Egine- went to court, and gained admittance to the tans in the public service at a fixed yearly sal- king. Darius bade him name his reward: he ary, and next by the Athenians, at one higher asked to be put in possession of the inheritance by two thirds; but Polycrates, with his usual of his deceased brother, and to be made tyrant munificence, outbade them, and attracted him of Samos. The island was at this time subject to Samos. Democedes remained for a time to Meandrius, whom Polycrates had left govneglected at Susa; at length an accident re- ernor when he set out on his last journey. On stored him to liberty and to his country: Darius the tyrant's death his vicegerent was at first had dislocated a foot in hunting. His Egyptian willing to resign his authority; he dedicated an surgeons, the only ones that practised the art altar and a plot of ground to Jupiter, under the in Persia, did not possess science sufficient for title of the Liberator, called his fellow-citizens this case, and, instead of relieving their patient, together, and declared his intention of restoring aggravated his sufferings by their rude attempts them to liberty: all he proposed to reserve for to set the limb. While the king lay in torment, himself from the property of Polycrates was a a report reached him of the skill of Democedes. sum sufficient for a decent maintenance, and The Greek at first would have concealed hts the enjoyment of the land he had consecrated, art, through fear that it might be the means of which he desired should remain in his family, detaining him in a perpetual, though hobiourable together with the priesthood annexed to it. exile. At length, however, he was induced to Some private enemy of Meeandrius, or some seexert it, and soon effected a complete cure. vere republican, imprudently objected to this The king loaded him with gold, and was ready modest request, while he had it still in his powto grant him everything but what he most er to retract his offer. Finding that he could wished, leave to return to his country. This not descend safely, he resolved to keep his it was hopeless to ask. ground, and secured the persons of theprin-iAfter a time, Atossa, the daughter of Cyrus, pal citizens. During an illness from which he and the most honoured among the wives of seemed not likely to recover, one of his brothDarius, also needed the aid of Democedes. In ers put them all to death. In the mean while the course of his attendance he excited her Darius had sent Otanes, one of the. Seven, with curiosity by his: description of his native land, an army to restore Syloson. The Persian force and either inspired her with a wish to have was so numerous as to make resistance hopeGreek damsels to wait uponlher, or, at least, less, and Maeandrius capitulated on condition persuaded her to say so to the king. Such of being allowed to quit the island. The terms Herodotus conceives to have been the means were granted, and the chief' Persians took their by which Darius was induced to send Democe- seats near the foot of the citadel to wait for des home, guarded by a small number of Per- their fulfilment. Mieandrius had another brothsians, who were directed to survey-the coasts er named Charilaus, a hairbrained youth, whom of Greece and of Southern Italy under his gui- he had thrown into prison for:some offence. dance, and to bring him back to Persia; and he Charilaus had heard what was passing without, considers this mission as a preliminary step and through the bars of his dungeon he could taken with' a view to the invasion of Greece. see the Persian nobles quietly seated in the Since, however, one of its objects clearly was suburb. He demanded an interview with his to indulge the exile with a short visit to his brother; and urged him to take advantage of the country, it is, at least, very doubtful whether enemy's unguarded posture, or, if he shrank Darius intended anything more than to take ad- from the enterprise himself, to permit him to vantage of the opportunity, and procure some try his fortune. Mneandrius caring little about certain information concerning a region of the event, and not sorry at least, to imbitter which he had only an indistinct notion, and Syloson's triumph, left th*6 young man to his which was interesting to'him from its vicinity discretion: While he withdrew through a covto his own dominions, as well as from what he ered passage to the ship that was to carry him had seen of its natives. Democedes, when he away, Charilaus armed the garrison, threw open had landed at Croton, of course refused to go the gates of the citadel, and suddenly fell upon on board again, and his companions were un- the unsuspecting Persians and cut them to able to compel him: they were themselves pieces. But their farther progress was soon wrecked on the southern coast of Italy, and checked by the main body of the Persian army, made slaves, but were redeemed an'd carried which drove them back into the fortress. This back to Persia by a Tarentine named Gillus, was reduced; and Otanes, indignant at tie who was then in exile, and hoped to regain his treachery, though Darius had ordered him to footing in his native city by Persian succour. spare the lives of the Samians, commanded an By command of Darius, the Cnidians used their indiscriminate slaughter, without regard to age influence, which was great at Tarentum, in his or to place, profane or sacred. Then he formed favour, but without success. his men into a line stretching from sea to sea, The next consequence that flowed from the and, after the fashion of an Oriental chase, calamity of Polycrates was the ruin of Samos. drove the whole population of the island before His younger brother, Syloson, when he was him, cooped them up in a corner, and carried 232 HISTORY OF GREECE. them away captive. Syloson was put in pos- I slaves from domestic labours, in brutal unclean. session-of a desert: the solitude he had made ness and vacant torpor. In their convivial seapassed into a proverb:* it was at length re- sons an intoxicating vapour supplied the place peopled, but the sun of Samos never rose again of the juice of the vine or the barley-corn: the with its pristine lustre. Meeandrius sailed with art by which the modern Tartars extract a spirhis treasures to Sparta, hoping to prevail on ituous liquor from the milk of their mares was King Cleomenes to espouse his cause, and to unknown to them.. The slaves who prepared aid him in. expelling his rival. He drew the their ordinary food by a mechanical process Spartan to his lodging, while his slaves were were leprived of their sight, that their masters scouring the vessels of gold and silver displayed might be spared the trouble of watching them. on the sideboard. Cleomenes gazed and covet- The events that broke the uniform tenour of ed, and was immediately invited to choose the this Jife arose out of war or the chase; for their fairest; but his virtue or his fear shrank from regular migrations could scarcely be said to the temptation, and he desired the ephors to vary it: the face of their wilderness, except as banish the dangerous stranger from Sparta and it shared the changes of the year, was eternally from Peloponnesus. the same. They carried about with them the While these events were passing on the coast skins and sculls of their slain enemies as troof the LEgean, Darius was meditating an expe- phies of their valour, and poured the blood of dition against the Scythians, which he made in their captives, as a libation, on the sword, which person about the same time that the satrap of they worshipped as the image or symbol of the Egypt was engaged in the conquest of the god of war. One part of the nation had preGreek settlements in Africa. We have al- eminence over the rest, as the royal or golden ready seen that, during the reign of the Median horde: its king was regarded with a kind of reking Cyaxares, a Scythian horde broke into the ligious reverence: his tent contained the sacivilized regions of Asia, and were only exter- cred hearth by which the most solemn oaths minated or expelled after they had ranged over were sworn; and if he fell sick, the danger was them as masters for eight-and-twenty years. attributed to some secret perjury by which its They had made this irruption through the Cas- sanctity had been profaned. The royal obsepian gates, as Herodotus believed, in pursuit quies were celebrated with human victims, of the Cimmerians. But since we find that whose remains were stationed as guards round the Cimmerians had gained a footing in the the tomb of the deceased, after others of his west of Asia before the epoch of this supposed domestics had been buried with him, as, to flight, which, besides, would most probably continue after death the offices they Lad renhave led them over the plains into Europe, dered to him during life. These rites may rather than among the highlands of Caucasus, have been relics of a forgotten creed: there it is more credible that the Scythians were at- were no priests to expound their import; but tracted, not by a flying enemy, but by the plun- there were diviners in abundance, who drew der of Asia. They had been themselves driven their knowledge of the future from the position from the iortheast, from the steppes at the foot of staves thrown on the ground, or from strips of Mount Altai, by the Massagetee, and were of bark twisted round their fingers, and posnow masters of the great level between the sessed the privilege of pointing the vengeance Danube and the Don. They were, as Nieb'uhr of the community against criminals who had has shown, a Mongolian race, equally distinct incurred the wrath of Heaven by hidden misfrom the Getes and the Sarmatians. The deeds. Greeks, who only contemplated them through Such are the outlines of the picture which a distance which concealed or softened their the best informed among the Greek authors, genuine features, were apt to believe that, as Herodotus and Hippocrates, draw of the Scyththey were exempt from the vices peculiar to ian nomads. The agricultural tribe of the same civilized society, they also possessed the vir- name, which supplied the Greek colony of Olbia tues which the progress of civilization, after it with corn for exportation, may have been only has reached a certain point, tends to weaken their subjects, and have sprung from a different and destroy. The better they were known, the race, which they had found in the country when more clearly it appeared by their example that they first invaded it. This people Darius was the manners of a savage state may be as far now about to seek in the midst of their deserts. removed from the Smplicity of a rational na- His meditated expedition had been delayed by ture as the last stage of luxurious corruption, a rebellion which broke out at Babylon in the and that man, utterly uncultivated, may be al- beginning of his reign. The ancient capital of most as wretched and worthless as he can be- Assyria had been secretly preparing for revolt come by artificial depravity. The persons of during the troubles that followed the fall of the the Scythians, naturally unsightly, were ren- Magian, and for nearly two years it defied the dered hideous by indolent habits, only occasion- power of Darius. At length the treachery of ally interrupted by violent exertion; and the Zopyrus, a noble Persian, who sacrificed his same cause subjected them to disgusting dis- person and his honour to the interest of his eases, in which they themselves revered the master, is said to have opened its gates to him. finger of Heaven. The men from time to time Zopyrus gained the confidence of the Babyloniexchanged the backs of their horses, on which ans by mutilating himself, and flying to them, they hung the greater part of the day, for the as one who had suffered from the king's cruelcover of their wagons, in which the women and ty, and was bent on revenge. He found means children passed all their hours, relieved by.their to betray the city to Darius, who, after putting * "E~rS. ~o(ro e~p~x,(l: which, however Stra- ~three thousand of the principal inhabitants to a' -IAEK OGt.'VXOa)YTOt tVdWv1j: which, however, Stra- I ho, xi, p. 638, supposes to have arisen out of the desola- cruel death, provided against new insurrections tiff tyranny of Syloson himself.'by razing the walls. When he was freed from DARIUS IN SCYTHIA.:233 this care he set out for the Scythian war. The Coes for his gooa counsel. But as he was not whole history of this expedition is involved in sure that he should take the same road on his great obscurity, so that scarcely any fact rela- march back, he fixed a term of sixty days for ting to it can be held absolutely certain, except his absence, after which the Greeks who guardthat it was made by Darius in person, and that ed the bridge were to quit their post and sail it failed. Herodotus ascribes it to his desire home. The method he used to assist them in of avenging the calamities which the Scythians keeping an account of time was one of surpritad anciently inflicted upon Asia, in other sing rudeness: he tied sixty knots in a leathern words, to his ambition. But we also hear from thong, and bade them unfasten one every day Ctesias that he had been provoked by a letter till the prescribed interval had expired. This or a message which he received from the King done, he moved forward in search of the Scythof the Scythians, and that he marched to chas- ians, whom he expected soon to find waiting tise his insolence. The occasion of this letter his approach in battle array. is said to have been an inroad which the satrap So far the proceedings of Darius are intelliof Cappadocia had made into Scythia by com- gible; but his adventures in Scythia elude every mand of Darius for the purpose of carrying attempt to conceal their real nature and conaway captives, and in which he had protected a nexion. The description Herodotus has left of brother of the Scythian king in a family quarrel. them undoubtedly contains many genuine feaIt seems clear that the object Darius had in tures, but can scarcely be trusted for a correct view was not to conquer the country, but to historical outline. We may easily believe that weaken and humble the people; and he may the Scythians were wise enough to retreat behave looked upon this as a precaution indispen- fore the invader, that they removed their famisable for the security of his empire. The re- lies and their most valuable possessions to a membrance of ancient injuries may have been distant region, and laid the tracts over which revived by recent aggressions. It is, however, they were pursued by the enemy utterly waste. also possible that the subjugation of Thrace But this renders it the more difficult to underwas his principal aim, and that he only crossed stand how the myriads of the Persian host were the Danube to terrify the Scythians by the dis- supplied with food and forage in their march play of his gigantic power. The whole military frolr the Danube to the Don; and even if the force of the empire was put. in motion, and the fleet, which, however, is not said to have atnumbers of the army are rated at seven or eight tended the motions of the army, could be suphundred thousand men. Orders had been given posed to solve this enigma, their subsequent for laying a bridge of boats over the Thracian wanderings in the track of the Scythians, when Bosporus, and the work was committed to a all communication with the coast must have Samian engineer named Mandrocles, who ac- been entirely cut off, woiuld still be no less percomplished it so successfully that Darius re- plexing. We should therefore be unable to warded him with a royal present: a part of trace the movements of the hostile armies, even which the Samlan applied to adorn the temple if they belonged to our subject, but we are only of Here, in his native city, with a picture rep- concerned with the result. The pursuit in resenting the passage of the Persian host. Da- which the Persians had wasted their strength rius himself commemorated the event by erect- was changed into a retreat, in which they were ing two pillars, inscribed, one with Greek, the pressed by the superior force of the Scythian other with Assyrian characters, recording the cavalry, and were compelled to abandon theil names of the nations that composed his army. baggage and their sick. In the mean while the Six hundred ships waited his commands, fur- sixtieth knot had been untied; and the Scythnished by the subject Greek cities; and most ians had sent tidings to the Greeks who were of the tyrants who ruled under the protection guarding the bridge of the situation of Darius, of Persia along the coast of Asia, and that of and exhorted them to sail away and leave him Europe from the Hellespont to the Bosporus, to his fate. The commanders deliberated: a served in the fleet. They were ordered to sail fair opportunity seemed to present itself for reto the mouth of the Danube, and to proceed up covering their independence, and inflicti'gg a the river to a point above the headland of its deep wound on the Persian power: they Were delta, and there to prepare a bridge, and to wait urged to seize it by an Athenian named Miltifor the arrival of the land force. Darius slow- ades, whom chance had made master of the ly pursued his march through Thrace, raising Thracian Chersonesus; but Histizeus, the tymonuments on his road, and turning aside to rant of Miletus, was of a different mind; and subdue some Thracian tribes which refused his arguments were addressed to feelings which, submission; the greater part of those whose in most of his hearers, were more powerful seats he crossed on the southern skirts of than those to which Miltiades appealed. He Mount Haemus yielded without resistance, and reminded them that the Persian power upheld joined the army. On coming to the Danube, he their own, and that no city which should have found the bridge laid, and, when his troops shaken off the sovereignty of its foreign master were safely landed on the left bank, he ordered would continue to endure a domestic tyrant. the Greeks to break it up, and to follow him All came over to his side, and resolved to deinto Scythia. But Coes, a Lesbian, who com- ceive the Scythians and to save Darius. They manded the contingent sent by Mitylene, per- began to break up the bridge on the left bank, ceived the danger of abandoning a pass which and the Scythians, persuaded that they had demight be needed when it could not be recover- prived their enemy of his only means of escape, ed, and. advised the king to leave it in the care made no attempt to cut him off from the river. of the Greeks. Darius was struck with the Darius had reason to fear that, in obedience to prudence )f his suggestion, and not only adopt- his orders, or from their knowledge of his da'ned it, but promised, on his return, to rewdrd ger, the Greeks would by this time have left VOL, I F-G c 234 HISTORY OF GREECE. their post: when he found their transports still Perinthus, and then proceeded to subdue all the waiting for him on the opposite side, his joy Thracian tribes which had not yet submitted to and gratitude were proportioned to the great- his master. While he was thus employed he ness of the evil from which he had been unex- received an extraordinary commission, which pectedly delivered. turned his arms towards another quarter. If Darius had really traversed the regions While Darius was staying at Sardis, two Paeowhich HerQdotus describes, after they had been nians, ambitious of' greater power than they left bare and waste by the flying enemy, it would possessed in their own country, came over with have been scarcely possible that he should have their sister, in the hope of exciting the king's brought back with him more than a few ema- curiosity and admiration by the spectacle of ciated followers. Yet it does not appear that their native manners exhibited by a beautiful he suffered severely from hunger, or that he woman, and of inducing' him to annex Peeonia lost any considerable part of his forces. The to his dominions, and suffer them to rule it in only difficulty he seems to experience is that his name. Their scheme led to consequences of overtaking the Scythians, or of engaging which they did not expect. Darius, indeed, them in battle: they endeavour to protract his was struck with the sight of their sister, when, stay by occasionally exposing booty to his for- clad in her best dress, after the country fashion, aging parties, as though his stores were not yet she walked to the water's side, through the spent: their kings send him a threatening pres- streets of Sardis, with a pitcher on her head, ent, a bird, a mouse, a frog, and five arrows; leading a horse, and twirling a distaff. He but the danger to which these symbols are be- eagerly inquired to what race she belonged;.ieved to point is only that of being shut up in but when the seats of the Pneonians were dethe country, and perishing by the Scythian scribed to him, he sent an order to Megabazus arms; and when at'length he hastens his re- to invade their land and transport them into treat, it is through fear of being deserted by the Asia: so singular and industrious a people Greeks. The army he brought back with him seemed worthy of living nearer his own preswas still large enough to enable him to leave ence. The Paeonians were widely spread over eighty thousand men in Europe, under the com- the highlands in the north of Macedonia; the mand of Megabazus, whom he commissioned to tribe which Darius had been invited to subdue complete the conquest of Thrace and of the was seated in the upper vale of the Strymon. Greek cities on the Hellespont. We find, how- While the collected forces of the nation were ever, that these Greeks had ventured to annoy guarding the passes nearest to the coast, Megathe Persian army on its retreat,* and that Dari- bazus took guides and led his army, by a more us was so apprehensive of invasion from the circuitous road, into the heart of their country. Scythians, who seem to have meditated one,t When the P.eonians heard that the Persian and to have made an unsuccessful attempt,4 was master of their villages and families, they that he caused the Greek cities on the Asiatic dispersed; a part of them submitted, and Megaside of the Hellespont (Abydos among them) to bazus transported the tribe against which his be burned down, to prevent them from affording commission was principally directed into Asia, means of transport to the enemy.9 He himself where Darius assigned a district in Phrygia for rested some time at Sardis. One of his first their habitation. cares on his return to Asia was to reward the The territories of Amyntas, king of Macedoservices of Coes and Histieeus. The former,, nia, bordered on the region into which Megabaat his own request, was made tyrant of Mity- zus had carried his arms; and before he led his lene: Histineus asked and obtained a district forces away from Paeonia, he sent seven Peron the Strymon, where he founded a town sians of high rank to the Macedonian king, in called Myrcinus. The neighbouring country the name of Darius, to demand earth and water, abounded in timber, and contained silver mines: the customary symbols of subjection. The the position chosen by Histiaeus commanded the kingdom of Macedonia at this epoch did not navigation of the Strymon, and was well adapt- extend far to the east of the Axius, and did not edgpr a great staple of commerce between the include the upper part of its course. To the Thracian tribes of the interior and the Greek south it reached the foot of the Cambunian cities on the coast.: Histiaeus might expect here hills; westward its boundaries were lost among to raise a state more flourishing than Miletus the territories of Illyrian mountain tribes, which, itself, which he still retained, but committed to as they were impelled by fluctuating causes, acthe charge of his cousin Aristagoras. Though knowledged or defied the authority of its soverhis loyalty was so amply requited, we do not eigns. It had gradually grown to its present find that any measures were taken to punish extent by successive conquests of several small the treason of Miltiades, who remained long states, some of which still continued distinct, unmolested in his Chersonesian government, though generally subject to it, and ruled by and was driven from it by an inroad of the princes of the royal blood, who were -vassals or Scythians themselves three years before he dependant allies of its king. The people apwas finally compelled to abandon it by the Per- pears to have been a mixed race, in which sians; an impunity which reflects great doubt Illyrian conquerors were variously united with on the story of his defence, especially as it was a more ancient Pelasgian population. But the no less glorious at Athens than it was danger- reigning dynasty was of purely Hellenic origin. ous to him while he was surrounded by the Two accounts of it were known to the ancients: Persian arms. they agree in tracing it to the posterity of the Megabazus was an able and active officer: Heracleid Temenus, but differ as to the date he began his operations with the reduction of of its establishment in Macedonia. In one * Her., v., 27. t Ibid., vi, 84. story, the founder, Perdiccas, is the youngest $ Ibid., vi., 40. Strabo, xiii., p. 591. of three brothers of the house of Temenus, AFFAIRS OF MACEDONIA. 235 who fled -from Argos to Illyria, and thence imparted his suspicions to hs master, and awa passed into Macedonia, where the favour of kened his jealousy, and Darius resolved to keel; the gods raised him from a servile condition to Histiaeus harmless. He sent for him on prethe throne. The less romantic tradition refers tence of consulting him about some important the foundation of the monarchy to Caranus, a undertaking; but when he had come to Sardis, brother'of the Argive prince or tyrant Pheidon; he informed him that he could not bear to be and an expedition by which a member of his longer deprived of his company and conversafamily established himself in a distant country, tion: 1" Leave' Miletus," he said, " and your new accords so well with all we know of that pow- city in Thrace, and follow me to Susa, where erful and ambitious man, that whether it be you shall share my table and my counsels." imagined parof a scheme of conquest which With the feelings of a man whose ambitious'he may have formed, or, which seems more hopes are suddenly nipped just as they are beprobable, the result of a family quarrel which ginning to blossom, Histieaus attended the king forced Caranus into exile, it has quite the ap- to the splendid prison where lie saw himself pearance of an historical fact. At the same doomed to spend the remainder of his days. time, it is not necessary to reject the more Before he returned to Susa, Darius appointed poetical adventure as a groundless fiction, or his half-brother Artaphernes satrap of the Asito deny that more than one band of Heracleids atic coast of the 2Egean, and'of the southern or Dorians may at different times have gained provinces of the kingdom of, Crcesus, whose a footing in the same country. At all events, capital, Sardis, still continued to be the seat of it was very early admitted as equally certain government for this part of Asia; and he left that the kings were Greeks and that the people Otanes in the room of Megabazus, to reduce the were barbarians. This latter point was never maritime cities which still held out on the coasts doubted; the former was proved by a solemn to the north of the _Egean. Otanes, a different trial in the reign of the son of Amyntas, the person from the conspirator of the same name, same Alexander who will fill a conspicuous part vigorously prosecuted the work begun by his in the history of this' period. He had present- predecessor. Among other towns in that reed himself, perhaps for the purpose of deciding gion, he took Byzantium and Chalcedon, and, the disputed question, as a candidate for one with the aid of a squadron furnished by the Lesof the prizes at the Olympic games. His com- bians, he subdued the islands of Imbros and petitors contested his right to enter into the Lemnos, which were still occupied by a Pelaslists, from which barbarians were excluded by gian populatin. Lemnos did not yield without the fundamental laws of the institution; but a sharp struggle, and was then consigned to a Alexander adduced such evidence of his Ar- brother of the Samian tyrant Maeandrius. The give descent as determined the judges in his success of these campaigns much more than favour. compensated for the check that Darius had reAmyntas consented to become the vassal of ceived in his Scythian expedition. The PerDarius, and, before the envoys set out on their sian Empire had never been so outwardly great, return to Megabazus, he entertained them at so inwardly prosperous. From the rising to his table. Sobriety was not one of the Persian the setting sun there appeared to be no power virtues. The guests grew heated with wine, that could rival its majesty; none from which, and, elated with the success of their mission, if worth the effort, it could not enforce submislost all respect for the laws of hospitality and sion. Towards the close of the sixth century decency. They forced Amyntas to break before our era (B.C. 505-501) the nations from through the usages of Greek society, and to the banks of the Indus to the borders of Thessend the women of his family into the banquet- saly rested under, the shade of the monarchy, room at a time when, if custom had permitted and enjoyed one of those short intervals of protheir presence, prudence would have led them found calm which, in history as in nature, often to withdraw. The consequences were such as precede the gathering of a storm. might have been foreseen. The.old king sup- The repose in which the world was hushed pressed his anger at the insolence of the stran- was disturbed by apontest between two factions gers, but Alexander's youthful spirit boiled in the little island'of Naxos. The democratwith uncontrollable indignation. He found a ical party there had gained the ascendant, and pretext for introducing some armed youths, who their adversaries, the most opulent of the citquenched the lust of the Persians in their blood. izens, were forced to quit their country. They But the resentment they had provoked did not were united with Histiaeus by political ties, rouse Amyntas to any farther resistance, nor such as parties in the Greek states who did not did Darius ever avenge their death. A body of feel secure at home generally endeavoured to their countrymen, indeed, was soon after sent contract with some powerful foreigner. Aristaginto Macedonia to inquire into their fate, for oras was still filling the place of his kinsmen none of their attendants was left alive to carry at Miletus,i and. to him the Naxian exiles now back the tale; but Alexander was able to hush applied for succour. Aristagoras was not unall up by bribing the Persian general who came willing to restore them: Naxos, ruled by his in search of them with gold and with the hand creatures, yvould in effect become his own; but of one of his sisters. the undertaking surpassed his means. The In the course of his expedition against the island was the largest of the Cyclades, land its Paeonians, Megabazus had observed the use that fertility and the industry of its inhabitants had Histiweus had made of the generosity of Darius, made it rich and powerful. It maintained a and perceived that he was collecting at Myrci- considerable navy, and could bring eight thounus the elements of a formidable power, which sand men into the field. It was only with the ashe might in time wield to the detriment of Per- sistance of the Persians that he could attack it sia. When he carried his captives to Sardis he with any hope of success; but if he could en 236; HISTORY OF GREECE. gage Artaphernes, who was his personal friend, sumed the whole fund allotted to the war; the in the enterprise, he had the fairest prospect treasures of Aristagoras were exhausted, and, not only of accomplishing his immediate pur- after erecting some forts, in which he left the pose, but of doing an important service to the Naxian exiles to infest their countrymen, he interests of Persia, which would raise his credit raised the siege and returned to Miletus. at court. The Naxians, equally confiaent in the He had relied on a prosperous issue for the support of such an ally, urged him to spare no means of fulfilling the splendid promises he had promises to obtain it. He accordingly repaired made to Artaphernes, and the failure of the exto Sardis, and represented to Artaphernes the pedition put it out of his power to discharge the ease with which he might annex not only Nax- debt he had contracted with the Persian govos, but all the Cyclades, to the dominions of Da- ernment. He was a ruined m*i. The state rius, and directed his views to a still more of his affairs called for some desperate remedy, tempting conquest which lay only a little far- and he saw no way of extricating himself from ther off, that of the large and wealthy island of his embarrassment but by exciting his countryEubma. The cost of the expedition to Naxos men to insurrection. While he was revolving he pledged himself to defray, and he promised this expedient in his mind, he received a mesa large sum besides for the satrap's private cof- sage from Histiaeus which fixed his resolution. fers. "A hundred ships would be sufficient to Histiaus likewise believed that a general comensure success." Artaphernes was taken with motion in Ionia, which might render his presthe scheme; and offered, as soon as he had pro- ence necessary or useful, would afford him his cured the king's consent, to place two hundred only chance of escaping from his irksome capships and a Persian force at the disposal of tivity. He shaved the head of a trusty slave, Aristagoras. As soon as a favourable answer traced some letters with a hot iron on his skin, arrived from Susa, he equipped the promised and when his hair had grown again, sent him armament, which he intrusted to the command off to Miletus. Aristagoras opened these sinof Megabates, a Persian of high quality, and or- gular credentials, and: ad an invitation to redered it to sail to'Miletus and take on board volt. In all the Ionian cities there were many the Ionian force that had been raised by Aris- discontented with the form of government that tagoras. had been forced upon them by the Persians, and It was intended to lull the enemy into secu- ready at any risk to shake off the yoke. Arisrity by leading them to believe that the expe- tagoras assembled some of the leading men to dition was destined for a different and a remote deliberate on a plan of action. Among those quarter. Megabates therefore fiade towards who met on this occasion was the historian the Hellespont, but off the coast of Chios he Hecatweus of Miletus. He loved his country and brought the fleet to anchor, meaning to take ad- prized independence as much as the most arvantage of the first fair wind and run across to dent and sanguine of his fellow-citizens; but he Naxos, and surprise the principal town. While had read, travelled, and thought more than he was in this station, he one day made the most men of the age. He knew the vast exround of the fleet to inspect the discipline main- tent, the colossal strength of the Persian Emtained by the inferior officers. On one ship, a pire,. and dissuaded his friends from embarking Myndian, he found no watch, and the com-. in the hopeless struggle. But when this advice mander absent; he immediately sent for him, was rejected, he next urged the necessity of and ordered him to be fastened to the side of making themselves masters of the sea, and his own galley, with his head passing through pointed out one of the resources of which they one of the port-holes, which were opened in the might avail themselves for this purpose. The ancient vessels for the oars, as in ours for the treasures that had been accumulated in the temordnance. While the Myndian officer was con- ple at Branchidae by the piety of successive genfined' in this ignominious posture, word was erations, and by the liberality of Crcesus, would brought of the occurrence to Aristagoras, who supply.the means of raising a navy, with which happened to be his friend. Perhaps he also they might hope to make a stand against the thought that the severity of the Persian admi- Persian power. These he exhorted them to ral, a stranger to the feelings of Greeks, was seize before they fell into the hands of the eneimpolitic, and that it exceeded the bounds of my. But they were rash without being bold or his authority. When, therefore, on applying firm; the treasure was sacred; they forgot that for the release of the prisoner, he met with a their cause was so too; they resolved on war, refusal, he went and set him at liberty. Mega- but neglected the fair opportunity of bracing its bates was indignant at this act of defiance, and sinews. Another measure-less, perhaps, bewas still more enraged when Aristagoras open- cause it was politic than because it was agreely disclaimed obedience to him, and asserted able to many private passions and views-was his own right to the supreme command. To generally approved. It was determined that wound him in the tenderest side, Megabates re- one of their number should sail to the camp at solved to defeat the expedition, on the issue of Myus, where the force that had returned from which he had staked so much. He privately the siege of Naxos was still kept together, and sent a message to the Naxians to warn them should make himself master of the persons of of their danger; they forthwith began to make the tyrants who had held commands in the Perpreparations for defence, transported their prop- sian armament. This attempt succeeded, and erty from the country into the city, laid in stores, it was the signal of a general insurrection. and strengthened their fortifications; so that Aristagoras, who knew that his safety depended when the Persian fleet at last appeared before on the strength and zeal of the democratica. their town, they were in a condition to sustain party, conciliated it by resigning his own aua long siege. At the end of four months the thority, and by delivering up the prisoners taken besiegers had made no progress, and had con- at Myus to the cities over which they had ruled. IONIAN WAR. 237 Most of them were suffered to go into exile; away, father, the stranger will do you harm." but Coes, the counsellor of Darius, was stoned Cleomenes accepted the omen and left the to death by the people of Mitylene, and liberty room, and Aristagoras soon after quitted Sparta. was everywhere re-established in the revolted Athens was the second state in Greece, and cities. here Aristagoras made his next application with Aristagoras having secured the steadfastness better hopes of success. The Athenians had of his countrymen by these pledges, himself already had some transactions with Artaphersailed to Greece, to persuade some of the lead- nes which had raised in them no friendly feeling states to espouse his cause. He first bent ings towards Persia, and had convinced them his course to Sparta, where Cleomenes was now that they had nothing but enmity to expect from king in the line of Eurysthenes, and Demaratus it. When they were threatened with invasion,in that of Procles. Cleomenes was the son of by Cleomenes after his ignominious capitulaAnaxandridas by a second wife whom the ephors tion, they had sent envoys to Sardis to propose had forced him to marry, though they permitted an alliance with Persia and to solicit aid: the him to retain his first wife, to whom he was first example of the fatal policy which afterward much attached, but who'had hitherto proved brought so many calamities upon Greece. The childless. After the second marriage, howev- satrap, who -had never. heard of Athens, and er, she became the mother of three princes, Do- could scarcely understand an alliance with his rieus, Leonidas, and Cleombrotus. Dorieus, a master whichl was not subjection, consented to high-spirited youth, hoped on his father's death protect the Athenians if they would present the that he should succeed to the throne; and when usual signs-of submission. The envoys, either Cleomenes was preferred to him as the lawful thinking the danger so pressing that deliverance heir, quitted Sparta with a band of followers, was cheap at any price, or not interpreting the and after various adventures on the coasts of act required in the same sense with ArtapherAfrica and Italy, fell in battle with the Phceni- nes, undertook to give earth and water. But cians near Segesta in Sicily. The headstrong on their return they were sharply censured, and temper of Cleomenes seems to have given him their concession was not ratified. This incisome advantage over his milder colleague in dent probably strengthened the arguments of carrying his measures, and he was more incli- Hippias, who was now at Sigeum or Sardis, ned to new and bold enterprises. To him Aris- gnawed by revenge and disappointed ambition, tagoras addressed himself. In a private inter- and was using all his efforts to induce Artaview he drew forth a brass plate, containing a phernes to take up his quarrel. The Athenians, map of the world, according to thie most exact hearing of his machinations, sent, as unwisely notion that had been then'formed by the Ionian as before, to deprecate the satrap's interference. sages of its outline and its part3. The Persian The answer they received was a just rebuke: Empire occupied the largest portion of it, and they should be safe if they would recall their Aristagoras pointed out the situation of the tyrant. As this was the worst evil they dreadprovinces that lay between the.Egean and ed, they began at last to give up all thoughts Susa, and extolled their wealth and fertility, of appeasing the enmity of Persia, and prepared and the immense treasures piled up in the cap- themselves to defy it..ial. According to him, the Spartans had only The public mind at Athens was in this state to cross over to Asia, and they would find no when Aristagoras arrived. Here he had no o'bstacle to prevent them from marching to Susa, need of secrecy or of bribes. He found willing a'nd making themselves masters of it. He re- hearers when in the assembly of the people he nainded his hearer of the continual wars in unfolded the same tempting prospect which he -which Sparta had beet engaged with her neigh- had spread before Cleomenes-the wealth of bJours of Messer.a, and Arcadia, and Argos, and Asia, the rudeness of the Persian mode of fightcf the hard struggles she had often maintained ing, the certainty and-the fruits of victory.'To f( )r a paltry strip of barren land, like Cynuria, these motives he added one of piety-the relia nd compared these laborious and unproductive gious obligation of protecting a distressed colI;onquests with the fair and opulent regions of ony of Athens. His eloqudelce prevailed: a Asia, which a slight effort would be sufficient decree was passed to send a squadron of twen-'o subdue. Cleomenes took three days to con- ty ships to the assistance of the Ionians, under ider his -answer. But when he again saw the command of Melanthius, a man of the high-.ristagoras, he asked him how many days' est reputation. Herodotus observes that the ourney lay between the sea and the palace at thirty thousand Athenians were more easily de-'usa. The Ionian was thrown off his guard, luded than Cleomenes. But it does not appear nd did not conceal that the distance was a that in this case they were either grossly deiree months' march. On hearing this, Cleom- ceived or flagrantly'rash. The twenty ships -nes, astonished and alarmed, hastily broke off were indeed the occasion of events which they ie conversation, and bade the stranger quit could not have dreamed of; but they might not:parta without delay. Aristagoras, however, unreasonably consider the measure as one of ad still one engine of persuasion left. With prudent precaution, by which an avowed enemy.e ensigns of a suppliant he went to the king's was occupied at home, and diverted from an,use, and found him with his daughter Gorgo, attack with which he had already threatened child eight or nine years old, by his side. She them..oked on unheeded while Aristagoras tendered Aristagoras sailed back to Asia before the, Cleomenes the price of his assistance. His Athenian squadron, and on his arrival took a Ters gradually rose; but when they had reach- step for which no motive can be assigned but fifty talents, the child, perceiving that her fa- the desire of provoking Darius. He sent a o.r was tempted to something which he message to the transplanted Paeonians, and oftought to be wrong, suddenly exclaimed, "Go fered, if they would make their way to the 238 HISTORY OF GREECE. coast, to furnish them with the means of re- a goddess revered by the Persians as well as turning to their native land. They forthwith the Lydians. And this accident, which was set out in a body with all their households, out- probably interpreted as a sacrilegious outrage, stripped the pursuit of the Persian cavalry, and inflamed the resentment of the king and the reached the seaside, where they found Ionian whole nation. His first care, however, was to vessels which transported them to the coast of quell the Ionian insurrection, which was beginThrace. In the mean while the twenty Athe- ning to spread into other parts. He called Hisnian ships came to Miletus, accompanied by five tiaeus into his presence, upbraided him with the galleys from Eretria. The Eretrianswere still revolt of his kinsman, and expressed strong,more imprudent than the Athenians, for they suspicions of his own fidelity. But the artful had never been threatened by the Persians; but, Greek not only persuaded Darius of his innowithout calculating the danger, they joined in cence, but even obtained leave to go to Ionia, the expedition, to discharge a debt of gratitude where he undertook to suppress the rebellion, for succour which they had once received from which, he observed, could never have broken the Milesians in a war with their neighbours out but in his absence. Gross as this dissimuof Chalcis.* The united forces proceeded to lation was, it certainly succeeded; but, howevEphesus under the command of two Milesians, er great the simplicity of Darius may have been, one a brother of Aristagoras, for he himself it sounds incredible that he should have been stayed at Miletus. At Coressus in the Ephe- caught by a promise which Histiagus is said to sian territory the troops landed, and, re-enforced have held out, of subjecting the island of Sarby a strong body of Ionians, set off with guides dinia to his empire, unless, indeed, he was tofrom Ephesus up the vale of the Cayster. Then tally ignorant of its situation, or rumour had ascending Mount Tmolus, they crossed over to prodigiously exaggerated its wealth and imporits northern side, and poured down like a tor- tance. rent on the unguarded capital of Lydia. Arta- In the mean while Aristagoras had in vain phernes was there: he threw himself into the solicited fresh succours from the Athenians, citadel, which was capable of standing a long who were disheartened by the issue of the exsiege; but the city fell into the hands of the in- pedition. But the Ionian fleet, though abanvaders, who immediately began to plunder it. doned by their squadron, was not inactive. It The houses of Sardis were chiefly of wicker- first sailed to the north: its presence induced work, and those which were built of bricks were Byzantium and the other cities of the coasts thatched with reeds: a precaution against the between the.Egean and the Euxine to rise effects of the earthquakes to which this region against the Persians, and enabled them to asis peculiarly subject. A soldier in the heat of sert their independence. Caria had been wapillage set fire to a house; the flames soon vering; but the tidings of the capture of Sardis, spread through the town. The inhabitants, probably because it proved that the Ionians driven out of their houses, rushed in a body to were in earnest, decided almost the whole countheir market-place on the Pactolus, their last try to embrace their cause. At the same time retreat, and with the courage of despair defend- Cyprus shook off the Persian yoke. Yet all ed themselves against the enemy. The Athe- these fair prospects were soon overclouded. nians antd their allies, kept at bay in the midst The generals of Darius, who had driven the. of a burning city, began to think their own sit- Athenians to their ships, and had routed thea uation dangerous. They might soon be attack- Ionian army at Ephesus, proceeded to reduce. ed in the rear by an army which would proba- the maritime cities to obedience. Daurises: bly be sent to the! relief of Artaphernes, and took several towns on the Hellespont and the, they could not hope to effect the reduction of Propontis at the first assault, and was pushing the citadel. They therefore resolved to make his conquests in this quarter, when he receiveu, a timely retreat, and hastily retraced their march tidings of the rebellion in Caria, and immediover the ridge of Tmolus, and down the vale of ately marched to suppress it. The Carians re-" the Cayster. They had not long left Sardis be- jected the counsel of one of their countrymen,, fore the whole force of the province, which had who advised them to place the Maeander in theirc been promptly levied on the news of the inva- rear before they gave the Persians battle, that sion, came up to protect the capital. It over- necessity might goad them into preternatural took them in the Ephesian territory, where a valour. They preferred seeing the enemy in a battle took place in which they were defeated: position where his retreat would be cut off. the Ionian troops dispersed among their cities, but they lost the day and ten thousand men. and their allies sailed home to Eretria and After this defeat they deliberated on leaving Athens. their country; but succours came from Miletus The indignation of Darius, when he heard of which encouraged them to venture another bat the destruction of Sardis, was bent not so much tie, in which they were worsted with Still great against the Ionians as against the obscure er slaughter. These disasters appear to hav( strangers who had dared to defy his power, broken their strength, so that, though they stil and to side with his rebellious subjects. His maintained the unequal conflict, and even drev first question was, who the Athenians were; his Daurises into an ambush in which he was slair first prayer, that he might live to punish them; this advantage could only retard their subjug; and one of his attendants was charged, every tion till another general found leisure to redui day before the king began his meal, to recall the them. The Cyprian revolt did not last mor name of the Athenians to his thoughts. The than a year: it had been fomented by a brothe conflagration at Sardis had consumed not only of the King of Salamis, who wished to usur the private dwellings, but the temple of Cybele, the diademi. All the cities of the island su; ported him except Amathus, which he besi; * See p. 169. ged. Hearing that a Persian general was abo, IONIAN WAR. 239 to cross over from Cilicia in a Phcenician fleet,' entrance by night. The Chians, though they he sent for succours from Ionia. They came, had assisted him in this enterprise, would neiand the hostile forces met both by sea and land. ther submit to his command, nor furnish him The Ionians gained a victory over the Phoeni- with ships. But he found the people of Lesbos cian fleet; but the Cyprians were betrayed by more compliant. There he collected a little one'of their native princes and defeated; and squadron of eight triremes, with which he sailtheir allies, seeing their affairs totally ruined, ed to Byzantium, and, as if he had been legiti-. sailed away. mate sovereign of Ionia, seized the merchant After this Artaphernes and Otanes began vessels of all the cities which would not ac. vigorously to press the cities of Ionia and 2Eo- knowledge his authority. lis. When Clazomenae and Cuma had fallen, While he remained here, doing all the misAristagoras, easily dejected as he was sanguine chief he could to his country, the Ionian inshirin his hopes, grew desponding, and turned his rection was drawing to a crisis. The Persian thoughts to flight. He assembled his friends, generals had resolved to strike it on the head, and advised them to fix on some place of refuge, by capturing Miletus, the fall of which would where they might find shelter if the progress of crush the hopes of all the other revolted cities, the Persian arms should force them to abandon which looked up to her as their chief. It was Miletus. He proposed that for this purpose therefore determined to besiege Miletus by sea they should immediately send out a colony, and and land. The scattered divisions of the army suggested the island of Sardinia, or his kins- were collected to bear up on this point, and a man's town of Myrcinus. Iecataeus was pres- great fleet was equipped in the harbours of ent at this deliberation also, and was adverse to Phoenicia, Egypt, Cilicia, and Cyprus, to blockboth plans. He advised his fellow-citizens, ade it from the sea. While these armaments should they be driven to the last extremity, to were expected, the Ionians who adhered to the fortify themselves in the island of Leros, and cause* held a congress at the Panionium, to there wait for an opportunity of recovering concert their plan of defence. It was agreed Miletus. But Aristagoras himself was bent on not to encounter the Persian army in the field, taking possession of Myrcinus, and he induced and to leave the Milesians to sustain the siege the majority to adopt his views. He left Mile- on the land side as they could; but that the tus, where he had surrendered the name, but not whole strength of the confederacy should be exthe substance of power, in the hands of a re- erted to drive the enemy from -the _Egean, and spectable citizen, and himself sailed to the banks the fleet was appointed to assemble at Lad6. of the Strymon. Here he was soon after cut Lade was then a small island; by the deposioff with his army, as he lay before a Thracian tions of the Maeander it has now become part city, by a sally of the besieged.* of the plain which separates the site of Miletus These events had happened before Histiaeus from the sea. Here the naval force of the conarrived at Sardis. Artaphernes was more clear- federates met: Chios sent the largest squadron, sighted than Darius, or had better information, a hundred galleys: the Lesbians, though their and perceived the connexion between the Ionian privateers were still at Byzantium with Histirebellion and the designs of Histieeus. "Aris- meus, seventy: the Samians could still raise as tagoras," he one day said to him, "drew the many as sixty; but Phocaea, though she had sandal on, but it was of your stitching." This not lost her old spirit, could equip no more than speech drove him into the measure on which three. The united navy amounted to 353 trihe had long resolved before it was quite ripe. remes. The hostile fleet which was on its way He made his escape from Sardis by night, and from the East numbered 600. Notwithstanding crossed over to Chios. The Chians at first ar- this vast superiority in numbers, the Persian rested him as an enemy, but he soon removed generals, when they considered that of the their suspicions, without, however, gaining Ionians in nautical skill, felt that theymvere by their confidence. Many were angry with him, no means sure of victory, and would fain have as having wantonly provoked a war which avoided the approaching conflict. They therethreatened the ruin of Ionia. To appease them, fore convened the tyrants, who, after being exhe forged a story that Darius had meditated pelled from their cities at the beginning of the transplanting the Ionians to Phoenicia, and be- insurrection, had betaken themselves to their stowing their land on the Phoenicians. His first foreign protectors, and were then serving in step was to renew an intrigue which had beet the Persian army, and commissioned them to interrupted by his flight from Sardis. He had endeavour each to detach his fellow-citizens there sounded some of the Persians, and had from the confederacy, by offers of pardon for found them not averse to his plans. He now their past offences on their return to obedience, wrote to them on the subject of their past con- and by threats of the most rigorous treatment versations; but the bearer of his letters showed if their obstinacy should at length be subdued them to Artaphetnes, who, having procured evi- by force. The overtures were made secretly dence of the guilt of the conspirators from their, and separately, and probably, from this very own answers, put them all to death. Histieeus cause, were in each instance rejected: each wished to take the lead in the war which he had state believed that it would incur alone the kindled, but he found himself a homeless ad- shame and the hazard of the defection, instead,venturer. Miletus, glad to be rid of Aristagoras, of being led to fear that it might be left to susw~ould not admit her old tyrant, and he was re- tain a deserted cause. pulsed and wounded in an attempt Which he During the interval in which the hostile fleets made, with the aid of the ChianS, to force an were watching each other, neither willing to begin the decisive conflict, Dionysius, the coin* Herodotus, v., 126, and Thucydides, iv., 102, supply one another, and, perhaps, only appear to differ a little about * Ephesus, Colophon, and Lebedus are nit mentioned, the details. and seomn to have kept aloof. HIer., vi., 8. 240 HISTORY OF GREECE mander of the Phoceans, observed that the na- fall of Miletus. Six years after the revolt of val camp at Lade was far from displaying the Aristagoras (B.C. 494) the capital of Ionia was order and good discipline which so critical a stormed by the Persians. The conquerors earjuncture demanded. In a general assembly he ried into effect the threats with which they acpointed out to his countrymen the danger of in- companied their pacific offers before the battle. subordination and supineness, and prevailed on Those of the citizens who escaped the sword them to commit themselves to his guidance. were carried ito captivity with their families. When he was invested with the chief command, By the order of Darius they were transplanted he did not suffer a day to pass without devoting to the head of the Persian Gulf, and settled in several hours to martial exercises. He drew a town called Ampe, in the marshes near the out the fleet in order of battle, practised the mouth of the Tigris. The shrine of Branchidm rowers in the evolutions of a seafight, and was plundered of its sacred treasures. Miletus kept the marines at the same time under arms became a Persian colony, a part of its territory in the places where their services would be re- was annexed to that of Pedasa. Its destrucquired. After seven days of this laborious train- tion was felt at Athens as a national calamity, ing, the troops began to murmur at what they and the poet Phrynichus, who ventured to wound easily persuaded themselves was a profitless the feelings of his audience by exhibiting it as hardship, and to rail at Dionysius as an ambi- a tragedy, was punished by a heavy fine. The tious meddler. It seemed intolerable that a next year the other cities on the coast of Ionia man who had only brought three ships to join experienced a similar fate. They were not, inthe fleet should domineer over all the rest: the deed, utterly desolated; but their fairest chilPersians themselves could not lord it more ty- dren were carried away to fill or to guard the rannically over their slaves; and they resolved royal harem. The islands of Chios, Lesbos, and to slake off the authority of Dionysius, and to Tenedos, were swept of their inhabitants by a assert the rights of freemen. Instead of going process like that which Otanes employed in Saabroad to execute his commands, they hence- mos. The subjugation of Ionia was complete. forth dispersed themselves in parties over the Histiates did not survive the ruin he had island, and reposed during the heat of the caused. After the fall of Miletus, thinking himday under tents which they pitched on the self unsafe in the Bosporus, he sailed with his most agreeable spots. The Samian command- Lesbian squadron to Chios, and -easily made ers were disgusted with this folly, for some of himself master of the island, which had spent them, who were before inclined to accept the all its forces at the battle of Lad6. After this, terms offered by the P;ersians, made use of it as with-a larger force collected from the remnant an argument to draw the others over to their of the war, he invaded the island of Thasos. views. The end was, that they sent to their But he was interrupted in the siege of the town banished tyrant,.Eaces, the' son of Syloson, and by news of the approach of the Persian fleet, declared their readiness to close witHl his'late and sailed to Lesbos. Finding himself in want proposals. It was agreed that they should de- of provisions for his troops, he crossed over to sert in the battle. the continent for the purpose of reaping the harThe Persian fleet now sailed confidently to vest in the vale of the Caicus, which he exthe attack: the Ionians met them without sus- pected to find unprotected. But Harpagus, a picion of treachery. B'ut in the beginning of Persian general, happened to be at hand with the action the Samians quitted their post, and a considerable force: the marauders were surbore away to Samos. Only eleven captains re- prised and routed, and Histiaeus himself, being fused to obey their superior officers, and kept overtaken by a Persian horseman, believing their places; they were afterward rewarded by that the clemency of Darius might yet spare his a monument in the market-place of Samos.- The life, cried out in the Persian language for quarexample of the rest, however, was followed by ter, and made himself known. He was led to the Lesbians, and as the alarm spread, by the Artaphernes, who immediately ordered him to greater part of the fleet. The Chians almost be crucified, and sent his head to Susa. The alone remained firm amid the general conster- only person in the world, perhaps, who felt pity nation; but their skill and valour were at length or regret for his fate was Darius himself, who overpowered by superior numbers, and they gave his remains a more honourable interment were compelled to fly. Those whose galleys ithan they deserved, and blamed the hasty venwere disabled from escaping the pursuit of the geance of the viceroy. enemy, ran them aground at Cape Mycale, and The Persian fleet continued its victorious caleft them. They bent their way northward; but, reer towards the Hellespont. The cities north passing through the Ephesian territory in the of the.Ege'an were successively overpowered, night, while the women were celebrating a fes- and sank in the flames. The men of Byzantival, they were taken for robbers who had come tium and Chalcedon did not wait for the enewith sacrilegious intentions, and were all cut to my's attack, but left their towns to found a new pieces by the Ephesians. Dionysius of Phocmea -one called Mesembria, on the western coast of had fought till the struggle became desperate, the Euxine. Miltiades, too, thoughthimself no and had taken three of the enemy's ships; when longer safe. The principality which he had forced to fly, he sailed to Phoenicia, sank sev- long governed' in the Chersonesus had beer. eral merchantmen, and, laden with spoilsteered founded by his uncle Miltiades, son of Cypselus, for Sicily, and thence carried on an unremitting during the reign of Pisistratus at Athens. The war against the old enemies of his countrymen, Doloncians, a Thracian tribe, wanted a chief to the Tyrsenians* and Carthaginians. protect them from the inroads of their neighThe defeat off Lade was soon followed by the bours, the savage Apsinthians. Under the direction of the Delphic oracle, by an accidental * See Niebuhr, Hist., 1., p. 125, ed. 3. or preconcerted combination of circumstances, SUBJIJ:ATION OF IGNIA. 241 they found one in the son of Cypselus, who was welt as from the influx of Iresh settlers, we may glad to withdraw from the-jealous eye of Pisis- suppose the new Greek population of Miletus tratus. He'secured their peninsula by carry- to have arisen. In the next year after the close ing a wall across the;Isthmus, waged a war of the war, the Persian government adopted an with Lampsacus, in which he was made pris- expedient still better fitted to allay/the discononer, and released through the intercession of tent of its Ionian subjects, and to keep them in Crcesus, and dying childless, left his dominions willing subjection;. The king's son-in-law, Marto his nephew Stesagoras, son of Cimon, who donius, was sent down to take the place of Arwas soon after assassinated. At this time his taphernes, and one of his first proceedings after brother, the younger Miltiades, was at Athens, his arrival in Ionia was to depose the tyrants and Stesagoras having left no child, Pisistratus, who had been placed in the cities by his predewho, according to Herodotus, had before pro- cessor, and to set up a democratical constitucured. the assassination of his father, sent him tion. This change appeared so repugnant to to take possession of the vacant inheritance. Persian maxims, that Herodotus thought it sufOn his a,-ival he found it necessary to estab- ficient to silence the objections of those who lish V: authority by violence. He entrapped doubted that democracy could have found an the mncipal men of the Chersonesus, and threw advocate among the Seven Conspirators. It them into chains; took five hundred foreigners does, indeed, indicate more knowledge of maninto his pay, and strengthened himself by mar- kind, larger views, and sounder, principles of rying a Thracian princess.* He was, in the full policy, than could have been expected from a Greek sense of the word, a tyrant. We have barbarous and despotic court, and reflects honseen that he attended Darius on the Scythian our on the understanding of Mardonius or of expedition, and that the part he is said to have Darius. Yet the last insurrection had shown acted on that occasion was apparently either un- that, while the dominion of the tyrants irritated known or forgotten. After the Scythian inroad, the people, and afforded a constant motive to of which we, know nothing but that it drove him rebellion, their own fidelity was by no means seout of his territories, had passed by, he return- cure. A popular form of government gave a ed and remained in peace, till he saw himself vent to the restless spirits which might otherthreatened with invasion by the triumphant wise have endangered the public quiet; and in arms of Persia. While the Persian fleet was the enjoyment of civil liberty and equality, the lying off Tenedos, he filled five galleys with his sovereignty of the foreign king was almost fortreasure, and set sail for Athens. He narrow- gotten. ly escaped the enemy with four of his ships; Mardonius had come with a mighty armathe fifth was taken, and in it his son Metiochus, ment, which was designed t ireak the venwhom the captors sent, it is said, as a peculiar- geance of Darius upon Attiem and Eretria, ly welcome prize, to Darius. If the father had, and at the same time to spread the terror of indeed, incurred the king's anger, the son was his name, and to strengthen his power in Eu. generously treated; for instead of death or a rope. A large fleet was to sweep the _/Egean, prison, he received a fair estate and a Persian and to exact obedience from the islands, while wife. The expelled tyrant became again an Mardonius himself led the land force into Athenian citizen. Greece, and on his way subdued the Thracian After the first transports of hostile fury had and-Macedonian tribes which had not yet subsubsided, and the insult offered by the rebellion mitted. The fleet first directed its course to to the majesty of the empire had been suffi- the island of Thasus, which still drew a large ciently avenged, Artaphernes set about the regu- revenue from the gold-mines first opened there lation of the subdued country, and, in Roman by the Phoenicians, as well as from others on language, reduced it to the form of a province. the opposite continent. The wealth of the He extinguished all remains of independence in Thasians had tempted Histiaeus, and his attack the Ionian cities, forbade them any longer to had induced them to increase their navy and decide their quarrels by the sword, and com- to strengthen their fortifications. They now pelled their deputies, whom he had summoned to yielded to the Persians without a struggle; and Sardis for this purpose,t to bind themselves by the next year, when Darius, suspecting that treaties, which ought to have been the work of their preparations were aimed against himself, their own free will, to submit all their differen- commanded them to throw down their walls,. ces to arbitration. He then caused a survey and -to surrender their ships, they acquiesced to be taken of their territories, and apportion- with equal readiness. But the Persian armaed their tribute according to the extent of ment was soon after checked in its progress by the districts. Its whole amount was not in- a violent storm which overtook it off Mount' creased. Thus tranquillity was restored, and Athos, and was thought to have destroyed not order established, though at the expense of lib- less than three hundred vessels and twenty erty; the cities revived, and no doubt recover- thousand lives. Mardonius himself was not ed many of their former inhabitants, who had much more fortunate: in his march through fled from them to avoid the first violence of the Macedonia his camp was surprised in the night victorious enemy: from such a remnant, as by the Brygians, an independent tribe of Thra-: cian blood; he lost many of his troops, and * A daughter of Olorus, from whom the father of Thucyd- was himself wounded. He punished this agides, the historian, who belonged to, the family of Miltia- gression indeed, and did not leave the country des, derived his name. t Among these deputies, according to Diodorus (Mai, ii., till he had tamed the Brygians; but his forces p. 38), was Hecatoeus, and the Ionians are said to have been were so weakened by these disasters, that he indebted to him for the mild terms they obtained from Ar- thought it prudent to end the campaign with this aphernes. Diodorus says of Artaphernes, a7roWKE o nest, and retuo #6gtovS rasg idXEatv, which would he more applicable to conquest, and returned to Asia. Aardonius. The resolution of Darius was not shaken by VOL I —HH 242 HISTORY OF GREECE. these accidents, and the next year he renewed mission, immediately repaired to XEgina, and his preparations for the invasion of Greece. was proceeding to arrest some of the principal While they were proceeding, he sent heralds citizens. But Demaratus had privately encourround to the Greek cities, among the rest to aged the 2Eginetans to resist this attempt of his those which had. incurred his anger, to try their colleague, as a step not sanctioned by any lespirit by a demand of submission. The arrival gitimate authority; and Cleomenes was corm. of these envoys gave occasion to some changes pelled to retire from the island baffled and disin the state of Greece which must now be rela- honoured. ted, and briefly traced to their origin. He knew that the author of his disgrace was We have seen that the Athenians had been the same who had before thwarted him in his delivered from the danger with which they designs against Athens, and he laid a scheme were threatened from the revenge of Cleom- for revenging himself, and at the same time getenes, by the friendship of the Corinthians and ting rid of a troublesome adversary. The title the dissension between the two Spartan kings; of Demaratus to the royal dignity was not bethat they had afterward inflicted a severe and yond dispute. His mother, by a contract which profitable vengeance on Thebes and Chalcis; the Spartan manners permitted, had been transand that the Thebans, too weak to revenge ferred by her first husband to his father Aristheir discomfiture, called in the aid of _Egina, ton: his birth was premature, and Ariston had with which they claimed a mythical affinity. expressed disbelief of his legitimacy, which he The XEginetans, however, did not need this mo- afterward suppressed; but it had been uttered tive for espousing the cause of Thebes:.they with the vehemence of a sudden surprise in the had others much stronger in their oligarchical presence of the ephors, and his mother's reputagovernment, and in the ancient quarrel which tion was not deemed spotless. Cleomenes now had produced implacable enmity between them instigated Leotychides, a private enemy of Dem and the Athenians. Athens had interposed in aratus, and.the next in succession of the same behalf of her ally Epidaurus, when she was in- house, to avail himself of these grounds, and suited by her revolted colony AEgina. The urge his claim to the throne. The cause was Athenians invaded the island, but were repul- tried: it was one of the highest importance in the sed with great loss by the united forces of the eyes of the Spartans, who conceived the safety natives and the Argives. Bitter hatred sprang of the state concerned in the purity of the royal from this source between the neighbours; and blood. Leotychides insisted on the words of there was a tradition that it had induced the Ariston; but the Spartans would not decide so Athenians to lay aside the ancient dress of grave a question on. such evidence, and to obtheir women, ch was that common to the tain the utmost certainty, they referred it, or. the Dorian race, anbto adopt the Ionian fashion; suggestion of Cleomenes, to the Delphic oracle. while Attic wares were rigidly excluded from Cleomenes had a friend named Cobon, who sacred and perhaps from profane uses in 2Egina. possessed great influence at Delphi; -this man The AEginetans, remembering this old grudge, gained over the priestess, and an answer came and confident in the superiority of their naval declaring that Demaratus was not the son of power, when the Thebans besought their assist- Ariston. Leotychides triumphed; and, not satance, actively espoused their cause by the in- isfied with his success, he imbittered the degvasion of Attica already mentioned. TheAthe- radation of his deposed rival by a wanton innians either were unable to revenge this insult, sult': at a public festival he sent a message to or their attention was diverted to another quar- ask him how he relished a subordinate station ter by the threatened restoration of Hippias, after royalty. Demaratus replied that Sparta and by their unfortunate expedition to Ionia; would perhaps pay dearly for the question: soon and their quarrel with XGgina slumbered till the after, he left the city, resolved never to rearrival of the Persian envoys, who came to de- turn but as king. He was pursued, but reachmand earth and water for Darius. Both at ed Asia in safety, and was graciously received Athens and at Sparta the heralds of Darius by Darius, who gave him lands and the revewere put to death with cruel mockery. This nues of cities. breach of the law of nations was probably not Cleomenes immediately proceeded to use his the effect of passion, but of policy, which, creature Leotychides in obtaining satisfaction though inhuman, may not have been ill-judged. for the affront he had suffered at AEgina. They At Athens, Miltiades is said to have been the went over together, and the tEginetans, afraid author of the measure.* Many cities on the of resisting their joint demand, surrendered ten continent complied with this demand, and none of their principal citizens into their hands. of the islanders rejected it: XAgina consented These hostages they deposited with the Athewith the rest. The Athenians interpreted this nians. Soon after the sacrilegious fraud was act of their rivals as if it had been dictated detected; the priestess lost her office, and her by the malice they bore against Athens, and suborner was banished; and Cleomenes, fear by their eagerness to assist the barbarians in ing punishment, fled to Thessaly. But shortly accomplishing her ruin; and they immediately he returned to Peloponnesus, aild took up his sent ambassadors to Sparta,. and accused.Egi- residence in Arcadia, where he began to draw na of having betrayed the cause of Greece. the Arcadians into a confederacy against his Cleomenes, without waiting for a formal com- country; and his machinations alarmed the * Pans., iii., 12,. Perhaps, however, if any one was Spartans so much, that they invited him back anxious to clear Miltiades of the imputation, he might ob- by promises of impunity. He had not been serve that Herodotus, when he was at a loss to discover in long reinstated before the violent humour, which what way the Athenians had been visited by divine yen- had hitherto only betraed itself in occasional geance for the murder (vii., 133), could hardly have failed to notice the fate of Miltiades, if he had been known as the sallies of passion, broke out into madness; and, adviser of the act having by threats extorted a weapon from the. INVASION OF ATTICA. 243 Helot who guarded him, he died miserably by armament, abandoned their walls, and took refhis own hand. Leotychides, too, did not carry uge in the mountains. The Persians carried his ill-gotten dignity with him to the grave: off all who had not time to escape, and commany years after, he was convicted of having mitted the city and its temples to the flames. taken bribes from the enemy in an expedition The centre of the Cyclades, the sacred island which he made into Thessaly; his house was of Delos, had especial reason to tremble at the razed to the ground, and he died in exile at approach of an enemy who made war against Tegea. the gods of Greece. The peaceful people, On the death of Cleomenes the LEginetans whose life passed in a round of sacrifices and tent to Sparta to complain of the unjust seiz- festivals, fled to Tenos, leaving their rich temure of their citizens. Leotychides, no longer ple, with its treasures, to the protection of its supported by his colleague, was condemned to tutelary gods. They screened it by the fame be given up to them in the room of their host- of their sanctuary. The Persians had heard ages; but they thought it prudent not to en- that DeIos was the birthplace of two deities, force this sentence, and only took him with who corresponded to those which held the forethem to Athens to demand the restitution of most rank in their own religious system, the his deposite. The Athenians, however, refused sun and moon. This comparison was probably to release their prisoners, and the AEginetans suggested to them by some Greek who wished retaliated by the capture of their sacred vessel, to save the temple. It seemed to be confirmed inR which several men of the first rank were by the intimate union which the Delian legend embarked to attend the festival of Apollo at established between the divine twins, whose Delos. After this fresh provocation, the Athe- simultaneous birth was not a universal tenet nians lent a willing ear to the proposals of a of the Greek theology. Hence, though separ. discontented.ZEginetan named Nicodromus, ately neither of them inspired the barbarians who had formed a plan for overthrowing the with reverence, their common shrine was not oligarchical government of the island with their only spared, but, if we may believe the tradition assistance. On the appointed day, he accord- which was current in the days of Herodotus, ingly rose and seized the citadel; but the Athe- received the highest honours from Datis: he nian succours did not arrive in time, and he would not suffer his ships to touch the sacred fell into the hands of his adversaries with sev- shore, but kept them at the island of Rhenea, en hundred of his adherents. They all suffered which is parted from it by a narrow channel: the fate which, perhaps, they only wanted pow- he sent a herald to the fugitives, to remoner to inflict; and in this, as in most instances, strate with them on their groundless alarm, and even religion had not influence sufficient to re- to assure them that he held their persons no strain the rage of party. One of the unhappy less sacred than their island; and, finally, he men who was led to death extricated himself burned a great pile of precious incense on the from his fetters and laid hold of the door of a altar. The main fact, that the.temple escaped, temple, to which he clung by the thong which though surprising, cannot be denied; but the fastened it till his hands were cut off. This rest of the story is not more certain than the was the only part of the deed of blood which earthquake by which, as the Delians reported, weighed upon the conscience of the perpetra- their island was shaken after the departure of tors, and was believed to be beyond the reach the Persians, to announce the calamities that of their expiations. The Athenians had been impended over Greece. prevented from fulfilling their engagement by The fleet held on its course through the islthe want of a fleet able to cope with that of ands, receiving their submission and taking from Angina, and they had sent to borrow ships from each a re-enforcement and hostages, and then the Corinthians. Their request was granted, sailed to Eubcea to accomplish one of the two though too late for its main purpose; but they great objects of the expedition. The first town defeated their enemy in a seafight, and were still before which it appeared was Carystus: it recarrying on the war with varying fortune while jected the demands of the Persians, and would the Persians were preparing to invade them. not serve them against its neighbours and In the third year after the last disastrous brethren. While it defended itself, Eretria campaign (B.C. 490) a new force was collect- sent to Athens for succour against the attack ed in Cilicia, and placed under the command which she had shortly to expect. The Atheof two new generals, Datis, a Mede, and Arta- nians charged their four thousand citizens, phernes, son of the satrap of Lydia, and hence, among whom, as we have seen, they had disas the king's nephew, superior in rank, but tributed the estates of the rich Chalcidians, probably inferior both in age and military expe- with the duty of protecting Eretria. But the rience to his colleague, who seems to have city itself was wavering and divided: one party been the real leader of the expedition. On the was honest, but timid, and proposed to follow Cilician coast they found a fleet of six hundred the example of the Naxians, and retire to the triremes, together with horse transports: the mountains; but there were others who were whole army was taken on board, and sailed first. eager to purchase the favour of the Persians. to Samos, and thence, instead of making the by.betraying their countr.T. On the arrival of round of the.Egean, which Herodotus thinks the Athenians, one of thd leading Eretrians dis. would have been preferred as the safer course closed to them the state of affairs, and the danbut for the dread of Mount Athos, crossed di- ger they ran of being deserted or sacrificed by rectly to the Cyclades. Naxos, which had baf- their allies. They took his advice; and cl ossed fled the attempts of Aristagoras when second- over to Attica: the event provedthe prudence ed by the power of Persia, was the first and of their retreat. After the fall of Carystus the principal object of attack. The Naxians lost Persians laid siege to Eretria: the men who heir courage at the appearance of the huge wished to sell themselves to the enemy pre 244 UHISTORY OF GREECE. vailed on their fellow-citizens to abandon the protection f4om Sparta, and offered to withdraw design of flight, and, as they could not venture from the Bceotian confederacy, and to place herto meet the invading army in the field, to sus- self under Spartan sovereignty. The Spartans tain a siege. For six days they made a brave saw no benefit likely to result from this condefence, but on the seventh the gates were nexion either to themselves or the Platteans, treacherously thrown open. The infamy of and, probably not without being conscious that this deed fell on two men whom Herodotus de- they were sowing the seeds of perpetual feuds scribes as among the most eminent citizens; between Attica and Boeotia, advised them to and perhaps its baseness was mitigated by po- address themselves to Athens. Athens relitical motives, which may have led them to ceived and protected them. The Thebans disregard Athens as an enemy more formidable puted the right of the Plataeans to dissolve the and hateful than the Persians. The conquer- ties which connected them with Bceotia, and ors exactly'fulfilled the commands of the king, were preparing to contest it in arms; but the the more rigorously that the fate of Eretria. Corinthians interposed, and, the question being might strike terror into the Athenians. The referred to their arbitration, decided in favour city, with its temples, was plundered, burned, of Plateea, and settled its boundaries. The and razed to the ground: according to one tra- Thebans were so dissatisfied with this sen-dition, which, however, rests on the half-poeti- tence, that they fell upon the Athenian army cal testimony of Plato, the Persian host swept which had come to the assistance of the Plathe whole territory of Eretria, as it had done taeans as it was returning to Attica; but they in Samos and other islands. The captives, were defeated, and compelled to relinquish a however collected, were lodged in a safe place part of the territory assigned- to them by the till they could be carried to the king; then the Corinthians. The landmarks of Plataea, and whole armament steered its course to the coast consequently, in fact, those of Attica, were of Attica. *carried forward to the Asopus: the Plataeans It was the aged tyrant Hippias who, as he became, as they were afterward called, Athehad most earnestly urged the expedition, now nian Boeotians, united with Athens by the most guided the barbarian against his country. By intimate bonds that were consistent on the one his advice the fleet came to anchor in the Bay hand with their own political independence, of Marathon, where it was sheltered from the and on the other with the distinct privileges of northern gales by a promontory which runs out the Athenian citizens.* The Plataeans now from the foot of Parnes: the army landed in raised their whole force, which, on a subsequent the plain, where a level tract, five miles in and equally pressing occasion, when they fought length and two in breadth, affords one of the on their own ground, amounted to six hundred few situations to be found in the rugged land heavy armed men;t and, marching to Maraof Attica favourable to the movements of cav- thon, found the Athenian army already in the airy. On the land side the plain is bounded by presence of the enemy. steep slopes, descending from the higher ridges The Athenian courier, travelling with breathof Pentelicus and Parnes, and by their gradual less haste, reached Sparta the next day after approach it is contracted towards the north into he had left Athens. He related the fall of Erea narrow glen, the bed of a little stream, which, tria, the imminent danger of Athens. The in its course to the sea, divides it into two un- Spartans did not refuse assistance; perhaps equal parts. Near the shore the low grounds they hoped that a short delay might not render at the foot of the hills on either side are swamps, it useless; but if their intentions were honouror are covered with small stagnant pools. In able, they did not feel the urgency of the juncthis position the Persian generals encamped, ture. The moon wanted some days of the full: expecting an opportunity of fighting a decisive to set out on an expedition in this interval, at battle on this advantageous ground. Had the least in the month then passing, which was Athenians shrunk from a conflict, a march of a probably that of the great Carnean festival, was day or two would have brought them through contrary to one of the fundamental maxims of the heart of Attica to the city, which they had their superstition;$ aind they dismissed the mesreason to believe would not have held out long- senger with promises of distant succour. To er than Eretria. The Athenians, however, as console his fellow-citizens, he announced to soon as they heard of the landing at Marathon, them assurances of aid from an invisible hand. marched, without delay, to face the enemy. At As he crossed the top of the mountains that the same time, they neglected no provision that separate Argolis from Arcadia, the god Pan, he prudence suggested for strengthening them- said, had called him by his name, and had bidselves to meet the contest with fair hopes of den him cheer the Athenians with a gracious success. They armed not only all their ser- reproach for having neglected the worship of a viceable citizens, but such of their slaves as deity who had often befriended them in times were willing to earn their liberty with their' past, and would prove his good-will towards blood. They sent off a messenger, named Phi- them yet again. This seasonable encouragedippides, a man noted for the extraordinary ment the grateful city afterward repaid by dedspeed with which he could perform long jour- icating a natural grotto in the Cecropian rock neys, to request instant succour from Sparta; to the woodland god, and by honouring him and it is probable that they likewise summon- with a yearly sacrifice and a torch race. The ed tile Plataeans, on whom they could call, not mere;y as allies, but as brothers. Plateea had * It was probably the relation of isopolity, which was afterward described by the Theban orator in Thuc., iii., 63, been very early engaged in hostility with as an absolute admission to the Attic franchise. See Thebes, occasioned by disputed boundaries. Wachsmuth, 1. 2, p. 149. Niebuhr, ii., p. 5(). In the reign of Cleomenes, being hard pressed t Herodotus does not mention:their number at Maratbon. Justin and Nepos make it amount to a thousand. by her more powerful neighbour, she sought t See Appendix II. MILTIADES-BATTLE OF MARATHON. 245 protection of Artemis was invoked against the of the Pelasgian Islands with a north wind; arrows of the barbarians by an extraordinary and, this not being sufficient to satisfy the Pevow. For every slain enemy, a she-goat was lasgians of his right, Miltiades had the power to be led in solemn procession every year to her of silencing their objections by the sword. He altar at Agree, on the banks of the Ilissus, where, conquered and expelled them, and, nominally according to the legend of the temple, the god- at least, subjected the islands to the dominion dess had first drawn her bow when she came of Attica. It seems not improbable that this over from her native island. With this strength achievement, which was an encroachment on and with these hopes, the Athenian army cross- the Persian dominion, may have been the cause ed the ridge which divides the plain of Mara- which drew the resentment of the Persians on thon from the midland of Attica, and posted him, and occasioned his precipitate flight. To itself on the eastern skirts of the hills at the it, also, he may have been indebted for the fahead of the valley. vourable issue of this as well as of a subseIt was commanded, according- to the Consti- quent trial; perhaps, too, the part he had taken tution of Cleisthenes, by ten generals: at their in the deliberations of the Ionians on the Danheld was the polemarch Callimachus, whose ube was now first brought to light, and conauthority and influence was the only security tributed to turn the popular feeling on his side. for the unity of their counsels. He was enti- After this escape, he rose to the eminence tled by law to the command of the right wing, which his birth and his character claimed, and and to the casting vote in every question on when Attica was threatened with invasion, he which the voices of the ten should be equally was elected one of the ten generals. split. Among them was Miltiades, the late ru- The opinions of the Ten were equally diviler of the Chersonesus. He had not obtained ded on the momentous question, whether they this mark of public confidence without opposi- should give battle to the Persians. Those who tion. On his return to Athens he found rivals dissuaded from immediately engaging in a conand enemies, who endeavoured to inflame the flict which was to decide the fate of Athens, popular jealousy against him, and made the might speciously allege the prudence of at least station he had held in his foreign principality waiting till the re-enforcement expected from the ground of a capital charge; they could urge Lacedaemon should somewhat reduce the fearwith great force before the tribunal which tried ful disproportion of their little army to the Perthe cause, that a countryman of Harmodius and sian host; the advantage of accustoming the Aristogeiton who became a tyrant was- worthy troops to the sight of an enemy whose name of death; and as he had probably exercised, his struck terror at a distance; finally, the prospect authority over Athenian citizens, though not in of a thousand fortunate accidents, from which Attica, he had perhaps made himself, according the invaders had nothing to hope and everyto the letter of the law, liable to the penalty of thing to fear. All these arguments were outtyranny. Miltiades, however, escaped, not so weighed by a danger which Miltiades knew much, perhaps, on the merits of his case, as be- was more to be dreaded than the numbers of cause he had fortunately used the power which the Persians —that of treachery within the walls it was deemed a crime to possess in the ser- or the camp of the Athenians. The, party of vice of Athens. A bitter grudge had subsisted Hippias was probably not extinct in Athens; for many ages between the Athenians and that and, while he was in the neighbourhood of the remnant of the Pelasgian race which, as we city, with the power and gold of Persia at his have seen, after being driven out of Attica, had command, it was likely every day to gain fresh settled in the islands of Lemnos and Imbros. strength. Motives like those which had led They 9had rendered themselves formidable in some of the leading Eretrians to betray their the _Egean by piratical excursions; and in one country, might find entrance into many Atheniof these had landed on the c'oast of Attica, and an breasts. Cold or selfish calculations might carried off Attic women whom they found cele- soon take the place of the generous ardour with brating a religious festival. The resentment which the people now glowed for the common kindled by this injury in the breasts of the Athe- cause. Miltiades also knew better than any of nians was inflamed by a tragic tale which soon his colleagues how little depended on the ineafter reached them, that the Pelasgians, sus- quality of numbers, how superior his Athenians pecting their captives of hostile designs, had were to the barbarians in all that formed the murdered them, with the children they had real strength of an army. His reasons could borne to their new lords. This atrocious deed, not prevail with his opponents: the decision after which Lemnian horrors became proverbial, rested with the polemarch. Callimachus was was believed to have been followed by the usual brave and honest: he saw and felt the force of signs of divine anger, barrenness and scarcity, the arguments with which Miltiades appealed and a tradition prevailed at Athens that, by to his judgment and his patriotism, and gave command of an oracle, the offending people had his voice for battle. The ten generals successoffered to repay their wrong; but, when called ively took the command of the whole army, upon to deliver up their islands, had eluded the each for a day: those who had seconded the demand by promising to surrender them when- advice of Miltiades were willing to resign their ever they should be summoned by a fleet that turns to him; but he would not expose himself should sail to them from Attica in one day with to the risk of being thwarted by his adversaries a north wind. It was reserved for Miltiades to in the exercise of a borrowed authority, and fulfil this seemingly impossible condition, and waited till he could assume the command'in his at the same time to satiate the vengeance of own right. Then he drew up his little army his countrymen. The Thracian Chersonesus, in order of battle. when he became its master, might be called The enemy's line stretched across the broad-. Attic ground: it was within a few hours' sail est part of the plain. Of the nations that fought 246 HISTORY OF GREECE. in the barbarian,Lost, the two on which the land, and there was a tradition that he died at generals placed their chief reliance, the Per- Lemnos. The victors took seven ships, and sians themselves and the no less warlike Sa- Cynaegirus, a brother of the poet LEschylus cians, were posted in the centre: here, there- gained immortal glory by clinging to one till fore, their chief strength lay. That the front his hand was cut off with a hatchet. Callimaof the Athenians might not be so unequal in chus and one of the generals, Stesilaus, were length as to endanger their flanks, it was ne- also left on the field. The fleet at. length put cessary that their ranks should be uniformly or off with the remains of the army. But the partially weakened. Miltiades undoubtedly fore- Athenians were still threatened with another saw the consequences of his arrangement, when attack. Instead of shaping their course east. he strengthened his wings at the expense of the ward, the invaders steered towards Sunium, centre, which was opposed to the strongest, with the evident intention of proceeding to the perhaps the oply formidable part of the enemy's southern coast of Attica. It was afterward force. It is remarkable that though Herodotus universally believed that they had been induced represents the Persians as induced to land at to make this attempt by previous concert with Marathon with a view to the operations of their some Athenian citizens, and the house of the cavalry, he does not say a word either of its Alcmaeonids was charged with having hoisted a movements in the battle or of any cause that shield as a signal to invite them. Whatever prevented them. It seems not to have come may have been their expectations, they were into action; but perhaps he could not learn by foiled by the promptness of the victorious army, what means it was kept motionless. Yet there which no sooner perceived their purpose, than, was a tradition on the subject, probably of some having left one of the tribes on the field of batantiquity, which appears to have assumed va- tle to guard the prisoners and the booty,* it set rious forms, one of which was adopted by Ne- out on its march to Athens, and had arrived' pos, who relates that Miltiades protected his there before the Persians appeared off the flanks from the enemy's cavalry by an abattis; coast. They seemed to perceive that their a fact which it may be thought Herodotus could movement had failed of its object, for without scarcely have.passed over in silence, if it had any fresh act of hostility they shortly after set been known to him, but which might have been sail for Asia. So ended the day of Marathon. the foundation of a very obscure account of the Scarcely any achievement in the history of matter, which is given by another author.* mankind ever supplied a theme for so many The two armies were separated by an interval tuneful or eloquent lips. It would be impossible, of nearly a mile: the Athenians stood on some- and not very useful, to determine the precise what higher ground. At the signal of attack abatement that must be made from the poetic they rushed down on the enemy, who awaited and rhetorical panegyrics that have celebrated them, with wonder and scorn, at the madness its fame, before they can be reconciled with the of a handful of men whom they saw, as it seem- sober language of historical truth. The circumed, pressing blindly forward to certain destruc- stances of the event, as they were handed down tion. Before they had bethought themselves for the admiration of successive ages, were dissufficiently to use their missiles with effect, coloured and exaggerated, and they cannot now they found themselves engaged in close com- be exactly ascertained. We are able, indeed, bat, in which the Grecian weapons and armour to correct the vague and extravagant descripgave the soldier a decided advantage. The tions, which covered the field with myriads of Persians, however, and the Sacians sustained slain, by the testimony of Herodotus, who fixes the shock, which was lightest in their part of the number of the Persian dead at 6400, the the field; and after a short struggle they broke Athenians at 192, among whom the Plteans the opposite centre, put the whole to flight, and are not reckoned. It is more difficult to make pursued the fugitives towards the hills. But in an approximation to the real numbers of the two each wing the impetuous onset of the Atheni- armies, and particularly to estimate the larans, -supported by deeper ranks, overpowered ger force, which was swelled from 300,000 to the fainter resistance of the motley bands that 600,000 men by later writers, who did not percrowded the plain, and at length drove them ceive that, by encumbering the Persians with towards the shore and the adjoining morasses. these useless and unmanageable crowds, they While they were here struggling with the diffi- were not heightening, but diminishing the glory culties of the ground, Miltiades drew off his of the conquerors. The Athenians numbered men,' and, closing the two wings, led them to six-and-forty different nations in the barbarian meet the enemy, who was now returning from host; and the Ethiopian arrows, remains of the pursuit of the Athenian centre. The de- which are still found at Marathon, seem to atfeat of this body decided the battle. The only test the fact that Darius drew troops from the effort of the routed army now was to reach remotest provinces of his empire. Yet our caltheir ships: many perished in the. marshes, culations must be kept down by the remark that many on the shore, and as they were thronging the whole invading army was transported over to get on board. According to some authors, the sea, according to Herodotus, in 600 ships; Hippias himself was among the slain.. But a this, on the footing which he fixes elsewhere, story told by Herodotust seems to imply that of 200 men to each trireme, would give 120,000; his body, at least, was not left on his native and we ought probably to consider this as the utmost limit to which the numbers of the inva* In the explanation of the proverb, X(opis trrseis (Suidas, ders can be reasonably carried. Those of the Cent., xiv., 73, Schott.), we read that, when Datis invaded Athenians are uniformly rated at about 10,000; Attica, the Ionians got upon the trees (?) and made signals to the Athenians that the cavalry had gone away ( ( Erev it is possible that the numbers'of the tribes had %XCplt oi trzreis), and that Miltiades, on learning its retreat, some share in grounding this tradition; it probjoined battle and gained the victory, which was the origin of the proverb, srrt rwv rTv drVr 3taXwvdvrWv. t vi., 107. * According to Plutarch, under the command of Aristides. BATTLE OF MARATHON-MILTIADES. 247 ably falls short of the truth, and certainly does des had been removed beyond the reach of hanot take the slaves into account, who served, tred and envy, his singular deserts were acmost likely, as light-armed troops. When all knowledged by a separate tomb on the same these allowances are made, the numerical ine- ground. He and the polemarch Callimachus quality will be reduced to a proportion of five were alone distinguished from the other comto one. batants in the Painted Porch, and stood apart, This, however, is not the standard by which with the tutelary gods and heroes. the glory of this memorable victory must be The monuments, the trophies, the votive ofmeasured. The Persians were strong, not only ferings, the processions, the pictures and sculpin numbers, but in the terror of their name, in tures, the songs, and the panegyric harangues the renown of their conquests, in the recollec- that celebrated the victory, not only proved, but, tion of the flight from Sardis, in the recent de- in part, made its importance. They kept alive struction of Eretria. If Miltiades deserves the remembrance of a deed which had first praise for having perceived the hollowness of taught the Athenian people to know its own these advantages, and if he balanced them by strength, by measuring it with the power which the superiority of his military skill, the Atheni- had subdued the greater part of the known ans also earned their fame by the boldness with world. The consciousness thus awakened fixed which. they faced a danger which they could its character, its station, and its destiny; it not despise. When they began their onset, the was the spring of its later great actions and first, Herodotus says, in which a Grecian army ambitious enterprises. With respect to these advanced to a charge running, they had all their remote consequences, the absence of the Sparexperience of the enemy's weakness still to tans was a momentous event. They came to gain. Notwithstanding the arguments of Aris- Athens while the field was still strewed with the tagoras, the very sight of the Median garb, as dead; they had marched with the speed of men we learn from the same authority, was still ter- who wished to repair a delay which neither law rible to the European Greeks. That these fears nor prejudice could wholly justify, even in their were stong, though their ground was imaginary, own eyes; yet their force amounted to no more and that they required a heroic resolution to than 2000 men: g number so small that it lends master them, is clear from the marvellous light some colour to a tradition which rests only on in which the victory was viewed by the people the authority of Plato, the slightest of all on as a deliverance which could not have been ef- such points, that they had been occupied in fected by their own arm without the friendly suppressing some insurrection in Messenia. interposition of a higher power. Hence the Though too late to share the glory of the day, block of marble, which Datis was said to have they desired to see the field, and the renowned brought for a trophy, was gratefillly wrought barbarians who, for the first time, had been into a statue of. Nemesis.* Hence it appeared vanquished there: they went tq. Marathon, beno less -credible that the courier Phidippides held, praised the Athenians for their courage, should have heard the cheering voice of Pan in and returned home. thfe mountains, than that, when he had told the The new spirit which the victory infused into glad tidings to the magistrates at Athens, he the conquerors appeared almost immediately in should have dropped down dead from joy. an occurrence which closed the career of MiltiHence the wonderful legends of the battle: the ades. The fear of the Persians was no sooner valiant Epizelus'is blinded in the heat of the removed- than he began to rouse his countryfight by the apparition of a warrior, whose shield men to plans of aggression and conquest. He is covered by his flowing beard; the local he- easily obtained from them a fleet of seventy roes are active in the combat, and in the picture ships, which they placed at his command withthat represented it on the walls of the Painted out even knowing towards what object he would Porch, Theseus appeared rising out of the direct the expedition, but satisfied with his asground' with Marathon and Hercules, and the surances that it would enrich them. He sehero Echetlus, armed with a ploughshare, was cretly designed to attack the island of Paros, seen dealing death among the flying barbarians; where he had a private enemy, who had once hence, to this day, ttie field of Marathon is be. injured his credit with the Persians; it had aflieved to be haunted, as in the time of Pausa- forded a pretext for his revenge, by sending a nias, with spectral-warriors, and the shepherds trireme with the armanment under Datis: probare alarmed in the night'by their shouts and by ably most of the other adjacent islands had been the neighing of their steeds. guilty of the same offence; but he contented And, therefore, the Athenians were only just himself with ravaging their fields, while he laid to their own merits in the extraordinary hon- regular siege to the town of Paros. It was at ours they paid to the true heroes of Marathon, this time one of the most flourishing among the and in the monuments by which they endeav- Cyclades: Miltiades demanded'a heavy penaloured to perpetuate their triumph. The slain ty: the Parians, instead of complying, kept enemies were committed to an obscure grave; strengthening their walls, and baffled all his atbut on the field which they had made holy tacks, till, despairing of success, he is said to ground, the Athenians who had fallen for their' have descended to superstitious arts, and to country were gathered together under a stately have received a dangerous hurt in his knee or sepulchre, adorned with ten pillars, on which hip, as he attempted to penetrate into a sacred their names were inscribed according to theil enclosure. This compelled him to return withtribes. Another barrow was consecrated to out fulfilling the promises by which he had inthe Plateeans and the slaves; arrd when Miltia- duced the people to fit out the fleet. His enemies took advantage of the irritation produced * It appears, from the observation of intelligent judges in the public mind by this disappointment, and (Unedited Antiquities of Attica, p. 43), that this celebrated Xanthippus, son of Ariphron, the chief of the statue was not of Parian, but of Pentelic marble. 248 HISTORY OF GREECE. -ival house of the Alcmaeonids, brought a capi- its ruin; and when the captive Eretrians were tal charge against him for having deceived the brought to Darius, he was satisfied with plantpeople. A gangrene had begun in his injured ing them in a part of his own domain, in.the limb; and, unable to defend his own cause, he Cissian village of Ardericca. But his anger was was brought on a couch into the court, where doubly inflamed against Athens by the event of his brother tisagoras pleaded'for him before Marathon, which did not suggest to him any the people, which sat at once as judge and as wholesome warning; the conclusion he drew sovereign. As judge, it condemned him; as from it was, that his power had been defied sovereign, on the ground of his services at Mar- with impunity merely because it had not been athon and Lemnos, it commuted the capital pen- fully exerted. Now, therefore, he resolved alty for a fine of fifty talents. As he could not that the insolent people which had' invaded immediately raise this sum, he was cast into his territories, violated the persons of his mesprison, where he soon after died of his sore. sengers, and driven his generals to a shameful Such a sentence, passed under such circum- flight, should feel the whole weight of his arm. stances, and so harshly exacted by an absolute A year had been spent in the preparations for monarch from a victorious general to whom he the last campaign; those he now set on foot had owed the safety or the honour of his crown, were on a vast scale, and demanded a longer would commonly be deemed sufficient to brand time. Every nation that owned his sway was him with the reproach of ingratitude; and those called on to contribute to the new armament who are disposed to view the proceedings of much more largely than before, and to send the popular governments in the worst light have flower of its warriors, such as were fit to meet not failed to apply this name to the conduct of the Greeks in the field, as well as an extraordithe Athenian people towards Miltiades. Oth- navy supply, according to its means, of ships or ers, who have judged of it more mildly, have horses, provisions and stores. For three years considered it only as an ordinary example of all Asia was kept in a continual stir;* in the popular levity, which changes' its favourites as fourth Darius was distracted by other careshastily as it adopts them, and is easily persua- by a quarrel in his family, and by an insurrecded to consign the same man to a dungeon tion in Egypt. Two of his sons, Artabazanes, whom, but the day before, it had exalted to the the eldest, born to him in his private station, skies. And certainly, as in general it cannot and Xerxes, his first by Atossa, the daughter of be denied that men are not more exempt from Cyrus, whom he had married after he came to human passions and frailties when they act in the throne, disputed the succession: the eldest great bodies than when alone, so, when we re- grounded his claim on the common law of inflect on the rash cupidity and blind credulity heritance, the younger on his descent from the that mark the beginning of the transaction just founder of the monarchy. Demaratus, the exdescribed, it is,impossible to look for calm wis- iled king of Sparta, aided Xerxes with his coundom or severe justice in its progress and its ter' sels, and suggested to him another argument, mination. So far as Miltiades fell a victim to drawn from the Spartan rule of succession, by the arts of an adverse faction which'misled his which a son born after the accession of a king judges, we may pity him without finding them was preferred to his elder brother. Darius deguilty even of inconstancy or caprice; and we cided in his favour, and declared him his heir; may think that they made amends for the invol- swayed, perhaps, much more by the influence of untary wrong they had done him by the hon- Atossa, which was always great with him, than ours with which they afterward showed their by reason or usage. Ih the following year, besense of his merit. But how far they are liable fore he had ended his preparations against Egypt to the charge of ingratitude must depend on and Attica, he died, and Xerxes mounted the their view of the obligation they had incurred. throne (B.C. 485). Darius might well think that the benefit he had Thus the Persian sceptre passed-from the received from Histiaeus was so great that it hands of a prince who had acquired it by his could scarcely be effaced by any subsequent of. boldness and prudence, to one born in the palfence. But Miltiades was not, in such a sense, ace, the favourite son of the favourite queen, the benefactor of the Athenians: if they con- who had been accustomed from his infancy to ceived that nothing he had done for them ought regard the kingdom as his inheritance, perhaps to raise him above the laws — if they even to think that the blood of Cyrus which floawed thought that his services had been sufficiently in his veins raised him above his father. Bred rewarded by the station which enabled him to up in the pompous luxury of the Persian court, perform them and by the glory he reaped from among slaves and women, a mark for their flatthem, they were not ungrateful or unjust; and tery and intrigues, he had none of the experiif Miltiades thought otherwise, he had not learn- ence which Darius had gained in that period of ed to live in a free state. his life when Syloson's cloak was a welcome present. He was probably inferior to his father in ability; but the difference between them in fortune and education seems to have left more CHAPTER XV. traces in their history than any disparity of nature. Ambition was not the prominent feature FROM THE BATTLE OF MARATHON TO THE BATTLE in the character of Xerxes; and had he followOF SALAMIS. ed his unbiased inclination, he would perhaps THE failure of the expedition led by Datis and have been content to turn the preparations of Artaphernes in the invasion of Attica was poor- Darius against the revolted Egyptians, and have ly compensated by their success against Ere- abandoned the expedition against Greece. to tria; the insult it had offered to the majesty of the Persian Empire was sufficiently avenged by * Eovbero, Her., viii., 1. XERXES AT SARDIS 249 which he was not spurred by any personal mo- and to scare away all opposition, but also, and tives. But he was surrounded by men who perhaps principally, to set his whole enormous were led by various passions and interests to power in magnificent array, that he might endesire that he should prosecute his father's joy the sight of it himself, and display it to the plans of conquest and revenge. Mardonius was admiration of the world. For four years longer eager to renew an enterprise in which he had Asia was still kept in restless turmoil; no less been foiled through unavoidable mischance, not time was needed to provide the means of subthrough his own incapacity. He had reputation sistence for the countless host that was about to retrieve, and might look forward to the pos- to be poured out upon Europe. Besides the session of a great European satrapy, at such a stores that were to be carried in the fleet which distance from the court as would make him al- was to accompany the army, it was necessary most an absolute sovereign. He was warmly that magazines should be formed along the seconded by the Greeks who had been drawn whole line of march as far as the confines of to Susa by the report of the approaching i'nva- Greece. But, in addition to these prudent presion of their country, and who wanted foreign cautions, two works were begun, which scarceaid to accomplish their designs. The Thessa- ly served any other purpose than that of showlian house of the Aleuads, either because they ing the power and majesty of Xerxes, and prothought their power insecure, or expected to ving that he would suffer no obstacles to bar his increase it by becoming vassals of the Persian progress. rt would have been easy to transking, sent their emissaries to invite him to the port hisi oops in ships over the Hellespont; conquest of Greece. The exiled Pisistratids but it was better suited to the dignity of the had no other chance for the recovery of Athens. monarch, who was about to unite both contiThey had brought a man named Onomacritus nents under his dominion, to join them by a with them to court, who was Gne of the first bridge laid upon the subject channel, and to among the Greeks to practise an art, afterward march across as along a royal road. The storm very common, that of forging prophecies and that had destroyed the fleet which accompanied oracles. While their family ruled at Athens he Mardonius in his unfortunate expedition, had had been detected in fabricating verses, which made the coast of Athos terrible to the Persians. he had interpolated in a work ascribed to the The simplest mode of avoiding this formidable ancient seer Musaeus, and Hipparchus, before cape would have been to draw their ships over his patron, had banished him from the city. But the narrow, low neck that connects the mountthe exiles saw the use they might make of his ain with the main land. But Xerxes preferred talents, and had taken him into their service. to leave a monument of his greatness and of They now recommended him to Xerxes as a his enterprise, in a canal cut through the Isthman who possessed a treasure of prophetical mus, a distance of about a mile and a half. knowledge, and the young king listened with This work employed a multitude of men for unsuspecting confidence to the encouraging pre- three years. The construction of the two bridg-'dictions which Onomacritus drew from his in- el; which were thrown across the Hellespont exhaustible st6res. These various engines at were intrusted to the skill of the Phoenicians length prevailed. The imagination of Xerxes and Egyptians. When these preparations were was inflamed with the prospect of rivalling or drawing to a close, Xerxes set forth for Sardis, surpassing the achievements of his glorious pre- where he designed to spend the following windecessors, and of extending his dominion to ter, and to receive the re-enforcements which the ends of the earth.* He resolved on the in- he had appointed there to join the main army vasion of Greece. First, however, in the sec- (B.C. 481).. ond year of his reign, he led an army against During his stay at Sardis the Phcenician and Egypt,-and brought it again under the Persian Egyptian engineers completed their bridges on yoke, which was purposely made more burden- the Hellespont, but the work was not strong some and galling than before. He intrusted it enough to resist a violent storm, which broke it to the care of his brother Achmemenes, and then to pieces soon after it was finished. How far returned to Persia, and bent all his thoughts to- this disaster was owing to defects in its conwards the West. struction, which might have been avoided by Only one of his counsellors, his uncle Arta- ordinary skill and foresight, does not appear; banus, is said to have been wise and honest but Xerxes is said to have been so much anenough to endeavour to divert him from the en- gered by the accident that he put the architects terprise, and especially to dissuade him from to death. Such a burst of passion would be risking his own person in it. If any reliance credible enough in itself, and is only rendered could be placed on the story told by Herodotus doubtful by the extravagant fables that gained about the deliberations held on this question in credit on the subject among the Greeks, who. the Persian cabinet, we might suspect that the in the bridging of the sacred Hellespont, saw the influence and arts of the Magian priesthood, beginning of a long career of audacious impie which we find in this reign rising in credit, had ty, and gradually transformed the fastenings been set at work by the adversaries of Arta- with which the passage was finally' securea banus, to counteract his influence over the mind into fetters and scourges, with which the barof his nephew, and to confirm Xerxes in his barian in his madness had thought to chastise martial mood. The vast preparations were the aggression of the rebellious stream.* The continued with redoubled activity to raise an construction of new bridges was committed to armament worthy of the presence of the king. other engineers, perhaps to Greeks; but their His aim was not merely to collect a force suffi- * The origin of the story-is sufficiently explained, as the cient to ensure the success of his undertaking commentators on Eschylus and Herodotus have remarked, by the lines of the poet, Pers., 371: bOT't'EAXXiaroyrov * rev Hcpaila 7roJ6&oyev 7ai. atgE aiOpt povp0vcav. iptv doov (di layLoyaatv XTa qaoCetv Pieovra Be3areopo Ioer., Vii., 8. otdov -o0. VOL I.- I 250 HISTORY OF GREECE. names have not passed down like that of Man- the ranks, while the royal scribes recorded the drocles. By their art two firm and broad cause- names, and, most likely, the' equipments of the ways were made to stretch from the neighbour- different races. It is an ingenious and probable hood of Abydos to a projecting point in the op- conjecture of Heeren's,* that this authentic posite shore of the Chersonesus, resting each document was the source from which Herodoon a row of ships, which were stayed against tus drew his minute description of their dress the strong current that bore upon them from and weapons. the north by anchors, and by cables fastened to We may observe that the Persian fashion, both sides of the channel: the length was not which the Persians themselves had borrowed far short of a mile. from their old masters the Medes, prevailed. When all was in readiness, the mighty arma- with a few variations, among all the nations bement was set in motion. Early in the spring tween the Tigris and the Indus. The bow was (B.C. 480), Xerxes began his march from Sardis the principal weapon. To it was commonly in all the pomp of a royal progress. The bag- added a spear and a short sword or dagge; the gage led the way: it was followed by the first Sacians were singular in the use of the hatchet. division of the armed crowd that had been In the defensive armour there was greater dibrought together from the tributary nations-a versity among these tribes. Most of them were motley throng, including many strange varieties without shields. The tunic, scaly breastplate, of complexion, dress, and language, commanded and loose trousers of the Persians, who used a, by Persian generals, but retaining eat tribe its peculiar wicker buckler,t were contrasted with national armour and mode of fightin - An in- the cotton vest of the Indians, with the shaggy terval was then left, after which came 1000 skins worn by some mountain hordes, with the picked Persian cavalry, followed by an equal Arabian plaid,$ and the bright dyes of the number of spearmen, whose lances, which they Sarangian garp4 A cap or turban, low or pointcarried with the points turned downward, ended ed, seems generally to have supplied the place in knobs of gold. Next, ten sacred horses of of a helmet. The Assyrians or Chaldeans were the Nistean breed were led in gorgeous capari- conspicuous for their brass helmets of strange sons, preceding the chariot of.the Persian Jove, shape, their linen corslets, and the wooden drawn by eight white horses, the driver follow- clubs tipped with steel, which they added to the ing on foot.'Then came the royal chariot, also shield, spear, and dagger. With the exception drawn by Nisaean horses, in which Xerxes sat of the club, their weapons were similar to those in state; but from time to time he exchanged of most of the barbarians of Western Asia, it for an easier carriage, which sheltered him among whom the Lydians came nearest to the from the sun and the changes of the weather. Greek fashion, and the Lycians of the interior He was followed by two bands of horse and (the Milyans) alone used the bow. No Egyptian foot, like those which went immediately before troops are mentioned: perhaps the late rebellion him, and by a body of 10,000 Persian infantry, might seem to render it unsafe to arm them. the flower of the whole army, who were called But the Ethiopians above Egypt, the negroes of the Immortals, because their number was kept Nubia —with their bodies painted half white, constantly full. A thousand of them, who occu- half vermilion, and partly covered with skins pied the outer ranks, bore lances knobbed with of lions or leopards, their bows four cubits long, gold; those of the rest were similarly orna- and small arrows, in which a sharp stone supmented with silver. They were followed by an plied the place of steel, their spears pointed equal number of Persian cavalry. The remain- with the horn of the antelope, and their knotty der of the host brought up the rear. clubs-were among the most prominent figures In this order the army reached Abydos, and in the motley host. They met in the camp of Xerxes from a lofty throne surveyed the crowd- Xerxes with another race, whom Herodotus ed sides and bosom of the Hellespont, and the calls Eastern Ethiopians, a dark but straightimage of a seafight-a spectacle which Herodo- haired people, neighbours of the Indians, and tus might.well think sufficient to have moved resembling them in their armour, except that him with a touch of human sympathy. The for a helmet they wore the skin of a horse's passage did not begin before the king had pray- head, with the ears erect, and the mane flowing ed to the rising sun, and had tried to propitiate down their backs. All these nations, Herodothe Hellespont itself by libations, and by casting tus observes, were able to furnish cavalry, but, into it golden vessels and a sword. After the for manifest reasons, a part of them only was. bridges had been strewed with myrtle, and puri- called upon to do so. Among these he describes fled with incense, the Ten Thousand Immortals, a nomad people of the Persian race, the Sagar. crowned with chaplets, led the way. The army tians, who were no less expert than the South crossed by one bridge, the baggage by the other; Americans in the use of the instrument which yet the living tide flowed without intermission is now familiar to our ears under the name of for seven days and seven nights, before the last the lasso: this and a dagger were the only weapman, as Herodotus heard, the king himself, the ons they brought into the field. But the mass tallest and most majestic person in the host, of the cavalry was swelled by the dromedaries had arrived on the European shore. In the of the Arabians, and by chariots from the ingreat plain of Doriscus, on the banks of the terior of Africa and from the borders of India, Hebrus, an attempt was made to number the in which the Indians yoked not only horses, but land force. A space was enclosed large enough to contain 10,000 men; into this the myriads * deen,., p. 137. were successively poured and discharged, till t The yvirPov: it was, perhaps, covered with leather, and the whole mass had been rudely counted. They we should suspect, from the descriptions given of its use, were then drawn up according to their natural furnished with a spike for fixing it upright in the ground. and Xerxes rode in his chariot along The uctpd. Those of some Thracian ti'ibes were variedivisions, and Xerxes rode'in his chariot along gated. MARCH OF XERXES. 251 wild asses. All the great divisions both of horse bersbytaking in re-enforcements from the Thraand foot were commanded by Persian- officers. cian hordes through which it passed. It- expeAfter this review the king went on board a rienced no scarcity of provisions: the country, Sidonian vessel, where a golden tent had been the fleet, and the magazines formed in the prepared for him, to inspect the fleet, and towns on the coast, together furnished abuncaused its divisions and numbers to be regis- dant supplies. The principal cities i- the line tered. According to the result of this inspec- of its march had long before been crdered to tion or calculation, the armed part of the multi- prepare for the reception of the king, and each tude that followed Xerxes over the Hellespont celebrated his arrival with a splendid banquet. amounted to one million and seven hundred The division of the army which came with him, thousand foot, and eighty thousand horse. The indeed, was only provided with its daily fare; fleet consisted of one thousand two hundred but for himself and his train, a tent was pitchand seven ships of war, and besides the native ed, a table spread with vessels of gold and silcrews, each was manned with thirty marines, ver, and loaded with luxuries for which earth, Persians, or Medes, or Sacians. But, as they air, and water' had been ransacked. On the proceeded southward, both the army and the morning after the feast, when the royal guest fleet received an addition from the inland tribes, moved onward, his followers carefully cleared and from the seaports of Thrace, and Macedonia, away the relics of the entertainment, the tent, and the neighbouring islands, which Herodotus the vessels, and the furniture. A single meal computes at three hundred thousand infantry, of Xerxes cost the Thasians four hundred taland one hundred and twenty triremes. There ents: nearly as much as the sum yearly con seems to be no sufficient ground for supposing tributed by the allies of Athens to maintain the that these estimates are greatly exaggerated. navy which destroyed his maritime power. It Yet the imagination is fatigued in attempting was &ith good reason that a citizen of Abdera to conceive the train that must have followed advised his townsmen to offer a solemn thankssuch a host, to minister to its wants and its lux- giving to the gods, through whose mercy it hapuries; and Herodotus himself, after having ta- pened that Xerxes was used to make only one ken the pains to reckon the prodigious quantity meal in the day. The principal inconvenience of corn that would be required- for' each day's that the army felt, arose from an occasional consumption by the men, despairs of approach- scarcity of water. HIerodotus mentions several ing the additional sum to be allowed for the rivers which did not yield a sufficient supply. women, the eunuchs, the cattle, and the dogs. Among the preparations that had been made The real military strength of the armament for the campaign was a bridge thrown over the' was almost lost among the undisciplined herds, Strymon. When Xerxes arrived on the banks which could only impede its movements, as of this river, his magian priests made a sacriwell as consume its stores. The Persians fice of white horses, and exerted -their charms were the core both of the land and sea force: to propitiate the stream. But on the site of none of the other trodps are said to have equal-' Amphipolis, then called the Nine Ways, they led them in discipline or in courage; and the celebrated a more horrid rite, suggested by the four-and-twenty thousand men who guarded the name. For some cause, which, perhaps, they royal person were the flower of the whole na- alone understood, they thought fit to bury alive tion. Yet these, as we see from their glitter- a boy and a maid, natives of the place, for each ing armour, as well as from their performances, of the Nine Ways. Herodotus remarks that a were much better fitted for show than for ac- queen of Xerxes afterward offered fourteen viction, and of the rest we hear that they were dis- tims, children of noble Persians, in the same tinguished from the mass of the army, not only manner, to an infernal deity. At Acanthus' by their superior order and valour, but also by Xerxes stopped to survey the wonderful canal the abundance of gold they displayed, by the by which the fleet was saved from the danger train of carriages, women, and servants that of doubling Mount Athos. He found the Acanfollowed them, and by the provisions set apart thians zealous in his cause, and honoured them for their use. Though Xerxes himself was with peculiar marks of his favour. They had elated with the spectacle he viewed on the probably reaped no little gain from the work plains and the shores of Doriscus, it must have which had so long employed a vast multitude in filled the clear-sighted Greeks who accompanied the neighbourhood of their city, and looked forhim with misgivings as to the issue of the en- ward to permanent advantages from the canal terprise. The language of Demaratus, in the itself. And hence, perhaps, it arose that a Perconversation which Herodotus supposes him sian of thigh birth, who had superintended the to have had with Xerxes after the review, undertaking, and who happened to die while though it was probably never uttered, expressed Xerxes was staying with them, was ever after thoughts which could scarcely fail to occur to' honoured by them with sacrifices as a hero. At the Spartan. Poverty, he is made to observe, Acanthus the army for the first time parted with was the endowment which Greece had received the fleet, and left the coast to strike across the from nature; but law and reason had armed Ohalcidian peninsula to Therme, a small town her with instruments, with which she had cul- from which the gulf, afterward called from Thes. tivated her barren inheritance, and might still salonica, then took its name. Here, after the hope to repel the invasion even of Xerxes and naval armament had coasted the intervening his host.: bays, and had strengthened itself with ships From Doriscus the army pursue/dRts march and men drawn from thy Chalcidian ports, the along the coast, accompanied by the fleet, two forces again met. During the stay of the through a region which had been already sub- armament at Therme, Xerxes indulged his cu dued in the expeditions of Megabazus and Mar- riosity by sailing to the mouth of the Peneus, donius. As it advanced it still swelled its. num — and viewing the remarkable defile through which 252 HISTORY OF GREECE. it issues from the Thessalian plains. He heard puted masters of their country, were willing to the legends of the place, and learned the nature be vassals of a foreign king; but the Thessaof the land,-and, it is said, commended the pru- lians were so far from consenting to their treachdence of the Thessalians in averting the del- ery, that when Xerxes was about to cross over uge, with which he could have overwhelmed into Europe, they had sent to the congress of their fields, by timely submission. the Greek states assembled at the Isthmus to While Asia was agitated with the stir of the call upon them for assistance in defending their Persian preparations, Greece could not be per- passes against invasion. At the same time, fectly tranquil, and those states more espe- however, they declared their own inability to cially which had most to fear from a successful protect themselves against the threatened atinvasion must have be6n early disquieted by tack, and that, if they were abandoned by their the rumour of the great armament which Da- allies, they should be compelled to make the rius had begun to raise immediately after the best terms they could with the enemy. Xerxes, battle of Marathon. Yet the confidence pro- while he wintered at Sardis, had sent envoys duced by the recent triumph, the uncertainty of to Greece to demand earth and-water from evthe enemy's designs, and afterward the revolt ery state except Athens and Sparta; and the of Egypt, retarded the counsels of the Greeks, Thessalians had complied, perhaps while they and prevented them from making active use of were still uncertain about the succour they the time which they might have employed in might expect, and without thinking themselves preparing for their defence. At length, when bound by this act of homage, if they should be the Egyptian insurrection was suppressed, and able to retract it with safety. Their example the intention with which the new king was was followed by all the tribes seated between prosecuting the preparations begun by his fa- them and the chain of (Eta, and even by the ther was placed beyond doubt, the leading states, Locrians, who, nevertheless, did not desert the and those which breathed the same spirit, felt cause of Greece. The Phocians, whose land the necessity of providing against the impend- lay next in the line of the enemy's march, did ing danger. After Xerxes had come to Sardis, not fear the Persians so much as they hated the they sent spies to ascertain the truth of the ru- Thessalians. From old times enmity had premours they heard about the vast armament col- vailed between the two. neighbours, and had lected there. The spies were detected at Sar- been inflamed to the most violent rancour by dis, but were dismissed by the king's orders af- events which had occurred but a few years beter they had been invited to inspect the whole fore the expedition of Xerxes. The Thessa-'strength of his mighty host, less, perhaps, lians had invaded Phocis with an overpowering through either mercy or pride than in the hope force, but the Phocians had surprised and dethat the report which they would carry back feated them with great slaughter. The vanmight crush the spirit of those who sent them. quished people never forgave this blow, and The strength of Greece lay in the union of her yielded to the Persians with the less reluctance sons; without this, the natural barriers which from their eagerness to revenge it; while the the land opposed to an invader would become Phocians, if the side they took was not, as useless, and no effectual resistance could be Herodotus believed, entirely determined by the made by arms. The most pressing, therefore, opposite choice of the Thessalians, were at of all concerns was to combine the whole na- least confirmed by it in their zeal for the good tion, by one heart and one mind, against the cause. The mountaineers of Doris did not share common enemy; when this was done, it only this feelinl; they were too weak to think of remained to defend, with firmness and caution, resistance, and not ardent enough to conceive the bulwarks which nature had reared for its the resolution of abandoning their towns. In protection. But as the need was urgent, the Bceotia Thebes was predominant; in Thebes difficulty was great. The views and feelings itself the government was in the hands of a few of the Grecian states varied in respect to the families. They hated and feared Athens not threatened invasion almost as much as their only as an old rival of Thebes, but as the enenatural situations: not that there was any- my of their own political power. On the other' where wanting in the body of the people a warm hand, Thespiae and Platea were united with Atlove of independence, and a strong aversion to tica by their hatred and dread of Thebes. Thus, foreign dominion, however mildly it might be in the states north of the Isthmus, selfish aims exercised; but this unanimity, in many cases, and angry passions, in many cases, overcame was suppressed either by other passions and all concern for the public safety and the comrn interests, which, though they could not extin- mon weal; and even where the better cause'guish the national feeling, counteracted it, or prevailed, it seldom owed its triumph to pure by political relations, which tended to thwart and generous motives. the public cause. Within the peninsula likewise causes were at The Thessalian house of the Aleuads, as we work to prevent it from exerting its whole have seen, had urged Xerxes to the expedition strength. The greater part of the Peloponneagainst Greece, and, they had led him to be- sian states, indeed, were either allies of Sparta lieve that they expressed the wishes of the or subject to herinfluence. But'two were led whole Thessalian people; but, in reality, they to keep aloof chiefly by the jealousy and averhad only consulted their own private ambition, sion they felt towards her. Her old rival, Arand their countrymen, perhaps, did not know, gos, was t this time only beginning to recover and certainly did not approve, of their proceed- from a 4ow with which Sparta had almost ing. Three brothers, sons of a younger Aleuas, crushed her some years before. The epoch of were at this time the chiefs of the house; they this event is not precisely marked: Pausanias* were desirous of strengthening their power by the help of the Persians, and, to become undi- * iii., 3, 10, $9 Mr. Ciinton, F. H. ii, p 425. STATE OF GREECE. 253 sayshlat it took place immediately after the ac- ought to take, after. the recent stroke by which cession of Cleomenes, but all circumstances Cleomenes had deprived her of six thousand of agree in assigning it to a much later period in her citizens. The answer was such as she dehis reign. Cleomenes had been encouraged by sired, and probably had dictated: it enjoined an answer from Delphi to make an attempt upon her to shield herself from the danger and reArgos. Deterred by the presages of the border main quiet. While the remembrance of the insacrifice from invading the Argive territory on jury she had suffered was still fresh, it was difthe side of Arcadia, he transported his army ficult for her to distinguish the cause of Sparta across the gulf to Nauplia, with the assistance from that of Greece; and,if, as Herodotus heard of some Sicyonian and.Eginetan vessels which it commonly reported, Xerxes sent emissaries he drew or forced into his service. In the plain to Argos, they were sure to find the Argives below Tiryns he was met by the whole force of well disposed to receive the genealogical fiction, Argos, and during some days the two armies which was probably invented for this occasion, watched each other's movements, and the Ar- that their hero Perseus was the founder of the gives, for greater security, regulated their meals Persian race. At all events, the Persians would by the example of the Spartans. This, it is said, not treat them less like brothers than the Sparsuggested a stratagem to Cleomenes, by which tans; and, therefore, when the confederate he took them off their guard, and made a great Greeks called on them for aid, they eluded the slaughter of them. The main body of those who application by a demand which they knew would escaped from the carnage took refuge in a not be granted. "' They might fairly claim the neighbouring enclosure sacred to the hero Ar- supreme direction of the war, for Sparta ought gus. Cleomenes, fearful of violating the hal- to acknowledge the pre-eminent dignity of Arlowed precincts, first attempted to draw them gos; but they would be content with an equal into his power by an artifice, but when this was share in the command; yet, that Sparta might discovered, he ordered his Helots to heap wood not take advantage of their weakness to renew round the grove of the sanctuary and set it on her unjust aggression, they required that she fire. The flames spread through the whole con- should conclude a truce with them for thirty secrated ground, and all within perished. Cle- years." The last point the Spartans would have ofienes appears o0 have made use of his victo- conceded, but they would not condescend to a ry as might have been expected, and to have claim of a humbled rival, which they would not led his army against Argos, thus bereft of its have admitted even if her power had been undefenders. But the remnant of the citizens, diminished; and, to meet the dissimulation of the young, the old, and especially the women, Argos as decency required, they offered to give animated, it is said, by the strains of the poet- the Argive king an equal voice with each of ess Telesilla, made so brave a stand that he their own. This proposal was rejected, negowas unable to storm the town, and moved, per- tiation was broken off, and Argos remained a haps, by superstitious fears, marched back to passive spectator of the war. She could not,' Sparta. The Argives afterward honoured the however, force the other towns of Argolis to genius and the courage of Telesilla by a statue, follow her example, and even Mycenae shamed which represented her holding a helmet in her her by the zeal she displayed. A motive of a hand, while her books lay at her feet; and an similar kind, but which does not afford so good oracle recorded by Herodotus, though he does ground for excuse, seems to have kept Achaea not mention the event, ascribes the deliverance likewise inactive. After so many ages the of the city to female prowess.* But Argos had Acheeans had not yet forgotten or forgiven the lost six thousand men, the flower and core of invasion by which they had been expelled from its population; most of the hands that had their original seats, now occupied by the Sparwielded the power of the state, as well as tans, and had not learned to look upon the Doguarded it, were gone; and its subjects, who rians as their brethren, even when threatened had hitherto been excluded from all share in the by a barbarian enemy. The conduct of the government, now met with no opposition when Achaeans on this occasion is the only great stain they claimed the rights of citizens. This for- that sullies the fair history of that noble people. ced admission of the inhabitants of the sur- Every lover of freedom must wish to have read rounding district, as it is described by Aristotle, their name among the conquerors of Salamis assumes a more romantic form in the narrative and Plataea. of Herodotus, who relates that the slaves of the The discovery of so much lukewarmness and Argives rose at the death of their masters, and so many unworthy feelings at such a season seized the reins of government, which they was disheartening to those who were ready to kept in their hands till the next generation had- stake everything for liberty. The two leading grown up and claimed the inheritance of their states, however, the principal parties in the fathers, when the intruders were forced to quit war, themselves'prepared for the last extremithe city, and withdrew to Tiryns. We see in ty, calmly availed themselves of all the means this account clear traces of a revolution, by at their command. Each had many excellent which the posterity of the old citizens, when citizens; and in Sparta the wild Cleomenes they became strong enough, deprived the new had been succeeded by his brother Leonidas. freemen of their privileges. While the Persian Athens possessed several great men equal to invasion was impending, Argos had sent to the the great occasion; but one was now the soul Delphic oracle for advice as to the part she of her counsels. The chance which deprived her of Miltiades had perhaps been fortunate, * Mueller, Dor., 1, 8, 6, note 1, rejects the story of Telesilla, and seems to think that it arose out of the statue, to the emergency —for Themistocles. His fawhich he conceives to have been meant for an Aphrodite ther, Neocles, was a man of high birth after the armitgherself. But this explanation is omitted in the Eng- Athenian standard, as connected with the priest lish translation. 254 HISTORY OF GREECE. Iy house of the LycomedaM; but his mother was stooping to any private advantage that',,y ou not a-citizen, and, according to most accounts, his road. It is not surprising that a man of such not even a Greek. His patrimony seems to -a mould should have come into frequent conflict have been ample for a man of less aspiring tem- with a statesman like Themistocles, though per. The anecdotes related of his youthful their immediate object was the same, and wilfulness and waywardness, of his earnest ap- though there was no great discordance between plication to the pursuit of useful knowledge, of their general views of the public interest. Arishis neglect of the elegant arts, which already tides knew no cause but that of justice and the formed part of an Athenian education, of his common weal; no party but its friends. Theprofusion and his avarice, of the sleepless nights mistocles had formed or entered into a union in which he meditated on the trophies of Milti- with men who were pledged to mutual protecades, all point, with fhore or less of particular tion and assistance, and he did not always truth, the same way: to a soul early bent on shrink from sacrificing the service of the people great objects, and formed to pursue them with to his friends and adherents; he connived at steady resolution, incapable of being diverted their offences, seconded them in their undertaby trifles, embarrassed by scruples, or deterred kings, and used their aid to further his views. by difficulties. The end he aimed at was not In all such cases, a neutral and independent merely the good of his country, but, still less, man, who kept aloof from all factions, and exany petty mark of selfish cupidity. The pur- posed and resisted corrupt practices wherever pose of his life was to make Athens great and he perceived them, might easily become a powerful, that he himself might move and com- troublesome adversary. Characters like that mand in a large sphere. The genius with of Aristides, even when there is nothing rugged which nature had endowed him warranted this and forbidding in their exterior, are seldom noble ambition, and it was marvellously suited loved; and so, probably, there were many at to the critical circumstances in which he was Athens who were not only displeased that one placed by fortune. The peculiar faculty of his man should be distinguished by the epithet of mind, which Thucydides contemplated with ad- the Just,* but -were offended by the vigilance miration, was the quickness with which it and severity with which he detected abuses seized every object that came in its way, per- and guarded the public welfare. Without hayvceived the course of action required by new ing incurred accusation or reproach, without situations and sudden junctures, and penetrated being suspected of any ambitious designs, he into remote consequences. Such were the was sent by the ostracism into honourable banabilities which at this period were most need- ishment, as the wise Hermotimus by the Epheed for the service of Athens. sians, because he had no equal in the highest At the time when Themistocles was begin- virtue. There is a pleasing story that he assistning to rise into credit with his fellow-citizens, ed an illiterate countryman in writing his own another man of very different character already name on one of the sherds that condemned him possessed their respect and confidence. This (B.C. 483). was Aristides, son of Lysimachus. He was His removal left Themistocles in almost unsprung from an ancient and noble family, one divided possession of the popular favour. His branch of which was distinguished for its great thoughts had long been turned towards the wealth; Callias, the richest man in Athens, struggle that was now approaching. He had and the hereditary torch-bearer in the Eleusini- seen that Athens could not remain stationary; an mysteries,* Was his cousin; his own fortune that she must either cease to exist as an indeeither was from the first, or became, through pendent state, or else must take up a new poneglect or the disasters of the times, so small, sition, and rise to a new rank in Greece; and that it is said to have been made a ground of this, it was evident, she could only do by cultiaccusation against Callias, that he suffered his vating the capacity she had received from nakinsman to be reduced to indigence. It is at ture of becoming a great maritime power. least certain that Aristides left his family de- Early in the interval between the first and the pendant on the public bounty at his death, second Persian invasion, he had dexterously though the offices he had filled were those prevailed on the people to take one step towards which, of all others, afforded the amplest oppor- this end, by making a sacrifice of individual tunities of enriching himself with perfect safe- emolument for the sake of a great general good. ty. The degree in which this fact marks his The silver-mines of Laurion were at this time character can only be duly estimated when it is one of the most productive sources' of the pubconsidered that such integrity was one of the lic revenue; they were farmed in small parcels rarest virtues, both in this and in all subsequent periods, at Athens. Though not in itself admi- * Wachsmuth, 1. 2, p. 56, thinks that it would be more proper to call Aristides the Disinterested. But we camno rable or heroic, it was yet the index of a quality help thinking that this negative epithet falls short of his which, unfortunately, has never been common real merit, as it does of what his contemporaries meant to in any age or country. Aristides appears, express by the epithet Abratos. There are only two things related of him which may seem to render his claim to the throughout the whole course of his history, as title doubtful: one, that he resisted measures proposed by one of the few men who have not merely ab- Themistocles, though they tended to promote the public stained from wrong, but have loved right, truth, good, that they might not increase the influence of their and equity, and hated and resisted all things op- author; the other, that he sometimes sacrificed justice to and equity, and hated and resisted all hings op- the advantage of the state (Plut., Arist., 3, 25). But the posed to them with the steadiness of instinct. first of these points is perhaps no more than an uncertain He too, like Themistocles, had the welfare of inference from the saying attributed to him about his conA4thelns at heart, but simply and singly, not as an tests with Themistocles, which, however conscientious the part he took in them, might still be injurious to the pubinstrument, but as an end. On this he kept his lic interest. That his justice was limited by his patrioteye, without looking to any mark beyond it, or ism, as Theophrastus asserted, is probable enough, though there is no clear example recorded; but this would rather * Aac&XoS. be an error in principle than a-failure in practice. ATHENIAN NAVY —GELO. 255 to hereditary tenants, who, besides a sum paid use with the successful party, whatever might for the right of working them, rendered a fixed be the issue of the war. Their squadron was portion of the produce of the state. This rent detained, they afterward alleged, by contrary the people had hitherto enjoyed like the profits winds, which prevented it from doubling Malea, of a private partnership, by sharing it equally and from arriving before the hour of need was among them; it was one year unusually large, past: they did not attempt to carry it over the and would have yielded to each citizen of the Isthmus. Perhaps hostility to Corinth enforced poorer class a sum which would have been felt the suggestions of their narrow prudence. as an important addition to his ordinary in- Other envoys, among whom was one from come.* Themistocles persuaded them to fore- Sparta and one from Athens, were also charged go this advantage, and to apply the'fund to the with a mission to Sicily, where Gelo was now enlargement of their navy. Yet it was not by master of Syracuse. Gelo belonged to that holding out the danger of a new Persian inva- class of bold, crafty, and fortunate usurpers of sion that he gained their consent, but by ap- which we have already seen so many examples; pealing to their hatred and jealousy of XEgina, but his elevation to the tyranny at Syracuse was which was still at war with them, and was mis- distinguished by some peculiar circumstances. tress of the sea. To be able to cope with this His family, which sprang from the Isle of Telos, formidable rival, they built a hundred new gal- had been settled in Gela ever since that city leys, and thus increased their naval force to two was founded by the Rhodians, and one of his hundred ships,t and it was probably at the same ancestors had acquired the dignity of hereditary time that they were persuaded to pass a decree hierophant in a mystic worship by the address which directed twenty triremes to be built eve- with which he had applied the influence of rery year.+ The conqueror of Marathon is said ligion to compose the strife of parties at Gela. to have opposed this augmentation of the ma- Gelo had early attached himself to the fortunes rine. But it is not probable that. the jealousy of Hippocrates, who, on the death of his brothto which his opposition is attributed, and which er Cleander, had succeeded him as tyrant of we shall find very active in the sequel, was Gela, and afterward added several Greek towns awakened so soon. in the east of the island, as well as many of the While Xerxes was wintering at Sardis, the biarbarian tribes, to his dominions. He had Greek states which adhered to the cause of lib- gained a victory over the Syracusans, which crty sent envoys to hold a congress at the Isth- reduced them to such distress that they were mus. [I Their first consultations were directed to forced to solicit the good offices of the Corinthicementing the union of Greece, and to strength- ans and the Corcyraeans, who were only able ening it with all the succours they could obtain to make their peace on condition of their ceding from without. They began by mediating be- the town of Camarina, which had been always tween Athens and.Egina, and induced them to subject to them, to Hippocrates. In these wars bury, or, at least, to suspend their old enmity. Gelo had served his master with so. much zeal They sent envoys, as we have seen, to Argos, and ability that he had been promoted to the and, with no better success, to Crete..The command of all his cavalry; and when HipCretans raked up a legend out of their mythical pocrates had fallen in an expedition against antiquity about the disastrous expedition of Mi- the Sicels of Hybla, and the people of Gela atnos to Sicily, and that of his subjects who sail- tempted to extricate themselves from the yoke ed in search of him, and, under cover of a con- of their tyrant's sons,#elo suppressed the revenient oracle, with a decent profession of re- volt; but, instead of restoring the sovereignty gret, refused their aid.~T. The Corcyraeans, whose to the'heirs of his benefactor, he kept it in his naval force was among the most powerful in own hands (B.C. 491). A few years after he Greece, received the ambassadors of the con- had thus mide himself master of Gela, chance gress with assurances of their good-will, and threw a still more important conquest in his promised to prove it by sending a fleet to take way. The commonalty of Syracuse had united part in the conflict. They accordingly manned with the serfs* to overthrow the dominion of sixty ships; but, as the event seemed to show, their lords, the descendants of the original colwithout any other intention than that of provi- onists, who occupied the best part of the land, ding themselves with a plea which they might and engrossed all political power, but were weakened by a feud, which arose out of the vi* Ten drachmas: according to Boeckh's calculation ces and passions of two members of their own (Staat., i;, c. 20), an Athenian, at this time, might have body.t The oligarchs were expelled, and took lived on 100 drachmas a year. t In this way, perhaps, the statement of Herodotus, vii., refuge in Casmenae. It seems probable that 144, may be reconciled with those of Plutarch., Them., 4; both parties addressed themselves to Gelo, and Polynnus, 1, 30, 5; and Nepos, Th., 2, who seems to have accepted him as arbitrator of their differences. confounded the 2Eginetans with the Corcyraeans. t Diodorus, xi., 43, assigns this decree to a later period. At least we find that the commonalty opened But See Boeckh, Staats., ii., c. 19.. ~ Plut., Them., 4. the gates to him, though he came to bring back t{ Mueller, Proleg., z. e. w. M., p. 407, folio, has shown their adversaries. He now acted over again that the assembly described Herod., v11i., 145, was held on hae Isthmus, where it received the envoys of the Thessali- the same part which he had played so successans (vii., 172), and to which the army returned as to its fully at Gela, and made himself absolute lord headquarters (c., 173); and that it met in the autumn be- of Syracuse and of both the parties (B.C. 485). fore the invasion, since the Thessalians must then have heard that it was impending, and they sent to the Istnus Henceforth, committing Gela to the care of his as soon as they received the news (c. 172). It appears, in- brother Hiero, he bent all his thoughts on indeed, from vii., 145, that the congress was assembled, and creasing -the strength of his new capital. He had mediated between Athens and 2Egina, and been enga- razed Camarina to the ground, and transplanted ged in other proceedings of a like nature, before it received intelligence of the king's arrival at Sardis, which must have reached it early. * The Kv)Xtiptot or KtXX1cv'ptot (see Welcker or Theog~ Yet Ctesias, c. 26, speaks of Cretan bowmen at Sal- nis, p. xix.). amis. t Aristot., Pol., v., 3, 1. Plut., Reip. prac., 32. 256 HISTORY OF GREECE. its entire population, and one half of that of Ge- Had their resolution been the result of the mala, to Syracuse. On the other hand, by a very turest deliberation, it would not have been wirefined stroke of policy, he introduced-a coun- ser, more becoming, or more truly politic. The terpoise to the democratical ascendency which only feature in the conversation which might these measures tended to create. He seems raise a doubt is the part attributed to the'Athehitherto to have been considered as a friend of nian: that he should have taken such a tone, the community, and the oligarchs of Megara when the naval power of Athens had been so made war upon him apparently from no other lately raised to a bare equality with A.Egina, motive., He laid siege to Megara, and forced though not incredible, is a little surprising; them to surrender at discretion. But when but that Athens and Sparta should have perthey expected the most rigorous fate, as the mitted a Sicilian tylant to assume the supreme sole authors of a war to which the Megarian command of their fleet and army, that they commonalty was known to be averse, he disap- should have confessed themselves dependant on pointed both by admitting the nobles to the priv- him for their existence, even without looking ileges of Syracusan citizens, while he consign- to the remoter consequences of such a proed their unoffending subjects to slavery. and tectorship, would have been no less perilous transportation. He afterward treated the two than degrading. Had they been capable of contending parties of the Sicilian Euboea in like yielding to such a demand, had they not felt the manner. The implacable animosity of the two pride which spurned at it, they could scarcely classes which he thus brought together, and have placed themselves in the condition that between which he probably observed a strict called for the rejected succour, or have shown neutrality, was no doubt the firmest ground- how well they could do without it. work of his dominion. But he seems to have The Sicilian Greeks wished it to be believed wielded the power which he had usurped by that, even after his terms had been refused, means of this long tissue of fraud and violence Gelo would still have come to the assistance of with equity and mildness. No Grecian state the Greeks in. the moment of danger, if he had had the means of raising a force equal to that not been detained by the Carthaginian invawhich he had at his command. The fame of sion, which he repulsed about the same time his greatness and power had spread far and that Xerxes was driven out of Greece. But wide; the value of his alliance seems to have this favourable supposition is scarcely consistbeen well understood, and it is probable that no ent with the conduct which he really adopted. slight cause would have induced the Greeks to Herodotus relates that he intrusted Cadmus, a forego it. When the envoys laid their request native of Cos, who had freely resigned the tyrbefore him, he at first expostulated with them anny in his own city, and had retired to Sicily, on the neglect with which their countrymen had with a shipload of treasure, a speech of fair treated proposals which he himself had former- words, and an offer of earth and water, to be ly made to them for an alliance. He had in laid at the feet of Xerxes if he proved victorivain called upon them for assistance against ous. Cadmus sailed to Delphi, and there watchthe Carthaginians and the Tuscan pirates, who ed the issue of the struggle, and when it ended infested their commerce as well as that of the in favour of the Greeks, returned with his trust Sicilians and the Egesteeans, on whom they had to Gelo. to avenge the death of Dorieus. Yet he would In the mean while, Themistocles was busied not now turn away fryi their distress, but was in allaying animosity and silencing disputes ready to succour them with an armament of among the Grecian cities. He was seconded two hundred triremes, twenty thousand heavy- in this noble task by a man of whom we should armed foot, two thousand heavy and as many wish to have known more than we do-an Arlight horse, as many bowmen, and as many cadian of Tegeanamed Cheileos. At the same slingers, and to furnish provisions throughout time, he used every expedient for cherishing' the war for the whole Grecian army. The only the ardour and bracing the energy of his felcondition he tacked to his offer was, "that he low-citizens; for it must have been during this should be allowed the command of the allied period that he procured a decree to be passed forces." On hearing this proposal, the Spartan condemning Arthmius of Zelea and all his posSyagrus is said to have taken fire, and to have terity to outlawry. Arthmius had been emexpressed his indignation at the -presumption ployed, probably with the envoys whom Xerxes of a Sicilian Greek who aspired to a pre-emi- sent from Sardis, to scatter Persian gold and nence which exclusively belonged to Sparta: promises in Peloponnesus. In the time of De" the shade of Agamemnon would groan at such mosthenes, a brazen pillar recorded the offence disgrace." His Athenian colleague likewise and the sentence of this emissary, who was declared that his city would resign the com- shut out from the protection of the laws, and mand of the naval force to no other power but might be killed with impunity by any Athenian the Spartans. Gelo then calmly observed that who lighted on him. Another proceeding of they seemed likely to be better supplied with Themistocles, which can, perhaps, only be jusgenerals than with troops, and bade them tell tified by the extraordinary circumstances of the the Greeks that they had lost the spring out of case, was evidently dictated by the same motheir year: such he deemed his.own succour tive. He caused an interpreter who aceompato their cause. nied the Persian envoys to be put to death for If the spirit of this conference has been faith- daring to use the Greek tongue to: utter the fully preserved by Herodotus, the offers of Gelo commands of the barbarian king. In the same were generousr and they were rejected on spirit, the assembled deputies bound themselves, grounds which seem to savour of blind confi- in the name of the Greeks, by an oath, to condence and overweening arrogance. Thee en- secrate to the god at Delphi a tenth of the subJoys, indeed, speak hastily, yet not rashly. stance of every Grecian people which, without CONGRESS AT THE ISTHMUS.-PROGRESS OF THE PERSIANS. 957 being compelled by necessity, had surrendered though not hostile to Athens, could not acitself to the Persians. knowledge an Ionian leader without a considerThe next care of the congress at the Isth- able sacrifice of national prejudices. mus, after their endeavours to unite the nation While the Persian army was waiting at Piein the common cause, was to decide on their ria till a road had been opened for it through the place of defence. Their first step was deter- thick forest that clothed fhe sides of the Cammined by the call of the Thessalians, who, as bunian Hills, or soon after it had crossed over we have seen, notwithstanding the treachery into Thessaly, a squadron of ten fast-sailing of the Aleuads, were willing, if supported by ships was detached from the fleet of Therme the allied forces, to resist the invader on their to obtain intelligence about the movements of border. They invited the deputies to send a the Greeks. Off the island of tSciathus they strong body of troops to guard the pass of Tem- fell in with three Greek ships, which were pe. It seems not to have occurred to any one there stationed on the look-out, one an Athethat this position would be useless, and that an nian, the others of Trcezen and.Egina. They expedition to Thessaly would answer no pur- took to flight at the sight of the Persians, who pose, unless it was made with the intention of pursued and captured the Trcezenian, and, after giving the enemy battle in the Thessalian plain, a brave struggle, the z.Eginetan. The victors a field much more favourable to the invading selected the comeliest man they found among army than to the weaker force. A body of their Trcezenian prisoners, and sacrificed him 10,000 men was sent, while Xerxes was pre- at the prow of his ship for an omen of victory: paring for his passage at Abydos, under the this fearful superstition, however, did not precommand of Eunenetus, a Spartan, and of The- vent them from paying a generous respect to mistocles, to take possession of Tempe. While the valour of Pytheas the 2Eginetan, who, after they were encamped there, they received a his ship was taken, fought till he was almost message from Alexander, now king of Mace- cut to pieces. The Athenians ran their vessel don, exhorting them to withdraw, and not to aground in the mouth of the Peneus, and made wait till they were trampled under foot by the their way home through Thessaly. This first invading host.. At the same time they discov- appearance of the enemy was speedily announered that Thessaly lay open to the fasses over ced by fire-signals from Sciathus to the Greeks the Cambunian range, and that the enemy at Artemisium. The alarm it excited was so would be able to hem them in on every side. great, that the admiral resolved on quitting They therefore took the advice of the Macedo- this station, and retiring to Chalcis, where a nian, and marched back to the Isthmus. few ships might defend the Euripus: before he The next defensible position appeared to be sailed away, he set watches on the heights of the Pass of Thermopylee, and here it was re-. Eubcea, to secure the earliest intelligence of solved to make a stand, and, at the same time, the hostile armament. The Persian squadron, to guard the northern entrance of the Eubcean after setting up a stone pillar to mark a danger channel. Accordingly, when the news came ous rock in the channel between Sciathus and that the Persians were in Pieria, on the borders Magnesa, returned to Therme with the report of Thessaly, more than two thirds of the whole that the coast was clear. On this information, naval force set sail for the north coast of Eubeea, the whole fleet got under way eleven days afand a small body of Peloponnesians began its ter Xerxes began his march from Therme, and march for Thermopylhe. the same evening came to anchor on the southThe northern side of Eubcea afforded a com- ern coast of Magnesia. From the mouth of the modious and advantageous station: it was a Peneus to the Gulf of Pagasme the whole coast long beach, called, from a temple at its eastern is rugged, and destitute of harbours, and even extremity, Artemisium, capable of receiving of good roadsteads, but more especially at the:the galleys if it should be necessary to draw foot of Ossa and of Pelion. Night overtook the them upon the shore, and commanding a view Persians before they could reach the Pegaseeof the open sea and the coast of Magnesia, and an Gulf; but under the brow of Pelion they consequently an opportunity of watching the found a beach, stretching from the town of enemy's movements as he advanced towards the Canastaea to the Cape of Sepias, and here theysouth; while, on the other hand, its short dis- resolved to wait for the morning. As the low tance from Thermopyle enabled the fleet to shore was of small extent in proportion to their keep up a quick and easy communication with numbers, only a small part of the ships could the land force. Here, therefore, 271 triremes be drawn up on the beach; the rest rode at anwere stationed under the Spartan admiral Eu- chor, their sterns turned towards the sea, line rybiades. A Spartan had been appointed to the within line. The night (it was the middle of command, though the Lacedaemonians sent only summer) was fair and calm; but when the ten ships, by the desire of the allies, who refu- dawn was beginning to break, a ripple and- ased to obey an Athenian. Yet Athens manned swell of the sea gave notice of an approaching 127 ships, and also supplied the Chalcidians change. As the wind rose from the northeast; with twenty others. It may have been prin- those who paid heed to the signs of the weathcipally the jealousy of 2Egina that led to the er, and could find a place of shelter, secured determination not to submit to Athenian com- themselves from the coming storm; but on the. mand. The force she sent on this occasion, rest it burst with irresistible fury. The ships eighteen triremes, bore no proportion to her were torn from their anchorage, driven against power, and to the end of the war she husbanded each other, and dashed upon the cliffs. The ler navy under the plea of protecting her own tempest raged with unabated violence for three 3hores. Corinth contributed forty sail, Megara days and nights. The commanders began to twenty, and the rest were chiefly drawn from fear lest the Thessalians should be encouraged the Dorian cities of Peloponnesus, which, by the general confusion to fall upon them, and VOL I.-K B t25s HISTORY OF GREECE. complete theil ruin; and they hastily formed a ed) as the price of his endeavours to detain tne high fence out of the wrecks round the fleet fleet at Artemisium, he employed a part of the that was drawn up on the beach. In the mean sum in bribing the admiral Eurybiades and the while the Magians were not idle: they kept re- Corinthian commander Adeimantus, and thus peating their incantations, and offering sacri- induced them to change their resolution. We fices to the wind, and to Thetis and the Nere- would willingly agree with Plutarch in rejecting ids, when they heard trom the Ionians that the this story as one of the nurmberless, scandalous, fatal coast was sacred to these powers. At and groundless anecdotes which Herodotus length the storm subsided; but for many miles must have found in circulation, such as commonthe shores were strewed with wrecks and with ly spring up in abundance, after a period big corpses. The ships of war destroyed were with great events, in minds that love to trace reckoned, on the lowest calculation, at 400: them to secret and little causes. But, whatevthe lives, the transports, the stores, the treas- er foundation it may have had, the Greeks not ure lost, were past counting. When the sea only stayed, but soon recovered from their first grew calm, the remains of the fleet doubled the astonishment, and did not shrink from looking southern headland of Magnesia, and put into the enemy in the face. They had received earthe Gulf of Pagase; where they moored in the ly information of his plans from a man named harbour of Aphetee close at its mouth. Scyllias, who deserted to them from Aphetae, The joy with which the Greeks observed the and was so famous as a diver that he was comrising and the continued raging of the tempest, monly believed to have traversed the whole inwas proportioned to the fears which the first tervening space, about ten miles, under water. approach of the barbarian armament had exci- The news reached them in the morning, and it ted in them. It was afterward believed that was determined to wait till midnight, and then the event had been signified by oracles, which sail to meet the squadron which had been sent bade the Delphians sacrifice to the wind, and the round Euboea. In the mean while the Persians Athenians to Boreas, their kindred god, who had did not move from their station at Aphetee, for carried offfOrithyia, the daughter of Erechtheus, they feared lest they should scare their puny from the banks of the Ilissus. They now grate- enemy to flight: they deemed their own ships fully acknowledged his friendly succour, and not superior, Abt only in numbers, but as sailers. only sacrificed with earnest invocations to him The Greeks were surprised at their inaction, and to their native heroine, while the storm and having waited till noon expecting an attack, lasted, but afterward raised a temple to him on they then resolved to venture out and try their the Ilissus. The day after the gale got up, strength. The Persians were astonished at while it was at its height, the scouts, who had their foolhardiness, and hastened to meet and been left to look out for the enemy, came to enclose them. They formed a circle round Chalcis with such a description of its effects, them; the Greeks first drew their line into a that every one believed the whole armada to be smaller circle, with their prows facing the suralmost utterly ruined, and after a thanksgiving rounding enemy, and then, at the signal, darted and a libation to Poseidon, the fleet returned to forward, like rays, to pierce and break the wall its former station at Artemisium, to complete the of ships that encompassed them. The Persians victory which the gods had begun. It arrived were thrown into disorder by the attack, and in time to capture fifteen Persian ships, which lost thirty ships, but the combat was still unde — had been detained at Sepias after the departure cided, when the approach of night put an end of the main body, and as they followed in search to it. Each party returned to his station with of it, seeing the Greeks off Artemisium, took altered feelings, the Persians perplexed and disthem for friends, and only discovered their er- heartened, the Greeks with new hopes. They ror when they had gone too far to retreat. had gained, not, indeed, a clear victory, but a The loss the Persians had suffered, though pledge of one; confidence in their own strength, it amounted to a number exceeding that of the and insight into the enemy's weakness. It was whole Grecian fleet, was scarcely felt in their with good reason Pindar afterward celebrated huge armament. When, from their station at Artemisium as the place "where the sons of Aphetee, they perceived the slender force of Athens laid the shining groundwork of freetheir adversary, their only concern was to pre- dom." vent him from escaping: they could not ima- In the following night another violent sumgine that he would venture on a contest. They mer storm, accompanied with torrents of rain, therefore, without delay, detached a squadron thunder, and lightning, terrified more than it of 200 sail, with orders to make for the north, hurt the Persians at Apheta!, where the road that their object might not be suspected, but was choked with the wrecks and the bodies that when they had got out to sea beyond Sciathus, were driven in from the scene of the action. to bear away to the south, round the southern But the same storm overtook the squadron that extremity of Eubcea, and then sail up the chan- was sailing round Euboea with perhaps greater nel, and cut off the retreat of the Greeks. The fury, and off a part of the coast infamous in anGreeks, on their part, who had persuaded them- cient times under the name of Ccela (the Holselves that they should scarcely find an enemy lows). This terrible place probably lay on the to combat, were at first thrown into consterna- eastern side of the island, which, throughout tion by the sight of the power opposed to them, the whole line of its iron-bound coast, contains and it is said that Themistocles had great dif- only one inlet where a ship can find shelter in:ficulty in restraining them from again turning distress. On these rocks the Persian squadron:their backs, and seeking shelter in the Euripus. perished. The joyful tidings reached the Greek,'Herodotus even relates that, having received at Artemisium at the same time that they re:the enormous sum of thirty talents from the ceived a re-enforcement from Athens of fiftyEubceans (the particular cities are not mention- three ships, which, if Ccela lay as has beet THERMOPYLJE. 259 vommonly supposed, passed by the scene of "They were reminded that the invader was not the wreck, and must have brought the news. a god, but a mortal, liable, as all human greatThus strengthened and cheered, they again ness, to a fall; and they were bidden to take sailed out, ready for another trial. The Per- courage, for the sea was guarded by Athens sians, yet trembling under the terrors of the and iEgina,'and the other maritime states, and past night, kept still; but a squadron of Cili- the troops now sent were only the forerunners cians, either freshly arrived, or detached, for of the Peloponnesian army, which would speedisome unknown purpose, from the main body, ly follow." Hearing this, the Phocians marchfell in with them and was destroyed. ed to Thermopylke with 1000 men, and the LoThe next day the Persian commanders, in- crians of Opus with all they could muster. On dignant at the resistance they had encountered his arrival in Boeotia, Leonidas was joined by from so contemptible a force, and fearing their 700 Thespians, who were zealous in the cause; master's anger, sailed up to Artemisium to be- but the disposition of Thebes was strongly susgin the attack. As they came near they bent pected: her leading men were known to be their line into a crescent: the Greeks, as be- friendly to the Persians; and Leonidas probfore, assailed, pierced, and broke it; the un- ably believed that he should be counteracting wieldy armament was thrown into confusion, their intrigues if he engaged the Thebans to and shattered by its own weight. Yet the sev- take a part in the contest. He therefore call. eral ships maintained an obstinate conflict, and ed upon them for assistance, and they sent 400 gained partial triumphs. The Egyptian division men with him; but, in'the opinion of Herododistinguished itself above the rest, and captured tus, this was a forced compliance, which, if five Greek ships, with all their men. On the they had dared, they would willingly have reside of the Greeks, none equalled the Athe- fused. With this army Leonidas marched to nians, and among them the foremost was Clin- defend Thermopylae against two millions of ias, the son of Alcibiades, who commanded a men. ship which he had equipped and manned at his It was a prevailing -belief in later ages, one, own charge. On the whole, nearly as much perhaps, that became current immediately after damage was done and suffered on the one side his death, that when he set out on his expedias on the other. When the combatants were lion he distinctly foresaw its fatal issue. And parted by night or weariness, though the Greeks Herodotus gives some colour to the opinion by remained masters of the wreck and the dead, recording that he selected his Spartan followand *might, therefore, claim the victory, they ers among those who had sons to leave behind had bought it dearly: the Athenians found one them. But Plutarch imagined that before his half of their ships disabled. It became evident departure from Sparta he and his little band that they could not survive such another victo- solemnized their own obsequies by funeral ry, and that it was necessary to retreat. Their games in the presence of their parents, and resolution was confirmed the next day by the that it was on this occasion he spoke of them arrival of an Athenian who had been stationed as a small number to fight, but enough to die. at Thermopylee with a light galley, and now One fact destroys this fiction. Before his arricame with the fiews that the Spartan king, val at Thermopylae, he did not know of the path Leonidas, was slain, and all his men killed or over the mountain by which he might be attacktaken, and that the Persians were masters of ed in the rear; the only danger he had before the pass, which was the key to Phocis, Bceotia, his eyes was one which could not have shaken and Attica. the courage of any brave warrior, that of maAt the time when the congress at the Isth- king a stand for a few days against incessant mus resolved on defending the Pass of Ther- attacks, but from small bodies, in a narrow mopylae, the Olympic festival was near at hand, space, where he would be favoured by the and also one little less respected among many ground. The whole pass shut in between the of the Dorian states, especially at Sparta, that eastern promontory of CEta, called Callidromus, of the Carnean Apollo, which lasted'nine days. which towers above it in rugged precipices, and The danger of Greece did not seem so pressing the shore of the Malian.Gulf,'is four or five miles as to require that these sacred games, so inti- in length; it is narrowest at either end, where mately connected with so many purposes of the mountain is said once to have left room pleasure, business, and religion, should be sus- only for a single carriage; but between these pended, and it was thought sufficient to send points the pass first widens, and then is again forward a small force to bar the progress of contracted, though not into quite so narrow a the enemy until they should leave the Grecian space, by the cliffs of Callidromus. At the foot world at leisure for action. That the northern of these rocks a hot sulphureous spring gushes Greeks might be assured that, notwithstanding up in a copious stream, and other slenderer this delay, Sparta did not mean to abandon veins trickle across the road. This is the pass them, the little band which was to precede the -properly called Thermopylee. On the side of whole force of the confederates was placed the sea it was once guarded no less securely under the command of her king, Leonidas. It than by the cliffs; for it runs along the edge of was composed of only 300 Spartans, attended a deep morass, which the mud, brought down by a body of Helots whose numbers are not re- by the rivers from the vale of the Spercheius, corded, 500 from Tegea, and as many from Man- is now continually carrying forward into the tinea,' 120 from the Arcadian Orchomenus. and gulf, while the part next the road gradually 1000 from the rest of Arcadia. Corinth armed hardens into firm ground, and widens the pass. 400, Plhius 200, and Mycenae 80. Messengers In very early times the Phocians were in poswere sent to summon Phocis and the Locrians, session of Thermopylae, and, to protect themwhose territory lay nearest to the post which selves from the inroads of the Thessalians, had. was to be maintained, to raise their whole force. built a wall across the northern entrance, and( 260 HISTORY OF GREECE. had discharged the water of the springs to hol- greatly thinned in their ranks, were recalled low out a natural trench in the'road. They from the contest, which the king now thought were in safety behind this bulwark till the worthy of the superior prowess of his own, Thessalians discovered a path which, begin- guards, the ten thousand Immortals. They ning in a chasm through which a torrent called were led up as to a certain victory; the Greeks the Asopus descends on the north side of the stood their ground as before; or, if ever they mountain, winds up, by a laborious ascent, to gave way and turned their backs, it was only to the summit of Callidromus, and then, by a face suddenly about, and deal tenfold destrucshorter and steeper track, comes down near tion on their pursuers. Thrice during these the southern end of the pass, where the village fruitless assaults the king was seen to start up of Alpeni once stood. After this discovery, the from his throne in a transport of fear or rage. fortification became comparatively useless, and The combat lasted the whole day: the slaughwas suffered to go to ruin. It seems wonder- ter of the barbarians was great; on the side of ful, and would be scarcely credible if it was not the Greeks a few Spartan lives.were lost: as positively, asserted by Herodotis, that when to the rest nothing is said. The next day the the congress at the Isthmus determined to de- attack was renewed with no better success; fend Thermopylae, there was not a man among the bands of the several cities that made up the them who knew of the existence of this cir- Grecian army,. except the Phocians, who were cuitous track. They ordered the old wall to employed as we have seen, relieved each other be repaired; but when Leonidas arrived, he at the post of honour; all stood equally firm, was informed of the danger that threatened and repelled the charge not less vigorously than him from the Anopea, so the mountain path before. The confidence of Xerxes was chanwas named, if it should come to the knowledge ged into despondence and perplexity. of the barbarians; and on the arrival of the The secret of the Anopoea could not long reenemy, he posted -the Phocians, by their own main concealed after it had become valuable. desire, on the summit of the ridge, to guard Many tongues, perhaps, would have revealed it: against a surprise. two Greeks, a Carystian, and Corydallus, of The first sight of the Persian host covering Anticyra, shared the reproach of this fbul treachthe Trachinian plains is said to have strucl ery; but by the general opinion, confirmed by some of the followers of Leonidas with no less the solemn sentence of the Amphictyonic counterror than their brethren at Artemisium felt at cil, which set a price upon his head, Ephialtes, the first approach of the hostile armada: the a Malian, was branded with the infamy of havPeloponnesians would have retreated, and have ing guided the barbarians round the'fatal path. reserved their strength for the defence of their Xerxes, overjoyed at the discovery, ordered Hyown Isthmus. But the Phocians and Locrians, dames, the commander of the Ten Thousand, who were most interested in checking the prog- with his.troops, to follow the traitor. They set ress of the invader, were indignant at this pro- out at nightfall: as day was beginning to break posal, and Leonidas prevailed on the other al- they gained the brow of Callidromus, where the lies to stay, and soothed them by despatching Phocians were posted; the night was still, and messengers to the confederate cities to call for the universal silence was first broken by the speedy re-enforcement. Xerxes had heard that trampling of the invaders on the leaves with a handful of men, under the command of a Spar- which the face of the woody mountain was tan king, were stationed at this part of his road; thickly strewed.* The Phocians started from but he imagined, it is said, that his presence their couches and ran to their arms. The Perwould have scared them away. He was sur- sians, who had not expected to find an enemy prised by the report of a horseman whom he on their way, were equally surprised at the sight had sent forward to observe their motions, and of an armed band, and feared lest they might be who, on riding up, perceived the Spartans before Spartans; but when Ephialtes had informed the wall, some quietly seated, combing their them of the truth, they prepared-to force a pasflowing hair, others at exercise. He could not sage. Their arrows showered upon the Phobelieve Demaratus, who assured him that the cians, who, believing themselves the sole object Spartans at least were come to dispute the pass of attack, retreated to the highest peak of the with him, and that it was their custom to trim ridge, to sell their lives as dearly as they could.' their hair on the eve of a combat. Four days The Persians, without turning aside to pursue passed before he could be convinced that his them, kept on their way, and descended towards army must do more than show itself to clear Alpenus. a way for him. On the fifth day he ordered a Meanwhile deserters had brought intelligence body of Median and Cissian troops to fall upon of the enemy's motions to the. Grecian camp the rash and insolent enemy, and to lead them during the night, and their report was confirmcaptive into his presence. He was seated on a ed at daybreak by the sentinels who had been lofty throne, from which he could survey the stationed on the heights, and now came down narrow entrance of the pass which, in obedi- with the news that the barbarians were crossence to his commands, his warriors endeavour- ing the ridge. Little time was left for deliberaed to force. But they fought on grouqd where tion: opinions were divided as to the course their numbers were of no avail but to increase that prudence prescribed or honour permitted. their confusion when their attack was repul- Leonidas did not restrain, perhaps encouraged, sed: their short spears could not reach their those of his allies who wished to save themfoe; the foremost fell, the hinder advanced over selves from the impending fate; but for himself their bodies to the charge; their repeated on- and' his Spartans, he declared his resolhion of sets broke upon the Greeks idly, as waves upon maintaining the post which Sparta had assigna rock. At length, as the day wore on, the Me- * See Herodotus, vii., 218. Yet the time was the middle dians and Cissians, spent with their efforts, and of sununer. THERMOPYLtE. 261 ed to them to the last. All withdrew except' retreated to the wall, and passed on to a knoll the Thespians and the Thebans. The Thes- on the other side, where they took up their pians remained from choice, bent on sharing his last stand. The Thebans, however, did not glory and his death. We should willingly be- return with them, but threw down their arms lieve the same of the Thebans, if the event did and begged for quarter. This, it is said, the not seem to prove that their stay was the effect greater part obtained. Herodotus heard a story, of compulsion. Herodotus says that Leonidas, about which Plutarch is, with good reason, inthough he dismissed the rest because their spirit credulous, that they were afterward all brandshrank from the danger, detained the Thebans ed like runaway slaves; but it is not denied as hostages, because he knew them to be disaf- that they placed themselves at the mercy of fected to the cause of liberty; yet, as he was the barbarians. The Persians rushed forward himself certain of perishing, it is equally diffi- unresisted, broke down the wall, and surroundcult to understand why and how he put this'ed the hillock where the little remnant of the violence on them; and Plutarch, who observes Greeks, armed only with a few swords, stood the inconsistency of the reason assigned by a butt for the arrows, the javelins, and the Herodotus, would have triumphantly vindicated stones of the enemy, which at length overthe credit of the Thebans, if he could have de- whelmed them. Where they fell they were afnied that they alone survived the day. Unless terward buried: their tomb, as Simonides sang, we suppose that their first choice was on the was an altar-a sanctuary in which Greece reside of honour, their last, when death stared vered the memory of her second founders.* them in the face, on the side of prudence, we The inscription of the monument raised, over must give up their conduct and that of Leoni- the slain, who died from first to last in defence das as an inscrutable mystery. Megistias, an of the pass, recorded that 4000 men from PeloAcarnanian soothsayer, who traced his descent ponnesus had fought at Thermopylae with 300 to the ancient seer Melampus, is said to have myriads. We ought not to expect accuracy in read the approaching fate of his companions in these numbers: the list in Herodotus, if the the entrails of the victims, before any tidings Locrian force is only supposed equal to the had arrived of the danger. When the presage Phocian, exceeds 6000 men; the Phocians, it was confirmed, Leonidas pressed him to retire; must be remembered, were not engaged. But a proof, Herodotus thinks, that the Spartan king it is not easy to reconcile either account with did not wish to keep any who desired to go. the historian's statement that the Grecian dead Megistias, imitating the example of the heroic amounted to 4000, unless we suppose that the prophet Theoclus, who, after predicting the fall Helots, though not numbered, formed a large of Eira to Aristomenes, refused to survive the part of the army of Leonidas. The lustre of ruin of his country, would not quit the side of his achievement is not diminished by their Leonidas; but he sent away his son, an only presence. He himself, and his Spartans, no one, who had accompanied him, that the line of doubt considered their persevering stand in the Melampus might not end with him. Leonidas post intrusted'to them, not as an act of high would also, it is said, have saved two of his and heroic devotion, but of simple and indiskinsmen, by sending them with letters and mes- pensable duty. Their spirit spoke in the lines sages to Sparta; but the one said he had come inscribed upon their monument, which bade the to bear arms, not to carry letters, and the oth- passenger tell their countrymen that they had er, that his deeds would tell all that Sparta fallen in obedience to their laws. How their wished to know. action was viewed at Sparta may be collected Before Hydarnes began his march, Ephialtes from a story which cannot be separated from had reckoned the time he would take to reach the recollection of this memorable day. When the southern foot of the mountain, and Xerxes the band of Leonidas was nearly enclosed, two had accordingly fixed the hour when he would Spartans, Eurytus and Aristodemus, were stayattack the Greeks in front. It was early in the ing at Alpeni, who had been forced to quit their forenoon when the Ten Thousand had nearly post by a disorder which nearly deprived them finished their round, and the preconcerted on- of sight. When they heard the tidings, the set began. Leonidas, now less careful to hus- one called for his arms, and made his Helot band the lives of his men than to make havoc guide him to the place of combat, where he among the barbarians, no longer confined him-'was left, and fell; but the other's heart failed self, as before, within the pass, but, leaving a him, and he saved his life. When he returned guard at the wall, sallied forth and charged the to Sparta he was shunned like a pestilence: advancing enemy. His little band, reckless of no man would share the fire of his hearth with everything but honour and vengeance, made him, or speak to him; he was branded with the deep and bloody breaches in the ranks of the name of the recreant Aristodemus. A separPersians, who, according to an Oriental cus- ate inscription recorded the generous loyalty tom, were driven on to the conflict by the lash of Megistias. The Persians are said to have of their commanders. Many perished in the lost 20,000 men; among them were several of sea, many were trampled under foot by the royal blood. To console himself for this loss, throng that pressed on them from behind; yet and to reap the utmost advantage from his victhe Spartans too were thinned, and Leonidas tory, Xerxes sent over to the fleet, which, havhimself died early. The fight was hottest over ing heard of the departure of the Greeks, was his body, which was rescued after a hard strug- now stationed on the north coast of Eubcea, gle, and the Greeks four times turned the ene- and by public notice invited all who were cumy. At length, when most of their spears rious to see the chastisement he had inflicted were broken and their swords blunted with on the men who had dared to defy his power. slaughter, word came that the band of Hydar- * (o?) a nes was about to enter the pass. Then they X,,o. D iodor., xi., 11. 262 HISTORY OF GREECE. That he had previously buried the greater part peus Xerxes divided his forces, or, rather, deof his own dead seems natural enough, and tached a small body round the foot of Parnassuch an artifice, so slightly differing from the sus to Delphi, with orders to strip the temple universal practice of both ancient and modern of its treasures and lay them at his feet. He belligerents, scarcely deserved the name of a had learned their value from the best authority stratagem. He is said also to have mutilated at Sardis. The great army turned off towards the body of Leonidas; and as this was one of the lower vale of the Cephisus, to pursue its the foremost he found on a field which had cost march through Bceotia to Athens. him so dear, we are not at liberty to reject the The Delphians had been warned of their dan tradition because such ferocity was not consist- ger, and had taken precautions for their own ent with the respect usually paid by the Per- safety; they had shipped their families across sians to a gallant enemy.* At Thermopylae the sea to Achaia, and they themselves retired Xerxes learned a lesson which he had refused either to Amphissa or to the summits of Parto receive from the warnings of Demaratus; nassus, where they housed in the Corycian and he inquired, with altered spirit, whether he cave; but they had first consulted the oracle had to expect many such obstacles in the con- about securing the sacred treasures, and asked quest of Greece. The Spartan told him that whether they should bury or remove them. there were eight thousand of his countrymen The god bade them not to touch his treasures: who would all be ready to do what Leonidas "he was able to guard his own." Relying on had done, and that at the Isthmus he would this assurance, sixty Delphians remained in the meet with a resistance more powerful and ob- sacred enclosure with the prophet, to await the stinate than at Thermopylae. But if, instead invaders. The Persians advanced, still burnof attacking Peloponnesus on this side, where ing and wasting all they found on their way, he would find its whole force collected to with- along the road called the Sacred, from the peristand him, he sent a detachment of his fleet to odical processions by which it was hallowed, seize the island of Cythera and to infest the which follows the course of the Pleistus through coast of Laconia, the confederacy would be dis- the glen that separates Parnassus from Mount tracted, and its members, deprived of their Cirphis, and then turns off northward towards head, and perhaps disunited, would successive- the steep of Delphi. ly yield to his arms. The plan, whether Dem- What consultations had been really held by aratus or Herodotus was the author, found no the natural guardians of the oracle, what prepsupporters in the Persian council. arations may have inspired them with confiHe had now the key of Northern Greece in denuce in the midst of their seeming helplesshis hands, and it only remained to determine ness, what arts or engines they possessed or towards which side he should first turn his devised to meet this extraordinary danger, arms. The Thessalians, who, ever since his what misgivings and forebodings might spring arrival in their country, had been zealous in his up in the breasts of the barbarians, when, at service, now resolved to make use of their in- the opening of the defile, they saw the city rifluence, and to direct the course of the storm sing like a theatre before them, crowned with to their own advantage. These Thessalians, the house of the god, the common sanctuary of who are mentioned on this occasion by Herod- the western world, and at its back the preciotus without any more precise description, pices of Parnassus, crag above crag, which were probably the same nobles who, against had witnessed the destruction of so many conthe wishes of their nation, had invited and for- temners of the majesty of Apollo: how the warded the invasion. They had now an oppor- stillness of the deserted streets, as they aptunity of gratifying either their cupidity or their proached the mark of their sacrilegious enterrevenge, and they sent to the Phocians to de- prise, may have shaken their hearts, and put mand a bribe of fifty talents, as the price at their minds on the stretch of dreadful expectawhich they would consent to avert the destruc- tions; what forms, conjured up at the critical tion which was impending over Phocis. The moment, may have met their eye'; what sounds, Phocians, however, either did not trust their like the voice of angry deities, may have pierfaith, or would not buy their safety of a hated ced their ear; what instruments of death, rival. The Thessalians then persuaded Xerxes wielded by invisible hands, may have struck to cross that part of the CEtaean chain which the boldest, and have justified the more timid separates the vale of the Sperchius from the in yielding to their fears; and whether any little valley of Doris. The Dorians were spared, timely uproar of the elements lent new force as friends. ~ Those of the Phocians who had the to the panic-these are questions which history means of escaping took refuge on the high plains cannot answer. It must be left to the reader's that lie under the topmost peaks of Parnassus, imagination to determine how the tradition or at Amphissa; but on all that remained in which became current after the event may be their homes, on the fields, the cities, the tem- best reconciled with truth or probability. While ples of the devoted land, the fury of the inva- the Persians were advancing, the prophet Aceder, directed and stimulated by the malice.of ratus, it is said,'saw the sacred arms which the Thessalians, poured undistinguishing ruin. were kept within the sanctuary, and which no Fire and sword, the cruelty and the lust of irri- human hand might touch, lying without: he tated spoilers, ravaged the vale of the Cephisus announced the prodigy to the Delphians who down to the borders of Bceotia. The rich sane- had remained with him. The barbarians had tuary of Apollo at Abae was sacked and burned, reached a temple dedicated to Athens of the and fourteen towns shared its fate. At Pano- Vestibule, when, in the midst of thunder and lightning, two huge rocks, broken off Irom the * To cut off the head and right arm of slain rebels wasrgs that overhung the road, fell among them a Persian usage. Compare Plut., Artax., 13; and Strabo, and crushed many. At the same time a warxvi., p. 733. and crushed many. At the same time a war MIGRATION TO SALAMIS. 263 cry was heard from within the temple of Athene. hour of danger, seemed best explained by the They were struck with terror, and the Del- fleet, which, since it had been increased acphians, seeing them turn their backs, rushed cording to the advice of Themistocles, might down upon them, and pursued them with unre- well be deemed the surest bulwark of Athens. sisted slaughter; they fled without stopping till The young men, who had begun to look to the they had passed the borders of Bceotia. The sea as their proper field of action and ertersurvivers related that, among other dreadful prise, embraced this interpretations; but the sights, they had seen two gigantic warriors elder citizens thought it incredible that the godforemost in the pursuit, dealing death among dess should abandon her ancient citadel, and rethe hindmost. These the Delphians knew to sign her charge to the rival deity, with whcm be two of their native heroes, Phylacus and she had anciently contended for the possession Autonous, and they consecrated to each of of Attica. To them it seemed clear that the them a pition of ground near the place where oracle must have spoken of the hedge of thorns they first appeared. The fallen rocks were which once fenced in the rock of Pallas, and seen by Herodotus within the precincts of the that this, if repaired and strengthened with the temple of Athene. Thus Delphi was delivered, same materials, would be made an impregnable and the power of Apollo gloriously proved. barrier against all assaults. Even those who When the Grecian fleet finally quitted its sta- held the ships to be the wooden wall were dition at Artemisium, the Athenians. expected vided in opinion as to the use which was to be that, on reaching the Euripus, they should hear made of them. Some thought that they were of a Peloponnesian army encamped in Boeotia to be the instruments of deliverance only by for the protection of Attica. Finding, howev- transporting the people to some remote land, er, that no friendly force had arrived to guard such as the first answer had bidden them to their frontier, and learning that the Peloponne- seek; and that the oracle, while it appeared to sians had no intention of venturing beyond the predict the disaster which Salamis was to witIsthmus, but meant to fortify it with a wall, and ness, had, in truth, only warned them against to reserve all their efforts for the defence of the making its shores the scene of a fatal conflict peninsula, they begged their allies to sail on with an irresistible enemy. The existence of with them to Salamis, that they might provide Athens hung on the issue of these deliberations. for the safety of their wives and children, and The people, in their uncertainty, looked to Thedecide on the course to be adopted with regard mistocles for advice. to the approaching invasion. While the storm It cannot be reasonably doubted that he had was yet hanging over Greece, Athens had sent himself prepared the crisis which he now stepto Delphi for advice. Her messengers, on being ped'forward to decide. The story of the emadmitted into the sanctuary, heard the prophet- bassy to Delphi is so transparent, that it is ess in no obscure strains announce the ruin that scarcely possible to mistake the real springs of was impending over their city. "Fly," she the transaction. Themistocles could not have said, "to the uttermost ends of the earth, for, found greater difficulty in gaining the co-operafrom the crown to the sole, no part of Athens tion of Timon in a pious fraud than Cleomenes can escape the fire and sword of the barbarian. in procuring that of Cobon for his base and maIt will perish, and not alone: elsewhere, too, lignant ends. His keen eye had probably caught'the temples of the gods are already bathed in a prophetic glimpse of the events that were to sweat and blood, signs of foreseen destruction. hallow the shores of Salamis; and he now reBegone, and expect your doom." While the minded his hearers that a Grecian oracle would messengers, overwhelmed with grief and dis- not have called the island the divine if it was to may, were revolving this dreadful answer in be afflicted with the triumph of the barbarians, their minds, they were, cheered by one of the and was not, rather, to be the scene of their deleading men of Delphi; named Timon, who en- struction. He therefore exhorted them, if all couraged them once more to approach the god other safeguards should fail them, to commit with the ensigns of suppliants, if, perchance, their safety and their hopes of victory to their they might move his compassion to a milder newly-strengthened navy. This counsel had decree. They returned and spread their olive prevailed. branches before the shrine, declaring that they ~ The time had now come when this resolution would not quit the sanctuary till they had ob- was to be carried into effect. The Persian artained a more favourable answer. It was given, my was in full march for Athens; after the desbut in darker and more ambiguous words: olation of Phocis, it hadpassed peaceably through " Pallas had earnestly struggled, but could not Boeotia, where all the cities except Thespiae propitiate her sire to spare her beloved city. It, and Platsea had testified their submissive spirit and the whole land, were irrevocably doomed by receiving Macedonian garrisons. Thespire to ruin. Yet had Jove granted to the prayer of and Plateea were reduced to ashes. Athens his daughter, that, when all besides was lost, a might expect soon to share their fate; yet it wooden wall should still shelter her citizens. was not without a hard struggle that the peoLet them not wait to be trampled down by the ple consented to the decree whickThemistocles horse and foot of the invader, but turn their moved, directing that the city should be abanbacks: they might again look him in the face. doned to the charge of its tutelary goddess, and In seedtime or in harvest, thou, divine Salamis, that the men, after placing' their wives and'shalt make women childless." children, and the aged and infirm in security, The verses in which these mysterious threats should betale themselves to their ships. Acand promises were delivered were carefully re- cording to Aristotle,* the council of the Areopacorded and carried to Athens; their import gave gus found It necessary, in order to man the occasion to various conjectures. The wooden wall which was to afford- the only refuge in the * Plut., Them., 10 264 HISTORY OF GREECE. fleet, to advance eight drachmas,. a sum equiv- I position in which it would be most advisable to alent to the ordinary pay for twenty-four days, await the enemy's approach. Almost all voices to every man who served. The Plateeans, who concurred in the opinion that they ought to had fought on board the Athenian ships at Ar- leave Salamis, and take up a station nearer the temisium, had landed in Bceotia on their pas- Isthmus. " Peloponnesus alone remained to be sage through the Euripus to provide for the defended. If they lost the battle, they would safety of their families, and were prevented be blocked up in Salamis, unable to escape or from rejoining the fleet.: There was a story to protect their cities; if they fought near the that, when all were ready to embark, the head Isthmus, should the worst happen, they might of the Gorgon which ornamented the breast- join the army on shore, and renew the contest plate of Pallas disappeared from her statue, and in defence of their homes." The interest of the that Themistocles, in searching for it, had dis- Athenians, indeed, was evidently opposed te covered a sacred treasure, which enabled the this course; they could not reckon 4i such an Areopagus to exercise its prudent liberality. alternative; for they had ventured their all upon It must be supposed that nothing was left for the sea, and defeat would to them be irreparathe Persians which could be concealed or car- ble ruin. But though their naval force was ried away. Some sign was still wanting to nearly equal to that of all their allijs, they had convince the wavering that the moment had only one vote in the debate. It was still undeindeed arrived when the city could no longer cided, when news came that the Persians had hope to be defended by any arm, human or di- overrun Attica, and that the citadel was either vine; and now the priestess of Athene an- already in their hands, or must speedily fall; nounced that the sacred snake, which was re- and before long, the flames rising from the garded as the invisible guardian of the rock, Rock published far and wide that the oracle *and was propitiated by a honey-cake laid out was completely fulfilled, and that every foot of for'it every month in the temple, had quitted its Attic ground was in the power of the barbariabode in the sanctuary: the monthly offering ans. Xerxes had pursued his march without lay untasted.. This portent removed all doubts, resistance, spreading desolation as he advanced except in the minds of a few of the poorest cit- over the plains of Attica till he arrived at the izens, who, partly because they wanted the foot of the Cecropian Hill. He found it guardmeans of shifting their habitation, and partly ed by the little remnant who had been kept because they still clung to the hope of some there almost as much by helplessness and dewonderful deliverance which the oracle seemed spair as by their forlorn and treacherous hope. to countenance, resolved to remain in the cit- They had raised a wooden wall round the brow adel with the keepers of the temple. The rest of the rock, filling up, with a palisade of doors transported their families and their movable and planks, the breaches that haa been made property, some to Salamis, some to AEgina, some by the lapse of ages in the old Pelasgian fortifito Trcezen, where the exiles were received cation. Still their courage was not cast down, with all the kindness that it became the birth- even when they saw the mighty host that surplace of Theseus to show to his people in their rounded them, and cut off all possibility of relief. distress. A decree was passed ordering that They would not listen to the proposal of the Pisthey should be maintained and the children in- istratids, who urged them to save their lives by structed at the public expense; and even the a timely surrender. The assailants who atvineyards and orchards of the Trcezenians were tempted to mount by the gentler declivities of thrown open to their unrestrained enjoyment. the rock were crushed by heavy stones rolled The fleet assembled at Salamis was re-enforced down upon them from above. The hill of the by a squadron, composed partly of additional Areopagus is separated from the western end ships furnished by the same states which had of the Rock by a narrow hollow. From this contributed their succours at Artemisium, and height the besiegers discharged their arrows, partly of a small number sent from other quar- tipped with lighted tow, against the opposite ters; among there were four from Naxos, which paling. The wooden wall was often in flames; had been intended by the Naxians for the ser- no friendly deity held an regis before it. Still vice of the barbarians; but Democritus, who the spirit of the little garrison did not sink, commanded one of them, and was a man of though toil, and watching, and wounds, and great influence in his island, persuaded his hunger had brought them to the verge of death. countrymen to neglect the orders they had re- Xerxes and all his host were baffled and perceived at home, and to join the Greeks. The plexed. most remote cities of the Greek continent that At length, after all attempts had failed oil the took a part in the national cause were the Co- side which seemed most open to attack, the rinthian colonies of Leucas and Ambracia. To fortress was surprised, as often happens, on that the west of the Adriatic, Croton alone showed which had been deemed impregnable. Towards itself touched by the danger of Greece: it sent the north the Cecropian Hill terminates in the one ship; though perhaps this merit belonged precipices anciently called the Long Rocks, to the commander Phiyllus, who had obtained where the daughters of Cecrops were said to three victories at the Pythian games, and prob- have thrown themselves down in the madness ably equipped his ship at his own expense. which followed the indulgence of their profane The whole armament thus strengthened, with curiosity. The Persian army contained numthe addition of two deserters, amounted to 380 bers of mountaineers, who could climb wherevships.* er it was possible for man -to set foot. While Eurybiades still held the chief command. He the besieged were busied in repelling the athad called a council of war to deliberate on the tacks of.the enemy at the western wall, a few of the barbarians scaled the northern rocks, * See Appendir TV made their way into the citadel, and immedi THEMISTOCLES. 265 ately proceeded to open the gates. Some of tion. Themistocles hastened to Eurybiades, the garrison, seeing that all was lost, threw explained to him the real ground there was for themselves over the precipice; others took'ref- apprehension, and earnestly entreated him to go uge in the sanctuary of the goddess. But the on shore again,' and call another council. In Persians pursued them to their last retreat, and this, before the subject of deliberation had been put every one to the sword, Then they plun- formally proposed, he endeavoured to bring the dered the temples, and gave the whole citadel assembly over to his views. His principal adto the flames. Xerxes immediately despatched versary was the Corinthian admiral, Adeiman, a messenger to Susa to carry the tidings of this tus, who probably thought he had the strongest success, one of the principal objects of his ex- reason.to fear for the safety of his owncity if pedition, to Artabanus, whom he had sent back the fleet continued at Salamis. He is said to rom Abydos, to be regent during his absence. have rebuked the premature importunity of TheThe next day, after his exultation or his anger mistocles by reminding him that, in the public had subsided, and some scruples, perhaps, began games, those who started before the signal was to disquiet his mind, he called together the given were corrected with the scourge. " But Athenian exiles who were in his train, and bade those who lag behind," was the Athenian's anthem go up to the Rock and sacrifice after their swer, " do not win the crown." In the debate rites. They brought back the report of a happy that ensued, Themistocles could not insist on omen for Athens. The sacred olive-the earli- the grounds he had urged in his interview with est gift of Pallas, by which, in her contest with Eurybiades without offending those whom he Poseidon, she had proved her claim to the land, wished to persuade. He dissembled his suspiand which grew in the temple of her foster-child cions, of their constancy, and confined himself Erechtheus, by the side of the salt pool that had to pointing out the advantages of the position gushed up under the trident of her rival-had they then occupied: 6" In the Straits of Salamis been consumed with the sacred building. Those you will be fighting, as at the Isthmus, irdlewho came to worship in the wasted sanctuary fence of Peloponnesus; but fighting in a, situarelated that a shoot had already sprung to the tion the most favourable to yourselves, and with height of a cubit from the burned stump. a reasonable prospect of victory; fighting, also, When intelligence of these events was with Salamis, and.Egina, and Megara behind brought to the Greeks at Salamis, the greater you, and untouched; while, if you withdraw to number were struck with such consternation, the Isthmus, you both abandon them to the barthat some of the commanders are said to have barians, and fling away your best chance of sucleft the council, and to have made preparations cess." Adeimantus still vehemently opposed his for immediate retreat; those who remained proposition, and is said even to have thrown out came to the resolution of retiring from Salamis, an ungenerous taunt against Themistocles and and giving battle near the shore of the Isthmus. Athens: " a man who had no country was not It was night before the council broke up. The- entitled to a vote." Themistocles sternly remistocles, on his return to his ship, related the pelled the insult, and then, turning to Eurybiaresult of the conference to his friend Mnesiphi- des, declared that the Athenians were resolved, lus, a man of congenial character, a little more if their allies persisted in their design, not to advanced in years, who was commonly believed fall a useless sacrifice, but to take their families to have had a great share in forming the mind and fortunes on board, and sail away to the rich of Themistocles. Mnesiphilus is described as land of Siris, in the south of Italy, where a coloa sample of the elder school of Athenian states- ny of Ionians had already founded a flourishing men, such as flourished from the time of Solon city. This threat determined Eurybiades, or, to that of Pericles; a man of vigorous practi- if he had been before convinced, furnished him cal understanding, which he applied wholly to with a decent plea for changing his plan. His public business, taking no interest in the philo- authority or influence decided the resolution of sophical speculations which were beginning to the council. engage the attention of many active minds, and Six days after the Greeks had left Artemisium disdaining or ignorant of any rhetorical arts be- the Persian fleet arrived in the Attic bay of yond what sufficed for expressing plain sense Phalerum. In passing through the channel of in clear words. When he heard of the deter- Eubcea, it is said that the Persian admiral, see mination which- had been adopted, he pointed ing himself locked in by the land, which seemed out the fatal consequences that would inevita- to close the Euripus, suspected that his pilot, a bly result from it; the certainty that, when the Bceotian named Salganeus, had purposely drawn Peloponnesians found themselves on their own him into a snare, and hastily put him to death; shore, it would be impossible to keep them to- and that the town of Salganeus took its name gether, and that the public cause would be sac- from the tomb with which the Persian, when he rificed to the timid prudence of the several cit- had discovered his error, endeavoured to repair ies, or of individuals intent on their particular it.* But the anecdote implies an ignorance safety. He exhorted Themistocles to make a which can scarcely be reconciled with the plan strenuous effort, while there was yet time, to of circumnavigating Eubeea. Xerxes went on avert this calamity. Plutarch is angry with board one of the ships with Mardonius, and Herodotus for giving the credit of this counsel summoned the chief commandqes of the fleet to Mnesiphilus. If, indeed, it was through his into his presence, to deliberate on the expesuggestion that Themistocles first perceived the diency of seeking an immediate engagement. danger, he, instead of Themistocles, would have Among a number of vassal princes who condeserved the praise of having saved Greece by ducted their squadrons in person, was a woman, his foresight. But, assuredly, the two friends did Artemisia, queen of Caria. She alone, accordnothing more than interchange their thoughts. and. mutually strengthen their former convic- * Strabo, ix., p. 403, and i., p. 10. Compare Mela, ii, 7. VOL. I.-L L 266' HISTORY OF GREECE. ing to Herodotus perceived the rashness of hast- Persian admiral. "Themistocles, the geneial ening a contest by which everything might be lost of the Athenians," so the message ran, " wishes and nothing would be gained but what might well to the king, and desires to see his -ause reasonably be looked for withlout one, if time prevail. Therefore he has sent, without the were allowed for the disunion and dispersion of knowledge of the Greeks, to say that they are the Greeks, which would inevitably take place panic-struck, and kent on flight. If you prevent when the want of provisions should have driven their escape, you ensure a complete and easy them from Salamis to the Isthmus. Artemisia, victory. Already divided among themselves, if these were her views, thought like Mnesiph- they will no sooner see themselves pent in by ilus; but there was no Themistocles in the your ships than they will begin to turn their Persian council. The king resolved on attack- arms against one another." Tidings so probaing the enemy without delay. He attributed ble, and so accordant with their wishes, found the checks his fleet had met with at.rtemisium easy credence with the Persian commanders, to the remissness of servants acting at a dis- and they hastened to follow the friendly adyice. tance from the eye of their master. In the ap- About midnight they silently moved from Phaproaching conflict his presence would stimulate lerum to block up the entrance of each of the the brave and overawe the timid. That same narrow channels by which Salamis is separated, day he ordered the fleet to sail up towards on the east from Attica, on the west from the Salamis, and to form in line of battle; but the territory of Megara. One line stretched from hour was so late that there was only time to Cyuosura, the eastern promontory of the island, perform the evolution without advancing into to the Attic port of Munychium; another from the straits. It was resolved, however, that the Ceos, probably the western cape of Salarnis, battle should take place on the morrow. round the mouth of the other strait. A body of The sight of the Persian armada, drawn up Persians was also posted in a little island in'order. and ready for action, revived all the named Psyttaleia, situate between Cynosura and alarm which Themistocles had just been labour- the Attic coast, to protect their friends whc ing to counteract. The danger of being defeat- might suffer in the battle, and to do all the mised and blocked up in Salamis again rushed upon chief they could to the enemies who might be the minds of the Peloponnesians, and overpow- driven on the shore. ered all other thoughts. It seemed to them These movements were so promptly executed madness in Eurybiades to remain in a position that the island was completely enclosed while where nothing but ay. almost miraculous victory the debate was still continuing in the council of could enable them to act in concert with the the Greeks. Themistocles had returned, and army at the Isthmus; for now the whole probably had done all that he could to prolong force of the Peloponnesian confederates was the discussion. At length he was called out of assembled there under the command of Cleom- the room to speak with a stranger at the door brotus, brother of Leonidas. They, too, hoped It was Aristides. This was the third -year of little from the fleet, and believed that it rested his exile, and the sentence which banished him with them alone to bar the progress of the in- appears to have been still in force. Plutarch, vaders. They had come together in haste after indeed, relates that it had been repealed by a the tidings from Thermopylae, and had made formal decree, proposed by Themistocles himsuch preparations for defence as the shortness self, when Xerxes was on his march. But this of the time permitted. The road along the sea- statement is not confirmed by Herodotus, and side over the Scironian rocks had been broken can scarcely be reconciled with his narrative. up, and they had raised a rude wall across the If Aristides had been legally restored to his Isthmus, of materials indiscriminately collected country, he would have been present on this and hastily put together: stone, and brick, and occasion at Salamis. We can more readily bewood, and sand, with which the whole army lieve Plutarch when he says that the exile had had laboured night and day till the work was been actively employed in arming the Greeks completed. The murmurs of the Peloponnesi- for the national cause. He now came over from ans in the fleet grew louder every moment: a 2.Egina, perhaps to offer his services to'his meeting was called, in which the voices of the countrymen in the approaching conflict. With Athenians, the AEginetans, and the Megarians difficulty he made-his way, under cover of the were drowned by the rest, who exclaimed night, through the Persian fleet. " Themisagainst the folly of staying before a country tocles," he said, "let us still be rivals; but let which was already in the enemy's power. our strife be, which can best serve our country. Themistocles, seeing that arguments and re- I come to say that you are wasting words in monstrances were thrown away upon men debating whether you shall sail away from who were blinded by their fears, turned his Salamis. We are encircled, and can only thoughts to a different method of gaining his escape by cutting a passage through the enepoint. He resolved to save Athens in spite of my's fleet." Themistocles made no secret of her allies, and her allies in spite of themselves. his artifice, and introduced Aristides into the The resolution was formed, the means con- council-room to report its success. While the trived, the plan carried into effect, with the assembly was engaged in a fresh dispute on this rapidity which the juncture demanded, and of unwelcome intelligence, which the greater part which he alone was capable. While the com- refused to believe, it.was confirmed by a Tenian manders were still bandying passionate words, ship, which came over from the enemy, and he withdrew from the council unobserved, call- placed the truth beyond doubt. Nothing now ed to him a slave named Sicinnus, who had.the remained but to brace every nerve for the batcharge of his children, had been brought from tle, which the return of day would inevitably the East, and spoke the Persian language. This bring on. man he instantly sent with a message to the When morning came, the Persian fleet was BATTLE OF' SALAMIS. 267 seen covering the sea between Psyttaleia and I breeze which regularly blew up the channel at the mouth of the channel, and the army lining I a certain time of the day. Themistocles is the shores of the Gulf of Eleusis. On one of said to have foreseen the advantage that might the heights of Mount AEgaleos, the last limb of be derived from it, and to have delayed the batthe long range of hills that, branching out from tle to the hour when it was expected to get up. Cithaeron, stretches to the coast fronting the The Persian ships were turned by the wind eastern side of Salamis, a lofty throne was and the waves, their evolutions were thwarted, raised for Xerxes, from which he could view and their sides exposed to the attacks of the the fight, quicken the tardy, and goad on the enemy's prows. While those in front were backward by the terror of his presence, and dis- thus embarrassed, the commanders of the hind pense instant punishments or rewards, as jus- most, impatient to signalize themselves in the tice might demand. By his side were his presence of the king, pressed forward to the scribes, to register the names of those who scene of action, and often fell foul of their caught the king's attention by any signal ex- friends whom they met retreating.. Some of ploit. The Greeks had different motives to ani- the Phcenicians, whose galleys had been dismate them, and a different presence to cheer abled by the shock of some Ionian triremes, them. Before they embarked; Themistocles ad- which had been accidentally driven against dressed them in a speech, the substance of them, went on shore, and complained to the which, as Herodotus reports it, was simply to king of what they called the treachery of the set before them, on the one side, all that was Ionians. The loyalty of the Ionians was not best, on the other, all that was worst, in the na- unsuspicious, and Xerxes listened to the charge, ture and the condition of man, and to exhort till an extraordinary exploit of one of their galthem to choose and hold fast the good. He leys convinced him of their fidelity, and excited might truly say that on the issue of that strug- his indignation against their accusers. The gle depended all that was noble in the Greek Ionian had struck and sunk an Attic ship, when character, all that was beautiful in Grecian life; she was herself attacked and borne down by that no advantage which distinguished the an 2Eginetan: her deck, however, remained Greek from the barbarian, neither virtue and above water, so as to allow her crew still to honour, nor prosperity and happiness, could stay on board. From this situation her men long survive their independence. As they were cleared the deck of the 2Eginetans with their about to take their stations, a vessel arrived javelins, and boarded and captured the ship from AEgina, which had been sent the day be- which had sunk their own.. When the king fore, when the resolution of defending Salamis saw this, he commanded that the Pheenicians, was adopted, to implore the assistance of.Eacus who had calumniated the bravest and stanchest and his line, the tutelary heroes of./Egina. of his servants, should lose their heads. They were solemnly evoked from their sanctu- Though the complaint of the Phcenicians was ary to come and take part in the battle; simi- probably groundless, it cannot be doubted that lar rites had already been performed to secure the confusion which soon began to' prevail in the presence and the aid of those.Eacids who the Persian fleet was greatly aggravated, and had once reigned and were especially worship- rendered more mischievous by the variety of ped in Salamis itself. The tradition of LEgina forces that composed it. The -,Egyptians, the was, that the ship sent on the sacred embassy Phcenicians, the Cilicians, the Cyprians, the was the same which began the combat; and it Ionians, and the other nations that fought in it, was believed that the heroes were seen during were united by no bond but their compulsory the day, in the form of armed warriors, lifting service of the same master; and, as they could up their hands to shield the Grecian galleys. feel no interest in the cause they were forced The Greeks awaited the advance of the Per- to support, so they could be little concerned sians in the Straits, which in the narrowest about any damage they might inflict on their part are no more than a quarter of a mile wide. brother slaves which did not endanger their As the Persians approached, the Greeks backed own safety, and must have been always ready their galleys, probably till they saw the enemy to sacrifice every other object to this. An adclosely pent in the brief space, which permitted venture, which Herodotus describes, was probonly a small part of his force, more than triple ably not the only instance of this spirit which their own numbers, to be brought into action the battle afforded. The Carian heroine Artetogether. Then the ship of thle.Eacids, or, as misia was chased by Ameinias, who did not was more generally believed, an Athenian, com- suspect the value of the prize he had in view; manded by Ameinias, darted forward and struck for the Athenians, indignant, it is said, at being one of the Persians. This was the signal for a invaded by a woman, had set a price of 10,000 general engagement. The. Persians exerted drachmas on her head. She was flying with their utmost efforts, and did not yield to the many others-for it was when disorder had beGreeks in courage and perseverance; every come general among the Persians —and, hard man fought as if the eyes of the king were upon pressed by her pursuer, saw before her the galhim. But the valour of the Greeks, if not di- ley of the Calyndian Damasithymus. Without rected by superior skill, was cooler and more scruple she struck and sunk it: not a man of deliberate, for it had not to struggle with any the whole crew was saved. Ameinias, believof the impediments which threw their antago- ing that he had been chasing a friend, turned nists into confusion and took away their pres- away from her; while Xerxes, who saw the ence of mind. Several causes contributed to occurrence, but only learned the name of Artethis effect. The Persian vessels, those espe- misia, loudly expressed his admiration of her cially in the foremost line, were taller and lar- courage and skill. ger than those of the Greeks, and were so much The event of the battle was really decided the more exposed to the action of a strong at the first onset, which threw the unwieldy 268 HISTORY OF GREECE. armament into a confusion from which it could train of the god, and that he heard the shouts never recover, and which so many causes co- with which they were accustomed to invoke operated to increase. Yet it appears to have him. As the cloud rolled towards the sea and been long before the resistance of the mass, dropped upon the fleet, he inferred that the inwhether active or inert, was finally overcome; sulted deity was issuing from Eleusis to sue and night had begun to draw in ere the remains cour the Greeks, and avenge his neglected rites of the Persian fleet took refuge in Phalerum, to upon the Persians. If any apparition of this which the Greeks attempted not to pursue it. kind, as Plutarch relates, had excited the imaWhen the vanquished enemy began to seek gination of the Athenians either before or dusafety in flight, a squadron of lEginetan ships, ring the combat, the soothsayer might have which had stationed itself near the mouth of conceived that the blood of barbarian captives the channel, met the fugitives, completed their would be a grateful offering to the angry god; defeat, and cut off many who had escaped from and though Themistocles was probably little the conflict unhurt. It was in this encounter prone to superstition himself, he would not have that a Sidonian vessel, the same which had been reluctant to use it as an instrument.* captured the LEginetan' off Sciathus, and which The loss sustained on each side in this battle had the lion-hearted Pytheas still on board, was is not recorded by Herodotus; but since Ctestruck, at the same time, by the galley of The- sias raises that of the Persians to five hundred mistocles and by that of Polylcritus, an XEgine- ships, Diodorus probably drew his numbers — tan, whose father, Crius, had some years before two hundred for the Persians and forty for the been the most forward in resisting Cleomenes Greeks-from good authority. The barbarians when he landed in 2Egina, and attempted to ar- lost more lives in proportion than the Greeks; rest the principal men of the island who were for few of the mariners who came from the insuspected of favouring the Persians. Polycri- land regions of Asia could save themselves by tus, when he saw the banner of the Athenian swimming when their ships were sunk, while admiral, called out to him, and asked whether almost every Greek, accustomed to the water the,Eginetans were traitors to the cause of from his childhood, could easily reach the shore. Greece. The brave Pytheas was restored to Among the slain was Ariabignes, a brother of his country. Xerxes, and commander of the fleet, and many Aristides, who had been one of the ten gen- other Persians of the highest rank; and from erals at Marathon, did not command a ship at the language of zEschylus we should be inclined Salamis; but he was on the shore, intent on to suppose that the troops posted in Psyttaleia the course of events, and watching for an op- were taken from among the Immortals. Xerxportunity of ministering to the victory from es, however, had still the means of renewing which his successful rival was to reap praise the contest with a greatly superior force, and and power. When the tide of battle had begun the aspect he assumed led the Greeks to believe to turn, he embarked a body of heavy-armed that he would not be deterred by his defeat Athenians, with some archers and slingers, in from prosecuting his enterprise with even greatlight craft, and landed them at Psyttaleia. The er vigour. He began to make preparations for Persians there were driven into a corner, and, throwing a bridge or causeway over the naraccording to Herodotus. and 2Eschylus, were rowest part of the strait by fastening some cut in pieces to a man. Plutarch, on the au- Phoenician merchantmen together.t But this thority of a writer whom he praises for his his- threatening attitude was only a feint to conceal torical learning, has connected this occurrence his real feelings and intentions. He began to with a horrible tragedy, on which the elder au- be conscious that his situation was one of no thors are silent. According to this story, Aris- little danger. His fleet had suffered some setides took three prisoners at Psyttaleia, nephews vere blows; another defeat might utterly ruin of Xerxes, whom he sent to Themistocles. it, and give the Greeks the undisputed comThey found him sacrificing on board his ship, mand of the seas. He might find himself cut with the soothsayer Euphrantides by his side, off from Asia, and shut up in a hostile country, who persuaded him to immolate them to Bac- where his army might melt away by famine and chus. It is perhaps unnecessary to suppose the sword. The remembrance of the past threw that there was any ground for this tradition, no cheering light on his future prospects. His since, at all events, the captives from Psyttaleia progress through Greece had hitherto been a could not have been brought to. Themistocles series of disasters; for even his success had while he was sacrificing for success in the bat- been purchased with ignominy, and tended to tle; yet it seems not incredible that he might weaken the terror of his name, and to encourendeavour to still popular fears, which may age the enemy to unflinching resistance. The have been excited by the incantations of the day of Salamis was probably not over before he magians, by similar mysterious rites, or that had secretly resolved on retreat. he imitated the example of the Persians, with- Mardonius, the main author of the unfortuout sharing their superstition, in order to take nate expedition, could easily perceive what vengeance for the Trcezenian whom they had thoughts were passing in his master's mind. sacrificed near Sciathus. The Persian inva- He knew how treacherous the hopes had prosion appears to have interrupted the annual ved with which he had allured him, how little procession, in which the statue of the mystic the temper of Xerxes was formed to brook such lacchus was carried in solemn pomp along the disappointments, how many enemies he himSacred Road from Athens to Eleusis. One of the Athenian exiles, as he looked over the Thri- * Compare Polyonus, iii., 11, 2. asian plain towards the sanctuary, fancied that t Ctesias (26), and Strabo, ix., p. 395, represent Xerxes he saw the cloud of dust usually raised by the as having originall deauseway, aned toas hayvingbeen preveated festive throng which at this season formed the from executing his plan by the battle. RETREAT OF XERXES. 269 self had at court who would turn it to his ruin. dertaking without their assistance to block the He therefore prudently resolved to forestall the Persians up in Europe. He reminded them king's wishes, and to give him the advice which " that men driven to extremities often pluck up coincided with his designs, while he reserved a courage to which they would else have been for himself a field for his ambition, and a pros- stringers; that they might think themselves pect of achieving a conquest which would com- happy enough to have freed themselves and pleteiy re-establish him in the royal favour. Greece from the cloud that had hung over them "He bade the king not to let his spirits be cast without trying to detain it now that it was rolldown by the loss of a few ships, nor because ing away. Even what had been done was not the Greeks had shown themselves better men their. own deeput the work of the gods and on the sea -than Phemnicians and -,Egyptians, heroes.whom tFe invader had provoked by his Cyprians and Cilicians. Their disgrace could impious pride and sacrilegious violence." The not tarnish the honour of the Persians, who Athenians were persuaded, and the fleet made were used to rely not on frail planks, but on some stay among the Cyclades, to chastise those men and horses for victory. The Persian arms of the islanders who had sent succour to the were still irresistible as ever on their proper barbarians. element. Let the king but make the trial by It may be easily conceived that a man like advancing into Peloponnesus, and he would see Themistocles loved the arts in which he excellthat these sailors, however proud they were of ed for their own sake, and might exercise the their triumph, would none of them dare to land faculties with which he was pre-eminently giftand meet him. If, however, he was satisfied ed upon very slight occasions. In devising a with the display he had made of his power, and plan, conducting an intrigue, surmounting a difthought it time'to return to Persia, Mardonius ficulty, in leading men to his ends without their himself, if he were permitted to select 300,000 knowledge and against their will, he might find troops from the army, would undertake to com- a delight which might often be in itself a suffiplete the subjugation of Greece." Xerxes was cient motive of action. We should be led to pleased; for what he heard was his own mind. suppose that this was the inducement which Artemisia, whom he affected to consult - led him to send another secret message to though, as Herodotus believes, neither man nor Xerxes, if, as Herodotus represents, its import woman could have prevailed on him to stay- was only to inform the king of the resolution seconded the proposal of Mardonius, and ob- which the Greeks had just adopted, and to let served that if it was adopted, the risk would be him know that he might return to Asia without all on the side of the Greeks, for, when the king any fear of hindrance. For that in the very was safe, it mattered little what became of one moment of victory, when he had just risen to of his slaves; if Mardonius fulfilled his promise, the highest degree of reputation and influence the glory would belong to his master. Xerxes among his countrymen, he should have foreseen commended her prudence, and honoured her the changes which fortune had in store for him, by intrusting his children to her charge, with and have cdnceived the thought of providing a whom she immediately set sail for Ephesus. place of refuge among the barbarians to which The same night the fleet received orders to he might fly if he should be driven out of Greece, make for the Hellespont with all speed, to guard is a conjecture that might very naturally be the bridges till the king's arrival. As they sail- formed after the event, but would scarcely have ed in the dark by Cape Zoster, they were de- been thought probable before it. That he sent ceived by the appearance of some rocky islets the second message need not be doubted, notwhich are scattered near the coast, and, taking withstanding the ease with which such anecthem for Grecian ships, fled, panic-struck, in dotes are multiplied: according to Herodotus, dlfferent directions. The error was detected the bearer, the same Sicinnus, was accompaniin time to prevent a dispersion, and they pursu- ed by several other trusty servants or friends: ed their course to the Hellespont without far- Plutarch found a more probable tradition, that ther interruption. the agent employed was a Persian prisoner, a It was not till about the middle of the follow- slave of Xerxes, named Arnaces. In Herodoing day that the Greeks received information tus, Themistocles claims the' merit of having of the departure of the Persian fleet. They in- diverted the Greeks from pursuing the Persian stantly gave it chase, but, having proceeded as fleet and destroying the bridges, and bids Xerxfar as Andros without gaining sight of it, they es dismiss all fear about his return. Plutarch's there, stopped to hold a council of war. The authors, on the contrary, related that he had Athenians were desirous of continuing the pur- terrified Xerxes with the danger of being intersuit, and sailing to the Hellespont, to destroy cepted, and urged him to fly with the utmost the bridges and intercept the return of Xerx- speed. And this seems more consistent with es; and Themistocles proposed this niovement. the narrative of Herodotus himself, who, though But Eurybiades represented the danger of dri- he did not believe the report he heard at Abdeving a powerful enemy to despair, and was of ra, that Xerxes never loosened his girdle before opinion that no impediment ought to be thrown he reached Abdera on his way back, describes in his way. Plutarch ascribes this counsel to him as making forced marches to the HellesAristides, supposing it to have been given at pont. Salamis; but there is no reason for thinking Mardonius accompanied Xerxes as far as that he was with the fleet at Andros. The Thessaly, where he himself meant to take up Peloponnesian commanders all approved of the his winter quarters. He selected the flower o! admiral's caution; and Themistocles, probably the whole army, including the Immortals, and himself convinced, laboured to soothe the dis- one of the troops of the king's horse-guard. A appointment of his countrymen, who at first body of 60,000 men, part of those whom he rewere for separating from their allies, and un- tained, under the command of Artabazus, es 270 IllSTORY OF GREECE. corted Xerxes to the Hellespont. Widely dif- sistance: he'tried to gain admission by gold; ferent from the appearance of the glittering host his bribes prevailed, but the treachery was dewhich a few months before had advanced over feated by a timely detection. He lay three the plains of Macedonia and Thrace to the con- months before the walls without shaking the quest of Greece, was the aspect of the crowd firmness of the garrison: at length they seemed which was now hurrying back along the same to be deserted by the gods; an extraordinary road. The splendour, the pomp, the luxury, the ebb of the sea left the shore of the Isthmus bare waste, were exchanged for disorder and distress, under the walls of the city. Artabazus took want and disease. The magazines had been advantage of the prodigy to send a division of emptied by the careless profuq or the pecula- his army round the town; but, in the middle of tion of those who had the chaFe of them; the their march, the waters returned in a tide highgranaries of the countries, traversed by the re- er than had ever been known before. The bartreating multitude, were unable to supply its barians were either overwhelmed by the waves, demands; ordinary food was often not to be or cut to pieces by the garrison, and Artabazus, found, and it was compelled to draw a scanty in despair, raised the siege, and marched back and unwholesome nourishment from the her- to Thessaly. bage of the plains, the bark and leaves of the The Grecian fleet, as we have seen, had staytrees. Sickness soon began to spread its rava- ed among, the Cyclades to punish the islanders ges among them, and Xerxes was compelled to who had aided the barbarians. Themistocles consign numbers to the care of the cities that seized this opportunity of enriching himself at lay on his road, already impoverished by the cost their expense. He first demanded a contribuof his first visit, in the hope that they would tion from Andros; and when the Andrians retend their guests, and would not sell them into fused it, he told them that the Athenians had slavery if they recovered. The passage of the brought two powerful gods to second their deStrymon is said to have been peculiarly disas- mand, Pejsuasion and Force. The Andrians trous. The river had been frozen in the night replied thIt they also had a pair of ill-conditionhard enough to bear those who arrived first; ed gods, who would not leave their island, or but the ice suddenly gave way under the heat let them comply with the will of the Athenians, of the morning sun, and numbers perished in Poverty and Inability. The Greeks laid siege the waters.* In forty-five days after he had to Andros, but it made so vigorous a defence left Mardonius in Thessaly, he reached the Hel- that they were at length compelled to abandon lespont: the bridges had been broken up by foul the attempt, and returned to Salamis. Theweather, but the fleet was there to carry the mistocles, however, employed the assistance of army over to Abydos. Here it rested from its fa- his two gods with more success in several of tigues, and found plentiful quarters; but intem- the other islands, which bribed him for impunity. perate indulgence rendered the sudden change All Greece resounded with the fame of his wisfrom scarcity to abundance almost as pernicious dom; the deliverance just effected was univeras the previous famine. The remnant that Xerx- sally ascribed, next to the favour of the gods, to es brought back to Sardis was a wreck, a frag- his foresight and presence of mind. When the ment, rather than a part of his huge host. choicest of the spoil had been selected for Many of the Greek cities on the coast of the thanksgiving offerings, of which the greater Chalcidian peninsula, when they heard of the part was sent to Delphi, and converted into a battle of Salamis and the flight of the Persian colossal statue, and the rest had been divided fleet, had cast off the yoke: Potidaea, on the among the allies, the commanders met in the Isthmus of Pallene, was the foremost in assert- temple of Poseidon on the Isthmus,. to award ing its independence. Olynthus, at this time the palm of individual merit. Among the states inhabited by Bottiaeans, a race which laid claim which had taken a part in the battle, almost to some infusion of Cretan blood, and had been unanimous consent assigned the foremost place driven by the progressive conquests of the Ma- to.iEgina: her claim to this glory seemed so cedonians from the Gulf of Therme, betrayed a unquestionable, that the Delphic god, when he similar disposition. Artabazus, when he had was asked if he was content with the offerings executed his commission, seeing time to spare he had received, said that he still missed that before Mardonius would need his presence in which.Egina owed for her precedence; and it TIessaly, resolved to employ it in chastising was sent, in the shape of three golden stars, fixthis rebellion. He first laid siege to Olynthus, ed on a brazen mast. The other question was made himself master of it, and massacred the to be decided by the votes of the competitors whole population in cold blood. He then re- themselves, which were solemnly given at the peopled it with colonists of the Chalcidian race: altar of Poseidon for the first and for the second henceforth Olynthus is a purely Greek city. degree of excellence. No one was generous This cruelty was, perhaps, meant to. strike ter- enough to resign the first place to another; ror into Potideea; if so, it failed of its end. Ar- most were just enough to award the second to tabazus here met with a more determined re- Themistocles. Still higher honours awaited It is a little surprising that him from Sparta, a severe judge of Athenian It is a little surprising theat Herodotus, when he is de- merit. He went thither, according to Plutarch, scribing the miseries of the retreat, does not notice this dis-. aster, which is so prominent in the narrative of the Persian invited, wishing, Herodotus says, to be honmessenger in iEschylus. There can, however, be no doubt oured. The Spartans gave him a chaplet of as to the fact; and perhaps it may furnish a useful warn- olive leaves; it was the reward they had being not to lay too much stress on the silence of Herodotus stowed on their own admiralEurybiades. They as a ground for rejecting even important and interesting stowed on their own admiral,Eurybiades. They facts which are only mentioned by later writers, though added a chariot, the best the city possessed; such as he must have heard of, and might have been ex- and, to distinguish him above all other foreignpected to relate. It seems possible that the story he men- ers that have ever entered Sparta, they sent tions of Xerxes embarking at Eion (viii., 118) may have ansen out of the tragical passage of theStrymon. the three hundred knights to escort him as far BATTLE OF HIMERA. 271 as the borders of Tegea on his return.* He him- CHAPTER XVI. self subsequently dedicated a temple to Artemis, as the goddess-of good counsel. FROM THE BATTLE OF SALAMIS TO' THE END OF as the goddess'of good counsel. THE PERSIAN INVASION. While these great events were passing in Greece, Sicily was delivered from a danger not WITHIN a few days after the battle of Salaless threatening. Terillus, tyrant of Himera, mis, Attica was delivered from the presence of had been expelled from his city by Theron, ty- the barbarians, and the Athenians returned to rant of Agrigentum. To recover his dominions, cultivate their fields and to repair their dwellthe exile solicited aid from Carthage. The ings. The necessity of attending to their doCarthaginians were no doubt glad of an oppor- mestic concerns had been one of the main artunity of gaining a footing in the island; though guments by which Themistocles prevailed on Diodorus, with the natural prejudices of a Si- them to desist from the pursuit of the Persian cilian, imagined that they had been stimulated fleet. They now applied themselves to their to the invasion of his country by Xerxes, who useful labours with the greater alacrity, as they. probably had scarcely heard the name of Sicily. entertained a reasonable hope that their land They appear, however, to have required some would not again be visited by the ravages of security from Terillus; and his son-in-law, the same invader. Sparta had been too late Anaxilaus, tyrant of Rhegium, sent his own for Marathon, too late to save Athens; but now children as hostages to the Carthaginian suf- there was ample time for preparation, and full fete, Hamilcar, who was himself, by his moth- warning of the need. Though the enemy was er's side, of Syracusan origin, and was bound yet formidable by land, still, after the brilliant by ties of hospitality to Terillus. The Cartha- success that had hitherto attended the Greeks, ginians sent an army, it is said, of 300,000 men, after the example that had been given at Maracollected from Africa, and from the coasts and thon of what might be effected by a small numislands of the Tuscan Sea, under the command ber of brave and disciplined troops, it was not of Hamilcar, to Sicily.- On his arrival he laid too much to expect that the allies would not siege to Himera, now it the possession of The- again look on at a distance, while the barbariron, whose daughter, Demarat6, was the wife of ans overran the territory of a people which had Gelo ofSyracuse. Gelo marchedpromptlyto the done and suffered so much for the common relief of his father-in-law with a powerful army, cause. During the winter the Greeks remained revived the confidence of the Himeraeans, and tranquil, as if they had no enemy at their doors; shut up the Carthaginians in their camp. An in- but in the spring they awoke, like men who tercepted letter, containing promises of succour have slept upon an uneasy thought, and rememfrom Selinus, suggested to him a straagem, by bered that Mardonius was in Thessaly, and a'which he introduced a body of cavalr into the Persian fleet still upon the sea. Carthaginian intrenchments, who surprised and This fleet, after having transported the army slew Hamilcar, and burned almost the whole of across the Hellespont, had wintered, the main his fleet, which he had drawn on shore, and en- part at Cuma, the rest at Samos, and, when the closed within his fortifications. At the same sea was open again, the whole was assembled time he marched up with his whole force; the at the latter station, under the command of Carthaginians came out and gave him battle, three new admirals. Their intention was to but were defeated, with the loss, it is said, of remain entirely on the defensive; and they did half their army. The rest took refuge in a po- not expect to be attacked by the Greeks, who sition where the want of water compelled them had not pursued them after their defeat, but to lay down their arms. To complete the dis- they watched the Ionians with suspicion. Their aster of the Carthaginians, twenty of their force amounted only to 300 ships, of which the ships, which had escaped the conflagration of Ionian squadron formed a part. A revolt in the fleet, and carried off a part of the crews, Ionia, seconded by the victorious Greeks, would perished in a storm on their way home. Scarce- give them full employrent. Their suspicions ly a boat returned to bring the news to Car- and fears were not ilr grounded. When the thage. This great victory was gained, it is Grecian fleet, consisting of 110 ships, met at said, on the same day with that of Salamis. 2Egina in the spring, under the command of The allied cities were enriched with the Car- Leotychides, king of Sparta, the successor of thaginian spoil, and adorned by the labours of Demaratus, and Xanthippus, son of Ariphron, the prisoners, whom they divided among them. the prosecutor of Miltiades, some Ionian refuOf these, so many fell to the share of Agrigen- gees, who had failed in an attempt against Strattum that private persons are said to have be- tis, the tyrant of Chios, came over to solicit aid come owners of 500 slaves. The quarries were for the purpose of restoring Ionia to independfilled' with these unfortunate captives; solid ence.* They had alteady applied to Sparta, and magnificent works rose under their hands, and seem to have been referred to the judgment to the honour of.the gods, and for the conve- of the allies. But the only point they could nience and pleasure of the citizens; temples of carry with the conimanders of the fleet was to vast size; sewers, more celebrated, perhaps prevail on them to advance eastward as far as not much less massy than the Roman; an ar- Delos, and even this movement was made with tificial lake, rivalling the splendour of Eastern great reluctance, and perhaps to many seemed kings, remained, as long as Agrigentum stood, too bold. The intercourse between Ionia and, and still remain, in part buried under its ruins, Greece had not been active enough to render monuments of the day of Himera. * Among them was Herodotus, son of Basilides, whom * See p. 137, where the word knights should have been Manso, Sparta, i., p. 346, confounds with the historian. used instead ofhorsemen. Manso conjectures, we think needlessly, that the Spartans, to cover their fear of tke Persians, pretended total ignorance of the distance of Samos and the Asiatic coast. ~ As little do we believe them to have been reallyignorant of t 272 HISTORY OF GREECE. the eastern coast of the A.Egean familiar to the king, which had been vouchsafed to them alone Greeks, particularly to those of Peloponnesus. of all the Greeks." Beyond Delos, their imagination covered the The Spartans had heard of the embassy of sea with hostile forces, and Samos lay as far Alexander, and were alarmed by it. A prophecy, out of their self-traced field of action as the naturally suggested by the aspect of the times, Pillars of Hercules. Thus mutual fears kept is said to have heightened their fears for the conthe interval between the two islands open, and stancy of Athens. It was believed that a time the two fleets at rest, though in an attitude of should come when they and all the other Doridefence. All eyes were turned to the land- ans should be driven out of Peloponnesus by the forces, which were evidently destined to decide united forces of the Persians and the Athenians. the conflict. They were also not yet quite prepared to sustain During his stay in Thessaly, Mardonius had an attack. The works which they had hastily been making preparations for his approaching thrown up in the foregoing summer on the Isthcampaign. However sanguine his temper might mus had fallen to ruin during the winter, or be, he could not now be blind to the truth that were so slight that a new fortification was deemthe conquest of Greece was by no means so ed necessary. They were now employed in coneasy an undertaking as he had once fancied, structing one, and, at least till it should be comand had led Xerxes to believe; he was now pleted, it was prudent not to neglect any preabout to make the cast on which all his hopes caution to secure the alliance of the Athenians. were set, and was ready to embrace any expe- Their ambassador spoke of what Athens owed dient that would ensure his success or lessen to Greece, which she had herself involved in his difficulties. It was probably the anxiety the war; of what she owed to her own renown, with which his prospects must have inspired as a city famed above all others for her resisthim, that suggested to him the thought of send- ance to tyranny, and her efforts in behalf of the ing an agent round to the most celebrated Gre- oppressed. " The Spartans felt for the distress cian oracles to which he had access, in the which the Athenians had suffered from the late hope, even through the rites of a strange reli- invasion, and for the sacrfices which they might ginn, to catch some glimpse of futurity or some still have to make, and would do their utmost light for his guidance. What revelations his to mitigate them. They offered to maintain emissary brought back from the shrines of the families of the Athenians as long as the Apollo and Amphiaraus, or the mysterious cave war should last, at their own expense. Let not of Trophonius, though they were carefully re- the Athenians prefer the hollow promises of the corded, Herodotus could not learn. But he barbarians to their natural and faithful allies." thinks it probable that their answers may have A distinct and manly answer destroyed the had some share in impelling Mardonius to the hopes of tie Macedonian, and silenced the fears step he took next. This was an attempt to de- of the Spartans. " So long as the sun held on tach Athens from the cause of Greece, and to his course, Alexander might tell Mardonius, gain her as an ally for Persia. To conduct this Athenswvvuld never come to terms with Xerxes: negotiation, he selected Alexander, the king of enormous as his power was, she would continMacedonia, who, connected with Persia by the ue to defy it, relying on the gods and the heroes, marriage above mentioned between his sister whose temples and images he had burned and deand a Persian of high rank, and, on the other faced. That the Spartans should have been anxhand, by ties of friendship and hospitality with ious about the conduct of the Athenians on this Athens, appeared singularly fitted to mediate occasion was natural enough; but the character between the parties. The ambassador, on his of the Athenians ought to have protected them arrival at Athens, spoke in the name of Mardo- from the suspicion that they could be tempted nius, but as the bearer of a proposal which to betray Greece to the barbarian, though he Xerxes had empowered and commanded his should offer them all the gold the earth conlieutenant to make. "eThe king was ready to tained, or the fairest and richest land under the forget past offences, to secure the Athenians in sun. They must first forget the injuries they the unmolested possession of their territory, had suffered, and the ties of blood, language, and to add to it any other they nmight covet; he manners, and religion that united them to offered to rebuild all the temples they had burn- Greece. "They thanked the Spartans for their ed in their city; he asked, in return, not the offer, but they would not burden them. This subjection, but the alliance of Athens, as a free was not the kind of assistance they desired and independent staite. Mardonius exhorted from their allies. But they wished them to the Athenians to embrace the king's generous put their forces in motion without delay, to meet offer, and not to keep up a ruinous struggle Mardonius in Boeotia, as, on receiving the anagainst a power which, even if they should es- swer they had just heard, he would probably cape for the present, must crush them in the set out on his march for Attica." end." Alexander himself, whose friendly sen- What the Athenians expected came to pass; timents they well knew, freely added his own what they desired was not done. Mardonius, advice on the same side. " He would not have as soon as he heard the message brought by been the bearer of such a message if he had Alexander, set out from Thessaly, and marched seen any prospect of their being able to main- at full speed towards Athens. His Thessalian tain a perpetual contest with Xerxes; but the friends, with Thorax of Larissa at their head, power of the king was more than mortal, his whose interests were bound up in his, showed arm stretched beyond the reach of man; if they greater zeal than ever in his service; and he did not wish their land to be forever a theatre was no less heartily welcomed in Boeotia, where of war, or to be from time to time continually the Theban Attaginus, a man of great wealth deprived of it by hostile invasion, let them joy- and credit, exerted all his influence in the Perfully accept the magnanimous offer of the great sian cause. The Thebans advised him not tc MARDONIUS IN B(EOTIA.-DELAYS OF THE SPARTANS. 273 advance farther, but to fix his quarters in Boe- Cleombrotus, the brother of Leonidas, who exotia, which was well suited to the operations ercised the kingly functions during the minority of his army'; and they held out to him the pros- of Pleistarchus, son of Leonidas, had been sent pect of effecting the conquest of Greece with- with an army to superintend the work. It was out striking a blow. The Greeks, they said, not quite finished when Mardonius took posseswere strong while they held together, but they sion of Athens. It seems to have been the demight be made to turn their arms against one sign of the Ephors, that when the wall should another. Let the Persian gold be distributed have been completed, and the peninsula should among the leading men in each city,'and fac- thus have been secured from all fear of a sudtions would soon be raised everywhere, which den attack, Cleombrotus should lead his forces would save him the labour and the risk of against the Persians. But an eclipse of the sieges and battles. Perhaps the advice was sun, which happened while he was consulting not wholly neglected; but Mardonius had sev- the victims on'the issue of his expedition, terrieral motives for pursuing his march into Attica. fled him so that he returned home with his He wished to make himself master of Athens, army; and he soon after died, leaving a son of for the sake of his credit with Xerxes, who mature age, named Pausanias, who succeeded was still at Sardis, whither he designed to con- to the guardianship of his cousin Pleistarchus. vey the news by beacons over the islands of In the mean time the Athenians sent an embasthe 2Egean. He was also not without hopes of sy to Sparta, in which they were joined by Mebending the obstinacy of the Athenians, when gara and Platwea, to remonstrate on the indiftheir country and city were in his possession, ference and neglect with which their zeal and to accept the terms which.hey had rejected constancy had been requited, and to call for aswhile his invasion was uncertain. He there- sistance to rid Attica of the barbarians. The fore proceeded, and he found no obstacle on his ambassadors found the Spartans engaged, as if way: at Athens only the deserted walls. The they; had no more pressing business, in celeinhabitants had retired to Salamis, when they brating the great Amycleean festival, the Hyasaw that they had no protection to expect from cinthia. They laid their complaints before the the Peloponnesians. Ten months after its cap- Ephors; reminded them of the offers which the ture by Xerxes, Athens fell into the hands of Athenians had irceived from the Persians, and Mardonius. which were not yet recalled; of the promises He immediately sent a Greek named Mury- of succour which Sparta had given while she chides over to Salamis to renew the proposals trembled for Peloponnesus, and had forgotten he had before made through Alexander. The when she began to feel secure behind the newenvoy was introduced into the council, and de- ly-built walls. Athens, they said, was justly livered his message. Only one voice among indignant at this desertion; yet the Spartans the councillors recommended compliance. The might still repair their fault by promptly seekname of the wretched man was Lycidas: He- ing the enemy at Attica, where they would find rodotus suspects, with reason, that he had sold him in the Thriasian plain. himself to the Persians; mere pusillanimity The Ephors deferred their answer till'the morwould scarcely have given him courage enough row, and the sacred festival afforded them a preto defy public opinion. He paid dearly for his text for protracting the delay. Perhaps it was rashness: his colleagues heard him with indig- also the principal motive of their conduct. They nation; the report of his false or base counsel were unwilling to interrupt the holyday season soon spread among the multitude that surround- by military preparations: the march of their ed the doors of the council chamber, and he troops would have begun under an unfavourable was stoned to death. Murychides was suffer- omen, and, as Attica could no longer be saved, ed to go unhurt. The Athenian women, when they might think that nothing would be gained they heard of the crime and the punishment of by breaking through their ordinary rules. The Lycidas, were seized with a similar fury, but, wall across the Isthmus, too, though far advan-;unhappily, vented it against innocent objects. ced, had not, it appears, quite come to an end They rushed in a body to his house, and imita- when the Athenians arrived in Sparta. The ted the example of their husbands and brothers return of Cleombrotus, though this is not exby destroying his wife and children.* pressly mentioned, seems to have happened While the Athenians, a second time driven during their stay there.* But whatever may from their homes, were giving these proofs of have been the motives or intentions of the their inflexible resolution, the Spartans, lately Ephors, they deemed it absolutely necessary to so concerned about their intentions, seemed to keep the Athenians in the dark, and preferred have wholly forgotten their danger. The news to run the risk of losing their alliance rather of the approach of Mardonius, instead of hasten- than disclose their designs before it was time ing the march of a Spartan army for the pro- to carry them into effect. The patience of the tection of' Athens, only quickened the hands envoys grew more and more weary as they that were employed in gortifying the Isthmus. were continually put off, during ten days, from morrow to morrow. The Arcadian Cheileus, * It is somewhat perplexing to find this incident related who happened to be in Sparta, and to whom by Demosthenes (Cor., p. 296) of one Cyrsilus, whom, as they probably expressed their resentment is it would appear from the comparison he draws, he conceived to have excited the anger of his countrymen by opposing said to have been the person who convinced Themistocles the year before, when he proposed the evacuation of Attica. It can scarcely be doubted that the orator * Mueller, Prolegom., p. 409, supposes Cleombrotus to alludes to the same occurrence which the historian describes. have died the year before (B.C. 480), having led away his Perhaps the easiest solution of the difficulty would be to army soon after the eclipse, which took place October 2d. suppose that Lycidas had also been called Cyrsilus, a name But the language of Herodotus, ix., 8-10, conveys a differwhich might imply that he had already made himself odi- ent impression, which seems to have been also Mr. Clinous or contemptible by overbearing manners. See Welck- ton's, F. H., ii., p. 209, who fixes the death of Cleombrotus or, Theogeis, p.. xxxiii. in he year B.C. 479. - VOL. I1-M M 274' HISTORY OF GREECE. the Ephors of the imprudence of sporting with doubt, impatient of the delay, the cause of the feelings of so valuable an ally. Unless, which they only learned on the return of their however, we imagine that their plans had not envoys, and the rumours which must be supbefore been fixed, it can scarcely be conceived posed to have sprung up during this interval that they were much affected py his counsels. might easily continue afloat, even after the It was probably not before every motive of de- truth had been ascertained; and, as the jeallay had ceased that they at last ordered Pau- ousy between the two rival states increased, sanias to put himself at the head of the army- might more and more usurp the place of his5000 Spartans, attended each by seven Helots — tory. which they meant to send into the field; for, Several reasons determined Mardonius not according to Herodotus, they were so careless to hwait the approach of Pausanias, nor to fight about the suspense in which they kept the en- a battle in Attica. The nature of the ground voys, that they prolonged it when no end could was unfavourable to the movements of his caviemaintobeanswered by'it. Insteadofhasten- alry, the arm on which he principally relied. ing to announce to the impatient strangers that If defeated, he would.be compelled to retreat their troops were about to march, they sent through narrow and difficult passes, and would Pausanias away in the night, and did not even be in danger of losing his whole army; and make known his departure till the next day, should his stay be lengthened, he would find when the Athenians wrung the singular secret great difficulty in providing for its subsistence. from them by declaring that their patience was He therefore resolved on falling back upon spent, and that they would forthwith return Boeotia, where he would be favoured by the home. They at the same time threatened that nature of the country, and by the neighbourAthens, since she had no hope of succour from hood of a friendly city. Until the eve of his Sparta, would throw herself into. the arms of departure he had not given up all hopes of gainthe Persians. Then the Ephors revealed the ing over the Athenians, and he had, therefore, truth. ", They were ready to swear that their abstained from doing any damage to their terarmy was already on its march; and they ritory, that they might be tempted by the prosthought it must by this time be in Arcadia." pect of saving their still unwasted fields and The envoys could scarcely be4ieve what they dwellings; but when the moment of retreat heard, and when they were convinced that the was come, and no end could be served by spaSpartan gravity was capable of descending to ring them any longer, he gave the reins to havso poor a jest, they set out in all haste to fol- oc and plunder, ravaged the land, and consumed low Pausanias. They were accompanied by a and destroyed whatever had been left standing body of 5000 heavy-armed men, the flower of of buildings, sacred or profane, in the former the provincial Lacedremonians. invasion. He had already set out on his march, Such is the account given of this transaction when he received intelligence that a body of by Herodotus; but it represents the conduct of 1000 Spaitans had pushed forward before the the Ephors as so capricious and so childish, main army to Megara. Hoping to surprise and that, when we consider how easily occurrences destroy them, he took the road towards that that took place at Sparta might be subsequent- city, and scoured the Megarian plain with his ly distorted and discoloured at Athens, we can horse. This was the farthest point to which scarcely avoid suspecting that the real state of the Persian arms were ever carried in this the case may have been less disgraceful to the quarter; it was, probably, in this expedition Spartans than it appears according to this view that the temple of Eleusis was either first comof it. If Cleombrotus brought his army back mitted to the flames or utterly wasted and during the ten days that the envoys were de- ruined. News came to him, before he had tained, his illness and death, and the appoint- reached Megara, that Pausanias, with all his ment of the new commander-in-chief, might forces, had arrived at the Isthmus; and he now render so long a delay unavoidable, and the thought it advisable to commence his retreat, departure of Pausanias, instead of having been without delay. He did not, however, take thet deferred to the last moment, may have taken direct road to Bceotia, but bent his way eastplace at the very first that admitted of it. Yet ward, and, passing by Decelea, crossed Parnes, it may have been at last both sudden and and came down into the lower vale of the Asosecret; but not because it was the result of a pus. The object of this circuit was pyrobably newly-adopted policy, and still less for the sake the better quarters to be found at Tanagra, of a paltry and most unreasonable jest. Herod- where he halted for the night. The next day otus relates a fact, which may have had some he crossed to the right bank of the Asopus, and share in hastening it, and which at the same pursued his march up the valley to the outlet time proves that nothing was uncertain about of the defile, through which the high road from it except the time. Argos, if the historian was Athens to Thebes descends to the northern foot correctly informed, had been solicited by Mar- of Cithaeron. Near this outlet, at the roots of donius to make a diversion in his favour: per- the mountain, stood i1e towns of Hysime and haps he had adopted the advice of the Thebans, Erythrae, between which the road appears tc and had corrupted some of her leading men; have passed. On the plain between Erythree publicly or privately he had received assurances the easternmost of the two, and the river, Mar that the Argives would prevent the Spartans donius pitched his camp. Here he expecter from sending an army against him. We do that the enemy, entering Bceotia by the passe; not hear how they purposed to effect this; and of Cithaeron, would ove4ake and give him bat it may have been, an empty boast, yet intelli- tIe. He wished for an early opportunity of gence of such a design might reach Sparta, and fighting, but he was not so confident in hi. quicken the movements of Pausanias. In the strength as to disdaintaking precautions agains mean while the Athenians at Salamis were, no the consequences of a defeat. He enclosed > GREEK FORCES. 275 space of upward of a mile square with a ram- their city, and now accompanied the Greeks, part surmounted by a palisade, and flanked with but were without arms; and though they might wooden towers, to guard his treasure and to af- render some useful services in the camp, apford a refuge, if it shbuld be needed, from a su- pear to have had no place in the field. Of the perior enemy. While this work was proceed- rest, 38,700 were men of arms: next to the ing, he accepted an invitation from Attaginus, Lacedaemonians, the Athenians furnished the who entertained him and fifty of his officers largest body, 8000 men; the Plataeans could with a splendid banquet at Thebes. To show only muster 600. After the Athenians, Cothe fraternal harmony that subsisted between rinth raised the most considerable force; she the Persians and their Greek allies, Attaginus herself armed 5000 men, and she drew sucat the same time invited fifty of his fellow-citi- cours not only from her western colonies, Leuzens, and arranged his guests so that there cas, Anactorium, and Ambracia, but also from should be one of each nation on every couch. Potidea, which proved its good-will by sending Herodotus himself afterward met with one of a band of 300. Megara and Sicyon furnished the Greeks who were present, and heard from each 3000; Tegea half that number; Orchomhim that the Persianiwho had shared his couch enus, which mustered 600, was the only Ar had privately disclosed to him the gloomy fore- cadian state that took a part in the expedition; bodings with which he looked forward to the among the rest, the greater part came from the approaching conflict. If we may believe this towns of Argolis; Trcezen could raise 1000; anecdote, many of the Persian officers foresaw but the united forces of Mycenae and Tiryns its fatal issue, and considered themselves as amounted to no more than 400. The lightvictims whom Mardonius had sacrificed to his armed troops were 69,500 strong; for, besides desperate ambition. the 35,000 Helots who attended the Spartans, All the Greeks north of the Isthmus, who each man of arms in the rest of the army was owned the Persian sway, had joined in the in- accompanied by one light-armed; and some vasion of Attica except the Phocians. They, small bodies which came from the Lacedaemotoo, had promised to send a re-enforcement to nian colony of Melos, from Ceos, and Tenos, the Persian army; but, either through unavoid- Naxos, and Cythnus, were probably equipped able delays or aversion to the service into which in a similar manner, and hence have been omitthey were pressed, their troops, a thousand men, ted in the list of Herodotus, though they earned did not arrive till after the return of Mardonius a place for their names in the monument at to Thebes.' When he heard of their coming, he Olympia, which recorded the cities that shared sent some horsemen to order them to station the glory of this great contest.* The numbers themselves in the plain, apart from the rest of of the Persian army more than tripled that of the army. As soon as they had done so, the the Greeks. Xerxes, as we have seen, had left whole of the Persian cavalry rode up and began behind 300,000 of his best troops, and the Maceto encircle them. The Greeks, who looked on donian and Greek auxiliaries are estimated by at a distance, expected forthwith to see them Herodotus at 50,000 more. Plutarch has, perfall beneath the Persian javelins; they them- haps, recorded an Athenian or a Platarean tradisdcves deemed their fate certain. Harmocydes, tion, which was not generally current, when he their commander, bade them prepare for the relates that Aristides obtained an ambiguous worst: their enemies, the Thessalians, he said, oracle from Delphi, promising victory to the had probably instigated the Persians to massa- Athenians if they sacrificed to the local gods, cre them; he exhorted them to die, not like a nymphs, and heroes, and if they joined battle tame herd, but as brave men, who had arms in in the plain of the Eleusinian goddesses in their their hands, and could sell their lives dearly. own land. The legend ran, that while Aristides They closed their ranks, and formed into a cir- was perplexed by the terms which seemed to cle, and, in a defensive attitude, awaited the enjoin a retreat to Eleusis, the Plataean general threatened charge. The Persians rode up and Arimnestus was guided by a nocturnal vision levelled their javelins; one or two actually to the discoveryof an ancient temple dedicated hurled them, but the rest suddenly wheeled to the Eleusinian goddesses, which stood near round and rode away. Mardonius wished it to Hysiae, at the foot of Cithaeron, on ground exbe thought that the scene was only meant to cellently suited to the purpose of protecting intry the courage of the Phocians: he sent,. soon fantry from the attacks of a superior cavalry, after, and applauded their dauntless spirit. The and that the Plateeans, by a decree, ordered the Phocians believed that it had really saved their landmarks which parted their country from Atlives. tica to be removed, that the Athenians might The Spartan army, on its arrival at the Isth- be able to fight on their own ground without remus, was joined by the forces of all the Pelo- crossing Citheeron. It is added, that when the ponnesian allies, and continued its march along Macedonian conqueror restored Plataea, he dethe coast into Attica. At Eleusis it was met dared by a solemn proclamation at Olympia, by an Athenian re-enforcement under the com- that he thus rewarded the Platreans for the mand of Aristides; it then took the road across magnanimity with which they had surrendered Cithaeron, and coming down upon ErythrTe, dis- their territory for the service of Greece. It eovered the Persians encamped on the plain may have been this proclamation misundernear the banks of the Asopus. Near ErythrTe stood which gave occasion to that part of the Pausanias halted, and formed his line on the story which relates to the absolute union of ter uneven ground at the foot of the mountain. ritory between Athens and Plataea: a fact quite' His whole force, which consisted wholly of in- inconsistent with their subsequent history. fantry, amounted to nearly 110,000 men:, that Mardonius, on perceiving the Greeks, waited number is said to have been completed by 1800 "hespians, who had survived.the destruction of * See Broendsted, Reisen, p. 105. '276 HISTORY OF GREECE. for a time in expectation that they would de- from their ranks to gaze upon the gigantic barscend and give him battle in the plain. At barian. length, seeing that they did not move from their This success encouraged Pausanias to leave position on the rugged skirts of the mountain, his position at the outlet of the pass for one he ordered his cavalry to go up and attack where his army, though more exposed to the them. Masistius, the commander of the caval- attacks of the enemy's cavalry, would, among ry, was an officer of high rank, second only to. other advantages, be better supplied with water Mardonius himself, and of great personal rep- than in the neighbourhood of the Erythraw. utation. He rode up at the head of his troops, With this view, he descended into the territory distinguished from the rest by his Niseean char- of Plateea. The town itself, which had not yet ger, and by the gold that glittered in his armour, risen from its ruins, lay about two miles off to and in the caparisons of his fiery steed. The the west, near the foot of the mountain. The Greeks were, for the most part, protected by the plain before it is watered by a number of small broken ground on which they were posted; but streams from the side of Cithaeron; some of that which the Megarians occupied was more them feed the Asopus, which, after it has colexposed, and they, consequently, had to bear lected these and other tributaries, takes an the brunt of the charge. Troop after troop as- easterly direction towards the Eubcean chansailed them in succession, and allowed them no nel: others go to form the (Eroe, which, rising breathing time; their ranks were rapidly thin- in the same elevated plain, flows through a narned by the missiles of the enemy, and their row glen at the western foot of Cithwaron into strength and spirits began to fail. In this dis- the Gulf of Creusis (Livadostro). Pausanias tress they sent to Pausanias to beg that he now posted himself on the bank of a stream would immediately detach a force for their re- which Herodotus calls the Asopus, but which lief, without which they could no longer keep must be considered as only one of its tributaries their station. It was a service of extraordina- running northward to join the main channel. ry difficulty and danger; and Pausanias scru- The right wing of the army, which, as the post pled to exercise his authority by selecting one of honour, was occupied by the Lacedeemodivision from the rest to engage in it; but he nians, was near a spring called Gargaphia, from called upon those who were willing to earn which it drew a plentiful supply of water. honour freely to undertake it. While the rest Before the troops could be arrayed in the orhesitated, an Athenian officer, named Olympio- der which they were to preserve in the day of dorus, offered, with his battalion of 300 men battle, the Lacedaemonians were called upon to and a body of archers, to cover the Megarians. decide a dispute between the Tegeans and the He hastened to their assistance, and received Athenians, who each claimed the left wing, the the charge of the enemy with a well-directed place second in honour. The Tegeans groundshower of arrows. Masistius was still fore- ed their pretensions on the exploit of their anmost; his horse was wounded in the side, reared, cient hero Echemus, who, they asserted, had and threw its rider. The Athenians rushed for- been rewarded by the Peloponnesians for his ward and fell upon him before he could rise victory over Hyllus by the privilege granted forfrom the ground. His scaly armour* for a time ever to his people, of occupying one wing in all resisted their weapons; at length he was pier- common expeditions made by the cities of the ced with a shaft of a javelin through the visor peninsula. To the Lacedaemonians they were of his helmet. In the tumult of the charge his willing to yield; but they insisted that as well fall was not observed, and no attempt was made ancient usage as the valour they had shown in to rescue him; but when the assailants, having so many contests with the Spartans themselves wheeled round and retired, discovered their loss, entitled them to precedence over all the other they spontaneously rushed forward to recover allies. The Athenians also, in urging their the body of their slain chief. The Greeks, claim, did not forget their mythical glories: their seeing the Athenians exposed to the shock of defence of the Heracleids against the power of this overwhelming force, moved on to their as- Eurystheus, the succours with which they had sistance. They came up as the little band had successfully taken up.the cause of the defeated been compelled to resign the body; but they Argives against the Cadmeans, and their victorenewed the struggle, and wrested it from the ry over the Amazons. They needed not, howPersians. After a sharp conflict, the cavalry ever, as they truly said, to allege the exploits was repulsed with some slaughter, and having of their ancestors; the field of Marathon had halted at the distance of a couple of furlongs, been witness to one equal to any in the days of thought it advisable to return with the mourn- yore: on this they were content to let their ful tidings to the camp. The whole army testi- right rest. Yet, they added, as the juncture fled its grief at the event by funeral honours was one that forbade all contention, they would such as were paid only to the most illustrious submit to the decision of the Spartans, and dead. They shaved not only their own heads, would endeavour to do honour to any post that but their horses and beasts of burden; and they should be assigned to them. set up a wailing, which, Herodotus says, re- The spirit of Aristides seems to speak in this sounded throughout all Boeotia. The Greeks, language: the modesty of the Athenians pleadthough their loss probably exceeded that of the ed in their favour, perhaps, as much as theit Persians, were consoled and animated by their merit; and the Lacedaemonian army exclaimfinal triumph, and especially by the death of an ed, as one man, that.they were the most worenemy whom his countrymen so deeply deplo- thy. Mardonius, as soon as he was apprized oi red. His body was placed in a cart, which was the movement of the Greeks, advanced with all drawn along the lines, and the men ran out his forces. which he drew up on the opposite * In which, according to Plutarch, he was cased from bank of the Asopus. He stationed the Persians head to foot Arist., 14 as his best troops, in the left wing to face the GREEK SOOTHSAYERS.-IMPATIENCE OF MARDONIUS. 277 Lacedaemonians; to the Athenians he opposed tian oracles shows a great proneness to adopt his Greek auxiliaries, whom he probably con- Greek superstitions. Hegesistratus only filled sidered as the second hope of his army. The the place of the Magians, who appear to have Thebans had suggested this arrangement, to accompanied the court, and to have left the which they were guided by reflecting that the army with Xerxes. But it cannot easily be Persians were new antagonists to the Spartans, imagined that the coincidence between the decwhile the Athenians had learned by experience larations of the soothsayers was the effect of to despise them. Before these movements chance. Tisamenus probably expressed the were completed, the day was too far advanced judgment and the wishes of most of the comfor beginning an engagement. But the' next manders in the Greek army when he enjoined day the soothsayers in both armies sought to it to remain on the defensive. And it is not discover the will of the gods from the entrails very likely that his rival trusted entirely to the of the victims. The Spartans had brought with rules of his art for the satisfaction of the rethem Tisamenus, the most celebrated diviner venge. with which he burned against Sparta. in Greece, sprung from a branch of the Iamids Mardonius himself, perhaps, had not learned of Elis. His fame was so great that the Spar- how to wield these religious instruments; but tans, when they were looking anxiously forward the Thebans were more conversant with them, to the Persian war, and could not prevail on and since the warning of the soothsayers ex-.him to dedicate himself to their service on any actly coincided with their advice, we may with other terms, had granted the freedom of their some confidence attribute it to their direction. city both to him and to his brother Hegias. In They had from the first been averse to running the time of Herodotus this was the only in- the risk of a battle, and probably hoped that by stance in which they had ever adopted a for- delaying it they might prevent it altogether. eigner. But the Persians, too, had Greek sooth- Plutarch relates an occurrence which, though sayers in their camp, and endeavoured to ex- Herodotus does not mention it, seems credible plore the secrets of futurity.by Grecian rites. enough, especially when it is coupled with the One of these, Hegesistratus, was also an Elean, policy which the Thebans had recommended to and of the line of the Telliads, which was like- Mardonius. He says that some Athenians of wise believed to be endowed with a hereditary high birth, whose fortunes had been ruined by prophetic virtue. He had been engaged in the the war, had formed a conspiracy to subvert the' service of the Persians by a high salary; but Constitution; that they held secret'meetings in hatred, still more than avarice, impelled him to a house at Plattea, and had drawn many into exert all his arts against the Spartans, who, had their scheme, when Aristides discovered it, and once thrown him into a dungeon with the in- quietly suppressed it, by compelling two of the tention of putting him to death.* The sooth- leaders to quit the camp, and intimating to the sayers on both sides read similar answers in the rest that the suspicions they had incurred might sacrifices. Tisamenus declared that the signs still be effaced by their services in the field. It were favourable to the Greeks if they meant to was by such engines that the Thebans hoped to remain on the defensive; but that disaster undermine the Greek cause. threatened them if they should cross the Aso- The two armies had been eight days facing pus and offer battle. Hegesistratus and his each other on the banks of the Asopus, during brother diviner, a Leucadian named Hippoma- which the Greeks were continually strengthenchus, likewise announced that the entrails for- ed by the influx of fresh troops, before it came bade the Persians to begin the attack. The ex- into the mind of Mardonius or his counsellors periment was repeated day after day with the to watch the passes, and to intercept the re-ensame result: the two armies remained inactive, forcements and supplies that had hitherto been except that the Pec*an cavalry harassed the pouring through them into the enemy's camp. Greeks, confined tOW to their encampment, It was Timagenidas, a Theban, who suggested:and interrupted their watering parties. In oth- this thought, and the event immediately proved,er respects they were well supplied with pro- the prudence of his advice. The cavalry sent visions, which were brought to them from Pelo- to guard the outlet of the defile, under cover of ponnesus over Cithaeron, and they were every- night, surprised a convoy of provisions with 500. day receiving fresh re-enforcements. Mardoni- beasts of burden. They fell upon their prey us, on the contrary, having taken no precautions with such fury as even to slaughter many of the to ensure regular supplies, was daily becoming cattle;; the rest were brought into the Persian more and more straitened in his means of sub- camp. This little success, however,'lid not sistence. He was heartily impatient of the de- sooth the impatience of Mardonius; he perceivlay, and eager to exert his apparently superior ed that the enemy was daily gaining strength, strength. - and when, at the end of ten days, the signs of It is undoubtedly a singular spectacle to see the victims continued still unpropitious, he rea Persian general, against both his inclination solved to be no longer governed by them. He and his judgment, kept motionless by Greek secretly disclosed his intentions to Artabazus; soothsayers, the nature of whose pretensions but Artabazus, unless he only afterward claimto foreknowledge he can scarcely have under- ed the credit of superior foresight when no one,tood. Yet there was nothing in the difference could contradict him, had adopted the views of between the religion of Greece and of Persia to the Thebans, and strenuously advised Mardoniprevent him from admitting their prophetical art us to avoid -a battle, to fall back upon Thebes, or faculty, and the mission he sent to the Bceo- I where magazines had beer, formed for the army, * He had effected his escape in a singular manner. He and to scatter his gold with an unsparing hand extricated himself from the stocks by cutting off the fore among the leading men in the Greek cities. part of his foot, and, in spite of the wound, broke through his Mardonius, however, was too confident in his drison wall and made his way to Tegea, travelling by night, and spending the day in the woods. Her., ix., 37 prospect of victory, and of too impetuous a temrn 278 HISTORY OF GREECE. per to embrace this tardy course, and adhered their cause on the issue of a battle with the to his purpose. Wishing, nevertheless, to coun- Spartans alone." The Spartan gravity was not teract the impression that might be produced in to be ruffled by this empty insult. But Mardothe minds of his Greek allies, and perhaps of nius, taking their calmness for cowardice, orthe Persians, by his neglect of prognostics dered his cavalry to charge them. The attack which were universally deemed infallible, he was so vigorously made that the assailants got summoned a council of the principal officers of possession of the Gargaphian spring, which both nations, and endeavoured to convince them they choked up, and rendered useless. This that fate was on his side. Among the numer- was an irreparable loss to the Greeks; for as ous prophecies that were current at this period they were prevented by the enemy's horse from was one which spoke of the destruction of a for- fetching water from the Asopus, they depended eign army that should invade Greece, and plun- on the fountain for their whole supply. It be. der the temple of Delphi. Herodotus believed came evident that they could not remain a day that the prediction referred to the irruption of longer in the same position; and, besides the an Illyrian horde, the Encheleans, who, as we want of water, they were in danger of suffering learn from this accidental mention of them, had from the scarcity of provisions; for the pass of in very early times carried their ravages so far; Citheeron was:closely watched by a detachment but as this tradition was almost forgotten, the of the Persian cavalry, and a supply which was prophecy was generally applied to the Persians. on its way from the Peloponnesus was unable Mardonius, with some dexterity, though not to reach them. As the enemy made no signs without violence, strained it into an assurance of beginning a general engagement, the princithat the Persians would be invincible so long pal commanders assembled to deliberate on their as they abstained from spoiling the sanctuary future movements. It was resolved, if battle at Delphi; and since they neither had perpetra- should not be joined in the course of the day, to ted nor any longer meditated the sacrilege, he retire during the following night to a part of the bade his hearers to dismiss all religious scruples, plain nearer Plataea, which being almost surand cheerfully prepare for the battle which he rounded by two branches of the (Eroe, was had determined to give the next day. known by the name of. the Island, and that, on In the dead of the following night a horseman their arrival at this post, a strong detachment presented himself at the outposts of the Atheni- should be sent to clear the pass, and convoy the ans, and desired to speak with the generals. supply that was detained on the mountain into When called to him by the sentinels, they found the camp. Alexander of Macedon.. He said that he was Mardonius did not follow up the attack of his come, at the risk of his life, to give them a friend- cavalry, which continued throughout the day to ly warning, and begged that they would reveal gall the Greeks with their missiles. When it to none but Pausanias. He then informed night came, the greater part of the allied generthem that Mardonius, notwithstanding the als, according to the resolution that had been threatening aspect of the victims, designed to adopted in the council of the morning, began to attack them on the morrow. Should, however, move off; but, instead of taking up the posithe engagement be delayed, he exhorted them tion that had been agreed on, they marched to to keep their ground, since the Persian army Plateea, and posted themselves near a temple had only a few days' provisions left, and would of Her6, which was close to the town. Their soon be compelled to retire. Then, after pray- object in thus deviating from the preconcerted ing them to remember his good-will if the cause plan was, perhaps, to take advantage of such of Greece triumphed, he rode away. shelter as the remains of the city might afford On receiving this intelligence Pausanias put for their wounded men. In the mean while into execution a purpose which he had proba- Pausanias was detained Wan unexpected imbly conceived some time before. He requested.pediment. One of his 6 ers, named Amomthe Athenian commanders to exchange their po- pharetus, conceived that the movement ordered sition for that of the Spartans, where they would by Pausanias was a disgraceful flight, by which be opposed to the Persians, whose mode of fight- the honour of Sparta was sullied: he had not ing was familiar to them. The Athenians, or, been present at the previous deliberation, and,perhaps, more properly, Aristides, expressed the now thinking the obedience due to his comgreatest readiness to comply with his wishes. mander subordinate to the higher duty he owed The necessary movements were performed in to the laws of his country, which forbade him the night,; and when the morning came, Mar- to fly from an enemy, he refused to set his didonius was apprized of the change. He imme- vision in motion. What was the amount of the' diately altered his own dispositions to meet it, force under his command we do not know; we and transferred the Persians to his right wing, are the less able to judge of it from the account where they again faced the Spartans. Pausa- of Herodotus, because he describes it by a term nias, finding his design thwarted, brought the which Thucydides condemns as inaccurate; but Spartans back to the right, and both armies re- it may most probably be considered as one of sumed their original order. Mardonius was ela- the bodies, six of which composed an ordinary ted with what he considered a confession of Spartan army. It was too considerable to allow fear in the Spartans, and he sent a herald to Pausanias to leave it exposed to the danger of taunt them with their faint-heartedness. " He being overwhelmed by the Persian host; and had expected," the messenger said, " from their no arguments could bend the stubbornness of reputation among the Greeks, that, instead of Amompharetus; Pausanias and his colleague shrinking from measuring their strength with both urged him in vain. In the mean time, the the Persians, they would have challenged them Athenians, distrusting, Herodotus says, the into decide the contest by a separate combat; and tentions of the Spartans, sent a horseman to inthe Persians, on their part, were willing to rest quire whether they had given up the design of BATTLE OF PLAT.EA, 279 retreating, and how they themselves were to Thle prayer had no sooner been uttered than act. The messenger found the Spartan gener- the soothsayer announced that the last sacrials in the heat of their dispute; and Amom- fice showed favourable tokens. The next inpharetus, probably a man of few words, taking stant the Spartans sprang up and advanced up a large stone with both hands, flung it down upon the Persians. Their slight fence did not at the feet of Pausanias: " There,*' he cried, long resist the shock of the Dorian phalanx, "is my vote against flying before the stran- and they soon found themselves engaged in gers." Pausanias called him a madman, and close combat with unequal weapons and arsent orders to the Athenian commanders to mour. Their short spears and daggers were bring up their forces and follow the movements as ill fitted to make an impression on the Sparof the Spartans. Day began to break, and still tan panoply as their light corslets to repel the the intractable man would not yield. Pausa- Spartan lance. Yet they fought bravely, though nias, thinking that his obstinacy might give way without method and order: they rushed forwhen he saw himself abandoned to inevitable ward, singly or in irregular groups, and endeavdestruction, now moved forward with the rest oured to seize and break the enemy's lances. of his Lacedaemonian forces and the Tegeans Mardonius himself, with the.thousand horse along the skirts of Cithieron. At about the dis- whom he had selected from the royal guards, tance of a mile, however, he halted again, to was foremost in the fight. He was conspicuous give Amompharetus time for better thoughts, by his white charger, as well as by the splenand to have it still in his power to succour him dour of his arms: but while the issue of th'e if his rashness should, as seemed likely, involve conflict was still doubtful, he received a mortal him in urgent danger. Amompharetus, howev- wound from a Spartan, named _lEimnestus, and er, did at last think better when he saw himself his fall decided the fate of the day. The Perleft alone with men whom he was about to sac- sians immediately began to give way, and their rifice to his point of honour, and reluctantly led example was followed by all the other barbathem at a slow pace after the main body. They rians. The rout soon became general, and the had scarcely overtaken it before the Persian fugitives made for the camp as their nearest cavalry, having discovered the retreat of the and surest refuge. Artabazus alone took a difGreek army, came up, and began to infest them ferent course. Discontented with Mardonius, as on the day before. - or foreboding the event, he had lingered behind Mardonius, when he heard that the Greeks with his division of forty thousand men. As had decamped during the night, asked his Thes- he came up to the field of battle, he met the flysalian friends what they now thought of the ing multitude, and finding that allwas lost, took boasted valour of the Spartans, and declared the road to Phocis, with the design of making that Xerxes'should hear from him of the cow- his way by forced marches to the Hellespont. ardly counsel of Artabazus, who had advised The Greek auxiliaries of the Persians, as soon retreating before such men. Without farther as they perceived their defeat, dispersed, for delay, he crossed the Asopus, and pursued the the most part, willingly and without a blow; track of his cavalry to fall upon the Lacedae- only the Bceotians, urged by the Theban traimonians, whose force, together with the Te- tors, maintained for some time a sharp conflict geans and forty thousand light troops, amount- with the Athenians. They were at length put ed to upward of fifty thousand men. The Athe- to flight, leaving three hundred of their number nians were out of sight, separated from them on the field, and sought shelter behind the walls by some low ridges, the last roots which the of Thebes. With these exceptions, the whole mountain throws out into the plain. Pausa- barbarian army-threw itself into the fortified nias, when he found himself pressed by the camp, barred the gates, manned the towers and Persian cavalry, despatched a horseman to de- the walls, and prepared as well as they could sire them to come to his assistance, or, if they to sustain the attack of the conquerors. were unable, to send their bowmen. But the The combat had lasted so short a time that approach of the enemy's Greek auxiliaries pre- the Greeks posted at Platiea, though they were vented thent from obeying his call. While at less than half an hour's distance from the Pausanias was preparing to sustain the attack scene of action, and on hearing of the battle of the Persians, the soothsayer was busy in hastened to the assistance of their countrymen, examining the victims. Their signs were still only arrived in time to join in the pursuit of the adverse, and the Spartan general ordered his Persians. But the Megarians and Phliasians, men to seat themselves on the ground, holding who, instead of returning along the skirts of the their long shields-before them, and in that pos- mountain, marched across the plain, were perture to wait till the gods should vouchsafe to ceived by the Theban cavalry, which suddenly give the signal for battle. It was long delayed. fell upon them, cut to pieces six hundred, and The Persians advanced within bowshot, and drove them into the hills. It now only remainthen closing their wicker shields, and fixing ed to complete the victory by storming the them in the ground, so as to form a kind of camp, and thus to deliver Greece at one blow breastwork before them, began to ply the Spar- from the presence of the barbarians. The Latans with their arrows. Not a man stirred: cedoemonians had followed close upon the heels manywere'wounded; and among the rest, Cal- of the Persians, and attempted to scale the licrates, distinguished as the most beautiful rampart, but, unaccustomed to sieges, they person in the Grecian army, died, lamenting were baffled by the rude fortifications, and by only that he had not been able to raise his arm the desperate resistance-they encountered. At in the service of his country. length the face of the contest was changed by In this distress, Pausanias, turning towards the arrival of the Athenians, who-hastened up the quarter where the Plataean temple of Here as soon as they had put the Thebans to flight. stood, implored aloud the aid of the goddess. Though their experience in the attack of forti 280 HISTORY OF GREECE. fled places was perhaps not greater than that scribed the names of the cities which had share, of the'Spartans, they could more readily adapt the glory of the contest: a third was consethemselves to a new situation.. They were the crated in a similar form to Poseidon on the first to mount the wall, and, forcing away the Isthmus. A sum of eighty talents was reserved wooden defences, opened a breach by which to be employed by the Plataans' in building a their allies poured in. After this the barbari- temple of Athen6, which was adorned with picans lost all hope, courage, and self-possession, tures, of which Plutarch speaks as retaining all and, like sheep crowded in a narrow fold, sub- their freshness in his day, after a lapse of six mritted without a struggle to the slaughter. hundred years. This was undoubtedly an act The rage of the Greeks, inflamed by their re- of piety, and not, as Plutarch represents it, a cent danger, and by the remembrance of their contrivance for settling a dispute which, he heroes who had been overwhelmed by the num- says, arose between the Spartans and the Athehers which it now only cost them labour to de- nians about the palm of merit. The next care, stroy, could-not sate itself with blood. Out of after paying the debt of gratitude to the gods, the whole multitude only three thousand are was to reward or honour the valour of those said to have escaped the carnage; not, there- who had fought and bled in the cause. The fore, through either the mercy or the weariness foremost place was assigned, by general conof the victors. The treasure found in the camp sent, to the Lacedoemoniafis; and it was, perwas immense: the furniture of the tents glit- haps, more as a national than a personal distinetered with gold and silver, and vessels of the tion that a magnificent present was selected same metals were seen scattered about for or- for Pausanias, consisting of ten samples of dinary use, and piled up in wagons. Xerxes, everything that was most valuable in the booty. when he set out on his hasty retreat, had left, The man who was most conspicuous among the it was said, all the superfluous ornaments of Spartans for his dauntless and reckless bravery his equipage in the possession of Mardonius. was the Aristodemus who, since the day of Even the manger of his horses was of brass, Thermopylee, had dragged on a dishonoured exand curiously wrought. It fell into the hands istence, in the hope of ending it in some gloriof the Tegeans, who were the first to enter ous field: he found what he wished at Plateea. through the breach made by the Athenians, and Yet the Spartans justly refused to award the were permitted to carry away this prize to palm to him, and looked rather at the cause adorn their temple of Athene Alea. The splen- from which he sought death than at the courage did armour of the slain, the collars and brace- with which he met it; no honours were paid to lets, with which the Persians in particular his memory as to those of their other heroes. adorned their persons, were countless and in- They raised three barrows over their dead: estimable.' Pausanias ordered the Helots to one for the officers,* among whom we read the collect the whole of the spoil, that gods and name of Amompharetus: the rest of the Sparmen might receive their due. Much, as might tans were buried under another, and the Helots be expected, was concealed by the serfs in- under the third: similar barrows marked the trusted with this task, and the great wealth of common graves in which the other cities colseveral families in _Egina was commonly at- lected their slain. It was not, however, every tributed to the gains they had made in purchas- city of those which earned a place for their ing the embezzled treasures from men who names on the pedestal at Olympia that could were ignorant of their value, so as even to sell lay claim to a monument of this kind at Plataa. gold for brass, and were glad to get rid of them Many had lost no lives, or only in the skirmishat any price.: According to a'tradition which es that preceded the decisive conflict. Yet, as conveys in another form the same lesson that the absence of their troops from the battle was Xerxes was said to have received from Dema- involuntary, as all had borne a part in the danratus, Pausanias, when he entered the tent of ger, in the toil, in the purpose which it fell to Mardonius, and saw the rich hangings, the soft the lot of a few to effect, they cannot be justly carpets, the couches and tables shining with charged with vanity or falsehood, if, as Herodo- / gold and silver, ordered the Persian slaves to tus asserts, they raised some cenotaphs by the prepare a banquet such as they were used to side of the sepulchres of their more fortunate set out for their master. When it was spread, allies. How dearly such honours were prized he bade his Helots set by its side the simple we see from the example of Elis and Mantinea. fare of his own ordinary meal, and then invited They had sent each a body of troops to Plateea, the Greek officers to mark the folly of the bar- but the re-enforcements did not arrive till the barian, who, with such instruments of luxury at battle had been fought. The Mantineans bithis command, had come to rob the Greeks of terly lamented their misfortune, and with great their scanty store. Demaratus, perhaps, would justice reproached themselves for the delay. have desired them to observe the precarious To make what amends they could for it, they tenure by which riches are held when they are instantly set off in pursuit of Artabazus, and not guarded by wisdom and valour. A portion of the spoil, nominally a tenth, was * This seems to be the meaning of Her., ix., 85, if we set apart for the Delphic god: it was formed adopt the reading ElpivES for Epdes, which manifestly cannot stand. But in this case, the term Iphv or Elp~ii is here eminto a golden tripod, supported by a three-head- ployed in a very different sense from that described by Plut., ed brazen serpent-an offering which outlasted Lye., 17, where it must be observed that the words oZros I not only the temple in which it was placed, and epiPi apxEt 7r1v 7rorTrTayypvwv Uv TatS yrXatg, refer, niot, it was dedi- as Manso (Sparta, i., p. 344) understood them, to real batthe worship of the god to whom it was dedi- ties, but to the exercises of the youths. If ipdeE is the true cated, but the liberty of Greece and the power reading, it must be supposed that dElpi was the name given,.vhich crushed it. Another portion adorned the not to ali the youths past twenty, but only to those who national sanctuarvy at Olympia with a colossal commansded the rest. This might be a regular step to rank tucolossal in the army. But all this is very uncertain, and there statue uf Jupiter, on the base of which were in- seems to be less difficulty in tihe conjecture r7rrie;. THE FEAST OF LIBERTY. 281 followed his traces as far as Thessaly, but tus as it is prominent in the description his biogwithout effect. Artabazus reached Asia in rapher gives of the same occurrences. Yet safety, though a part of his army perished by we can scarcely be mistaken in referring the hunger, and by the attacks of the Thracian extraordinary moderation, good temper, and tribes on the road. It seems that Alexander chastened ardour which render the conduct of of Macedon also fell upon his allies in their re- the Athenians so admirable in the scenes before treat and that he was rewarded either for this the battle, to the authority and influence of or h'a former services by the Athenian fran- Aristides; but perhaps his magnanimity and chise.* Artabazus would probably have had the Spartan commander's presence of mind still greater dangers to encounter if he had not were not more necessary for the final success prudently suppressed the news of the defeat, than the sanguine temperament of Mardonius and spread the belief that Mardonius was on and the perverse pride of Amompharetus. his march to the North. Both the Mantineans Before the army broke up from the field of and the Eleans, on their return home, banished victory, the commanders, among whom we may the general they had sent on the expedition, to believe, with Plutarch, that Aristides was forewhose tardiness they imputed their disappoint- most, took advantage of the prevailing temper ment. At a short distance from the road, at to make some provision for the preservation of the outlet of the defile near Erythrae, stood a union among the allies, and for directing their monument, which, in later times, was common- forces against the common enemy. With the ly believed to cover the remains of Mardonius.t sanction of the Delphic oracle, they erected an It was certain that, on the day after the battle, altar to the father of the gods under the title of some friendly hands had removed his corpse, the Deliverer;* but before they offered the first and many claimed the merit of the service from'sacrifice on it, they were directed to extinguish his son. An officious.Eginetan had urged all the fires in the country, as polluted by the Pausanias to revenge the mutilation of Leoni- presence of the barbarians, and to light them das by impaling the dead body of Mardonius. anew from the national hearth at Delphi. A But' Pausanias rejected the barbarous counsel Plattean named Euchidas ran from the camp with the abhorrence it deserved: victims to Delphi, a distance of more than sixty miles, enough, he said, had fallen to appease the and returned the same day with the sacred fire, shades of Leonidas and the heroes of Ther- but had scarcely delivered it before he dropped mopylae. down dead. He was.buried within the sacred Thus was Greece completely and finally de- precincts of Artemis Euclea, and an inscription livered from her Persian invader, within a few recorded his feat.t After this an assembly was hours after she had been brought nearer to the held, in which, on the motion of Aristides, it verge of destruction than ever before since she was decreed that deputies should be sent from became a nation. In the two great conflicts all the states of Greece every year to Plataea that preceded this, though ordinary minds might for the purpose of political consultations, as feel doubt, and even despondence, as to the is- well as to celebrate the anniversary of the batsue,'there were-signs that enabled the great men tle with sacred rites;' and that every fifth who were at the head of affairs to foresee, al- year, a festival, to be called the feast of Libermost with certainty, the triumphs they were to ty,~ should be solemnized at Platnea. The algain. And hence the victories of Marathon and lies were to keep up an arxny of 10,000 men of Salamis are intimately associated with the arms, and 1000 cavalry, and a fleet of 100 galnames of Miltiades and Themistocles. At Pla- leys, to prosecute the war against the barbaritaea the result depended on a variety of causes, ans. The Plataeans were declared sacred and the operation of which it was impossible to cal- inviolable so long as they offered the sacrifices culate, and it is difficult to determine the degree which were now instituted on behalf of Greece. of praise that belongs to any of the men who They, in return, undertook to honour the defendfilled the leading stations, and contributed to ers of Greece who' were buried in their land decide the event of the struggle. Whether with yearly ceremonies, which were still obPausanias committed any considerable faults as served in the time of Plutarch, who has left a a general, is a question still more open to con- minute description of them, A martial procestroversy than similar cases in modern warfare. sion marched at break of day to the sound of But, at least, it seems clear that he followed, the trumpet through the midst of the city, foland did nit direct or control, events, and that lowed by wagons full of myrtle-boughs and he was for a time on the brink of ruin, from chaplets, by the victim, a black bull, and by free which he was delivered more by the rashness youths-no slave was permitted to minister on of the enemy than by his own prudence. Had this occasion-bearing the vessels which conMardonius abstained from a general engage- tained the libations for the dead. Last of all, ment, and confined himself to harassing and the archon, who was not allowed at any other starving the Greeks, as his cavalry enabled him time during his year of office to touch a weapon, to do, the war would perhaps have been brought or to wear any but white apparel, now, in a to an opposite, certainly not to a similar, termi- purple tunic and with a sword in his hand, bore nation. In the critical moment, however, Pau- an urn kept for this solemnity in the public sanias displayed the firmness, and if, as appears archives. When the procession reached the manifest, the soothsayer was his instrument, burial ground, he first washed and anointed the the ability of a commander equal to the juncture. tombstones, and then sacrificed the victim,ll It is even more doubtful what share in the military events may have belonged to Aristides, t ELXiS ag HVi6Ec spdas 2XOE td' avfiylspOv. Plut., whose name is as rarely mentioned by Herodo- Arist., 20. I.p66ovXt l Ka SEwo. I'XEU0Epa, 11 It is a little strange that Plutarch, who gives so detail* Demosth., Aristocr., P. 687, probably by a lapse of memo ed a description of this ceremony, should have omitted one ory, names Perdiccas. t Paus., ix., 2, 1. of the very few features which Thucylides (iii., 58) ex. VOL. I.-N N 282 HISTORY OF GREECE. and poured a libation; and after having prayed at the same time that of their tyrant Theomesto the gods of the lower world, solemnly invited tor, who had been rewarded for the zeal and the brave men who had fallen in defence oftheir courage he had shown in the service of the incountry to share the banquet which her grati- vaders in the battle of Salamis, with the supreme tude had provided for them. So little could the power in his native country. The chief spokesGreeks be in the midst of their greatness. man among the Samians was Hegesistratus, a No enemy now remained in the field to call man of ready eloquence, who endeavoured to for the farther stay of the allies in Bceotia; but convince the Spartan king that he had only to the honour of Greece required that they should show himself on the coast of Ionia to excite not withdraw before they had punished the the Ionians to a general insurrection; that the Thebans, who had not merely submitted to the Persians either would not wait for his approach, barbarian, but had zealously lent their aid to or would fall a rich and easy prey to his arms; enslave their country. According to the strict finally, he said that himself and his colleagues construction of the oath which had been taken were willing to abide the event of the enterthe year before at the Isthmus, the offending prise, as hostages, on board the allied fleet. city should have been compelled to dedicate a It was only some weeks before that Leotychtenth of all it possessed to the Delphic god. It ides, as we have seen, had received and rewas known, however, that it had'been forced jected a similar proposal from Chios, which, into the part it acted by the power of a small like this, was made by a few individuals who faction, seconded by the arms of the Persians, professed to represent the wishes of the whole and that it was a reluctant instrument in their nation, but who might be suspected of being hands. Justice and prudence, therefore, pre- blinded by their private passions and interests. scribed that the vengeance should fall on the Yet now the Spartan king was strongly inclined guilty few. Ten days after the battle the allied to listen to the call. His former doubts and army appeared before the walls of Thebes, and fears had probably, in a great degree, subsided demanded the surrender of the traitors, and es- during his stay at Delos. He may in that inpecially of Timagenidas and Attaginus. Their terval have gained more information as to the influence, however, was still great enough to spirit prevailing in Ionia, and the strength of prevail on their fellow-citizens to resist the de- the Persians: a new summons from another mand and to sustain a siege, though the con- quarter was in itself an argument that both: federates had declared their purpose never to were grounded on a reasonable prospect of sucretire till they had extorted compliance. For cess; he had, besides, been long enough in the twenty days they blockaded the town and rav- same station to grow tired of inaction. Whataged its territory. Then the party which had ever was his motive, he did not long resist the brought this evil upon Thebes, either perceiving suit of the Samians, and in his present mood that they could no longer hold out, or hoping to the name of Hegesistratus (leader of armies). elude- punishment, consented to be delivered struck him as so happy an omen that he affectup. Attaginus, however, made his escape; his ed to ground his compliance upon it, and when children and his adherents were put into the the other envoys returned home, he kept Hegehands of the besiegers. Pausanias spared and sistratus with him. The sacrifices, too, condismissed the family of the offender, which had ducted by a soothsayer who claimed an herednot shared his guilt.. His accomplices had ex- itary gift of divination, seconded the inclination pected to be brought to a regular trial before of the commander. Thus encouraged, he set the commanders of the allied army, and had sail for Samos. relied on the power of gold to secure a majority On arriving there, he found one part of the among their judges. But Pausanias, foresee- prediction of the envoys fulfilled. The Persian ing this danger, frustrated their hopes by an admirals did not venture to meet him on the arbitrary step, the first indication that appears sea, and, at his approach, sent away the Phceniof his imperious character: he dismissed the cian squadron, and with the remainder of the forces of his allies, and carried his prisoners to fleet sailed across to the mainland to seek the Corinth, where he put them to death, it seems, protection of the land force which was stationwithout any form of trial. ed, under the command of Tigranes, on the On the same day that the victory at Plateea coast, at the foot of the mountains that end in put an end to the undertakings of the Persians the promontory of Mycal6, opposite the southfor the conquest of Greede, they suffered the ern extremity of Samos. This arm was sixty first signal blow that the Greeks struck at their thousand strong; it had been left l~y Xerxes, power on their own continent. The fleet under when he began his expedition, for the security Leotychides was still stationed at Delos, watch- of Ionia: he himself was still at Sardis.7 Tho ing from a distance the movements of the Per- ships were drawn up on the beach at the foot sian fleet, but much more anxious about the of the mountain, and enclosed within a wall proceedings of the two armies, which were hastily constructed of stones and timber. The known to be on the eve of a momentous strug- army was posted on the shore in front of it gle. During this interval of suspense three The Greeks were at first confounded by the re-envoys arrived to lay before Leotychides the treat of the enemy, and by the new position he wishes of a strong party in Samos, who were had taken, and debated for a time whether they desirous of shaking off the yoke of Persia, and should return to Delos, or make for the Hellespont. At length, however, they resolved not pressly notices —the dresses which once formed a part of to give way to the unexpected obstacle, but to the ofi'srings. If, according to Dr. Arnold's very probable s to t n d obale b conjecture, they were consumed, we may suppose that they cross over to MycalM and offer battle. When used to be heaped on the pile mentioned by Plutarch, at they came near the shore, Leotychides repeatwhich the victim was sacrificed. Perhaps in Plutaxch's ed the stratagem which Themistocles had used time poverty had induced the Plate to drop this part ofa siila the ceremony. O the retreat fro Artemisium for a simila MECALE. 283. purpose. When his galley was within hearing betook themselves to the passes of the mountof the Persian troops, he addressed a proclama- ains, which were guarded by the Milesians. The tion by the voice of a herald to the Ionians, in Persians, however, on reaching the camp, made which he exhorted them, in the approaching a stand against their pursuers, as they came in battle, to remember first the liberty of their small bodies, and maintained the contest even country, and next the watchword which he after the loss of their general Tigranes, and of gave them. All who heard him he desired to one of the admirals. The arrival of the Sparconvey the same summons to the absent. This tans decided the conflict, and put them to a total contrivance succeeded in the principal object;. rout. In the mean while, the disarmed Samians, the Persians believed that a plan of desertion as soon as they saw the battle begin to turn, had and revolt had been already formed among the lent all the assistance they could to the Greeks, Ionians, to be carried into execution at the first and the other Ionians soon followed their exfavourable opportunity, and that they had just ample, and fell upon the Persians. Even of those received the signal. When, therefore, Leotych- who escaped from the carnage into the mountides, finding that the enemy had no intention ain, a part were betrayed by the Milesians, who, of coming to an engagement at sea, landed his instead of guiding them to the summit, led them.men to attack them on the shore, they disarmed into tracks which brought them upon the enethe Samians, who were most strongly suspected my, and themselves joined in destroying them. of disaffection, and removed the Milesians from Only a small remnant gained the heights in the camp, under the pretext of posting them on safety, where they remained till the Greeks had the top of Mycale to guard the passes. The retired, and then made for Sardis. The Greeks, Persians were drawn up at the foot of the after having collected the booty, and burned the mountain behind the breastwork, which, ac- ships and the palisade, returned to Samos. cording to their usual practice, they formed Here they held a council on the plan to be with their serried shields. adopted for the protection of the Ionians, if they As the Greeks approached, a herald's staff should be induced to engage in a general revolt. was found lying on the beach. Whether it had As long as a Greek fleet commanded the _Egean,.been purposely placed there, whether it sug- the islanders were safe; but the Ionian cities gested or only appeared to confirm a rumour for on the continent could not be permanently sewhich all minds were ripe, must be left to con- cured against the power of Persia without the jecture. But at this critical moment a report constant presence of a Greek force. The Pelflew through the Grecian ranks that their coun- oponnesian commanders, therefore, proposed trymen had gained a victory over Mardonius in that the Ionians, who prized independence above Baeotia. Nothing could be more natural than every other good, should quit their country,; and such a rumour, whether it be considered as the that the Greeks who had taken part with the effect of accident or design: that it should af- barbarian should be compelled to resign their terward have been found to coincide with the maritime regions to them. But the Athenians truth, is one of those marvels which would be vehemently opposed this project, and denied the intolerable in a fictitious narrative, and yet now right of the Peloponnesians to interfere in the and then occur in the real course of events. management of their colonies. Their allies Being believed, however, without any reason, readily dropped the scheme, which, perhaps, it was much more efficacious in raising the con- they had scarcely meditated in earnest, and it fidence and courage of the Greeks than if it was agreed that the continental Ionians should had been transmitted through any ordinary chan- be left to make the best terms they could with nel on the strongest evidence; for now the the Persians, but that Chios, Lesbos, Samos, favour of the gods seemed visible, not only in and the other islands of the AEgean should be the substance, but in the manner of the tidings. solemnly admitted into the Greek confederacy, Cheered with the assurance that Greece was and should bind themselves never to abandon already delivered, they advanced to combat, not it. When this question had been settled, the any longer for safety and a home, but for the fleet steered its course to the Hellespont, where mastery of the islands and the Hellespont. the bridges were supposed to be still standing. The Athenians, who occupied one wing, with When it was found that they were already rethe troops of Corinth, Sicyon, and Trcezen, moved, Leotychides and the Peloponnesians, which were drawn up next to them, composing conceiving that every object of their expedition about half of the army, having only smooth had been attained, proposed to sail away home: ground between them and the enemy, came up Xanthippus and the Athenians wished to refirst, and immediately began the attack, certain main, and make an attempt to recover the anof victory, and only eager that it should be en- cient dominion of Miltiades in the Chersonesus. tirely their own. The Spartans in the other This was a conquest in which the allies took no wing, and the rest of the forces, were parted interest, and they left the Athenians to accomfrom the scene of action by the bed of a torrent, plish it as they could by themselves. and by a spur of the mountain, which compelled -Xanthippus immediately laid siege to Sestus, them to make a longer circuit, and retarded their the strongest place of the whole peninsula, march. Before they had arrived, the Athenian where many Persians from the neighbouring wing had forced the slight barrier on which the towns, on hearing of the approach of the GrePersians chiefly relied for protection, an'd at cian fleet, had sought refuge. The governor, length drove their antagonists, and probably a a Persian named Artayctes, had abused his still greater number who were never engaged, power, which extended over the whole Cherto take refuge in the inclosure that contained sonesus, by wanton acts of tyrannical insolence. their ships. They themselves entered with the One above all provoked the indignation of the fugitives, and the greater part of the barbari- Greeks under his government. The town of ans, without any. attempt at farther resistance, Eleeus, on the southeast coast of the Cherso 284 HISTORY OF GREECE. nesus, boasted of possessing the grave of the been occupied by the principal Persians, was a hero Protesilaus, who had fallen by the hand of heap of ruins. The public coffers were drained Hector, as he leaped, the first of all the host of by the war, and though the spoil may have enAgamemnon, on the Trojan shore. He was riched some individuals, that part of it which honoured at Elmeus with a tract of consecrated fell to the share of the state was mostly conseground, and a temple, which had been grad- crated to the gods. Thus Athens might seem ually enriched with costly offerings. Its wealth to be reduced to the lowest stage of poverty and tempted the cupidity of Artayctes, and when weakness. But, in reality, her strength had Xerxes passed through Sestus on his march never before been so great, and time only was towards Greece, he prayed the king to grant wanting first to call it into action, and then to him the house of a Greek who had invaded his clothe it with beauty and splendour. In the dominions, and having met with the death he drama in which XAschylus, a few years after the deserved, was buried in the neighbourhood. battle of Salamis, revived the image of that Xerxes, not suspecting what he was giving glorious day, the mother of Xerxes, on hearing away, granted the suit. Artayctes not only of her son's defeat, asks whether Athens has spoiled the temple of its treasures, but ploughed not been laid waste. We can understand, but and sowed the sacred enclosure, and even stu- an Athenian audience alone could feel the force diously profaned the sanctuary by selecting it of the messenger's reply: " While the men refor the scene of his grossest debauchery. He main, it has an impregnable rampart." The was now surprised by the arrival of the Athe- Athenians had proved how well they understood nian fleet before he had made any preparations that their city was made for them, not they for for sustaining a siege, which he had so little the city; and, having twice sacrificed it to libreason to expect. The fortifications, indeed, erty, they were now about to show what liberty were strong enough to resist all the attacks of could make of it. the besiegers, and as the autumn was advan- The restoration of the private dwellings was cing, they began to grow impatient of their left to their owners; they were rebuilt, as lengthened absence from home, and importuned Rome after its destruction, without any uniform their commanders to lead them back to Attica; or regular design, and upon a scale more suitabut Xanthippus and his colleagues refused to ble to the indigent condition of the citizens than abandon the undertaking without orders, and to the future greatness of the state. Almost the blockade was continued throughout the win- all were small and mean, and overhung and enter: the stores of the besieged were the sooner cumbered the narrow, crooked streets with unexhausted, as their numbers had received an sightly projections, which soon became so inextraordinary addition; and when the spring convenient that, at the instance of Themistocame, famine began to make ravages among cles and Aristides, the Areopagus exercised its them: the scarcity became such that they were authority in removing or limiting them.* But driven to boil and. eat the leathern stays of their the city never outgrew these defects in its oribedding. In this extremity, Artayctes and an- ginal construction, and, after the lapse of nearly other Persian of high rank named CEobazus, two centuries, and all the changes effected duwith the greater part of their countrymen, at- ring that period by the progress of luxury, a tempted to make their escape, and they suc- stranger who entered it for the first time was ceeded in passing through the Athenian lines ready to doubt whether what he saw could be in the night-time. The next morning, as soon Athens.t The rebuilding of the ruined temples as their flight was discovered, the Greek inhab- was reserved for another season. The thoughts itants of the town opened their gates to the be- of Themistocles and Aristides were engaged by siegers. The fugitives were closely pursued. a more urgent care; that of providing for the CEobazus, however, who had left the city soon- immediate security and the permanent strength est, found his way out of the Chersonesus; but of the city. Only a few fragments of the wall only to fall into the hands of the wild Absin- had been left standing. It was necessary to rethians, who sacrificed him to one of their gods. place it; and the widening prospects and towArtayctes was doomed to perhaps a still more ering hopes of Athens demanded that the new cruel fate. He was overtaken with his son, wall should enclose a larger compass. In the and brought to Xanthippus: he had forfeited all mean while, however, the allies of Athens were claim to mercy, but he attempted to purchase viewing her situation, and watching her steps his life. He offered a hundred talents as amends with feelings which the recent deliverance to the hero for his sacrilege, and two hundred ought to have suppressed, but which, unhappimore as ransom for himself and his son to the ly, it only served to excite. They considered Athenians. But the people of Elaeus would ac- not what she had suffered in the common cause, cept no atonement but the last punishment of but what she had done; and this, instead of the offender, and Xanthippus abandoned him to admiration and gratitude, awakened their jealtheir vengeance. It was inflicted in a form ousy and their fears. Her maritime rivals, borrowed from Persian manners; he was nail- IEgina and Corinth, were, perhaps, the first to ed to a cross, and his: son was stoned to death take the alarm; and Sparta was easily persuabefore his eyes. After this conquest, the Athe. ded to seize the favourable opportunity of nian fleet sailed away home, carrying with it, checking the growth of a power which might among other treasures, the remains of the ca- soon become formidable to herself. Before, bles that had been employed in the bridges, the therefore, the new fortification was begun, Sparchains of the now delivered Hellespont, to be tan envoys came to Athens with a message dedicated in the temples of the Attic gods. that sounded like the language of friendship When the Athenians returned to their coun-. "Instead of raising new walls, which might fty, they found a wasted land, and a city which, with the exception of a few houses that had * Heracl Pont., 1, t Dicmarchus, Bios.EXA WALLS OF ATHENS. -285 hereafter, as Thebes had already done, serve to that the fortification of Athens was advanced shelter the barbarians in a fresh invasion, the too far to be stopped, addressed them with a Athenians would do better if they joined the wholesome admonition: "When they and their Spartans in throwing down all that were still allies sent ambassadors again to Athens, to standing north of the Isthmus. Peloponnesus deal with the Athenians as with reasonable would always afford a sufficient refuge, and a men, who could discern what belonged to their place of arms for the united forces of Greece own safety, and what to the general interests to assemble in." That Sparta should wish to of Greece. They had not needed the counsels see the peninsula become the sole fortress of of Sparta when they left their city and commitGreece was perfectly natural; for as the for- ted themselves to their ships, and they thought tress would command the. country, so Laconia they might now trust their own judgment in would be the citadel that commanded the for- rebuilding their walls. Even for the common tress. This, however, was not the state of weal, it was desirable that Athens should have things for which Athens had been spending her a free voice in the counsels of Greece; but blood and treasure. She was at no loss for an with such a voice she could only speak so long answer, but it was not a time for words. It' as she stood on an equal footing with her alwas clear that men who did not blush to spread lies." The Spartans possessed the art of keepso thin a veil over their unjust designs would ing their countenance in perfection; they disnot scruple to accomplish them by open force, sembled their vexation, and only expressed and, since the Athenians were not yet able to their regret that what had been meant merely resist violence, prudence required that they as a friendly suggestion should have been conshould elude it. The occasion was especially strued as a serious design of encroaching on the suited to the genius of Themistocles, and he right of the Athenians to do as they would in undertook the task of defeating the Spartans their own territory. So the envoys on both with their own weapons. By his advice, their sides returned home, without any farther comenvoys were dismissed with a promise that an plaints or reproaches; the city walls were quiembassy should forthwith be sent to treat on etly completed; but, in their irregular structure, their proposal at Sparta. He himself immedi- they exhibited a lasting monument of the clashately set out on this mission; but he directed ing interests and jarring passions by which that the colleagues who should be appointed to their ill-assorted parts had been brought togethshare it with him should delay their departure er, at the expense of much that was dear, beautill the walls had been raised to such a height tiful, and sacred. as would sustain an attack; that, for this pur- When this necessary labour was finished, pose, every Athenian capable of labour, without Themistocles turned his thoughts to the prosedistinction of age or sex, should lend a hand to cution of a still greater work, which was to dethe work; and that no building, public or pri- terinine the character and prospects of Athens, vate, sacred or profane, that could supply ma- and was the last step to the object which had terials should be spared. This was done; all been the mark of his whole political career. the citizens, old and' young, men and women, He had long seen, and it was now clearer than took their parts in the task, and pushed it for- ever, that the days had passed by when Athens, ward with restless activity; houses, temples, safe in unenvied obscurity, might content herthe monuments of the dead, were the quarries self with cultivating and protecting her little from which they drew. In the mean while territory. Henceforward, to be secure, she Themistocles arrived at Sparta; but, as he did must be powerful: on land nature had confined not ask for an audience, or take any steps to- her within narrow limits; but while she was wards opening his commission, the ephors in- thus forced towards the sea, she was amply quired the cause of his delay. "He was wait- provided with the means of becoming mistress ing;" he said, "for his colleagues, whom he had of it. To establish this dominion was the final left behind to despatch some very urgent busi- aim of the policy of Themistocles. He had laid ness, but whom he expected daily, and had the first foundation of it in the navy, which hoped to have seen before." The- Spartans raised Athens at once above all her maritime were satisfied with this excuse, till tidings neighbours; but the enlarged navy required the reached them from various quarters that the protection of a spacious and fortified port. In walls, the subject of the negotiation, had been the times when Athens made war with Megara begun, and were rapidly rising. They could for Salamis, and borrowed succours from Coscarcely doubt the report, yet it' was no more rinth against the superior force of A.gina, she than hearsay; and Themistocles, the man whom was content with Phalerum, the easternmost they had so lately covered with honours, begged and smallest of the three harbours which lay them to suspend their belief till they had ascer- nearest to the city. The largest basin, which tained the truth by the eyes of some of their contained three distinct ports capable of being own citizens. They accordingly sent some of closed by separate bars, and all opening into the their gravest and most trustworthy men to Ath- sea by a narrow outlet, had hitherto been negens; and Themistocles, at the same time, by a lected by the state, though Piraeus, from which secret message, bade the Athenians detain them it took its name, was an ancient deme. The with as little show of violence as possible till plan of Themistocles was to fortify the three he and his fellows should return; for he had ports, Phalerum, Munychia, and Piraous, by a been already joined by Aristides and another double range of walls; one on the land side enambassador, who announced to him that the closing space for a considerable city, thie other Walls were high enough to stand a siege. It following the windings of the rocky shore bewas now time to drop the mask, and to let the tween the mouth of Phalerum and that of PiSpartans hear the voice of truth. At his next raeus, so as to take in the peninsula of Munyaudience, Themistocles, after informing them chia, by which Piraeus is sheltered from the 286 HISTORY OF GREECE. east. Already in his archonship (B.C. 493*) views of which he had already betrayed sonie he had persuaded the people to begin this vast indications. He had been vain and indiscreet undertaking on a scale which should deter all enough to cause the tripod dedicated to Apollo hostile assaults.t The wall had been carried from the spoil taken at Plateea to be inscribed to half its intended height; it was of a breadth with a couple of verses in which his name alone which allowed two wagons to pass each other, was mentioned, and the victory and the offerand this space was entirely filled with hewn ing were both attributed to him. The Spartans, stones exactly fitted together within, and join- indeed, had the arrogant inscription erased, and ed together on the outside by iron cramps and substituted for it a list of the cities which had molten lead. The invasions, first of Darius, shared the glorious expedition; but such an act and then of Xerxes, had interrupted the labour, awakened suspicions which the conduct of Paubut had not destroyed the work: it was now sanias soon confirmed. After the capture of carried on with fresh ardour; the walls rose to Byzantium, he laid aside the manners of his the height of sixty feet;t Piraeus was converted country to adopt those of the barbarians, and into an entirely new town, which was no longer carried himself towards the allies under his to be considered as a deme, but as the lower' command as if he regarded them as his subpart of Athens. Themistocles engaged Hippod- jects. The secret springs that moved him, and amus, a Milesian architect, the first among the the designs he had conceived, were not brought ancients who invented designs for new cities, to light till many years after; but it was clear and a theory of the best form of government, to enough that his views were no longer confined trace the plan. The same artist is said to have to Sparta, and that he had ceased to feel himdesigned some streets in the city; but, in gen- self proud of being a Spartan citizen; and there eral, the regularity and symmetry of the port was, therefore, reason to doubt his fidelity to must have formed a contrast with the upper the cause of Greece. town very unfavourable to the latter. The new Even now it is not quite certain what motives quarter was adorned with numerous temples, a were predominant in the breast of Pausanias; theatre, and a market-place-in a word, with and whatever they may have been, his behav all that Grecian life required for use and pleas- iour appears so strange that it is difficult to exure; it drew into it all whose occupations con- plain it without supposing that his sudden elenected them with the sea, especially'the for- vation to his high rank, the wonderful success eigners who came to exercise their arts or which crowned his first military undertaking, trades at Athens. It was the great aim of and the dazzling prospects that it opened to Themistocles to turn the attention of the Athe- him, had made him giddy, and had not only innians towards Piraeus as their surest strong- spired him with an extravagant ambition, but hold, and their natural refuge in danger; and, had blinded him to the dangers he was encountherefore, he is said to have changed the posi- tering, and to the conditions necessary for eftion of the seats on the hill of Pnyx, where the fecting his designs. It is, however, beyond a people held their assemblies, that they might doubt that, before he set out on this second exhave before their eyes the sea and Piraeus, not pedition, he had formed a project of exchanging the land and the Rock.~ his limited and temporary office for a station Thus Athens was armed at all points for the which appeared to him higher and happier; station to which Themistocles had taught her that of a vassal of the King of Persia, enriched to aspire; but it was still filled by a jealous with the rewards of treachery to his country rival, who could not have been expected to re- and to Greece. That he should have conceived sign without a struggle. Now, however, for- such a wish, that he should have been unable tune came to her aid, and finished the work to endure the thought of descending in a few which industry and prudence had begun. In years to a private station, and have been irrithe year following the fall of Sestus (B.C. 477) tated by the restraints laid upon his authority the allied fleet again put to sea; its entire force by the jealousy of the ephors, is not surprising; is not recorded, but the Peloponnesian states it only proves that his character was weak, and equipped twenty ships, Athens'thirty, which that he was incapable of understanding the nawere commanded by Aristides and Cimon the ture of real greatness and dignity. But our son of Miltiades, who was now fast rising to- wonder is excited by the infatuation of his selfwards the place which his father had once held confidence, by his inabilit~yto measure his means in the public esteem. Pausanias was at the with his ends, and by his reckless neglect of the head of the whole armament. It first sailed to most obvious precautions. He began by openCyprus, and wrested the greater part of the ing a negotiation with Xerxes, for which he island from the Persians, and'then steered for found a favourable occasion in the capture of the north of the.AEgean, and laid siege to By- Byzantium. Among the prisoners he took there' zantium, which soon surrendered. While the were some Persians of high rank, connected allies remained in this station, the Spartan re- with the royal family. He did not venture gent began more fully to unfold a character and openly to release them, but he secretly furnished them with the means of escaping, and then * On the date of the archonship of Themistocles, see Ap- sent a trusty messenger to Xerxes to claim the pendix V. t On a ridiculous story related by Diodorus (xi., 41-43) merit of this service, and to offer one still more about the precautions taken by Themistocles in setting important. He wrote, as a man who had the about this undertaking, see Appendix v. fate of Greece in his hand, that if Xerxes would That is, if we may infer the original height from that fate in his hand, that if Xerxes would to which they appear to have been carried when restored give him his daughter in marriage, he would by Conon, Appian., Mithrid., 30. lay Sparta and the rest of Greece at his feet, ~ It seems, even after the latest observations made on the and requested that the king would send some spot, to be very doubtful in what this change consisted. Perhaps all that was done was to lower some ground which one on whom he relied to concert a plan with intercepted the view of the sea. him for this end. Xerxes might naturally' imrn PAUSANIAKS-ATHENIAN SUPREMACY. 287 gine that the victorious general who had lately federacy was to protect the Greeks in the isldefeated the power of Persia was able to re- ands and the coasts of the.Egean from the'agstore it. He eagerly caught at the new hope gression of the Persians, and to weaken and held out to him, and sent Artabazus to take the humble the barbarians. All who shared the government of the satrapy which included the benefit were to contribute, according to the provinces on the northwest coast of Asia, and measure of their ability, to the common end: was called the Dascylian, from the Bithynian Athens was to collect their forces, to wield and town Dascylium; where the satrap held his direct them, not, however, with absolute and court, that he might keep up an active corre- arbitrary power, but as the organ of the public spondence with the Spartan in Byzantium, and will, possessing only the influence and authorsupply him with money and every other aid. ity due to the greater sacrifices she made to When Pausanias learned that his treachery the common cause. Least of all was she to inwas welcome to Xerxes, he began to act as if terfere in the constitution and internal adminno farther obstacle lay in his way, and as if it istration of any of the allied cities. All were was scarcely necessary any longer to dissemble to be independent of her and of each other, exhis intentions. Happily, the extreme of rash- cept so far as they were bound together by the ness is nowhere more commonly found than in same danger and the same interest. Aristides cases where the consciousness of evil thoughts executed the difficult and delicate task of fixing might have been expected tolsuggest the most the assessments of the numerous members of watchful caution and the closest reserve. He the confederacy, so as to satisfy all, without inassumed the state of a Persian satrap, imitated curring even a suspicion of having turned one the luxury and the fashions of the barbarians in among so many opportunities of gain to his his table and in his dress, and, as if with the own advantage. Perhaps other Greeks might intention that the bent of his views might be also have resisted the temptation: he seems to the more clearly understood, he journeyed have been the only one that was acknowledged through Thrace, escorted by a guard of Per- to be above calumny. Some of the allies were sians and -Egyptians. His folly, had it been to furnish money: the more powerful were to confined to this, might not have been attended equip ships. The whole amount of the yearly with consequences deeply affecting any but contribution was settled at 460 talents, about himself; by carrying it one step farther, he be- 115,000 pounds. Delos, the ancient centre of came the occasion of a very important revolu- Ionian commerce and religion, was chosen for tion. In his vision of greatness he forgot the the treasury of the confederates, and its temple ties by which he was still bound, and gave vent as the place where their deputies were to hold to his ambitious hopes in arrogance and harsh- their congress. ness towards the freemen over whom he held In the mean while, complaints had reached a responsible command. He chastised slight Sparta of the conduct of Pausanias, and rufaults with severe and degrading punishments; mours of his meditated treason. The ephors made himself difficult of access, and terrified or immediately recalled him, and sent out other incensed those who obtained an interview with commanders, among whom Dorcis is named, him by his violence and peevishness. The with a small force. But this step had been taIonians, who had just asserted their independ- ken too late: the islanders and the Asiatic ence, were provoked by treatment worse than Greeks were irrevocably lost to'Sparta, and they had commonly experienced from their bar-'Dorcis and his colleagues found, on their arribarian governors. On the other hand, the Athe- val, that they must be content with a subordinian generals displayed qualities which were nate rank. This was repugnant alike to the the more winning from their contrast with the pride and the policy of Sparta; and, as she character and deportment of the Spartan com- could not undo what had happened, or recover mander; and their new allies could not help her station, she retired from the field where her reflecting how much happier would have been rival was now triumphant, with the less relueL their condition if they had been subject to the tance, as it was not that on which she could mild and equitable Aristides, the generous and hope to reap honour or advantage. Her forces gentle Cimon. This, too, seemed to be what were withdrawn; and henceforth, in the room nature and reason prescribed; for Athens, not of the single general confederacy of the Greeks, Sparta, was the parent to whom most owed of which she had been the head, two separate their origin. So the wish gradually ripened associations divided between them the whole into a resolution; and the unanimous voice of strength of the nation;* for, as that over which all the confederates, except the Peloponnesian Athens presided was foreign to Sparta, so her states and. Egina, called upon the Athenians to sway was exclusively acknowledged by her accept the supremacy of rank and authority in Peloponnesian -allies, whom the rising power the common affairs of the alltance which had hithecrto beenenjoyed by Sparta. * Mueller, Dor., i., 9, 7, and Prolegom., p. 44-2, takes an entirely different view of this transaction. He conceives It was Aristides who had the glory of estab- Sparta not to haveconsidered herself as having partedwith lishing his country in this honourable and well- her ancient ascendency, but only as having transferred the earned pre-eminence, as his personal characeter prosecution of the war in Asia, and the management'of the arnedpreeinstentahs tardsconcngns relating to it, as a commission, to the Athenians, had been most instrumental towards inspiring whom she regarded as still subject to her supremacy. That the confidence on which it was founded. After this was for a time the tone at Sparta, and even the way in ascertaining that the proposal of the Ionians which the matter was viewed there, is probable enough; was the result, not of hasty passion, but of a but the question still is, how it really stood, and in what light was ithe result, not of hasty passit appeared at Athens. In the passage of his work on the settled purpose, he undertook the task, which Dorians, i., 9, 7, Mueller's brevity would deceive a reader was intrusted to him by general consent, of who did not consult Thucydides; for, omitting all mention of the expedition under Ddrcis, he represents Spaita as regulating the laws of the union, and of its s ub- voluntarily abandoning the Asiatic wir as soon as she found ordination to Athens. The object of the con- it necessary to recall Pausanias 288 HISTORY OF GREECE of Athens and the Ionian confederacy united now let in to the highest dignity of the state. more closely than ever round their ancient lead- This change had in some degree been prepared er. Thus Sparta had fallen back into her ori- by the gradual alterations that had taken place ginal sphere, while Athens had risen into a new since the time of Solon in the value of property, one, which nature had evidently destined her which rendered the archonship accessible to a to fill. It might have seemed that no turn of much more numerous body than the old lawevents could have been more favourable to the giver ventured to admit into it. Aristides himtranquillity of Greece than one which placed self was archon, though his fortune was beeach of these states in the situation most con- low mediocrity. But the admission of the lowgenial to its habits and character, and assigned est class evidently rested on a different ground: to each the functions which it was best quali- on the supposition that every Athenian citizen fled to discharge, enabling the one without in- was entitled, by his birth alone, to aspire to terruption to pursue its hereditary round, and every office in the state which did not, from its watch over the stability of the national institu- nature, render the possession of a certain share tions, and furnishing the active spirit of the of wealth necessary for the security of the pubother with constant employment in repelling or lie, as those which concerned the custody or attacking the common enemy. Perhaps even expenditure of public money; and, certainly, if a statesman would not have deserved the re- there was ever a time in the history of Athens proach of shortsightedness who had cherished when a statesman like Aristides might have the pleasing hope that this happy distribution, thought that justice required the acknowledgso peaceably effected, might have prevented ment of this principle, it was after the heroic them from coming into hostile conflict, or, at exertions that all classes had made in the Perleast, might have averted the danger of their sian wars; and there may have been many instrengt[ being wasted in a long struggle with stances of families reduced from affluence to each other; and if political affairs had ever poverty by the misfortunes of the times, and been regulated by the pure light of reason, such even by their own patriotic sacrifices, which, hopes might have been fulfilled. By what pas- by calling aloud for particular exceptions to the sions this fair prospect was overclouded, and law, where it manifestly tended to exclude the how the equipoise between the two powers be- most deserving, may have seemed to show the came the cause through which they at length wisdom and equity of abolishing the distinction ground each other to dust, will be the subject altogether. If, however, we adopt the other of the ensuing part of this history. An entirely view which Plutarch suggests, and suppose Arnew period begins from the bpoch at which we istides to have been moved, not only or chiefly have now arrived, and new actors come for- by the merit of the people, but by his conviction ward on the scene; and though the public life of the necessity of the measure, we may easily of the men who principally contributed to bring conceive that such a necessity may have beabout the new order of things is not precisely come apparent, not, perhaps, immediately after terminated by this point of time, yet what re- the return from Platwa, but after Themistocles mains of their career belongs so much more to had formed'a new population in Pireeus, dependbiography than to history,ithat the clearness of ing entirely on maritime pursuits, and, conseour narrative seems likely to gain, if we antici- quently, on the labour of the Thetes who manpate a little'the course of events, and immedi- ned the fleet, and disposed to scorn, as antiquaately subjoin the later occurrences of their lives ted prejudices, the opinions that may still have to the transactions which made their names prevailed in the upper city in favour of artificial memorable, and which give their private for- distinctions. At all events, the change could tunes a claim to our attention. not have been long delayed after the Athenian The regulation of the Ionian confederacy was people had assumed the rank it acquired as the greatest work of Aristides, and as it was chief of the Ionian confederacy, for then all mithat which displayed the noblest features of his nute shades of dignity were lost in the new character in the clearest light, so it is the last lustre of the Athenian name; and how herd we hear of. It is possible, however, that it must it have seemed to exclude from the honmay have preceded, and have had some share ours of the Republic the class on which its mar in producing a change in the Athenian Consti- itime supremacy was mainly founded? tution, of -which he is said to have been the Aristides lived to see the order he had estabchief mover, and which, according to Plutarch, lished in the confederacy, for the benefit both he introduced immediately after the battle of of the members and their head, broken, as will Plateea. He threw down the barrier of privi- be hereafter mentioned, in a material point, by lege which separated the highest of Solon's a violation of the original compact, which he classes from the lower, by opening the archon- condemned, but could not prevent. The close ship, and, consequently, the council of Areop- of his life is so obscure that it is not certain agus, to the poorest of the citizens. Such, at whether he died in or. out of Athens; but it least, is the description Plutarch gives of the seems clear that he preserved to the last the innovation; and though. in other cases there unabated respect of his countrymen. He died may be. ground to suspect that some of the poor; his fortune, small at first, was probably steps which separated successive stages ih the diminished, since it was not augmented, by his dievelopment of the democracy at Athens have public employments. It was, perhaps, only a been overlooked, and that changes which oc- rhetorical exaggeration to say that he did not cupied a whole period'have been crowded to- leave behind him wherewith to defray his funergether without any interval in the same epoch, al, though his monument was built at the pubit seems certain that this measure of Aristides lic charge; but it is beyond a doubt that his had really the extent that is commonly ascribed posterity for several generations were pensionto it, and that the fourth class, the Thetes, were ed by the state: a fact which, though it may PAUSANIAS. 289 not prove their utter indigence, any more than would probably have bathed Sparta in blood, similar rewards in modern times, may in Athens and have established a tyranny no less odious be admitted as a sufficient proof that their an- than the government which it overthrew, and cestor was believed to have deserved well of more dangerous to the liberties of Greece; its his country. end would perhaps have been a counter-revoluVery different was the end of the two men tion, which would have plunged the emancipawith whom Aristides had shared some of his ted slaves into aggravated wretchedness. But most glorious days. Pausanias, recalled to it seems to have been as improvidently concertSparta, was subjected to a severe inquiry, and ed as it was recklessly adopted. It was betrayto various charges for injuries inflicted on indi- ed to the ephors by some of the Helots themviduals under his command. On some of these selves, probably because they saw that it was ne was convicted and condemned to slight pen- hopeless and ruinous. But even on this inforalties; but for the gravest accusation, that of mation the ephors forbore to act, exercising, correspondence with the barbarians, no evi- Thucydides observes, their usual caution in re. dence was brought to light that could ground quiring unquestionable proofs before they promore than a very strong suspicion. It was ceeded to extremities with a Spartan, and, perdropped. But Pausanias found himself trans- haps, reluctant to divulge so dangerous a charge. ported from a high and splendid station to an They therefore dissembled their suspicions till obscure and narrow sphere, where he was fetter- chance converted them into certainty, or sulped by many irksome restraints, and surrounded plied them with evidence which they could safeby watchful and jealous observers. Unable to ly produce. Pausanias continued his correendure the change, and having no prospect of spondence with Persia; but he used the precauobtaining a release from his domestic thraldom tion of desiring the Persian satrap to put to by another foreign command, he cast aside the death the bearers of his letters. He at length authority of the ephors, and without their leave selected a Spartan, named Argilius, whom he quitted Sparta, and embarked in a vessel of Her- had already employed more than once in his mione for Byzantium. That city was still in treasonable negotiations, to execute one of the hands of his creature Gongylus, an Eretrian, these fatal commissions. The suspicions of whom he had employed in his negotiation with Argilius were awakened; he counterfeited the Xerxes, and had left in his place when he obey- seal of Pausanias, opened the letter intrusted ed the call of the ephors. On his arrival he re- to him, and found his apprehensions confirmed newed his treasonable practices, and the Athe- by the contents. As he had enjoyed a peculiar nians, who saw through them, compelled him degree of intimacy with Pausanias, his resentto leave Byzantium. He then retired to Colonte ment was roused by the indifference with which in Troas, where he took so little pains to dis- he proposed to sacrifice his life to his selfish guise his criminal intrigues, that a report of fears, and he revealed the secret to the ephors. them was soon brought to Sparta, and he was They now hesitated no longer, and devised a once more interrupted in his dreams of great- plan for the conviction and punishment of the ness by a short message from the ephors, bid- traitor, which was executed in the following ding him follow the bearer under pain of being manner: proclaimed public enemy. As his plans were On the Peninsula of Teenarus, at the southfar from ripeand as he could scarcely hope to ern verge of Laconia, was a celebrated temple mature them in the condition of an exile and an of Poseidon, a revered asylum. Here Argilius outlaw, he obeyed the command, and returned took refuge,' and within the sacred precincts to Sparta. On his arrival, he was thrown into raised a temporary hovel, divided into two apartprison, as a punishment, it would appear, for ments by a thin partition, behind which he conhaving gone abroad without leave; but he soon cealed some of the ephors, in expectation that obtained his liberty, and demanded a trial. Still, Pausanias would soon come to inquire the mohowever, the ephors had not procured evidence tiveof his conduct. Pausanias came. Argiliof his treason, such as would warrant them in us reminded him of his past services, of the proceeding to the last extremity against a man fidelity and discretion with which he had carriof his rank; again they let the affair drop: and ed his messages to the Persians, and reproachif Pausanias could have remained at rest, he ed him with his infgratitude. Pausanias acmight still have lived secure, and have died knowledged the justice of his complaints, and without infamy; but he had gone too far in a endeavoured to soothe his anger by the most maze of guilt and folly to stop or to recede. He solemn assurances that he should be exposed conceived the design of exciting an insurrection to no danger in discharging his commission. among the Helots, of putting himself at its head, When the ephors had heard the confession of and of maintaining his usurped station by the his guilt from his own mouth, they took measaid of Persia. The thought of enlarging the ures for arresting him on his return to Sparta in narrow system of Lycurgus, of raising the op- the open street. But as they advanced in a pressed and degraded serfs into a free common- body to apprehend him, his conscience took the alty, of admitting the free population of Laconia alarm at a warning gesture of a friendly memto a share in the political rights of the Spartans, ber of the college, and he fled to the sanctuary and for this purpose of breaking the power of of Atliene Chalcicecus,* and took shelter in one the ephors, and restoring the ancient authority of the detached buildings enclosed within the of the heroic kings, would have been one wor- hallowed precincts. To reconcile the claims of thy of a greater man than Pausanias in his best justice as far as possible with the respect due days. But no one will suppose that justice and to the sacred asylum, the building was unroofhumanity prompted his enterprise any more ed, while the entrance was blocked up, and its than Napeleon's decree for the abolition of the * So called from the brass plates with which her temple tlave trade. His plan, if it had succeeded, was lined. VoL. I.-O o 290 HISTORY OF GREECh approaches carefully guarded. The aged moth- which are forfeited if they.are not disclaimed er of the criminal is said to have been among After the battle of Salamis, and while the terror the foremost to lay a stone at the doorway for of the invasion was still fresh, his influence at the purpose of immuring her son. When he Athens was predominant, and his power, consewas on the point of expiring, and too weak to quently, great wherever the ascendency of offer any resistance which would have rendered Athens was acknowledged; and he did not althe act sacrilegious, he was taken out of the ways scruple to convert the glory, with which consecra';ed ground just in time to avoid the he ought to have been satisfied, into a source of pollution which his death would have occasion- petty profit. Immediately after the retreat of ed in it; he breathed his last as soon as he had Xerxes he exacted contributions from the islcrossed its bounds. It was not without some anders who had sided with the barbarians, as opposition that his friends obtained permission the price of diverting the resentment of the to pay the last honours to his remains; the Greeks from them. Another opportunity of ensterner patriots were for throwing his body, as riching himself he found in the factions by that of a vile malefactor, into the Ceadas. But which many of the maritime states were divias this proposal was immediately overruled, so ded. Almost everywhere there was a party or in time the recollection of his services seems to individuals who needed the aid of his authority, have softened the indignation inspired by his and were willing to purchase his mediation. guilt, and to have /rendered his fate a subject, That he sold it, and without nicely distinruishfirst of compassion and regret, and at length of ing the merits of the cases, we learn from the inreligious compunction. The Delphic oracle or- vectives, indeed, of an enemy, but of one whose dered an atonement to be made to him, and to enmity seems to have been provoked by the acthe goddess whose protection he had vainly tion which is the ground of his complaint. A sought. By its direction his bones were remo- Rhodian poet, Timocreon of Ialysus, celebrated ved to the spot near the precincts of the temple among his contemporaries for the powers of his where he expired;* and as two persons were appetite, the strength of his body, and the bitto be surrendered to the goddess in the rooln of terness of his verse, which were commemorathe suppliant she had lost, two brazen statues ted in his epitaph by Simonides, had been uniof Pausanias were dedicated in her sanctuary ted by ties of friendship and hospitality to'TheYet as the profanation was thus divinely attest-'mistocles, and had expected, as he gave out, ed, while the mode of expiation was only sug upon the faith of a promise, to be restored to gested by human ingenuity, room was still left, his country when his friend became all powerif not for religious scruples, at least for the re- ful in Greece. But the bribes, as he alleged, proach of an enemy, that the land had never of his adversaries, prevailed with Themistocles been freed from the curse of' sacrilege; and a against him, and he continued to pine in exile. time came when the hypocrisy of Sparta ren- He avenged his wrongs by a poetical complaint, dered such an accusation a just retort. in.which he contrasted the virtues of Aristides The fate of Pausanias involved that of The- with the perfidy, avarice, and cruelty of Themistocles. No Greek had yet rendered servi- mistocles, who for sordid gain had betrayed his ces such as those of Themistocles to the com- friend, and for three talents had consented to do mon country; no Athenian, except Solon, had the will of those who bought him,&Und to banish conferred equal benefits on Athens. He had or recall, to kill or spare at theirtleasure. It first delivered her from the most imminent dan- is the more credible that there was real ground ger, and then raised her to the pre-eminence on for this charge, since Aristides could reproach which she now stood. He might claim her his rival with not knowing how to command his greatness, and even her being, as his work. hands while he had the disposal of the public Themistocles was not unconscious of this mer- money; and he unquestionably accumulated exit, nor careful to suppress his sense of it; he traordinary wealth on a lessthan moderate forwas thought to indicate it too plainly when he tune.* dedicated a temple to Artemis under the title But if he made some enemies by his selfishof Aristobule (the goddess of good counsel); ness, he provoked others, whose resentment and the offence was aggravated if he himself proved more formidable, by his firm and enplaced his statue there, where it was still seen lightened patriotism. He was zealous and viin the days. of Plutarch, who pronounces the gilant in protecting the interests of Athens form no less heroic than the soul of the man. against the encroachments of Sparta, and the In the same spirit are several stories related by success of these exertions contributed more to Plutarch of the indiscretion with which he his downfall than any of his misdeeds. Sparta sometimes alluded to the magnitude of the debt never forgave him the shame he brought upon which his countrymen owed him. If, on one her by thwarting her insidious attempt to supoccasion, he asked themwhere theywould have press the independence of her rival; and he been without him, and, on another, compared farther exasperated her animosity by detet tlng himself to a spreading plane, under which they and baffling another stroke of her artful policy. had taken shelter in the storm, but which they The Spartans proposed to punish the states began to lop and rend when the sky grew clear, which had aided the barbarians, or had abara he would seem not to have discovered, till it doned the cause of Greece, by depriving them was too late, that there are obligations which of the right of being represented in the Amneither princes nor nations can endure, and phictyonic Congress. By this measure, Argos, *'Ev riz rporETycvicfart. This could not have been * "A great part of his property was secretly conveyed within the sanctuary (rT iEplv), since Thucydides says just into Asia'by his friends, but that part which was discover before that he was taken out of it. But Dr. Arnold's re- ed and confiscated is estimated by Theopompus at a hunmark, "' that a dead body would not have been buried with- dred talents, by Theophrastus at eighty; though, before he in the sacred ground," requires limitation, as appears from engaged in public affairs, all he possessed did not amount bhe case of Euchidas above mentioned, Plut.,Arist., 20. to so much as three talents." Plut., Them 25 THEMISTOCLES. 291 Thebes, and the northern states, which had I more solid foundation for it than what Plutarch hitherto composed the majority in that assem- relates: that Pausanias, when he saw Themisbly, would have been excluded from it, and the tocles banished, believing that he would emeffect would probably have been that Spartan brace any opportunity of avenging himself on influence would have preponderated there. The- his ungrateful country, opened his project to mistocles frustrated this attempt by throwing him in a letter. Themistocles thought it the the weight of Athens into the opposite scale, scheme of a madman, but one which he was and by pointing out the danger of reducing the not bound and had no inducement to reveal. council to an instrument in the hands of two or He may have written, though his prudence renthree of its most powerful members. The en- ders it improbable, something that implied his mity which he thus drew upon himself would knowledge of the secret. But -his cause was have been less honourable to him if there had never submitted to an impartial tribunal: his been any ground for a story which apparently enemies were in possession of the public mind was never heard of till it became current among at Athens, and officers were sent with the Sparsome late collectors of anecdotes, from whom tans, who tendered their assistance, to arrest Plutarch received it: it has been popular, be- him and bring him to Athens, where, in the cause it seemed to illustrate the contrast be- prevailing disposition of the people, almost intween the characters of Themistocles and Aris- evitable death awaited him. This he foresaw, tides, and to display the magnanimity of the and determined to avoid. In Peloponnesus he Athenians. Themistocles is made to tell the could no longer hope to find a safe refuge: he Athenians that he has something to propose sought it first in Corcyra, which was indebted which will he highly beneficial to the common- to him for his friendly mediation in a dispute wealth, but which must not be divulged. The with Corinth about the Leucadian peninsula, people depute Aristides to hear the secret, and and had by his means obtained the object it to judge of the merit of the proposal. Themis- contended for. The Corcyraeans, however willtocles discloses a plan for firing the allied fleet ing, were unable to shelter him from the united at Pegasua, or, according to another form of the power of Athens and Sparta. and he crossed story adopted by Cicero, the Lacedaemonian over to the opposite coast of Epirus. He had fleet at Gythium. Upon this, Aristides reports little time to deliberate, and perhaps he had no to the assembled people that nothing could be better choice. A year sooner, the court of Hiemore advantageous to Athens than the counsel ro, Gelo's successor, might have seemed to of Themistocles, but nothing more dishonoura- present a pleasant and secure asylum; though ble and unjust. The generous people reject if it is true that Themistocles had instigated the proffered advantage without even being the multitude at Olympia to tear down the patempted to inquire in what it consists. vilion erected there in Hiero's name during the Themistocles'was gradually supplanted in games, and to exclude his horses from the conthe public favour by men worthy, indeed, to be test, he would have debarred himself from seekhis rivals, but who owed their victory less to ing the protection of the man on whom he had their own merit than to the towering pre-emi- drawn this insult.* But Hiero died the year nence of his deserts. He himself, as we have before (B.C. 467), and about the time of the observed, seconded them by his indiscretion in flight of Themistocles, Syracuse was in the' their endeavours to persuade the people that he midst of the convulsion by which she shook off had risen too high above the common level to the yoke of Hiero's worthless successor, Thraremain a harmless citizen in a free state; that sybulus. The Molossians, the most powerful his was a case which called for the extraordi- people of Epirus, were now ruled by a king' nary remedy prescribed by the laws, against named Admetus, whose descendants claimed the power and greatness of an individual which the son of Achilles as their ancestor, and the threatened to overlay the young democracy. founder of their dynasty. The royal family had He was condemned to temporary exile by the at least a tinge of Greek manners and arts, samie process of ostracism which he had him- which distinguished them from their barbarian self before directed against Aristides. He took subjects. But Themistocles, in the day of his up his abode at Argos, which he had served in power, had thwarted the Molossian prince in a his prosperity, and which welcomed, if not the suit which he had occasion to make to the saviour of Greece, at least the enemy of Sparta. Athenians, and had added insult to his disapHere he was still residing, though he occasion- pointment. It might therefore seem a despeally visited other cities of Peloponnesus, when rate resolution to seek his court as a suppliant; Pausanias was convicted of his treason. In yet, if Themistocles had already formed the desearching for farther traces of his plot, the eph- sign of crossing over to Asia, and his road lay ors found some parts of a correspondence be- through the dominions of Admetus, there may tween him and Themistocles, which appeared have been less of boldness than of prudence in to afford sufficient ground for charging the the step. The king was fortunately absent kthenian with having shared his friend's crime. from home when the stranger arrived at his They immediately sent ambassadors to Athens gate, and his queen Phthia, in whom no vindicto accuse him, and to insist that he should be tive feelings stifled her womanly compassion, punished in like manner with the partner of his received him with kindness, and instructed him guilt. It does not appear that the documents on in the most effectual method of disarming her which the charge was founded, or any evidence husband's resentment and securing his protecof the fact beyond the assertion of the envoys, tion. When Admetus returned he f(6und Thewas transmitted to Athens. Thucydides does not express any opinion as to the truth or false- * The story, though mentioaed by Plutarch on the auhood of the accusation;* but, at the utmost, we thority of Theophrastus, seems doubtful, because it is nearh ood of the accusation believe th, at there utmost, w ly the same that ie told of the orator Lysias and the elder have no reason to believe that there was any Dionysius. 292 HISTORY- OF GREECE. mistocles seated at his hearth, holding the young only till matters snould oe ripe for removing prince whom Phthia had placed in his hands. the young king, and establishing a new dynasty. This, among the Molossians, was the most sol- He was afterward betrayed by a Persian nobleemn form of supplication, more powerful than man. to whom he revealed his design, and perthe olive branch among the Greeks. With this ished in the attempt to murder Artaxerxes. It advantage, Themistocles addressed himself to appears to have been. in the interval between the generosity of Admetus, disclosed the ur- the death of Xerxes and this event, while the gency of the danger that threatened his life, traitor was at the height of his power, that and argued the meanness of exacting an ex- Themistocles arrived at the Persian court. We treme revenge for a slight wrong from' a fallen do not venture to relate the adventures of his adversary. The kingwas touched or roused: journey from the coast:to the capital, with he raised the suppliant with an assurance of which later writers filled up the simple narraprotection, which he fulfilled, when the Atheni- tive of Thucydides. He found a Persian friend, an and Lacedaermonian commissioners dogged who accompanied him, and whose presence was their prey to his house, by refusing to surrender undoubtedly sufficient to protect him without his guest. the contrivance, by which he is said to have Plutarich, apparently following a writer of eluded the dangers of the road, of screening slight authority, says that Themistocles was himself from view in a covered litter, and' givhere joined by his wife and children. The ternm- ing out that it contained a lady designed for the per of the Athenians is indicated by the fact royal harem. This was probably a -fiction of that the person to whom he was indebted for the same authors who related that a price of the assistance by which his family was restored two hundred talents had been set upon his to him was put to death for this friendly office head by the Persian king, and that it was with at the prosecution of Cimon. If his family was difficulty he escaped the attempts aimed at his already with him, he had the less inducement life for the reward. As little may we paint his to quit the territories of Admetus. But it would first audience at court, which Plutarch has seem that he never intended to fix his abode worked up into a romantic and theatrical scene, among the Molossians, and he had probably very though the silence of Thucydides does not early conceived the design of seeking his for- prove that Artaxerxes did not immediately tune at the court of Persia. He is said to have gratify his curiosity or his pride with the sight consulted the oracle of Dodona, perhaps less of the extraordinary man who had sought reffor a direction than for a pretext: the answer uge from the people he had saved in the land seemed to point to the Great King, and Adme- of the enemy whom he had so deeply humbled. tus, practising the hospitality of the heroic ages, It was, however, by a letter, presented, persupplied his guest with the mean's of crossing haps, by Artabanus through the mediation of over to the coast of the AEgean. At the Mace- his Persian friend, that Themigtocles first made donian port of Pydna he found a merchant ship himself known to Artaxerxes: in it he acbound for Ionia, and embarked in it. A storm knowledged the evils he had inflicted on the carried the vessel to the coast of Naxos, which royal house in the defence of his country, but happened at this juncture to be besieged by an claimed the merit of having sent the timely Athenian fleet and army. To avoid the danger warning by which Xerxes was enabled to effect of an accidental discovery, Themistocles made his retreat from Salamis in safety, and of havhimself known to the master of the ship, and ing diverted the Greeks from the design of inworked upon. his hopes by large promises, and tercepting it;.' He ventured to add, that his upon his fears by threatening to denounce him persecution and exile were owing to his zeal as having knowingly sheltered an outlaw. The for the interest of the king of Persia, and that man consented to keep his secret, and as he he had the power of proving his attachment by desired, while detained by the weather on the still greater services; but he desired that a coast of Naxos, prevented all the crew from year might be allowed him to acquire the means going ashore. At length he arrived safely at of disclosing his plans in person.'His request Ephesus, where, not long afterward, he received was granted, and he assiduously applied himthat part of his property which his friends were self to study the language and manners of the able to withdraw from the grasp of the state at country, with which he became sufficiently faAthens, and that which'he had left at Argos: miliar to conciliate the favour of Artaxerxes by perhaps it was here, also, that his family met his conversation and address, no less than by him. I the promises which he held out, and the pruWhen Themistocles arrived in Asia, Xerxes dence of which he gave proofs. If we may bewas still on the throne, but not many months lieve Plutarch, he even excited the jealousy of after he was assassinated by two of the great the Persian courtiers by the superior success officers of his court, Artabanus, and the eunuch with which he cultivated their arts: he was Spamitres. The conspirators charged Darius, continually by the king's side at the chase and his eldest son, with the murder, and persuaded in the palace, and was admitted to the presArtaxerxes, the younger, instantly to avenge ence of the king's mother, who honoured him the imputed parricide by the execution of his with especial marks of condescension: it seems brother.* After this, Artabanus, who was the that he thought it prudent to soothe the religious father of'seven sons in the prime of life, waited prejudices of the people by listening to the doe-. trines of the priests. He was at length sent Xer Ctesi and Justin, iii., 1, only of two o f down to the maritime provinces, perhaps to Xerxes. Diodorus (xi., 69) mentions a third, Hystaspes, who was satrap of Bactria, and absent at the time of his fa- wait for an opportunity of striking the blow by ther's murder. Ctesias speaks of an Artabanus who was which he was to raise the power of Persia upon satrap:of Bactria at the time when the conspiracy aainst the ruin of his country. In the mean while, a Artaxerxes was defeated. Did the assassin Artabanus procure the murder of ttystaspes. pensionwas conferred on him in the Oriental VICTORIES OF CIMON. 293 form; three flourishing towns were assigned business, and drew on him the satire of the for his maintenance, of which Magnesia was to comic poets; and in his early youth he is said provide him with bread, Myus with viands, and to have neglected the ordinary accomplishments Lampsacus with the growth of her celebrated of an Athenian. gentlemen. If, however, this vineyards. He fixed his residence at Magnesia, was the case, he would seem, from an anecdote in the vale of the Maeander, where the royal reported by Plutarch on the authority of a congrant invested him with a kind of princely rank. temporary, to have supplied this deficiency at a There death overtook him, hastened, as it was later period;* but he.was not gifted with the commonly supposed, by his consciousness of promptness and volubility which commonly disbeing unable to perform the promises he had tinguished his countrymen, and never shone as made to the king. Thucydides, however, evi- an orator. It was probably his consciousness of dently did not believe the story that he put an this defect that determined him to devote himend to his own life by poison. That fear of self to a career which kept him mostly away disappointing the Persian king should have from Athens, and to abandon the popular asurged him to such an act is, indeed, scarcely sembly to his rivals. At his father's death, he credible. Yet we can easily conceive that the seems to have succeeded to a very scanty forman who had been kept awake by the trophies tune';t and he would, perhaps, have found it of Miltiades must have felt some bitter pangs difficult to raise the penalty of fifty talents due when he heard of the rising glory of Cimon. toithe treasury if Callias, one of the wealthiest Though his character was not so strong as his men of Athens, struck by the charms of his sismind, it was great enough to be about the ter Elpinice, a woman more remarkable for her wretched satisfaction implied in one of Plu- beauty and talents than for the propriety of her tarch's anecdotes, that, amid the splendour of conduct, had not undertaken to discharge the his luxurious table, he one day exclaimed, penalty as the price of her hand. Cimon, how" How much we should have lost, my children, ever, had attracted notice, and gained reputaif we had not been ruined." It must have been tion by the spirit which he displayed on the ocwith a different feeling that he desired his bones casion of leaving the city on the approach of to be privately conveyed to Attica, though the the barbarians, when he was the foremost to uncertainty which hangs over so many actions hang up a bridle in the Acropolis, as a sign that of his life extends to the fate of his remains. he placed all his hopes in the fleet, and by the A splendid monument was raised to him jn the valour with which he fought at Salamis; and public place at Magnesia; but a tomb was also many friendly voices encouraged him to tread pointed out by the seaside within the port of in his father's footsteps. Aristides, in particuPiraeus, which was generally believed to con- lar, saw in him a capacity and disposition that tain his bones. His descendants continued to fitted him for'a coadjutor to himself, and an anenjoy some peculiar privileges at Magnesia in tagonist to Themistocles, and exerted his infiuthe time of Plutarch; but neither they nor his ence in his favour; and the readiness with posterity at Athens ever revived the lustre of which the allied Greeks, when disgusted by his name the arrogance of Pausanias, united themselves with Athens was owed, in a great measure, to lt - Cimon's mild temper, and to his frank and gentle manners. Yet we should be inclined to CHAPTER XVII. question the genuineness of his generosity and good-nature if we believed what was related ORI THME COMMENCEMENT OF THE ATHENIARYN by an author cited by Plutarch: that after the MARITIME'ASCENDENCY TO THE THIRTY YEARS' flight of Themistocles, Cimon procured a capital sentence against Epicrates for having aided THOUGH the issue of the Persian invasion had the wife and children of the exile in escaping not broken, nor even dangerously shaken the from Athens, and joining him in the dominions power of Persia, it had relieved the European of Admetus. -Greeks and the islanders of the 2Egean from all The popularity of Themistocles was already apprehension of another attack on their free- declining, while Cimon, by a series of successdom from the. same quarter. Most of the states ful enterprises, was rapidly rising in public fanow, united with Athens would have been sat- vour and esteem. The first of these triumphs, isfied with this security, and had no wish to act achieved in the third year after the battle of on the offensive against the vanquished enemy. Platiea (B.C. 4'6), was the conquest of Eion But Athens saw a vast field open to her ambi- on the Strymon, which was held by a Persian tion in the East; the situation of the Asiatic. garrison, among whom were some men of high Greeks afforded a fair pretext for the continu- rank, and even related to the king. They were ance of hostilities, and many of her leading on friendly terms with the neighbouring Thrastatesmen were desirous of giving this direc- cians, and, probably with their aid, gZave great tion to the restless spirit of their countrymen. annoyance to the adjacent Greek tovwns. CiForemost among these was Cimon, son of mon, after defeating and shutting them up, Miltiades. In his youth he gave little promise pressed the place so closely, that Boges, the of the abilities or of the character which he af- Persian governor, unable to hold out, and disterward displayed, and seemed to have inher- daining to surrender, set fire to the town, and ited the limited capacity of his grandfather, who had incurred a nickname expressive of ex- * Plut., Cim., 9. t According to Diodorus (Mai, ii., p. 39), it was Themistreme simplicity,* rather than his father's ge- tocles who was the author of Cinlon's fortune, by recomnius. His propensity to pleasure was thought mending him as a son-in-law to a rich Athenian, who had to be so st- )ng as to divert his attention from consulted him on the choice of a husband for'his daughter, and whom he advised to look, not for wealth which wanted *'0 KoaseXOS. a man, but for a man who wanted wealth. 294 HISTORY OF GREECE. perished in the flames, which consumed his be felt irksome, and that Athens would only be friends, family, and treasures. This victory able to preserve the advantages which she dewas, on many accounts, peculiarly agreeable to rived from her station in the confederacy by the Athenians, who by it were relieved of a taking a new ground, and exacting by force troublesome enemy, and gained a very impor- what was no longer cheerfully given. Naxos tant position, which not only provided immedi- was conquered after a hard siege, and, instead ately for the wants of many, but was the first of an ally, became a subject of Athens; the first step to the establishment of one of their most member of the confederacy which experienced valuable colonies. They conferred the freedom from its protectors the worst evil which it had of their city on Meno the Pharsalian,* who on to fear from the Persians; but its example did this occasion gave them twelve talents, and not induce those who were exposed to the same himself came to their aid with 300 of his Pe- danger either to unite in the defence of their nests, mounted at his own charge. The reward liberty or to abstain from provoking a like atthey bestowed on the conqueror was consider- tack. One after another they unseasonably reed, at the time, as an extraordinary mark of fa- fused compliance with the requisitions of the vour, and was celebrated in after ages, when leading state, and were punished with the loss much slighter services were far more richly of their independence. Many were imprudent recompensed, as a proof of the cheapness of the enough to seek ease from their burdens by sacancient heroism. It consisted in three stone rificing their. strength. They offered to combusts of Hermes, each inscribed with two or mute their personal services in the endless exthree distichs in honour of the exploit, but con- peditibns to which they were summoned for taining neither the name of the general, nor any stated payments of money. Cimon perceived allusion to his particular merit. In the course the advantage which Athens would reap from of the same year Cimon effected another con- this arrangement, and accepted it whenever it quest, which had a value in the eyes of the peo- was proposed. Its effect was, that the states pie independent of the substantial advantages which adopted it, exempt from the necessity of it afforded them. The inhabitants of the Isle keeping up a naval force of their own, were ever of Scyros, a mixed race of Pelasgians and Dolo- after exposed, without any means of defence, pians, had become infamous for piracy, and had to the growing demands of Athenian rapacity, incurred the ban of the Amphictyons by a breach and when the wants of their sovereign were of hospitality in plundering some Thessalian multiplied, found themselves in addition submerchants. Cimon seized this specious pre- jected to the very services from which they had text for exterminating the people, and dividing so dearly purchased a temporary relief. their land among Attic colonists. He was af- In the year of the conquest of Naxos (B.C. terward fortunate or skilful enoughi to discover 466), the same in which Themistocles took retthe relics of Theseus, who, according to an an- uge in Asia, Cimon obtained his most memoracient tradition, had been buried in Scyros.t An ble triumph over the Persians. A great sea and oracle was procured, which directed the Athe- land force had been collected at the mouth of nians to recover the hero's remains, and to treat the Eurymedon in Pamphylia; the fleet, accordthem with due honour..Perhaps Cimon and ing to Ephorus, who is most moderate in his his party may have thought it seasonable, on numbers, amounted to 350, and the Persian political grounds, to reanimate the popular ven- commanders expected to be joined by 80 Phceeration for the founder of the ancient order of nician galleys from Cyprus. Cimon having things. The bones were dug up, and carried strengthened his fleet by successive re-enforcewith great pomp to Athens, where a temple, ments, as he slowly moved along the south which became a perpetual asylum for the op- coast of Asia Minor, till it amounted to 250 galpressed, was erected in honour of the hero who leys, provoked the enemy to an engagement behad so often exerted his prowess in protecting fore the arrival of the Phoenicians, and having innocence and redressing wrong. defeated them, and sunk or taken 200 ships, The next enterprises to which the Athenian sailed- up the river to their camp, and landing arms were directed were important as the first his men, flushed with victory, completely routed step towards the establishment of a new sys: the Persian army, and carried away the rich tem in the relation between Athens and her al- booty which they left in their tents. Accordlies. The town of Carystus in Eubeea, from what ing -to the author whom Plutarch follows,:he causes we are not informed, provoked the hos- still found time for another victory the same tility of the Athenians, and, though not support- day, and having sailed to meet the Phcenician ed by any other states in the island, made a squadron, which had not heard of the defeat of long resistance before it was reduced to sub- their allies, fell in with it, and destroyed the mission. Its revolt was, perhaps, considered whole. as of too little importance to deserve more Cimon's next enterprise was one in which he strenuous efforts for its suppression. But that had a personal and hereditary interest. The of the rich and powerful island of Naxos, which Persians still kept possession of the Thracian followed, was of greater moment. It was an Chersonesus, and were supported by some of indication that the Athenian alliance began-to the Thracian tribes of the mainland. Cimon sailed with a small force, and dislodged them, * Demosth., Aristocr., p. 687. not only from the territory of the republic, but t According to Paus., i., 17, 6, the professed object of the from perhaps the most valuable part of his own first expedition was to avenge the murder of Theseus, patrimony. It appea though Lycomedes had been instigated by jealousy of the honours which his subjects paid to the hero. But the the power of the Athenians had been thus bones were not brought to Athens till six or seven years af- strengthened in this quarter —in the year folter the coniluest of the island, in the archonship of Aphep- lowing the battles of the Eurymedon-that they sion, or Apsephion, B.C. 468. See Mr. Clinton, F. H., ii., p. 34.. were again engaged in a contest with one of EARTHQUAKE AT SPARTA.-PERICLES. 295 their allies, who was able and disposed to make lots, but by the free inhabitants of some of the a vigorous resistance. The Thasians were Lpconian towns. The Spartans, though reducompelled to defend their gold mines on the ced to extreme weakness, were still masters of continent from the cupidity of Athens, which, the open country, and laid siege to Ithom6, but perhaps, claimed them as a conquest won from made very slow advances towards the reducthe Persians. The islanders were first defeat- tion of the place. In the mean while, the Thaed at sea by Cimon, and then closely besieged. sians, left to themselves, were compelled to caWhile the siege was in progress, the Athenians pitulate in the third year of the war, and after dissuffered a disastrous defeat in one of their most mantling their fortifications, surrendering their important possessions. They had sent a colony ships, ceding their continental territory and often thousand settlers, partly citizens and part- mines, paying a sum of money immediately, and ly allies, to establish themselves in a site on the stipulating to pay a certain tribute in future, Strymon, then called, from the various lines of were permitted to remain subjects of Athens. communication which branched from it, the As the siege of Ithom6 lingered, the Spartans Nine Ways,* and occupied by the Edonian called upon their allies for aid; and, among the Thracians. These the colonists dislodged; but rest, they did not blush to implore it from the in an expedition which they made into the in- Athenians. This application gave rise to a very terior against the Edonian town of Drabescus warm debate in the Athenian assembly, and was they were attacked by the united forces of the treated by the leaders of the opposite parties Thracians, who viewed their settlement as a as an occasion of trying their strength. The hostile invasion, and were cut off to a man. feelings with which it was received can scarcely The Thasians, alarmed at the turn which the be clearly understood without taking a view of war had taken, began to look out for foreign as- these parties and of their relative position; and sistance. The jealousy of Sparta towards Ath- a short digression on this subject will be necesens had been betrayed, as we have seen, imme- sary to place many events of the following hisdiately after their joint victory over the common tory in their proper light. enemy; and the events of the subsequent peri- Cimon was, beyond dispute, the ablest and od were not fitted to allay it. The Thasians, most successful general of his day; and his victherefore, sent an embassy to engage the Spar- tories had shed a lustre on the arms of Athens tans to make a diversion in their favour by in- which almost dimmed the glories of Marathon vading Attica. Their envoys were favourably and Salamis. But while he was gaining rereceived, and dismissed with a secret promise nown abroad, he had rivals at home who were that their wishes should be fulfilled; and the endeavouring to supplant him in the affections Spartans were preparing to kdeep their word, of the people, and to establish a system of do-.. but had not yet taken any step which could dis- mestic and foreign policy directly counter to his close their intention to the Athenians, when a views, and were preparing contests for him in calamity befell them by which they were forced which his military talents would be of little to renounce this design, and to struggle hard avail. While Themistocles and Aristides were for their own preservation. The whole of La- occupying the political stage, an extraordinary conia was shaken by an earthquake, which open- genius had been ripening in obscurity, and was ed great chasms in the ground, and rolled down only waiting for a favourable juncture to issue huge masses from the highest peaks of Tayge- from the shade into the broad day of public life. tus: Sparta itself became a heap of ruin, in Xanthippus, the conqueror of Mycale, had marwhich not more than five houses are said to ried Agariste, a descendant of the famous Clehave been left standing.t More than twenty isthenes, and had left two sons, Ariphron and thousand persons were believed to have been Pericles. Of Ariphron little is known besides destroyed by the shock,t and the flower of the his name; but Pericles, to an observing eye, Spartan youth was overwhelmed by the fall of gave early indications of a mind formed for great the building in which they were exercising things, and a will earnestly bent on them. In themselves at the time. It was chiefly the his youth he had not rested satisfied with the presence of mind displayed on this occasion by ordinary Greek education, but had applied himKing Archidamus that preserved the state from self, with an ardour which was not even abated a still more terrible disaster. Many of the He- by the lapse of years, nor stifled by his public lots assembled, and hastened to the city to take avocations, to intellectual pursuits, which were advantage of the defenceless condition in which then new at Athens, and confined to a very narthey hoped to surprise their masters. But Ar- row circle of inquisitive spirits. His birth and chidamus, foreseeing the danger, as soon as the fortune afforded him the means of familiar infirst consternation had subsided, while the sur- tercourse with all the men most eminenit in evvivers were busied among the ruins, ordered an ery kind of knowledge and art, who were alalarm to be sounded, as of an enemy's approach, ready beginning to resort to Athens as a comand gathered all his people round him in arms. mon seat of learning. Thus, though Pythocli The Helots, finding an armed band ready to re- des taught him to touch the cithara, he sought ceive them, retreated and dispersed. But the elements of a higher kind of music in the though this danger was thus averted, the safe- lessons of Damon, who was believed to have ty of Sparta was not yet secured. The Mes- contributed mainly to train him for his political senians seized the opportunity of rising against career: himself no ordinary person; for he was their hated lords, and fortified themselves in held up by the comic poets to public jealousy as the ancient stronghold of their liberty, Ithom6. a secret favourer of tyranny, and was driven Their insurrection was the more formidable, as from Athens by the process of ostracism. But they were joined, not only by many of the He- Pericles also entered With avidity into' the abstrusest philosophical speculations, and even *See p. 251. t Plut., Cim., 16. t Diod., xi., 63. took pleasure in the arid subtleties of the Ele 296 HISTORY OF GREECE. atic school, or, at least, in the ingenuity and the subject of inexhaustible'pleasantry for the comic dialectic art with which they were unfolded to poets of his' day;* but the old men who rememhim by Zeno. But his principal guide in such bered Pisistratus were struck by the resemresearches, and the man who appears to have blance which they discovered between the tyexercised the most powerful and durable influ- rant and the young heir of the Alcmieonids, and ence on his mind and character, was the philos- not only in their features,t but in the sweetness opher Anaxagoras, with whom he was long uni- of voice and the volubility of utterance with ted in intimate friendship. Not only his public which both expressed themselves. Still, after and private deportment, and his habits of the ostracism of Themistocles and the death thought, but the tone and style of his eloquence, of Aristides, while Cimon was engaged in conwere believed to have been formed by his inter- tinual expeditions, Pericles began to present course with Anaxagoras. It was commonly himself more and more to the public eye, and supposed that this effect was produced by the was soon the acknowledged chief of a powerful philosopher's physical speculations, which, ele- party, which openly aimed at counteracting vating his disciple above the ignorant supersti- Cimon's influence, and introducing opposite tion of the vulgar, had imparted to him the se- maxims into the public counsels. rene condescension and dignified language of a To some of the ancients, indeed, it appeared superior being. But we should be loath to be- that the course of policy adopted by Pericles lieve that it was the possession of such physi- was entirely determined by the spirit of emulacal secrets as Anaxagoras was able to commu- tion, which induced him to take a different nicate that inspired Pericles with his lofty con- ground from that which he found already occuceptions, or that he was intoxicated with the pied by Cimon; and that, as Cimon was at the little taste of science which had weaned him head of the aristocratical party which had been from a few popular prejudices. We should rath- represented by Aristides, he therefore placed er ascr'be so deep an impression to the distin- himself in the front of that which had been led guishing tenet of the Anaxagorean system, by by Therzntocles. The difference between these.which the philosopher himself was supposed to parties, after the revolution by which the anceshave acquired the title of Mind from his con- tor of Pericles had undermined the power of temporaries. The doctrine of an ordering in- the old aristocracy, was, for some time, very telligence, distinct from the material universe, faintly marked, and we have seen that Aristides and ruling it with absolute sway, was striking, himself was the author of a very democratical from its novelty, and peculiarly congenial to the measure, which threw the first offices of the character of Pericles. Such was the suprema- state open to all classes of the citizens. The cy which Athens exercised over the multitude aristocracy had no hope of recovering what it of her dependant states, and such the ascend- had lost; but, as the commonalty grew more ency which he felt himself destined to obtain enterprising, it became also more intent on over the multitude at Athens. keeping all that it had retained, aid on stopping It was, undoubtedly, not from the mere all farther innovation at home. Abroad, too, amusement of his leisure that Pericles had en- though it was no longer a question whether riched his mind with so many rare acquire- Athens should continue to be a great maritime ments. All of them were probably considered power, or should reduce her navy to the footing by him as instruments for the use of the states- of the old naucraries, and though Cimon himman; and even those which seemed most re- self4jad actively pursued the policy of Themismote from all practical purposes may have con- tocles, there was room for great difference of tributed to the cultivation of that natural elo- opinion as to the course which was to be fol quence to which he owed so much of his influ- lowed in her foreign relations. The aristocrati ence. He left no specimens of his oratory be- cal party wished, for their own sake at least, as hind him, and we can only estimate it, like many much as for that of peace and justice, to preother fruits of Greek genius, by the effect it serve the balance of power as steady as possiproduced. The few minute fragments preserved ble in Greece, and directed the Athenian arms by Plutarch, which were recorded by earlier against the Persian empire with the greater authors because they had sunk deep in the energy, in the hope of diverting them from inmind of his hearers, seem to indicate that he testine warfare. The democratical party hid loved to concentrate his thoughts in a bold and other interests, and concurred only with that vivid image, as when he called 2.gina the eye- part of these views which tended towards ensore' of Pireus, and said that he descried war riching and aggrandizing the state. lowering from Peloponnesus. But though sg- It is as difficult wholly to clear Pericles from nally gifted and accomplished for political ac- the charge of having been swayed by personal tion, it was not without much hesitation and motives in the choice of his political system, as apprehension that he entered on a field where it would be to establish it. But even if it were he saw ample room, indeed, for the display of certain that his decision was not the result of his powers, but also many enemies and great conviction, it might as fairly be attributed to a dangers. The very superiority, of which he hereditary prepossession in favour of the princi Co0uld not but be conscious, suggested a motive ples for which his ancestors had contended, and for alarm, as it might easily excite suspicion in * plut., Per., 3, 14. the people of views adverse to their freedom; t The contemporaries of Pisistratus seem to have discovand these fears were heightened by some cir- ered a striking likeness between his head and that of a stat ue of the god Dionysus, which was therefore supposed by cumstances, trifling in themselves,. but capable some to have been sacrilegiously designed by the artist as of awakening or confirming a popular prejudice. a portrait-of the mortal, and was looked upon as a specimen His personal appearance was graceful and ma- of the tyrant's arrogance. (Athen., xii., p. 533.) Hence, jestic, notwithstanding a remarkable dispropor- probably not without a malicious allusion to the scandal jestic, notwithtstand ing a hisrhem a pradwhcbe re daispro-bout Aspasia, Hermippus, in one of his comedies, entitl tion in the length of his head, which became a Pericles King of the Satyrs. Plut., Per., 33. LIBERALITY OF CIMON.'297 which had probably been transmitted in his ted all who would to partake of the fruits of his family, as to his competition with Cimon, or to fields and orchards, but threw down the fences, his fear of incurring the suspicion that he aimed that none might scruple to enter. He not only at a tyranny or unconstitutional power-a sus- gave the usual entertainments expected from picion to which he was much more exposed in the rich to the members of his deme, but kept the station which he actually filled. But if his a table constantly open to them. When he personal character might seem better adapted went out into the streets he was commonly atto an aristocratical than to a democratical party, tended by a number of persons in good apparel, it must also render us unwilling to believe that who, when they met with any elderly citizen he devoted himself to the cause of the common- scantily clothed, would insist on exchanging alty merely that he might make it the instru- their warm mantles for his threadbare coverment of his own ambition. There seems to be ing. It was the office of the same agents remuch better ground for supposing that he de- spectfully to approach any of the poorer citizens liberately preferred the system which he adopt- of good character whom they might see standed, as the most consistent, if not alone recon- ing in the market-place, and silently to put some cilable, with the prosperity and safety of Athens, small pieces of money into their hands. There though his own agency in directing and control- were some, Plutarch innocently observes, who ling it might be a prominent object in all his decried this liberality as flattery of the mob, and views. But he might well think that the peo- the trick of a demagogue;* but such slander is, ple had gone too far to remain stationary, even he thinks, amply refuted by the fact, that Cimon if there was any reason why it should not seize was the leader of the aristocratical and Laconithe good which lay within its reach. Its great- an party, and one of the few Athenians whose ness had risen with the growth of the common- incorruptible integrity raised them above all susalty, and, it might appear to him,' could only be picion of venality, or of ever acting from selfish maintained and'extended by the same means: motives. And he adds a story of the magnaat home.by a decided ascendency of the popu- nimity with which Cimon had rejected a preslar interest over that of the old aristocracy and ent offered to him by a foreigner who needed every other class in the state; abroad by an his protection. It might, perhaps, be alleged, equally decided supremacy over the rest of with more colour of truth, that the ordinary reGreece. lation subsisting at this period between the rich The contest between the parties seems for and the poor at Athens rendered such good ofsome time to have been carried on without fices so common that they could not fairly be much violence or animosity, and rather with a attributed even to ambition, much less to any noble emulation in the service of the public meaner motive. It is true that the state of than with assaults on one another. Cimon had things had undergone a great change at Athens enriched his country with the spoil and ransom in favour of the poorer class since Solon had of the Persians, and he had also greatly in- been obliged to interpose to protect them from creased his private fortune.*, His disposition the rigour of creditors who first impoverished, was naturally inclined to liberality, and he made and then enslaved them. Since this time the a munificent use of his wealth. Several great aristocracy had found it expedient to court the works were wanting for the security of the commonalty, which it could no longer oppress, city, and little had yet been done for its embel- and to part with a portion of its wealth for the lishment. The southern wall of the citadel was sake of retainifig its power. There were, of built with the treasure which Cimon brought course, then, as at all times, benevolent individhome from Asia, and the plans of Themistocles uals who only consulted the dictates of a generwere brought nearer to their accomplishment ous nature; but the contrast between the pracby preparations which were now made for join- tice which prevailed before and after the age of ing the city to its harbours,'by walls carried Solon seems clearly to mark the spurious oridown on the one side to Phalerus, on the other gin of the ordinary beneficence. Yet Isocrates, to Piraeus. The laying of the foundations of when he extols the bounty of the good old these walls was itself an arduous and expensive times, which prevented the pressure of poverty work, on account of the marshy ground which from being ever felt, speaks of land granted at they crossed; and Cimon himself executed the low rents, sums of money advanced at low inmost difficult part with magnificent solidity at terest,t and asserts that none of the citizens his own charge. He also set the example of were then in such indigence as to depend on adorning the public places of the city with trees, casual relief.S Cimon's munificence, therefore, and, by introducing a supply of water, converted must have been remarkable, not only in its dethe Academy, a spot about two miles north of gree, hut in its kind; and was not the less that the city, from an arid waste into a delightful of a demagogue, because he sought popularity, grove, containing open lawns and courses for not merely for his own sake, but for that of his the exercises of the young, shady walks for the order and his party. thoughtful, a scene of wholesome recreation Such was the light in which it was viewed for all. by Pericles, and some of the measures which This kind of expenditure was wise and no- most strongly marked his administration were ble; but it was coupled with another, mischiev- adopted to counteract its effects. He was not ous in its tendency, and seemingly degrading able to rival Cimon's profusion, and he even both to the benefited and to the benefactor. husbanded his private fortune with rigid'econoCimon, it is said, not only, like Pisistratus, inviCimon, it i s said, not only, like Pisistratus, invi- * Cim., 10. In his Life of Pericles, 9, he seems himself to. adopt the same view. With regard to the removal of * Plut. (Cim., 10) attributes his wealth entirely to this the fences, Plutarch's statement is not confirmed by Theosource; but it may have been in great part derived from the pompus (Athen., xii., p. 533). and may, therefore, be susrecovery of the Chersonesus, as Wachsmuth observes, i., pected of exaggeration. 2, p. 57. t Areop., c. 12 $ Ibid., c. 38. VOL. I.-P P 298 HISTORY OF GREECE. my, that he might keep his probity in the man- farther conquest on the mainland between the agement of public affairs free both from tempta- newly-conquered district and Macedonia. Plution and suspicion. His friend Demonides is tarch says that he was expected to have invasaid. first to have suggested the thought of ded Macedonia, and to have added a large tract throwing C(iimon's liberality into the shade, and of it to the dominions of Athens. Yet it does rendering it superfluous by proposing a similar not clearly appear how the conquest of Thasos application of the public revenue.* Pericles, afforded an opportunity of effecting this with perhaps, deemed it safer and more becoming greater ease, nor is any motive suggested for that the people should supply the poorer citizens such an attack on the territories of Alexander. with the means of enjoyment out of its own We might hence be inclined to suspect that the funds than that they should de'pend on the expedition which Cimon had neglected to underbounty of opulent individuals. He might think take, though called for by the people's wishes, that the generation which had raised their coun- if not by their express orders, was to have been try to such a pitch of greatness was entitled to directed, not against Macedonia, but against reap the fruits of the sacrifice which their fa- the Thracian tribes on its frontier, who had so thers had made in resigning the produce of the latelly cut off their colonists on the Strymon; a mines of Laurium to the use of the state. Very blow which the Athenians were naturally imearly, therefore, he signalized his appearance in patient to avenge, but which the King of Mathe assembly by becoming the author of a series cedonia might well be supposed to have witof measures, all tending to provide for the sub- nessed without regret, even if he did not instisistence and gratification of the poorer class at gate those who inflicted it. However this may the public expense. We do not stop to de- be, Cimon's forbearance disappointed and irriscribe these measures, because they will find a tated the people, and his adversaries inflamed more appropriate place in a general view of the the popular indignation by ascribing his conduct administration of Pericles. But we must here to the influence of Macedonian gold. This part observe that, while he was courting the favour of the charge, at least, was undoubtedly groundof the multitude by these arts, he was no less less; and Pericles, though appointed by the studious to command its respect. From his people one of Cimon's accusers, when he was first entrance into public life, he devoted him- brought to trial for treason,, seems to have enself with unremitting application to business; tered into the prosecution with reluctance. he was never to be seen out of doors, but on The danger, however, was great, and Elpinice the way between his house and the seat of came to the house of Pericles to plead with him council; and, as if by way of contrast to Ci- for her brother. Pericles playfully, though, it mon's convivial tastes, declined all invitations would seem, not quite so delicately as our manto the entertainments of his acquaintance-once ners would require, reminded her that she was only during the whole period he broke through past the age at which female intercession is this rule, to honour the wedding of his relative most powerful, but, in effect, he granted her Euryptolemus with his presence-and confined request; for he kept back the thunder of his himself to the society of a very select circle of eloquence, and only rose once, for form's sake, intimate friends. He bestowed the most assid- to second the accusation. Plutarch says that uous attention on the preparation of his speech- Cimon was acquitted; and there seems to be no es, and so little disguised it, that he used to say reason for doubting the fact, except a suspicion he never mounted the bema without praying that this was the trial to which Demosthenes that no inappropriate word might drop from his alludes when he says that Cimon narrowly eslips. The impression thus produced was height- caped with his life, and was condemned to a ened by the calm majesty of his air and car- penalty of fifty talents: a singular repetition of riage, and by the philosophical composure which his father's destiny.* he maintained under all provocations.t And This, however,'was only a prelude to a more he was so careful.to avoid the effect which fa- momentous struggle, which involved the prinmiliarity might have on the people, that he was ciples of the parties, and excited much stronger sparing even in his attendance at the assembly, feelings of mutual resentment. It appears to and, reserving his own appearance for great oc- have been about this timethat Peflicles resolved casions, carried many of his measures through on attacking the aristocracy in its ancient and the agency of his friends and partisans. Among revered stronghold, the Areopagus. We have them the person whose name is most frequently seen that this body, at once a council and a associated with that of Pericles was Ephialtes, court of justice, was composed, according to son of Sophonides, a person not much less con- Solon's regulation, of the ex-archons. Its charspicuous for his rigid integrity than Aristides acter was little altered after the archonship was himself, and who seems to have entered into filled by lot, so long as it was open to none but the views of Pericles with disinterested earnest- citizens of the wealthiest class; but, by the ness, and fearlessly to have borne the brunt of innovation introduced by Aristides, the poorest the conflict with the opposite party. Athenian might gain admission to the AreopaImmediately after the conquest of Thasos an gus. Still, the change which this measure prooccasion occurred for the two parties to meas- duced in its composition was, probably, for a ure their strength. It would appear that Cimon had reeived instructionsuld before he brought * Aristog., p. 688. In this case he does not mention the.had received instructions, before he brought charge, but, as Wachsmuth observes, the motive of the home his victorious armament, to attempt some prosecution. On the other hand, the language of Demosthenes, rTL Ti'V ritrplov /AereKKtrlnE roXtrEiav, would suit * Plut., Per., 9, on the authority of Aristotle. very well what Plutarch says of Cimon's attempt to revive t Plutarch tells a story-characteristic, if not true-of a the old aristocracy, Cim., 15; but then we hear of no for rude fellow, who, after railing at Pericles all day, as he was mal prosecution before the ostracism. Iekket's reading, transacting business in public, followed him after dusk with I Ifaptwv for rTirpiov, would put an end to this question, and abusive language to his door, when Pericles ordered one of would seem to show that the orator had confounded Cihis servants to take a light and conduct the nlan home. mon's history with his father's. THE AREOPAGUS.-ALLIANCE BETWEEN ATHENS AND ARGOS. 299 long time scarcely perceptible, and attended long time passed without any impression havwith no effect on its maxims and proceedings. ing been made on it, they began to suspect that nWhen Pericles made his attack on it, it was, the fault lay in the will, rather in the ability of perhaps, as much as ever an aristocratical as- their auxiliaries, and conceived apprehensions, sembly. The greater part of the members had suggested, perhaps, by the consciousness of come in under the old system, and most of their own bad faith, that the Athenians might those who followed them probably belonged to be induced to betray them to the besieged. the same class; for though, in the eye of the Their distrust soon became so strong that, law, the archonship had become open to all, it while they retained all their other allies, they is not likely that many of a lower station would dismissed the Athenian troops without assign immediately present themselves to take their ing any other reason than that they had no farchance. But, even if any such'were success- ther need of their services. The Athenians, who ful, they could exert but little influence on the clearly perceived the real motive, were probageneral character of the council, which would bly more exasperated by this want of confidence act much more powerfully on them. The poor than they would have been by a perfidious atman who took his seat among a number of per- tack. The first effect produced by the affront sons of superior rank, fortune, and education, at Athens was a resolution to break off all conwould generally be eager to adopt the tone, and nexion with Sparta, and, to make the rupture conform to the wishes of his colleagues; and more glaring, they entered into an alliance hence the prevailing spirit might continue for with Sparta's old rival, Argos. Argos had been many generations unaltered. This may be the induced, by her jealousy of Sparta, to keep main point.which Isocrates had in view when aloof from the Persian war, and had probably he observed that the worst men, as soon as been much offended at seeing Mycenae, over they entered the Areopagus, seemed to change which she claimed a disputed supremacy, take their nature.* Pericles, therefore, had reason an honourable part in that glorious struggle. to consider it as a formidable obstacle to his After that event Mycenae seems to have shown plans.t He did not, however, attempt, or per- a disposition to put forth new pretensions, haps desire, to abolish an institution so hallow- grounded on the title of her ancient kings. She ed by tradition; but he aimed at narrowing the asserted a right to the presidency of the Nemerange of its functions, so as to leave it little an Games, which had been long enjoyed by Armore than an august name. Ephialtes was his gos, and to the superintendence of a temple of principal coadjutor in this undertaking, and, by Her6, which was common -to the two cities, the prominent part which he took in it, exposed and lay between them, though nearer to Mycehimself to the implacable enmity of the opposite nae. It had no doubt been the prospect of supparty, which appears to have set all its engines port from Sparta that encouraged Mycenae in in motion to ward off the blow. this rivalry with her more powerfiul neighbour. It is not certain whether this struggle had But when the earthquake and the Messenian begun, or was only impending, at the time of insurrection had disabled Sparta from all efforts the embassy which came from Sparta to request on behalf of others, the Argives seized the opthe aid of the Athenians against Ithome. But portunity of making war on Mycenae. They the two parties were no less at variance on this were assisted by Tegea and Cleonae, defeated subject than on the other. The aristocratical the Mycenians in battle, shut them up within party considered Sparta as its natural ally, and their walls, and, in spite of a gallant resistance, did not wish to see Athens without a rival in took the city, razed it to the ground, and anGreece. Cimon was personally attached to nexed the territory to their own. It was appaSparta,t possessed the confidence of the Spar- rently very soon after this important conquest, tans, and took every opportunity of expressing to which eye shall hereafter return, that they the warmest admiration of their character and received proposals of alliance from Athens, institutions, and, to mark his respect for them, which they gladly embraced; and the Thessagave one of his sons the name of Lacedaemoni- lians —by what means does not appear-were us. He himself was, in some degree, indebt- included in the treaty.* ed to their patronage for his political eleva- This turn of events was extremely agreeable tion, and had requited their favour by joining to the democratical party at Athens, not only with them in the persecution of Themistocles. in itself, on account of the assistance which When, therefore, Ephialtes dissuaded the peo- they might hope to receive from Argos, but beple from granting the request of the Spartans, cause it immediately afforded them a great adand exclaimed against the folly of raising a vantage in their conflict with their domestic adfallen antagonist, Cimon'urled them not to per- versaries, and in particular furnished them with mit Greece to be lamed, and Athens to lose her new arms against Cimon. He instantly became yoke-fellow.~ This advice prevailed, and Cimon obnoxious, both as the avowed friend of Sparta, was sent with a large force to assist the Spar- and as the author and leader of the expedition tans at the siege of Ithome. which had drawn so rude an insult on his counThe Spartans had hoped that the Athenians, trymen. The attack on the authority of the who were eminently skilful in this kind of war- Areopagus was now prosecuted with greater fare, would have enabled them speedily to re- vigour, and Cimon had little influence left to exduce But when they found that ace. duce tl. But when they ound that a *'Mr. Clinton, Fasti Hell., on the authority of Diodorus, *,4. Iplaces the fall of Mycena in the archonship of Theageni* Areop., 15. des, 01. 78, 1, B.C. 468, four years before the earthquake t On this subject, see some excellent remarks' in Droy- at Sparta. But Diodorus seenls to be much better entitled sen's German translation of Eschylus, i., p. 176. to attention in his view of the connexion of the events, t$ troXdlcKov, Plut., Cim., 16. which is that taken in the text, than in his date. Inde~,ir rTV "LErXXaa %to)Xbv, #Ure r7v 7rdtv ircp6,vya pendent of his authority, it is scarcely conceivable that 7reptLeiv yeyEY.EYdvr —the language of Cimon, reported by Sparta would have permitted the destruction of TMycena if his contemporary, the poet Ion of Chios. Plut., Cim., 16, she had been in a condition to protect her ally. 300 HISTORY OF GREECE. ert in its behalf. Yet his party seems not by to require it. One of the strongest arguments any means to have remained passive, but to for the opinion that the law of Ephialtes took have put forth all its strength in a last effort to causes of murder out of the jurisdiction of the save its citadel;'and it was supported by an Areopagus and transferred them to the popular auxiliary who had some very powerful engines courts is afforded by the poem: of AEschylus, to wield in its defence. This was the poet which turns entirely on' the foundation of the.,Eschylus, who was attached to it by his char- court. Yet it must be owned that the praises acter and his early associations. Himself a of Athene rather apply to the council, and it is Eupatrid, perhaps connected with the priestly especially difficult to conceive what object Perfamilies of Eleusis, his deme, if not his birth- icles and his party could have had in touching place, he gloried in the laurels which he had that part of the criminal jurisdictidn which was won at Marathon above all the' honours earned at once the mast venerable, the most rarely exby his sword and by his pen, though he had also ercised, and the least liable to abuse; for it fought at Salamis, and had founded a new era does not appear that hitherto the spirit of party of dramatic poetry.* He was an admirer of had become so furious at Athens as to resort Aristides, whose character he had painted in to assassination, though not long after we shall one of his tragedies, under the name of an an- meet with a remarkable instance of such an excient hero, with a truth which was immediately cess. On the other hand, it may be objected recognised by the audience. The contest with that the power of the council had long ceased Persia, which was the subject of one of his to be formidable, and could not give occasion to great works, probably appeared to him the le- so earnest and passionate a contest. Yet its gitimate object for the energies of Greece. Be- dormant claims might be revived at a more seasides this general disposition to side with Ci- sonable juncture, and there were some branchmon's party against Pericles, the whole train es of the jurisdiction pertaining to its censorial of his poetical and religious feelings, nourished authority which might at all times offer a conby a deep study of the mythical and religious venient handle to the aristocratical party foi traditions of Greek antiquity, engaged him in an attack on Pericles and his friends. There the cause of the Areopagus, to oppose what he was none, as the event proved, which they had probably considered as a sacrilegious encroach- more cause to fear than a charge of impiety, ment on a venerable and hallowed institution. which now came under the cognizance of the As such, he endeavoured to represent it to the Areopagus, but at a later period in the life of people, with all the power of his solemn poetry, Pericles seems to be no longer subject to it. and all the arts of theatrical illusion. In his We are therefore still inclined to think, though tragedy entitled the Eumenides, which was act- some of the highest modern authorities are on ed probably in the year of the rupture with the opposite side, that it was the council, with Sparta, and just after the conclusion of the its incidental jurisdiction, rather than the tributreaty with Argos, he exhibits the mythical ori- nal for the prosecution of murder, which Ephigin of the court and council of Areopagus in altes struck at: and this opinion seems to acthe form which best suited his.purpose, tracing cord best with the manner in which Plutarch it to the cause first pleaded there between the connects the attempts of Cimon to restore the Argive matricide Orestes —who pledges his authority of the Areopagus with those which country to eternal alliance, with Athens-and he made to revive the old aristocratical constithe dread goddesses who sought vengeance for tution.* the blood which he had shed. The poet brings This triumph of Pericles and his party over these terrible beings on the stage, as well as the Areopagus seems to have been immediatethe tutelary goddess of the city, who herself in- ly followed by the ostracism of Cimon, which stitutes the tribunal, to last throughout. all ages, took place about two years after the return of and exhorts her people to preserve it as the glo- the Athenians from Messenia; and it is therery and safeguard of the city; and the spectators fore not improbable that his exile may have are led to consider the continuance of the bless- been not so much an effect of popular resentings which the pacified avengers promise to the ment as a measure of precaution which may land as depending on the permanence of the in- have appeared necessary even to the moderate stitution which had succeeded to their functions. men of both parties for the establishment of Nevertheless, though the composition to public tranquillity. which this drama belongs seems to have sur- The rupture between Athens and Sparta led passed all his former productions, the author to new movements, by which Athens gained a failed in his political object; and Ephialtes car- great immediate advantage, but lost one of her ried a decree, or a law, by which the Areopa- old and most usefulallies. Corinth and Megara gus was shorn of its authority, and only retain- had been for some time past at war; a dispute ed a few branches of its jurisdiction. Thus much about their frontier was probably the pretext, is certain; but it is extremely difficult to deter- rather than the cause of their quarrel. The mine the precise nature of the innovation, and party uppermost at Megara7could now rely on whether it affected the power of the tribunal, the friendship of Athens; it renounced the alliwhich took cognizance of causes of murder, or ance with Sparta, and admitted an Athenian that of the council, which claimed a large and garrison into the city, and into the port of Pegae indefinite superintendence over the education on the Corinthian Gulf. To secu he comand conduct of the citizens, and the decision of munication between Megara and t sea, and various causes pertaining to religion and mor- its dependance on its new ally, the Athenians als, and even the right of interfering with the _ decrees of the people in cases where, according * Cim., 15. For the literature of the controversy which to its own view, the public safety might seem has been warmly agitated in Germany on this question, the reader may consult note 4, p. 118, of Mueller's edition of * Pau8., i., 14, 4 the Eumenides. WAR IN EGYPT. —MYRONIDES. 30i connected the city with its harbour at Nisaea by the defence of the city, and marched out with a work similar to that which had lately been them to meet the Corinthians. The action begun between Athens and Piraeus, and them- which followed was not decisive; but the Atheselves garrisoned the walls which they built for nians remained on the field and erected a trothe Megarians. phy, while the Corinthians returned home; but, While a part of their force was thus employ- being there reproached for yielding to so une. ed, another was carrying on the war with Per- qual a force, twelve days after they again sal sia in a new quarter. Inarus, king of some of lied forth, and marched to the scene of action the Libyan tribes on the western border of Egypt, to set up a rival trophy, or, more properly,, to had excited an insurrection there against the challenge the Athenians to another battle. The Persians, and his authority was acknowledged Athenians, who, perhaps, expecting a fresh atthroughout the greater part of the country. Ar- tack, had remained at Megara, immediately istaxerxes sent his brother Acheemenes with a sued from the town, cut to pieces a party of the great army to quell this rebellion. An Atheni- enemy who were erecting the trophy, and then, an armament of 200 galleys was lying, at the coming up to the main body, completely defeat time, off Cyprus, and Inarus sent to obtain its ed them. In their flight a part of the Corinth. assistance. The Athenian commanders, wheth- ians missed their road, and turned into a large er following their own discretion, or after orders pit or quarry, from which they could find no.received from home, quitted Cyprus, and, having egress. The Athenians having stationed their joined with the insurgents, enabled them to de- heavy-armed in the passage by which they enfeat Achebienes, who fell in the battle by the tered, surrounded the place with' their light hand of Inarus. They then sailed up the Nile troops, who with their missiles slew every man to Memphis, where a body of Persians and some within. Thucydides does not mention the numEgyptians, who still adhered to their cause, ber that fell, but says that the loss was great were in possession of one quarter of the city, enough to be deeply felt at Corinth. called White Castle.* The rest was subject to Some time before the Corinthians made this Inarus, and there the Athenians stationed them- ineffectual attempt to relieve.Egina, the King selves and besieged the Persians. of Persia, whd saw himself in danger of losing They were still engaged in this enterprise, his last hold on Egypt, had endeavoured to prowhich, from the magnitude of the force employ- cure a similar diversion in his own favour, which ed in it, might once have seemed sufficient to might draw away the Athenians from Memphis. engross their attention, in the year B.C. 457, The time had now come when the gold of Perone of the most eventful in their annals. The' sia was to be found more formidable to Greece occupation of Megara had roused the most ve- than her arms. Artaxerxes sent a Persian, hemrnent resentment at Corinth, and was follow- named Megabazus, to Sparta, with a sum of ed by a war, in'which the Corinthians were join- money to be employed in bribing the principal ed by zEgina and the maritime towns of Argolis. Spartans to use their influence, so as to engage The Athenians did not wait to be attacked. their countrymen in an expedition against AttiThey landed a body of troops near Haliae in the ca. Megabazus did not find the leading SparArgolic Act6, but were driven back to their tans unwilling to receive his money, but they ships with loss by the united forces of Corinth seem to have been unable to render him the and Epidaurus. This check, however, was soon service for which it was offered. Ithom6 still revenged by a victory which they gained over held out; and Sparta had probably not yet sufthe Peloponnesian fleet off the island of Cecry- ficiently either recovered her strength, or rephalea, in the Saronic Gulf; and shortly after- stored internal tranquillity, to venture on the ward, under the command of Leocrates; their proposed invasion. Some rumour'of this negoarms were crowned with a still more brilliant tiation may have reached Athens, and have success. He defeated the allies in a great sea- quickened the energy'with which Pericles now fight near _LEgina, and took seventy of their gal- urged the completion of the long walls, for which leys, and then landing his troops on the island, preparations had been made, as we have seen, laid siege to the city. The Corinthians thought some years before. But among his opponents to effect a diversion in favour of the.,Eginetans there was a faction who viewed the progress by seizing the passes of Geranea and invading of this great work in a different light from Cithe Megarian territory, while they sent a small mon, and saw in it, not the means of securing force over to.Egina. They could not believe the independence of Athens, but a bulwark of it possible that the Athenians, while they were the hated commonalty. They, too, would gla4carrying on a war in Egypt and the adjacent ly have seen an invading army in Attica, which coasts of Phcenicia, and in Cyprus, could pro- might assist them in destroying the work ana tect Megara without drawing their troops away its authors. And in the same year which witfrom.Egina. But the spirit ofAthens was even nessed the last-mentioned victory of Myronigreater than her strength, and rose against dan- des, an opportunity presented itself-if it was gers and difficulties;t and she had a man with- not procured by their intrigues-which encourin her walls perhaps not inferior to Cimon or aged them to hope for such a triumph. The Miltiades. Myronides collected all the citizens, Phocians had invaded Doris, and had taken one young and old, who had been left at home for:of its little towns. The piety of the Spartans was roused'; they assembled an army of 10,000 * Aedv rcXoe, Thuc., i., 104. Ctesias, c. 32. Diodor. allied troops, and 1500 of their own, marched (xi., 74) calls Achamenes the uncle of Artaxerxes. into Doris, and compled the Phocians to restore t The Athenians were conscious of the greatness of their own efforts. In an inscription stillpreservedin theLouvre, their conquest. But an obstacle seemed now the Erechthean tribe records, with emphatic simplicity, to be placed in the way of their return. The that its slain fell in Cyprus, in Egypt, in Phcenicia, at Ha- Athenians, who had a squadron at Pegw, could lin ThucEgin., i., 0. pMegara, enin the sameyear. See Drthe Corinthian Gulf;old on Thuc., i., 104. p~revent them from' crossing the Corinthian Gulf; 302 HISTORY OF, GREECE. and, though they had been permitted to traverse ile for the purpose of concluding the war througn the Isthmus without any hinderance, they heard his mediation. But this account seems totally that the passes were now vigilantly guarded by inconsistent with the facts recorded by Thucydthe enemy. These were the ostensible reasons ides, and Cimon's return, if in any degree conwhich induced Nicomedes, who commanded in nected with the battle of Tanagra, appears to the stead of the young king, Pleistoanax, to turn have been separated from it by a much longer aside on his march through Boeotia, as if to de- interval. Only about three months after that liberate on the safest-course, and to encamp at event, early in the year B.C. 456, the AtheniTanagra, near the borders of Attica. But he ans were again in the field to retrieve the credhad received secret advice from the oligarchical it which they had lost in Bwootia, where they faction at Athens, which led him to hope for had partisans whose political influence dependtheir co-operation in striking a great blow. ed on the success of their arms. Under the These intrigues were not so carefully conceal- command of Myronides they met the Bceotians, ed as to avoid all suspicion; but the apprehen- who were assembled in greatly superior numsions they excited only animated the sounder bers in a tract called, from its vineyards, (Enopart of the Athenians to seek the enemy in- phyta, and gained a brilliant and long-celebrated stead of waiting for an attack in which force victory, which gave them undisputed possession might be seconded by treachery. They mus- both of Boeotia and of Phocis, or, at least, made tered their whole strength, which, with 1000 their interest there decidedly predominant. DiArgives and some other allied troops, chiefly odorus* says that Myronides made himself masfrom Ionia, amounted to 14,000 infantry; and a ter of all the Bceotian towns except Thebes. body of cavalry came to their aid from Thessa- But even there, as may be gathered from an ally. With this army they marched to Tanagra. lusion of Aristotle,t his victory established the While the two armies weie here in presence of ascendency of a democratical party, which, if each other, and an engagement was daily ex- not absolutely dependant on Athens, could not pected, Cimon, who was in the neighbourhood, be friendly to Sparta. To secure these advancame to the Athenian camp, and requested leave tages, he razed the walls of Tanagra, and for. so take his post among the men of his tribe. ced the Locrians of Opus to put 100 of their The Athenian generals either felt or affected citizens-probably one member of each of the a suspicion of his intentions, which, though ruling families-as hostages into his hands. It groundless, was not, perhaps, unreasonable. All was about the same time that the Athenians was not secure, as we have just seen, at Ath- completed their long walls, which, as they gave ens; and there were friends and partisans of' their city the strength of an island, turned their Cimon in the army who formed a body of 100 views more unreservedly than ever towards the men. Instead of breaking up this band, and sea; and not long after, in the same year, the distributing it over the army, the generals, ac- _Eginetans capitulated on nearly the same cording to Plutarch, referred Cimon's request terms which had been granted to the Thato the council of Five Hundred,.which ordered sians: demolition of their walls, surrender of them to reject it.* Elsewhere Plutarch is- their ships, and payment of tribute. cribes the refuisal to the friends of Pericles, who In the following year, 455, the Spartans were was himself present, and probably in command.t reminded that they were also liable to be atThus repulsed, Cimon is said to have left his tacked at home. An Athenian armament of armour with his friends, exhorting them by their fifty galleys, and, if we may trust Diodorus, with deeds to refute the calumnies of those who 4000 heavy-armed troops on board,4 sailed round charged them with preferring Sparta to their charged them with preferring Spartahard-fought battle took place in * xi., 83. By a blunder not uncommon with him, he country. A hard-fought battle took place, in makes two battles out of one; but observes, with great simwhich Pericles signalized himself by extraordi- plicity, that for the first of these battles-though it was one nary feats of valour, as if in emulation of Ci- of the most memorable the Athenians ever fought-no hismon's friends, who had placed his panoply in torian had ssigned a pace. their ranks, and fought round it with inflexible revov i eVKlaOKparl v E' OtiOQIs00p Po].,v., 2 Wachsmuth spirit till they fell, every one at his post; the (1. 2, p. 105, n. 10) suspects an error, and that Aristotle most painful loss which the Athenians suffered meant to allude to the battle of Tanagra, when the oligarchy may be supposed to have recovered its ascendency at on this disastrous day. The treachery of the Thebes. But it seems quite as probable that not Jsoeqtat, Thessalians, who went over to the enemy in but Katiess 7rotresvoytvwv is to be joined immediately with the midst of the action, contributed to decide the preceding words; and that the meaning is, that after it in fa-vour of the Peloponnesians, though the the victory of Athens at (Enophyta, the democratical party'at Thebes lost all moderation, and running into excesses slaughter was great on both sides, and the au- like those committed at Megara, Syracuse, and Rhodes, thor followed. by Diodorust represented the which are mentioned immediately after, provoked a reacvictory as doubtful, and that the battle was fol- tion, which finally overthrew it., According to Diodorus, xi., 84, 1000 men had been volowed by a truce for four months. But: Thu- ted to Tolmides for this expedition, to be selected by himcydides is clear as to the issue of the engage- self. But he took advantage of the power thus committed ment, and seems to know nothing of the truce. to him to induce many to give in their names as volunteers, pretending that he should otherwise force them to serve. The Peloponnesians, as he relates, ravaged the When in this manner he had obtained 3000 names, he exMegarian territory, and finding the passes of ercised his power by choosing 1000 more. We feel great Geranea now open, returned home over the doubt about the truth of the story in this form, and are inclsthmined to suspect that, if it was well founded, it belongs to Isthmus. the later expedition, in which Tolmides lost his life. Even If Plutarch's information was accurate, the if he had the means of playing such a trick, it is not probaAthenians were not only worsted at Tanagra, ble that, after having undertaken, as Diodorus relates, to ut were so disharteed by their defat, and accomplish the objects of his expedition with 1000 men, he should have desired to take out four times that number; so apprehensive of an early invasion from Pelo- nor does it appear that so large a force was needed for his ponnesus, that thev recalled Cimrron from his ex- purpose, as we find that 1000 men sufficed Pericles for simni. lar, if not moro extensive operations Compare Plt.,at * Cim., 17. t Per., 10. t xi., 80. Per., 19. DISASTERS IN EGYPT. 303 Peloponnesus under Tolmides, burned the Spar- dron of fifty galleys to the relief of their countan arsenal at Gythium, took a town named trymren, which, arriving before the -news of the Chalcis belonging to the Corinthians, and de- recent disaster had reached them, entered the feated the Sicyonians, who attempted to oppose Mendesian branch of the Nile. They were here the landing of the troops.* But the most im- surprised by a combined attack of the Persian portant advantage gained in the expedition was land force and a Phcenician fleet, and but few the capture of Naupactus, which belonged to escaped to bear the mournful tidings to Athens. the Ozolian Locrians, and now fell into the Yet even after this calamity we find the Athe. hands of the Athenians at a very seasonable nians, not suing for peace, but bent on extendiuncture. The third Messenian war had just ing their power and annoying their enemies. come to a close. The brave defenders of Ith- Early in the next year (454) an opportunity offeroem6 had obtained honoura l7terms, granted, as ed itself of enlarging the range of their influence the Spartans professed, in compliance with an in the north of Greece. A Thessalian named oracle which enjoined their clemency. The be- Orestes, whose father, Echecratidas, is called sieged were permitted to quit Peloponnesus by Thucydides king of the Thessalians, and had with their families, on condition of being de- probably held the office of Tagus, had been tained in slavery if they ever returned. Tol- driven from his country, and applied to the mides now settled the homeless wanderers in Athenians for aid to effect his restoration. Naupactus; a position full of hope for the ex- Succours were granted to him, and the forces iles, as it was that from which the Dorians had of Boeotia and Phocis, now at the disposal of crossed over to the conquest of their native Athens, were called out to support her ally. land, and rhost useful to the Athenians for their But the superiority of the Thessalians in cavaloperations in the Corinthian Gulf. ry checked all their operations in the field; But these successes were counterbalanced they failed in an attempt, upon Pharsalus, and by a reverse which befell the arms of Athens were at length forced to retire without having this same year in another quarter. After the accomplished any of their ends.* It was, perdefeat of Achaemenes, Artaxerxes, disappointed haps, to soothe the public disappointment that in his hopes of assistance from Sparta, had re- Pericles shortly afterward embarked at Pege solved on a still more vigorous effort, and raised with a thousand men, and, coasting the south a greater army, which he placed under the cornm- side of the Corinthian Gulf, made a descent on mand of an abler general, Megabyzus, son of the territory of Sicyon, and routed the Sicyonian Zopyrus. Megabyzus defeated the insurgents force sent to oppose his landing. He then took and their allies, and forced the Greeks to evac- on board some Achaean troops, and, sailing over uate Memphis, and to take refuge in an island to the coast of Acarnania, laid siege to the town of the Nile, named Prosopitis, which contained of CEniadae, which had long incurred the enmia town called Byblus, where he besieged them ty of the Athenians, chiefly, it would seem, befbr eighteen months. At length he resorted to cause, being situate in a tract of uncommonly the contrivance of turning the stream which rich land formed by the depositions of the separated the island from his own side of the Achelous, it had early excited their cupidity. river into new channels, and conducted the This attempt, however, proved unsuccessful; work so vigorously that the Greek galleys were and the general result of the campaign seems all left aground, and were fired by the Atheni- not to have been, on the whole, advantageous ans themselves, that they might not fall into ~or encouraging. the enemy's hands. The Persians then march- In this state of things, Cimon's friends might ed into the island over the dry bed of the river: not find it difficult to awaken a feeling of regret the Egyptians, in dismay, abandoned their al- in the people for their old favourite by contrastlies, who were overpowered by numbers, and ing his glorious and profitable victories with almost all destroyed. A few reached the oppo- the recent failures and losses, and, as a natural site bank, and made their way to Cyrene. Ina- consequence, to turn their thoughts and wishes rus himself was betrayed into the hands of the towards peace with Sparta. It seems to have Persians and put to death; according to Ctesi- been not long after the events which have been as, he surrendered himself to Megabyzus on just related that Cimon was recalled from his condition that his life should be spared, but, exile; and the decree for that purpose was having been carried a prisoner to Persia, was moved by Pericles himself: a fact which seems sacrificed by Artaxerxes to the vengeance of his to intimate that some change had taken place mother for the death of Achaemenes, and the in the relations or the temper of parties at indignation of Megabyzus at this breach of faith Athens. We have already assigned a reason involved the empire in a civil war. Egypt, how- for rejecting Plutarch's statement as to the moever, was again reduced under the Persian yoke, tive and the time of Cimon's recall; and, inexcept a part of the Delta, where another pre- deed, he himself, with all the other writers who tender, named Amyrtaeus, who assumed the ti- mention the fact, describes that event as havtle of king, protected by the marshes and by the ing been immediately followed by a suspension spirit of the people, the most warlike, Thucyd- of hostilities, which, according to Thucydides, ides observes, of the Egyptians, maintained were interrupted for three years before a formal himself for several years against the power of truce was concluded between the belligerents. the Persian monarchy. But the misfortune of Hence it seems clear that Cimon's return. the Athenians did not end with the destruction which, as is known from a fragment of Theoof the great fleet and army which had been first employed in the war. They had sent a squa- * There seems to be no ground for supposing that this expedition was conducted by Myronides, who is evidently * According to Diodorus, he also made himself master of mentioned by Diodorus only because, with his usual careall the towns in Cephallenia. Diodorus seems to suppose lessness, he makes the invasion of Thbssaly immediately that one of these was named Zacynthus. follow the battle of Enlophyta. t Paus, iv.. 25, 1. 304 HISTORY OF GREECE. pompus,* took place before five years of his ex- may not improbably have disposed Pericles to ile had quite expired, must be dated in the third strengthen himself by a coalition with Cimon, or fourth year after the battle of Tanagra. Ac- and to promise his concurrence in Cimon's forcording to an account not improbable in itself, eign policy, which happened at this juncture to but rendered suspicious by the confusion and fall in with the wishes of the people. inaccuracy of the context in which it appears, Howdver this may have been, the three years he had retired to his patrimony in the Cherso- next following Cimon's return, as we have nesus.t The motives which led Pericles to pro- fixed its date, passed, happily for his contempomote his recall must always remain doubtful. raries, without affording any matter for the hisIt is possible that he made a virtue of necessity, torian; and this pause was followed by a five and sought to conciliate his rival by complying years' truce, in the course of which Cimon emwith a public feeling which he knew it would barked in his last(pedition, and died near the be vain to resist; but it is also possible that scene of his ancient glory. The pretender he may have been really desirous of forming a Amyrteeus had solicited succour from the Atheunion with Cimon on terms honourable and ad- nians, which pride as well as ambition promptvantageous to each. There were some ancient ed them readily to grant; for there- was now authors of that class who are in every secret, not only honour and spoil to be gained, but a who related that Cimon's recall was the result stain to be wiped away from their arms. Cimon of a compact concluded through the mediation was appointed to the command of a fleet of 200 of Elpinice, according to which Pericles was to galleys, with which he sailed to Cyprus, and be left undisputed master of the political field, sent a squadron of sixty to the assistance of while he himself prosecuted the war with Persia. Amyrtteus, while he himself with the rest laid This was probably no more than an inference siege to Citium. Here he was carried off by drawn from the ensuing events. If we might illness, or the consequence of a wound; and indulge in a similar conjecture, we should be the armament was soon after compelled by the inclined to connect the conduct of Pericles with want of provisions to raise the siege. those factious machinations, which, as we have But Cimon's spirit still animated his countryseen, threatened the safety of Athens, and in- men, who, when they had sailed away with his volved Cimon himself in an unjust suspicion at remains, fell in with a great fleet of Phoenician the battle of Tanagra. We may, at least, col- and Cilician galleys near the Cyprian Salamis, lect from the facts mentioned by Thucydides, and, having completely defeated them, followed that the aristocratical or oligarchical party at up their naval victory with another which they Athens was, as usually happens, divided within gained on shore, either over the troops which itself, and included a narrower circle of political had landed from the enemy's ships, or over a fanatics, implacable in their enmity, restless in land force by which they were supported. Aftheir ambition, and ready at any moment to ter this they were joined by the squadrob which sacrifice the independence of their country to had been sent to Egypt, and which returned, it their interests or revenge. Cimon, by his con- would appear, without having achieved any maduct before the battle of Tanagra, had testified terial object, and all sailed home (B.C. 449). his abhorrence of this furious faction, which In after times, Cimon's military renown was probably began to regard him as an apostate, enhanced by the report of a peace which his and seems not to have been deterred from pur- victories had compelled the Persian king to suing its course. For there can be little doubt conclude on terms most humiliating to the monthat it is in the spirit of this reckless faction we archy. Within less than a century after his must seek for the explanation of an event, the death it was, if not commonly believed, confidetails of which are lost in impenetrable ob- dently asserted that by this treaty, negotiated, scurity, but which appears to have happened in as it was supposed, by Callias, son of Hipponithe course of the year preceding Cimon's recall. cus, the Persians had agreed to abandon at The virtuous Ephialtes was despatched by the least the military occupation of Asia Minor, to hand of an assassin in the night. That he fell the distance of three days' journey on foot, or a victim to the resentment of his political ad- one on horseback, from the coast, or, according versaries, seems to have been universally'ad- to another account, the whole peninsula west of mitted. The murderer was never brought to the Halys, and to abstain from passing the mouth justice, and appears even to have escaped de- of the Bosporus and the Chelidonian islands, tection;$ but a suspicion so strong, that Aris- on the coast of Lycia, or the town of Phaselis, totle did not scruple to adopt it as sufficiently into the Western Sea. The mere silence of grounded,~ attributed the deed to a man named Thucydides on so important a transaction would 4Aristodicus, a native of Tanagra, a place where be enough to render the whole account extremethe enemies of Ephialtes might be likely enough ly suspicious; and the vague and contradictoto find heated partisans, who would gladly lend ry statements of the later authors with respect their services for the destruction of a democrati- both to the conditions and the date of the treaty cal leader. l The loss of Ephialtes, and, still -for while one describes it as the result of Cimore, the indicationit affordedofthe spirit which mon's victories near the Eurymedon, another still prevailed in a portion of the opposite party, refers it to those of his last campaign-conspire to strengthen our distrust. But it is also abun* Published by Marx, Ephori Fragmenta, p. 224. dantly evident that a state of things such as t Andocides, dle Pace, 3. It is impossible to know that would be implied in the supposed treaty never an author who so confounds names, times, and events, may really existed; that the Persian court was tonot, in speaking of the Chersonesus, have been thinking, not of Cimon, but of Miltiades, whom, in the present text, tally unconscious of having ever resigned its he actually names. claims to dominion over the Asiatic Greeks, f Antipho, de Cmed. Herod., 68. $ Plut., Per., 10. and to the tribute which it once received from 1I The reader will remember the treatment which Tana-allusion was ever ade to gra suffered after the battle of (Enqphya. them; and that no allusion was ever ade to EXPEDITIONS TO DELPHI. 305 a concession in any of the negotiations perintendence of the oracle, hnd the guardian. wnich took place between Persia and either of ship of the sacred' treasures, by ministers of the leading states of Greece, from the death of their choice. The Phocians, relying, perhaps, Cimon to Alexander's invasion. The fable, on the protection of Athens, had wrested this founded, no doubt, on really glorious recollections important charge from the Delphians. There of the awe with which Persia had been inspired is reason to believe that the ruling families at by the Athenian navy, seems to have sprung up, Delphi were of Dorian blood. From this or or to have acquired a distinct shape, in the other causes, they had always been on friendly rhetorical school of Isocrates, and to have been terms with Sparta, and she now stepped fortransmitted through the orators to the histori- ward to assert the clains of this valuable ally. ans; and Craterus, a compiler of Athenian An army marched to Delphi, and restored posstate documents, did not scruple to insert a session of the temple to the Delphians. They piece in his collection which he pretended was were at the same time induced by the authority a copy of a teaty concluded by Callias.* of Sparta to renounce their union with the PhoCimon's'eath probably saved him from the cian league, and to declare themselves a permortification of seeing his pacific labours de- fectly independent state; and a line of demarfeated by causes which he could not have con- cation, perhaps including some addition of tertrolled. We are, however, inclined to suspect ritory, was drawn between them and Phocis.* that it was at this juncture that Pericles con- To requite these benefits, the Delphians grantceived a project, which is, indeed, only men- ed to Sparta the right of precedency in consulttioned by Plutarch, but seems to have been at- ing the oracle; an honour which the Spartans tested by a genuine document found by his au- caused to be recorded at Delphi by an inscripthor in the Athenian archives, and which might tion on the bronze image of a wolf. But shortbe considered as a step towards the prosecution ly after they had withdrawn their forces, Periof Cimon's policy. Plutarch relates that Peri- cles appeared at Delphi with an Athenian army, cles carried a decree through the assembly, by and reinstated the Phocians in the custody of virtue of which envoys were sent to various the temple. The honour which had been beparts of Greece, and even to the islands and stowed on the Spartans was now transferred to the Asiatic colonies, to invite every Greek state Athens, and was commemorated on another to send deputies' to a general congress to be part of the same image which celebrated the held at Athens. The professed objects of this triumph of Sparta. assembly were partly religious-to take meas- This was only a prelude to more important ures with respect to the temples which had movements which took place in the following been burned in the Persian war, and the vows year (447). Bands of Baeotian exiles, who had made on that occasion, and still due to the been driven out of their respective cities by the gods-partly political; to provide for the se- ascendency which the battle of CEnophyta had curity of commerce, and to remove all obstacles everywhere given to the Athenian or democratwhich obstructed the free passage of Greek ical party, found means of making themselves vessels. The real end which Pericles had in masters of Chieronea, Orchomenus, and some view is very doubtful. It may have been to other towns. This event, which threatened the dazzle the Athenians with a spectacle in which interests of Athens throughout the north of their city would appear as the commoncapital Greece, seemed to call for prompt interference of Greece; it may have been the more solid to avert the danger; and Tolmides, trusting to advantage of strengthening the Athenian con- his gallantry and good fortune, perhaps underfederacy by the accession of some continental rating the enemy's strength, proposed instantly states which were still wavering between Ath- to march, with as many Athenians as might be ens and her rival; it is also possible that the willing to join him, to suppress the insurrecproposed congress was a mere pretext to cover tion. Pericles, in whose military character the secret instructions of the envoys. In any caution was a prominent feature, was averse case, the period during which the Athenian in- to this hasty and ill-prepared expedition but fluence was predominant in Boeotia and Phocis the impetuous spirit of Tolmides was seconded seems the best suited to such a scheme. Plu- by the assembly, and his reputation drew a tarch says it fell to the ground through the thousand volunteers,t including the flower of counter-machinations of Sparta. the Athenian youth, to share his enterprise. It seems to have been in the year following With this force, and some allied troops, whose that of Cimon's death that a new occasion of numbers are not mentioned, he entered Bceoindirect hostility-arose between the two states. tia, and first attacked Chweronea. He succeed The people of Delphi, though they had been ed in reducing it, and-was retiring with his litcommonly considered as a branch of the Pho- tie army, which he had weakened by leaving a cian nation, and were nominally subject to the garrison in the captured town, when, in the Amphictyonic council, appear, in fact, to have neighbourhood of Coronea, he was surprised by been from the earliest times in the exclusive the appearance of a hostile army, composed of possession of the temple which was the boast the Boeotian exiles assembled in Orchomenus, of their city-that is, to have exercised the su- of Locrians, exiles from Eubcea, and other partisans of the same cause. The Athenians were * This famous peace of Cimon or Callias is the subject. _r_ of a separate essay in Dahlman's Forschungen, which places the whole matter in the clearest light. The reader * Strabo, ix., p. 423.'Anemorea was on this border. who cannot consult this work may compare the descriptions t Plut., Per., 18. Thucydides, i., 113, mentions the, of Isocrates, Paneg., 136, 138, Areop., 91, Panath., 64, De- number, but does not describe them as volunteers. It Tolmosthenes, D. F. L., 311, Lycurgus in Leocrat., 74, the mides ever used the artifice related by Diodorus, and mennarratives of Plutarch, Cim., 13, 19, and Diodorus, xii., 4, tioned in a preceding note, we suspect that it may have and the observations of Theopompus in Harpocratio,'Ar- been on this occasion; not, however, that he played it off rLKols ypl~Ayaat, which proves that Crateras either fabri- on his fellow-citizens, but on the allies, who might be less cated or adopted a forgerv. zealous in the cause. VOL. I.-Q Q 306 HISTORY OF GREECE. completely defeated; many of them were taken But-though the most pressing danger was prisoners, and Tolmides himseli was among the thus for the present averted, the alarm which slain. The immediate consequence of this de- had been excited at Athens by these simultanefeat was a counter-revolution, which overthrew ous attacks from so many quarters was still so the Athenian influence throughout Boeotia. To strong as to dispose the people to peace. On recover the Athenian prisoners, who were prob- the other hand, the Spartans, having lost the ably, for the most part, young men of good most. favourable opportunity for action through families, the Athenians stipulated to withdraw the treachery or weakness of their commanders, all their troops from Bceotia; and their depar- were not eager for a fresh expedition; but they ture was everywhere followed by the return of took advantage of the present state of public the exiles, and the predominance of the party feeling at Athens to exact conditions which, hostile to Athens. under other circumstances, would probably have But the full effects of this disaster did not been rejected with scorn. Wvhat they required become visible until the five years' truce had amounted, indeed, to little more than a complete expired (445). Athens had then to sustain a deliverance of Peloponnesus fronr.thenian inquick succession of hostile attacks, which were fluence. The Athenians were in possession of probably preconcerted in reliance on the co- Trcezen, which, notwithstanding its Dorian coloperation of Sparta., The first blow was the ony, had always continued to regard them as revolt of Euboea; and when Pericles had cross- kinsmen; and they had a hold on Achaia which ed over to reduce it to subjection, he received enabled them, as we have seen, to levy troops tidings. of a revolution at Megara, where the there, though its precise nature is not described. adverse party, supported by auxiliaries from But as long as they continued to occupy Pegae, Corinth, Sicyon, and Epidaurus, had risen upon there could be no security for the allies of Sparthe Athenian garrison, and put the greater part ta on the western side of Peloponnesus, and as to the sword; the rest took refuge in Niswea. little was their possession of Nisaea consistent He at the same time learned that a Peloponne- with the safety of the party now prevailing at sian army was on its march towards Attica. Megara. The restitution, therefore, or evacuaThis intelligence induced him to transport his tion of Troezen, Achaia, Pegae, and Nissea was forces back from Eubcea with the utmost speed demanded by Sparta, and conceded by Athens; for the defence of Athens, and the Peloponne- and on these terms a truce was concluded besians soon after entered the country, and began tween the two states, and the confederacies to ravage the fertile plains on the western fron- over which they presided, for thirtyiyears (B.C. tier. They were commanded by the young king 445). Thucydides mentions no other conditions Pleistoanax, the son of Pausanias; but, to sup- of the treaty; but it seems probable that the ply the defect of his years, the ephors had placed Athenians lost ground in some other points a counsellor of maturer age, named Cleandridas, after the battle of Coronea. The. revolution in at his side. Pericles, it is said, found Clean- Bceotia seems to have been followed by the dridas accessible to bribes, and prevailed on overthrow of their influence in Phocis, which, him to withdraw the invading army. Both he when it is next mentioned, is numbered among and the young king, on their return to Sparta, the allies of Sparta; and it was most probably were charged with having sold the interests of at the same time that the temple at Delphi was their country. Cleandridas shrank from the restored to the custody of the Delphians; for, accusation by a voluntary exile, and was con- though the fact is not recorded, there can be demned to death in his absence. Pleistoanax, little doubt that, a few years after, the oracle according to Plutarch, was sentenced to so and the treasury were in their keeping.* heavy a penalty that, being unable to discharge Pericles, if we may judge from the maxims it, he quitted the country. But Thucydides which Thucydides attributes to him on a subwould rather lead us to suppose that he fled, sequent occasion, may not have considered the like Cleandridas, to avoid a severer punish- concessions of this treaty so important as they mefit; for he chose the sanctuary of Jupiter, would appear to those who did not share his on Mount Lycaeum in Arcadia, as the place of views as to the real foundation of the greathis retreat, and, for greater security, fixed his ness of Athens, and the policy which her true abode in a part of the sacred buildings.* Peri- interest prescribed. The points abandoned, eles, however, nto sooner saw himself rid of this whether they were regarded as posts of attack enemy than he returned with an armament of or defence, would, in his eyes, seem of little 50 galleys and 5000 heavy-armed, to quell the moment, so long as Athens remained absolute revolt of Eubcea. He speedily overpowered all mistress of the sea, and held firm possession resistance, and seized this occasion of at once of her maritime empire. Yet it is not certain securing the Athenian dominion in the island, that the treaty was his work, and that it may and providing for a part of the poorer citizens not have been imputed to the opposite party, at the expense of their refractory allies. Ac- and have contributed to render it obnoxious cording to Pl.uarch, the Chalcidian landowners After Cimon's death, this party found a new were all again deprived of their estates; and leader in Thucydides, son of Melesias, a kinsthe whole population of Histiaea was expelled man of Cimon's, and a person who, though infrom its native seats to make room for an Attic ferior to him in military talents, was better colony, and, at the same time, to expiate the versed in the art of managing a popular asseminhumanity with which.they had put to death bly. He devoted himself entirely to political the crew.of an Athenian galley captured in the business, and, according to Plutarch, organized war. t a more regular opposition than had hitherto * v'., t6, Plot., Per,,23, 3,We::shall:hereafter nacie some reasons * This is evident from the zeal with which the oracle es-,for doubting whex]ser the me.asure was so ere. nsive as PHio- pouses the Spartan cause just before the beginning of th. tarch's languoags describes it, Peloponnesian war. Thuc., i., 118. ATHENIAN CONFEDERACY. 307 neen formed against the administration of Peri- any higher aim than that of establishing his cles. But his activity only served to hasten own power, and whether they must not be re. his own downfall, and to consummate his ad- garded as a sacrifice by which, at the expense versary's triumph. Pericles far surpassed him of his principles, he purchased that popularity in eloquence, and address; and he himself is which was the indispensable condition of sucsaid to have acknowledged this superiority by cess in all his undertakings. a lively image in a conversation with the Spar- The condition of the greater part of the tan king, Achidamus. The Spartan asked hifn states which composed the Athenian confederwhether he or Pericles was the better wrestler. acy had, as we have seen, undergone a great "' When I throw Pericles," he answered, " he change in the time of Cimon, and through his always persuades the by-standers that he has management. A very important innovation, not been down." But this was probably the which visibly altered the relation before subslidtest of the advantages which Pericles pos- sisting betweeh Athens and her allies, appears sessed over him and his party. The contest to have been effected even in the lifetime of' was not one of rhetoric or wit; and what en- Aristides. We learn from Plutarch that a proabled Pericles to overpower all opposition was posal was then made, nominally, at least, by not so much -his intellectual predominance as the Samians, to transfer the treasury of the the accordance of his policy with the spirit and confederacy from Delos to Athens. Aristides situation of his countrymen. The measures is said to have admitted the expediency of the which Thucydides opposed were precisely those change for the interest of Athens, but to have which were in their own nature popular and ir- condemned it as unjust.* Perhaps he was resistible. The ground which he took must aware that the Samians who made this appli-'have appeared to his. contemporaries, at the best, cation did not really express the wishes of their as an unseasonable affectation ofa over-refined countrymen, who can scarcely have had any morality, even if they could see i! it anything motive for desiring what they proposed, and more than a party manceuvre,. thinly covered by that they were only employed by the party at a show of severe justice and wise economy. Athens who wished to carry the measure to When,'therefore, the contest was brought to an take away the appearance of open violence. It issue, whicer rendered it necessary for one of is not quite certain, though most probable, that the rivals to go into a temporary exile, the os- the objections of Aristides were overruled on tracism fell, as it could not fail to do, on Thdcyd- this occasion, but at least the change was not ides (B.C. 444). The anecdote above related long deferred. Those introduced by Cimon seems to imply that he retired to Sparta; it stripped the weaker states, one after another, appears, indeed, that he was not long after re- of their means of defence; and, when Pericles s!:tred to his country, perhaps because he had came to the head of affairs, there probably receased to be formidable; but his faction was mained but a few steps more to be taken to entirely broken up, and the'sway of Pericles in convert the confederacy into an empire, over the Athenian councils became more absolute which Athens ruled as a despotic sovereign. than ever; and lasted, with scarcely any inter- It seems to have been he who raised the annual ruption, to the end of his life. contributions of the allies from 460 talents, the amount at which they had been fixed by Aristides, to 600,t and who first accustomed the Athenians to exert a direct and engrossing auCHAPTER XVIII. thority over the states which had been deprived FROM THE COMMENCE.MENT OF THE THIRTY YEARS' of their political independence, and to interfere with the concerns of their domestic administraTRUCE TO THENS AND CORINTH, WITH A GENERAL tion. Besides her financial exactions, there TWEEN.ATHENS AND CORINTH, WITH A GENERAL were two ways in which Athens encroached on VIEW OF THE ADMINISTRATION OF PERICLES. the rights of her subjects: one affecting their THE Thirty Years' Truce, though concluded forms of government, the other the dispensaupon terms seemingly disadvantageous to Ath- tion of justice. The establishment of a demoens, afforded an interval of repose highly favour- cratical constitution was not an invariable efable to her prosperity, only interrupted'by one feet of their subjection, but it was a consequence successful effort. It was during this period which must, in most cases, have flowed from that Pericles was enabled to carry out his views it, even without any interference on the part into action, with the amplest means that the of the ruling state; and, where an aristocratical state could furnish at his command, and with party was permitted to prevail, it probably fur. scarcely a breath of opposition to divert him nished a pretext#for stricter inspection and from his purpose. The history of Athens, du- heavier burdens. This, however,'was but a ring the continuance of the Thirty Years' Truce, slight grievance, in comparison with the regumay be properly comprised in a general survey lation by which all trials of capital offences, and of his administration. all cases involving property exceeding a certain Pericles, to describe his policy in a few words, had two objects mainly in view through- * This appears, from jPlut., Arist., 25, to have been the out his public life: to extend and strengthen fact; but whether the turn given to the conduct of Aristithe Athenian empire, and to raise the confi- es by Theophrastus, who represented him as recommendthe Athenian empire, and to raise the confi-ng the measure in spite of its iniquity, is a sufficient ground dence and self-esteem of the Athenians them- for saying, with Wachsmuth, i., 2, p. 75, that he approved selves to a level with the lofty position which of it, may be doubted. He may either have said that it they occupied. Almost all his measures may was unjust, but expedient, or that it was expedient, but clearly be referred to one or the other of these t Still it does not appear what part of the additional 140 ends.'There aie only a few as to which it may talents arose from the commutation of service for money, seem doubtful whether they can be traced to and whether those whf had'contributed to the 460 were now at all more heavily burdened than be' ire. 308 HISTORY OF GREECE. low amount, were transferred from the cogni- In the mean while a body of Samians-tne zance of the local courts to Athenian tribunals. more resolute, perhaps, or the more obnoxious The advantage which the Athenians derived, of the defeated party —had quitted the island on as well from the fees of justice as from the in- the approach of the Athenians, and had opened flux of strangers at the yearly sessions held for a correspondence with Pissuthnes, the satrap the foreign suiters, was undoubtedly great; but of Sardis, who is even said to have furnished the' loss and inconvenience inflicted by the them with gold when hopes were entertained same means on their subjects was still greater. of bribing Pericles. When the Athenian squaJustice was rendered needlessly expensive, dron had retired, they concerted a pfan with their slow, and uncertain. Not only were the most Persian ally for regaining possession of their important causes delayed to the season proper country, and seem to have shown great energy for a voyage, but it might happen, through the and dexterity in carrying it into execution.: irst unavoidable accumulation of business, even of all, having raised seven hundred mercenaries, where no dishonest artifices were employed, and given notice to their friends at home, they that, after a long stay in a foreign city, the par- crossed over to Samos in the night, overpowerties were forced to return home, leaving their ed and secured the Athenian garrison, and the suit still pending. greater part of their political adversaries, and The authority which Athens assumed over abolished the newly-established form of govern. her allies, and her interference in their domes- ment. Next, and probably before news of this tic concerns, proved the occasion of a war, revolution had reached Lemnos, they secretly which threatened to put an end to the Thirty conveyed away the hostages who had been deYears' Truce in the sixth or seventh year from posited there,* and being thus freed from all reits commencement, but by its issue consolida- straint, openly renounced the Athenian alliance ted the Athenian empire, and raised the reputa- or authority, and bent their thoughts on the tion of Pericles by what he and his contempo- means of maintaining their independence. They raries considered as the most brilliant of his placed their Athenian prisoners in the hands of'military triumphs. A quarrel had arisen be- the satrap; the condition, perhaps, on which tween Samos and Miletus, Thucydides says, they obtained a promise that they should'be about Priene. But the more especial object of supported by a Phcenician fleet; triey also found contention seems to have been the town of means of engaging Byzantium to join in the reAnaea, on the mainland opposite Samos, a place volt, and prepared immediately to renew hosof some note in the early history of the Ionian tilities against Miletus, in the hope, perhaps, of settlers.* A war ensued, in which the Mile- striking a decisive blow before succour should sians were vanquished)and now sought protec- arrive from Athens. Yet these aids, even if tion from Athens, and endeavoured to excite none should fail them, could not inspire a reaher jealousy against their successful rivals. In sonable confidence, so long as Athens was able this application they were seconded by a party to direct her whole strength against them; and in Samos itself, which hoped, with Athenian the general inaction of the other subject states assistance, to overthrow the oligarchical gov- seemed to prove the hopelessness of their unernment which had been hitherto permitted to dertaking. Their only fair prospect of success subsist in the island. They found a favourable and safety depended on the disposition which hearing. Pericles, indeed, was charged with they might find among the enemies of Athens sacrificing the Samians to private feelings, in Greece to' take up their cause. The allies which will be hereafter explained; but it was of Sparta, probably at their request, held a conprobably a political motive, more than any per- gress, in which the question seems to have been sonal bias, that induced him to seize the oppor- earnestly discussed. According to the slight tunity thus offered of reducing Samos to a clo- and rhetorical allusion made by Thucydides to ser dependance on the ruling state. The Sa- the proceedings of this assembly, it was Corinth mians were ordered to desist from hostilities, that determined her confederates to abandon and to submit the matter in dispute to an Athe- the Samians to the vengeance of their incensed nian tribunal; and as they did not immediately sovereign. The ground on which the historian comply, Pericles was sent with a squadron of represents the Corinthians to have acted on this forty galleys to enforce obedience, and to regu- occasion is too consonant to their general poli-late the state of Samos as the interest of Athens cy, and too important to be looked upon as a might seem to require. On his arrival he es- rhetorical invention. It is, indeed, alleged by tablished a democratical constitution, and, to a Corinthian orator before an Athenian assemsecure it against the powerful party which was bly as a claim upon Athenian gratitude; but it adverse;o this change, he took a hundred hosta- cannot have been feigned, and it implies that ges-fifty men and fifty boys-whom he lodged the authority which Atheas exercised over her in Lemnos, having, it is said, rejected the offer allies was generally acknowledged to be legitiof a large sum of money, with which the oli- mate. The Corinthians, it is said, voted against garchs would have been willing to purchase his the Samians, when many of the other Peloponprotection. Diodorus found an account, which nesiah states were inclined to send them sucis not improbable, that he exacted a contribution of V8 talents. He then sailed home, leav- is, moreover, so clear from the context that it might have been thought impossible to mistake the meaning of Thu ing a small Athenian garrison in Samos.t cydides. _ --... * hEKKSEaPrgCS, Thuc., i., 115. The use of this term See p. 198. Hence, in the Life of Sophocles, the war seems clearly to prove that those who conveyed away the is called Tr) 7rpds'Avaiav 7riOXyw. See Brunck, Sophocles, hostages did not at the same time make themselves mas i., p. xv. Seidler's Dissertation on the Antigone in Her- ters of an Athenian force that had been left to guard them, mann's Edition, p. xxiv. Boeckh on the Antigone, in the even if it was possible to'reconcile this supposition with the Berlin Transactions, 1824.. explr ssion o't' raav 7rap aqotv. Plutarch (Per., 25) makes t That this garrison was left in Samos, not in Lemnos Pissathnes himself carry off the hostages; if so, the pris(where the population being friendly, it was not needed), oners delivered to him must have been taken at Samos. THE SAMIAN WAR. 309 cours, ann at the same time laid down the gen- put forth more of their strength. A sc nadron eral principle that every state had a right to of forty galleys, under three eminent commandpunish its offending allies.* Whether, in fact, ers, Hagnon, Phormio, and Thucydides,* was the Corinthians apprehended that the lending followed by one of twenty sail under Tlepoleassistance to the revolted Samians might prove mus and Anticles, and this by thirty others from a precedent attended with dangerous conse- Chios and Lesbos. Yet even this overpowerquences to the system which they themselves ing force did not deter the Samians, thougi observed towards'their colonies, or they only the succours expected from Phlenicia did not put the principle forward as a pretext to cover arrive, from venturing on another seafight, the unwillingness which they may have felt on. which was soon decided, so as to leave them other accounts to break the truce so early, is a no means of doing more than remain on the dequestion of little importance. But, under hl the fensive. They, however, held out nine months, circumstances of the case, to treat the Samlans and seem at last to have been reduced to capitas rebels, in an assembly where every one pres- ulate by famine, though Pericles is. said to have ent avowedly wished well to their cause, was employed some new kinds of artillery,t and to certainly a large admission in favour of the high- have harassed the besieged by a continual sucest pretensions that Athens had ever maintain- cession of attacks, which may also have served ed as to the extent of her supremacy. to divert the impatience of his own troops, among These deliberations, if begun, were probably whom, if we may believe the statement of a lanot at an end before Pericles, accompanied by ter author, plenty and security seem to have nine colleagues, had crossed the sea with a bred an unusual degree of luxury and dissolutefleet of sixty sail to suppress the insurrection. ness.$ The terms which the Samians obtained They had learned that a fleet was expected to may be considered as mild, especially if, as Plucome to the assistance of the Samians from tarch relates, the two parties had been so far Phoenicia, and some galleys were sent to look exasperated as mutually to brand their prisonout for it, while another small squadron was de- ers. They were compelled to dismantle their spatched to bring up the re-enforcements to be fortifications, to deliver up their ships, and to furnished by Chios and Lesbos. Though.his pay the cost of the siege by instalments.ll The numbers were reduced by these detachments submission of Byzantium, which does not seem to forty-four galleys, Pericles did not shrink to have taken an active part in the war, followfrom engaging with a Samian fleet of seventy, ed close upon the reduction of Samos. including twenty transports, as it was returning Pericles, on his return to Athens, was greeted from..Miletus, and gained a victory. Shortly with extraordinary honours. The whole merit after he received an addition to his forces of of the success was ascribed to him, and he is forty ships from Athens, and five-and-twenty said exultingly to have compared the issue of, from Chios and Lesbos, which enabled him to his nine months' siege with the conquest which land a body of troops sufficient to drive the en- had cost Agamemnon ten years. The contest emy into the town, and to invest it with a triple had at one time assumed a threatening aspect; line of intrenchments. Yet it appears that, even and Thucydides himself seems to intimate that after the siege was formed, another seafight the result might have been very different if the took place, in which the Samians, who were Samians had been better supported.~r In the commanded by the philosopher Melissus,t were funeral obsequies with which the citizens who victorious. The advantage, however, must have had fallen before Samnos were honoured, acbeen very slight, or soon followed by a reverse; cording to a usage which had been introduced for we find that, while the hopes of the Samians rested on the Phcenician fleet, and they de- * It is a very doubtful point who this Thucydides was. spatched five galleys to hasten its movements, That he was the historian himself seems highly improbable, Pericles thought himself strong enougl to take not only because he would most likely have given some hint sixty ships' and sail along the coast; ofaria to of his presence, but because we might then have expected a somewhat fuller account of the siege. On the other hand, meet the expected enemy. The Phoenicians the son of Melesias had been ostracised less than ten years did not come up; but during his absence the before. Yet it seems easier to suppose that the term of his besieged drew out their remaining galleys, and exile had been abridged, than that the officer mentioned on besieged dre.othei-rmaningale this occasion was a person otherwise unknown. surprised the naval encampment of the Atheni- t Invented, according to Ephorus (Plut., Per., 27), by a ans, sank their guardships, and defeated the rest, lame engineer of Clazomenao, named Artemo, who, from his being carried about in a litter, was distinguished by the epsudden attack. This success made thet llcpi0dpi7roe. But Heraclides disputed the fact on sudden attack. This success made them mas- the ground that a person of the same name and epithet was ters of the sea, and enabled them to introduce mentioned by Anacreon (compare AthenEeus, xii., 46), and supplies into the town. They retained the as- was also celebrated for mechanical contrivances. "The cocendantofourteen days; it was, perhaps, nearly incidence would, indeed, be singular, but might be credible, cendant fourteen days; it was, perhaps, nearly if the two persons belonged to the same family. so long before the Athenians were able to con- f See the account of the statue of Aphrodite at Samos, vey the news to Pericles. On his return, the quoted from Alexis, a Samian writer, by Athenaeus, xiii., p. 572. state of things was reversed, and the Sam.ians state of things was reversed, and the SaPlutarch represents the Athenians as the aggressors. once more closely besieged. But the effort they They branded their prisoners with the figure of a kind of had made seems to have excited some alarm at merchant ship, used at Samos, and called a Samtana. The Athens, and to have induced the Athenians to Samians branded the Athenians with the figure of an owl. The irritation of the Sainians found vent afterward in the writings of their countryman Duris, who charged the Athe* Thuc., i., 40. nians and Pericles with atrocious inhumanity towards their t See p. 214. It is on the authority of Aristotle that Plu- prisoners. tarch, Per., 26, relates this fact, of which Thucydides does 11 Thuc., i., 117. Diodorus, xii., 28, mentions 200 talents not give the slightest hint, and, but for the extreme brevity as the sum at which Pericles estimated the expenses of the of his narrative, he might seem to contradict it. Brandis siege. But this is manifestly much too little, and one might (Handbuch der Geschichte der Griechisch-Roemischen Phi- almost suspect that the words, Kai Xiiowv, had dropped eilosophie, i., p. 397) suggests a doubt whether this Melissus ther out of his text, or out of his head. Compare Isocr was the philosopher. avyrt., p. 446, Bekker. ~ viii., 76 310 HISTORY OF GREECE. at Athens in the Persian war,* Pericles was most enlightened, both of nations arn. of lndi chosen to deliver the customary oration. At viduals, if it fell in with their inclinations. its close the women who attended the ceremo- The condition of an Athenian citizen acquiren ny expresssd their sense, either of his elo- a new dignity and value, when he was considquence or of his military services, by a shower ered as one of the people which ruled a great of headbands and chaplets. Elpinice alone, it empire with such absolute sway. But as it was is said, was heard reproachinglyto contrast the one object which Pericles had constantly in triumph which he had dearly won over a Greek view, to elevate the Athenians to a full concity with those which her brother had achieved sciousness of their lofty station as members over the barbarians. Pericles retorted by a of the sovereign state, and to lead them to look line of Archilochus, which, unless it was a upon their city not merely as the capital of Atmere personal sarcasm, signified that Cimon's tica, but as the metropolis of their extensive policy was now antiquated.t dominions, it was also one of his chief cares to The event of the Samian war gave the sanc- prevent the contrast' which might sometimes tion of success to the claim which' Athens ad- arise between the public character and the privanced of absolute authority over her allies. It vate circumstances of his fellow-citizens from established the fact that the name alliance, so becoming too glaring or too general. One great far as it signified a relation of equality, or any class of measures which formed a prominent degree of subordination short of entire subjec- feature in his system served the double purtion to the will of the ruling state, was a mere pose of providing many in'dividuals with the mockery. The question of right could not, in- means of subsistence, and of securing and deed, be so determined. But the aid which strengthening the state. With this view, nuChios and Lesbos —the only members of the merous colonies were planted during his adconfederacy. which retained either a show of ministration, in positions where they might independence or the means of asserting.it-had best guard and promote the interests of Athens. lent towards the suppression of the Samian re- And the footing on which a great part of these volt, and, still more, the acquiescence of Sparta colonists stood, while it preserved the closest and her allies, interpreted by the language in connexion between them and the mother-counwhich a part of them expressly recognised the try, rendered the relief thus afforded to their title of Athens; to the sovereignty which she indigence so much the more acceptable. They claimed, might seem to attest the justice of her were treated as Athenian citizens who had obcause. Nor would it have been difficult to find tained grants of land in a foreign country, where arguments-had they been wanted-to satisfy they. might fix their residence or not, as they the scruples of the Athenians. Though the thought fit, but without in either case renounleague over which they presided had'been ori- cing their Athenian franchise.* There can be ginally formed with the free consent of all par- no doubt that the greater number of the coloties, it might be speciously contended that none nists shifted their abode, and very seldom reof its members had a right to endanger the safe- turned to exercise their ancient franchise; but ty of the rest by withdrawing from it.' Athens still it must have been but rarely, and under had been compelled to repress several attempts peculiar circumstances,'that they altogether which hadbeen made with this object by force; dropped the character and feelings of Atheand the resentment and jealousy which she had nians. thus' excited constrained her to take up a new Thus the north of Eubcea was protected by a position, to treat all her allies as her subjects, colony of 2000 Athenians, who were planted in and to acknowledge no obligations towards the new town of Oreus, which rose into the them except the duty of protecting them, which place of the depopulated Histicea.t If we might was included in that of maintaining and strength- believe Plutarch, Pericles also expelled the ening her maritime empire. One important con- landowners of Chalcis, who seem to have reclusion which resulted from this view of her turnedi:o their ancient seats after they had situation was, that she owed her confederates been evacuated by the Athenians in the Persian no account of the treasure which she drew from war, and were perhaps permitted to retain posthem; that it might be legitimately applied to session of them, subject to tribute. If Pericles purposes tbreign to those for which it had been ejected them when he conquered Eubcea, it at first contributed, and that, even if a part of must have been to make room for Athenian setit was laid out in a manner which' could benefit tiers. But the relation which we find after none but the Athenian people, these might be ward subsisting between Chalcis and Athenf considered as the savings of its prudence or as does not allow us to consider the former as ar the earnings of its valour, for which it was not Athenian colony; and we therefore cannot beresponsible, and which it might use or enjoy as lieve that the measure spoken of by Plutarch seemed fit to itself. Such, perhaps, was the extended beyond the confiscation of some nature of the arguments by which Pericles si- estates. The submission of Naxos was secured lenced the opposition of Thucydides and his by a colony of 500 Athenians, who were probaparty, when they urged that the transfer of the bly provided for at the expense of the more obcommon treasure from Delos to Athens could noxious of the islanders. Andros afforded a not affect its character, or discharge the Athe- new home and subsistence for half as many nians from the engagement by which they were Athenian settlers. A thousand were'tempted bound to employ it for public ends. The soph- by the offer of land in the territory of the Bisalistry was not too gross to have blinded the * KXp7poVot, thus distinguished from dCirOetot, colonists * Diodorus, xi., 33. The Scholiast on Thucydides, ii., parted from the mother-country. 35, attributes the insttution to Solon, probably because he t Theopompus in Strabo, x., p. 445, 78P'2pCbv-diipoV did not know of any other legislator whom his author could vTra 7pSrep.pOV Tv'IrtatclEOv. be alluding to. t o'V!K uV /pozUI yla paUS oCs''lXsCEOo. t Wrchsmuth, i., 1. Appendix, 13. ATHENIAN COLONIES. 311 tian Thracians.- As many more found room the ambitious hopes which it suggested or cher. in the Thracian Chersonesus, and thus served ished. The Sybarites who survived the deto guard that important conquest, and to pro- struction of their city had taken refuge in their tect the Athenian commerce in that quarter. colony of Laos, and in Scidrus, which had probAmong these settlements there are some which ably also belonged to them, and seem to have leserve more particular notice, either. on ac- made no attempt to recover their ancient seats. ~ount of their connexion with subsequent events But the children and grandchildrefn of these ex-.n this history, or as indications of the large iles appear to have engaged a body of advenTiews and aspiring thoughts which now direct- turers from Thessaly* to join them in effecting,d the Athenian counsels. The failure and loss a settlement on the vacant site of Sybaris, which the Athenians had experienced in their which was thus restored fifty-eight years after attempt to establish themselves on the Strymon, its fall. t The new colony very soon roused the at the Nine Ways, did not deter them from re- jealousy of Croton, or was found to encroach newing the enterprise. In the twenty-ninth'upon her interests, and at the end of five or six year after the disaster at Drabescus, B.C. 437, years the settlers were forced to quit their new Hagnon, son of Nicias, having collected a suffi- home. They did not, however, remain passive cient force at Eion, of which the Athenians still under this violence, but sent envoys to Sparta retained possession, succeeded in finally dis- and Athens to solicit aid for the renewal of lodging the Edonians from the site of his intend- their attempt. Sparta saw no benefit that she ed colony, and founded a new city, to which, could derive from the undertaking, and declined from its situation-on a spur ofMount Parlgaeon, to take a part in it. But at Athens the procommanding an extensive view both towards posals of the envoys were seconded by Pericles, the coast and into the interior, between two and warmly embraced by the people. Ten comreaches of the Strymon, which he connected missioners were sent out, among whom was a together by a long wall carried across the hill celebrated diviner named Lampon, a man of at the back of the townt —he gave the name of eminent skill in the interpretation of oracles Amphipolis. Hagnon enjoyed the honours of a and the regulation of sacred rites. An oracle founder as long as Athens retained any hold on was procured exactly suited to the purpose of the affection or respect of the colony. But the the leaders of the (ixpedition, and under its number of the Athenian settlers, as was to be guidance a new town was built with geometriexpected from the perilous nature of the adven- cal regularity,t at a short d'jance from the site ture, seems to have been originally small and of the old city, and called Thurium, or Thurii, never to have formed a considerable parlithe from a fountain which rose there. Two very population. - W celebrated persons, Herodotus the historian, In the course of an expedition which Pericles and the orator Lysias, were among the settlers. conducted in person into the Euxine, at the They were both foreigners; for the Athenians head of a large and gallant armament, for the had invited adventurers from all parts of Greece. purpose of displaying the power of Athens, and and particularly from Peloponnesus, to share strengthening her influence among the cities the risks and the advantages of the expedition. and nations on those coasts, an opportunity pre- The miscellaneous character of the population sented itself of gaining possession of Sinope. led to quarrels, which, for a while, gave a vioThe city was distracted by a civil war between lent shock to the peace of the colony. The dethe partisans and the adversaries of the tyrant scendants of the ancient Sybarites put forward Timesilaus; and as Miletus was no longer able ridiculous pretensions of superiority over the to interfere in the affairs of her colony, the new comers. They claimed the exclusive enfriends of liberty applied to Pericles for assist- joyment of the most important offices of the ance. Being unable to remain long enough to state; in the division of the territory they inbring the contest to a close, he left thirteen sisted on being allowed to choose the parcels galleys under the command of Lamachus, a of land which lay nearest the city; and in pubbrave officer, whose name will be made familiar lic.sacrifices they would have their kinswomen to us by a long and active career. The tyrant take precedence of the other women. Such and his adherents were expelled, and the* sue- were not the terms on which the new citizens cessful party invited a body of 600 Athenians to had acceptqd their invitation; they were indigshare the freedom of the city and the confisca- nant at the insolence of this aristocracy, which, ted estates of the exiles. It may have been at though entirely dependant on their help, treated the same period that Amisus admitted so great them as an inferior race; their resentment at' a number oJ Athenians among her citizens, that length broke out into a furious attack, by which in the time of Mithridates the whole population the whole of this last remnant of the ill-fated was considered as an Attic race$t The fall of people is said to have been exterminated; exSybaris made an opening for an Athenian col- amples of a tragical destiny, which, after reony in the west, which, though not very im- storing them unexpectedly to their own soil, portant in itself, is interesting for the circum- made them fall there the victims of their arrostances under which it rose, for the celebrated names which were connected with it, and for * Diodor., xii., 10; but xi., 90, he only speaks of a leader named Thessalus.- Wesseling prefers the first of these statements, but assigns no reason for his minus commode, * The exact place is not mentioned. Their land lay to with which he rejects the latter. the south of the Strymon. This colony was probably con- t B.C. 452. See Wesseling on Diodor., tom. i., p. 484, 53. nected with the foundation of Amphipolis; perhaps the t There were four main streets-the Ifersclea, the Aph-'AyovWlva.of Steph. B. rodisias, the Olympias, and the Dionysias-crossed at right t See Dr. Arnold in the Appendix to Thucydides, vol. ii., angles by three called Heros, Thuria, and Thurina. Sinon the neighbourhood of Amphipolis. gular that none took a name conhected with Athens, espet Appian, Mithrid., 8, calls it 7roXLv'AtrrtKou yvovs, and, cially if, as Mueller conjectures (Dor., iv., i., 1), Hippodaibid., 83, says that Lucullus heard bir''AOivatov a7roeS mus was the architect Is there any mistake as to the last 8!XaUa0oKparovevrwv avvqJciaOat. two? 312 HISTORY OF GREECE. gance. After this event the remaining Thurians tage which a large body of citizens derived iroi recruited their forces by a fresh band of adven- the pay, which probably supported them during turers from Greece, who were invited to join the remainder of the year. But still more amthem upon terms of perfect civil and political ple employment was furnished to the poorer equality. In imitation, perhaps, of the Athenian class by the great works which were undertainstitutions, they distributed themselves into ken at the proposal of Pericles, and carried on ten tribes, which were named after the different under his eye, for the. defence and the embelnations of which the colony was composed. lishment of the city, and which have rendered Four of these tribes, which took their names his accession to power an epoch no less imporfrom Athens, Ionia, Euboea, and the islands, tant in the history of the arts than in that of may, perhaps, be -considered as a measure of Attica itself. the utmost influence which Athens could exert The great plan of Themistocles, which Cimon there. Of the rest, three represented Pelopon- had prosecuted by the erection of the Long nesus,* three the north of Greece.t They Walls, was completed under the administration maintained peace with Croton the more easily, of Pericles, by the construction of a third wall no doubt, for the destruction of the Sybarites; within the two first.built, which ran parallel and enriched themselves by the industrious cultiva- near to that which joined the city to Pirieus, tion of their fertile and equally divided territory, and served the purpose of keeping the commuand provided for domestic order and tranquillity nication open, even if either of the outer walls by borrowing the institutions of Charondas. We happened to be surprised by an enemy.* The learn from Strabot that some Athenians took a ravages of the Persians, and the gratitude due part in the settlement of the new Parthenope to the gods who had delivered the city, imposed (Neapolis), a colony of Cuma and the adjacent a religious obligation of replacing the defaced islands. Niebuhr~' conjectures that it was or demolished temples at Athenfs, Eleusis, and founded at about the same time with Thurii. in other parts of Attica, and of adding new ones, And it seems probable that though Pericles may all on a scale of magnificence corresponding to have promoted these enterprises without any the increased power and opulence of the state. other object than that of prosecuting the policy The whole summit of the Rock was covered which has been already Ascribed, there were with sacred buildings and monuments, among ardent spirits at Athens who viewed these west- which the greater temple of the tutelary godern settlements asteps towards the accom- dess, the Parthenon, rose supreme in majesty plishment of a vasTscheme, which, according and beauty. An ornamental fortification, callto Plutarch,lI was already floating as a day- ed Propylaea, which covered the western dream in the minds of some political specula- sid lhe only one not quite precipitous-of the tors, and which embraced Sicily, Etruria, and citadel, formed an approach worthy of the marCarthage itself, as possible additions to the vellous scene to which it gave access. Edifices Athenian empire. of a different kind were required, as well for the The anxiety of Pericles to raise the value of theatrical and musical entertainments of the the Athenian franchise was still more distinct- people as for the reception of multitudes assemly proved by a law which he caused to be en- bled on graver occasions. A theatre adapted acted at an early period in his administration, to this purpose, as well as to the new form of confining the rights of citizenship to persons the drama, had been. begun before the time of whose parents were both Athenians. This law Pericles. He added one designed for the perwas not called into extensive operation before formance of music, thence called the Odeurn, the year B.C. 444, nearly at the'same time with a pointed roof, shaped, it is said, in imitawith the foundation of Thurii. But this year tion of the tent of Xerxes, and constructed out the Libyan prince, Psammetichus, who was of the masts of Persian ships. In the planning master of a- large part of Lower Egypt, having and adorning of these buildings, some of the sent a present of corn to be distributed among greatest architects and sculptors Greece ever the Athenian people, a rigid scrutiny was insti- produced-the unrivalled Phidias, with his two tut ed to try the titles of those who claimed a scholars, Alcamenes and Agoracritus, Ictinus, share of the largess. The result was, that near- and Callicrates,t Mnesicles,t Callimachus,~ Coly 5i000 persons were declared to be;aliens, and, rcebus,ll Metagenes, Xenocles,~ and others — it is said, suffered the penalty appointed by a found ample exercise for their genius and talrig)rous law for those who usurped the privi- ents. But, according to Greek usages and taste, leges of a citizen, being sold as slaves. The architecture and sculpture were intimately alli. numnber of the citizens who passed through this ed with a long train of subordinate arts, which or(deal amounted to very little more than 14,000. gave employment to the skill and ingenuity of But even after this reduction, and whilethe col- a multitude of inferior workmen. Thus not on:es were drawing off a part of the residue, only was the colossal image of the goddessPericles was obliged to make it one of his leading objects to provide for the subsistence of * This view of the subject, which is that of Dr. Arnold (Thucyd., ii., 13) and Mueller (Ersch and Grueber's Enthose who were left; and the extraordinary ex- cyclopedia, art. Attika), seems decidedly preferable to the penditure which he directed was destined main- opinion of Col. Leake and Kruse (Hellas, ii., p. 152), who ly, though not exclusively, to this purpose. hold that the 6Lta g0ou r7XoS, mentioned by Plato (Gorglas, Thus a squadron of sixty galleys was sent out 455),wll s a together ansverse Arll whitects of the Partwo long every year, and was kept at sea eight months,, Architect of the Propylea. partly, indeed, to keep the crews in training, d Inventor, according to Vitruvius, of the Corinthian orbut not without a distinct view to the advan- der; he also executed a golden lamp and a brazen palmbutotwihouadisintewohead n-tree for the temple of Athene P0lias. TheArcas, and 11 He began the temple at Eleusis, which was continued ~ The Arcas, Achabis, and Elea. by Metagenes. t The Boeotia, Amphictyonis, and Doris. * v., p. 246. F[ He added the roof with a circular aperture (dralov) to i., p. 154, but see his remark in note 79. 11 Per., 20. the' daKroPav. ADMINISTRATION OF PERICLES. 313 which was the principal object of worship in were finished in five years. During the whole the Parthenon-formfdl of ivory and gold, but period of this extraordinary activity there mus' the same precious metal was profusely employ- have been a comparative scarcity of labour at ed in the decoration of the sculptures which Athens. adorned the exterior of the temple, and which We shall shortly return to this subject for the were also relieved by the most brilliant colours. purpose of presenting it under another point of The groups which filled its pediments, while view. For the present it leads us to considthey roused the strongest feelings of Attic reli- er some other modes of expending the public gion and patriotism by the subjects which they money, which exhibitthe administration of Perirepresented, and satisfied the severest taste by cles in a much less favourable light, because the harmony of the design, also dazzled the eye they appear to serve no higher end than a temas gorgeous pictures,* lighted up by the sky of porary gratification of individuals, by which Attica, and rendered the more striking by the they were as little benefited as the state itself. simple purity.of the marble frames in which It was, as we have seen, in his competition with they were set, and of the colonnades which Cimon for public favour, and to counteract the supported them. Hence, as Plutarch observes, disadvantage under which he was placed by the so long as these vast undertakings, which re- slenderness of his private fortune, that Pericles quired so many arts to be combined for their was induced to adopt these measures. But this execution, were in progress, it was scarcely motive cannot be admitted as an excuse for his possible that a hand which needed work could conduct, if he courted popularity to the manifest be left idle in Athens. As a variety of costly detriment of the common weal. And this is a materials, gold, and brass, and marble, and ivo- charge from which it is scarcely possible wholly ry, and ebony, and cedar were frequently de. to acquit him.. But, on the other hand, he manded for different parts of the same work, so seems to have been often too harshly judged, many classes of artists or craftsmen, whose la- and to have borne the blame of a later, state of bours were more or less mechanical —a distinc- things, which, though it arose out of his systion to which the Greeks seem to have attached tem, was not a necessary result of it, and was less importance than we dot —were needed to one which he could not easily have foreseen. concur in working them up. And while car- Pericles did not introduce that strong passion penters, and masons, and smiths, and turners, for public amusements, which in the end conand dyers, and carvers, and gilders were thus sumed so large a part, both of the fortunes of inemployed at home, a great number of trades dividuals and of the revenues of the state at were set in active exercise to procure their ma- Athens; but he appears to have increased th6 terials, and to transport them by land and sea. number of spectacles by new festivals, sacriEvery art could marshal a host of dependants fices, processions, musical and gymnastic exhiwhom it maintained. It must, however, be ob- bitions; he probably heightened their attractions served that though, in every branch of industry by new refinements of art; and he made them which required a high degree of intelligence, the accessible to all the citizens without distincAttic workmen might commonly be sure of be- tion, instead of being preserved for the more ing preferred, at least to all foreigners who were affluent. In the period when a wooden theatre not Greeks, in those which depended upon mere still sufficed for the Attic drama, the public manual labour, he was constantly brought into safety had appeared to require that a small sum a disadvantageous competition with the slaves, should be paid for admission, which was origiand could not fail to be supplanted, or reduced nally gratuitous; and this continued to be exto the most indigent condition, unless he had acted after the stone theatre had been built. the means of becoming owner of some whom Pericles removed this imposition from the poorhe could employ in the same manner. This er class by a law which enabled them to rewas an evil against which even the lavish ex- ceive the amount from the treasury, and thus penditure of Pericles, judiciously as it was ap- restored to them an enjoyment of which some plied, could only afford a temporary or partial had been deprived without sufficient reason, or relief. For a time, however, the large sums which they were compelled to purchase by an which were distributed through so many chan- inconvenient sacrifice. This was in itself a nels diffused general prosperity. The rapidity harmless and reasonable indulgence, and may with which the new buildings were completed have appeared the most economical expedient was no less marvellous than the perfection of for attaining the object proposed; but it would art which they exhibited. The Propyleea, the have been better to have revived the free admost expensive of all,T and the most labori- missions, for the precedent thus set was exous, as well on account of the difficulties of the tremely liable to abuse, and, in fact, opened the ground as the massiveness of the structure, way for a profuse distribution of money under the pretext of enabling the poorer citizens to * See Brcendsted, Reisen, ii., p. 164. enjoy various festivals, and led to the estab t In the passage to which we here allude, Per., 12, Plu- lishment of a fund called the Theoricon, which tarch-as is observed by Thiersch, Epoch, p. 102-classes a number of arts together, without making, any distinction drained the vitals of the commonwealth, and between those which we regard as liberalf:professions and absorbed resources urgently demanded for the others which we treat as mechanical. Thiersch shows, public service to be squandered away in frivofrom Lucian (Somn., ~ 1), that the epithet lvavao'so was applied no less to Phidias or Polycletus than to a common lous entertainments. What part of this evil mason. But they seem to have been brought down to this may justly be imputed to Pericles could only level only in contrast with the higher dignity of political or be ascertained if we knew how many steps he military functions, according to the sentiment which Plu- tarch expresses, Per., 2; as AEschylus thought little of his himself advanced poetry in comparison with the honour of having fought at of the theoric allowance. But his views had Marathon. scarcely anything in common with those of the k. t See Col. Leake, On the cost of the works of Pericles. Topography of Athens, p. 416. opography of Athens, p. 416. demagogues who succeeded him; and the reeVOL. I.-R R 314 HISTORY OF GREECE. reation which he procured for the people opera- offer, it is true, if it had been accepted, could'not ted rather as a spur to industry than a tempta- have been made good; bit it was probably only tion to idleness. Another innovation of a sim- meant to signify the firm reliance which Periilar nature which is ascribed to him seems also cles placed on the liberality of his countrymen; to have been attended with a train of pernicious and it seems to have answered his purpose by consequences which he could not have antici- reminding them of the lustre which these splenpated. He introduced the practice of paying did works reflected on their own renown.* He jurors for their attendance on the courts of jus- was desired to proceed as he had begun, and to tice;* a provision which, putting out of the draw without sparing from the public treasury. question the causes which filled the tribunals Whether the age of Pericles is not degraded with suiters, was no more than equitable. The when it is compared with other celebrated peremuneration which he assigned for the loss of riods in the history of mankind which resemtime on these occasions was extremely moder- ble it in the successful cultivation of the arts, ate,t and could not have encouraged the taste and whether, in this respect, it does not stand for litigation which was gradually unfolded' to a on an eminence which has never yet been apmischievous excess in the Athenian character; proached, is a question on which opinions may but the sum was afterward tripled, and became differ; but at least it is distinguished by one one of the heaviest items in the Attic civil list. very important feature. The magnificence This, however, was not perhaps the worst effect which adorned it was not like that of a Lorenzo, of the measure, for it seems probable that it or a Leo; it was not supplied from the coffers suggested another, which has sometimes been either of'a wealthy citizen or a prince, to graterroneously attributed to Pericles himself-the ify the taste of a small circle of cultivated payment of attendance in the popular assem- minds; nor was it like the'magnificence of the bly;t a regulation which became more and more Caesars, who expended a part of their immense pernicious as the burden which it laid upon the revenues for the diversion of their slaves; still state was more sensibly felt. more strongly was it contrasted with that of the We can understand how Plato,~ even though selfish and narrow-minded despot, whose whole he was only looking at the remote consequen- life expressed this maxim: I am the state;t ces of these measures, which had become visi- it was not the magnificence of Pericles, but ble in his own day, might introduce Socrates that of the Athenian people. That Pericles saying, "I hear that Pericles made the Atheni- despised this people, even while he was provians a lazy, cowardly, talkative, and money- ding for the least intellectual of its entertainfoving people, by accustoming them to receive ments, we are as little able to believe, as, when wages." But we find no sufficient ground for we contemplate the remains of the works exea remark of a modern author, that Pericles de- cuted to gratify its taste,'it is in our power, spised the multitude whom he pampered. ll This whatever we may think of its failings or vices, might, indeed, have been the case with Pisis- to despise it. tratus or Cimon; but, as Pericles had nothing These works served two main ends, which to give, and could only persuade the people to were important enough to have justified the dispose of treasure, which, whether by right or application of the treasure expended on them, wrong, had in fact become its own, so it is cer-' had it but come by fair means into the hands tain that in the manner of expenditure his pri- of the Athenians; and even the fugitive amusevate taste coincided with that of the public. ments which were shared by the whole people' The interest which the Athenians in general under the superintendence of Pericles coatribtook in the master-pieces of art,.wbih even in uted, at least, towards one of these ends. All their ruins still attract the admiration of the of them tended continually to refine that matchcivilized world, is evinced by two well-known less purity of taste by which the Athenians were stories, which show that Pericles followed as long distinguished, and which must have been well as guided the popular inclination. When an important element in their political prosperithe question was agitated in the assembly, ty, through the influence which it could not fail whether marble or ivory should be employed in to exert on their manufactures and commerce. the'statue of the goddess, and Phidias, the But the public buildings answered a still higher' sculptor, recommended marble as the cheaper end, by exalting and endearing the state in the material, the assembly on that very ground eyes of its citizens. Their exceeding magnifiunanimously decided for ivory. On another cence, the more striking from its contrast to occasion, when Thucydides, the rival of Peri- the extreme simplicity of all private dwellings,: cles, complained of the enormous expense to expressed the majesty of the commonwealth, which he had subjected the state by the monu- before which the greatness of the most eminent meets erected at his suggestion, he is said to individual shrank into nothing. They were at have offered to defray the cost if he might be the same time monuments of the past and allowed to inscribe them with his name. The pledges'of the future. The Parthenon and the Propylhea might be considered as trophies of ~ MmOb; ~,KaarlKc;. t An obolus, the sixth of a drachma, equivalent to about fourteen pence of our currency, according to the calculation * It is construed in a very different manner by Drumann, of Col. Leake, Topogr. of Ath., p. 416. Geschichte des Verfalls der Griechischen Stalten, p. 238, as t Mtao0S iKKXnclaaTrK6. 6. Gorgias, p. 515. a low, impudent trick, an interpretation for which we can n Boeckh, Staatsh, ii., 13. The high authority which find no better ground than the violent aversion which this Boeckh has so well earned by his learning and candour en- writer takes every opportunity of expressing to the charactitles even a passing, and perhaps hasty remark of his, to ter and conduct of Pericles. imnre attention than is due to1ll the attempts which for the t L'gtat, c'est moi. The reader who wishes to feel rightlast forty years have been systematically made in our own ly on this subject should compare Plutarch's Pericles, 12, literature-the periodical as well as the more prominent- 13, with Saint Simon's remarks on the magnificence of for political and other purposes, to vilify the Athenians. Louis XIV. M6moires, tom. xiii., p. 84-90. But it is not very easy to reconcile Boeckh's remark with t Demosthenes, Aristocr., p. 689. Compare Meid., p the adm:ssion which he makes in the next sentence. 565, foll. LITERATURE.-THE DRAMA. 315 Marathon and Salamis. They displayed the long enough to celebrate the triumphs of the fruits of the patience and fortitude with which Persian war in his old, age. His younger conAthens had resisted the barbarians. They in- temporaries, Bacchylides and Pindar, were the dicated the new station to which she had risen, latest of the lyrical poets whom the judgment and the abundance of the means she possessed of all ages, so long as their works were prefor maintaining it. It is probable that the com- served,'set apart from the rest as of a superior placency with which the Athenians contem- order. The Theban poet Pindar, if he was not plated them from this point of view was seldom the greatest of them all, has been the most forimbittered by the reflection that this magnifi- tunate; for his merits are beyond dispute and cence was, in great part, founded upon wrong comparison. Even of his countrywoman Coand robbery. It is true, that in the account rinna, who both guided his youthful genius by which all nations have to render at the bar of her precepts'and quickened it by emulation, history, there is probably not one which can having five times carried away the prize from appear with clean hands to impeach the Athe- him in a poetical contest,* not a specimen is nians on this head. We must not, however, left either to vindicate the taste of her age or on this account, shut our eyes upon the real to show how far she was inferior to her scholar. nature of their conduct; and it may be useful He no doubt experienced the animating influto remember that not only their greatness was ence of that joyful and stirring time which folunstable in proportion as it rested on violence lowed the defeat of the barbarian invader, and fraud, but, as one of the most splendid though, as a Theban patriot, he' could not monuments of the Medicean age was the occa- heartily enjoy a triumph by which Thebes as sion of an irreparable calamity to the power well as Persia was humbled. But, like Simonwhich raised it, so the great works with which ides, he loved to bask in the sunshine of a court, thlAthenians now alorned their city both con- and his grateful muse was cherished by the truted to alieire and provoke the allies at munificence of the sovereigns of Syracuse and whose expensedhey were executed, and to Cyrene, and of the noble and wealthy families elate the people with that extravagant pride of Thessaly and Locris, Corinth, Angina, and and confidence in its own strength and fortune Rhodes, and others whose names he has reswhich hurried it on to its ruin. cued from oblivion. Yet Athens also shared Before the Persian war, Athens had contribu- his praises, though all his prejudices were adted less than many other cities, her inferiors in verse to her rising greatness; and she requited magnitude and in political importance, to the him with extraordinary favours.t He died at intellectual progress of Greece. She had pro- an advanced age, when the Attic drama had duced no artists to be compared with those of just attained its fiull maturity.: All that we Argos, Corinth, Sicyon, 2.Egina, Laconia, and hear of lyrical poetry after him indicates that it of many cities both in the eastern and western soon began to degenerate; that the decay of colonies. She could boast of no poets so cele- strength was betrayed by extravagance, and brated as those of the Ionian and./Eolian schools. the poverty of invention by an artificial, conBut her peaceful glories quickly followed and ventional diction. outshone that of her victories, conquests, and The drama was the branch of literature which political ascendency. In the period between peculiarly signalized the age of Pericles; and the Persian and the Peloponnesian wars both it belongs to the political no less than to the literature and- the fine arts began to tend to- literary history of these times, and deserves to wards Athens as their most favoured seat; be considered in both points of view. The for here, above all other parts of Greece, ge- steps by which it was brought through a series nius and' talents were encouraged by an ample of innovations to the form which it presents in field of exertion, by public sympathy and ap- its earliest extant remains, are still a subject plause, as well as by the prospect of other of controversy among antiquarians; and even rewards, which, however, were much more the.poetical character of the authors by whom sparingly bestowed. Accordingly, it was at these changes were effected, and of their wprks, Athens that architecture and sculpture reached is involved in great uncertainty. We have reathe highest degree of perfection which either son to believe that it was no want of merit or ever attained in the ancient world, and that of absolute worth which caused them to be negGreek poetry was enriched with a new kind of lected and forgotten, but only the superior atcomposition, the drama, which united the lead- traction of the form which the drama finally ing features of every species before cultivated assumed. Of Phrynichus in particular, the imin a new whole, and exhibited all the grace and mediate predecessor of 2Eschylus, we are led vigour of the Greek imagination, together with to conceive a very favourable opinion, both by the full compass and the highest refinement of the manner in which he is mentioned by the the form of the language peculiar to Attica. ancients who were acquainted with his poems, The social and intellectual condition of the and by the effect which he is recorded to have two or three centuries preceding the Persian produced upon his audience.~ It seems clear war had been highly favourable to the dultiva- that _Eschylus, who found him in undisputed tion of lyrical poetry; the drama itself, as we possession of the public favour,ll regarded him hxve already noticed,* grew out of one of its as a worthy rival, and was, in part, stimulated forms; and for the greater part of a century the lyrical element continued to predominate * 2Elian, V. H., xiii., 25. Paus., ix., 22, 23. in it. Simonides of Ceos, whose powerful and t If we maybelieve Isocrates, avriT., p. 461, Bekker, with flexible genius is just sufficiently attested by a the title of proxenus, and 10,000 drachmas. Perhaps Aristophanes may be alluding to this, Acharn, 612, Bek. few fragmentary remains to justify a deep re- t B.c. 438. The Antigone of Sophocles was represented gret for. the loss of his multifarious works, lived B.C. 440. 4 See p. 240. II Aristophanes, Ran., 908, Xa64 7rapa l9pvriX. Trpa* P. 210. 0evrai. 316 HISTORY OF GREECE. by emulation to unfold the capacities of their tragedy became a very heavy charge, which fell common art by a variety of new inventions.* almost entirely upon wealthy individuals; but These, however, were so important as to enti- the charm of the entertainment increased in tle their author to be considered as the father proportion, and was the more generally felt. of Attic tragedy. This'title he would have de- 2.Eschylus-who himself, according to a longserved if he had only introduced the dialogue established custom, bore a part in the represenwhich distinguished his drama from that of the tation of his own plays-not only superintendent preceding poets, who had told the story of each the evolutions of his choruses with the most piece in a series of monologues. So long as anxious attention, but is recorded to have inthis was the case, the lyrical part must have vented several minute additions to the theatricreated the chief interest; and the difference cal wardrobe; and at Athens this was not between the Attic tragedy and the choral songs, thought unworthy of honourable mention in the which were exhibited in a similar manner in life of a man who is known to us as one of the the Dorian cities, was perhaps not so striking most sublime and original of poets. as their agreement. The innovatin made by Though out of seventy tragedies which he is _/Eschylus altered the whole character of the said to have written, seven have been preservpoem; raised the purely dramatic portion from ed, it is properly only from one specimen that a subordinate to a principal rank, and expanded we can form a judgment on the full compass of it into a richly-varied and well-organized com- his genius and his art; for it is evident that the positfon. With him, it would seem, and as a same poem'must appear in a very different light, natural consequence of this great change, arose according as it is considered as a part of a great the usage, which to us appears so singular, of whole, or as complete in itself. In the triparexhibiting what was sometimes called a trilogy, tite drama, founded on the crimes and sufferings which comprised three distinct tragedies, at the of the royal house of Mycepae, each of the the same time.t tragedies is independent of tltrest, and yelwto It is a question still agitated by learned men, be rightly estimated, must belewed in its conbut one as to which we can scarcely expect to nexion with them. If we might venture to look find any decisive evidence, whether, as in one upon this, not as an experiment which, though instance furnished by his remaining works, he eminently successful, was never repeated, but always, at least after an early period in his dra- as an example of his usual method, we should matic career, constructed the three tragedies be led to conclude that his skill in the manageof each trilogy into one great whole, which ment of his subjects was not much inferior to might be compared to some of Shakspeare's the grandeur of his conceptions. The sublimhistorical plays. The supposition is, at least, ity of his characters and his diction is univerperfectly conformable to his genius, fills up a sally acknowledged; the boldness and novelty chasm which would otherwise be mysterious in of his creations astonished his contemporaries; the history of the drama, and, as far as it can, and even if, as is the case with many of them, is confirmed by the remains of the poet's numer- they had been known to us only through deous lost works. _/Eschylus paid no less atten- scription, they would have been sufficient to tion to the exhibition of tragedy as a spectacle, support his reputation. His prominent figures for the purpose of heightening the effect of his are all colossal; the Homeric heroes thempoetry by scenic illusion. It was for him that selves appear more majestic and terrible in his Agatharchus painted the first scene which had scene; he is not satisfied with bringing the ever been made to agree with the rules of line- most revered persons of the popular mythology ar perspective, and thus led to a scientific in- into action, and exhibiting them in new situavestigation of its principles.$ It need not, how- tions; the gods of Olympus are not great and ever, be supposed that the imagination of an awful enough for him; he loves to revive the Athenian audience was less capable of appre- mysteriouis traditions which represented them hending the poet's description, and of filling up as a race of upstarts and usurpers, and from the his outlines with colours of its own, than that depths of the remotest antiquity to evoke the of Shakspeare's contemporaries. But the more gigantic, shadowy, melancholy forms of an earfastidious taste of the Athenians seems to have lier dynasty, which they overthrew and oppressrequired that, while the higher faculties were ed, but were unable to humble and subdue. The gratified, the eye and the ear should perceive thought and words which he assigns to them are nothing which tended to disturb this impression. worthy of such personages; the men of MaraThey were, perhaps, the less easily satisfied in thon and Salamis could endure them; but they this respect, the more familiar they became with were too ponderous for the feebler criticism of the master-pieces of sculpture, and the difficulty the next generation, which complained that his was greater, as the scene was exposed to the language was not human.* But a reader only broad light of day. Thus the decorations of familiar with the modern drama, especially that of the romantic school, will be more apt to feel * Aristoph., Ran., 1295, lyvae rv abrodv'pvviXP XEL- wearied by the extreme simplicity and languid piwva Movesv Icpiv d)Oisiv pbrwov. t So much, at least, seems clear, notwithstanding the movement of several of his plays, and, perhaps, widely different interpretations given to the statement of may sometimes be startled by abrupt transithe Scholiast of Aristoph., Ran., 1122, about Aristarchus tions, and unexpected turns in the dialogue. and Apollonius, by Welcker,./schylische Trilogie, p. 504, and by Gruppe, Ariadne (the quaint title of an interesting It is possible that this impression is in part a book on the history of Greek tragedy), p. 41. consequence of the loss we have suffered, which ~ Vitruvius, Praef., lib. vii. This seems to contradict may have prevented us from reading most of Aristotle, who, Poet., c. 10,! attributes the introduction of his remaining works in their original connexion scene painting to Sophocles. Hence it has been supposed that Agatharchus may have been employed for one of the and order, as acts of a.more complicated drama. latest representations of XEschylus. But it is possible that Yet, admitting thi s to be the case, we must still his was a first essay which was carried to perfection in the I time of Sophocles. * Aristoph., Ran., 1056. THE DRAMA.-ATTIC COMEDY. 317 believe that he was more capable of sketching triumph. In the poetry of Sophocles this ten a vast outline than of filling up all its parts with dency is still more conspicuous; their dim forea steady and delicate hand. He seems to con- bodings brighten into a more cheerful hope, or tent himself with bringing forward a few groups suggest instructive warnings-the more efficaof superhuman dimensions by a profusion of cious, as his persons are not too far removed bold and vivid touches, and to leave the rest to from the common level of humanity-to rebuke the spectator's imagination. Hence, too, per- the excesses of passion, the wantonness of powhaps, rather than from the want of a mastery er, the presumption of security, in which men over all the resources of his language, arose the forget their mortal condition, and trample upo4 harshness and obscurity which frequently inter- laws human or divine. We have already men rupt t'ne enjoyment of his most magnificent pas- tioned an instance in which XEschylus employed sages. the drama as a political engine to support the In the general harmony of his compositions, sinking authority of the Areopagus. There in the equable diffusion of grace and vigour were, perhaps, few cases in which a tragic poet throughout every part, in the unlimited com- so distinctly disclosed a political object; still mand over all the power and all the charm of.fewer in which he aimed at affecting the course expression which the Greek language supplied, of events. 2Eschylus seems to have been the his younger rival, Sophocles, though in some re- last who ventured to bring the men of his own spects a genius of a lower order, undoubtedly time upon the stage. In the play which celesurpassed him; and it was chiefly by these ad- brated the battle of Salamis he had followed vantages that he supplanted him in the public the example of Phrynichus, who was not deestimation, and became the favourite poet of the terred by the reception he met with when he agie of Pericles, as his works most vividly reflect exhibited the fall of Miletus, from treating anits intellectual character. The contest in which other contemporary subject more grateful to the Sophocles with his first exhibition gained the feelings of his audience. But ZEschylus seems victory over the elder poet-who is said to have not to have been content with the simple theme been so wounded by his defeat that he with- of his extant drama; there is ground for susdrew to Sicily, perhaps to the court of Hiero- pecting that he connected it on the one hand was signalized by Cimon's appearance in the with the earliest struggles between Europe and theatre, on his return from the expedition in Asia, on the other with the recent victory gainwhich he brought the relics of Theseus to Ath- ed by the Sicilian Greeks over the Carthagini-' ens; and the interest excited by the competi- ans at Himera, and represented both events as tion between the old master of the scene and the fulfilment of ancient prophecies, and as his young antagonist was so strong, that the pledges of the lasting triumph which fate had victorious general and his colleagues, who had decreed to Greece over all the power of the come to pay their official devotions to the god barbarians. With these few exceptions, the -of the festival, were induced by the presiding scene of Greek tragedy was always laid in the magistrate to stay and award the prize. This heroic age, and its subjects were almost wholly story is the counterpart of another, equally re- confined to the circle traced by the epic poets. pugnant to our habits and feelings, but no less Yet allusions to living persons and passing ocaccordant with those of the Athenians; that currences were by no'means rare, and were Sophocles was rewarded for one of his success- easily introduced. No extraordinary dexterity ful tragedies with the rank of general, and in was needed to adapt the ancient legends to the that capacity accompanied Pericles in the Sa- new relations between Athens and other Greek mian war. He died full of years and of glory; states, and to cherish the feelings which hapbut not before he had himself experienced the pened to prevail in the public mind by an hismutability of the public taste in the growing torical parallel. But in all these cases the obpreference given to Euripides, who died a year ject seems to have been rather to display the sooner, but in the character of his poetry be- poet's ingenuity than to produce any practical longs entirely to the latest period of the life of effect on his audience, or to influence the manSophocles. agement of public affairs. The Attic tragedy was not merely a spectacle If the limitations which custom prescribed to for the multitude, or a study for the lovers of this branch of the drama transported the specliterature and art, but was capable of being ap- tator to the remote past, and to a state of things plied to moral, or religious, and political pur- widely different from that in which he lived, and poses. The general impression which A2Eschy- allowed only a few indirect and obscure allulus appears to aim at, if we may properly at- sions to the present, comedy was entirely free tribute any such objects to him, is rather of a from such restrictions. Its field lay within the religious than a moral nature. His persons walks of daily life; its main business was with are, for the most part, raised t6o far above the the immediate present; and there was no class sphere of real life to awaken much moral sym- of persons or things which could engage public pathy. He sometimes represents man as the attention that might not be brought within the helpless sport of an inscrutable destiny; some- range of its representations. The Athenians times as the victim of a struggle between be- possessed another kind of ludicrous drama callings of a superior race; and such views may ed the satyrical, which was totally distinct from inspire an undefined sense of religious awe, but their comedy in its form and its object. It had cannot convey any practical lesson. Yet even been introduced in compliance with ancient his darkest scenes are not without some gleams usage for the sake of those who, in the im-. of light, which seem to fall from a higher and proved state of the drama were still unwilling clearer region, and disclose partial intimations to lose the chorus of satyrs, which once formed of a providential order of compensation and ret- a main part of thu Dionysiac entertainments; ribution, in which truth and justice will finally and it exhibited the highest persons of traged.y 318 HISTORY OF GREECE. thus attended, and under circumstances which to the leading objects of the piece; and, on the were humorously contrasted with the solemni- other hand, not only was the presence of the ty of their character. But this kind of bur- spectators often recognised ini the dialogue, but lesque could scarcely be said to have any other a direct address to them became a prominent end than that of unbending the spectator, after and almost an essential member of every comhis mind had been kept on the stretch by scenes edy. With such instruments at their absolute of heroic action or suffering, with the sportive disposal, the comic poets assailed every kind sallies of a mere animal nature. One of these of vice and folly which was sufficiently notoriexhibitions commonly followed each tragic per- ous to render their ridicule intelligible. And'formance, and it'was always furnished by the they never suffered their attacks to miss the tragic poet himself. It.is remarkable that mark throigh any ambiguity in their descrip-./Eschylus was accounted no less a master of tions. The simplicity, or, as we should call it, the light than of the serious drama;* an effect, the coarseness of the Attic manners, even in perhaps, of the very grandeur and severity of their best period, seems to have permitted the his tragic style. But there. does not appear to grossest things to be publicly spoken of in the have been any instance in which a tragic poet grossest language; and whatever restraints tried his powers in comedy. may have been imposed upon this privilege by Comedy was not, in the same sense as trage- a sense of decency on other occasions, were dy, an Attic invention. It was -an application entirely removed in the theatre by the sacred of the dramatic form first introduced by Thes- license of the festive season. It is unfortunate pis, and afterward employed to regulate the with regard to our estimate of the tone of Atherude jests and natural outbreakings of simple nian society, that we have no decisive evidence mirth and of personal ridicule, which in Attica,. on the question whether women were present at as elsewhere, were freely indulged during the the dramatic exhibitions.* It seems, however, festive season, which in this respect bore some the more probable opinion that they were exresemblance to a'modern carnival. But this eluded, either by law or custom, from the comic, application seems to have been first made at though not from the tragic spectacles; and their Megara - probably during the period of demo- absence may have' contributed to encourage the cratical license which' followed the downfall of freedom with which the comic poets made their Theagenes-and to have been thence imported works reflect the licentiousness of their age in by its author, Susarion, into Attica, where, how- its most revolting features, a freedom to which ever, it appears to have been neglected, and to antiquity affords no parallel, unless in the Rohave yielded no fruits of much value for nearly man satirists; who, however, can as little give a century. Nor was it at Athens, but at Syra- an adequate conception of the homeliness or cuse, chiefly through the philosophical poet indecency of the Attic comedy, as they can of Epicharmus, who flourished at the court of Hi- the sublimity-for such is the impression which ero, that comedy first assumed. a regular form. it produces-of its wit, humour, and fancy. But Epicharmus probably did not suffer his As we have no entire composition remaining comic vein to transport him beyond the bounds of more than one comic poet, Aristophanes, of the Dorian gravity, or to expose him to the who belongs to a later period, we cannot ascerloss of his patron's favour. The subjects of his tain the exact relation in which he stood to his pieces appear to have been mostly drawn from predecessors. But their subjects undoubtedly the ancient mythology; so that they approached bore a general resemblance to his; and if their nearer to the character of the satyrical drama practice was similar, the failings and excesses than to that of the Attic comedy, which cannot, of private life formed but very subordinate obtherefore, have been much indebted to them. jects of their ridicule. The character and conIt owed its importance and popularity not more duct of public men, and the administration of to the genius of the poets than to-the unbound- the public affairs, were, we know, always exed freedom which they enjoyed. They were posed to their unreserved animadversion, and, under the safeguard of the god whose festival therefore, were probably their principal theme; they cheered; and the privileges of the mask and this must have led them very early to point were much larger than those of the cap and their satire against the people itself ip its colbells among our ancestors. No objects or per- lective capacity of sovereign, if not, as was afsons, not even the gods, and among them the terward done, to personify it on the stage. god of the festival himself, were exempt from Such a censorship, as it has been appropritheir most unsparing' ridicule. They did not ately termed, one so unlimited in its range and confine themselves to hints and allusions, nor in its processes, may, at first sight, appear the even' to the most direct mention of living per- most formidable engine ever wielded in a state sons. There was no Athenian, whatever might by private hands; and it excites our curiosity be his rank and station, if he was only of suffi- to inquire whether it produced effects worthy cient importance, who might not see himself of its seemingly irresistible force. It is not brought upon.the-stage, with the most ludicrous without surprise that we find it to have been, exaggeration of his personal appearance, and though not absolutely powerless, yet, on the exposed for some hours to the laughter of thir- whole, feeble and insignificant in its operation, ty thousand spectators. While, however, the and this notwithstanding the consummate abilpersons were frequently taken from real life, ity of the minds by which it was directed. We the poets exercised their humour, and preserv- have no reason to believe that it ever turned ed the purely poetical character of the enter- the course of piiblic affairs, or determined the -tainment, by devisin situations and incidents, bias of the public mind, or even that it considerain which nature and probability were designed- bly affected the credit and fortunes of an obnoxiy sacrificed, by the most extravagant fictions, ious individual. The surprise, however, whici * Paus. ii. 13, 6. * See F. Schlegel, WVerk., iv..n. 140. ATTACKS ON PERICLES. 319 this discovery may at first excite will abate upon him; but'Hermippus assailed him with real when we reflect on the circumstances and the malignity, both in and out of the theatre, and on temper in which the comic poets found their his tenderest side. We find that he was repeataudience. It was not a time or place, nor were edly brought upon the stage, as was Myronides,* men in the humour for any serious thought. and probably most of his eminent contemporaThey cared little at whose expense the laugh ries. His person, however, was not one which was raised, whether it-was at their neighbour's easily lent itself to ridicule; the slight peculiari or their own, nor even.if it was at that of the ty in the conformation of his head afforded matstate or the gods. When the holydays were ter for some harmless pleasantry, but, altogethover, they returned to their ordinary pursuits in Ir, he was too dignified and too elevated a pertheir habitual mood, and the gay lessons which sonage to be placed in a ludicrous point of view. they had just received were soon effaced from He had much more reason to dread the effect their memories by the business of the day. of, exaggerated descriptions of his power and The boldness and impunity of the poets seem, place in the commonwealth; so it appears that in fact, t6 have been the consequence of their no title was more frequently bestowed upon felt and acknowledged harmhlessness. Nothing him than that of the Father of the Gods, whose shows more clearly how little importance was sovereignty he represented by his absolute sway attached to their ridicule, than that they were over the Athenian state. He was still more dispermitted to level it not only against all that tinctly called by Cratinus the greatest of tyrants, was most exalted in the state, but against all the eldest born of Time and Faction.t His friends that was most sacred in religion. What they were sometimes described by the odious name had most to fear from was, perhaps, the resent- of Pisistratids; he was called upon to swear ment of powerful individuals, who were the ob- that he would not assume the tyranny; and ject of their attacks; but against this they were Teleclides endeavoured to alarm the jealousy sheltered by the aegis of the laws, by the favour of the people by reminding it that all the power of the public, and by their.own means of retali- which Athens exercised over Greece was lodged ation; and, though it is impossible that private in his hands.t The longer, however, he enfeelings should not sometimes have been deep- joyed the public confidence, the less he was lialy stung by the poignancy of their wit, we must ble to be hurt by these general insinuations. not measure the irritation which it produced by But his private life presented som'e vulnerable our modern sensibility. The Greeks, and the points, through which his adversaries were able ancients in general, were much more callous to to strike more dangerous blows, which,. though the impression of words, and could patiently they did not permanently affect his influence or endure language which would now be deemed his reputation, must, for a time, have put his an intolerable insult. There is only one fact equanimity to a hard trial, and threatened to which may seem to indicate that the importance destroy his domestic happiness. of comedy was, if not greater than we here The public works which were undertaken ~represent it, at least sometimes differently es- through the advice of Pericles were executed timated. It is related that, while the power of under his inspection; the choice of the artists Pericles was at its height (B.C. 440), a law was employed and of the plans adopted was probapassed to restrain the exhibition of comedy; bly intrusted, in a great measure, to his judgbut we know neither the occasion which gave ment; and the large sums expended on them rise to it, nor the precise nature and extent of passed through his hands. This was an office Its enactments. All that is certain is that it which it was scarcely possible to exercise at remained in force no more than two or three Athens without either exciting suspicion or givyears, and that it was entirely repealed; and no ing a handle for calumny. We find that Crati. attempt of the same kind seems to have been nus, in one of his comedies, threw out some, made as long as Athens'preserved her political hints as to the tardiness with which Pericles independence. carried on the third of the Long Walls which If Pericles himself had been the author of he had persuaded the people to begin. "He this obscure measure, it is probable that we had been long professing to go on with it, but in should have heard something more about it. fact did not stir a step."~ Whether the maoBut though no man at Athens had so much to tives to which this delay was imputed were apprehend from the hostility of the comic poets, such as to call his integrity into question does or was the object of more frequent attacks from not appear; but in time his enemies ventured them, his dignity and his prudence would equal- openly to attack him on this ground. Yet the ly have prevented him from taking any notice first blow was not aimed directly at himself, of them. He must rather have been glad to see but was intended to wound him through the the envy and jealousy which he was conscious side of a friend..Phidias, whose genius was of exciting find vent in so harmless a way. the ruling principle which animated and conHis character and station would necessarily trolled every design for the ornament of the have rendered him a constant mark for all the city, had been brought, as well by conformity comic poets of his day, though they had borne of'taste as by the nature of his engagements, him no ill-will, and had only aimed at amusing into an intimate relation with Pericles. To the people at his expense. But among then - * Plut., Per., 24. he seems to have had some personal enemies, t zrdies Kal 7rpEc6vyeviE Xp6vo;, i;\4XoLm pliyTvrC, gdwho probably belonged to the party of his polit- yLa0ov rl7To rov Trpavvov, 8ev Y KeoaX2ryepprav Eoi 7rahdovical opponents, and no doubt very seriously Plut.,Per., 3. IIdiev res b6pov;, avrde re r6X)e, Tda p#v e7v, rIfh 3' wished and endeavoured to injure him in the avavst'v, Ad'iva TrEx, ra EyV OiKOv etEi6v, ra U y' trTa public estimation. Eupolis and.Cratinus, Plato nrditv KaraiaXXev, aovdrEs, d6I'ajv,-xrpadros, EipiVv, nAoyand Teleclides, perhaps contented themselves TSV daLcovlav r Plut., Per., 16. with bringing their dramatic engines to play PXiut, Peryot 3' o a p aKIE A. LK~~~u~~~g, Spy~~~~~wt S aidS cive?~~~~~~~~~~., 320. HISTORY OF GREECE. ruin PhidiaA was one of the readiest means for the cultivation of female graces. She had both of hurting the feelings and of shaking the come, it would seem, as an adventurer to Athens, credit of Pericles. If Phidias could be convict- and, by the combined charms of her person,. ed of a fraud on the public, it would seem ah manners, and conversation, wron the affections unavoidable inference that Pericles had shared and the esteem of Pericles. Her station had the profit. The ivory statue of the goddess in freed her from the restraints which custom laid the Parthenon, which was enriched with massy on the education of the Athenian matron; and ornaments of pure gold, appeared to offer a she had enriched her mind with accomplishgroundwork for a charge which could not easily ments which were rare even among the men. be refuted. To give it the greater weight, a Her acquaintance with Pericles seems to have man named Meno, who had been employed by begun while he was still united to a lady of high Phidias in some of the details of the work, was birth, before the wife of the wealthy Hipponiinduced to seat himself in the agora with the cus. We can hardly doubt that it was Aspasia ensigns of a suppliant, and to implore pardon who first disturbed this union, though it is said of the people as the condition of revealing an to have been dissolved by mutual consent. But offence in which he had been an accomplice after parting from his wife, who had borne him with Phidias. He accused Phidias of having two sons, Pericles attached himself to Aspasia embezzled a part of the gold which he had re- by the most intimate relation which the laws ceived from the treasury. But this charge im- permitted him to contract with a foreign wommediately fell to the ground through a contri- an; and she acquired an ascendency over him vance which Pericles had adopted for a differ- which soon became notorious, and furnished ent end.' The golden ornaments had been fix- the comic poets with an inexhaustible fund of ed on the statue in such a manner that they ridicule, and his enemies with a ground for secould be taken off without doing it any injury, rious charges. On the stage, she was the Hero and thus afforded the means of ascertaining of the Athenian Zeus, the Omphale, or the Detheir exact weight. Pericles challenged the jafnira of an enslaved or a faithless Hercules. accusers of Phidias to use this opportunity of The Samian war was ascribed to her interposiverifying their charge; but they shrank from tion on behalf of her birthplace; and rumours the application of this decisive test. were set afloat which represented her as minThough, however, they were thus baffled in istering to the vices of Pericles by the most this part of their attempt, they were not abash- odious and degrading of offices. There was, ed or deterred; for they had discovered another perhaps, as little foundation for this report as ground, which gave them a surer hold on the for a similar one in which Phidias was implicapublic mind. Some keen eye had observed two ted;* though, among allthe imputations brought figures, among those with which Phidias had against Pericles, this is that which it is the most represented the battle between Theseus and the difficult clearly to refute. But we are inclined Amazons on the shield of the goddess, in which to believe that it may have arisen from the peit detected the portraits of the artist himself, culiar nature of Aspasia's private circle, which, as a bald old man, and that of Pericles in all with a bold neglect of established usage, were the comeliness of his graceful person. To the composed not only of the most intelligent and religious feelings of the Athenians, this mode accomplished men to be found at Athens, but of perpetuating the memory of individuals by also of matrons who, it is said, were brought by connecting their portraits with an object of pub- their husbands to listen to her conversation; lic worship appeared to violate the sanctity of which must have been highly instructive as the place; and it was probably also viewed as well as brilliant, since Plato did not hesitate to an arrogant intrusion, no less offensive to the describe her as the preceptress of Socrates, majesty of the commonwealth. It seems as if and to assert thit she both formed the rhetoric ~Meno's evidence was required even to support of Pericles ands composed one of his most admithis charge. Phidias was committed to prison, red harangues. The innovation which drew and died there. The informer, who was a for- women of free birth and good condition into her eigner, was rewarded with certain immunities, company for such a purpose must, even where and-as one who, in the service of the state, the truth was understood, have surprised and had provoked a powerful enemy —was placed, offended many; and it was liable to the grossby a formal decree, under the protection of the est misconstruction. And if her female friends Ten Generals. were sometimes seen watching the progress of This success imboldened the enemies of Per- the works of Phidias, it was easy, through his icles to proceed. They had not, indeed, estab- intimacy with Pericles, to connect this fact lished any' p.f their accusations,'but they had with a calumny of the same kind. sounded the disposition of the people, and found There was another rumour still more dangerthat it might be inspired with distrust and jeal- ous, which grew out of the character of the perousy of its powerful minister, or that it was not sons who were admitted to the society of Peri unwilling to seehim humbled. They seem now cles and Aspasia. Athens had become a place to have concerted a plan for attacking him, both of resort for learned and ingenious men of all directly and indirectly, in several quarters at pursuits. None were more welcome at the once; and they began with a person in whose house of Pericles than such as were distinsafety he felt as much concern as in his own, guished by philosophical studies, and especially and who could not be ruined without involving by the profession of new speculative tenets.'him in the like calamity. This was the cele- He himself was never weary of discussing such brated Aspasia, who had long attracted almost subjects; and Aspasia was undoubtedly able tc as much of the public attention at Athens as bear her part in this, as well as in any othel Pericles himself. She was a native of Miletus, which was early and long renowned as a school * Plat., Per., 13. PERSECUTIONS OF PERICLES 321 kind of conversation. The mere presence of ed his long life in quiet and honour at Lampsa: Anaxagoras, Zeno, Protagoras, and other cele- cus. The danger which threatened Aspasia brated men, who were known to hold doctrines was also averted; but it seems that Pericles, very remote from the religious conceptions of who pleaded her cause, found need for his most the vulgar, was sufficient to make a circle in strenuous exertions, and that in her behalf-he which they were familiar pass for a sphool of descended to tears and entreaties, which no impiety. Such were the materials out of which similar emergency of his own could ever draw the comic poet Hermippus, laying aside the from him.* It was, indeed, probably a trial mask, framed a criminal prosecution against more of his personal influence than of his eloAspasia. His indictment included two heads: quence; and his success, hardly as it was won, an offence against religion, and that of corrupt- may have induced his adversaries to drop the ing Athenian women to gratify the passions of proceedings instituted against himself, or, at Pericles. least, to postpone them to a fitter season. AfThis cause seems to have been still pending ter weathering this. storm, he seems to have rewhen one Diopithes procured a decree by which covered his'former high and firm position, which, persons who denied the being of the gods, or to the end of his life, was never again endangertaught doctrines concerning the celestial bodies ed except by one very transient gust of popular which were inconsistent with religion, were displeasure. He felt strong enough to resist made liable to a certain criminal process.* This the wishes, and to rebuke the impatience of the stroke was aimed immediately at Anaxagoras- people. Yet it was a persuasion so widely whose physical speculations had become fa- spread among the ancients, as to have lasted mous, and were thought to rob the greatest of even to modern times, the his dread of the prosthe heavenly beings of their inherent deity-but ecution which hung overRim, and his consciousindirectly at his disciple and patron, Pericles. ness that his expenditure of the public money When the discussion of this decree, and the would not bear a scrutiny, were, at least, among prosecution commenced against Aspasia, had the motives that induced him to kindle the war disposed the people to listen to other less prob- which put an end to the Thirty Years' Truce. able charges, the main attack was opened, and It was sometimes said that this expedition was the accusation, which in the affair of Phidias suggested to him by his young kinsman, Alcibihad been silenced by the force of truth, was re- ades, who, being told that he was thinking how vived in another form. A decree was passed he should render his account, bade him rather on the motion of one Dracontides, directing Per- think how to avoid rendering it. But though icles to give in his accounts to the Prytanes, this charge has been adopted by a modern writo be submitted to a trial, which was to be con- ter of high authority,t we are unable to discovducted with extraordinary solemnity; for it was er any grounds for it more solid than the asserto be held in the citadel, and the jurors were to tions of the enemies of Pericles, which they take the balls with which each signified his ver- could never establish by legal proof, and which diet from the top of an altar. But this part of are contradicted by the great contemporary histhe decree was afterward modified by an amend- torian, Thucydides, in the most emphatic lanment moved by Agnon, which ordered the cause guage with which it was possible to declare his to be tried in the ordinary way, but by a body unsullied integrity. Against such a judgment, of 1500 jurors. The uncertainty of the party an ironical allusion in one of Plato's dialogues,T which managed these proceedings, and their which implies that Pericles had been convicted distrust as to the evidence which they should of peculation, might be safely neglected, even be able to procure, seem to be strongly marked if it was less manifest that it arose out of a by a clause in this decree, which provided that confusion of dates and circumstances. the offence imputed to PericleS might be described either as embezzlement, or by a more general name, as coming under the head of public wrong. t CHAPTER XIX. Yet all these machinations failed, at least of reaching their main object. TheissueofthoseCAUSES AND OCCASIONS OF THE PELOPONNESIAN reaching their main object. The issue of those WAR. which were directed against Anaxagoras cannot be exactly ascertained through the discrep- ATHENS had been permitted to complete the ancy of the accounts given of it. According to conquest of Samos without hinderance; but the some authors, he was tried, and condemned ei- addition which this success made to her power ther to a fine and banishment, or to death; but rendered it only the more evident that peace in the latter case he made his escape from pris- could not last much longer between her and the on. According to others, he was defended by Peloponnesian confederacy. Her ambition, the Pericles, and acquitted.$ Plutarch says that animosity which she had excited in several of Pericles, fearing the event of a trial, induced the allies of Sparta, and the jealousy of Sparta him to withdraw from Athens; and it seems herself, had reached such a height, that it was to have been admitted on all hands that he end- clear the Thirty Years' Truce was much more likely to be violeiMy abridged than to lead to a c The eiayycXia, a criminal information, designed to lasting settlement. Nevertheless, the two leadreach offences which were not noticed, or not distinctly de-. states, as if scribed 4 the law. But as this would, without any decree, ing foreseeing the ruinous consehave been applicable to the cases mentioned in the text, it quences of their conflict, shrank from striking would seem that the decree of Diopithes must either have the first blow, as well as from forfeiting the dicharged certain magistrates to inquire into such offences, or vine favour by a breach of the treaty. Sparta, have offered a reward to an inferior. t E're KAX1oiiS Kat d)p(ov, EiTr' L&laoiS. Plut., Per., 32. + Diog. Laert., Anaxag. * Athen., xii., p. 589. ( Per., 32. But compare a somewhat different statement t Boeckh, St. d. Athen., ii., c. 8. in his Life of Nicias, 23. t Gorgias, p. 516, A. VoL. I.-S s 322 HISTORY OF GREECE. as she had been a quiet spectatress of the fall were known, excited the most vehement indigof Samos, rejected an application which was nation. The Corcyraeans without delay demade to her by the MitylenEeans, who, if they spatched a squadron of 25 galleys, which was could have reckoned on her aid, would have re- soon backed by another, with orders for the renounced the Athenian alliance, and would prob- volted Epidamnians to receive the exiles, and ably have engaged the whole island to join in to send away the Corinthian garrison and their their revolt. According to Theophrastus, a sum new settlers. When obedience was refused, often talents, distributed by Pericles every year they laid siege to the place, after inviting all among the leading Spartans, kept them in a pa- who'would, natives or foreigners, to quit it uncific mood.* But the expectation which gener- molested, and threatening all who should really prevailed of an approaching renewal of hos- main with hostile treatment. tilities contributed to hasten the event; With- The Corinthians, on hearing this intelligence, out it the occurrences which immediately occa- prepared an armament for the relief of their citsioned the disastrous war which we are about izens and friends. They raised troops and monto relate, either would not have happened, or ey, by offering the freedom of Epidamnus to all would have passed by without such an effect. who would either share the expedition in per. By it they were converted into so many indica- son, or, remaining at home, would advance a tions of a hostile spirit, which issued in an open small sum on this security. They also procuand general rupture: red the loan of money and ships from some of The storm began to gather in a quarter where, their allies, and from others both ships and men. perhaps, none had looked for it. The city of They themselves equipped 30 galleys and 3000 Epidamnus had been fgunded on the eastern side heavy-armed troops. The Corcyraeans, informof the Adriatic, on tlh site of the modern Du- ed of these preparations, sent envoys to Corinth, razzo, by colonists from Corcyra, who, in com- who were accompanied by others from Sparta pliance with a custom already mentioned, had and Sicyon, to propose that the Corinthians taken a Corinthian, named Phalius, a Heracleid, should either withdraw their people from Epifor their leader, and had admitted several Co- damnus, or, if they pretended to any right in rinthians, and other Dorians, to a share in the the colony, should refer their claims to the desettlement. The colony became flourishing and cision of some neutral state, or of the Delphic populous; but with its growth it unfolded the oracle. The Corinthians would only consent germes of domestic factions, which at length on condition that the Corcyraeans should, in the brought it to the brink of ruin. It was planted mean time, raise the siege, and withdraw their in the territory of the Taulantians, an Illyrian ships and the Illyrians whom they employed on tribe, who, regarding the Epidamnians as hos- the land side. The Corcyraeans were willing tile intruders, gladly took advantage of their in- to do this if the Corinthians would evacuate the ternal dissensions to attack them with greater place; or they would have stopped the siege effect. A short time before the events now to until the question should have been peacefully be related, the democratical party had expelled decided-; but the Corinthians would accept neithe oligarchs. The exiles leagued themselves ther proposal, and, their armament being now with the barbarians to infest the city by sea collected, sent a herald to declare war against and land. Unable to make head against their' Corcyra, and set sail, with a fleet of 75 ships combined forces, and reduced to extreme weak- and 2000 heavy-armed, for the relief of Epidamness, the party, masters of the city, applied to nus. When they had reached the mouth of the the parent state, Corcyra, for mediation and Ambracian Gulf, they were met by a herald, succour. The Corcyraeans, though at this time sent in a boat by the Corcyraeans, to forbid them themselves under democratical government, to advance farther; a message which was of turned a deaf ear to the suppliants, who, in their course disregarded. In the mean while the despair, proceedea to eonsult the T)elphic ora- Corcyreans manned all their galleys which were cle, whether they should transfer utlell colona ilt for service, amounting to eighty sail, and put allegiance to Corinth, and should implore her out to meet the enemy. The Corinthians were aid. With the sanction of the god, they formal- totally defeated, with the loss of fifteen ships, ly surrendered the colony to the Corinthians and returned home, leaving the Corcyreans and claimed their protection. The Corinthians, masters of the sea. The victorious fleet sailed not displeased with an opportunity of at once first to the Corinthian colony, Leucas, where strengthening themselves, and indulging the ha- the troops ravaged the land, and then to Cyllene, tred which they had long harboured against the the arsenal of the Eleans, which was burned, in Corcyraeans-who had provoked the jealousy of revenge for the aid which Elis had furnished to the mother city, and withheld the usual tokens the Corinthians. The allies of Corinth on the of filial respect-accepted the offer, and grant- western coast were so infested by the Corcyed the petition of the distressed Epidamnians, reeans, that the Corinthians were obliged, in the though belonging to a party adverse to their course of the summer, to send out another fleet own political institutions. They forthwith sent to protect them, which continued to watch the a force, consisting partly of Corinthians, partly enemy's movements, sometimes from Actium, of Ambracians and Leucadias, to garrison Epi- and sometimes from Chimerium in Thesprotia. damnus, and invited all who might be willing But though the Corcyreeans took a station at the to go and settle there. The troops went over opposite headland of Leucimne, no offer of batland through fear of hinderance from the Corcy- tle was made on either side, and on the approach reans. But in the mean while the exiled Epi- of winter both returned home. On the day on damnians had been pleading their cause at Cor- which the Corcyrweans gained their naval vic. cyra, where the proceedings of their adversa- tory, Epidamnus surrendered to the besiegers, ries and of the Corinthians, as soon as they on condition that the settlers should be sold as * Plut.. Per.. 23 slaves, and the Corinthians kept in prison du CORCYR.AAN WAR. 323 ring the pleasure of the conquerors. The Cor- into acts of open hostility against their enemies. cyraeans appear to have been a sharp-sighted It would be impolitic in the Athenians, who deand calculating people. We havo seen how pend so much on the fidelity of their subjects, carefully they watched over their own safety, to countenance the revolt of an unnatural coland how little concern they showed for the in- ony; and it would be ungrateful towards the terests of the other Greeks in the Persian war. Corinthians, who, when the Samians solicited Since then it had been their maxim to enter the protection of the Peloponnesians, maintaininto no alliances with other states, and especi- ed the same principle of neutrality, which they ally to keep aloof from the two great confedera- now urge, on their own behalf, in favour of cies over which Sparta and Athens presided, Athens. Nor ought the Athenians to forget the thinking, perhaps, that, as their position and na- services which Corinth once rendered them in val power made them independent of their neigh- their war with 2Egina. "'The war which the bours, they had nothing to gain from the one, Corcyrseans describe as immediately impending, and might suffer some harm from the other. to hurry you into an act of unjust aggression, is But their contest with Corinth, though thus far still uncertain, and may be most probably avertfortune had favoured them, compelled them to ed by a seasonable display of friendly feelings, alter their policy. The Corinthians, burning to which may heal the offence we took at your revenge their humiliating defeat, spent two conduct in the affair of Megara.", years in new preparations for prosecuting the Two assemblies were held on the question. war. The Corcyroeans were alarmed at the The Athenians did not wish to break their prospect of having to withstand them alone, treaty; but, as they perceived war to be ineviand came to the resolution of resorting for as- table, they were equally unwilling to abandon Stance to Athens. Their envoys there met the Corcyraean navy to the Corinthians, and, Use of the Corinthians, who, apprized oft heir most of all, desired to see the two states, which, ntention, hoped to frustrate it.' On this, as on next to their own, possessed the greatest marimany other occasions in the course of his his- time power, wasting their strength in a strugtory, Thucydides has inserted in his narrative gle from which they themselves stood aloof. two elaborate orations, as if delivered by the With these views, they concluded a treaty of rival ambassadors before the Athenian assem- defensive alliance with Corcyra, by which each bly. But he has previously warned his readers party was bound to assist the other only in case that the speeches thus introduced contain, at an attack should be made on its territory or on the utmost, no more than the substance of the that of its allies; and, in pursuance of the same arguments really used on both sides, and some- policy, not long after, ten ships were sent, under times only those which he deemed appropriate the command of Lacedeemonius, son of Cimon,'o the occasion and the parties.* Though, view- and two other officers, to the. assistance of the ed in either light, they are almost equally inter-: Corcyraeans, with orders not to act against the,sting, we shall only be able to afford room for Corinthians unless they should invade Corcyra. rery sparing notice of their contents. A foolish anecdote attributed the scantiness of The Corcyrean orator relies chiefly on the this force to the jealousy of Pericles towards idvantage which Athens will derive from an al- the son of Gimon. lance with a state possessing so powerful a The preparations which the Corinthians had marine, and, occupying so important a situation been making from the time of their defeat now with respect to the western regions, towards enabled them, with the help of their allies, Elis, which the views of the Athenians had for some Megara, Leucas, Ambracia, and Anactorium, to time been directed. This advantage, he alle- send out a fleet of 150 galleys, which proceeded ges, will be obtained, without any breach of faith to the Thesprotian port Chimerium, where they or justice, by an honourable interposition on be- encamped, and were joined by a considerable half of an injured and oppressed people. The number of the Epirots, who were generally terms of the treaty between Athens and the friendly to them. The Corcyreeans, whose force Peloponnesian confederacy permit either party amounted to 110 galleys, took their station, to receive any state not already in league with with the ten from Athens, at a little islandthe other into its alliance. "The time is near one of a group called Sybota, or the swine pasat hand when you will know the value of such tures-while their troops, re-enforced by 1000 an accession as we can bring to your naval pow- heavy-armed Zacynthians, were encamped on er, and will bitterly regret its loss if you suffer their own coast at Leucimne: A few days it to fall into the hands of the Corinthians, who after, the two fleets met in order of battle, the are no less your enemies than ours. War with Corinthians, in the left of their own line, being Sparta is inevitable, and cannot long be kept opposed to the ten Attic ships, which were off; the only question is, whether, when it placed at the extremity of the Corcyrwean right. comes, Corcyra shall be against you, or on your The engagement which ensued-the greatest, side." Thucydides observes, that had taken place beThe Corinthian, in answer, endeavours to ex- tween Greeks to that day-was, however, more cite distrust and aversion towards the Corcy- like a battle on shore than a seafight. For on. Means, by imputing their neutral policy to sordid both sides, according to the ancient practice, motives, and charging them with unjust and un- the decks were crowded with heavy-armued dutiful conduct towards their parent state. He troops, and archers, and dartmen, and, after the contends that the Athenians cannot receive the first onset, the ships, for the most part, remainCorcyraeans into their alliance without violating ed wedged together in a compact mass,, on the spirit of their treaty with Corinth, and can- which the men fought as on firm ground,'no not afford them succour without being drawn room being left for the diecplus, the evolution which was the chief display of skill in the naval i., 22. warfare of the Greeks, by which the enemy's 324 HISTORY OF GREECE..ine was suddenly pierced and the oars of the of their undisguised hostility. The Corcyra-mans, adverse galley swept away. The Corcyraeans who were within hearing, called out to take and on the left, however, soon put to flight and dis- kill them. But the Athenians replied to the persed the enemy's right wing, which was form- messengers that they had been guilty of no aged. by the Megarian and other allies of the gression or breach of treaty, but had merely Corinthians, and pursuing them to the shore come to protect their allies, the Corcyraeans. with.twenty galleys, landed near the camp, Nor would they offer any impediment to the where they plundered and fired the deserted Corinthians if they wished to sail in any other tents. But the remainder of their fleet was direction, but would do the utmost to prevent overpowered by the superior numbers of the them from invading Corcyra. On receiving Corinthians. The Athenian commanders, fear- this security, the Corinthians, after erecting a ful of transgressing their instructions, at first trophy, bent their course homeward. The Corabstained from mixing in the fight, and content-. cyreeans likewise raised a trophy, on the pretext ed themselves with threatening the enemy by that the Corinthians had retreated before them their presence at the points where their allies on the evening of the battle, and that they had were hard pressed. Gradually, however, as recovered their wrecks and slain-which had, victory declared itself on the side of the Corinth- indeed, been drifted to their station-without ians, andothe danger of the Corcyraeans grew asking the enemy's leave. The Corinthians more imminent, the Athenians were drawn into had taken upward of 1000 prisoners: of these the combat, and at length took as active a part 800 were slaves, but 250 were freemen, and against the Corinthians as the Corcyraeans them- most of them persons of the first rank in Corselves. The first object of the Corinthians, cyra. The slaves were sold, but the freemen when the main body of the Corcyraeans had were carefully guarded, and treated with great been put to flight, was to wreak their vengeance attention, in the hope that, when they should on the survivers who were clinging to the restored to their country, they might be induc' wrecks; and they were so eager in the slaugh- to form a. Corinthian party, and. effect a revoluter, that they destroyed several of their own men tion, which would, perhaps, prove more useful belonging to the vessels which had been sunk to the Corinthians than their late victory. in the defeat of their right wing. Then, having This first breach of treaty, as the Corinthians chased the enemy to land, they returned to the considered it, on the part of the Athenians, was coast of Epirus, with all they could take up almost immediately followed by events which of their slain, and with their disabled galleys; led to a second. The Athenians, who could and having deposited them there, in a desert not doubt that the Corinthians would seize eveharbotlr called, like the islands, Sybota, again ry opportunity of retaliating, were apprehensive put to sea, and made for Corcyra, The Corcy- that the influence which they possessed at Poraeans, though they had lost seventy vessels and tidaea might afford them means of injuring the had only destroyed thirty, were yet resolved, in Athenian interests in that quarter: Potidaea, defence of their territory, to meet the attack occupying an important site on the Isthmus of with their remaining force. It was late in the Pallene, was a Corinthian colony, though subevening; but the paean had already been raised ject and tributary to Athens; but it continued for battle, when the Corinthians suddenly re- to receive magistrates, who were sent to it treated at the sight of another squadron which yearly, from Corinth. Its revolt would have was advancing, unperceived by the Corcyraeans, endangered all that part of the Athenian empire towards the scene of action. These proved to which lay between Thrace and Macedonia. be twenty Attic ships, which had been sent by The Athenians had an additional ground of un. the Athenians through fear that the first force easiness on this subject in the hostility of Permight be insufficient for the protection of their diccas, king of Macedon, which they had pro allies; and the Corinthians imagined that a voked by entering into alliance with his brother greater armament might be behind. Philip and a chief named Derdas, who were The next day the Corcyraeans, with the thirty leagued against him. Perdiccas had conceived Attic ships, sailed towards the port where the hopes of engaging the Chalcidian towns to reCorinthians lay, to offer battle. The Corinth- volt against Athens, and had sent envoys to ians came out and drew up their fleet in fight- Peloponnesus to instigate the Spartans to war, ing order; but, though still greatly superior in and to concert measures with the Corinthians numbers, they did not wish to risk an engage- for a revolution at Potidaea. To guard against ment on a desert coast, where they had no this danger, the Athenians, shortly after the remeans of repairing their vessels, and found it turn of their ships from Corcyra, ordered the difficult to guard their prisoners. They were, Potidaeans to throw down the walls of their therefore, bent on returning home, and only town on the side of the Peninsula of Pallene, to feared lest the Athenians should endeavour to give hostages, and to send away their Corinthiobstruct their passage. To sound their inten- an magistrates, and receive no more in future; tions, they sent them a message. The bearers and as, about the same time, they were fitting came alongside one of the Athenian vessels in out an expedition for the invasion of Macedoa skiff, without the herald's staff, which would nia, they instructed the'officers who commandhave been necessary to protect their persons ed it to enforce the execution of these orders, from declared enemies. They complained of and also to keep a vigilant eye on the other the aggression which the Athenians'had com- subject towns in the same region. The Potimitted in siding with the Corcyraeans, and, if it daeans sent ambassadors to Athens to obtain was their design still farther to violate the faith the revocation of their sovereign's command; of treaties by impeding the passage of the but they also applied to Sparta for a promise of Corinthians towards Corcyra or any other quar- assistance in case they should be forced to reter, they offered themselves as the first victims sist it. In this application they were seconded BATTLE OF POTIDtEA. 325 by the Corinthians, and obtained an assurance mus near Potideea with the bulk of his forces, that, if the Athenians attacked Potidasa, a Pe- and ordered a body of Chalcidian troops, with loponnesian army should march into Attica. the Macedonian cavalry, to remain at Olynthus, Thus encouraged, when their suit was rejected and, on a signal being given-for the two towns at Athens, and they found that the Athenian were in sight of each other, and only between armament prepared against Macedonia was no seven and eight miles apart-to hasten to the less directed against themselves, they openly field, and fall upon the rear of the Athenians, assertedheir independence, and their exam- But though the Athenians came, as he expected, ple was followed by a great number of the Chal- and gave him battle, the fortune of the day bafcidean and Bottiasan towns. Perdiccas per- fled his calculations. The wing of the army suaded the Chalcidians on the coast to abandon which he commanded in person, composed of and demolish their towns, and to transfer their Corinthians and other picked troops, was comhabitation to Olynthus, and there concentrate pletely victorious over the division opposed to their strength. To those who consented to it, which he pursued to a great distance. But this sacrifice, he granted lands in his own do- the rest of his forces was no less completely minions, to be enjoyed as long as the war with routed by the Athenians, and driven into PotiAthens should last. The Athenian command- doea. No assistance came from Olynthus. Calers, Archestratus and ten colleagues, on their lias had sent a small detachment of the allied arrival at Potidaea, finding that they had come troops with the Macedonian horse to check the too late, and seeing their force-30 ships, and movements of the enemy there; and, though 1000 heavy-armed troops-too small to attempt they came out on seeing the signal which was the reduction of the insurgents, proceeded to hoisted at Potidaea, the battle was so rapidly the coast of Macedonia, and there carried on decided, that the signals were taken down bethe war against Perdiccas, in conjunction with fore they engaged in action, and they then rePhilip, and the rebels who had invaded it from tired into the town. Aristeus, returning from the upper provinces. the pursuit, found the Athenians masters of the On receiving intelligence of these events, the field, and with great difficulty and some lossCorinthians raised a force of 1600 heavy-armed being forced to skirt the seashore, and even to and 400 light troops, among whom several'of wade through the water-brought his men into their own citizens served as volunteers. They Potidaea. The number of the slain was but were placed under the command of Aristeus, small on both sides; the Potideeans lost about who had connexions with Potidaea, which in- 300; the Athenians half as many of their own duced him to exert all his influence at Co- citizens, and their general, Callias. But their rinth in its behalf, and most of the volunteers success enabled them to commence the circumhad offered their services for his sake; and vallation of Potidaea by carrying a wail across such was his zeal in the cause, that he reached the Isthmus on the side of Olynthus. They did Potidaea in forty days after the insurrection not deem their force sufficient at once to defend broke out. The Athenians, when they heard this and to execute a similar work on the other of his arrival, sent 40 galleys and 2000 heavy- side; but, not long after, a fresh re-enforcement armed troops, all Athenian citizens, under Cal- arrived from Athens of 1600 heavy-armed Athelias and four colleagues, to recover and punish nians, under the command of Phormio. He bethe revolted cities. They found Archestratus gan by ravaging the Potidean territory, in the on the coast of Macedonia, where he had just hope of provoking an action; but as the enemy taken Therma, and was engaged in the siege kept within their walls, he set about completing of Pydna. They carried on the siege with him the circumnvallation, and the place was soon for a time, but, finding that it would delay them closely blockaded by sea and land. Aristeus, too long, they concluded a treaty with Perdic- seeing no prospect of speedy succour, and little cas, which suited the ends of both parties, but hope of deliverance but from the chances of a seems not to have been meant seriously by protracted siege, advised that all but 500 of the either. Perdiccas desired to get rid of the in- garrison should take advantage of the first fair vaders at any rate, and the Athenians were im- wind, and make their escape by sea;. and he ofpatient to proceed to the main object of their fered himself to share the danger of those who expedition. They therefore quitted Macedonia, should remain. But when this proposal was and, after an ineffectual attempt on Berea, rejected, thinking he could do more service out Callias sent the fleet forward, and taking with of the place than in it, he contrived to elude him the 3000 heavy-armed Athenians and the the Athenian guardships, and, passing over to troops furnished by the allies of the republic, Chalcidice, there carried on the war with conwith 600 Macedonian horse under Philip and siderable success against the allies of Athens, Pausanias-probably the brother of Perdiccas and sent to Peloponnesus to obtain farther aid. and one of his partisans-marched overland to Phormio, after having invested the city, made Potidaea. Judicious dispositions had been made an inroad into Chalcidice with his 1600 men, for their reception by Aristeus, who had been ravaged the territory of the insurgents, and appointed by the Potidaeans and the Peloponne- took some of their smaller towns. Such was sian allies to the supreme command of the in- the second affair in which Athens and Corinth, fantry; that of the cavalry was nominally as- though the treaty between them was still subsignS: to the King of Macedonia, who had for- sisting in form, were brought into conflict with gotten his treaty with the Athenians as soon as each other as open enemies. they had turned their backs, and sent one of his The Corinthians, alarmed for the safety, both generals, with 200 horse, to the assistance of of Potidlea itself and of their own citizens, who their enemies. The plan of Aristeus was to were besieged there, were now very;anxious place the Athenians between two fires; for this to engage the Lacedaemonians in their quarrel. purpose, he himself waited for them in the Isth- And as they knew that similar dispositions to '326 HISTORY OF GREECE. wards Athens prevailed very generally among that belonged to them; whatever they may their allies, they invited deputies from the oth- gain, they account little in comparison to what er states of the confederacy to meet them at remains to be won. If they are disappointed ir. Sparta, and there charged the Athenians with one object, they forthwith conceive some new having broken the treaty, and trampled on the hopes to supply its place. With them, between rights of the Peloponnesians. The Spartans possession and desire, there is no room for enheld an assembly to receive the complaints of joyment; they make a pastime of business, and their allies, and to discuss the question of peace prefer laborious occupation to indolentaiepose." or war. Here the Corinthians were seconded In conclusion, the speaker takes a still stronger by several other members of the confederacy, tone, and int'tnates that unless Sparta complies who had also wrongs to complain of against with his demand, and fulfils the promise by Athens, and urged the Spartans for redress. which Potidaea was encouraged to revolt, CoThe 2Eginetans, though they did not venture rinth might be led, though reluctantly, to seek openly to send envoys on this occasion, had a new alliance; an allusion sufficiently intellitheir secret agents at Sparta, who represented gible, and not without weight, to the pretenthe subjection to which their island was reduced sions of Argos. as inconsistent with the terms of the treaty be- It happened that at this time Athenian entween Athens and the Peloponnesian league.* voys, who had been sent out on other business, The deputies of Megara were especially loud were still in Sparta. They desired permission in their accusations; among all the grievances to attend and address the assembly, not, it is they alleged, there was none on which.they said, with a view to defend their city from the dwelt so much as the unjust hostility by which, charges brought against it, but to caution the in contravention of the treaty, they were ex- Spartans against rashly engaging in an unneeluded from all commerce, not only with Attica, cessary war, and to remind them of the power but with all the ports subject to the dominion of Athens, and of the steps by which she had of Athens. The Corinthian deputy came for- risen to it. The speaker, however, not only ward last to enforce the impression made on expatiates on the glorious origin of the Athenithe assembly by the preceding speakers. The an empire, but at some length vindicates the speech put into his mouth by Thucydides con- conduct of the Athenians towards her allies. tains a delicate mixtiure of praise and censure, The course they had pursued was prescribed, he well adapted to rouse the pride and the jealousy contends, not more by ambition than by necesof the Spartans against Athens. He reproach- sity; necessity arising, in part, out of Sparta's es the Spartans with the easy good faith, unreasonable jealousy and estrangement. No through which, unsuspicious or unconscious of other people in the same position would either evil intentions, they have suffered the Atheni- have shown greater moderation, or have govans to make a formidable progress in undermi- erned their subjects more mildly; least of all ning the liberties of Greece. The transactions the Spartans themselves, whose supremacy was at Corcyra and Potidaea he treats as part of the no sooner established than it was felt to be inpreparation by which Athens has been arming tolerable. He bids them reflect on the uncerherself for the approaching war. If, after so tainty of war, and proposes that their differmany manifest declarations of hostility, Sparta ences should be decided by arbitration. still remains passive, the ambition and inso-'When the strangers had all been heard, they lence of her rival will break through all re- were desired to withdraw, that the assembly straints. The most remarkable passage in the might deliberate. The feeling against the Athespeech is an elaborate contrast which the ora- nians was universal; most voices were for intor draws between the Spartan and the Athe- stant war; and even those whose views were nian character. " You seem never to have re- most pacific only ventured to recommend delay. flected," he says, "how wide a difference there Of this number was the elder king Archidamus,. is between you and the people with whom you who endeavoured to temper the general ardour have to contend. They are fruitful in new proj- by instructing his hearers to form more correct ects, and quick in devising and executing their notions than they commonly entertained of the plans: you are content to keep what you have, power and resources of Athens, and of the difwithout aiming at more, and scarcely can be ficulty -and dangers of the contest for which brought to act even by the spur of necessity. they were so eager. " It is one," he observes, They are daring beyond their strength, enter-," which cannot be carried on with any hope of prising against their judgment, sanguine in success without means, of which we are at the midst of dangers: you let your underta- present destitute, and exertions of a kind wholkings-fall short of your power, distrust the dic- ly new to us. It will demand not only men, but tates of your soundest judgment, and if you ships and money. Without these we can make fall into danger, expect never to be extricated. no impression on an empire such as that of They are as prompt as you are dilatory, and as Athens; yet our navy is still to be formed; we eager for foreign expeditions as you are loath to have no common treasure, and shall soon grow stir from home. They, when they gain a vic- weary of extraordinary contributions. Let no tory, push forward as far as they can; when one dream that by ravaging Attica we shall be they are worsted, they fall back no farther than able to bring the war to a speedy termination; they are driven. When they fail in an under- if we have no better expedient, we maymore taking, they think they have lost something probably bequeath it to our children. The * Mueller, Proleg., p. 411, refers this complaint to the Athenians have other territories beyond our ancient compact made before or immediately after the bat- reach, and supplies, which, while they are mastie of Platea. Yet, according to the report of the oath in ters of the sea, we cannot intercept. Still it Diodorus, xi., 29, the parties were only restrained from does not follow that we should tamely acquiutterly destroying any of the contracting cities —ov{JFtiav esthat we should tamely aclr(v ayvtaauErvwv-rcr6ewv avdulraroV srothaw. esce in the injuries which they offer to our al DEBATE AT SPARTA. 327 lies: there is a mean between a dishonourable; themselves dictated it. The god was' made to peace and an immediate, unavailing show of;declare that if they carried on the war with vighostility. Let us wait at]least two or three our they should conquer, and that he himself. years before we draw the sword. In this inter- i invoked or uninvoked, would be their ally. val let us demand satisfaction from the Athe- When the congress met, the Corinthian depunians, and do our utmost to adjust our disputes ties were again the most strenuous advocates by negotiation, which will be more likely to of the course which the oracle recommended, bring them to reasonable terms, while their ter- and did not omit to urge its sanction, for the ritory, highly cultivated and still untouched, satisfaction of those who felt either scruples ies as a hostage at our mercy. At the same about the justice of the war or doubts as to its dtime, let us turn our attention to other allian- issue. They also endeavoured to work upon ces, which may furnish us with what we are the fears of those states which, lying remote most in want of, ships and money; and let us not from the sea, dreaded the cost of a war from scruple to seek them even among the barbari- which they had nothing to gain, by pointing out ans, if they should seem to hold out the fairer the connexion of their interests with those of promise of advantage. Till this has been done, the maritime states, and the common. danger let us not sacrifice the safety and glory of i which threatened all from the restless ambition Sparta, which rest on the union of moderation of Athens. They animated the timid by showand strength, to the impatience of our allies." ing that the power of the enemy, formidable as But such counsels were too sober to suit the it seemed, rested on an insecure foundation, temper of the assemby, whose prevailing senti- and might eahily be overthrown if their own ments were expressed with homely brevity by confederacy once put forth its full strength. A Sthenelaidas, the presiding ephor. "He could navy might be raised capable of coping with not understand what the long speeches of the that of Athens; and if their own means were Athenians amounted to; they had said much in insufficient to defray the expense, the treasures praise of themselves, but not a word to prove of Delphi and Olympia might be borrowed for that they had not injured Sparta and her allies; such a purpose. With.. this supply, they should and the better their conduct had been in past be able to attract the foreign seamen, who formtimes, the more they deserved to suffer for ed the main strength of the Athenian marine, having now degenerated from their former vir- by the offer of larI pay; and the loss of a tues. The Spartans had'never varied, and single sea-fight wood probably be fatal to a would neither see their allies wronged with im- power which could only exist so long as it comnpunity, nor let the redress be more tardy than manded the sea. But there were still other the aggression. Others were strong in ships, modes of attacking it; abroad, by exciting its and- horses, and gold; Sparta in her allies, subjects to revolt, and thus stopping the sources whom she ought not to desert; nor was it fit of its revenue; at home, by occupying a perthat she should be pleading and talking while manent post in its territory. Even, however, they were actually suffering, but that she should if there was less ground for confidence, and if avenge them speedily, and with all her might. there was more to be feared and sacrificed, all Let us not listen to those who recommend de- ought to be borne and risked, sooner than suffer liberation, which becomes those who are about a single city, one, too, of Ionian race, to swalto commit an injury, rather than those who low up the liberties of the rest, one after altothhave received one, but vote, as befits the dig- er, and establish itself tyrant of Greece. nity of Sparta, for war." The congress decided on the war; but the He thenput the question t e vote. It was confederacy was totally unprepared for comproposed in the form of a resolution, that the mencing hostilities, and though the necessary Athenians had broken the treaty. The votes, preparations were immediately begun and vigaccording to Spartan usage, were given orally, orously prosecuted, nearly a year elapsed before and it cannot have been doubtful on which side it wvas ready to bring an army into the field. In the voices prevailed; but Sthenelaidas, wishing the mean time, embassies were sent to Athens that the disposition of the assembly should be with various remonstrances and demands, for visibly displayed, professed that he could not the double purpose of amusing the Athenians distinguish the opinion of the majority, and di- with the prospect of peace and of multiplying rected them to divide. It was then seen that pretexts for war. An attempt was made, not, those who were for war greatly outnumbered perhaps, so foolish as it was insolent, to revive the opposite party. The deputies of the allies the popular dread of the curse which had been were then informed of the resolution which the supposed to hang over the Alcmaeonids. The assembly had adopted, and that a general con- Athenians were called upon, in the name of the gress of the confederacy would shortly be sum- gods, to banish all who remained among them moned to deliberate on the same question, in of that blood-stained race. If they had complied order that war, if decided on, might be decreed with this demand, they must have parted with by common consent. In the interval, before Pericles, who, by the mother's side, was conthe meeting of this congress, the Corinthians nected with the Alcmaeonids. This, indeed, were actively employed in soliciting the votes was not expected; but it was hoped that the of the several states in favour of the measure refusal might afford a pretext to his enemies at which they earnestly desired; and, with a view, Athens for treating him as the author of the probably, to sway the public mind, rather than war. The Athenians retorted by requiring the to satisfy any doubts of their own, the Spartans Spartans to expiate the pollution with which sent to consult the Delphic oracle whether it they had profaned the sanctuary of.Tenarus, would be better for them to go to war. The by dragging from it some Helots who had taken answer which they received could not have refuge there, and that of Athen6, by the death been more agreeable to their wishes if they had of Pausanias. A fresh embassy then required 328 HISTORY OF GREECE. the Athenians to desist from the siege of Poti- enable them to cause some damage and annoyd-eea, and to restore _LEgina to independence, ance, but would not prevent the Athenians from but, above all, to lepeal the decree against Me- visiting their coasts with a retaliation which gara. The greatest stress was laid on this last would be much morseverely felt, because they point, probably because it was known to be that depended entirely on their territories, while on which it was least likely that any concession Athens could draw supplies from numberless would be made, and because this also furnished quarters. To imagine that they could put their an occasion for malicious insinuations and pop- navy on a footing which would enable it to rival ular clamour against Pericles. He was accused, that of Athens, was contrary to all experienc e. in the scandalous stories of the times, of having and probability. The nautical skill of the Athb procured the decree to gratify a private grudge nians, which had not yet attained its full matrn. which Aspasia bore to the Megarians. But the rity, had been the fruit of the continual practice enmity of the Athenians towards Megara need- of many years, which the Peloponnesians would ed not to be artificially inflamed, and, according not even find means of cultivating in the face to Plutarch, the decree, which was proposed by of a superior enemy. Should they even replenone Charinus, was occasioned by a murder which ish their empty coffers with the sacred treasthe Megarians were charged with committing on ures of Delphi and Olympia, they would scarcely an Athenian herald who had been sent to corm- entice many foreigners away from'the service plain of their encroachments on the consecrated of Athens, which had a hold on them as miswaste which divided their territory from Attica. tress of their native cities; and, after all, her Thucydides mentions this last g.und of com- best seamen were drawn from her own citizens, plaint, but without alluding to the alleged mur- and she would never be at a loss for hands to der, and also one relating to some runaway man her fleets. On the other hand, the Atheslaves of the Athenians whom the' Megarians nians must beware of throwing away their nathad harboured. Finally, three new envoys, ural advantages by meeting the Peloponnesians Ramphias, Melesippus, and Agesander, came with inferior numbers in the field. Let them from Sparta with an ultimate proposal, but one not be provoked, by the ravages which their terof a nature which proved that nothingwas far- ritory might suffer, to risk an engagement in ther from the thoughts of the Spartans than the which. victory would bring them little gain, depeace which they affectedo desire. It was feat, by encouraging their subjects to rebellion, no less than a demand than Athens should re- might lead to irreparable mischief. Let them store the Greeks to independence-in other not, for the sake of saving their crops and buildwords, that she should abdicate her empire, and ings, which might be soon replaced, hazard lives, descend to a station in which she would be per- which were infinitely more precious. Rather, petually at the mercy of her rival. The Athe- if he could hope to prevail with them, would he nians now held an assembly for the purpose of advise them with their own hands to lay their giving a final answer to the demands of Sparta, land waste, and thus convince the'enemy of and Pericles demonstrated the justice and ex- their inflexible resolution. He saw every reapediency of refusing every concession which son to hope for the best issue of the struggle, had been required. provided only they would not grasp at new acSome of.the preceding speakers had treated quisitions while they were defending the old, the decree against Megara as a matter of slight and did not expose themselves to unnecessary moment, which ought not to be allowed to stand dangers. The answer he advised them to give in the way of peace. But Pericles observed to the Spartans Was, that they would repeal the that the last terms offered by the Spartans prohibition agai, the commerce of Megara as proved the insidious nature of their former pro- soon as Sparta should abolish that part of her posals, and that the on4 relating to Megara had institutions by which foreigners were excluded been held out merely to try the spirit and firm- from intercourse with her citizens; and that ness of the Athenians, and if they gave way on they would restore their subjects to independthat point, would soon be followed by an attempt ence if that was their condition at the concluto exact some still more important concession. sion of the last treaty, and if Sparta would grant They had only to choose between uncondition- a real, and not merely nominal, independence al submission and uncompromising resistance; to her allies, to whom she now prescribed the for to yield to terms prescribed, not by the judg- form of their political constitution; that they ment of an impartial umpire, but by the will of were still willing to refer their differences to an an adversary, whether in great or little matters, impartial judgment, and would not begin the amounted to an acknowledgment of subjection. war, but would hold themselves in readiness to He then contrasted the means and resources of repel an attack. the two confederacies, and showed the advan- The advice of Pericles was adopted, and tages which Athens, as sovereign of a great em- with this answer the Spartan envoys returned pire, possessed, in the unity of its counsels and home. Still, war had been only threatened, not the promptness of its measures, over a league declared; and peaceful intercourse, though not composed of many members, which had each a wholly free from distrust, was still kept up bevoice in every deliberation, and were divided tween the subjects of the two confederacies. in their interests and feelings. But even if the But early in the following spring, B.C. 431, in Peloponnesians were more closely united, the the fifteenth year of'the Thirty Years' Truce, war with Athens would require exertions and an event took place which closed all prospects sacrifices wholly new to them, and which they of peace, precipitated the commencement of would not long be able to support. Athens had war, imbittered the animosity of the contending nothing to fear from them either by land or sea. parties, and prepared some of the most tragical The utmost they could attempt in Attica would scenes of the ensuing history. In the dead of be' to occupy a fortress, which would, perhaps, I night the city of Plataia -was surprised by a SURPRISE OF PLATEA. 329 body of three hundred Thebans, commanded by were still wandering up and down the streets, two of the great officers called Boeotarchs. surrendered at discretion. They had been invited by a Platean named Before their departure from Thebes, it had Nauclides, and others of the same party, who been concerted that as large a force as could be hoped, with the aid of the Thebans, to rid them- raised should march the same night to support selves of their political opponents, and to break thenl. The distance between the two places off the relation in which their city was standing was not quite nine miles, and these troops were to Athens, and transfer its alliance to Thebes. expected to reach the gates of Plataea before The Thebans, foreseeing that a general war the morning; but the Asopus, which crossed was fast approaching, felt the less scruple in their road, had been swollen by the rain, and strengthening themselves by this acquisition, the state of the ground and the weather otherwhile it might be made with little cost and risk. wise retarded them, so that they were still on The gates were unguarded, as in time of peace, their way when they heard of the failure of the and one of them was secretly opened to the in- enterprise. Though they did not know the fate vaders, who advanced without interruption into of their countrymen, as it was possible that some the market-place. Their Plataean friends wish- might have been taken prisoners, they were at ed to lead them at once to the houses of their first inclined to seize as many of the Platweans adversaries, and to glut their hatred by a mas- as they c.ould find without the walls, and to keep sacre. But the Thebans were more anxious to them as hostages. The Platuaans anticipated secure the possession of the city, and feared to this design, and were alarmed;. for many of provoke resistance by an act of violence. Hav- their fellow-citizens were living out of the town ing, therefore, halted in the market-place, they in the security of peace, and there was much made a proclamation inviting all who were will- valuable property in the country. They thereing that Plataea should become again, as it had fore sent a herald to the Theban army to combeen in former times, a member of the Bceotian plain of their treacherous attack, and -call upon body, to join them. The Plataeans, who were them to abstain from farther aggression, and to not in the plot, imagined the force by which their threaten that, if any was offered, the prisoners city had been surprised to be much stronger should answer for it with their lives. The Thethan it really was, and, as no hostile treatment bans afterward alleged that they had received a was offered to them, remained quiet, and enter- promise, confirmed by an oath, that, on condied into a parley with the Thebans. In the tion of their retiring from the Plataean territory, course of these conferences they gradually dis- the prisoners should be released; and Thucydcovered that the number of the enemy was ides seems disposed to believe this statement. small, and might be easily overpowered; and, The Plateeans denied that they had pledged as they were in general attached to the Atheni- themselves to spare the lives of the prisoners ans, or, at least, strongly averse to an alliance unless they should come to terms on the whole with Thebes, they resolved to make the at- matter with the Thebans; but it does not seem tempt, while the darkness might favour them likely that, after ascertaining the state of the and perplex the strangers. To avoid suspicion, case, the Thebans would have been satisfied they met to concert their plan of operation by with so slight a secuirity. It is certain, howevmeans of passages opened through the walls of er, that they retired, and that the Plataeans, as their houses; and having barricaded the streets soon as they had transported their movable propwith wagons, and made such other preparations erty out of the country into the town, put to as they thought necessary, a little before day- death all the prisoners-amounting to 180, and break they suddenly fell upon the Thebans. including Eurymachus, the principal author of The little band made a vigorous defence, and the enterprise, and the man who possessed the twice or thrice repulsed the assailants; but as greatest influence in Thebes. these still returned to the charge, and were as- On the first entrance of the Thebans into sisted by the women and slaves, who showered Plateea a messenger had been despatched to stones and tiles from the houses on the enemy, Athens with the intelligence, and the Athenians all, at the same time, raising a tumultuous clam- had immediately laid all the Boeotians in Attica our, and a heavy rain increased the confusion under arrest; and when another messenger caused by the darkness, they at length lost their brought the news of the victory gained by the presence of mind, and took to flight. But most Plataeans, they sent a herald to request that were unable to find their way in the dark through they would reserve the prisoners for the dispoa strange town, and several were slain as they sal of the Athenians. The herald came too late wandered to and fro in search of an outlet. The to prevent the execution; and the Athenians, gate by which they were admitted had, in the foreseeing that Plataea would stand in great mean while, been closed, and no other was open. need of defence, sent a body of troops to garriSome, pressed by their pursuers, mounted the son it, supplied it with provisions, and removed walls, and threw themselves down on the out- the women and children, and all persons unfit side, but for the most part were killed by the for service in a siege. fall. A few were fortunate enough to break After this event, it was apparent that the open one of the gates in a lone quarter, with an quarrel could only be decided by arms. Plataea axe which they obtained from a woman, and to was so intimately united with Athens, that the effect their escape. The main body, which had Athenians felt the attack which had been made kept together, entered a large building adjoining on it as an outrage offered to themselves, and the walls, having mistaken its gates, which they prepared for immediate hostilities. Sparta, too, found open, for those of the town, and were instantly sent notice to all her allies to get their shut in. The Plataeans at first thought of set- contingents ready by an appointed day for the ting fire to the building; but at length the men invasion of Attica. Two thirds of the whole within, as well as the rest of the Thebans, who force which each raised were ordered to march, VOL. I. —-T T 330 HISTORY OF GREECE and when the time came, assembled in the Isth- side. Thessaly, Acarnlania, and the Amphiloinus, where King Archidamus put himself at chian Argos, were in alliance with her enemy; their head. An army more formidable, both in but for this reason, and more especially from numbers and spirit, had never issued from the their hostility to the Messenians of Naupactus, peninsula;* and Archidamus thought it advisa- the AEtolians were friendly to her; and she ble, before they set out, to call the principal of- could also reckon on the Corinthian colonies, ficers together, and to urge the necessity of Anactorium, Ambracia, and Leucas. proceeding with caution, and maintaining exact The power which Sparta exerted over her discipline as soon as they should have entered allies was much more narrowly limited than the enemy's territory; admonishing them not that which Athens had assumed over her subto be so far elated by their superior numbers as jects. The Spartan influence rested partly on to believe that the Athenians would certainly the national affinity by which the head was remain passive spectators of their inroads. united to the Dorian members of the confedAnd though all besides himself were impatient eracy, but still more on the conformity which to move, he would not yet take the decisive she established or maintained among all of step without making one attempt more to avert them, to her own oligarchical institutions. This its necessity. He'still cherished a faint hope was the only point in which she encroached on that the resolution of the Athenians might be the independence of any. Every state had a shaken by the prospect of the evils of war, which voice in the deliberations by which its interests were now so imminent, and he sent Melesippus might be affected; and if Sparta determined to sound their disposition. But the envoy was the amount of the contributions required by exnot able to obtain an audience from the people, traordinary occasions, she was obliged carefully nor so much as to enter the walls. A decree to adjust it to the ability of each community. had been made, at the instigation of Pericles, So far was she fiom enriching herself at the to receive no embassy from the Spartans while expense of the confederacy, that at the beginthey should be under arms. Melesippus was ning of the war there was, as we have seen, informed that, if his government wished to treat no common treasure belonging to it, and no with Athens, it must first recall its forces. He regular tribute for common purposes. But, to himself was ordered to quit Attica that very compensate for these defects, her power stood day, and persons were appointed to conduct-him on a more durable basis of good-will than that to the frontier, to prevent him from holdlnp tom- of Athens; and though in every state there munication with any one by the way. Or part- was a party attached to the Athenian interest ing with his conductors he exclaimed, This on political grounds, yet, on the whole, the day will be the beginning of great evils to Spartan cause was popular throughout Greece; Greece." and while Athens was forced to keep a jealous Such a prediction might well occur to any eye on all her subjects, and was in continual one who reflected on the nature of the two pow- fear of losing them, Sparta, secure of the loyalers which were now coming into conflict, and on ty of her own allies, could calmly watch for opthe great resources of both, which, though to- portunities of profiting by the disaffection of tally different in kind, were so evenly balanced, those of her rival. At home, indeed, her state that no human eye could perceive in which was far from sound, and the Athenians were scale victory hung; and the termination of the well aware of her vulnerable side; but, abroad, struggle could seem near only to one darkened and as chief of the Peloponnesian confederacy, by passion. The strength of Sparta, as was she presented the majestic and winning aspect implied in the observation of Sthenelaidas, lay of the champion of liberty against Athenian in the armies which she could collect from the tyranny and ambition; and hence she had imstates of her confederacy. The force which'portant advantages to hope from states which she could thus bring into the field is admitted were but remotely connected with her, and by Pericles, in one of the speeches ascribed to were quite beyond the reach of her arms. Many him by Thucydides, to be capable of making powerful cities in Italy and Sicily were thus inhead against any that could be raised by the duced to promise her their aid, and it was on united efforts of the rest of Greece. Within this she founded her chief expectations of formthe Isthmus her allies included all the states of ing a navy which might face that of Athens. Peloponnesus, except Achaia and Argos; and Her allies in this quarter engaged to furnish her the latter was bound to neutrality by a truce with money and ships, which, it was calculated, which still wanted several years of its term. would amount to no less than five hundred, Hence the great contest now beginning was though for the present it was agreed that they not improperly called the Peloponnesian war. should wear the mask of neutrality, and admit Beyond the Isthmus she was supported by Me- single Athenian vessels into their ports. But gara and Thebes, which drew the rest of Bceo- as she was conscious that she should be still tia along with it; and Attica would thus have deficient in the sinews of war, she already bebeen completely surrounded on the land side by gan to turn her eyes to the common enemy of hostile territories if Plattea and Oropus had not Greece, who was able abundantly to supply ilis been politically attached to it. The Locrians of want, and would probably be willing to lavish Opus, the Dorians of the mother-country, and his gold for the sake of ruining Athens, the obthe Phocians (though these last were secretly ject of his especial enmity and dread. more inclined to the Athenians, who had always The extent of the Athenian Empire cannot taken their part in their quarrels with Delphi, be so exactly computed. In the language o. the stanch friend of Sparta), were also on her the comic stage, it is said to comprehend thousand cities;* and it is difficult to estimate, * Thucydides does not mention the numbers of the army. Androtion (Schol. Soph., CEd. C., 697) states them to have amounted to 100,000; Plutarch (Per,, 33) to 60,000. * Ariatoph,, Vefp., 707, ATHENIAN EMPIRE. 331 what abatement ought to be made from this property of the state. lTo many of his hearers playful exaggeration. The subjects of Athens that which he required was a very painful sacwere in general more opulent than the allies of rifice. Many had been born, and had passed all Sparta, and their sovereign disposed of their their lives in the country; they were attached revenues at her pleasure. The only states to to it, not merely by the profit or the pleasure which she granted more than a nominal inde- of rural pursuits, but by domestic and religious pendence were some islands in the Western associations. For though the incorporation of Seas, Corcyra, Zacynthus, and Cephallenia; the Attic townships had for ages extinguished points of peculiar importance to her operations their political independence, it had not interand prospects in that quarter, though even there rupted their religious traditions, or effaced the she was more feared than loved. At the mo- peculiar features of their local worship; and ment of the revolt of Potidaea her empire had hence the Attic countryman clung to his deme reached its widest range, and her finances were with a fondness which he could not feel for the in the most flourishing condition; and at the great city. In the period of increasing prosoutbreak of the war her naval and military perity which had followed the Persian invasion, strength was at its greatest height. Pericles, the country had been cultivated and adorned as one of the ten regular generals, or ministers more assiduously than ever. All was now to of war, before the Peloponnesian army had be left or carried- away. Reluctantly they reached the frontier, held an assembly, in which. adopted the decree which Pericles proposed; he gave an exact account of the resources and, with heavy hearts, as if going into exile, which the republic had at her disposal. Her they quitted their native and hereditary seats. finances, besides the revenue which she drew If the rich man sighed to part from his elegant from a variety of sources, foreign and domestic, villa,* the husbandman still more deeply felt were nourished by the annual tribute of her al- the pang of being torn from his home, and of lies, which now amounted to 600 talents. Six abandoning his beloved fields, the scenes of his thousand, in money, still remaine.d in the treas- infancy, the holy places where his forefathers ury after the great expenditure incurred on ac- had worshipped, to the ravages of a merciless count of the public buildings and the siege of invader. All, however, was removed: the flocks Potidsea, before which the sum had amounted and cattle to Eubocea and other adjacent islto nearly ten thousand. But to this, Pericles ands; all besides that was portable, and even observed, must be added the gold and silver, the timber of the houses, into Athens, to which which, in various forms of offerings, ornaments, they themselves migrated with their families. and sacred utensils, enriched the temples or The city itself was not prepared for the sudpublic places, which he calculated at 500 tal- den influx of so many new inhabitants. A few ents, without reckoning the precious materials found shelter under the roofs of relatives or employed in the statues of the gods and heroes.. friends, but the greater part, on their arrival, The statue of Athen6 in the Parthenon alone found themselves houseless as~ well as homecontained forty talents weight of pure gold, in less. Some took refuge in such temples as the aegis, shield, and other appendages. If they were usually open; others occupied the towers should ever be reduced to the want of such a of the walls; others raised temporary hovels on supply, there could be no doubt that their tute- any vacant ground which they could find in the lary goddess would willingly part with her or- city, and even resorted for this purpose to a naments for their service, on condition that they site which had hitherto been guarded from all were replaced at the earliest opportunity. They such uses by policy, aided by a religious sanccould muster a force of 13,000 heavy-armed, tion. It was the place under the western wall besides those who were employed in their va- of the citadel, called, from the ancient builders rious garrisons, and in the defence of the city of the wall, the Pelasgicon: a' curse had been itself, with the long walls and the fortifications pronounced on any one who should tenant it, of its harbours, who amounted to 16,000 more; and men remembered some words of an oracle made up, indeed, partly of the resident aliens, which declared it better untrodden. The real and partly of citizens on either verge of the motive for the prohibition was probably the semilitary age.- The military force also included curity of the citadel; but all police seems to 1200 caval* and 1.600 bowmen, besides some have been suspended by the urgency of the ocwho were mounted; and they had 300 galleys casion. It was some time before the new in sailing condition. comers bethought themselves of spreading over After rousing the confidence of the Athe- the vacant space between the long walls, or of nians by this enumeration, Pericles urged them, descending to Pireeus. But this foretaste of without delay, to transport their families and the evils of war did not damp the general arall their movable property out of the enemy's dour, especially that of the youthful spirits, reach, and, as long as the war should last, to which began at Athens, as elsewhere, to be imlook upon the capital as their home. To en- patient of repose. Numberless oracles and precourage a patriotic spirit by his example, and at dictions were circulated, in which every one the same time to secure himself from imputa- found something that accorded with the tone tions to which he might be ised, either by of his feelings. Even those who had no definite the Spartan cunning, or by indiscreet dis- hopes, fears, or wishes, shared the excitement play of private friendship, he publicly declared, of men on the eve of a great crisis. The holy that if Archidamus, who was personally attach- island of Delos had been recently shaken by an ed to him by the ties of hospitality, should, ei- earthquake. It was forgotten, or was never ther from this motive, or in compliance with or- known out of Delos itself, that this had happenders which might be given in an opposite in- ed already, just before the first Persian invatention, exempt his lands from the ravages of war, they should, from that time, become the * Lsoor., Areop., c. 20. 332 HISTORY OF GREECE. sion.* It was deemed a portent, which signi- perhaps, to finish the war at a blow. For fled new and extraordinary events, and it was Acharnae was the most populous. and wealthy soon combined with other prodigies, which of the Attic townships; it numbered three tended to encourage similar forebodings. Such thousand citizens who served in the heavywas the state in which the Athenians awaited armed infantry: their voices, it might fairly be the advance of the Peloponnesian army. expected, would be loudly raised to induce the rest to go out with them, to rescue their property from the enemy; or, if this should not be done, they might be so offended or disheartened CHAPTER XX. as to take but little interest in the common cause. Thus, if the rashness of the Athenians FROM THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE PELOPONNESIAN did not expose them to a fatal defeat, their pruWAR TO THE END OF THE THIRD YEAR. dence might give rise to civil discord. AFTER the return of Melesippus, Archidamus Thucydides intimates that the tardiness with had no farther pretext for lingering at the Isth- which Archidamus advanced, at first induced mus, and he forthwith set forward on his march. -the Athenians to believe that Pericles was seBut instead of striking at once into the heart cretly tampering with him, and to hope that of Attica, or advancing along the seacoast into they should soon see themselves rid of the'enethe plain of Eleusis, he turned aside to the my as cheaply as they had been fourteen years north, and, crossing the territory of Megara, before of Pleistoanax. But when they beheld sat down before a little place called (Enoe, one of the richest districts of Attica, at so short which had been fortified and garrisonedto se- a distance from the city, laid waste, there was cure one of the passes of Citheeron between a general disposition to march out and defend Attica and Boeotia. The Spartans, and the it; and the Acharnians were as urgent as the Peloponnesians in general, had no skill in sieges, Spartan king expected. Few could bring themand did not value it. The fortress defied their selves to admit the necessity of remaining attacks, though they exhausted all the resources passive; and Pericles was angrily reproached of their military art. The army grew impatient for adhering to the advice which all had adopted of the delay, which frustrated its hopes of a while the enemy was at a distance. He, howrich booty, by giving the Attic husbandmen ever, continued immovable, and paid no heed to abundant leisure for placing all their movable the clamour which was raised against him, nor property in safety. Archidamus seems to have to the taunts of the comic stage, nor to the thought that his presence was more likely to prophecies which were circulated to second the work upon the fears of the Athenians before it wish of the multitude. He is said to have obwas felt, and while they might still hope to served, that trees cut down might shoot up keep their territory undamaged. But finding, again, but that men were not easily replaced. at length, that he was only losing his time, He would neither lead an army into the field, while he wearied and provoked his troops, he nor call an assembly to deliberate on the subabandoned his attempt upon CEnoe, and, march- ject. He only provided for the defence of the ing southward, entered the Thriasian plain, or walls, and, from time to time, sent out squathe district of Eleusis, where the corn was just drons of horse to protect the neighbourhood of ripe, and now began in earnest to give the Athe- the city. A body of cavalry had come from nians a sample of what they had to expect from Thessaly, according to the terms of the old a continuance of the war. He advanced slow- alliance subsisting between that country and ly, to leave the deeper traces; and, after de- Athens, each of the principal towns furnishing feating a body of Athenian cavalry in the neigh- its contingent, commanded by its own officers; bourhood of Eleusis, seeing no other enemy be- and with this aid the Athenians were able to fore him, proceeded across the' ridge of Cory- face the Bceotians, who were the strength of the dallus, leaving Mount.Agaleos on the right, to enemy's cavalry, and on one occasion would, perAcharnae, seven or eight miles north of Athens, haps, have put them to flight, if they had not been where he encamped, and made a long and de- supported by the advance of the infantry. This structive stay. His hope now was to provoke slight affair gave the Peloponnesians a pretext the Athenians to meet him in the field, and so, for a trophy. But Archidamus, fi~ing that he could not draw the Athenians into a general en-' * Voss (Mythologische Forschungen, p. 128) observes, gagement, and that his provisions were nearly "Henceforward (that is, after the legend about the fluctu- spent, broke up from Acharnae, and marching ation of the island, previous to the birth of Apollo and Ar- through the country, with desolation in his temis, had become current) it was believed that Delos could never be shaken even by an earthquake; and the common on to Oropus, returned home by the way people thought it a prodigy, when this happened in 01. 87, of Boeotia, and disbanded his forces. just before the Peloponnesian war, and even, as the Delians He had not quitted Attica before an Athenian gave out (Herod., vi., 98), already in 01. 72, before the first fleet of a hundred galleys, with a thousand men Persian invasion. The god, it was pretended, had shaken Delos, to signify the evils which impended over Greece in of arms and four hundred bowmen on board, set the reigns of Darius, Xerxes, and Artaxerxes, according to sail to retaliate upon Peloponnesus. They an oracle which ran, KLvioro Kao AXov, &Kivrdv rep koa were jined b ty Corcyrean ships, and by Delos itself will I move, my holy immovable island. So that were ned bty orcyrean ships, and by it was not before the reign of Artaxerxes that the Delians others from tA ame quarter, among which invented the story of their ominous earthquake.'It was some were manned by Messenians from Nauthe first and the last before my time,' wrote the credulous pactus. As they coasted the Argolic ac they Herodotus, before the Peloponnesian war broke out; and the ad he acit he forgot to correct this assertion in the additions which he ravaged it with fire and sword. The Laconian afterward made to his history. Whereas Thucydides did not territory was next similarly visited; but the consider the legend of the priests worth his notice." So far only memorable occurrence in this part of the Voss, whom we have quoted only that the reader might at t of an attempt to take the least see one way of reconciling the two historians, or of expedition arose ou explaining their contradiction of each other. town of Metlione on the western coast of Mes INVASION OF MEGARIS. 333 senia.* It was defeated through'the courage position which might threaten either Attica or and activity of a Spartan named Brasidas, who, Peloponnesus, and which it was thel efore exon this occasion, gave a specimen of the ener- pedient to intrust only to Athenian citizens; gy and ability which afterward rendered him but the satisfaction of a long hatred, and the one of the most conspicuous persons in this pe- desire of new possessions, were no less powerriod of Greek history. The place was slightly ful motives. The greater part of the unhappy fortified, and without any regular garrison; the outcasts found a home in Laconia, where the Athenians, informed, perhaps, of its weakness, government, grateful for their services in the made their approaches with careless confidence, last Messenian war, and hoping that they would and only with a part of their forces, while the be no less useful in guarding a debatable fronrest were scattered over the country. Brasidas, tier, assigned the town and territory of Thyrea, who was stationed with a small body of troops the ancient scene and prize of contest between in the neighbourhood, hearing of the danger, Sparta and Argos, for their habitation. came to the relief of Methone, with no more Towards autumn Pericles himself took the than a hundred heavy-armed; and taking the field with the whole disposable force of Athens, assailants in the rear by surprise, he cut his to wreak the popular resentment upon Megara, way through them with the loss of a few men, by ravages like those which Attica had suffer and threw himself into the town. The unex- ed, in part through her hostility. While the inpected succour infused such spirit into the be- vading army was in Megaris, it was joined by sieged, that they were'able to repel all the at- the troops just returned from the expedition tacks of the enemy, who betook themselves round Peloponnesus. During the warthe Atheagain to their ships. This exploit-the first of nians never again mustered so large a force as any note in the war-made Brasidas known to was thus assembled. The number of the heavyhis countrymen, and opened the way for his armed citizens amounted to 10,000, though 3000 subsequent achievements. were employed at Potidoea. To these were, On the coast of Elis, to which the Athenians added.3000 aliens, heavy-armed, and light innext proceeded, they were more successful. fantry in proportion. But the strength thus They landed near the isthmus which connects displayed was only exerted in unresisted de~vthe rocky peninsula called Icthys with the main- astation; and when this was completed, the land, close to the town of Pheia, ravaged the' invaders returned home. A clause in the decountry for two days, and defeated the first body cree cited by Plutarch, to which we have alof troops which was sent to protect it; and ready referred, made it a part of the oath taken when the fleet was forced to take shelter from by the generals on entering into office, that they a sudden gale in the port of Pheia, on the other would invade the Megarian territory twice a side of the isthmus, the Messenians, who had year; and, we learn from Thucydides that it was been left on shore with a few comrades, in the strictly observed.* hurry of the embarcation, made themselves The mind of Pericles appears-though his masters of Pheia itself, while the fleet was name is not mentioned-in a provident measure doubling the cape. But as the Eleans were which was adopted immediately after the denow coming up with their whole force, they parture of the Peloponnesian army from Attica. hastily re-embarked; and the armament, as Regulations were made, which were observed soon as the weather permitted, pursued its to the end of the war, for the defence of the course northward. The capture of Sollium, an coast and of the frontier; and at the same time Acarnanian town belonging to the Corinthians, a decree was passed to set apart a thousand which was transferred to the dominion of its talents from the sum then in the treasury, and neighbour Palaerus; the reduction of the Acar- to reserve a hundred of the best galleys in the nanian city of Astacus, and the expulsion of its navy every year; both money and ships to be tyrant Evarchus; and the submission of the employed in case the city itself should ever be island of Cephallenia, which now acceded with- attacked by a naval armament-the last of all out resistance to the Athenian alliance, were conceivable emergencies-but on no other octhe last fruits of this expedition. casion or pretext whatsoever. The appropriaWhile this great fleet was still at sea, a tion was guarded by the severest penalties squadron of thirty galleys was despatched into against the dangers of popular levity or evil the Eubcean channel to protect the coasts of counsel. If in any other case but the qne dethe island, which were infested by privateers scribed a proposition should ever be made to issuing from the opposite ports of Locris, and divert the fund and the vessels to any other purto take vengeance for the evils which they had pose, both the mover and the magistrate who already inflicted. The latter object was accom- should put it to the vote were to be punished plished by a series of descents on the Locrian with death. coast, in the course of which the invaders rout- In the course of the winter, while hostilities ed a body of Locrians, took Thronium, and car- were suspended by the season, the ancient tied away some hostages. The defence of Eu- usage of paying funeral honours to the citizens bcea was permanently provided for by the erec- who had falleirfor their country, afforded Perition of a fort on the desert isle of Atalante, cles-who was again called upon to display the which commands a view of the Opuntian shores. eloquence which had captivated the people on Early in the summer, the Athenians, consult- the like occasion'at the close of the Samian ing policy no less than revenge, had expelled war-an opportunity of animating the courage''he whole free population of AZgina, who, though and the hopes of his countrymen, and indirectby themselves no longer formidable, occupied a ly of vindicating the policy of his own administration. The custom was, that on the third day )r, as Thucydides would say (iv., 8', iv r7, Meo erav after the remains of the deceased had been exarrG ova~o ~ y; and therefore he here. (ii 25) calls it siny MO6*vlr TnS rAaKOVLKS. * iv., 66 334 HISTORY OF GREECE. posed in a pavilion erected for the purpose, to ing before the laws, abolished all privileges o' receive the separate tributes of domestic affec- birth and wealth, and admitted no distinctions tion, they were deposited in ten coffins of cy- but those of capacity and merit in the service press wood - one for each of the tribes - and of the state. Freedom, in private life, from all with a bier spread in honour of those whose unnecessary restraints on the tastes and purcorpses had not been found, were carried in suits of individuals, which were not jealously procession, on as many cars, to the public sep- watched —as at Sparta-but tempered by a genulchre in the Ceramicus, the fairest suburb of erous respect for the magistrates and the laws. the, city, where, since the Persian war, all who A succession of public spectacles, which, while had so fallen, except the heroes of Marathon, they honoureqe the gods, enlivened the aspect had been interred. The procession was attend- of the city, and diffused a general cheerfulness; ed by a long train of citizens and strangers, and a decent enjoyment of the luxuries which among whom the foremost place was occupied commerce drew from all parts of the world into by the mourning relatives, especially the wom- the port of Athens. A liberal intercourse with en, who took the chief part in the funeral wail- foreigners, who were not debarred, as by Sparings, and the sons of the slain, who were brought tan laws or edicts, from seeing and learning all up at the public expense till they reached the that might excite their curiosity, nor viewed military age, when they received each a full with suspicion as spies of state secrets; which suit of armour, in which they were exhibited at need not be so anxiously guarded where there the most frequented of the Dionysiac festivals is a consciousness of strength, and where men in the theatre, were honoured by solemn proc- rely more upon their courage than upon manceulamation with the front seat during the specta- vres and stratagems. A mode of education cle, ai.d were dismissed to the business of life which, though it cherished the martial spirit of with their co!ntry's benediction.* Such was the young —so that Athens, divided as her forthe assembly to which it was the duty of the ces were, could defy the united efforts of the appointed orator to address the language of con- Peloponnesian confederates, and could successsolation and encouragement. But as the public fully attack them on their own ground-did not s'ervice was the occasion of the ceremony, so subject them to a course of incessant toil and its chief end was the honour of the state. We hardship, which was not required either for dismay gather from the specimens which have cipline or valour. Elegant and simple tastes; been preserved of this kind of composition,t intellectual studies coupled with active purthat the merits of individuals were never noti- suits; the use of wealth without ostentation; ced, and that the general panegyric bestowed patience under poverty, which was held dison the deceased was so turned as to exalt the graceful only where it was the consequence of glory of the country which had given birth to sloth; an intelligent interest in the managesuch brave men, and had stimulated their valour ment of public affairs, widely diffused among all by numberless examples of ancient heroism. classes, and deemed essential to the character The praises of Athens were the main' topic of of a good citizen; habits of reflection and disevery funeral harangue. cussion, which prepared the mind for meeting On this occasion the historian Thucydides, every danger with discerning fortitude; a disthen in the prime of life, and already intent on position to conciliate friendship by disinterested collecting materials for his great work, was liberality. These were some of the advantages most probably among the by-standers. The which entitled Athens to be called the school speech was among the most celebrated compo- of Greece; which commonly enabled an Athesitions of Pericles, though Plato sarcastically nian to adapt himself more readily than other ascribed it to Aspasia. That which Thucyd- men to new circumstances, and to execute ides puts into his mouth may. be pretty safely whatever he undertook with peculiar ease and considered as representing the substance of the grace; which had opened the most distant seas one really pronounced with more than the his- and lands to the Athenian arms; had erected a torian's usual fidelity; and, among the topics it mighty empire, and ensured an immortal reembraces, there are some which belong to his- nown; and which made the country worthy of tory as much as any part of his narrative. all- the sacrifices that her sons could offer her. The mythical glories of the land —a copious Such, in the judgment of Pericles, or of Thil. theme with the later rhetoricians-seem to have cydides, was the fair side which Athens now been very slightly touched upon. What Athens presented. There was, however, a reverse, then was, and had become through the exer- with some very different features, which the tions of the existing generation, and the coun- orator did not wish to exhibit, but which the sels of the orator himself, furnished an equally historian displays in the events of his history. ample, and far more interesting subject. He Early in the following summer (B.C.- 430),will not even dwell on the martial achieve- Archidamus again entered Attica, with an army ments by which she had been raised to such a composed in the same proportions as that of pitch of greatness. He thinks it more impor- the last campaign. It seems to have been his tant to observe the- institutions, the manners, intention, in this inroad, to make up for the the national character, which were the true time which had been lost in the preceding one, foundation of her power. A constitution which, through the vain hope of intimidating the Athewhile it placed all the citizens on an equal foot- nians, and to.make them feel what they did not * 1E.Aschines, Ctes., p. 523, Bekk. sufficiently dread. After he had remained in t Among which the noble oration of Lysias-a worthy the plain, on the west and the north side ol the rival to that of Thucydides, and strangely undervalued by city, long enough to destroy the hopes of the Dahlmann, Forsch., p. 22-almost as far surpasses Plato's next harvest, the fruit-trees, the pride of the inuted the Menexenus, as this does the poor declamation attrib- Attic soil and the growth of many years, and uted to Demosthenes as deliverd over the slain of Chere ronea. all the works of human industry which were PLAGUE OF ATHENS. 335,oft in his way, le advanced along the maritime to aggravate its malignity, and to aid its deregion south of Athens, as far as the mining dis- structive power. According to the authors foltrict of Laurium, where, however, he could not lowed by Diodorus, an uncommonly wet winter have found time to do any serious damage; the had been followed by a singularly hot summer, miners might take refuge with their property in which was not tempered by the usual refreshAnaphlystus.* He then crossed over to the ment of the periodical winds.* WVe do not eastern coast, and continued his ravages as far know whether this statement is consistent with as the plain of Marathon. This he is said to the remark of Thucydides, that the season in have spared, not on account of the more recent which the pestilence broke out was more free recollections which might haveq.deared and from ordinary diseases than any in the memory hallowed it in the eyes of every patriotic Greek, of men. But whatever may have been the state but through respect for the old. tradition, which of the atmosphere, that of the men who breathrepresented it as the place where his ancestors, ed it was peculiarly adapted to widen the ravathe Heracleids, had found hospitable shelter, and ges of an epidemic. The multitude which had had vanquished the enemy of their race.t The migrated into the city the year before was now ancients themselves were not agreed whether swelled by a fresh throng driven in by the init was from a similar motive that he exempted vading army which was sweeping the country. the groves of the Academy from the general Dwellings were not easily to be found for this devastation — as consecrated to a heros who new population. The largest houses in Athens had aited the sons of Tyndareus in recovering were probably too small to lodge many guests. their sister-or whether he and his troops re- Some, perhaps, of the last comers, but ill screenspected the sanctity of the olive-trees,9 which, ed from the heat during the day, were exposed according to the Attic legend, had been planted without shelter to the unwholesome night air. here with slips taken from that which first But the stifling closeness of the temporary cabsprang up in the citadel at the bidding of Athe- ins, and the apartments in the towers, in which ne.ll The invaders remained forty days in At- the greater number of the strangers were pent tica-a term nearly sufficient to enable them to up, was more generally pernicious. The change carry their ravages into every corner; yet it of habits and of diet, which with many was was believed that their stay would have been probably both scanty and bad-even if there longer if the land had not, during the same time, was no ground for the opinion which attributed been visited by another scourge, still more hor- a preternatural ill quality to the fruits of the rible than war, and scarcely less appalling to yeart-tended to dispose their frames to rethe enemy which witnessed it than to the suf- ceive the contagion and to sink under the disferers themselves. ease; and the gloom and despondency-by which It was only a few days after they had entered their spirits must have been depressed from Attica that a pestilential disease began to make past losses and the unpromising condition of its appearance in Piraeus. The novelty of its their privatW affairs may have contributed to symptoms-for such epidemics seem to have the same efect. been then as rare as they have been familiar in The character of the sickness, as described modern times to the same countries-raised a by Thucydides, who himself experienced it, suspicion in the multitude that emissaries of does not coincide in all points with that of the the enemy had poisoned the water in the cis- modern plague. Some symptoms of the latter, terns;~ for wells had not yet been sunk in Pi- which in modern descriptions are most promiraeus. But, as it spread and reached the city, nent, he mentions very slightly, and in ambigand its victims rapidly multiplied, it soon be- uous terms, while he dwells much upon others, came evident that the art of man neither had which seem to have been peculiar to the Attic produced nor was able to overcome it. That it pestilence. His account of it is the history of took its rise in Nubia, and was propagated its progress, from the head, where it first showthrough Egypt and Western Asia to the 2Ege- ed itself. to the lower extremities of the body. an, was a report which Thucydides appears to The pain and inflammation of the head, redness adopt; and the place of its first outbreaking of the, eyes, foulness of the breath, and bloody in Attica indicates that the contagion came tinge of the tongue and throat, which accom from abroad. It may, nevertheless, have been panied it in its first stage, were followed, as it connected, as Niebuhr believed,** in some descended to the chest, by sneezing and hoarsemysterious way with the volcanic convulsions ness, and soon after byla hard cough. In the which were unusually frequent and violent region of the heart its presence was marked by about the same time, though Attica was but distressing qualms, discharges of tile, and a slightly affected by them-for the earthquakes convulsive hiccough. As it sank still lower, it felt at Athens are not said to have damaged in like manner disordered the intestines; and, any part of the city - and other regions of where it did not prove fatal, it frequently took Greece, which suffered much more from them, such a hold of the extremities as to deprive the do not appear to have been visited by the' pesti- patient of the use of them, while others lost lence. But at Athens many causes conspired their siglit from the violence of the first attack. The cutaneous eruptions are very slightly menSee Xenophon, De Vectig., iv., 43, 45. tioned, and only with reference to the appearAcademus, or Echedemus. Plut., Thes., 32. Schol. ance of the body, not to any painful sensationt. Aristoph., Nub., 992. ~ Called poplat, from the fate (d6poe) of HIalirrhothius, * xii., 58. t Diodor., xii., 58. son of Poseidon, who attempted to cut down the original t On the other hand, Cantacuzenus, in his description of tree, but mortally wounded himself with his own hatchet. the plague of 1347 (Hist.,' iv., 8), though he servilely imilI See p. 265. This is the account given by Philochorus tates Thucydides, dwells much on the various tokens, and and Androtion in the Scholiast on Sophocles, CEd. C., 697. particularly on the appearance and treatment of the imposI~ The same suspicion fell upon the Jews in the plague of ttunes (caoiTraaet). See also Colletta's description of the 1348. ** Vol. ii., p. 273 plague at Noja in 1816. Storia di Napoli, libr.'riii., c 18. 336 HISTORY OF GREECE. That which he describes most feelingly'is the as the dispensers of temporal good and evil, was burning inward heat, which rendered even the universally relaxed by the calamity which fell slightest covering insupportable, the unquench- indiscriminately upon the best and the worst.* able thirst, the continual restlessness, which There seems to have been as little of the spirit banished sleep. Delirium is not said to have of benevolence among individuals, as of parentaccompanied any stage of the disorder; but al solicitude on the partof the state. The only those who recovered sometimes lost their mem- exceptions to the general all-engrossing selfishory and consciousness. They were, however, ness which are mentioned by Thucydides were seldom attacked a second time, and never in so some persons of extraordinary generosity, who malignant, a form. Most of those who died -as he says~from a sense of honour-ventured were carried off on the seventh or the ninth their lives to attend upon their sick friends. A day. All other maladies terminated in this, striking contrast to the sublime charity w.hich which appeared to prey equally upon the robust has made.the plagues of Milan and of Marseilles and the infirm. No remedies showed more than bright spots in the history of religion and hufallacious signs of partial success; and the de- manity. spondency which seized the patient with the Under these circumstances, Pericles had, perfirst symptoms, as it made him hopeless of re- haps, less difficulty than he would otherwise lief, made him careless about the means of have found in maintaining the cautious policy of counteracting the evil. the last year. But he again soothed the public The general aspect of the city was, perhaps, mind by an expedition against Pelopohnesus, more hideous and frightful than that of modern which he commanded in person. A fleet of 100 cities afflicted by a like calamity. Thucydides galleys, with 4000 heavy-armed Athenians on does n6t mention any precautions taken by pub- board, was joined by 50 from Chios and Lesbos; lic authority to prevent the spreading of the in- and 300 horse were embarked in transports, fection. And though such precautions are al- now for the first time formed out of old ships. ways partially eluded, their entire absence must With this force, while the enemy was still ravyhave cost many lives, as well as have filled the aging Attica, he sailed to the coast of Epidaucity with horrible spectacles. Not only the rus, wasted the greater part of its territory, streets and public places, but the sanctuaries, and made an unsuccessful attack upon the town. which had been occupied for shelter, were strew- He then slowly coasted the Acte, ravaging the ed with corpses, which, when, as frequently hap- fields of Trcezen, Haliae, and Hermione. Then pened, no friendly hand could be found to burn crossing over to the coast of Laconia, he stormthem, seem to have been suffered to lie. And ed the town of Prasiae, and gratified his troops it was observed that neither dogs nor carrion with the plunder, and with the spoil of its terribirds would touch them, and that the latter were tory. But here his operations seem to have not to be seen in the city so long as the pesti- been stopped by the pestilence, which raged in lence lasted. Another consequence of this neg- the fleet as in the city, and he returned soon lect was, that acts of violence wte frequently after the Peloponnesian army had quitted Atticommitted by the relatives of the deceased, who ca. Yet, in the hope of overpowering the tedihad not the means of paying them the last offi- ous and expensive resistance of Potidaea by a ces of piety. The funeral pile which had been strong re-enforcement of the besieging army, raised for one was pre-occupied by the friends'two of his colleagues, Hagnon and Cleopompus, of another; or a strange corpse would be thrown were ordered to sail thither with the troops upon a pile already burning. But still more whichhe had brought back. Phormio, with the dreadful was the sight of the living sufferers, forces under his command, had already left who, goaded by their inward fever and quench- Chalcidic6. The two generals, on their arrival, less thirst, rushed naked out of their dwellings prosecuted the siege with great vigour; but all in search of water, less that they might drink, their attacks were repulsed; and the disease than that they might plunge into it, and thus which they had brought from home in the fleet relieve themselves from both their torments at spread over the camp, which had hitherto been once. Hence the wells and cisterns were al- free from it. After it had carried off 1050 men ways surrounded by a crowd of wretches, strug- out of the 4000 in forty days, they sailed away gling, or dying, or dead. * with the remainder, leaving the same force The moral consequences of the plague of Ath- which they had found there, but now enfeebled ens were in many respects similar to those by sickness, to continue the blockade of the which have been always witnessed on such oc- town. casions, and which have been so vividly de- These sufferings and losses began to make scribed by Boccacio, Manzoni, and De Foe. the people impatient of the war, and angry with The passions of men were freed from the usual its author, and the enemies of Pericles were restraints of law, custom, and conscience, and not backward in taking advantage of this turn their characters unfolded without reserve or in the public mind. They prevailed so far that disguise. The urgency of the common danger, an emfnbassy was sent to Sparta with proposals as it seemed to interrupt all prospects of hon- of peace, which were rejected, as prompted by ourable industry and ambition, and to reduce weakness and fear. This repulse only increasthe whole value of life to the enjoyment of the ed the general irritation, and Pericles thought passing hour, operated as an assurance of im- it necessary to convene an assembly, and to punity to encourage the perpetration of every try the power of his eloquence in cheering and crime. But at Athens, when the sanctions of soothing the people. He exhorted his hearers human laws had lost their terrors, there were * Cantacuzenus (u. s.) exhibits only the reverse-a genno restraints, for the multitude, at least, suffi- eral increase of piety and virtue. Yet it seems from the cient to supply their place. The moral influ- last words of his description (ei TO,drvv evtidroc rEs, Kai ence of a religion, which regarded the gods only dIOcPMsctWc -t v U4Xi') that, if he had thought proper, he could have told of some exceptions. INVASION OF PLATAEA. 337 not to let their doinestic calamities either damp priveg of it by the set tence whlich condemned their zeal for the service of the commonwealth, him. Thucydides only says that he was fined: or shake their confidence in its strength. ~ He the amount of the penalty was variously stated expostulated with them on the injustice of the by other authors, perhaps gradually exaggeradispleasure which he had incurred, and appealed ted from 15 to 50, and even to 80 talents. Th, to their own sense of his ability, patriotism, name of Cleon, soon to become infamously noand' integrity. Nothing had yet happened to torious, appears among his prosecutors, as bechange his opinion as to the necessity and ex- fore among his most clamorous opponents. pediency of the war; nor ought they to let their But when the popular discontent, which had sober convictions be unsettled by their private been blindly irritated by the misery of the times, misfortunes, or by an unforeseen disaster, but had thus vented itself on the most conspicuous to show themselves worthy of the greatness of object, reason resumed its sway, and Pericles their country, by forgetting their own sufferings recovered his habitual ascendency. He was rein their anxiety. for its honour and welfare. stored to his office, or, rather, it would seem, Far from retracting the assurances of success elected in due course among the generals for with which he had encouraged them to enter the ensuing year. into the war, he thought he had underrated In the following winter the garrison of Potitheir resources. He might have reminded them daea, hopeless of relief, since they found that that, as the sea was all their own, their empire the invasion of Attica did not, as they had exwas not confined to the territories of their pres- pected, draw off the besieging forces, and reduent subjects, but might be extended in any ced to the last extremity of famine, the use of quarter to which' they saw fit to turn their human flesh, proposed capitulation to the Athearms. Compared with this unbounded range, nian commanders, Xenophon, son of Euripides, Attica itself ought to be no more valued than a Hestiodorus, and Phanomachus. The siege had little flower-plot, the superfluous ornament of a already cost 2000 talents. The camp was suflich man's estate. All they had lost might fering, and had still more to apprehend from soon be recovered, if they only preserved their thy rigour of the winter. Perhaps the generindependence, without which no possession als were not acquainted with the condition of could be long secure. The confidence with the besieged. They therefore granted very fawhich they had begun the war was no vain vourable terms; the garrison and all the inpresumption, but grounded on a clear conscious- habitants to be allowed to quit the place, and ness of their own superiority in forethought and proceed to what quarter they would, with a presence of mind. The lofty.eminence on fixed sum of money for the journey, and the which their country stood, and in which every women with a change of apparel. But at home citizen felt an honest pride, was naturally ex- the generals were reprimanded for having acted posed to envy and hatred, and could not be without consulting the people; the more semaintained without great efforts and sacrifices. verely, as it was discovered that they might But however hard it might be to keep, they probably have forced the garrison to surrender could not now descend from it with safety. They at discretion. A colony of a thousand Athenihad no choice but between empire and glory on ans was sent to occupy the lands and houses or the one hand, and on the other a yoke, galling the expelled Potidreans. as that which they had laid on their subjects, In the beginning of the next summer (B.C. for they ought not to deceive themselves as to 429), a Peloponnesian army was again assemthe real character of the dominion which they bled at the Isthmus, under the command of Arexercised. It was a kind of tyranny; there chidamus. But, instead of invading Attica, might be wrong in the getting, but there was which was perhaps thought dangerous on acdanger in parting with it. Let them not dream count of the pestilence, he gratified the wishes of security in an inglorious, unambitious; un- of the Thebans by marching into the territory molested repose. Those who suggested such of Platiea, where he encamped, and prepared to thoughts were the most pernicious of counsel- lay it waste; but, before he had committed any lors. The enemy's invasion was a consequence acts of hostility, envoys from Platmea demanded which they foresaw when they resolved upon an audience, and, being admitted, made a solthe war; the pestilence an unexpected addition emn remonstrance against his proceedings in to its evils, which, he was aware, had some- the name of religion. They reminded the Sparwhat biased their feelings against him, but with tans that, after the glorious battle which secured as little reason as he could claim the merit the liberty of Greece, Pausanias, in the presof any sudden stroke of prosperous fortune. ence of the allied army, and in the public place Let them imitate the virtue of their fathers, of Plataeea, where he had just offered a sacrifice who owed their imperishable renown to the in honour of the victory, formally reinstated the ~onstancy with which they had faced misfor- Plataeans in the independent possession of their unes, hardships, and dangers; and, laying aside city and territory, which he placed under the all thoughts of a dishonourable peace, let them protection of all the allies, with whom they had present a bold countenance to the enemy, and shared the common triumph, to defend them patiently endure the calamity sent by the gods. from unjust aggression. They complained that The people was convinced, but not satisfied. the Spartans were now about to violate this No farther attempt was made at negotiation; well-earned privilege, which had been secured but the enemies of Pericles believed that they to Platwea by solemn oaths, at the instigation of might overthrow him, though they could not re- her bitterest enemies, the Thebans; and they verse his measures. He was brought to trial, adjured him, by the gods who had been invoked probably at the expiration of his officif gen- to witness the engagement of Pausanias, as eral, and on charges connected with it;hough well as by those of Sparta and of their violated Plutarch and Diodorus relate that he was de- territory, to desist from his enterprise. Ar. VOL. I.-U U 338 HISTORY OF GREECE. chidamus, in reply, admitted the claim of the out just cause, but after tile Plataeans had first Plateans, but desired them to reflect that the abandoned their ancient confederates; and that, rights on which they insisted implied some cor- whatever they might hereafter suffer, would be responding duties; that, if the Spartans were a merited punishment of the perverseness with pledged to protect their independence, they which they had rejected his equitable offers. were themselves no less bound to assist the Religion being thus satisfied, he bent all his Spartans in delivering those who had once been thoughts on the object of the expedition. their allies in the struggle with Persia, from His first operation, after ravaging the counthe tyranny of Athens. Yet Sparta, as she had try, was to invest the city with a palisade, for already declared, did not wish to force them to which the fruit-trees cut (down by his troops take a part in the war which she was waging furnished materials. This slight enclosure was for the liberties of Greece, but would be satis- sufficient for his purpose, as he hoped that the fled if they would remain neutral, and would overwhelming superiority of his numbers would admit both parties alike to amicable intercourse, enable him to take the place, by storm. The Without aiding either. The envoys returned mode of attack which he chiefly relied upon with this answer, and, after laying it before the was the same' which we have seen employed people, came back, instructed to reply, that it bythe Persians against the Ionian cities.* He was impossible for them to accede to the pro- attempted to raise a mound to a level with the posal of Archidamus without the consent of the walls. It was piled up with earth and rubbish, Athenians, who had their wives and children in wood and' stones, and was guarded on either their hands; and they should have reason to side by a strong lattice-work of forest timber,. fear either the resentment of their present al- the growth of Cithaeron. For seventy days and lies, who, on the retreat of the Spartans, might seventy nights the troops, divided into parties come and deprive them of their city, or the which constantly relieved each other, were octreachery of the Thebans, who, under the cover cupied in this labour without intermission, urged of neutrality, might find another opportunity of to their tasks by the Lacedaemonians, who comsurprising them. But the Spartan, without to- manded the contingents of the allies. But, as ticing the ties that bound them to Athens, met the mound rose, the besieged devised various the last ohjection with a: new offer: " Let them expedients for averting the danger. First, they.commit their city, houses, and lands, to the surmounted the opposite part of their wall with custody of the Spartans, with an exact account a superstructure of brick-taken from the adjaof the boundaries, the number of their trees, cent houses, which were pulled down for the and all other things left behind which it was purpose —secured in a frame of timber, and possible to number; let them withdraw, and shielded from fiery missiles by a curtain of raw live elsewhere until the end of the war. The hides and skins, which protected the workmen Spartans would then restore the deposite in- and their work; but as the mound still kept trusted to them, and, in the mean while, would rising as fast as the wall, they set about contriprovide for the cultivation of the land, and ving plans for reducing it. And, first, issuing would pay a fair rent to the owners." It is by night through an opening made in the wall, possible that this proposal may have been hon- they scooped out and carried away large quanestly meant, though it is as likely that it was tities of the earth from the lower part of the suggested by the malice of the Thebans; for it mound. But the Peloponnesians, on discoverwas evident that the Plataeans could not accept ing this device, counteracted it by repairing the it without renouncing the friendship of the breach with layers of stiff clay, pressed down Athenians, to whom they had committed their close on wattles of reed. Thus baffled, the befamilies, and in the most favourable contingen- besieged sunk a shaft within the walls, and cy, which would be the fall of their old ally, thence, working upon a rough estimate, dug a casting themselves upon the honour of an ene- passage underground as far as the mound, which my for their political existence, while, never- they were thus enabled to undermine. And theless, the speciously liberal offer, if rejected, against this contrivance the enemy had no remwould afford a pretext for treating them with edy, except in the multitude of hands, which the utmost rigour. This the Plataeans probably repaired the loss almost as soon as it was felt. perceived; and, therefore, when their envoys But'the garrison, fearing that they should not returned with the proposal of the Spartans, re- be able to struggle long with this disadvantage, quested an armistice, that they might lay it be- and that their wall would at length be carried fore the Athenians, promising to accept it if by force of numbers, provided against this event they could obtain their consent. Archidamus by building a second wall, in the shape of a halfgranted their request; but the answer brought moon, behind the raised part of the old wall, from Athens put an end, as might have been which was the chord of the arc. Thus, in the expected, to the negotiation. It exhorted them worst emergency, they secured themselves a to keep their faith with their ally, and to de- retreat, from which they would be able to assail pend upon Athenian protection. Thus urged the enemy to great advantage, and he would and imboldened, they resolved, whatever might have to recommence his work under the most unbefall them, to adhere to the side of Athens, favourable circumstances. This countermure and to break off all parley with the enemy by a drove the besiegers to their last resources. short answer, delivered, not through envoys, They had already brought battering engines to but from the walls, that it was out of their play upon the walls; but the spirit and ingenupower to do as the Spartans desired. Archida- ity of the besieged had generally baffled these mus, on receiving this declaration, prepared for assaults, though one had given an alarming attacking the city; but, first, with great solem- shooekithe superstructure in front of the halfnity, he called upon the gods and heroes of the moon.- Sometimes the head of an engine was land to witness that he had not invaded it with- P. 224. SIEGE OF PLATLEA.-OPERATIONS IN ACARNANIA. 339 caught up by means of a noose; sometimes it nexion with Athens had arisen out of a quarrel was broken off by a heavy beam, suspended by between the Corinthian colony of Ambracia chains from two levers placed on the wall. and the town of Argos on the Ambracian Gulf, Now, however, after the main hope of the Pel- which, from the hero Amphilochus, son of the oponnesians, which rested on their mound, was Argive prophet Amphiaraus, who was revered completely defeated by the countermure, Ar- as its founder, took the epithet of the Amphilochidamus resolved to try a last extraordinary chian, as the whole territory in which it stood, experiment. He caused the hollow betWben which was inhabited by a people of the same the mound and the wall, and all the space which race, was called Amphilochia. Notwithstandhe could reach on the other side, to be filled up ing the legend which explained their name, the with a pile of fagots, which, when it had been Amphilochians were barbarians. Those of Arsteeped in pitch and sulphur, was set on fire. gos, weakened and distressed by calamities of The blaze was such as had perhaps never be- which we have no more precise account, invifore been kindled by the art of man: Thucydi- ted a body of new settlers from Ambracia, and des compares it to a burning forest. It pene- in time acquired the Greek language. Yet the trated to a great distance within the city;. and union never became complete; and the Ambraif it had been seconded, as the-besiegers hoped, cians, with a perfidy of which we have too by a favourable wind, would probably have de- many instances in the history of the Greek colstroyed it. The alarm and confusion which it onies, turned their hosts out of doors and made caused for a time in the garrison were great; a the city their own. The outcasts placed themlarge tract of the city was inaccessible; yet it selves under the protection of the Acarnanians does not appear that Archidamus made any at- as their subjects; but, still deeming their unitempt to take advantage of their consternation ted strength insufficient for the recovery of the and disorder. He waited; but the expected city, both applied for aid to Athens, which willbreeze did not come to spread the flames, and ingly sent a squadron, under Phormio, to co-according to a report which the historian operate with them. Thus re-enforced, they mentions, but does not vouch for-a sudden stormed Argos and reduced the Ambracian setstorm of thunder and rain arose to quench them. tlers to slavery. A mixed population of Amphi-. Thus thwarted and disheartened, and per-. ochians and Acarnanians occupied their place. haps unable to keep the whole of his army any Henceforward the Acarnanians became allies longer in the camp, he reluctantly determined of Athens; the Ambracians mortal enemies to to convert the siege into a blockade, which, it the Amphilochian Argives. was foreseen, would be tedious and expensive. The Athenians, as we have formerly seen, had A part of the troops were immediately sent strengthened their interest in Acarnania by exhome; the remainder set about the work of pelling the tyrant Evarchus from Astacus in the circumvallation, which was apportioned to the first summer of the war. In the following wincontingents of the confederates. Two ditches ter he was reinstated by a Corinthian armawere dug round the town, and yielded mate- ment, which afterward attempted to reduce rials for a double line of walls, which were some other towns on the Acarnanian coast, but built in the intermediate space on the edge of without success; and on its passage homeward each trench. The walls were sixteen feet the troops, having been landed in Cephallenia, asunder; but the interval was occupied with were defeated, with some loss, through the barracks for the soldiers, so that the whole treachery of the natives, which, however, promight be said to form one wall. At the dis- ved that they had no wish to abandon the Athetance of ten battlements from each other were nian cause. Equal fidelity was displayed by large towers, which covered the whole breadth Zacynthus, when, in the next summer, it was of the rampart. At the autumnal equinox the invaded by a Peloponnesian fleet of 100 gal. lines were completed, and were left, one half leys, with 1000 heavy-armed Lacedaemoniarns in the custody of the Boeotians, the other in on board, under command of Cnemus, the that of their allies.' The troops who were not Spartan navarch, or high admiral. He ravaged needed for this service were then led back to a great part of the fertile island; but the intheir homes. The garrison of the place at this habitants, who were chiefly of'Achaeanr blood, time consisted of 400 Plataeans and 80 Athe- and hence ill disposed towards the Spartans, nians; to the latter we may probably attribute were not to be forced or terrified into submisthe greatest share in the skill and presence of sion. Later in the same year (430) Acarnania mind which were displayed in the defence of was threatened with invasion by an army in the town'. A hundred and ten women had been which the Ambracians, with their own troops, retained, when all the useless hands were sent had engaged a body of Chaonians and other to Athens, to minister to the wants of the men. barbarians of the neighbouring regions of EpiIn this state Plataea awaited the work of time rus. But the first object of the invaders was and the chances of the war.' the reduction of Argos; and here, though they While the siege was proceeding, the Spar- met with no resistance in the field, they were tans engaged in another expedition, with the baffled in all their attacks upon the town, and'view of shutting out the Athenians from the were compelled to return home. western seas, by crushing or terrifying all their The danger to which their allies in the west allies on that side of Greece. Among these were -exposed led the Athenians, in the course the Acarnanians, from their power and posi- of the following winter, to send Phormio, with tion, were the, most important.* Their con- a squadron of twenty galleys, to Naupactus, * It is proper to apprize the reader that we have not.... thought ourselves bound to follow the order of Thucydides, in a modern narrative of the same events. We have, therewhich, though suitable for a contemporary history, and, fore, endeavoured as much as possible to bring together the therefore, in his work not deserving the censure of Diony- transactionA of suoceqsive years relating to the some politis sius (ad PomD., 13), can only perplex and weary the reader cal object, 340 HISTORY OF GREECE. where he was to guard the entrance of the Co- were reputed the most warlike of their tribes, rinthian Gulf, and as well to prevent the pas- and who, confident in their own prowess, hoped, sage of all Corinthian vessels as of all bound without the trouble of encamping, and before for Corinth and other hostile ports. He was the Greeks came up, to carry the place at the still on this station in the summer of 429, when first assault. The Stratians, informed of their the Ambracians, with their barbarian allies, disorderly approach, laid an ambush near the concerted a new expedition, to be directed, not walls, and, sallying forth to meet them, attackas the former, against Argos, but against the ed'them in front, while their troops in the amheart of Acarnania. To ensure its success, buscade took them in the flanks. A great they prevailed on the Spartans to co-operate slaughter was made among the Chaonians; with them by sea and land, holding out the and the other barbarians, seeing them routed, prospect that the subjugation of Acarnania fled without stopping till they had rejoined would be followed by that of Zacynthus and their Greek allies, who, on hearing of the disCephallenia, perhaps by the fall of the hated aster, halted and united their separate columns Naupactus, and thus the western seas would into one corps. The Stratians, who had not become almost inaccessible to the Athenian yet received any re-enforcement, were not arms. Corinth warmly entered into the views strong enough to attack them in close combat; of her colony, and promised active assistance. but their light troops galled them with their The plan of the campaign was, that a Pelopon- missiles-a species of warfare in which the nesian fleet should sail to Leucas, and, being Acarnanians excelled-and harassed them so there joined by the squadrons of Leucas, Anac- that Cnemus took advantage of the night to retorium, and Ambracia; should strike such ter-. treat to the banks of the Anapus, ten miles from ror into the maritime towns of Acarnania as Stratus. Here he obtained leave of the victors might prevent them from sending succours to to fetch away his dead, and then marched off their brethren of the interior against the force to (Eniadw, whichhad sent some troops to join which was to invade them by land. Before the him, and disbanded his army. He himself profleet which was to sail from Corinth was yet in ceeded to Leucas. readiness, the Spartans despatched their admi- In the mean while, the Peloponnesian fleet, ral, Cnemus, with 1000 men of arms, in a fe the terror of which had prevented the Acarnagalleys, to Leucas. He arrived there safe, hay- nians from uniting their forces for the relief of ing escaped Phormio's notice, and found the Stratus, and thus, perhaps, had saved Cnemus squadrons of the northern allies assembled; and his army from destruction, hat to encounbut, as the fleet from Corinth had not yet join- ter an unexpected hinderance. As it advanced ed them, he forthwith put himself at the head along the coast of Achaia, it was watched by of the army collected for the invasion of Acar- Phormio, who, however, did not attempt to imnania. It consisted, besides the Greek troops pede its progress until it had passed through — those which he had brought, and those of the mouth of the gulf, and had reached Patrw, Leucas, Anactorium, and Ambracia-of barba- whence it was to cross over to the coast of rians, drawn, probably by the hope of booty, Acarnania. The commanders could not at first from the tribes of Epirus and of the central believe that it was Phormio's intention, with highlands: Chaonians, Thesprotians, Molossi- his twenty galleys, to attack them, who numans, Atintanians, Paravaeans, and Orestians; bered seven-and-forty; and even when they some led by their native princes; the Cha- saw him observing and following their moveonians, who, like the Thesprotians, had no ments, they were not convinced of his purpose king, but two chiefs of a privileged race, hold- until they had put out to sea from Patrn in the ing a yearly command. Perdiccas of Macedon, night, and saw the Athenians the next morning though, through causes which will shortly be coming to meet them from the mouth of the explained, he was now nominally in amity with Evenus. As they had not looked for a seaAthens, secretly sent 1000 men to join the ex- fight, their ships were not in fit condition for pedition, who, however, arrived too late. With one, but were encumbered with soldiers for this force, the precise amount of which is nbt the invasion of Acarnania. But seeing that an stated, Cnemus marched against Stratus, the engagement was inevitable, they prepared to principal city of Acarnania. receive the enemy's attack. They ranged their The Acarnanians, threatened at once by land ships in a circle, the largest which they could and sea, were unable to unite their forces, and form without leaving any opening, the sterns sent to beg succours from Phormio; but while turned inward. Within they placed all the nthe enemy's fleet was expected from Corinth small craft which accompanied them; and five he could not leave his station without risk of of their best sailers, to move as occasion might losing Naupactus. Thus Stratus was left to its require. The Athenians advanced in a kingle own means of defence. The invaders advan- line, and as they made the round of the circle ced in three divisions: the Chaonians and the with threatening demonstrations, gradually rerest of the barbarians in the centre; the Leu- duced it to a narrow compass. But Phormio cadians and Anactorians on the right; the Am- had ordered that none of his ships should begin bracians and the Peloponnesian troops, with the attack until he gave the signal. He foreCnemus himself, on the left. The three divis- saw that the enemy would not be'able long to ions marched so far apart as to be sometimes preserve his order, and that the ships and boats out of each other's sight. The Greeks advan- would run foul of one another; and he expectced in order, taking their usual precautions to, ed that a wind, which commonly blew out of avoid a surprise, until they should have found the gulf about sunrise, would complete their a position near the city. suitable for an encamp- confusion. All turned out as he calculated. ment. But the barbarians were led forward As the breeze got up, the Peloponnesian galwith blind impetuosity by the Chaonians, who leys, straitened in their room, were driveu OPERATIONS OF PHORMIO. 341 against one another; from the various acci- a view to operations on shore, but for naval acdents that ensued anuproar arose, which drown- tion; and had sailed to the Achaean port of ed every word of command; the rowers, from Panormus, just within the Corinthian Gulf, want of practice, were unable to use their oars where a land force had been previously assemin the swell of the sea, and the galleys no lon- bled. -Phormio, on the other hand, moved with ger obeyed the rudder. In the midst of this dis- his twenty ships out of the gulf; and stationed order, Phormio gave the signal for attack. The himself on the western side of the northern enemy could offer no resistance; all who were Rhion, while the enemy was drawn up a little not sunk in the first onset took to flight; the to the east of the opposite point, not far from Athenians gave chase and captured twelve gal- Panormus. The channel between the two leys, with the greater part of the crews. Those points is not quite a mile broad. The Peloponwhich escaped proceeded to the Elean arsenal nesians, schooled by their recent disaster, were of Cyllene, where they were joined by Cnemus, resolved not to venture out into the open sea. who brought with him the squadron which had Phormio, who saw no chance of victory or of been assembled at Leucus. Phormio carried safety except in ample sea-room, was equally his prizes into the harbour of Molycrium, and determined to avoid entangling himself in the after raising a trophy on the nearest Rhion (as straits; and in this position the two parties reeach of the two points at the mouth of the gulf mained, manoeuvring and practising their men was called), and dedicating one of the captured for six or seven days. But now the Spartan vessels to Poseidon, he returned to Naupactus. commanders, fearing the arrival of a re-enforce- The news of so great a victory, gained by the ment from Athens, resolved to:bring the enemy enemy in spite of so vast an inequality of num- to an engagement without farther delay. Yet bers, was received in Sparta not so much with they found their men so cowed by the rememsurprise as with indignation; for it seemed cer- brance of the late defeat, that they thought tain that it must have been owing to some mis- proper first to assemble and cheer them by such conduct of the Peloponnesian commanders. arguments as the case supplied. It seems to The inexperience of the Spartans in nautical have been held as indisputable, that the success matters was such, that they could not even con- which generally attended the Peloponnesian ceive tMe full extent of the advantage afforded arms by land was the result of superior courby superior skill; they therefore sent three of age; and, building on this ground, the orators their citizens, Timocrates, Brasidas, the hero could persuade their hearers that the loss of the of Methone, and Lycophron, as counsellors or first battle was to be ascribed, partly to the colleagues to their admiral, with instructions want of due preparation, partly to mischances, angrily worded, to prepare for fighting a second' partly to the imperfection of their nautical skill. battle better, and not to let himself be driven But now that their inherent superiority in val-'off the sea by a few ships. On their arrival at our would be sustained by a preponderance of Cyllene, these commissioners, with Cnemus, force, by the most judicious precautions, and applied themselves to the refitting of the ships by increased experience-the more valuable engaged in the last action, and to the procuring because dearly bought-they might safely true of re-enforcements from the allies. Phormio, that their new commanders would lead them to aware of.these preparations, sent despatches to victory. Phormio, on his side, did not want Athens to announce his' victory, and the en- topics for animating his people; he had often emy's preparations, and to request that as large told them that no force could be brought against a force as could be spared might be ordered to them which they were not able to face; and, join him immediately, as he expected a battle especially after their last achievement, they from day to day. But through some strange were possessed with the belief that no Peloinfatuation, his request was treated. with as ponnesian fleet, however it might outnumber, much neglect as if either little had been done, could overpower them. Yet, when they saw or there was little to fear; and the weightiest the great armament with which they were now interests of the commonwealth were postponed about to contend, their courage began to sink, to an object in which it had, at the utmost, but and Phormrio's rhetoric was needed to revive it. a very remote concern. Only twenty galleys He endeavoured to persuade them that the enwere sent to support Phormio against the whole emy had no better ground of confidence than strength of the Peloponnesian navy; and even the advantage which experience gave him in this little re-enforcement was delayed till it be- land battles, which was of no avail at sea; that came useless. A Cretan of Gortys, named Ni- he betrayed his own misgivings by the pains he cias, allied by hospitable ties to the state,* had.taken to secure so great a superiority of found means of prevailing on the people to let numbers; and would be more dismayed when him employ this squadron in his own island he found that it did not daunt the Athenians, against Cydonia, to which he was hostile from than disposed to use it with effect. He added private motives, and which he promised to re- that it should be his care to avoid fighting in a duce under the power of Athens. The Cydo- space too narrow for those evolutions in which nians, however, suffered no harm but the rav- they excelled, and that to this end he meant to aging of their territory; but the squadron was keep outside the gulf. long detained by contrary winds on the coast of But he had to deal with an enemy who knew Crete, and lost the opportunity of an important that he might be forced to abandon this resoluservice. tion. At daybreak the Peloponnesian fleet was For in the mean while the Peloponnesians seen moving eastward along the shore, the right had equipped a new and formidable fleet of wing taking the lead, in a column of four ships seventy-seven galleys, not, like the former, with abreast. The object of this manceuvre was to threaten Naupactus,.and thus to draw PhorIPdps6voS. A kind of voluntary consul. mio round the Molycrian point, and then, sad 342- HISTORY OF GREECE. denly facing about, to coop him in, and capture of Naupactus. After this discomfiture the Pel the whole squadron. But to provide against oponnesian commanders, dreading the appearthe contingency by which some of his ships ance of a fresh squadron from Athens, stole might get the start of their assailants, and make away in the night, and with their whole force, their escape to Naupactus, twenty of the best except the Leucadian contingent, made for Cosailers in the Peloponnesian fleet were placed rinth. in advance of the column to intercept the fugi- The season was too far advanced-it was now tives. The object was attained only in part. October-to permit them to prosecute their naPhormio, as was expected, was alarmed for the val operations, even if their prospects had been safety of Naupactus, and in spite of himself was more encouraging. Yet before the crews were fain to follow the enemy by a parallel move- disbanded for the winter, Cnemus, Brasidas, and ment along the opposite coast, where a body of their colleagues, entertained a plan, suggested Messenians from Naupactus was on its march by the Megarians, of striking a deadly blow at to support him. The Peloponnesian command- the heart of Athens, by surprising Pirecus, which ers no sooner saw his whole squadron within was left open and unguarded, as secure from all the gulf in a single file, close to the shore, than danger, so long as Athens was mistress of the they ordered their column to turn and advance, sea. The men were to take each his oar and in a long line, at the utmost stretch of speed, to seat-cover,* which seems to have been indisthe attack. Nine of the Athenian ships were pensable to the Greek rower, and to cross the driven ashore, one was taken with its whole Isthmus to Megara. In the port of Nisnea they company; the other crews, for the most part, would find forty galleys, which they were imescaped by swimming; but the empty vessels mediately to man and make straight for Piraeus. would all have been captured or destroyed, if The plan was perfectly practicable, and if as the Messenians had not come up, dashed into much vigour had been shown in the execution the sea in their armour, and forced the victors as in the conception, would, perhaps, have endto abandon several of their prizes. But the re- ed the war in a few hours. The crews reached maining eleven, which had outstripped this at- Nisaea in the night, and forthwith put to sea, as t~.ck and made for Naupactus, were briskly was proposed. But, instead of proceeding'to chased by the squadron in advance. All, how- Pirous, the commanders-though withwhom ever, but one got the start of their pursuers, the blame rested does not appear-as if afraic and found time to face about and form in a line of the greatness of the enterprise, bent their in front of a temple of Apollo, close to the port. course to Salamis. There they made them The single galley in the rear was chased by a selves masters of three ships, which were staLeucadian, which was far in advance of the tioned at the fort of Budorum, the headland squadron, and had the Spartan Timocrates on fronting Megara, to blockade its port; the men board. It happened that just before them a were ashore; they also attacked the fort, and merchant ship was riding at anchor. The Athe- ranged over the island for waste End booty. M-n captain, by a dexterous and happy manceu- But in the mean while fire signals conveyed ~, suddenly wheeling round it, struck her an- the alarm to Athens, where it excited universal tagonist on her broadside full in the centre, and consternation. In the city all believed that the sank her. The Peloponnesians, in the other enemy had sailed into Piroeus; at Piroeus it was galleys, who were coming up in disorderly haste, supposed that he had overrun Salamis, and was as to a certain victory, and had already begun close at hand. With the dawn the whole force to raise the pTaan, were disconcerted at this of the city marched down to Piroeus, and, while spectacle. Some who were near the Athenian a part kept guard there, the rest embarked and line stopped short.to wait *for those behind; sailed to Salamis. The invaders did not wait some, incautiously pushing forward, and not for their coming, but carried away their spoil acquainted with the coast, ran upon shoals. The and the three prizes to Nisaa, with the greater Athenians, seeing the enemy thus exposed, haste, as their ships, which had been long laid thought no longer of defence; by a simultane- up, were hardly seaworthy. Thence they reous impulse the shout of battle rose, and the turned, as they came, to Corinth. To the Atheword was given for attack in every ship. The nians this alarm was a wholesome warning, and Peloponnesians, after a short and feeble resist- induced them to secure Pireeus with chains at ance, fled towards Panormus. The. Athenians the mouths of the harbours, and other suitabli, took six of the nearest, and recovered those of precautions. their own which had been abandoned by their Not long after the departure of the Peloponcrews on the first attack of the Peloponnesians, nesians, Phormio was joined by the squadron and taken in. tow. The only prize which the * With an appendage called by Thucydides rpostowrp, Peloponnesians retained was the galley which which has been commonly supposed to have been a thong they had captured with its crew. With this they fpr fastening the oar to the peg of the row-lock. But in an decorated the trophy which they raised on the Bxcellent essay on the subject at the end of the second vol ume of Dr. Arnold's Thucydides, a new conjecture is proAchaean Rhion. The Athenians raised theirs posed as to its nature and use. In the same essay the near the spot from which they had advanced to Scholiast's interpretation of n7rncripaov, a seat-cover, is vin the attack, which gave them the more glorious dicated, on mechanical principles, by an author who has and u vt. er shandled an oar. Even without this explanation, which and usefill victory. The wrecks and the dead, seems completely satisfactory, we should not have thought those of the enemy as well as their own, were our ignorance on any point connected with the ancient vesleft in their power. Among the corpses which sels, a sufficient ground for substituting a new and totally they restored, on the usual application, was that tunauthorized meaning for one which has at least some authey restored, on the usual application, was that thority to rest upon. May it not, however, be added, thlat of the Spartan Timocrates, who, when the Leu- a Ke)ag-for such, according to the Scholiast, the seat-covel cadian galley was sinking, fearing, perhaps, to was-might often be very'useful, even out of the vessel, to fall into the bands of the enemy, killed himself the rowers, who, except on very extraordinary occasions, such as that mentioned by Thucydides, iii., 49, always and was carried by the waves into the harbour slept on shore, and commonly in the open air? SITALCES. 343 whith, more to his glory than his loss, had been obtained, either from the king or his nobles, so imprudently detained in Crete. And when without a gift. The ordinary royal revenue the enemy had laid up their fleet for the winter, was paid partly in money, partly in presents of he sailed to' Astacus, and with eight hundred gold and silver ornaments or vessels, and stuffs men, half Athenians, half Messenians, marched of various materials and iworkmanship, with into Acarnania, to establish the Athenian inter- other articles for luxury or use; and Thucydest more firmly in Stratus and some other towns ides estimates the whole amount, when it had where there was a party disaffected towards it. risen to the highest, at not much less than 1000 Some obnoxious individuals were forced into talents. But in the reign of Sitalces. who ruled exile; Coronta was obliged to receive one of this great empire at the beginning of the Pelits banished citizens who was a partisan of oponnesian war, these exactions were more Athens. These arbitrary acts may, perhaps, moderate, though his dominions were more have left an impression which afterward proved extensive than his successor's, who, perhaps, injurious to the Athenian cause. But Phormio extorted more from the Greek cities. Teres, returned to Naupactus, leaving no appearance the -father of Sitalces, had raised the Odrysian of hostility in any part of Acarnania, except monarchy to its highest pitch of power by his CEniadee, which was too strong in its marshes conquests. His son cultivated the friendship to be attempted at this season; and in the of the Greeks,* and.had married a sister of spring he sailed away triumphantly, with his Nymphodorus, a citizen of Abdera, who exerted prisoners and prizes, to Athens. great influence over his royal brother-in-law. During the summer of 429, the Athenians, Sitalces, from the vicinity of his dominions apparently dispirited by their domestic calami- to the Athenian possessions in the north of the ty, engaged in no offensive operations except 2Egean, might be a formidable enemy or a usean expedition gainst the towns of Chalcidice ful ally,; and as soon as the war broke out, the and Bottiaea, which was conducted by, Xeno- Athenians made it one of their earliest cares to phon and two colleagues.* This expedition, court his alliance. His connexion with Nymwhich was first directed against the Bottieean phodorus opened the way. Nymphodorus had town Spartolus, with a prospect of obtaining thwarted the Athenian interests, and was deempossession of it by concert with a party of the in- ed an enemy; but his hostility yielded to a flathabitants which favoured the Athenians, proved tering invitation, and to the honours which were extremely disastrous. The opposite party pro- paid to him at Athens. He concluded an allicured succours from Olynthus; and in a battle ance with the Athenians in the name of Sitalfought near the town, though the Athenians ces,'and persuaded them to bestow the title of were victorious with their heavy infantry, they an Athenian citizen on Sadocus, the king's son; were compelled, by the enemy's superiority in while on his own part he undertook to prevail cavalry and light troops, to fall back upon their upon Sitalces to send a body of Thracian cavalbaggage, and at last were completely put to the ry and light troops to the aid of the Athenians, rout and driven into Potideea. All the gener- to subdue their revolted subjects in Chalcidice. als fell, with 430 men out of 2000 foot and 200 He likewise mediated peace and an alliance behorse. tween Athens and Perdiccas, who found himThis check was probably the immediate oc- self so distressed by the war,t while his throne casion of greater movements, which took place was threatened by rivals at home, that he made in the autumn, in the same quarter. Before great promises in return for this intercession to we relate them, we must go back a little to ex- the Odrysian king, who no doubt observed the plain the state of affairs out of which they arose. national usage, and sold his good offices as After the Persians had been driven out of Eu- dearly as he could. The Athenians restored rope, the countries north of Macedonia, which Therma to Perdiccas,t and he aided them in'had once been subject to them, fell under the their war against his old friends the Chalciddominion of the Odrysian Thracians, Their ians. territory extended from the mouth of the Nes- This alliance between Athens and Sitalces tus to the Danube, and inland to a distance alarmed the Peloponnesians, and probably inWhich Thucydides describes as a journey of duced them the sooner to carry into effect' a thirteen days for a foot traveller of rapid mo- design which had been conceived before the tions, setting out from Byzantium towards the beginning of the war, to enter into league with upper course of the Strymon. This great tract Persia, and to supply the scantiness of their comprehended a number of savage hordes and own resources by Persian subsidies and sucof Gr.eek cities. The Greeks acknowledged cours.- A negotiation was set on foot with the sovereignty of the Odrysian kings by the Pharnaces, the Persian satrap of the provinces payment of tribute; the barbarians both by on the Hellespont, who undertook to give any tribute and by service in war. Thucydides envoys who might be sent to him from Peloremarks, as a peculiar feature in the Thracian ponnesus conduct to his master's court. An customs, which distinguished them from those embassy was appointed in 430, consisting of of the Persians, that among the Thracian tribes three Spartans, Aneristus the son of Sperthias, it was the.fashion for the great to receive and Nicolaus son of Bulls, and Stratodemus, Arisfor their inferiors to pay. To a modern reader the remark must appear more singular than the * Aristophanes (Acharn., 141, foill.) humorously exaggerates and ridicules the Athenomania of Sitalces and his son custom. But at the Odrysian court, as the t From Polyenus (iii., 4, 1) one might be led to suspect power of the monarchy increased, this usage that Phormio had penetrated into Macedonia as far as Cyrwas more rigidly enforced; no favour could be rhus. A town called Cyrus on the coast of Chalcidice is, we believe, nowhere else mentioned. * Diodorus (xii., 47) only mentions Phanomachus, who t They had taken it from him (Thuc., i., 61), and did not was employed with Xenophon in the siege of Potidaea, as now for the first time cede it to him in sovereignty, which his colleague in this expedition. Plutarch, Nic., 6, Cal- most schoolboys now know would not be exp.tessed b} liades. airoeoSvat. 344 HISTORY OF GREECE. teus, the Corinthian whom we have seen so Aneristus, and Bulis, son of Nicolaus, both men active at Potidaea, Timagoras of Tegea, and an of good birth and great wealth. They presentArgive named Pollis, who had no commission ed themselves at the court of Xerxes, and anfrom his own city, but perhaps represented the nounced their purpose of making satisfaction wishes of a party.' The envoys first repaired with their own lives for the blood which their to the court of Sitalces, for the twofold purpose countrymen had sacrilegiously shed. Xerxes of inducing him to abandon the alliance which is said to have dismissed them with a wise and he had formed the year before with Athens, and magnanimous reply: " He would not acquit the of obtaining the means of proceeding safely to -Spartans by imitating their impiety." Sperthithe Hellespont. They did not, indeed, succeed as and Bulis returned safe to Sparta; their in.their main object, but, after discharging their sons, Anevistus and Nicolaus, ambassadors to commission, they were permitted to continue Persia, perished, as we have just seen, at their journey. But at this time there were two Athens, by a fate closely resembling that of the Athenian ambassadors at the Odrysian court, Persian heralds. who represented to their new fellow-citizen, Sitalces did not redeem the pledge which Prince Sadocus, that the Peloponnesian envoys Nymphodorus had given, that he would help the were going on an errand which might do great Athenians to make an end of the war in Chalhurt to the city to which he had now the hon- cidice, before the autumn of 429. But then, inour to belong, and persuaded him to send after stead of sending succours, he came in person them and arrest them. It was done. The six at the head of a numerous host. He had not envoys were overtaken at Bisanthe, as they only his own engagement to fulfil, but to punwere about to cross the Hellespont, and deliv- ish the faithlessness of Perdiccas, who had not ered up to the two Athenians, who carried them performed the promises by which he induced to Athens. Sitalces to reconcile him wit lhe Athenians, What follows combines horrors which are and to abandon the cause of hisbrother Philip. but too familiar in Greek history, with a train The Athenians also had reason to complain of of occurrences almost strange enough for ro- the aid which Perdiccas had lent to their enemance. The Spartans had begun the war with mies in the invasion of Acarnania; and they deeds of extraordinary atrocity. They had put sent ambassadors to urge Sitalces to his medito death all the prisoners whom they took at tated expedition, and to promise that, on his arsea in merchant ships, and not only Athenians, rival in Chalcidice, he should find an Athenian or subjects of Athens, but citizens of neutral armament ready to co-operate with him both by states, and had even deprived them of the rites sea and by land. The king collected the whole of burial.* The Athenians seized the opportu- force of his realm: the Getes, and the neighnity which now presented itself of retaliating bouring tribes from beyond Heemus (the Balfor these cruelties, by ordering the envoys to kan), all mounted bowmen, armed after the immediate execution, and treated their corpses Scythian fashion; the Thracian hordes south with similar indignity. But the motive which of the Balkan, and those of the Paeonian race Thucydides assigns for this step was fouler which acknowledged his sway; he also induced than revenge. He believes that it was the ap- several of the Thracian mountaineers who pre prehension which the Athenians felt of detri- served their independence in the valleys of ment which they might suffer from the ability Rhodope, some by pay, others by the hope of and active spirit of Aristeus if he should es- plunder, to enter into his service; and as he cape from their hands; and that the rest were advanced towards the borders of Macedonia, sacrificed chiefly to give a decent colour to this his numbers were continually augmented by baseness. But the fate of two out of the three bands of volunteers, attracted by the same moSpartans, whether their death was to be laid tive; so that when, after crossing the mountain immediately to the account of their companion range called Cercine, by a road which he had or of their country, was marked by a singular cleared in a former expedition against the Peeoand tragical coincidence. It will be remember- nians, he halted, near the Macedonian frontier, ed that before the Persian invasion the heralds at Doberus, he found himself at the head of not of Darius had been put to death with cruel less than 150,000 men, of whom a third were mockery, at Sparta as well as at Athens.t cavalry; the rest a motley crowd, in which the Some years after, the conscience of the Spar- mountaineers of Rhodope, who were armed tans smote them for this breach of a sacred with short swords, were the most formidable privilege, which seemed the more heinous, as band. He was accompanied by Amyntas, son the hero Talthybius, Agamemnon's herald, had of Philip, the brother of Perdiccas, whom.he ina temple, and was highly venerated at Sparta. tended to place on the throne of Macedonia, A series of ill omens convinced them that the and he directed his march first into the province state would never prosper until they had atoned which had been Philip's appanage. for the murder of the Persian heralds. Yet as The expedition of Sitalces is the first event no individual had a greater share in the guilt which gives some insight into the internal conthan another, it was necessary that the victims dition of Macedonia. The country contained who were to expiate it should offer themselves the elements of a great power; but they were spontaneously. At length two citizens declared scattered, and therefore feeble. The custom themselves willing to sacrifice themselves for of bestowing appanages on the younger princes their country. These were Sperthias, son of always weakened, and often endangered the throne, as it afforded means and temptations, * It had been commonly supposed that Herodotus, vii., such as had given occasion to Philip's rebellion 137, alluded to these crueltiespin which case Aneristus Large tracts in the upper country were subject would have taken an active part in them. But Mueller to native princes, who owned the royal authority, (Dor., Append., ii., p. 440) assigns a different and more probable meaning to the passage. t P. 242. but in a spirit like that of the great chieftains EXPEDITION OF SITALCES. 345 in a feudal kingdom. The full dominion of the ried off by a lingering illness, which was, persovereign was confined to the lower provinces haps, connected with the epidemic, but seems near the sea, which, as he had no navy, were not to have exhibited any of its violent sympexposed to the attacks of the Greeks, who were toms. Possibly the pestilence only struck him in possession of a great part of the coast. by depriving him of his two legitimate sons, his There was little internal commerce; for there sister, and many of his most valued relatives were no regular roads. The people lived most- and friends. His eldest son, Xanthippus, was ly in open villages; fortified places were rare: a worthless and undutiful youth, who, ]isconthere was scarcely any organized military force. tented with his father because he refused to The Odrysian king, therefore, met with little. supply his extravagance, assailed him with ridresistance. The people of the districts through icule and calumny. His death was little to be which he'passed took refuge with their proper- regretted; but when it was followed by that of ty either in the few fortresses which were at his more.hopeful brother Paralus, the father's hand, or in the natural strongholds of the coun- firmness, which had supported him under his try. In the province which had been Philip's, other losses, gave way, and as he placed the the presence of his son opened several of the funeral wreath on the lifeless head, he sobbed towns to the invader: one, Eidomen6, was ta- aloud, and melted into tears. He had still, inken by storm; but Europus made so vigorous a deed, one son remaining, Aspasia's child; but defence that Sitalces raised the siege, and pro- he was excluded, by the law which Pericles ceeded through Lower Macedonia towards Chal- himself had proposed, from the privileges of an cidice, without even turning aside to the royal Athenian citizen, and therefore could not represidenceat Pella, which lay not far off on his resent his father's house. Seeing, therefore, right. In the mean while Perdiccas, who had his name and race threatened with extinction no infantry which he could think of opposing to -a thought of intolerable bitterness to a Greek the Thracians, sent to the upper provinces for a -:-he petitioned the people to interpose its powbody of cavalry, which came to his assistance. er. Plutarch says that he wished to repeal his It was excellent in quality, being well mounted own law; this was at least unnecessary; and and armed, but deficient in numbers. Wher- the people conferred an honour as well as a ever it charged, the Thracians gave way; but privilege when it legitimated his natural son, the little troop was soon surrounded by the mot- permitting him to be enrolled in his father's ley crowd, and forced to fight its way out; so phratry, and to take the name of Pericles. It that at length it was found necessary to leave proved a calamitous boon. the enemy in undisturbed occupation of the Pericles seems to have died with philosophicountry, which he ravaged. Not only Perdic- cal composure. He allowed the women who cas, but the Greeks north of Thermopylae, were attended him to hang a charm round his neck; alarmed for themselves; and even farther to but he showed it with quiet playfulness to a the south, the enemies of the Athenians did not friend, as a sign to what a pass his disorder had feel secure. But on entering Chalcidice Sital- brought him, when he could submit to such trices found, not the Athenian armament which fling. When he was near his end, and appawas to have supported him, but envoys with rently insensible, his friends, gathered round presents and excuses, to cover the real motive his bed, relieved their sorrow by recalling the of this breach of promise, which was, that the remembrance of his military exploits, and of Athenians did not expect that he would have the trophies which he had raised. He interkept his word. He wasted the territory of the rupted them, and observed that they had omitChalcidians and Bottiseans for eight days with ted the most glorious praise which he could a part of his army, while the rest was collect- claim: " Other generals had been as fortunate; ing spoil in Macedonia; but he could not think but he had never caused an Athenian to put on of attacking the Greek towns. The season mourning."* A singular ground of satisfaction, was growing rude; his provisions were begin-, notwithstanding the caution which marked his ning to fail: it was time to retreat. On enter- military career, if he had been conscious of ing Macedoriia, he had sent envoys to Perdic- having involved his country in the bloodiest cas to claim the fulfilment of his promises, but war it had ever waged. His death was a loss Perdiccas discovered a cheaper way to be rid which Athens could not repair. Many were of him. He secretly gained over Seuthes, the eager to step into his place, but there was no king's favourite nephew, by promising him the man able to fill it; and the fragments of his hand of his own sister Stratonice with a large power were snatched up by unworthy hands. portion. Seuthes urged his uncle to depart He died when the caution on which he valued without delay; he probably needed little per- himself was more than ever needed to guard suasion; and thus the only fruit of this formi- Athens. from fatal errors; and when the hudable expedition was a marriage-for Perdiccas manity which breathes through his dying boast kept his promise to Seuthes-between an Odry- might have saved her from her deepest disgrace. sian prince, who afterward mounted the throne, - and a Macedonian princess. * Plut., Per., 38. The interpretation which Plutarch But this third year of the war was marked by puts upon these words in the next chapter-as if they refer-' an event more important to Athens and to red to the moderation with which he treated his political opponents —is a sign of surprising forgetfulness or inattenGreece. In the middle of it,* Pericles was car- tion; since at c. 18 he records a favourite saying of Pericles, which clearly ascertains the meaning of his last words. Two years and a half after the commencement of the He used to tell the Athenians that, as far as depended on war (Thuc., ii., 65), near the end of September or the be- him, as their general, they should be immortal. ginning of October, 429. He was, therefore, no doubt living at the time of the imprudent counsel taken in the affair of Nicias the Cretan, though he may have been too ill to attend to public business. He survived the fall of Potidtea eight or nine months. VOL I. -X 346 HISTORY OF GREECE. CHAPTER XXI. ness became the more painful as the predominance of Athens gained ground, and threatened FOURTH AND FIFTH YEARS OF THE PELOPONNE- to swallow up all remains of their independence. SIAN WAR. When they first disclosed their wishes to the THE ravages of the pestilence continued in Spartans, it is probable that the answer which Attica for two years without any abatement; they received was such as might encourage and in the fourth summer of the war, 428, the them to renew their application at a more seacountry was again invaded by a Peloponnesian sonable juncture; and the Bmeotians, with army under the command of King Archidamus. whom they were connected by national affinity The policy which prudence had dictated to Per- as M ell as by political sympathy, would not fail icles was maintained after his death, partly, per- to inflame their animosity against Athens, and haps, through the weakness and depression to strengthen their resolution by promises of caused by the sickness, and partly bdcause the support. Yet their enterprise required great enemy's presence had now become more famil- caution, as well as boldness. It was necessary iar, and no longer excited the same emotions. that, before they openly renounced the AtheniThe Athenians contented themselves with an- an alliance, they should be well provided with noying the enemy, as opportunity offered itself, the means of defence; and Mitylene could with their cavalry, which prevented his light scarcely be secure unless she became mistress troops from spreading over the country, and in- of Lesbos. These were objects which demnandfesting the immediate neighbourhood of the city, ed the longer time, as every step towards them and forced them to. keep within the shelter of was to be carefully concealed from the Athenithe heavy.infantry. At the same time they ans. Preparations, however, were going forequipped a fleet of forty galleys, which prepared ward; the building of new ships; the enlargeto sail round Peloponnesus, under the command ment and strengthening of fortifications; the of Cleippides and two colleagues. filling up of harbours which would afford shelBut in the mean while they were threatened ter to the enemy. In the spring of 428 these in a distant quarter with a blow which, if it had works were far advanced, and agents had been taken effect, not only would have immediately sent into the Euxine to bring a supply of stores weakened their power, but might have proved and corn, and a body of light troops. At the ruinous in its remote consequences. We have same time, the population of Mitylene was realready mentioned that, before the war broke ceiving continual additions from the'smaller out, Mitylene had only been prevented from towns subject to her influence, from which, by casting off the Athenian yoke by the reluctance persuasion or force, she transplanted their inwhich the Spartans felt to break the Thirty habitants within her own walls. Still, much Years' Truce. The motives which led to the remained to be done before matters could be design still continued; and the altered state of ripe for a hostile declaration; and when the affairs now opened a fair prospect of success. Lesbian contingents were called for, Mitylene Several causes conspired to render a part of the sent ten galleys to Athens. But the intent of Mitylenaeans eager for a revolution. The gov- her preparations'had become too manifest to ernment was still in the hands of an aristocra- escape the notice of her neighbours, and among cy which traced its origin to the Bceotian con- them she had rivals and enemies. Methymna, querors of the island; the civil wars, which the second city in the island, and Tenedos, had were made memorable by the names of Pitta- motives for dreading her success, and sent incus and Alcaeus, seem only to have been con- formation to Athens of her designs. Their retests between rival factions of the nobles; and port was confirmed by the graver testimony of the commonalty appears never to have qcquired some of her own citizens, whom the heat of much legal weight in the Constitution, but yet party spirit made traitors to the commonwealth to have grown strong enough to excite jealousy One Doxander had, it appears, been disappointin the rulers. Knowing that their privileges.ed in his hopes of marrying his sons to two were not viewed with a favourable eye at heiresses, who succeeded to the large estates Athens, they had perpetual reason to dread that of their father Timophanes.* His pretensions their too powerful ally might encourage their gave rise to a violent feud, and, for the sake of subjects to revolt. But, besides this motive, revenge, he joined in attesting the meditated re which could only sway the ruling caste, there bellion. But the Athenians, afflicted by war and was another, which might be more generally pestilence at home, were as reluctant to believe felt as interesting to Mitylenaean patriotism. this intelligence as, at another time, they would Though fear of the Persians and the miscon- have been quick to take advantage of it. They duct of Pausanias had driven them into the first tried the easiest and mildest course; they Athenian alliance, they probably could not for- sent envoys to remonstrate with the MitylenTeget the time when Mitylene had carried on sue- ans, and to induce them to desist from their -cessful wars with Athens, and had exercised a suspicious preparations. These envoys returnsupremacy over the other towns of the island ed to Athens when Clelppides was on the point like that of Athens over her confederacy, and, of setting out on his expedition against Peloit would seem, in quite as oppressive a manner. ponnesus, and brought word that the MitylenaeFor we are informed* that they punished their ans would not comply with their injunctions. allies who attempted to revolt by prohibiting The Athenians, being now convinced of the them from instructing their children in letters danger, resumed their wonted activity; and and music, and thus degraded them to the rank hearing that a festival of Apollo was at hand, of Helots; a remarkable anticipation of the pol- which was usually celebrated at some distance icy of similar governments in later times. from Mitylene by the whole population, they inThese recollections of their city's ancient great-'stantly despatched Cleippides and his squadron, * hlian, V.-H., ix., 17. * Aristot., Pol., v, 4. REVOLT OF MITYLENE. 347 with instructions to take this opportunity of sur- stant supply of provisions for the camp. The prising the city; or,'if he failed in this attempt, inactivity of the Mityleneans did not, indeed, to command the Mitylenteans to surrender their prevent their Lesbian allies from marching to ships and demolish their walls, under pain of their assistance; and their united forces were immediate hostilities. At the same time, they sufficient to confine the enemy, on the land side, seized the ten Mitylenrean galleys which had to a narrow space immediately adjacent to his joined their fleet, and put all the crews into pris- camps. But the Athenians were imboldened on. But the Mityleneeans received timely no- by the passiveness of the besieged, as they did tice of their danger from a friend, who, having not know its motive; and their allies, attribucrossed over to Eubcea, found a merchantman ting the conduct of the Mitylenaeans to weakat Geraestus, which, with a fair wind, reached ness or fear, did not venture to imitate their exLesbos before the Athenian armament. They ample, or to withhold the assistance which the had only time to raise some slight works for the Athenians called for. defence of their unfinished walls and imperfect- The envoys who sailed first from Mitylene ly-closed harbours, before Cleippides arrived, found, on their arrival in Peloponnesus, that the and proposed the alternative of submission or invading army had already returned from the war. They did not hesitate in their choice; invasion of Attica. And as the Olympic festibut after a faint show of resistance, being de- val was at hand, the Spartans bade them prosirous of gaining time, requested an armistice, ceed to Olympia, and there urge their petition for the purpose of sending an embassy to Ath- in an assembly of deputies frornithe allied states, ens, which the Athenian commanders, feeling to be held at the close of the games. When their forces inadequate to the siege of the city, the time came, they pleaded their cause in a readily granted. Among the envoys was either harangue which, if it has been faithfully repreDoxander or one of his partisans, who, repent- sented by Thucydides, turned in great part on ing of his late treachery, was now willing to a question of political morality. They labour make reparation by retracting his former state- to vindicate themselves from an imputation, ments, and persuading the Athenians that his which they were aware they might seem to decountrymen were innocent of the designs he serve, of a breach of faith towards the Athenihad imputed to them. But the falsehood was ans. They show that their relation to Athens, not believed, and the embassy returned with an though:it'had begun with an act of their own answer whicli put an end to negotiation, and choice, had long ceased to be one of mutual conleft the Mitylenaeans no hopes but in their own fidence and good-will; that, although they and courage and the aid'of their allies. They relied the Chians had been permitted to retain a nomchiefly on the succour which they expected from inal independence, while the other allies were Peloponnesus. For at the same time that their reduced to undisguised subjection, they could envoys had set sail for-Athens, they had de- not consider this as a favour, but as an effect spatched a galley with ambassadors to Sparta; of policy, by which the subjugation of the rest and though they had secured the subservience was accomplished with the greater ease and deof the- whole island except Methymna, and had cency; nor could they expect to be spared any even gained the advantage in an engagement longer than might suit the interest of Athens. with the Athenians by land, they did not keep " If the peace had lasted a few years more, the the field, but waited for relief. And in this pol- remains of their liberty would probably have icy they were confirmed by the' arrival of a been extinguished It was, therefore, with full Spartan named Meleas, and Hermeeondas, a right that they seized the first opportunity of Theban, who had been sent before the revolt preventing an aggression which nothing but the was declared, but had not been able sooner to want of opportunity had delayed. They had elude the vigilance bf the Athenians, and make been desirous of entering into alliance with their way into the town; and now induced their Sparta before the war; now they had been infriends to send another galley with envoys, to vited by the Bceotians, but had been forced to accompany them on their return to Greece, and declare themselves before their preparations enforce, if necessary, the first application. The were complete, and could have no hopes of Athenians, therefore, were permitted quietly to safety unless the Spartans would not only adintrench themselves in two encampments on mit them into the confederacy, but make a vigthe south side of the city, and to blockade the orous effort in their behalf. Weakened as Athtwo harbours formed by the little' island on ens now was by war and pestilence, if the Pelwhich the'old town was built, which was sep- oponnesians would but again invade Attica this arated by a narrow channel (now closed up) from the mainland, while their fleet, stationed at cia, quem a Thebwe canipo flanternm a Lesbiis O76altav vocar' some distance from the city;* secured a con- ait, roxhEc 3 dv MrvArVtov lra,'AloTOv Ma 6svra. Traxit portus nomen illud a campo Maloente Apollini sacrato, queen commemorant Thucydides et Hellanicus * At Malea. There is, as readers of Thucydides know, apud Steph. Byz. Utei' portuum Mityleneorum id nomen a considerable difficulty in determining the position of this gesserit definire non possumus, quia, ubi locus Apollini saMalea, which Thucyvdides describes as north of Mitylene, cer situs fuerit ignoramus." But, as the plain of Thebe while Strabo gives the same name to the southernmost cape was northeast of Mitylene, it seems impossible to doubt that of Lesbos, about seven miles from Mitylene. Plehn (Les- the harbour most exposed to the wind which blew from it biaca, p. 18) thinks it clear that Thucydides made a mis- was the northern one. On this side of Mitylene, therefore, take. But this, on such a point, is quite incredible. Dr. must have been the sanctuary of Apollo MaAdets, where the Arnold, on the contrary, much more probably infers from Athenians hoped to have surprised the Mitylenwans, and the the whole narrative of Thucydides, that there were two Malea where their fleet lay. The only points which —perpoints on the east coast of Lesbos called Malea: a repeti- haps from the want of geographical details-still remain a tion, to be sure, somewhat singular at so short a distance, little obscure are, that Thucydides speaks of the Mitylenoebut not on that account to be deemed incredible, particular- an envoys (iii., 4) as XaOdvrcE rd ro'AOYvariwv vavrtKdv, Iv as we see in the local worship of Apollo an occasion which when their course lay southward, and again, c. 5, says of might have given rise toit. lndeed, Plehn himself furnishes Meleas and Hermneondas, that they sail in Kp~ilO, which an argument which appears to us more forcible than mnost might seem to imply in each case that those who eluded thes of Dr. Arnold's. IHe observes, p. 16: " Aristoteles de Cc- observations of the Athenians had to sail past them. 348 HISTORY OF GREECE. summer both by land and sea, she would be expedition against Methymna, which they hoped compelled to withdraw her forces from Lesbos, to take with the help of a party among the citiand would be deprived of a great part of the rev- zens who were friendly to their cause. This enenues which enabled her to prosecute the war. terprise failed; but before they returned home, The eyes of the Greeks were turned towards they marched in succession to Antissa, Pyrrha, Sparta, and they would judge from her conduct and Eressus, where they strengthened the fortion this occasion how far they might trust to her fications, and secured the ascendency of their as their deliverer." partisans. After their retreat, the MethymneThese arguments were addressed to a willing ans made an expedition against Antissa, but audience: Mitylene.was adopted as an ally, and were defeated with great loss. These occurthe Spartans were roused to an extraordinary rences induced the Athenians, in the autumn, to exertion. They directed that the contingents, send a body of a thousand heavy infantry undel which had been lately disbanded should be Paches, who, on his arrival at Mitylene, carried speedily reassembled at the Isthmus; and their a wall across the land side of the city, and built own arrived there first. They immediately be- forts in some of the strongest positions, so gan to make preparations for transporting a fleet that, before the end of the winter, Mitylene was across the Isthmusin to the Saronic Gulf. But completely invested by land and sea. But the their ardour was not seconded by their allies, growing expense of the siege rendered it neceswho, after having spoiled the Attic harvest, were sary to impose an extraordinary property tax now busied with their own, and reluctantly at Athens, which produced 200 talents; and a obeyed the summons to a fresh expedition. squadron was sent out under the command of But the spirit of the Athenians rose, as usual, Lysicles and four colleagues to levy contribuagainst the pressure of difficulty and danger. tions from friends and foes. In the second year They had already sent a squadron of thirty gal- of the war a sqqadron had been sent for the same leys found Peloponnesus, under Asopius, a son purpose to the coasts of Caria and Lycia, which of Phormio. Acarnania was the ultimate ob- were hostile to Athens, and gave shelter to priject of his expedition, and he had been appoint- vateers which infested her commerce. But the ed to gratify the Acarnanians, who had request- commander Melesander was slain in Lycia, ed that a son or kinsman of Phormio might be where he had advanced into the interior;* and placed in command among them. But on his Lysicles, with a great part of his troops, met with way he stopped to ravage the maritime districts the like fate in the vale of the Maeander, where of LacOnia, and was thus employed while the he was overpowered by a body of Carians, and Spartans were at the Isthmus. And now the of the Samians who still kept possession of Athenians resolved to show that, without recall- Anaea. ing either this squadron, or the armament at The Athenians had been too fully occupied Mitylene, they were ready to encounter any na- with their own affairs to think of making any val force which Peloponnesus could send out attempt for the relief of Plataea. The brave against them. They forthwith equipped a fleet garrison had begun to suffer from the failure or of a hundred galleys, manned partly with their provisions, and, as their condition grew hopeown citizens-those of the two highest classes less, two of their leading men, Theaenetus, a being alone exempted from serving op this oc- soothsayer, and Eupompidas, one of the genercasion-and partly with aliens; and coasting als, conceived the project of escaping across the Isthmus, exhibited it to the astonished Spar- the enemy's lines. WVhen it was first proposed, tans, and then proceeded to make descents on it was, unanimously adopted; but, as the time various parts of the Peloponnesian coast. The for its execution approached, half of the men Spartans, when they saw such a display of that shrank from the danger, and not more than 220 power which the Mityleneean orators had rep- adhered to their resolution. The contrivers of resented as reduced to extreme weakness, be- the plan took the lead in the enterprise. Scagan to waver; and hearing that the enemy was ling ladders of a proper height were the first ravaging their own territory, while their allies requisite, and they -were made upon a measuredelayed to join them, they returned home. ment of the enemy's wall, for which the beThe Athenians, having accomplished the pur- sieged had no other basis than the number of pose of their short expedition, followed their ex- layers of brick, which were sedulously counted ample. The state of their finances forbade over and over again by different persons, until them to keep such an armament at sea longer the amount, and, consequently, the height of than was absolutely necessary. For the time, the wall, was sufficiently ascertained. A dark the whole number of their ships in actual ser- and stormy night, in the depth of winter, was vice-fell but little short of that which had been chosen for the attempt; it was known that in employed in the first summer of the war, which such nights the sentinels took shelter in the Thucydides estimates at 250, a source of ex- towers, and left the intervening battlements pense which, with the siege of Potideea, had unguarded; and it was on this practice that the nearly drained the treasury. It was probably success of the adventure mainly depended. It on this account that Asopius, after he had stay- was concerted that the part of the garrison ed as long as he thought proper on the coast of which remained behind should make demonLaconia, sent back the greater part of his squa- strations of attacking the enemy's lines on the dron, and with twelve galleys pursued his voy- side opposite to that by which their comrades age to the west, where, after an unsuccessful attempted to escape. And first, a small party, attempt upon CEniadae, he fell in battle with a lightly armed, the right foot bare, to give them part of his small force, which he seems to have a surer footing in the mud, keeping at such a pushed too far into the interior of the Leucadi- distance from each other as to prevent their an territory. arms from clashing, crossed the ditch, and plantIn the mean while the Mitylenaeans made an Thuc., ii., 69 SURRENDER OF0 MITYLENE. 349 ed their ladders, unseen and unheard, for the to abandon the design of inva ling Attica a secnoise of their approach was drowned by the ond time in the summer, they nevertheless rewind. The first who mounted were twelve solved to senc succours to Mitylene, and dimen armed with short swords, led by Ammeas, rected their allies to equip a fleet of forty galson of Corcebus. His followers, six on each side, leys, which their admiral Alcidas was to conproceeded immediately to secure the two near- duct in the course of the next summer to Lesest towers. Next came another party with short bos. But to keep up the spirit of the Mitylensespears, their shields being carried by their cornm- ans, a Spartan, named Saleathus, was despatch rades behind them. But before many more ed early in 427, to give them notice of these had mounted, the fall of a tile, broken off from preparations. He contrived to make his way a battlement by one of the Platacans, as he laid into the city through the Athenian lines by ashold of it, alarmed the nearest sentinels, and cending the course of a torrent. He found afpresently the whole force of the besiegers was fairs in a state which called for, his presence. called to the walls. But no one knew what Scarcity began to be felt among the people; the had happened, and the general Confusion was thought of a capitulation had already presented increased by the sally of the besieged. All itself, and there were many to whom it was by therefore remained at their posts; only a body no means unwelcome. Saleethus announced of three hundred men, who were always in himself to the magistrates as charged, not only readiness to move towards any quarter where to carry the good tidings, that next summer, they might be needed, issued from one of the while Alcidas sailed to their relief, a Pelopongates in search of the place from which the nesian army would invade Attica, but in the alarm had arisen. In the mean while the as- mean time to take upon himself the direction sailants had made themselves masters of the of their civil and military affairs; and he was two towers between which they scaled the suffered to regulate them at his discretion. wall, and, after cutting down the sentinels, When the summer came, the Spartans fulguarded the passages which led through them, filled their promise. They sent Alcidas with while others mounted by ladders to the roofs, the fleet, forty-two galleys, to the aid of Mity. and thence discharged their missiles on all who lene, and then proceeded to invade Attica, unattempted to approach the scene of action. The der the command of Cleomenes, who acted in main body of the fugitives now poured through the place of his nephew Pausanias, son of the the opening thus secured, applying more lad- exiled king Pleistoanax, who was still in his ders, and knocking away the battlements; and nonage. Archidamus was probably kept at as they gained the other side of the outer ditch, home by illness.* The Peloponnesians lingerthey formed upon its edge, and with their ar- ed in Attica until the want of provisions corn-'rows and javelins protected their comrades, pelled them to retire, and having time to penewho were crossing, from the enemy above. trate into almost every corner, committed ravLast of all, and with some difficulty-for the ages only less destructive than those of the ditch was deep, the water high, and covered second invasion, which found many parts unwith a thin crust of ice —the parties which oc- touched. They protracted their stay, because cupied the towers effected their retreat; and they expected to receive intelligence of the opthey had scarcely crossed, before the three hun- erationg of Alcidas; but the tidings for which dred were:seen coming up with lighted torches. they waited were long delayed, and when they But their lights, which discovered nothing to came, crushed all the hopes with which they them, made them a mark for the missiles of had begun the campaign. the Plataeans, who were thus enabled to elude They had intrusted the command of the na their pursuit, and to move away in good order. val armament to a man very unfit for such All the details of the plan seem to have been a post, though he might have been useful in concerted with admirable forethought. On the an inferior station. He seems to have pos first alarm fire signals were raised by the be- sessed all the wariness of the Spartan characsiegers to convey the intelligence to Thebes. ter in a degree bordering on timidity, without But the Platweans had provided against this any of the energy which sometimes relieved it. danger, and showed similar signals from their Instead of pushing vigorously forward to the own walls, so as to render it impossible for the main end of the expedition, he lost time on the Thebans to interpret those of the enemy. This coast of Peloponnesus, chiefly intent, it would precaution afforded additional security to their seem, on eluding the observation of the Atheretreat; for instead of taking the nearest road nian cruisers; and he succeeded in reaching to Athens, they first bent their steps towards the Cyclades unobserved. But here he reThebes, while they could see their pursuers ceived news that Mitylene had alleady surrenwith their-blazing torches threading the ascent dered to Paches; nevertheless, as this might of Citheron. After they had followed the The- prove a false rumour, he proceeded as far as ban road for six or seven furlongs, they struck. Embaton, a port in the territory of Erythre, into that which led by Erythrae and HysiEe to where the bad tidings were fully confirmed. the Attic border, and arrived safe at Athens. Mitylene had fallen only seven days before' Out of the two hundred and twenty who set perhaps not more than the time which he had out together, one fell into the enemy's hands wasted. after he had' crossed the outer ditch. Seven It was the fault, or the misfortune, of Saleturned back panic-struck, and reported that all thus. Ignorant of the state of parties at Mitytheir companions had been cut off, and at day- lene, or thinking it necessary, at all hazards, to break a herald was sent to recover their bodies. make an attack on the Athenian lines, as he The answer revealed the happy issue of the ad- had begun himself to despair of the promised venture. venture. *'If he had been already dead, Agis would probably have When the Spartans found themselves forced commanded the army. 350 HISTORY OF GREECE. succours, and the provisions of the town were expostulated with him on the contrast between nearly spent, he in an evil hour determined to such proceedings and the language of a state intrust the commonalty with the arms of the which professed to be contending for the liberregular infantry, which the policy of the gov- ties of Greece. And he was so far moved by ernment had hitherto reserved for the class their remonstrances as to release most of his which had privileges as well as a country to de- surviving prisoners. And now, with more vigfend. But the new soldiers, instead of sallying our than he had shown in his outward voy age, out to attack the enemy, collected' in armed he quitted the coast, and pushed across the groups, became clamorous for bread, and de- open sea for Peloponnesus. dared that, unless the wealthy citizens would His fear of pursuit, indeed, was not ground open their granaries and distribute their hidden less. He had been seen while he lay among stores among the famishing people, they would the Cyclades by the two Athenian state-galmake their own terms with the Athenians. Ei- leys, the Salaminia and the Paralas, which ther the supposed stores did not exist, or it was hastened with the information to Paches, who known that this demand was merely a pretext. had been already advised, from Erythre and The ruling body, dreading a capitulation from other quarters, of the enemy's presence on the which they would be excluded, hastened to coast of Ionia. The danger seemed great to make the best which, under such circumstan- the Athenians, who did not know the character ces, they could obtain. They agreed to sur- of Alcidas; for, as the Ionian cities had never render the city, and to cast themselves -on the been permitted to repair their fortifications mercy of the Athenian people, and immediately since they had been dismantled in the Persian to open their gates to the army; but Paches war, the smallest evil which he might have inpermitted them to seend an embassy to Athens, flicted was to plunder them as he passed: the and engaged that, until the pleasure of the Athe- greatest would have been done if he had folnians should be known, he would not deprive lowed the advice of his Ionian counsellors. Paany Mitylenwean either of life or liberty. Yet, ches, therefore, who had already reduced An while his troops entered the town, the princi- tissa, deferred the subjugation of Lesbos, and pal leaders of the revolt, unable to contain immediately set out in pursuit of Alcidas, whom themselves, took refuge at the altars. Paches he chased as far as Patmos, but there finding soothed their fears, and, under a promise of re- that the enemy was too far ahead to be'overspecting their persons, tenmoved them to safe taken, he turned back, and at a more leisurely custody in Tenedos"to await the return of their rate proceeded along the coast towards Lesbos. envoys, who were sent, according to the agree- He had been called to the assistance of one ment, to Athens. Salaethus had found a hiding- of the parties by which Colophon had been for place in the town. some time divided. Colophon itself had been Such was the state of Mitylene when Al1idas taken in the second year of the war by a Perarrived at Embaton; he immediately held a sian force under the command of Itamanes, council of war, to decide on the course which he who came as the ally of one of its factions. should adopt. Teutiaplus, the commander of Their adversaries, and all who dreaded Persian the Elean contingent, suggested a bold, yet government, took refuge in Notium, the port promising plan: to sail with all speed'to Mity- town of Colophon, which was only about two lene, and surprise the conquerors in the midst miles distant from the upper city; here they of their security. But Alcidas knew that he lived secure, until discord arose among them, had been sent to raise the siege, and, this being and the animosity of one party towards their no longer possible, thought that this part of his fellow-citizens proved stronger than their avercommission was at an end. He had with him sion to the barbarians. They procured a body some Ionian refugees, who, with the Lesbian of auxiliaries-partly Arcadian mercenaries, envoys, urged him to take possession either of the rest barbarians-from the satrap PissuthCuma, or of one of the'Ionian cities, which nes, and with their aid expelled their oppomight be made the centre of a general insur- nents, who, it may be collected from Aristotle,* rection among the subjects of Athens on the consisted chiefly of the old population of NoAsiatic coast, who contributed the largest part tium. And now they invited the party which of her revenues, and were all impatient of her was in possession of the upper town to share rule. But this was too bold a step for the pru- the government with them; and, as Notium dence of Alcidas, who thought he should be was unfortified,t enclosed one quarter with a safer on the coast of/ Peloponnesus than on that wall by way of a citadel for the garrison. Such of Ionia, and had reason to fear that the ene- was the condition in which they were found by my might be already in pursuit of him. He Paches, when, at the request of the weaker therefore bent his course southward, though side, he appeared before Notium. As he could still along the coast. The chief fruit which his not well spare time for a siege, an6l was not expedition had hitherto yielded was the cap- scrupulous about the means of attaining his obture of a number of prisoners, chiefly Ionians, ject, he invited Hippias, the commander of who, little expecting to see a Peloponnesian the Arcadians, to a parley, under a solemn enfleet in their waters, had taken the enemy for gagement, that, if he did not approve of the Athenians, and had thus fallen into his hands.,, When he touched at Myonnesus, near Teos, he political bias as Pire us and Athens. thought himself,bound to observe the bloody t This may be inferred from the narrative of Thucya rule which Sparta had laid down, and ordered ides, as well as from the general remark, iii., 33, abou most of these unhappy men-who, as he had the state of the Ionian cities. Schneider's blunder (in h: been ltelyassuredee a hearthis f note on Xenophon, Hell., i., 5, 7, where he confounds th' been lately assured, were at heart his friends Notiumn with a place in Chios, which Strabo describes: -to be put to death. But at Ephesus he'was an open bleach with a roadstead, t;appog aIytaocs) will I., met by envoys from the Samians of Anna, who much surprise the learned reader, though it may deceit an uninformed one. DEBATE CONCERNING MITYLENE. -CLEON. 351 terms offered to him, he should be conducted ever ventured to use. The attitude which the back safe to the citadel. Hippias came out, ancient usage had prescribed in an address to but was immediately arrested by Paches, who, the people was calm and grave, earnest and at the same time, by a sudden attack, made majestic, and varied with but little action. himself master of the citadel, and put the whole Cleon was first seen to throw open or cast garrison to the sword. To crown his perfidy, aside his upper garment, to clap his thigh, to he led Hippias within the wall, and then, as if rush from one side of the speaker's stand to his pledge was redeemed,'had him cruelly ex- the other.* It was, perhaps, to the contrast ecuted.* He now restored Notiurn to the party which his language and manner exhibited to which had sought his aid; they were after- the ancient style o oratory that he first owed ward. strengthened by a body of Colophonian his success. Thpeople probably found the refugees, whom the Athenians collected from same kind of relief in his homely diction and their various places of exile, and settled at No- vulgar deportment, after their attention had tium under institutions closely resembling their been strained by the lofty and refined eloquence own. of Pericles, as was afforded by the burlesque On his return to Mitylene, Paches proceeded drama which often immediately followed the to reduce those parts of the island which still most sublime tragedy. Unhappily, on the politheld out; and we cannot but suspect that he ical stage the farce became at last the leading only waited for this consummation of his con- part of the entertainmeht. Cleon, though mas.quest to break the agreement which he had ter of impudence which nothing could abash, made with the Mitylenmeans. He now sent seems to have been not wholly unconscious of home the greater part of his forces, and with his own emptiness and incapacity; and he them the suppliants whom he had removed to strove to cover his intrinsic feebleness by a Tenedos, and others of the citizens who'ap- show of energy, which cost him no effort, and peared to have been most deeply implicated in was exerted at the expense or the risk of the the rebellion. Salaeethus, who had been dis- state. He wished to be known as the blunt, covered, and might have been put to death as straightforward man, of resolute counsels and an enemy, was also reserved for the doom strong measures; who kept the good Qf the which he might meet with at Athens. There people steadily in view, and who would always he attempted to save his life by offering, among take the shortest course to arrive at it. He other things which he was probably unable to thus gained credit for plain good sense and perform, to induce his countrymen to raise the honest patriotism, while he watched every turn siege of Plateea; but the people, incredulous, of the popular inclination, that he might anticior too eager for revenge, ordered him to imme- pate or go beyond it. During the latter years diate execution. The next question to be de- of Pericles he had been distinguished among cided was the fate of his fellow-prisoners and his opponents by the boldness and activity with of Mitylene. It would probably hawe been rig- which he attacked the great man's person and orous, if it had been determined only by the administration.t At the time of the first Pelonatural feelings of resentment excited by the ponnesian invasion he loudly seconded the popdanger with which the revolt had threatened ular clamour which called on Pericles to meet Athens, and by the expense it had occasioned, the enemy in the field. No reputation was ever at a juncture when her treasury was nearly ex- secure from his calumnious invectives. He hausted and she was enfeebled by her domestic professed himself the devoted friend of the calamity.' It was a blow aimed at her exist- poorer citizens, cherished their envy and jealence in the season of her deepest distress, and, ousy of the rich, and accustomed them to conas every Athenian would argue, by the most sider their personal interests as the sole end favoured of her allies. But the assembly which of the state. It appears to have been he who, met to deliberate on the question was swayed not long after the death of Pericles, raised the by a man who, since the death of Pericles, had pay of the jurors from one obolus to three.: It been gradually rising to power, and who ac- belonged to the character and policy of Cleon quired an infamous celebrity as the foremost to treat the a'lies of the commonwealth with among the Athenian demagogues and syco- despotic harshness, as subjects who had no phants of his age, Cleon, the son of Cleaenetus. rights that could be allowed to interfere with He was of reputable, though not of high con- the' will of their sovereign, and were bound to dition; a tanner by trade; but he seems to submit without a murmur to all his exactions. have entered early upon the political career, Probably, indeed, he had private motives, beand to have found it more lucrative, as well as sides the affectation of patriotic zeal, for taking more dazzling, than his honest occupation. His the most violent side in every question which abilities were very slender: he possessed no arose between Athens and her co0federates. knowledge, political or military to qualify him The more he was dreaded as an ~dvocate of for the direction of public aff-a nor any tal- stern measures, the more important it was to ents but of the lowest order. His eloquence, retain or silence him. He barked, as well as if he could be said'to have any, was of a kind fawned, for food. strongly contrasted to that with which Pericles It was, therefore, not difficult to foresee what was used to command the popular assembly. course he would pursue in the case of Mitylene. It was impetuous and coarse, set off with a The interest both of his popularity and of his loud voice, and with vehement and unseemly more sordid cupidity required that he should ingesticulations; which, before him, no orator had flame and satiate the vindictive humour of the * Plut., Nic., 8. Compare 2Eschines, Timarch., p. 4. * Pierced with arrows. Possibly; however, not from t Hermippus (Plut., Per., 33) compared his attacks on mere wantonness, but under the influence of some super- Pericles (gX70xlce aOLwvL KXCowv0) to those of a horFe-fly, or stitious fancy, suggested by the consciousness of his per- other biting and importunate insect. idy..$ See Boeckh, St. d. Ath.. ii., c. 15. 352 HISTORY OF GREECE. people; and he succeeded in carrying through a general remarks on the odiousness and m.sdecree that not only the prisoners sent by Pa- chievousness of such vague imputations, which, ches, but all the adult citizens of Mitylene, he observes, were so readily caught up by an should be put to death, and the: women and Athenian audience, as to render it a service full children enslaved. This ferocious order was of difficulty and danger to offer them good addespatched the same day; but on the next, vice. But as to the question then before them, when the passions which had been heated by he is willing to let it rest on the ground which the debate were a little cooled, many of those his adversary himself has taken. He will not who had voted with the majority began to re- attempt either to defend or to excuse the concoil at the thought of such a sweeping massa- duct of the Mitylenweans.'He is ready to adcre, and to wish that they W"ild recall the hasty mit that they have deserved the utmost rigour sentence. The Mitylenwean envoys and their of Cleon's decree. But he is prepared to show Athenian friends took advantage of this turn in that, although such a punishment might be just, the public mind, and induced the presiding ma- it would not be expedient for Athens to inflict gistrates, who perceived the general feeling, to it. Nothing could be more judicious than this call another assembly, and put the question line of argument, on an occasion when it was again to the vote. Cleon again came forward evident that the humane feelings of his hearers to support the decree which he had moved the were already roused, but many might want to day before. Though the speech which Thucyd- be furnished with reasons for indulging them, ides ascribes to him probably affords no speci- and the rest would only be exasperated by any men of his style of oratory, it undoubtedly rep- attempt to vindicate the objects of their resent-'resents the vein of his arguments. To shame ment. He therefore reminds them, " that no the people out of its humanity, he does not punishment ever devised had been able to put scruple to assert that a democratical govern- a stop to crime; since the rigour of the laws, ment which is liable to such sudden changes to whatever degree it might be stretched, could of mood is unfit to rule an empire. He repeats never extinguish the hope of impunity, by which an observation which Pericles is said to have men were buoyed up in their criminal enterprimade for a different purpose, that the Athenian ses. The cravings of passion, with the encourdominion was a tyranny, resting on force, not agement afforded by the capriciousness of foron the affections of its subjects. " Lenity and tune, would always lead them to face the most indulgence towards rebels were not only in terrible dangers. It was with states as with themselves injurious to such a power, but would individuals. None ever embarked in a war now afford an example of levity which would without what seemed to it a reasonable prosdestroy all the stability of the laws, and would pect of success; and none would ever be restimulate the vanity of clever and ambitious strained from such undertakings by their knowlmen to seek reputation by continually over- edge of the evils which they would incur from throwing what had been maturely resolved on a defeat.,But the treatment which they had the proposal of another. His own opinion re- to expect from their enemies would have great mained unchanged; and he could not conceive weight in determining the duration of the conhow any one, who was not either seduced by test. Men who might soon be reduced to subthe desire of displaying a perverse ingenuity, mission upon moderate terms, if they despaired or swayed by mercenary motives, could ques- of mercy, would hold out to the last. And thus tion the justice and expediency of the decree. the extreme vengeance which Cleon proposed Mitylene had beeni guilty, not simply of revolt, to inflict on Mitylene, though it would not deter but of a malignant, wanton conspiracy against other cities from following the example of her an ally who had distinguished her among all revolt, if they had strong hopes of a happier isher confederates by peculiar honours and privi- sue, would certainly prevent them from yieldleges. As the offence was aggravated, the pun- ing, when they were once engaged, as long as ishment ought to be severe. Nor was there they had strength to resist. Every war of the any ground for making a distinction-which same kind into which Athens might hereafter would only encourage offenders, by supplying be drawn would be prolonged, as a struggle for them with pretexts easily fabricated-between life, to the last gasp; and when she had conthe class which had been active in the rebel- quered at a great expense of blood and treasure, lion and that which, by its acquiescence, had she would find, instead of useful subjects, a solshown'itself willing to share the risk of the en- itude and a ruin. But if it was impolitic thus terprise, and had, in fact, co-operated with its to deprive herself of the advantages which she authors. If such aggressors were allowed to would reap from the timely submission of her hope for impunity, there would be no end to refractory allies, it would be the height of folly, the labour~ the dangers, and the losses of the as well as of injustice, to involve the commoncommonwealth, which would be involved in a alty of Mityle e, which had brought about the series of contests, in which victory would be surrender, i e same sentence of exterminaunprofitable, defeat calamitous. A signal ex- tion with the authors of the rebellion, and so to ample was necessary to convince those who estrange the affections of the only class which might be tempted to similar misdeeds that no she could anywhere call her friends. It would arts, either of eloquence or of corruption, would be wiser, if they were capable, to draw a veil avail to screen them from vengeance." over their offences. On these solid grounds, The cause of the Mityleneeans was pleaded and without any appeal to their pity or their int)y Diodotus, who had most strongly opposed dulgence, he would advise them to rescind their the decree in the previous assembly, and who decree: to put the prisoners whom Paches had was, perhaps, just sufficiently connected with sent upon their trial; but to spare the rest of them to give some colour to Cleon's insinuation the Mitylenaeans, and leave them in-possession of corrupt motives. He repels it only by some of their city." SURRENDER OF PLATEA. 353 The arguments of. Diodotus, or his cause, pre- Athens by the victims of his lust and cruelty.* vailed. The decree was repealed, yet only by The temper of the Athenians renders such a a small majority; which, as the force of rea- case possible; but no impartial historian will soning seems to preponderate on his side, indi- venture to adopt either account of the matter cates that political calculations had little to do as a ground for praise or blame. with the decision, and that it was a victory By this time the remaining garrison of Plahardly gained by humanity over anger; a vic- taea was reduced to the last stage of weakness. tory, indeed, which can claim no praise, where The besiegers might probably long before have the struggle was so shameful: yet the fury of taken the town without difficulty by assault. the Athenians, though carried to so dreadful an But the Spartans had a motive of policy for excess, is less hateful than the cold-blooded wishing to bring the siege to a different termicruelty of Sparta. The decree of mercy was nation. They looked forward to a peace which no sooner passed than it was despatched in a they might have to conclude upon the ordinary galley which had been provided by the care of terms of a mutual restitution of conquests made the Mityleneean. envoys, with food prepared to in the war. In this case, if Plateea fell by storm, be used on board, and was plied by men who they would be obliged to restore it to Athens; were urged to extraordinary efforts, as well by but if it capitulated, they might allege that it the importance of th6 service as by the, promise was no conquest. With this view, their comof great reward; and, as they rowed without mander protracted the blockade, until at length intermission, resting by turns for meals and he discovered by a feint attack that the garrisleep, and were not retarded by contrary winds, son was utterly unable to defend the walls. they gained ground rapidly on the other galley, He then sent a herald to propose that they which -had started twenty-four hours sooner, should surrender, not to the Thebans, but to but being charged with so dismal an errand, the Spartans, and on condition that Spartan was not speeded by the good-will of her crew. judges alone should decide upon their fate it, however, arrived first; and Paches had al- These terms were accepted; the town delivered ready opened' the decree of death, and was on up, and the garrison, which was nearly starved, the point of executing it-in another hour, per- received a supply of food. In a few days five haps, the streets of Mitylene would have been commissioners came from Sparta to hold the flowing with blood - when the countermand promised trial. But instead of the usual forms came. But the prisoners at Athens -upward of accusation and defence, the prisoners found of one thousand persons-were all sacrificed to themselves called upon to answer a single questhe vengeance of the people, as Cleon had pro- tion: Whether in the course of the war they posed, without even a form of trial. Mitylene had done any service to Sparta and her allies. was deprived of all remains and show of inde- The spirit which dictated such an interrogatory pendence. Her walls were raised, her navy was clear enough. The prisoners, however, seized, she was no longer allowed to retain the obtained leave to plead for themselves without rank of a- tributary state. The whole island, restriction; their defence was conducted by two except the territory of Methymna, was parcel- of their number, one of whom, Laco, son of led out into three thousand shares, of which a Aimnestus, was proxenus of Sparta. tithe was consecrated to the gods; the rest The arguments of the Plateean orators, as rewere allotted to Attic colonists, to whom the ported by Thucydides, are strong, and the adLesbians, who were allowed to cultivate the dress which he attributes to them is the only land, paid a fixed and uniform rent. If, as is specimen he has left of pathetic eloquence.' most probable, the greater part of this land had They could point out the absurdity of sending been the property of the Mitylenteans executed five commissioners from Sparta to inquire at Athens, the new tenants may have gained whether the garrison of a besieged town were more by the transaction than their landlords. friends of the besiegers; a question which, if The fate of Paches himself was singular and retorted upon the party which asked it, would mysterious. On his return to Athens, when equally convict them of a wanton aggression. the time came for rendering the usual account They could appeal to their services and sufferof his conduct in the office which he had so ings in the Persian war, when they alone among ably and successfully filled, instead of the re- the Bceotians remained constant to the cause wards which might have been expected by a of Greece, while the Thebans hadffought on the victorious general who had delivered his coun- side of the barbarians in the very land which try from a pressing danger, he was brought to they now hop'ed to make their own with the trial on some charge, the particulars of which consent of Sparta. They could plead an imporare not recorded, and either having been con- tant obligation which they had more recently victed, or perceiving that he had no chance of conferred on Sparta herself, whom they had a favourable verdict,* stabbed himself mortally succoured with a third part of their whole force,,in the presence of his judges. Hence, in the when her very existence was threatened by declamation of later times, the name of Paches the revolt of the Messenians after the great was often coupled with those of Miltiades, and earthquake. They could urge that their alliThemistocles, and Aristides, to'illustrate the ance with Athens had been originally formed envy and ingratitude of the Athenian people. with the approbation, and even by the advice On the other hand, there was a story, not, in- of the Spartans themselves; that justice ann deed, resting on good authority, but yet not honour forbade them to renounce a connexion contradicted by any better, which represents which they had sought as a favour, and from Paches as having grossly abused his power at Mitylene, and as having been prosecuted at * Agathias, Epigram., 5.7, ed, Niebuhr. Anthol. Gr., Jacobs, tom. iv., p. 34. The subject is more fully discussed in a paper in the Cambridge Philological Museum,:vol. ii, KETO. PlUt., Arist., 26; compare Nic.; 6. p. 236. y 354 HISTORY OF GREECE. which they had derived great advantages; and the ceremony was finished by his answer or his that, as far as lay in themselves, they had not silence, he was immediately consigned to the exbroken the last peace, but had been treacher- ecutioner. The Platinans who suffered amountously surprised by the Thebans, while they ed to 200; their fate was shared by twenty-five thought themselves secure in the faith of trea- Athenians, who could not have expected or ties. Even if their former merits were not suf- claimed milder treatment, as they might have ficient to outweigh any later offence which been fairly excepted from the benefit of the surcould be imputed to them, they might insist on render. The women were all made slaves. If the Greek usage of war, which forbade pro- there had been nothing but inhumanity in the ceeding to the last extremity with an enemy proceeding of the Spartans, it would have been who had voluntarily surrendered himself; and so much slighter than that which they had exas they had proved, by the patience with which hibited towards their most unoffending prison-. they had endured the torments of hunger, that ers from the beginning of the war as scarcely they preferred perishing by famine to falling to deserve notice. All that is very' signal in into the hands of the Thebans, they had a right this transaction is the baseness of their cunto demand that they should not be placed in a ning, and perhaps the dullness of their invenworse condition by their own act, but, if they tion. were to gain nothing by their capitulation, The town and its territory were, with better should be restored to the state in which they right, ceded to the Thebans. For a year they were when they made it. permitted the town to be occupied by a body of But, unhappily for the Plataeans, they had exiles from Megara, and by the remnant of the nothing to rely upon but the mercy or the hon- Plateeans belonging to the Theban party. But our of Sparta-two principles which never ap- afterward — fearing, perhaps, that it might be pear to have had the weight of a feather in any wrested from them-they razed it to the ground, of her public transactions; and though the leaving only the temple standing., But on the Spartan commissioners bore the title of judges, site, and with the materials of the demolished they came, in fact, only to pronounce a sen- buildings, erected an edifice 200 feet square, tence which had been previously dictated by with an upper story, the whole divided into Thebes. Yet the appeal of the Plataeans was apartments for the reception of the pilgrims so affecting that the Thebans distrusted the who might come to the quinquennial festival,* firmness of their allies, and obtained leave to or on other sacred occasions. They also built reply. They very judiciously and honestly treat- a new temple, which, together with the brass ed the question as -one which lay entirely be- and the iron found in the town, which were tween the Plateaans and themselves. They at- made into couches, they dedicated to Here, the tributed the conduct of their ancestors in the goddess to whom Pausanias was thought to Persian war to the compulsion of a small dom- have owed his victory. The territory was aninant faction, and pleaded the service's which nexed to the Theban state lands, and let for a they had themselves since rendered to Sparta. term of ten years. So, in the ninety-third year They depreciated the patriotic deeds of the after Platnea had entered into alliance with Plataeans as the result of their attachment to Athens, this alliance became the cause of its Athens, whom they had not scrupled to abet in ruin. all her undertakings against the liberties of The fleet with which Alcidas had escaped Greece. They defended the attempt which from the coast of Ionia was afterward dispersed they had made upon Plateea during the peace by a storm off Crete, but was again assembled on the ground that they had been invited by a in the port of Cyllene, where the admiral found number of its wealthiest and noblest citizens; a squadron of thirteen galleys from Leucas and and they charged the Plataeans with a breach Ambracia, and Brasidas, who had been sent to of faith in the execution of their Theban pris- aid him with his counsels. The armament thus oners, whose blood called for vengeance as strengthened was destined to act on the coast loudly as they for mercy. of Corcyra, where affairs were in such a state These were, indeed, reasons which fully ex- as afforded a prospect that, while the Athenians plained, and perhaps justified their own enmity had only a.squadron of twelve galleys at Nauto Platoea, and did not need to be aided by so pactus, the island might be detached from their glaring a falsehood as the assertion that their' influence. enemies were enjoying the benefit of a fair trial. We have seen that, in the sea-fight which But the only part of their argument that bore was one of the occasions of the war, the Coupon the real question was that in which they rinthians had taken 250 Corcyraean prisoners, reminded the Spartans that Thebes was their whom they treated with great indulgence, in most powerful and useful ally. This the Spar- the hope of gaining them over to their interest. tans felt; and they had long determined that They afterward sent them back to Corcyra,:no scruples of justice or humanity should en- nominally ransomed for 800 talents, on security danger so valuable a connexion. But it seems given by their friends at Corinth, but in truth',that they still could not devise any more inge- on no other condition than that of restoring the nious mode of reconciling their secret motive Corinthian ascendency in the island. In this,with outward decency than the original ques- undertaking they engaged the more readily, as tion, which implied that, if the prisoners were most of them belonged to that class for which their enemies, they might rightfully put them to such a revolution would open the way to powdeath; and in this sophistical abstraction all er; and they at length succeeded in forming a the claims cwhich arose out of the capitulation, party strong enough, in an assembly which was When construed according to the plainest rules attended by envoys from Athens and from Co. of equity, were overlooked. The question was as ywroposed to -each separately, and when * See p. 281. TROUBLES AT CORCYRA. 355 rinth, to procure a decree which revived the strong in numbers and in position, and actively old system of neutrality between the belliger- supported by the women, were driven to the neents; so that, though the Athenian alliance cessity of setting fire to the houses in the agora. was not renounced, the Peloponnesians were The conflagration rep0led their enemies, but to be treated as friends. The democratical caused great damage, especially to the properparty. was headed by one Pithias, who, though ty of merchants, and if it had been favoured by not formally appointed by the state, or recogni- the wind, might have destroyed the whole city. sed by the Athenians, assumed the character The night brought a pause, during which.the of their proxenus. The party, which had gain- Corinthian galley, and most of the foreign auxed a step by the decree, now proceeded to try iliaries, who saw the cause of their friends its strength by arraigning Pithias on a charge declining, made their escape. But the next of making Corcyra subservient to Athens. But day an Athenian general, Nicostratus, son of he was acquitted; and being thus assured of Diitrephes, arrived with twelve galleys and 500 his superiority, he laid hold of a handle which Messenians, from his station at Naupactus. He was perhaps supplied by the contiguity of some'interposed to put an end to the contest, and private property to certain public domains, or concluded a solemn agreement between the parby the tenure on which these were occupied ties, by which ten of the principal authors of by private persons, and convicted five of the the late convulsion were to be brought to trialwealthiest among his adversaries of having cut which, however, they did not wait for-no one stakes on ground sacred to Zeus and to the else was to be molested, and an alliance, offenhero Alcinous. The legal fine for every stake sive and defensive, was contracted with Athens. was a stater;* and, perhaps through long con- Peace being thus restored, Nicostratus prepared nivance or dormancy of the law, the whole pen- to depart; but the leaders of the commonalty alty which each of the defendants had incurred requested him to leave five of his galleys with was of ruinous amount. With the ensigns of them, and to take away five which they would suppliants, they'besought the people to allow man for him instead. Having gained leave, them to pay it by instalments; but Pithias, who they signified their intention of putting their enwas a member of the council, prevented them emies on board. They, fearing that they were to from obtaining this indulgence, and was pre- be sent to Athens, took refuge in a sanctuary paring to use the advantage which his station of the Twins. Nicostratus in vain endeavoured afforded him, to reverse the decree of neutrali- to allay their fears, and the opposite party, inty, when his adversaries, maddened by their terpreting their refusal as a proof of some treachpersonal losses, and by the threatened defeat erous design, rose, and searched their houses of their plans, collected a band of conspirators,, for arms, and, but for the intervention of the who suddenly rushed into the council-chamber, Athenian general, would have slain some who and despatched Pithias and about sixty others. fell in their way. Upon this, those who had The consternation excited by this outrage was hitherto remained quiet betook themselves as such, that some of his party took refuge on suppliants to the sanctuary of Here; and the board the galley which had brought the Atheni- popular leaders were so alarmed at their numan envoys, and accompanied them to Athens. bers, which were upward of 400, that they inThe conspirators, whose strength was probably duced them to let themselves be carried over measured by their boldness, became masters of to Ptychia, a little island not far off, where they,the assembly, and carried a motion for closing were supplied with provisions. their ports against all but single vessels of the Three or four days after this transaction, belligerent powers. At the same time they while the hopes and fears of the parties were sent envoys to Athens to justify their proceed- still in the same state of suspense, the Pelopon ings, and to induce the refugees there to re- nesian fleet under Alcidas and Brasidas, fiftymain tranquil. But the Athenians arrested both three galleys, arrived in the channel. They the envoys and all their countrymen who had anchored for the night in the harbour of Sybota yielded to their persuasions or threats, and on the mainland, and the next morning pushed lodged them in custody in AEgina. In the across towards Corcyra. Their appearance mean while, the party which had gained the up- threw the party till then triumphant into disper hand in Corcyra, encouraged by the arrival may and confusion. While the Athenian squaof a Corinthian galley with ambassadors from dron set out in good order to meet the enemy Sparta, fell upon the commonalty, which at first and hold him in check, they manned sixty of was put to the rout, but in the following night their own galleys, and sent them out in suctook possession of the citadel and the other cession as they were got ready, but not witheminences in the city, and collected its forces out misgivings, which were justified by the there, and in one of the harbours called the event. For two immediately went -over to the Hyllaic. The other harbour was in the, power enemy, and in others the crews began fighting of their adversaries, as well as the agora ad- with one another. The Peloponnesians, seeing Joining it, where most of them lived. The next their disorder, divided their own force, and with day was chiefly spent by both parties in procu- twenty galleys attacked the Corcyraeans as they ring re-enforcements. The slaves, whom each came up in small numbers, while the remaining invited by the promise of freedom, mostly joined three-and-thirty encountered the Athenian squathe commonalty; their opponents brought over dron. But as Nicostratus by superior tactics 800 auxiliaries from the continent. The day avoided their centre, where he must have been after the struggle began; and the oligarchs, surrounded and overpowered, and having taken overpowered by the commonalty, which was them in flank, sank one galley, they formed into a circle, and stood on the defensive. And now * Probably the silver one of four drachmas; if it had been the Athenians were about to repeat the mane tnl the gold stater of twenty drachmas, this would have beenpractied so succesful temarked. vre which Phormia had practised so successful HISTORY OF GREECE.ly in the Corinthian Gulf, when the twenty gal- ned. In one sanctuary the suppliants were wallleys, which had been mastering the Corcyraeans ed in, and died of hunger; from others they almost without resistance, at the sight of this were dragged out to death. A father was known danger came up and jotted the main body. The to have dipped his hands in the blood of his Athenians, unable to make head against such a child. Political -enmity, though the ordinary force, fell back, but in good order, so as to give motive of these murders, was often, during this their allies time for retreating. Andthus the bat- season of anarchy, only a pretext, which enatle terminated, leaving the Peloponnesians mas- bled many to revenge their personal injuries, or ters of thirteen Corcyraean galleys, and of the sea. to get rid of troublesome creditors. When EuThe Corcyraeans were alarmed lest the enemy rymedon sailed away, hatred and revenge were should make use of his victory to attack the almost forced to rest for want of work. A rermcity, or, at least, to deliver the prisoners in Pty- nant, indeed, of the vanquished party, amountchia, and they removed them back to the sanc- ing to about five hundred, still survived; but it tuary of Here, and made preparations for de- had escaped to the opposite coast, and there fence. But Alcidas, though he had an able having seized some forts, both kept possession counsellor, was supreme in command; it was of the continental territory of the state, and by near sunset, and he withdrew, without attempt- continual excursions harassed its adversaries ing to strike another blow, to Sybota. in the island, interrupted their commerce, and The next morning Brasidas pressed him to even cut off their necessary supplies; success, make for the city, where all was in terror and which, in the end, by inspiring their assailants disorder; but Alcidas preferred the safer opera- with hopes of a still deeper and more permation of disembarking his troops at the headland nent revenge, hurried them on to their own deof Leucimna, and ravaging the country, to the struction. great relief of the democratical party, which, The consideration of such dire excesses as expecting an early attack, had entered into ne- we have been relating induced the Greek histogotiation with its adversaries, and had prevail- rian to pause, and in a digression which is, pered on some of them to embark in their remain- haps, the most instructive part of his work, to ing serviceable galleys-now reduced to thirty- lay open the deep and spreading root which for the defence of the city. ~ About noon, as if yielded these bitter fruits; in other words, to he had:exhausted every opportunity of action, describe with searching minuteness the characAlcidas sailed away to his station, and at night- ter and progress of that spirit of party which, fall he received intelligence, conveyed by fire- though it had long prevailed among the Greeks, signals from Leucas, of the approach of an Athe- and had already manifested itself in many ternian armament-sixty galleys, which had been rible deeds, had never before broken out in a sent, under the command of Eurymedon, to pro- form quite so hideous as it displayed in the mastect.Corcyra. He now lost no time, but push- sacre of Corcyra. This, therefore, Thucydides ing by the shore under cover of the night, reach- looks upon as the opening of a new period'in ed the Leucadian isthmus, and had his ships the history of the Greek factions, when, as the hauled over to the other side, and so pursued same causes continued to operate with increashis voyage homeward in security. ing malignity, scenes which had before been The arrival of the Athenians, and the ene- rare, and were viewed with wonder and horror, my's departure, released the democratical Cor- grew common and familiar. Yet he was aware cyraeans from every restraint that prudence had that so long as human nature remained the hitherto laid on their vindictive passions, which same, mankind would never cease to be afflictwere only exasperated by the danger they had ed, in various modes and degrees, with the same just escaped. The Messenians brought by Ni- evils, and that the picture which he draws of costratus were now, for the first time, admitted his countrymen belongs, in its great outlines, to within the walls; and the thirty galleys which all ages and n/ations. had been manned for action in the harbour front- We have seen how the old aristocracies sank, ing the main land, were ordered to sail round and that they made way either for a tyranny or into the Hyllaic harbour. On their arrival all for a more or less comprehensive form of olithe partisans of the oligarchy who had helped garchy, and frequently, in the end, for a deo man them were secured. But in the mean mocracy. Even in those states in which a while a bloody prelude to more tragical scenes democracy was never established, there was a had begun in the city, with the murder of sev- commonalty which contained the germ, at least, eral who fell in the way of their triumphant en- of a democratical party, and only needed favouremies. An attempt was then made to entice able circumstances to unfold it. And where a the suppliants out of the sanctuary by the prom- popular government was most firmly settled, ise of a legal trial. It was a mere mockery, there was always a class, composed partly of and all who trusted:to it were condemned to members of the ancient aristocracy, partly of death. The rest, when they saw their fears citizens who had more recently risen to.opuverified by the fate of their friends, became des- lence, which viewed it with jealousy, and only perate, and destroyed themselves on the holy waited for an opportunity of overthrowing it. ground; some by hanging themselves on the But though there were everywhere seeds of boughs of the sacred trees. But even this was discord, tranquillity might long be preserved, only a signal for a more general massacre, which where either party was decidedly predominant. lasted seveni days-as long as the Athenian com- The less it had to fear from the other, the mildmander stayed to encourage it with the pres- er would be its rule, and the less it provoked ence of his fleet and by his own implied appro- the desire of a revolution. The more nearly bation —andin which the ties of religion, of com- the two parties balanced each other, the more mon humanity, and even of domestic affection, difficult it was to avoid a contest, and the less were all, in various forms, violated and profa- probable that it would be kept within moderate EXPEDITION OF NICiAS. 357 bounds. But when Sparta and Athens had ward unfolded themselves in civil discord, were engaged in a struggle which called forth their at this time exempt from the evils which theii whole strength, and induced them willingly to struggle occasioned in Corcyra. The internal receive all wyt sought their alliance, the great- stale of Sparta seemed most prosperous; for est inequalit tween the parties in other states the signs of her inward decay had scarcely yet became of lit moment, since it might be com- begun to appear. Athens was still suffering pensated by foreign aid; and hence jealousy from the plague, which, after having considerwas kept constantly awake on the one side, and ably abated for a twelvemonth, broke out with impatience easily roused on the other: their fresh malignity in the fifth winter of the war conflicts grew more frequent, their mutual ani- (42gi), accompanied by earthquakes, which shook mosity more implacable. The war also con- the city, Eubcea, and Bceotia, but more especialtributed in another way to the same effect, as ly Orchomenus. This second attack lasted a it ruined'private fortunes, drained the sources year; and, from first to last, the sickness car of the general prosperity, spread a gloom over ried off 4400 of the citizens who served in the the prospects of many, and diverted their atten- regular infantry, 300 out of the 1000 who comtion from the pursuits of peaceful industry, posed the equestrian order, and a number of the Thus, by degrees, the evil rose to that fright- remaining population which Thucydides could ful height which Thucydides describes. The not pretend to ascertain. This void was, inties which bound men to their ptical associ- deed, gradually filled up in the course of nature; ates were felt to be stronger thani those either but it seems to have been attended by one perof country or kindred; those who kept clear of nicious consequence, which continued to be felt such engagements incurred the resentment of long after the cause had ceased; as it produced both parties. The most violent men took the a relaxation of the laws which prescribed the lead, and gave the tone. He was accounted conditions of the Athenian franchise. Many the stanchest partisan and the best counsellor gained admission to its privileges by fraud; and who was most reckless and ruthless in com- though these surreptitious enfranchisements passing the destruction of his adversaries: one may have supplied the state with a number of who rather aimed at providing for the safety of useful citizens, it is probable that a large portion his associates, so as both to abstain and escape of those who thus crept in could have shown as from aggression, was looked upon as a luke- little title on the score of merit as of birth, and warm and suspicious friend. Defensive coun- possessed no more of the spirit of the ancient sels were scorned as weak and timid'; the only sons of Athens than of their blood. The good. use of vigilance was held to be, to watch for would have been obtained without the evil, if opportunities of striking a blow. Courage and the thinned civic population had been recruited, rashness, prudence and cunning, changed places by an honourable decree, from the most reputain the vocabulary of party. Every fresh exam- ble and deserving of the aliens. pl of vindictive rage led to a still higher strain But Athens, as well as Sparta, enjoyed a deof revenge and cruelty, and stifled all move- gree of internal tranquillity which counterbalments of pity and remorse in those who took anced the evils of war and pestilence. The part with the sufferers. Every new breach of popular government was so firmly established, faith weakened the impulses' of generosity, that as no man of sound judgment, even if he shook the confidence of open and unsuspecting had the will, could conceive the faintest hope natures, and enforced the arguments of those of subverting it, so. the suspicion of such a dewho denounced moderation as cowardice' and sign could not easily be instilled into any but candour as folly. The most liberal professions the weakest minds. Men of the highest birth, of an adversary were no otherwise regarded fortune, and abilities, though not, perhaps, satthan as if they either'betrayed his weakness or isfied with the way in which the public affairs covered some hostile design. The most solemn were managed, were not the less zealous in the oaths were viewed only as means of gaining service of the commonwealth; and the people, time for a future attack, and were broken with though' often misled by unworthy favourites, on the greater pleasure if they had been so far' the whole steadily preferred the ablest mentrusted as to lull the opposite party into a tem- the more willingly if they were also recommendporary security. The poison of incurable sus- ed by wealth and noble descent-to the most picion perverted every noble feeling and para- important posts. And thus, though Cleon could lyzed every right intention. Yet the deepest often carry his measures in the assembly, the cunning often overreached itself; and those fleets and armies were commanded by men of who were conscious of their own inferiority in a very different stamp. Such were Demosartifice were the more likely to forestall the thenes and Nicias, who, in the summer of 426, machinations of their adversaries by the blind were appointed to conduct two expeditions, one impatience of their fears. That it thus under- destined for the west of Greece, the other for mined all the moral foundations of civil society, the AEgean. Nicias, one of the wealthiest citipiety, benevolence, justice, and honour, was the zens of Athens, and a prudent and successful most baneful effect of the Peloponnesian war.'general, led an' armament of sixty galleys, with 2000 heavy-armed on board, against the Island _ — —_r ) of Melos, which alone in the.Egean refused to acknowledge the supremacy of Athens, and adCHAPTER XXII. hered to its old connexion with Sparta, which FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE SIXTH YEAR OF THE it regarded as its parent state.* Nicias ravaged PELOPONNESIAN WAR TO THE GENERAL PACIFI- the island, but was not able to reduce the town, CATION OF SICILY. and probably abandoned the attempt the sooner, THE two leading states themselves, though that he might take part in an attack upon Tanahey contained germs of discontent which after- * See p. 120. 358 HISTORY OF GREECE. gra, where he was to act in concert with an Overpowering force; and the Acarnanians rearmy which was to march from Athens. The quested Demosthenes to lay regular siege to object seems to have been chiefly to retaliate the town. But it happened that at the same for the waste which Attica had suffered, by in- juncture he was urged by the Iessenians of flicting like devastation on the fertile plain of Naupactus to undertake an el_ ion against Tanagra; for when Nicias, having disembarked ZEtolia. He had private moti for desiring his troops at Oropus, was joined near Tanagra to oblige them, for he was connected with them by the whole force of Athens, under Hipponicus, by ties of friendship and hospitality; but he was son of Callias, and Eurymedon, though they chiefly attracted by the prospect of opening a gained a victory over the Tanagraeans and a road through M.Etolia, by which he might penebody of Thebans who came to their assistance, trate with an army of foreign troops into the no farther use was made of this advantage. heart of Boeotia. This was an object, if not Hipponicus and Eurymedon marched back to more important, yet more tempting to his miliAthens, and Nicias, after ravaging the coast of tary ambition than a slow and uncertain siege. Locris, returned with his fleet. He therefore neglected the wishes of the AcarThe Athenians were probably induced to un- nanians, and sailed away to Sollium, where he dertake this expedition to Bceotia, in addition communicated his plans to them, and requested to their regular inroads upon Megara, by the their co-operation. This, as was natural, they exemption which they enjoyed this year from refused. ToCorcyreean galleys also returned the usual Peloponnesian invasion. The PeIo- home; so that Demosthenes, when he sailed ponnesian army, now led by Agis, who had suc- round to CEneon, a town of the Ozolian Locris ceeded his father Archidamus, only advanced on the Criseean Gulf, the point from which he as far as the Isthmus, where it was stopped by intended to begin his march, had only his Mesa series of earthquakes, which were thought to senian, Zacynthian, and Cephallenian auxiliasignify that the gods forbade its progress. ries at his command, besides 300 Athenians, These convulsions extended to some distance who, however, were a band of the finest troops under the bed of the 2Egean, and produced par- Athens could furnish, and had, perhaps, been tial inundations; such as may in ancient times induced to embark as volunteers by the personal have left their traces in the mythical traditions influence of Demosthenes. With this force he of Attica and Bceotia. The Spartans, however, immediately advanced into AEtolia; but in the were not entirely inactive this summer. At interior he expected to be joined by the whole the request of the Malians of Trachis, who were strength of the Locrians, whose aid was pecureduced to extreme weakness by the incursions liarly valuable, from their knowledge of the counof their neighbours, the mountaineers of (Eta, try, and because their own weapons and mode they sent a body of colonists, consisting partly of fighting resembled those of their.Etolian of their own citizens, partly of Laconians, and neighbours. On the first day after crossing the founded a new city, which they named Heraclea, border he made himself master of three MEtolian not quite a mile from the ancient Trachis. The towns or villages, Potidania, Crocyleum, and sanction of the Delphic god had been duly pro- Tichium; and at this last place halted, and sent cured, and all Greeks, with the exception of away the booty which he had collected to the Ionians, Achaeans, and a few other races, were Locrian town Eupalium. His plan was, first to invited to take part in the colony, which, as the reduce the part of XEAolia belonging to the Apopower of Sparta promised security, soon became dotian horde,* which lay immediately north of populous. The situation appeared to be eligi- Locris; and then, if the terror of. his arms ble under a double aspect; for its vicinity to should not awe the rest into submission, after the Athenian possessions in Eubcea-with a having returned to Naupactus, to make a second view to which an arsenal was built close to expedition into the territory of the Ophionians, Thermopylae-and as lying on the high road to which lay more to the northeast, and extended the more northern dependencies of Athens. to the vale of the Sperchius, and finally to inYet the jealousy of the Thessalians, and the vade the Eurytanes, the most powerful, fierce, enmity of the (Etaean tribes, on whose territory and barbarous of the.Etolian tribes. But be the colony encroached, dispelled both the hopes fore he advanced farther, he wished to wait foi and fears which it excited at first, and wore the Locrians, whom he needed the more, as down its strength by incessant hostilities, while among his own' men he had very few light the arrogance and harshness of the Spaitan troops. On the other hand, the Messenians governors drove a part of the population to seek urged the expediency of prosecuting his march a habitation elsewhere. without delay, and carrying the villages, which A little later in the summer Sparta was in- were unfortified, and lay wide apart, before the duced to make an effortto counteract the Athe- AEtolians should have collected their forces. nian movements in the west. At the same Demosthenes, elated with the easy conquests time that Nicias embarked on his expedition to which he had already made, complied with this Melos, a squadron of thirty galleys, under De- advice, and moved onward to!.LEgitium, a vilmosthenes and Procles, was sent round' Pelo- lage town situate about ten miles from the ponnesus, and having been joined by fifteen coast among high hilts. He captured it without Corcyraean ships, and by troops from Zacynthus resistance; for the inhabitants had retired to and Cephallenia, proceeded to attack Leucas, the top of the mountains above the town. But where its operations were supported by the the LEtolians, who had received early intelliAcarnanians, who had assembled their whole gence of the meditated expedition, were already force-except that of (Eniadw —in the hope of on their'march with the whole force of the at length crushing a dangerous and troublesome country, which was even joined by the Ophineighbour. The Leucadians kept within their walls while their territory was ravaged by this * See D. 34 BATTLE OF OLPA.E. 359 oman tribes of Mount CEta, the Bomienses, and- of its walls. The Peloponnesians, however, Callienses, whose seats approached the Malian did not immediately begin the siege, but proGulf. They came upon the invaders at XEgi- ceeded to take the town of Molycrium, a Cotium, and descending from the higher ground rinthian colony, but subject to Athens, which on several sides at once, assailed them with a gave its name to the northern Rhion. But on shower of missiles. The Athenians could only receiving intelligence of the approaching invarepel their attacks by charges very fatiguing to sion, Demosthenes had gone into Acarnania, heavy-armed infantry on such ground, but which and, though with difficulty, had prevailed on the.Etolians, practised in this mode#f fighting, the Acarnanians to lay aside their resentment, could easily elude. Yet as long as the mall body and to send a thousand heavy-armed troops of bowmen which Demosthenes had brought with him to the relief of Naupactus. This rewith him was able to ply the assailants with enforcement he introduced into the townt by their arrows, they were kept in check. But sea; and Eurylochus, when he heard of its arwhen the commander of this little corps was rival, deemed a siege hopeless, and dismissed slain, and the men, having spent their arrows, his _Etolian forces. The rest, instead of marchwere dispersed, the heavy-armed troops were left ing home, he cantoned in the adjacent part of exposed to attacks which, at length, they had not -.Etolia; for he had been induced by the Amstrength to resist, and they sought safety in bracians to promise his support in a fresh expeflight. The country through which they had to dition which they meditated against the Amphiretreat was rugged and intricate, unknown to lochian Argos and Acarnania. them, but familiar to their pursuers, who were It was winter before the Ambracians were equipped and trained for traversing it with ready to fulfil their part of the compact; they speed: their guide, a Messenian, had already then invaded Amphilochia with 3000 heavy infallen. Many were overtaken and killed in fantry, and took up a strong position at a place their flight; still more lost their way, and per- called Olpae, standing on a hill near the sea, ished in the pathless ravines into whichfthey which in ancient times had belonged to the fell. A number took shelter in a wood, where Acarnanians, and had been fortified by them as they could find no outlet, and were suffocated the seat of their national court of justice. It by the flames which the enemy kindled around was here that they where to receive the sucthem. A great number of the allies and. 120. cours promised by Eurylochus; and he no soonof the Athenians, among them their general, er heard that they had posted themselves at Procles, were slain. The rest effected a nar- Olpe, than he collected his troops and marched row escape to C(neon, and, after having recov- to join them. In the mean while, the Acarnaered the bodies of their comrades, sailed to nians had sent their forces to defend Argos, Naupactus, and shortly after to Athens. De- and the Amphilochians had encamped at a mosthenes, dreading the displeasure of the peo- place called Crenae (Wells), on the skirt of the ple, remained behind at Naupactus. hills which border the Ambracian Gulf, and The XAEtolians, proud of this achievement, south of Argos, with a view to intercept the and desiring to revenge themselves on the Mes- Peloponnesian army. At the same time as an senians of Naupactus, who had brought the in- Athenian squadron of twenty galleys had just iader into their country, sent three ambassa- arrived in the Western Sea under Aristoteles dors-one for each of their principal tribes-to and Hierophon, the allies sent to solicit aid Corinth and Sparta, to solicit assistance; and from them, and also despatched a messenger to in the beginning of autumn a Peloponnesian Naupactus, to invite Demosthenes to take the army, under three Spartans-Eurylochus, as command of their army. On the other hand, commander-in-chief, and Macarius andMendeus the Ambracians at Olpwe, apprized of these prepin a subordinate capacity-marched to Delphi. arations, and fearing that Eurylochus might be Their whole force, when they had been joined prevented from joining them, and that they by five hundred heavylarmed from the newly- might themselves be surrounded by the enemy, founded Heraclea, amounted to three thousand. sent home to desire that the whole force of the From Delphi Eurylochus made proposals of city might march to their assistance. EuryIneutrality or alliance to the Ozolian Locrians, ochus, however, who met with no resistance through whose rugged territory his road lay to in his passage through Acarnania, which had Naupactus. Those of Amphissa, who, from been drained of its whole military strength for their neighbourhood and hostility to the Pho- the expedition to Argos, eluded the observation cians, feared that, in case of refusal, they should of the enemy at CrenT, and effected a junction bepxposed to the first attack and the hardest with his allies at Olpae; and the whole army treatment, both complied with his demands encamped on another point of the same hill, themselves, sending hostages to Delphi, and called Metropolis; a name, perhaps, connected prevailed upon most of their kindred tribes to with the ancient importance of Olpae. They give the like security, and to join their forces to had not been long in this position before the the Peloponnesian army. Eurylochus, having Athenian squadron entered the Ambracian Gulf, lodged the hostages at the Dorian town of and came to moorings near the foot of the hill Cytinium, set forward, and on his march re- occupied by the enemy; and Demosthenes, duced some of the Locrian towns which had re- likewise, arrived at Argos with 200 Messenians fused to renounce their alliance with Athens. and 60 Athenian bowmen. He was now forIn the territory of Naupactus he met the AEto- mally elected commander-in-chief of the allied lian army, and with their united forces they rav- army, which consisted mainly of Acarnanians, aged the land, and made themselves masters as the greater part of the Amphilochians were of an unfortified suburb. The town itself was kept at home by the invasion of their territory. in great danger, as its population, reduced by The whole force with which he marched its recent disaster, was unequal to the defence against Olpae did not equal that of the Pelopon 360 HISTORY OF GREECE. nesians and their allies. The two armies re- who told them of the agreement ct acluded with mained in presence of each other five days the Peloponnesians, but threatened them as parted by a ravine; on the sixth day they pre- traitors. At length, however, they were indupared for battle. Whether the combatants were ced, as far they could, to single out the Ambrastill parted by the same ravine, or had changed cians, of whom they slew about two hundred, their ground, does not appear. But'Demos- the rest made their escape into the adjacent thenes had on his right a hollow way covered territory of the Agreeans, and were hospitably with-a thicket; and foreseeing that the enemy's received by the king Salynthius. superiority in numbers would enable them to In the nean while, their countrymen, who outflank him, he here posted 400 men, between were on tieir march to join them, had encampheavy and light troops, in ambuscade. The is- ed for the night on a hill which lay in their road sue proved the sagacity of these dispositions. named Idomene, occupying only one of its two In the heat of the battle, the left wing of the summits. The other, without their knowledge, Peloponnesians, commanded by Eurylochus him- was seized by the troops which Demosthenes self, having turned the enemy's' right, which had sent on before the main body. He himself was occupied by Demosthenes with the Messe- having set out in the evening from Olpae, reach-.nians and the Athenian bowmen, was taken in ed Idomene before sunrise with one half of his reverse by the troops, which started fromrrtheir army, while the other made a circuit over the ambush, and was soon completely routed. Eu- Amphilochian mountains. At daybreak he fell rylochus himself and Macarius were slain; and upon the Ambracians, who had not yet risen, terror and confusion spread through the rest of and were so little prepared for an attack, that the line, except the right wing,' where the Am- they at first mistook the enemy for their allies: bracians were victorious, and pursued the fly- an error on which Demosthenes had calculated, ing enemy to Argos. But in their return from and had therefore placed the Messenians in the the pursuit they fell in with the Acarnanians, first ranks, that their Dorian speech might dewho had defeated the main body, and with dif- ceive the sentinels. The greater part of the ficulty made good their retreat to Olpae. Ambracians were slain on the spot; and of The victory cost the conquerors about three those who escaped this slaughter, most met hundred men: on the Qther side the loss was with death in some other form. Some, entangrea t and Menedeeus, on whom the command gled in a mountainous region, where they could devolved after the death of his colleagues, found not find their way, but where every step was fahimself reduced to the embarrassing alternative miliar to their pursuers, who had also the adof sustaining a blockade both by land and sea, vantage of being lightly armed, were cut off by or of attempting a retreat before a victorious the parties which had been posted in ambusenemy. In this strait, when he applied, accord- cade; others reached the shore of the gulf at ing to custom, for leave to bury his slain, he the time when the Athenian squadron was sailalso sounded Demosthenes and his Acarnanian ing by, and they preferred to commit themselves colleagues on the subject of his retreat. They to the waves and to the mercy of the Athewere not unwilling to grant him the permission nians, rather than fall into the hands of their which he desired, but only for the Peloponne- barbarous enemies, the Amphilochians. A very sian troops, so that the Ambracians and the small number made their way to Ambracia. mercenaries should be'excluded from the treaty The Acarnanians marched back with the and kept ignorant of it. The Acarnanians, per- spoils of the slain to Argos. The next day a haps, only considered the advantage which they herald came from the Ambracians who had tashould have over the Ambracians when aban- ken refuge among the Agraeans, to apply for the doned by their allies. Demosthenes calculated burial of those who had fallen in the retreat the discredit which such an instance of perfidy from Olpae. He was struck with surprise by and meanness would throw on the Peloponne- the pile of arms which he saw;' and this led to sian cause in the west. Neither of these re- an explanation which unfolded to him the whole flections moved Menedaeus or the Peloponne- extent of the recent disaster. His feelings sian officers to whom these terms:were pro- broke out in an exclamation of grief and astonposed, though they must have known that their ishment; but he was too much oppressed by situation was not hopeless, since they might ex- the magnitude of the evil to execute his compect speedy succours from Ambracia. In fact, mission, and only carried, back the moutrnfuli tithe whole force of Ambracia was already on its dings.:. It was the' heaviest loss, Thucydides way towards Olpae, though it had not heard the observes,'that any Greek city suffered within news of the battle, and Demosthenes, having the same space of time during the'war; and he been informed of its approach, had sent one di- did not venture to record the numbers which vision of his army forward to secure the strong- were reported to have fallen, because they seemest positions and lay ambushes in its line of ed incredible in comparison with the extent and march, and was preparing to follow with the power of Ambracia. But he had no doubt that, others, when the Peloponnesians, issuing from if the victors had wished to prosecute their adthe camp in small parties, under the pretext of vantage, the town must have yielded'to the first gathering herbs and firewood, as they proceed- assault. -Demosthenes was eager for this coned, quickened their pace, and were soon dis- summation' of his success. But the Acarnani covered to be in full retreat. The comrades ans had begun to reflect, that what had hitherwhom they had left behind, when they perceiv- to been their principal danger was now comed this, set out with the utmost speed to over- pletely removed, and that there was room to take them, and the Acarnanians, whose gen- apprehend one of a different kind. They foreerals alone were in the secret, in pursuit of saw that if Ambracia was taken, it would be both. At first they fell upon both indiscrim- occupied by the Athenians, who had, indeed, inately, and would not listen to their generals, been useful allies, but might prove more trouble DELOS.-GELO. 361 some neighbours than ththe veakened and hum- nary manner. The chorus had Uisually landed bled Ambracians. Perhaps the recollection of at Delos in the midst of a crowd of spectators, Phormio's arbitrary proceedings* contributed to and was forced to begin the hymn in honour of put them on their guard. They, therefore, the god amid the preparations for its solemn adopted more moderate counsels. They dis- march. Nicias landed with his chorus on Rhemissed the Athenians and Demosthenes with nea; and the next morning the channel between the most honourable marks of their gratitude.' it and Delos was seen crossed by a bridge magA third of the spoils of the slain was assigned nificently decorated, over which the procession to Athens. If it had reached its destination, it moved in orderly state towards the temple. would, perhaps, have afforded means of estima- After the games, he dedicated a brazen palmting the loss of the Ambracians more exactly; tree, and purchased a piece of ground, the profbut the vessel or vessels in which they were its of which he devoted to sacrificial banquets sent were, captured. Three hundred panoplies for the Delians, on the light condition' of praywere reserved for Demosthenes, who, after ing for the prosperity of the founder. these brilliant achievements, no longer fearing In the following spring (425) Athens discoverthe displeasure of the people, carried them home ed none of the langour of recent convalescence; and dedicated them in the Athenian temples. but, as if her enemies at home could not afford But after the departure of their allies, the Acar- sufficient employment for her returning vigour, nanians and Amphilochians granted an unmo- addressed herself with fresh energy to a distant lested retreat to the Ambracians and the Pelo- and wider field of action, where she had hitherponnesians, who had withdrawn from the do- to made only some faint efforts, which we have minions of Salynthius to CEniada, and donclu- not yet noticed, because they were not immedided a treaty of peace and alliance for a hundred ately attended with any important consequenyears with Ambracia, on terms of mutual de- ces. It was towards Sicily that she now began fence; but so limited as not to require either to direct her views more steadily and earnestly. party to join the other in hostilities against their We have seen that even in the time of Pericles old allies. The Amphilochians recovered the this object had kindled ambitious hopes in some hostages and places which the Ambracians had of her more ardent and enterprising spirits, wrested from them. The Corinthians sent a which that cool and cautious statesman is said garrison of three hundred men for the protec- to have repressed. Yet it kept so firm a hold tion of their depopulated colony. on many minds, that it may be said to have The next campaign (425) opened with bright- contributed its share to the various occasions er'prospects for Athens. The pestilence had of the Peloponnesian war; for the part which now disappeared; and, either in gratitude for Athens took in the quarrel between Corinth and relief, or to hasten its approach, the Athenians, Corcyra was mainly determined by the convein the course of the preceding winter, probably nient position of the island with regard to a Sito fulfil the command of the same oracle which cilian expedition; and the importance of her had been partially obeyed by Pisistratus,t puri- struggles for Acarnania and the adjacent islfled the island of Delos, the seat of the god, ands, to which the victories of Demosthenes who, it was commonly believed, both sent and gave the turn which has been just described, stayed such diseases. Perhaps it was thought ultimately depended on the same object. And prudent to counteract an opinion which the Del- as henceforward the affairs of Sicily become phic oracle may have' rendered prevalent among more and more intimately connected with the the Greeks, that Apollo sided with the Pelopon- history of Greece, this may be the most suitanesians. His sacred island was now complete- ble place for taking' a review of the leading ly freed from pollution by the removal of all re- events which affected the condition of the islmains of the dead-who had been interred in it; and in that period of the Peloponnesian war on and it was decreed that in future it should nev- which we are entering. er be profaned by the death or the birth of any Gelo sutvived the battle of Himera only about human being; the sick and the pregnant were a couple of years, during which he reigned in to be removed in time to the adjacent islet of great prosperity at Syracuse. He granted peace Rhenea, which was divided from Delos by so on moderate terms to the Carthaginians;* and narrow a channel that Polycrates, in the height to express their gratitude for his forbearance, of his power, had consecrated it to Apollo by they sent a crown of a hundred talents of gold to uniting the two islands with a chain. *As it his wife Damarata, who was believed to have might be hoped that this expedient would ap- secondedtheir suit with herintercession. While pease the wrath of the god, other ceremonies his victory was recent, and his power and repuwere instituted for the purpose of propitiating tation at their height, he thought it expedient to his favour. An ancient festival, described in strengthen his dominion by giving it the apone of the Homeric hymns as celebrated by a pearance of legal authority. He called an asgreat' concourse of the long-robed Ionians, who sembly, of the citizens to meet in arms, appearresorted' to -Delos, with their wives and chil- ed in the midst of it unarmed, and made a dren, to delight the eye and ear of Phcebus by harangue in vindication of his past conduct. It trials of strength, dancing, and music, was now was a piece of mockery, not more hazardous, revived and made quinquennial; and a horse- though somewhat less impudent, than Sylla's race was added to the games. It was on one affectation of submission to the laws.t The of these oc".ions that Nicias, having been ap- Syracusan tyrant had secured himself, as we pointed tol nduct the sacred chorus and the have seen, by the discordant interests and pasvictims which were sent from Athens, displayed his wealth and munificence in an extraordi- * If we may believe Plutarch, Apophth. Reg. et Imp., one of the conditions Lwhich he exacted was, that the. should cease to sacrifice their children to their MIoloch or * See above, p. 143. t P. 190. Cronus. t Plut., Svll., 34. VOL. I.-Z z 362 HISTORY OF GREECE. sions of the people over which he reigned, and ly punished for her, meditated rebellion; and a still more effectually by a large body of merce- body of Dorian colonists was sent to supply the nary troops, on whom he had conferred the place of the citizens who were sacrificed to freedom of the city.* It may easily be believed Theron's revenge. Theron mediated between that in such an assembly the victorious general JPolyzelus and his brother, and united his house who condescended to assume the character of a with the royal family of Syracuse by new ties citizen, and, as if before his equals, to render of affinity: he bestowed his niece on Hiero, an account of his proceedingS, was received while he himself married a daughter of Polywith acclamations of applause, and greeted as zelus.* a benefactor, deliverer, and king, by the admi- Hiero's reign was no less prosperous, and, ring multitude. He displays the same policy in perhaps, even more brilliant, than his predecesthe last acts of his life. He directed that the sor's. The Tuscans had infested the coasts of law which restrained the expense of funerals Lower Italy with their piracies, and Cuma imshould be observed in his own case; and, ac- plored Hiero's protection against them. He cordingly, his remains were interred without sent a fleet, which, by a signal victory, crushed pomp, but in a sepulchre of royal magnificence. the maritime power of the piratical states.t A The multitude attended his obsequies to a dis- part of the Tuscan spoil, dedicated to Zeus at tance of five-and-twenty miles from the city, Olympia, spread the renown of the conqueror and heroic honours were decreed to his tomb. over Greece, and still preserves a record of his He had made provision for securing the succes- triumph.t After the death of Theron, his sucsion in his line, notwithstanding the dangers to cessor, Thrasydaus, who, in his father's lifewhich it was exposed by his premature death. time, had instigated Polyzelus against his elder He left an infant son, and three brothers, Hiero, brother, made war upon Hiero, and collected Polyzelus, and Thrasybulus. Hiero, the eld- all the forces of Agrigentum and Himera against est, he appointed to govern Syracuse during the Syracuse. Hiero, however, gained a decisive minority of his heir,t but he intrusted Polyzelus victory; and Thrasydaeus, whose authority restwith the guardianship of the young prince, and, ed only upon force, was compelled to quit his to balance the power of Hiero, invested him dominions, and retired to Greece. He sought with the command of the army, and directed shelter at Megara; but, through some causes, that he should marry his widow Damarata.t of which we have no account, was there conHis brothers carried his will into execution; demned to death.~ After the expulsion of her but the jealousy which he had no doubt fore- tyrant, Agrigentum recovered her democratical seen, and to which he probably trusted for the Constitution, and made peace with Hiero. Hiesafety of his son, soon caused an open breach ro aspired to a higher glory than that of a conbetween the regent and the guardian. Hiero queror: he is said to have been ambitious of endeavoured in vain to get rid of his brother, the honours which Grecian piety paid to the who was formidable both on account of his founders of cities.ll He removed the inhabistation and of his popular character, by employ- tants of Naxos and Catana to Leontium, where ing him in foreign expeditions,< while he se- they found a kindred population, which, it seems, cured himself by taking a body of mercenaries was compelled to receive them. At Catana he into his service. Polyzelus, finding his posi- planted a new colony, composed of 5000 Syration at Syracuse unsafe, withdrew to seek pro- cusans and as many Dorians, who were invited tection from his wife's father, Theron, who, both from Peloponnesus and from other Sicilian while he himself ruled at Agrigentunm, had com- towns. I He changed the name of the city to mitted the government of Himera to his son.Etna, and greatly enlarged its territory at the Thrasydaeus. Hiero at first prepared to make expense of the neighbouring Sicels.** As the war upon Theron, on account of the shelter colonists were all Dorians, he prescribed a form which he afforded to his rival; but the quarrel of government for them, founded on the leading was unexpectedly brought to an amicfable issue. features of the Spartan institutions; but they The Himereans were impatient of the govern- continued not the less subject to him; and his ment of Thrasydweus, which seems to have been main object was; undoubtedly, not an empty violent and oppressive; and they engaged in a title, but to secure an independent principality conspiracy against him, which was headed by for himself or his family, if Gelo's heir should Capys and Hippocrates, two of Theron's kins- ever succeed to the throne of Syracuse; and men. I Hiero was on his march against The- he therefore committed the government of the ron, when the conspirators opened a negotia- newly-founded city, first to his son Dinomenes, tion with him, and offered to betray Theron and afterward to the most trusty of his'friends. into his hands. But it would seem as if Hiero He seems to have extended his views beyond thought that the immediate advantage which Sicily; he protected the Italian Locrians when he might derive from their treason would be they were threatened by Anaxilaus of Rhegioutweighed by the danger with which the fall um;tt and it must have been with ambitious of the Agrigentine dynasty might threaten his motives that he instigated his sons to question own, and, instead of accepting their offers, he, the integrity of their virtuous guardian, Micyby the intervention of the poet Simonides, be- thus, who, after satisfying the young men and trayed them to Theron. This generous sacrire became the cement of a firm alliance be- * Timmus in Schol. Find., at the beginning of 01. ii. t Diodor., xi., 51. The Scholiast on Pind., Pyth., i., 137, tween the two princes. The two chief con- mentions the Carthaginians as allied in twar with the spirators fled to Camicus: Himera was severe- Tuscans.' t In the inscription of the helmet found at Olympia in * Diodor., xi.,72. t Boeckh on Pindar, 01. ii., p. 118. 1817. See Boeckh on Pindar, p. 225. Schol. Pindar, 01. ii., 29. 0 Diodor., xi., 53. 11 Ibid., xi., 49. 0 These expeditions are variously described by Diodorus, ~ From Gela and Megara, according to the Scholiast on xi., 48, and the Scholiast on Pindar, 01. ii., 29. Pindar, Pyth., i., 120. ** Diod., xi., 70. 11 Schol. Pind., 01., ii., 173. tt Epicharmus in Schol. Pindar, Pyth., i., 98. WAR WITH- THE MERCENARIES.'363 theit friends by a clear account of his adminis- the cruelty and rapacity of the new ruler protration, refused to resume the management of voked his subjects to revolt. The principal their affairs. He collected his private property forces which he had to bring against Syracuse and quitted the city, accompanied by the ap- consisted, besides foreign mercenaries, of the plause and regret of the peoples and ended his.Etnaeans or Catanians, who were attached by days in honour at Tegea.* The consequence gratitude and interest to his house. With these was, perhaps, what Hiero had expected, though troops, which together amounted to 15,000, he he did not live to reap any benefit from it; that for some time kept possession of the two quar the sons of Anaxilaus, having lost the main ters of Syracuse called Achradina and the Isl support of their authority, were, not long after, land, which were enclosed each by separate expelled from Rhegium.t Hiero's government fortifications, while the rest was occupied by at home was not so mild and popular as Gelo's; his adversaries. But the Syracusans applied he is charged with violence and rapacity; per- for assistance to Gelo, Agrigentum, Himera, haps he also took more delight than Gelo in the and Selinus, which probably desired the overdisplay of his grandeur. He was an active and throw of the monarchical government at Syrasuccessful competitor for the most expensive cuse to ensure the stability of their own politihonours of the Grecian games, and his liberality cal institutions, and to the Sicel tribes of the drew the greatest poets of the age, Simonides, interior, which were hostile, not, indeed, to the Bacchylides, Pindar, and LEschylus, to his court, tyranny, but to the house of the tyrants, who where Epicharmus and the philosopher Xenoph- had encroached oh their territories, and threatanes were also admitted to a familiar inter- ened their independence. All contributed succourse with him.t Pindar, while he celebrates cours, some, of ships, others of land forces, his wealth and munificence, his institutions and which seem to have enabled the insurgents to victories, his taste and his virtues, intersperses outnumber and overpower Thrasybulus, both by this praise with delicate warnings, which indi- land and by sea. He was defeated with great cate that Hiero did not bear his high fortune loss in a sea-fight and in a battle fought in the with perfect moderation.~ His intimacy with suburbs; and finding his affairs desperate, neSimonides, whom, as we have seen, he intrust- gotiated with his revolted subjects for leave to ed with important commissions, was celebrated abdicate his authority and to retire into exile. in antiquity. But if the poet ever offered him The Syracusans only wished to be rid of him, such advice as we find under his name ill one and he withdrew to the Italian Locri, where he of Xenophon's dialogues,ll it may have come ended his life in peaceful obscurity. With him too late, after Hiero had established a system the dynasty sank.to rise no more. We hear of terror, and had destroyed all the security of nothing farther either of the son of Gelo, or of private intercourse by the employment of spies Dinomenes, son of Hiero, though he survived his and eavesdroppers,~ and sacrificed several of father. The expulsion of the last tyrant was his friends to slight suspicions.** He died in celebrated with an annual festival of liberty, the city which he had founded, and'there re- and a democratical constitution was establishceived the same honours as Gelo earned from ed; and this example was followed throughout that in which he reigned.tt all the Greek cities of the island. Polyzelus was already dead; but Gelo's son But the revolution did not terminate with was still living, and seems to have been ac- these political changes. The power of the tyknowledged as the rightful heir to his father's rants had been maintained partly by foreign power, though he was not yet of age to wield it. mercenaries, and partly by adherents whose atThrasybulus~ therefore succeeded Hiero in the tachment was purchased by the extinction or government. But Aristotle's language would the humiliation of an opposite faction. The lead us to believe that he ruled not in his own time had now come when those who had been name, but as the minister or favourite of his thus deprived of their country and their propernephew, whom, it is said, he endeavoured to cor- ty might hope for restitution and revenge, and rupt, that he might afterward supplant him; wheh the safety of the newly-established govand the resistance which the friends of the erflnts might seem to require that the work young prince opposed to his ambitious designs of the tyrants should be completely undone, and is described by Aristotle as the occasion of the that their friends should no longer be suffered revolution by which the dynasty of Gelo was to retain the privileges and influence which soon after overthrown.tt But it is difficult to they owed to their favour. At Syracuse Gelo reconcile these hints with the more explicit ac- had incorporated more than 10,000 foreign mercount of Diodorus, unless it be supposed that cenaries among the citizens; and after the Thrasybulus, on the death of Polyzelus, became expulsion of Thrasybulus, more than 7000 of the guardian of his nephew, and, after having the number were still enjoying the franchise. made him odious and contemptible by inflaming They were now viewed with jealousy, as they and indulging his passions, set him aside, and had perhaps always been with aversion, and usurped the supreme authority. Diodorus says one of the first measures after the restoration nothing of Gelo's son, but simply relates that of liberty, was to disfranchise the whole body. Hiero was succeeded by Thrasybulus, ai.d that But, as men who owed their fortunes to their swords, they were too proud of their valour and * Diod., xi., 66. t Ibid., xi., 76. military skill, and too confident in their numh:Plut., Reg. et Imp. Apophth. He fined Epicharmus for bers and union, tamely to submit to such a deghaving used some indecorous language in the presence ofradation. Theyseizedthetwo quartersofthe his wife, and joked with Xenophanes on his ridicule of radation. They seized the two quarters of the Homer. ~ See Boeckh on Pindar, p. 106. city which had been held during the previous 0I The Hiero. See Schneider's Introduction. insurrection by Thrasybulus, in which, perhaps, ~' rataKovraL. Aristot.,Pol.,v., 9.' their dwellings principally lay, and here'were ** Plut., De Adul. et Am., 27. tt Diodor, xi., 66. 4~ Pol., v., 8. able to defend themselves against their adver 364 HISTORY OF GREECE. saries, who were worsted, notwithstanding their ambitious men ready to lay the foundations of superior numbers, in every attempt which they a new tyranny in the claims or wishes of the made to dislodge them. Butat seathe Syracu- disappointed and needy multitude. Such apsans were victorious, and by land they were pears to have been the origin of the commotion able to blockade their enemies, and reduced which, about the year 452, agitated Syracuse, them to great distress. In the mean while they and threatened to plunge it into a civil war. seem to have exerted themselves to supply the An aspiring demagogue, named Tyndarides, defects of their own discipline and tactics, and had formed a strong party among the poorer formed a band of 600 picked men, which mainly citizens; and, unless his character and designs determined the issue of the struggle. For the have been misrepresented,. aimed at usurping mercenaries, though successful as long as they the supreme authority; but his adversaries remained on the defensive, were defeated in a were powerful enough to bring him to trial bepitched battle, which, pressed perhaps by hun- fore a tribunal which did not shrink from conger, they ventured to give without the city, demning him to death. His partisans attemptprobably on ground where the enemy could ed to rescue him as he was led to prison to sufmake full use of his superior force, and where fer his sentence; but the tumult was quelled, the 600 rendered such important services,- that and he was slain, with many of his followers, they were afterward rewarded each. with a by a body of the wealthier class. It is said to chaplet and a mina of silver, as the authors of have been with the view of counteracting the the victory. The vanquished, indeed, do not machinations of such demagogues that a mode appear to have been crushed by this blow; but of proceeding answering to the Athenian ostrait forced them to renounce their claims, and to cism was introduced at Syracuse, called petalevacuate the city. Similar contests took place ism, from the olive-leaves on which the names about the same time in many other towns, and of the obnoxious citizens were written, as on perhaps the events of Syracuse contributed to the potsherds at Athens. The term of exile at bring them to a similar issue. Everywhere the Syracuse was only five years. If the whole foreign intruders were compelled to give way, account which Diodorus gives of the origin and and by a general agreement they were permit- the effects of the Syracusan institution was not ted to settle in the territory of Messana. so confused as to render all conjectures on the The Sicels, who had helped to overthrow subject extremely uncertain, we might believe Gelo's dynasty, took the opportunity which the that the petalism was first adopted by the high. revolution afforded them of recovering the ter- er class as an engine of attack on the popular ritory which Hiero had wrested from them, and leaders, and afterward turned against the conannexed to his colony at AEtna. They were trivers. According to Diodorus, so many of aided by the Syracusans, who were hostile to the most eminent citizens were sent into exile,Etna as the favoured seat of their tyrants, and by this process that a general terror seized the by the old inhabitants of Catana, who had been leading men, and the persons best qualified for transplanted to Leontium. The Sicels at this the service of the state withdrew entirely from time very generally acknowledged the authority public affairs, which thus fell into the worst of a chief named Ducetius, whose proper do- hands; and the evils which arose from this minions had perhaps been narrowed by Hiero's change were so manifest that the people soon encroachments. He made an agreement with repealed the law of petalism.* If the remedy his allies for a partition of the _LEtnaean territo- was so speedily applied, the disorder cannot ry. The colonists, however, defended their have been very dangerous, and the public spirit possessions, and did not yield till they had been must have been generally healthy; and, accorddefeated by the confederates in several engage- ingly, Aristotle appears to speak with approbaments. But finally they abandoned the town, tion of the manner in which Syracuse was govwhich was reoccupied by its ancient inhabi- erned after the expulsion of the tyrants.t Diotants, who restored the name of Catana. and dorus describes it as flourishing in wealth, notthrew down the monument which ha'en withstanding its internal dissensions; and in raised over the grave of Hiero. But t 4'5x- 451 a Syracusan fleet was sent out to punish pelled colonists, having taken possession of a the Tuscans, who had renewed their piracies. town in the interior, ten miles from Catana, They bribed the Syracusan admiral to spare called Inessa, gave the name of -Etna to their them,; but on his return he was punished as a new settlement, and revived the honours of traitor, and his successor, with an armament Hiero as its founder. About the same time of sixty galleys, ravaged the coast of Etruria, (458) Camarina, which had remained desolate and the islands Cyrnus and AlEthalia (Corsica ever since it was destroyed by Gelo, was re- and Elba), which then belonged to the Tusbuilt and inhabited by a colony from Gela. cans, and carried home many captives and a After these events the Greek cities continued rich booty. for some years at peace with one another; but In the mean while the Sicel chief, Ducetius, the revolution which delivered them from their was raising a power which soon became formityrants left many causes of discontent and mu- dable to his Greek neighbours, as well in itself tual animosity, which never ceased to disturb as on account of the abilities and the designs their internal tranquillity. The great changes which he unfolded. He had begun, as we have which took place in the state of property, when seen, by recovering the share which belonged to the adherents of the fallen dynasties were dis- him in the territory of Catana. He afterward possessed, and their esthtes restored to the an- made himself master of Morgantia, the ancient cjient owners, only excited the murmurs of a large class, which found that it had gained no- * xi., 87. thing but political rights by the convulsions t P1., 4, AaKeaYp6vLtot rXlaora; KarEXvaav rvpavVt[a;, Kai X1voCaKov'oLO KtaTr 7/V0 Xp0Vo0V 1Y ETOXTVtrovC which had made others rich; and there were Ka DUCETIUS.-ASCENDENCY OF SYRACUSE. 365 capital of a kindred tribe, the Morgetes. By the agora. An assembly was called to deliberhis energy and success he won the confidence ate on the treatment which he should receive. of his nation, and he seems to have perceived Counsellors were not wanting to recommend that nothing but union was wanted to form it the most rigorous course; but the people was into a state, which,-under an active and pru- unanimous on the side of mercy. The supplident prince, would be able to maintain its inde- ant was conveyed: to. Corinth, where he was pendence, and, perhaps, to give laws to the enjoined to reside during the rest of his life. whole, island. He founded a new city called But the exile had never renounced his hopes, Menaenus, to which he drew settlers by grants or soon felt them revived. Five years after of land in the surrounding district; and after- his deportation he quitted Corinth, procured or ward, having induced all the Sicel towns, ex- feigned the sanction of an oracle for a new colcept Hybla, to unite under his government, he ony, and arrived in Sicily with a numerous obtained their concurrence in a more important band of followers, which he led to a site on the undertaking. His native place, Menae, was sit- north coast of the island, called Caleacte (Fair hated on high ground, not adapted to a great Strand), and here proceeded to found a new city; but at a little distance, in the plain, was city. He was joined by some of the Sicels and an ancient and revered sanctuary of two deities, by Archonides, the ruler of Herbita. His reone of whom, Pales, the goddess of shepherds, turn was the cause or pretext for a war bewas honoured at Rome, where her festival co- tween Agrigentum and Syracuse: the Agrigenincided with the birthday'of the city. Two. tines complained of the lenity which had spared boiling sulphureous springs, which gushed up to so dangerous an enemy. Their secret motive the brim of two volcanic craters, without ever was probably jealousy of the growing power of overflowing, within the consecrated ground, Syracuse, which had been greatly augmented and were believed to attest the presence of two by conquests in the Sicel territory. Most of the kindred powers, heightened the awe of all who other Greek towns sided with one or the other approached the sanctuary of the Palic deities. of the rival states, and it was evident that the It,*was a spot to which the oppressed fled for dominion of Sicily depended on the issue of the refuge, with the certainty of finding a secure struggle. A battle was fought near the banks asylum, and where the most solemn contracts of the Himera, and the fortune of Syracuse was were ratified by oaths, which, it was believed, again triumphant. The Agrigentines' w.dehad never been broken with impunity. Duce- feated with the loss of 1000 men, and we,[amin tius seems to have thought that thd sanctity of to sue for peace, and to acknowledge the suthe place fitted it for the site of a new city, in premacy of Syracuse, which was now establishwhich the Sicels might recognise a common ed over all'the Greek, or, at least; over all the capital of the nation. He transported Menae Dorian cities of the island except Camarina. into the plain, but enclosed a space capable of A few years after, she was delivered from her containing a much larger population; and set- apprehensions on another side by the death of.tlers were found in abundance, attracted as well Ducetius, who was cut off, by sickness, in the by the fertility of the soil as by the fame of the midst of his ambitious projects. The Syracusanctuary, from which the new' city took the sans-attacked all the Sicel towns in succession; name of Palice. and it must have been in this war that Palice Ducetius now felt himself strong enough to was destroyed,* if, as Diodorus asserts, the attempt some offensive movements against the last which held but was one called Trinacia, Greeks. He recovered AEtna, the ancient Ines- which was defended l with desperate valour, sa, from Hiero's colonists, who seem to have but was at length stormed and razed to the retained their monarchical government, as we ground. read that their ruler was treacherously murder- Such was the state of affairs in Sicily when ed by Ducetius. The Sicel prince then laid the Peloponnesian war broke out. Syracuse siege to a fortress called Motyum, belonging to was bound to the Peloponnesian cause, not the Agrigentines, who obtained succours from only by her filial connexion with Corinth, but Syracuse; but the allied forces were defeated byher jealousy of the maritime power of Athens, and driven out of their intrenchments. Mo- even if no rumour had reached her of the amtyum fell into the hands of Ducetius. The Syr- bitious views which the Athenians had begun acusans seem to have required that their gen- to direct towards Sicily. But the cities of erals should conquer: they punished Bolco, Chalcidian origin, which were averse on nawho had commanded in the last campaign, as' tional grounds to the predominance' of a Dorian a traitor, and in the following spring they sent state, and saw their independence and even out a large force under another general, who their existence threatened by the power of Syrwas ordered to subdue Ducetius. He executed acuse, regarded the contest which was beginhis commission, and, in a hard-fought'battle, ning in Greece between the Ionian race, to routed and dispersed the Sicel army. Ducetius which they themselves belonged, and the Dowas left with a small band of followers, which, rians, with opposite feelings, and hoped to find as his affairs grew more and more hopeless a protectress in Athens. Whether such hopes when the victorious Syracusans were joined had encouraged the Leontines to betray their by the Agrigentine forces which had recaptured impatience of the supremacy of Syracuse, or Motyum, was thinned by frequent desertions. they had been wantonly attacked, does not apAt last, finding that he was in danger of being pear. But in the fifth year of the war (428) betrayed to the enemy, he resolved on a bold they were engaged in a struggle with Syracuse, expedient. In the dead of night he quitted his * Wesseling's conjecture on Diodor., xi., 90, that his retreat, alone and unobserved, and rode to Syr- author had related the particulars of the fall of Palice in acuse. In the morning he was found, in the one of his lost books, would only be necessary if it was posture of a suppliant, on one of the altars in possible to place'any reliance on the memory or accuracy 366 HISTORY OF GREECE. in which the Dorian and Chalcidian cities of tion, and waited for opportunities of action the island took part with their natural allies; The Rhegians were not able to furnish any con all but Camarina, which, it would seem, through siderable re-enforcement to their armament, jealousy of her powerful neighbour, sided with and their first operations were of little moment. the Leontines. the Syracusan confederacvy An expedition which they made in the winter was the stronger, and its armament blockaded after their arrival against the 2Eolian islands, Leontium by land and sea, and reduced the failed in its main object, the reduction of LipaLeontines to such distress,4that, seeing no pros- ra. Yet their presence seems to have animapect of relief at home, they applied for succour ted their Sicilian allies to more vigorous efforts, to Athens. The embassy which they sent on and perhaps relieved Leontium for a time by this occasion was memorable, both for the im- drawing off the Syracusan squadron which portant consequences which ensued from it, blockaded it. But in the following summer and because it was headed by the celebrated they gained a more important advantage, which Gorgias, one of the earliest and the most em- compensated the loss of their general Charmeinent among the men who reduced oratory.to ades, who was killed in an engagement with an art, and philosophy to a profession. Sicily the Syracusans. Laches, now sole commander, was the birthplace of Greek rhetoric. The landed a body of the allied troops on the Sicilgreat increase of litigation which arose from ian coast, and marched against the fort of Mythe expulsion of the tyrants, through the claims lae, in the territory of Messana. It was garriof those whom they had deprived of their prop- soned by two of the Messanian tribes, probably erty, gave a new impulse to the practice of fo- not much less than half of their whole force. rensic eloquence, and led several ingenious They attempted to draw the invaders into an men to study the principles on which its effica- ambush, but were defeated with great loss, and cy depended, and to frame rules and precepts were finally compelled, not only to surrender for learners. Gorgias had been preceded by the fortress, but to join the allies in marching Corax and Tisias; but he unfolded and illus- against Messana. This part of the capitulation trated their system, and combined his rhetori- seems to indicate that the Messanians were4lical exercises with philosophical speculations vided between two parties, one of which wishderived from the Eleatic school, and with oth- ed well to the Athenians, and was encouraged ers of an ethical nature which afforded topics to declare itself by the success of their arms. fo clamation. The Athenians are said to Messana itself, on the approach of the enemy, have een captivatedbyhis laborate harangues, offered no resistance, but gave hostages and though they had undoubtedly much better mod- other securities for its obedience. It does not els at home; and the eloquence of their. great appear to have been required to admit the Atheorators was removed as widely as possible from nians within its walls. Laches was equally the frosty glare which seems to have marked successful in a descent which he made in the the compositions of Gorgias. In private, too, same summer on the Locrian coast, where he he delighted the most gifted and aspiring of the defeated the forces sent to encounter him,' and Athenian youth, both by his rhetorical exhibi- made himself master of a fort on the river Hations and by his dialectic subtilties; and as he lex. But he failed in an expedition which he demanded a high price for his instructions, he led in the following winter against the Sicel found his stay at Athens so profitable, that he town Inessa, where the Syracusans garrisoned -was induced to repeat his visit, and to enlight- the citadel. Some of the Sicels had been enen other parts of Greece with his new wis- couraged to revolt from Syracuse, and joined dom. the Athenians in this expedition. But the citHe was no less successful in the discharge adel baffled their assaults, and in their retreat of his commission, which, indeed, would have they were attacked by the garrison, and suffered been safe enough in the hands of a less brill- considerable loss. This check was soon after, iant orator, for it met the wishes of the Athe- in some degree, compensated by another sucnians. They granted the request of the Leon- cessful descent on the Locrian territory. But tines; yet the state of their own affairs-for in the mean while, the main end of the war they were still suffering from the pestilence, seemed as distant as ever. The Leontines and their treasury was drained by the growing found themselves still pressed both by land and expenses of the war-and the novelty of the sea; though the naval force which Syracuse enterprise inclined them to caution. They con- employed against them was small. They had, tented themselves with sending twenty galleys therefore, again to send to Athens, and solicitunder Laches and Charceades, not without the ed more active succours, and the Athenians hope of making a useful diversion in favour of had resolved to send a fresh squadron of forty their allies, but chiefly with the view of explo- galleys. Three generals, Pythodorus, Sophoring the state of Sicily, and of ascertaining what cles, and Eurymedon'were appointed to the encouragement it held out to their schemes of command. The first was sent immediately with conquest. The squadron sailed to Rhegium, a few ships to supersede Laches, who, on his which, after the expulsion of the sons of Anaxi- return from an expedition which he had made laus, had been much agitated by contending against Himera and the.Eolian isles, found his factions, but was at this time ruled by a party successor at Rhegium. fiiendly to the Athenians. To Athens, indeed, The new commander seems to have been ei-:itwas naturally attached as a city of Chalcidian ther less able or less fortunate than Laches; origin; and this attachment was strengthened and during the interval in which he waited for by its enmity to Locri, which was in part, as his colleagues, who were to follow with the we have seen, a Spartan colony, and was an ally main force, the Athenian interest lost more of the Peloponnesians. At Rhegiumn, there- ground than it gained in Sicily. Pythodorus fore, the Athenian commanders took their sta- I was defeated by the Locrians in an expedition OPERATIONS IN SICILY.-FORTIFICATION OF PYLUS. 367 which he made against their territory soon af- well if he was bent on.putting the city to the ter his arrival; and in the spring of 425 he lost expense of fortifying one." There real motive the most valuable fruit of the last campaign. was, perhaps, as much jealousy as the fear of A squadron of twenty galleys, half Syracusan, delay. Demosthenes, finding them deaf to his half Locrian, took possession of Messana, be- remonstrances, applied to the inferior officers, friended by the party adverse to Athens, while but with as little success; they were probably the Locrians invaded the territory of Rhegium no less anxious than their chiefs to proceed to with their whole force. Their hostility was in- the object of the expedition. But, as the weathflamed by a body of Rhegian exiles, who hoped er continued to detain them, the men, feeling to be restored to their country. And perhaps the time heavy on their hands, began to think it was the unsettled state of Rhegium which that they could not divert themselves better prevented the Athenians' from defending Mes- than by setting about the work which DemossAna,'Where the enemy now stationed their thenes proposed. The commanders did not infleet and prepared to strengthen it with such terfere; which, indeed, would have been directre-enforcements as might enable them to coun- ly contrary to the orders of the people; and the teract the movements of the invader. work, once begun, was carried on with the Such was the state of affairs in Sicily at the greater ardour on account of the difficulties beginning of the summer of 425, when the Pel- which were to bp overcome. They had brought oponnesian army, under the Spartan King Agis, no masons' tools with them; but they found invaded Attica, and committed its usual ravages. abundance of stones, which they gathered, and And now Sophocles and Eurymedon set sail put together as they might happen to square with the forty galleys which had been pfomised with each other; and when mud was wanted to the Leontines. They were accompanied by to fill up the interstices, they supplied the place Demosthenes, who, though after his return to both of hods and trowels with their hands. Acarnania he had not been invested with any The only fear was lest they should be intercommand, had obtained leave to embark with rupted by the enemy before their work was the two generals, and to use the services of the completed; and this thought spurred them to fleet as occasion might offer on the coast of use their utmost efforts to put the weakest side Peloponnesus. But the generals were directed of the ground in a state capable.of defence. to touch at Corcyra, where the friends of Athens Pylus was only fifty miles from Sparta. But were again threatened by the refugees, who had the Spartans were celebrating one of their festaken up a strong position in the island, and ex- tivals; their army was in Attica, their fleet at pected the arrival of a powerful Peloponnesian.Corcyra, and they did not think it worth their armament. Demosthenes had not yet disclo- while to bestir themselves for the sake of resed the particulars of his plan, which demanded pelling an enemy whom they expected easily to secrecy; but when the fleet had reached the dislodge at the first assault. The Athenians, coast of Messenia he announced his design of therefore, were allowed to finish their rude wall occupying the point, called by the Lacedaemoni- as far as was necessary to make it tenable. It ans Coryphasium, but more anciently and gen- was the labour of six days; and then, the weatherally known by the name of Pylus, as it was er being fair, Sophocles and Eurymedon prosecommonly believed to have been the residence cuted their voyage with all speed, leaving five of Nestor. It was the rocky headland"at the galleys with Demosthenes to guard the fortress. northern entrance of the bay now called Nava- The news of the occupation of Pylus induced rino, separated by a very narrow channel from Agis to withdraw his army immediately from the island of Sphacteria, and accessible only by Attica; where, indeed, he could not have reone or two narrow passes on the land side. mained much longer, as the invasion had been Demosthenes had conceived the project of for- made earlier than usual, while the corn was tifying this point, and of intrusting it to a garri- still green, and the troops were beginning to son of Messenians from Naupactus, which his suffer both from the scarcity of provisions and personal influence would enable him easily to the extraordinary severity of the weather. He procure, and which, as its deadly hatred of Spar- quitted the country fifteen days after he had enta ensured its fidelity and zeal, would also have tered it-the shortest stay which an invading a peculiar advantage for annoying the enemy in army made there during the war. After his rethe use of the same dialect; for the exiled Mes- turn, the Spartans lost no time in marching to senians had preserved their Dorian idiom in all Pylus; and they were accompanied by the forits purity. ces of the districts adjacent to the capital, which But Sophocles and Eurymedon could not, or had not been employed in the expedition to would'not enter into the views of Demosthenes. Attica. The other Lacedaemonians:required a They had received intelligence that a Pelopon- little longer time before they could leave.home n gsian fleet of sixty galleys was already arrived again. But orders were sent round Peloponat Corcyra, and they were eager to overtake it. nesus to all the allies to bring up their continThey would, therefore, have pursued their voy- gents as soon as possible, and the fleet was reage if they had not been forced by stress of called from Corcyra. It was'transported across weather to put into the harbour of Pylus. De- the Leucadian isthmus, and thus passing unobmosthenes now urged them to assist him in served, reached Pylus while the Athenians were sarrying his design into effect. But they seem lying at Zacynthus. Demosthenes, having been to have received no orders' at home to limit apprised of its approach, despatched'two out of their authority, and they professed not to be the five galleys which had been left with him to able to perceive the force of the arguments'by Zacynthus, to inform Eurymedon and his colwhich Demosthenes endeavoured to prove the league of his danger. In the mean while the ~xpediency of the undertaking. "Any other Spartans prepared to overwhelm his little garlone headland of Peloponnesus would serve as rison by attacking the fort at once on the sea 368 HISTORY OF GREECE. and the land side, and if they should not imme- Asine, to fetch timber for constructing engines, diately carry it, designed to take precautions with which they.proposed to make an attempt for excluding the Athenian fleet, when it came, on the fort from the side of the harbour, where from the harbour by a bar of galleys placed at the landing was easier, though the wall was each entrance. The island Sphacteria they im- stronger. mediately occupied with a body of heavy-armed But in the mean while, the Athenian fleet artroops. rived from Zacynthus, augmented to the numOn the other hand, Demosthenes made every ber of fifty by a re-enforcement of four Chians, provision which prudence suggested and his sit- and of some from the squadron stationed at uation permitted for meeting the danger. His Naupactus. The harbour and Sphacteria being whole force consisted of the crews of his three in the possession of the Peloponnesians, they remaining galleys, and of forty Messenians who sailed away to moor for the first night at a little happened to have come, very opportunely, in island not far from the coast, named Prot. The two small privateers.- They were regularly next day they returned, either to give battle in armed; and they had some other arms on board the open sea, if the enemy should come out to their vessels which served, though scantily, to meet them, or to attack him in the harbour. equip the Athenian sailors. The three galleys The Peloponnesians neither sailed out, nor he hauled up under the fort, and protected made any attempt to close the mouths of the with a stockade. The main body of his little harbour, but allowed themselves to be surprised garrison he distributed round the walls on the by the Athenians while a part of their ships land side. But it was on the side of the sea were still on shore, and had not yet been manthat he expected the most formidable assault, ned. lhe rest no sooner met the enemy than at the point where the landing, indeed, was dif- they were put to flight; five were taken, one ficult, but the weakness of the fortifications was with its whole company, many shattered; and likely to tempt the enemy. Here, with sixty the Athenians, chasing them to the shore, tried heavy-armed and a few bowmen, he himself to carry off those which they found there empty. came down and drew up his men at the water's But the dread of a loss which would leave their edge. He cheered them by pointing out the ad- comrades in Sphacteriautterly defenceless, rousvantages of their position, which counterbalan- ed the Spartans to desperate exertions. They ced the enemy's superiority in numbers, and pushed into the sea to regain their empty veswarned them that their safety entirely depend- sels, and after a hard struggle succeeded in resed on the resistance which they made to his cuing all but the five first taken. With these landing. The attack began on all sides at once; the Athenians at length sailed away, erected but, as Demosthenes foresaw, the main effort their trophy, and received the usual acknowlwas directed against the quarter where he and edgments of victory, and now began to keep a his little band were posted. The nature of the strict watch over the island, to prevent the men shore permitted only a few ships to approach at who were shut up there from receiving succours a time; but, as the fleet consisted of forty-three, or making their escape. they continually relieved each other, and the The whole number of the regular troops which Athenians were pressed during the whole day had been last left there amounted to 420; of by an uninterrupted series iof assaults. One these,considerable part were Spartans of the galley was commanded by Brasidas, who dis- best families, and they were attended by lighttinguished himself above all the assailants by armed Helots. When intelligence of their situahis courage and zeal. As he saw that some of tion reached Sparta, it caused a degree of conhis companions were deterred by the danger of sternation and perplexity which can scarcely be wrecking their vessels on the rocky shore, he understood, unless as a sign that the Spartan loudly exclaimed against the parsimony which franchise was beginning to be confined to a was sparing of timber, when the enemy was to smaller number, and that the life of a Spartan be dislodged from the soil of Laconia; exhort- was growing more and more valuable. The ed the allies to sacrifice their ships to the good ephors themselves proceeded to the camp at of Sparta, to whom they owed so much, and set Pylus, to ascertain the state of things with their an example of self-devotion by ordering his own eyes. The whole of the allied forces was master to run his galley ashore, and advanced by this time assembled there; but as the Atheforemost on the landing steps. He immediate- nians were masters of the sea, they could give ly became a mark for the missiles of the Athe- no help to their troops in the island, and the nians; and after having sustained the brunt of prospect of reducing the fort was now much the battle, and received many wounds, at length less hopeful than at first. Only one way resank backward into his ship; while his shield mained of saving so many precious lives{ which dropped from his arm ito ihe sea, and was af- might soon be cut off either by hunger or the terward taken up by the enemy to form the most sword: the way of negotiation. And at the glorious part of their trophy. The fight, how- request of the Spartans the Athenian generals ever, was maintained till nightfall, and was re- granted a truce to enable them to send an emnewed the next morning, and kept up during a bassy to Athens. The terms of the armistice part of the day; but before the second evening itself were dictated in the spirit of a victorious the assailants were forced to own themselves enemy. The Spartans were to place their whole baffled by an enemy who was fighting on the navy in the hands of the Athenians at Pylus, element where they had been always used to until the return of the ambassadors, who were conquer, while they were in possession of that to be conveyed to Athens and brought back by in which alone, as they had been willing to be- an Athenian galley, when it was to be restored lieve, the Athenians had any chance of victory. in the same condition. Hostilities were to cease They now resolved to change their plan of at- on both sides, but the Athenians were to keep tack, and on the third day sent some ships to. up the blockade of the island, only allowing cer NEGOTIATION FOR PEAOE.-WAR RENEWED. 369 Lain rations ofbread, meat, and wine to be sent missioners might be appointed to treat with in daily to the besieged, under their own in- them in private. This proposal Cleon conspection. If any of these articles should be in- strued into a proof of double dealing, for which fringed, the truce was to be considered at an alone the veil of secrecy could be sought, and end. The ships, about sixty, were delivered up, induced the people to reject it. On this the amand the ambassadors were conducted to Athens. bassadors, deeming negotiation hopeless, quitThe proposals which they made when they ted Athens. On their return, the truce being were admitted to an audience before the peo- at an end, the Spartans demanded the restituple, included no other condition than the recov- tion of their ships.' But the Athenians, alleery of the men in the island, as the price of ging that the truce had been infringed by some peace and alliance. As a few years before the acts of hostility-in the judgment of ThucydiAthenians had sued for peace, the Spartans im- des frivolous pretences - refused to restore agined that it would now be accepted as an them. Hostilities were renewed with redoub equivalent for the object of their own desires. led activity and bitterness. The island was ret the tone of the address attributed to them watched in daytime by two Athenian galleys, is that of an humbled enemy, who appeals to the which were continually. cruising round in oppogenerosity as well as to the policy of his vie- site directions; and at night the whole fleet, torious antagonist. The Athenians are admon- now increased to seventy sail by a re-enforceished to remember the fluctuating chances of ment from Athens, was moored round the coast, war, which might still afford the garrison of unless the state of the weather prevented it.Sphacteria means of escape, and might soon re- from lying. in the open sea. The Peloponn& verse the relative position of bothparties. They sians made repeated attacks on the fort, less are exhorted to grant peace on moderate terms, with the hope of reducing it than of finding and thus to confer an obligation on Sparta which some opportunity of delivering their besieged would ensure her friendship, as the loss of her friends. citizens now in danger would inspire her with But gradually a change took place in the sitimplacable enmity, and to earn the' gratitude uation and prospects of the two parties. The and good-will of the other Greeks, who were Athenians began to feel their own position irktired of the conflict, and uncertain to which of some and embarrassing, and to- lose much of the two rival powers their miseries were to be the confidence with which they had looked forimputed, but would hail Athens as their bene- ward to a speedy surrender of the island. They factress if she put an end to them, now that were themselves suffering from the scarcity the decision rested entirely with herself. both of victuals and water; for Pylus containUnhappily, the Athenians were more inclined ed only one small spring in the citadel, and many to follow the example of the Spartans than to of the troops were forced to drink'the brackish take their advice. They were intoxicated with water which they got by digging into the beach. their unexpected good fortune, as their enemy The narrowness of the room in which so great had been elated by their temporary distress. an armament was crowded, and the difficilty The men in the island they looked upon as al- of landing, which compelled the crews to go on ready their own, and, consequently, that they shore for their meals by turns, aggravated the might always command peace; but the present inconvenience of their situation. On the other seemed a favourable opportunity for exacting hand, notwithstanding all the vigilance of their some farther concessions. Yet they would cruisers, the Lacedaemonians in the island conprobably have been more moderate in their de- tinued to be supplied with provisions. Their mands, if their counsels had not still been sway- commander, Epitadas, had carefully husbanded ed by Cleon, who was, perhaps, personally averse those which he' had received during the armito peace, or saw that the most extravagant terms stice, which lasted about twenty days, and afwould be most agreeable to the mood of the as- ter it expired, means were found of introducing sembly. He prevailed -on it to decree an an- fresh supplies.- Large rewards, or high prices, swer, which required that the men in the island were offered by the Spartan government to all should surrender themselves with their arms- persons who carried in flour, wine, cheese, or an aggravation of the disgrace —and be convey- other food suited to the emergency; and the. ed to Athens, to be restored to their country Helots were excited by the promise of freedom. only after the Spartans, should have reinstated They showed the greatest courage and address the Athenians in the possession of all the places in accomplishing their purpose; sometimes sailwhich had been ceded, in a moment of urgent ing to the back of the island in the night, more peril, as the price of the thirty years' truce, and especially when the weather was too rough for that, when these preliminaries had been execu- the enemy to keep his station there, and ranted, a treaty of peace should be concluded, for ning their boats fearlessly on shore, a liberal alany term which might seem fit to the parties. lowance being made for their losses; sometimes These conditions were not only degrading to reaching the island by diving within the har the honour of Sparta, but such as she would bour, dragging after them bags filled with a numost likely have found it impossible to fulfil, so tritive mixture of bruised seeds and honey, and that the probable result would have been a dis- by other devices eluding the Athenian guardgraceful sacrifice of the very object for which ships. And thus between two and three months she was treating without any equivalent. It passed away, after the blockade had begun, was dangerous to the reputation of Sparta without any progress having been made. among her allies to be known to listen to such The reports brought to Athens of the state terms, and the envoys did not venture to lower of things at Pylus created both impatience and the dignity of their state, by publicly making alarm. There was reason to. fear that the prey.any larger offers, before they knew whether they after all might slip through the hands which, would be accepted, but desired that the com- seemed to grasp it. If wirter should find the VOL. I -AA A 370, HISTORY OF GREECE. parties in the same position, it would be diffi- fer an important advantage on the common. cult to victual the fort, and scarcely possible to wealth, or, if he failed, and so lost either his life maintain the blockade of the island, and prevent or his influence, it would be delivered from a the escape of the besieged. The offers which still greater evil. But since those who thought Sparta had made looked more tempting now thus were probably the few, we might be surthat they were withdrawn, and many began to prised by the levity shown by the majority in regret that they had been rejected. Cleon felt an affair of such moment, and in which they that the growing discontent of the people was took so deep an interest, if the whole transacpointed against himself, and at first tried to pa- tion had not been placed in a different point of cify it by denying the truth of the accounts which view by another circumstance, which proves had been brought from the scene of action. But that Cleon's presumption was not so great as it when the persons whose veracity he thus call- at first appeared, or, rather, that there was ed in question desired that, if they were not be- much more of cunning than of rashness in his lieved, other agents might be sent to ascer- conduct. He had learned, and, perhaps, it was tain the truth, Cleon himself was appointed with generally known, that Demosthenes, urged by a colleague to this office. The commission was the growing difficulties of his position, had alembarrassing to him; for he saw that he should ready formed the design of attacking the island, not be able to lie without being detected, or to and he had the prudence to request that this speak truth without convicting himself of cal- able and experienced general might be joined umny. He therefore shifted his ground, and an- with him in command. And thus, without any ticipating the wish which he perceived to be extravagant confidence in his own military skill, prevailing, of quickening the operations of the he might reasonably hope that, bringing a conbesieging forces, he advised the people not to siderable re-enforcement to Pylus, and aided by lose time in procuring farther information, but, the preparations, the judgment, and vigour of if they were satisfied as to the truth of the re- his colleague, he might further rather than imports brought to them, at once to send some pede the enterprise, the honour of which, if sucman of spirit who would force the besieged cessful, he should be able to appropriate to himSpartans to surrender. " If their generals had self. The appointment of Demosthenes as secbeen any better than women, they would not ond in command, which was granted by the ashave suffered so easy a conquest to be so long sembly, removed the apprehensions which even delayed; had he been in office, it would have the most thoughtless must have felt, if the issue been alrdady done." Every one knew that the of the expedition had been left to depend entaunt was aimed at Nicias, who was one of the tirely on the abilities of Cleon. generals of the year, and whom he hated as his The forces, indeed, which Demosthenes had rival in popular favour; the boast excited some already at his disposal seem to have been quite ironical murmurs in the assembly: "If he sufficient for his purpose; but he had hitherto thought the thing so easy, let him try." Ni- been deterred from using them. The strength cias, catching at the sneers of the multitude, of the besieged was not exactly known to the gravely proposed that he should take any force Athenians, who believed their numbers to be which he might think necessary, and make the smaller than they really were. Bult, on the othattempt: "he had full leave from the generals."' er hand, they were formidable as the flower of Cleon, not supposing at first that Nicias was in the Spartan warriors, who were commonly earnest, declared himself ready to engage in the deemed almost invincible; they might be exundertaking; but when he found that the pro- pected to dispute every inch of the ground, and posal was meant seriously, he began to recede: had the advantage of a strong position. The "he did not wish to usurp the functions of Ni- island was uninhabited, and thickly covered cias." But Nicias solemnly renewed his offer, with wood, which, as it concealed the amount and called upon the assembly to attest it. The of the besieged forces, would enable them to multitude enjoyed the visible perplexity of their watch all the movements of the enemy, so long swaggering favourite, and the more he shrank as he kept on open ground, and to profit by all from his undertaking, pressed him the more his mistakes, while it screened them from his loudly to fulfil it. He found, at last, that the hu- attacks, or, if he ventured into it, would expose mour of the people was not, to be resisted or him to be cut to pieces in detail. This was a eluded, and he made up his mind to yield with danger with which Demosthenes was deeply a good grace. He resumed his intrepid air, impressed by the remembrance of his disaster and declared that he was ready to face the Lace- among the forests of iEtolia. But not long bedaemonians; that he did not even require a sin- fore Cleon's arrival, this obstacle had been gle Athenian to accompany him. He would cleared away. A party of Athenians, having take only the Lemnians and Imbrians who were landed on a corner of the island, to take their then at Athens, -a body of targeteers which had Tneal, lighted a fire, which happened to catch just come from.Enus, and 400 foreign bowmen; the adjoining wood; and the flames were spread and with this force, added to that which they by the wind, until almost the whole island was had already at Pylus, within twenty days he left bare. The enemy's numbers now became would either bring the Lacedaemonians away visible; and the Athenians perceived that the.prisoners, or kill every man." prize was more valuable than they had imaAgain the assembly was amused by language gined; and, the main difficulty having been rewhich sounded like an empty vaunt; yet it did moved, Demosthenes had collected all the suc-,not shrink from intrusting Cleon with the com- cours he could draw from the nearest allies of mand and the forces which'he required. Even Athens, and was in the midst of his preparations those who best understood the man's character for invading the island, when he received a were glad to see him engaged in an underta- message from Cleon to announce his approach: king, by which, if he succeeded, he would con- and soon after the new general arrived. ATTACK ON SPHACTERIA. 371 The first step taken by the two commanders When~the enemy saw them give way, he press was to send a herald to the enemy's camp to ed them more hotly than ever; but the greater propose that the besieged should surrender part made good their retreat, and having reach themselves and their arms, on condition of be- ed the fort, took their stand with their corn ing detained in mild custody till the conclusion rades on the side where it was most open to of a general peace. The proposal was reject- attack; and. as the nature of the ground preed; and another day only was permitted to in- vented the Athenians from encompassing them, tervene before the blow was struck. The main they now enjoyed a temporary relief, and sufbody of the besieged, commanded by Epitadas fered, perhaps, less than the assailants from the himself, was stationed near a spring in the cen- heat and the toil of the protracted struggle. tral and most level part of the island. ~ Thirty The day was wearing, the combatants growmen guarded a post near one of its extremities, ing faint from thirst and fatigue, and yet the and another small force occupied the northern issue of the conflict did not seem to have been point, facing Pylus, where the ground was nat- brought a step nearer, when the commander of urally strong, both on the sea and the land side, the Messenian auxiliaries proposed a new atand was defended by an old rude fortification. tempt to the Athenian generals. If they would The heavy-armed Athenian troops, to the num- intrust him with a few archers, and other light ber of 800, embarked in the night, and a little'troops, he would try to find a passage which before daybreak landed in two divisions on op- would bring him upon the enemy's rear. And posite sides of the island, and immediately pro- accordingly, with such a detachment as he receeded.at full speed to surprise the nearest quired, he began his march from a point of the post, where they found t'he thirty who guarded coast not in view of the fort, and having, with It just starting from sleep, and snatching up great difficulty, wound his way along the foot their arms-for the approach of the enemy's of the cliffs, he at length mounted by a side ships to their usual station had excited no alarm which, on account of its strength, had been left -and cut them all to pieces. With the dawn unguarded, and suddenly appeared on the high the light infantry, which formed the bulk of the ground at the back of the Lacedaemonians, who army, disembarked; 70 ships' companies, all found themselves in a position which Thucydibut the rowers of the lowest order,* with such des compares to that of Leonidas at Thremopyarms as they could find; 800 bowmen, and as ela. As their hopes sank under this new danmany targateers,t with as large a part of the ger, the ardour of the Athenians revived at the garrison of Pylus as. could be spared from the sight of the Messenians on the height;, and walls. The plan of Demosthenes was to dis- they pushed forward to overpower the divided tribute his light troops in detachments of be- and enfeebled resistance of the disheartened tween 200 and 300 men, to occupy the highest garrison. It was evident that it could not hold ground on every side of the enemy, and annoy out much longer, and that, if the slaughter once him with their missiles, while the heavy infan- began, it would only end with the destruction of try came slowly up. Epitadas and his little the vanquished. But this was not the object band soon found themselves, assailed in all di- of the Athenian generals; they wished to carry rections by showers of arrows, javelins, and as many as they could, prisoners to Athens. stones, from a distance at which, under the enl- They therefore checked their troops, and suscumbrance of their heavy armour, they were pended the attack, while by the voice of a herunable to overtake their assailants. They de- aid they called on the Lacedaemonians to lay sired to meet the Athenian heavy-armed, who down their arms, and surrender at discretion. were advancing towards them, to provoke, but Most of those who heard the summons lowered not to accept a combat; but the incessant at- their shields, and waved their hands, in token tacks of the parties which hung on their flanks of compliance, and soon the commanders on and rear prevented them from ever coming to both sides came to a conference. Epitadas close quarters with those who were in front. had been slain; Hippagretas, the second in By degrees their strength began to be spent in command, lay wounded without signs of life; unavailing onsets, and their spirit to flag. The Styphon, who, according to Spartan usage, had assailants, -who at first quailed before the in- been appointed to succeed if his superiors fell,' vincible Spartans, and kept aloof, observing their treated with Cleon and Demosthenes. He deresistance slacken, and imboldened by success sired leave to send over to consult his counand by theirown visible superiority of numbers, trymen on the mainland as to the course which now redoubled their efforts, and poured down he should adopt. The Athenians would not let upon them with a simultaneous charge and a any of his men leave the island, but themselves deafening shout. The Lacedaemonians were sent for heralds from the Peloponnesian camp encumbered and impeded by the broken shafts to bear Styphon's message. After a few inof the weapons which had pierced through their quiries had been interchanged, an answer was armour; they were almost blinded and choked finally brought, to the effect " that the Lacedaeby a cloud of dust which rose under the tram- monians in the island were at liberty to act as pling of the crowd from the ashes of the re- they thought fit, so as to preserve their honour." cently-consumed wood; all orders were drown- This was construed by Styphon and those with ed in the enemy's clamour; their minds were whom he deliberated as a permission to accept perplexed by the confusion of the scene, and the terms offered by the Athenians; and they the various pressures of the danger. At length, surrendered; in all 292, and of these about 120 rallying all the force which toil and wounds had were Spartans. Within twenty days, according left in them, they closed their ranks and made to his promise, Cleon returned with his prisonfor the fort at the north end of the island. ers to Athens. What part he had taken, either * Oa4zpto. cas general or soldier, in the combats of Sphact'ITEaracLTa, from the short buckler called rAr;7. teria, Thucydides does not intimate otherwise 372 HISTORY OF GREECE. than by his silence; but it is probable that the coast by daybreak, and landed his troops on arn more clear-sighted viewed the whole affair in ope4 beach, seven or eight miles south of Cothe same light with the comic poet, who, under ri.nth, but not more than two or three from the a homely figure, represented Cleon as slyly pur- position of the Corinthian army. Above this loining the laurels of Demosthenes.* But the landing-place, about a mile and a half from the result of his success was not the less impor- sea, stood the ancient village of Solygia, memtant, and, through the new aliment which it orable, as we have seen, in the early history ministered to his self-confidence, it was ulti- of the Corinthian Dorians.* The Corinthian mately attended, as will be afterward seen, with generals, Battus and Lycophron, were immethe. very advantage which would have consoled diately apprized by signals of the enemy's presthe best patriots if he had totally failed. The ence; yet they seem to have apprehended that immediate effect was to raise the spirit of the this movement was no more than a feint, and Athenians, to deject the Spartans, and to as- that Crommyon was the real object of the intonish the rest of Greece. That Spartans, with vaders. They therefore left one half of their arms in their hands, and sufficient food, should troops at Cenchreaw for the protection of the surrender themselves prisoners, was something northern border, and Battus, with one battalion, new to the Greeks, who expected that they marched to defend Solygia, which was unwallwould all have died at their posts, and could ed, while Lycophron proceeded directly to the hardly believe that the survivers were men of shore, where he arrived just after the Athethe same stamp with the slain; though, as one of nians had landed. A warm action ensued, in them remarked, when he was insultingly asked which, after several vicissitudes, the Athenians at Athens whether his comrades who had fallen were victorious, chiefly through the support were of the true Spartan blood, they died, not which they received from their cavalry, the in close combat, but as the dart or the arrow enemy having none. Lycophron himself was happened to speed. The Athenians-resolved slain, and the right wing, in which he fought, to take the utmost advantage both of the cap- lost about 200 men; but the rest of the army ture they had made, and of the footing which retreated in good order, and took up a position they had gained at Pylus. They declared that, on the higher ground, not far from the shore. if the Peloponnesians should again invade their The Athenians did not pursue them, but conterritory, they would put their prisoners to tented themselves with spoiling their slain enedeath; and they garrisoned Pylus-from which *mies, taking up their own dead, who were a the Peloponnesians withdrew their army after little short of 50, and raising a trophy. In the the reduction of the island-with a body of Mes- mean while, the troops left at Cenchreae, though senians, who, as Demosthenes had foreseen, at first, being separated from the field of battle found abundant opportunities of annoying their by a low ridge of Mount Oneum,t they could hereditary foes in the land of their fathers. not see the' peril of their countrymen, were The Spartans were distressed and alarmed; for alarmed by the cloud of dust which rose above Pylus was an asylum for fugitive Helots, and the hill, and set out for the scene of action. might become the focus of a dangerous revolt; Corinth, too, sent forth her citizens who had and they again sounded the dispositions of Ath- been left at home as past the age of service; ens towards peace; but the demands of the en- and Nicias, hearing of the approach of these emy rose so high that, after several attempts, fresh troops, and thinking it probable that they the negotiation was again dropped. might soon be re-enforced by their nearest PeloThe Athenians now resumed their offensive' ponnesian allies, embarked his men in haste, operations with increased activity; and, hav- and sailed away. His departure was, indeed, so ing secured themselves at home, made the ene- hurried that he was obliged to leave two of his my feel the weight of their naval superiority. own slain, whom their comrades could not find, An armament of 80 galleys with 2000 heavy- in the power of the enemy; and the effect of armed Athenians, and horse-transports with this omission marks both the character of the 200 cavalry, together with' auxiliaries from Mi- general and the manners of the age. The posletus, Andros, and Carystus, was sent, under session of the slain, as on it depended the satthe command of Nicias and two colleagues, to isfaction of some most urgent claims of Greek invade the territory of Corinth and the eastern piety, was the ordinary test of victory or deside of Peloponnesus. The Corinthians had feat. The party which was forced to solicit received early notice of the expedition and its the enemy's leave to inter its dead*vas held to object from some of their friends at Argos, acknowledge itself worsted; yet Nicias did not where, as in a neutral state, it was easy to hesitate to sacrifice the honours of victory, by procure information concerning the counsels of sending a herald on shore to recover the two Atkens; and they had made preparations to corpses. It is difficult to say whether his premeet the threatened attack as well as they dominant motive was the fear of the gods or of could without knowing the precise point against men; for, though there was a strong tincture which it would be directed. They posted their of superstition in his character, he was no less forces in the Isthmus, that they might bring habitually governed by the dread of affording the speediest succour either to the north any handle'for calumnies which might injure or the south side of their territory; but they him in public opinion. feared most for Crommyon on the Megarian The Corinthians seem to have had some border. But Nicias, having put'out from Pi- reason for expecting an attack on Crommyon. raeus in the night, arrived off the Peloponnesian Nicias shaped his course next to that quarter; * Aristophanes, Eq., 54 fbut he did not make any attempt on the town, AIp',v Ey'ov 5 which was probably too well defended; but, MdCav usraxdros Iv hvAq AKaKoevtK, Havovpyodrara,ow a7rs rlaj pov, ia roaas, * P. 118.'t P. 38. A'irdo 7raptOrl~E rTiV ir' Baou JCUaydv7nv. 4t Diodorus, indeed (xii., 65), relates that he took the for BUTCHERY AT CORCYRA. 373 after having ravaged the territory, and passed for want of an executioner. Behind them were the night there unmolested, he the next day other ministers of blood, who, with scourges, made for the coast of Epidaurus. Here his urged the faltering steps of those who shrank views were not confined to temporary plunder. from the deadly vista; but, after three bands He carried a wall across the isthmus which had'been thus despatched, their surviving connected the rocky peninsula of Methone with friends, who at first supposed that they had the mainland, and behind it erected a fort, only been transported to another prison, learnwhere he left a garrison, which, from this cen- ed their fate and their own danger. They now tral position, was enabled to make continual called on the Athenians, if they would not save inroads into the territories of Epidaurus, Tree- their lives, at least to put them to death them-. zen, and Haliee. He then returned home. selves, and declared that they would neither go In the mean while, Eurymedon and Sopho- out nor suffer their enemies to enter. Though cles, on their way to Sicily, had stopped, ac- they were unarmed, the murderers had no mind cording to their instructions, to succour their to force the doors and close with them, but friends at Corcyra, who were again threatened mounted on the roof, and made an opening, by the remnant of the contrary faction. The through which they attacked them with their refugees were not more than 500, and they had arrows, and with the tiles of the building. The engaged about a hundred other adventurers in greater part of the prisoners hastened to baffle their service; but they were formidable from the malice of their enemies by putting an end the spirit with which they' were animated by to their own lives; yet it was not without difrevenge and despair. After having applied in ficulty that they found instruments of death, vain to Sparta and Corinth for aid, they crossed some in the weapons discharged at them, othover to Corcyra, burned the ships from which ers in the cordage of some couches, or strips they landed, to cut off all hope but that of vic- of their own garments, with which they strantory, and intrenched themselves on a hill called gled themselves. Night fell upon the scene of Istone, from which they carried on an inces- blood, but did not stop the work either of slaughsant warfare against the city, so as to deprive ter or of self-destruction; but when the next day their enemies of all benefit from the land. The dawned, there remained only a heap of corpses, events which have been related put an end to which were piled in carts and carried out of the their prospects of foreign support, and exposed city. The free women who were taken in the them to the undivided hostility of the Athenian stronghold of Istone were made slaves. It was armament. The Athenians attacked them in some consolation to humanity that this massatheir stronghold, and made themselves masters cre was followed by a long period of tranquilof it, but not of its defenders, who took refuge lity, for no antagonists were left capable of givin a higher part of the mountain; but, seeing ing umbrage to the popular party, and its fury that their situation was now utterly hopeless, is less odious than the' barbarity of the Athethey agreed to surrender themselves to the nian generals, who sacrificed so many lives to Athenians'. No conditions were made on be- their pitiful jealousy. Their commission havhalf of their auxiliaries; but their own doom ing been thus executed at Corcyra, they prowas to be decided by the sentence of the Athe- ceeded to Sicily. nian people, and they were to be kept in cus- In the course of the following winter Artatody until they should be sent to Athens for xerxes died, and was succeeded by Xerxes II., trial, in the isle of Ptychia; and it was stipu- his only legitimate son, who, after a reign of lated that an attempt to escape should be con- forty-five days,* was murdered by one of his sidered as an infraction of the agreement. The half brothers, Sogdianus, or Secyndianus. The leaders of the opposite party were afraid that assassin mounted the throne, but did not keep their thirst for vengeance might be disappoint- possession of it much more than six months. ed by the lenity of an Athenian tribunal, and He was then deposed and put to a cruel death they contrived a stratagem for getting the pris- by Ochus, another of the seventeen natural chiloners into their own hands. They found in- dren of Artaxerxes, who reigned for many years struments who, under the mask of friendship, under the name of Darius II. The death of Arinduced some of these unhappy men to believe taxerxes interrupted a prospect which had just that the Athenian generals intended to deliver opened upon the Athenians of entering into them up to their enemies, and persuaded them friendly relations with the court of Persia, or, to nrake their escape, for which they offered to at least, of diverting it from giving assistance provide a vessel. The artifice was the more to their enemies. Aristides, one of the officers specious, and its authors felt the more secure whom they sent out, from time to time, to raise of impunity, if not of success, as the Athenian contributions from their allies, arrested a:1commanders had not disguised their reluctance sian named Artaphernes, as he was pa sg to let prisoners of such importance be conduct- through Eion on the Strymon, on his wayc ed to Athens by another; and hence, when the Sparta with a commission from the king. He fugitives were arrested, the whole body, as was brought to Athens, and the royal letter having violated the agreement, was abandoned which he carried was opened and translated. to their adversaries, who immediately proceed- The substance of its prolix contents was a comed to glut their revenge. The victims were plaint "that Artaxerxes could not understand lodged in a spacious building, and then led out, what the Spartans were aiming at: they had bound together, in companies of twenty at a sent many envoys to him, but the messages time, between two rows of armed men, who, which they bore had been all at variance with as they passed, aimed their blows, each at the one another; he therefore desired them to send object of his personal hatred, and none escaped o * According to Ctesias, Pers., 45. But this period is tress; but this is disprovd by the silence of Thucydides, probably a little too short. See Mr. Clinton, F. H., ii., p. v 45! 315. 374 HISTORY OF GREECE. a new embassy back with Artaphernes, to clear landed on the north coast, and marched against up their meaning." The Athenians hence con- the principal city, Cythera,* where he found ceived hopes of supplanting their rivals in the the whole force of the island drawn up before good graces of the Persian king; though, not the lower town. But after a short resistance long before, they had given shelter to one of his they fled to the upper town, -and soon after carevolted subjects, Zopyrus, the son of that Me- pitulated, without any other express condition gabyzus who, after suppressing the Egyptian than that their lives should be spared; but no insurrection, had himself been driven into re- doubt in secret reliance on the mediation of Nibellion by the treachery and weakness of the cias, to which they probably owed the extraorcourt. He was regarded by Athens as a bene- dinary indulgence with which they were treatfactor, on account of his honourable treatment ed by the Athenians. With the exception of a of his Athenian prisoners, and his son was hos- small number, whom it appeared unsafe to trust, pitably received, but soon after fell in an at- and who were led away to Athens, they were tempt which he made to put the Athenians in allowed to retain possession of their lands, subpossession of Caunus, where he had interest ject only to a tribute so light as to be little more which he vainly exerted in their favour.* Ar- than nominal. But an Athenian garrison was taphernes was sent in a galley to Ephesus, ac- stationed in the island; and the fleet, before it companied by an Athenian embassy; but on sailed away, stayed seven days on the opposite their arrival they heard of the death of Arta- coast of Laconia, inflicting ravages which might xerxes, and the envoys returned home. be considered as a foretaste of the evils to be The next year (424) Attica enjoyed a breath- expected from the recent conquest.ing time; for the Peloponnesians were deterred The Spartan government was dismayed and from their customary invasion by the threat of bewildered by the novelty and variety of the the Athenians to retaliate on the prisoners of dangers by which it saw itself suddenly encomSphacteria. They probably abstained without passed. It was usually slow in its deliberamuch reluctance from an expedition from which tions, and now found itself obliged to provide at they could no longer expect any solid advan- once for many emergencies. It saw itself entage; and the views of Sparta were now turn- gaged in a contest for which its institutions ed to' a new quarter. Freed from their ordina. were not adapted, with an enemy whose enterry domestic plague, the Athenians now prose- prising spirit baffled all the calculations of ordicuted the offensive operations of the last cam- nary prudence. It began to distrust its own paign, which, in fact, only carried out the plan fortune, and to dread the effect which its missuggested by Demosthenes, and partially exe- fortunes might produce on the subject populacuted in the occupation of Pylus. Nicias, with tion. It felt the necessity of resisting the invatwo colleagues, took the command of an arma- ders, but it feared to risk any considerable part ment of sixty galleys, composed in other points of its forces by a general engagement, lest some nearly like that of the past year, but destined disaster, like that of Pylus, should ruin the last to assail Sparta in her most vulnerable side, by hopes of the state. It remained, therefore, wresting the island of Cythera from'her domin- strictly on the defensive, only strengthening the ion. When Demaratus accompaniad Xerxes to garrisons of the exposed districts, and for the Greece, he advised him,- instead of attacking first time raised a squadron of 400 horse, and a Peloponnesus from the north, to send a squa- body of bowmen, to watch and retard the rapid dron and take possession of Cythera, and to movements of the enemy. The Athenians, carry the war at once into the heart of Laconia. therefore, as they ravaged the maritime region, It was the apprehension of such a danger-so met with no force capable of withstanding them; the Spartan informed the king-that led Chilon, and on one occasion, when one of the enemy's a Loconian sage, to wish the island buried in bands, stationed on the eastern coast of the the sea. For though it possessed harbours, Laconian Gulf, ventured to fall upon their light which Laconia wanted, and afforded a desirable troops, which were scattered in quest of plunshelter for the merchant vessels which visited der, it was repulsed by the heavy infantry with its coast from Egypt and Africa, the service a loss which gave the victors occasion to raise which it might render to ar enemy who com- a trophy. On his return to Athens, Nicias ravmanded the sea was greater than any benefit aged the district of the Laconian Epidaurus, which it could yield to Sparta. The Spartans, and then proceeded along the coast to Thyrea, fully aware of its importance, kept a garrison where the outcast 2Aginetans had been planted there, and sent over a governor every year. by the Spartans after they were expelled from The administration of these governors was, their own island. Thyrea itself stood on an p.aps, often no less oppressive than that eminence about a mile from the sea. But the.h, as we have seen, contributed to the de- new colonists had begun to fortify a lower town c of the colony at Heraclea. There was a by the water side, suited to their ancient mariparty among the Cytherians who were disaf- time pursuits, and they were assisted in the fected to Sparta, and Nicias was probably ac- work by a party of Lacedaemonians which was quainted with their disposition before he set stationed in the neighbourhood. They were out; for, as soon as he arrived at Cythera, he thus engaged when the Athenian armament apopened a secret comrfiunication with them, to peared. The JEginetans abandoned the unfinwhich he was perhaps mainly indebted for the ished fortifications, and took refuge in the upper ease with which he conquered the island. He town, and besought the Lacedaemonians to aid detached a squadron of ten ships, with 2000 Mi- them in defending it; but the danger appeared lesians, against the port town of Scandea, on lesians, against the port town of Scandea, on * Without more information on the geography of Tzerithe south coast, which was immediately taken, go, it is difficult to reconcile the description of Thucydides while, with the main body of his troops, he with Pausanias (iii., 23, 1), who represents Cythera as the upper town, of which Scandea, distant only ten stades, was Ctesias, Pers., 43. the port. OPERATIONS IN SICILY. 37D too great to their allies, who retreated to a height Sicilian Greeks, which appears to have been from which they could watch the issue in safe- cherished and directed chiefly by the exertions ty. The Athenians, as soon as they landed, of a clear-sighted and liberal Syracusan, Heradvanced with their whole force against Thy- mocrates, the son of Hermon. ~ In the summner rea, which they stormed and committed to the of 424, an armistice was concluded between flames. The surviving.Eginetans were carri- Gela and Camarina, which was followed by a ed to Athens, and with them a Lacedaemonian congress of deputies from all the Sicilian states, officer, named Tantalus, who commanded in the who met at Gela to discuss their claims, and to town. He was consigned to the same custody settle the terms of a general pacification. Most with his countrymen from Sphacteria. The of those who took a part in the debate contentsuspected Cytherians were transported to vari- ed themselves with urging the pretensions of ous islands. But the ill-fated _Eginetans were the cities which they represented. But Herall put to death —victims of the hatred which mocrates took a larger view of the subject, and had been inflamed by their ancient prosperity, drew the attention of the assembly to the comand which their subsequent humiliation and suf- mon danger and interest of the Sicilian Greeks. ferings could not appease. He observed, that the "question before them While the Athenian arms were thus prosper- did not turn upon the ordinary advantages of ous in Greece, their operations in Sicily were peace, or upon the easiness of adjusting their unexpectedly brought to a close which, if they conflicting claims, but on the urgent necessity had known their true interest, would have been of delivering Sicily from a great evil which was regarded as the most. fortunate event of the manifestly impending. over it. It was evident year. During the preceding summer, while that the Athenians, under the specious pretext Eurymedon and Sophocles were detained at of succouring their allies, were watching for an Pylus, the war had been carried on in Sicily opportunity of establishing their dominion over with varih.i success. The Syracusans had re- the whole island. They had begun by sending enforced Weir squadron stationed at Messana, a force just sufficient to foster the internal disand the Locrians were anxious to bring the sensions of the islanders; but there was reason Athenians to an engagement before their greater to apprehend that, when they saw the Sicilians armament arrived, hoping for a victory which exhausted by protracted warfare, they would would leave Rhegium altogether defenceless; come with a more powerful armament, and and they again invaded its territory with their overwhelm all parties. It was impossible to whole force, that they might be ready to seize believe that the Athenians had any other mothe first opportunity of attacking it both by sea tive for interposing in their domestic quarrels; and by land. But the engagement which they or that it was their antipathy to the Dorian race, desired was brought on, under unfavourable cir- or their affection for the Chalcidians -as their cumstances, against their will; and though on kinsmen, which had brought them so far from their side upward of thirty galleys were oppo- home. They assuredly cared little about either sed to sixteen Athenians and eight Rhegians, side, but much about the things which were the they were defeated; only, indeed, with the loss objects of the contest, and which they hoped to of one ship; but this check induced them to make their own. It would be attributing to withdraw their forces from the Rhegian territo- them an extravagant degree of generosity to ry. Soon after, however, the Athenians, in suppose that they had incurred the expense and their turn, were baffled in attempt which they risk of an expedition to Sicily out of a pure demade to seize the Syracusan fleet at Cape Pe- sire to protect their Chalcidian allies, from lorus, and again, when they attacked it on its whom they had never received any service in passage to Messana, were foiled by the enemy's their'own wars. It was time, therefore, for all manceuvres. They were then called away to who valued their independence to suspend, if support their interest at Camarina, which was they could not entirely compose, that discord threatened by some practisings of the Syracu- which had afforded the Athenians a pretext for sans, and in their absence the Messanians made their dangerous interference, and to unite in an expedition by sea and land~ against their ridding their common country of these ambiChalcidian neighbour Naxos. But the Naxi- tious strangers. And as this object could only ans, encouraged by the appearance of the Si- be attained by a general peace, so there was no eels, who came in great numbers to their aid, state which had any certainty of gaining rather repulsed the invaders with much slaughter; than of losing by the continuance of war. If, and Messana was supposed to be so weakened indeed, there was any which might reasonably by this blow as to hold out the prospect of an entertain such an expectation, it was his own easy conquest. Accordingly, the Leontines and city; but she was ready to renounce all her their allies attacked it by land, supported by the prospects of aggrandizement for the safety ot Athenians, who moved against it at the same the whole Sicilian nation. Let the rest imitate time with their ships. But the Messanians, her example, and be willing to make conceswith a small body of Locrians who had been sions to their fellow-countrymen, who, however left in the place, made a sally upon the assail- they might differ in their origin, were all natives ants, who were routed with great loss, and of the same soil, girt by the same sea, and linkwould have suffered still more severely if the ed' together by the common name of Sicelots, Athenians had not landed and driven the ene- rather than place themselves at the mercy of a my back within his walls. foreign power which was equally hostile to all. After the arrival of Eurymedon and Sopho- Let them for the present conclude a long, if cles, the war in Sicily seems to have been still possible, a perpetual peace among themselves; less marked by any important events. But the and for the futur' let them not only unite in represence of the Athenian armament began to pelling invaders from their shores, but no less awaken a prudent and patriotic jealousy in the carefully abstain from inviting stranrgers to in 376 HISTORY OF GREECE. terpose, either as allies or mediators, in their beeus, king of the Lyncestians.* These motives differences." induced them all to concur in persuading the This wise counsel was adopted, and a gener- Spartans to send a body of Peloponnesian troops, al peace was made on terms which did not re- to be maintained at the cost of the allies, comquire a long negotiation. All parties were to manded by some Spartan of approved capacity, retain their possessions; only Syracuse was to to attack the Athenian possessions in the neighcede Morgantina to the Camarinaeans, who were bourhood of Macedonia and Thrace. The proto pay a stipulated sum for it. The allies of the posal came opportunely; for Sparta was not Athenians announced their intention of conclu- only in great need of some expedient for drawding this treaty to the Athenian generals, and ing off the enemy who was pressing her at informed them that the benefit of it, so far as home, but was glad of an occasion for employregarded the cessation of hostilities, would be ing a part of her Helot population in foreign serextended to them; It would seem, from the vice. It was a safer and more useful way of sequel, that the opinions'of the Athenian com- relieving herself from the fears which they exmanders were divided as to the'course which cited in the present state of her affairs than the they should pursue, and that Eurymedon was method of secret assassination, to which she not so easily satisfied as his colleagues. But had resorted on a former occasion.t She now the resolution which prevailed was to acquiesce gave full arms to 700 Helhts, and placed them in the proceedings of their allies; and having under the command of Brasidas, who was eacommended their conduct, and ratified the ger to undertake the enterprise. To these he treaty, they sailed home. But they were re- added as many troops as he could engage, by ceived there with as much indignation' as if pay and by the attraction of his name, from oththey had involved the state in some disaster, or er parts of Peloponnesus.. He was still busied had betrayed some of its most valued posses- with these levies somewhere between Sicyon sions. They were charged with having accept- and Corinth, when an opportunity presented ited bribes as the price of abandoning the con- self to him of checking the progress of the Athequest of Sicily; and Eurymedon'was fined, his nian arms in another direction. two colleagues banished. The people was so Megara had for several years been afflicted elated with its recent good fortune, that, as no at once by a foreign and a civil war. While enterprise was now too great for its ambition, her territory was regularly ravaged twice a so it neglected all proportion between its means year by her Attic neighbours, a body of refuand its ends, and would not hear of any obsta- gees, no less hostile to the party which ruled cles which nature or man could oppose to its in the capital, was in possession of Pegee, and success. infested the neighbourhood by their incursions; and it was deemed necessary for the safety of the city that Niseea should be occupied by a Peloponnesian garrison. In 427, after the fall of CHAPTER XXIII. Mitylene, the Athenians under the command of FROMIV THE GENERAL PACIFICATION OF SICILY TO Nicias had taken possession of the island of Minoa, which was separated by a narrow channel from the mainland, and covered the harbour THE events related in the preceding chapter of Nisaea. Nicias with his engines took two had reduced Sparta to a state of despondency towers at the mouth of the harbour, and as the which even exceeded the measure of her real channel at the other end ran into shallows danger and distress. Only one ray of hope which were crossed by a bridge, he built a wall broke the gloom of'her prospects; but hence- to secure the island from inroads on this side. forth it continued to brighten them, until their The blockade of Nisaea was thus rendered much colour was totally changed. For this favourable more rigorous than before, when Budorum in turn in her affairs she was indebted chiefly to Salamis was the nearest station for the Athethe courage and ability of Brasidas. But it was nian galleys, and the population of Megara the alarm generally diffused by the recent suc- henceforth suffered still greater privations. As cesses of the Athenians, both among their ene- the public distress increased, the people began mies and their dependants, that furnished him to listen more patiently to the- suggestion, that with this new opportunity of serving'his coun- it might be relieved at least from one part of its try. The revolted towns of Chalcidice, when evils by the recall of the exiles; and their they saw Athens prevailing, and her rival almost at her mercy, dreaded lest they should be the * The relation in which the Lyncestian kings stood to next objects to feel the weight of her arm. those of Macedonia is described by Thucydides, ii., 99. "1 To the Macedonians belong the Lyncestians and the EliTheir neighbours, who had not yet cast off the tmiots, and other natiols of the upper country, which are yoke, feared that it would now become more indeed allied and subject to the Macedonians properly so -galling than ever.'They saw that Chios had called, but are governed by kings of their own." en lhate celled. T sothe t the ousy o t See p. 131. Thucydides does not precisely mark the been lately compelled to soothe the jealousy of time of this horrible deed; and it has been generally supthe Athenians by demolishing her new fortifica- posed that it took place immediately before the expedition'tions, and to throw herself upon the good faith of Brasidas. So Diodorus (xii,, 67) understood Thucydides. But —not to mention the difficulty of believing that the of her suspicious. ally for the maintenance "of government would have ordered the massacre of the thelts that degree of liberty which she- had hitherto at a time when it was able to employ them advantageously enjoyed.* Perdiccas, too, though still nominal- in the foreign service, for which Brasidas was so scantily 1ly in alliance uwith Athens, was agitated by Sim_ provided bwith troops-the words Kat rdrE (iv., 80) seem d-istinctly to refer the massacre to a different period from ilar apprehensions, and he had need of foreign that in which the 700 Helots were sent out. That the succours to subdue a, refractory vassal, Arrhi- adriv in the same sentence can only mean the Helots, need not be remarked except for persons who are unable to read Thucydides without a translation; and even such a reades * Thuc., iv., 51.. might infer its meaning from the fact mentiol'ed, v,, 34, SURRENDER OF NISAEA. 377 friends-for they h I many in Megara itself- should be opened for them. In this way they were soon imboldened openly to urge this pro- were to admit the Athenians, and that they posal. But the leaders of the democratical par- might not be confounded with their adversaries ty, who knew that the return of their adversa- in the tumult which was likely to ensue, they ries would be fatal to themselves, determined to had anointed themselves with oil. They were avert it at any cost; 41nd when they saw that just on the point of accomplishing their design, they could not much longer depend on the pa- when it was betrayed to the opposite party by tience of their partisans, they entered into a se- one of their associates. Without disclosing cret communication with the Athenian generals, their knowledge of the plot, those of the adverse Hippocrates and Demosthenes, and concerted faction counteracted it first by remonstrances a plan for betraying the city to the Athenians. against the imprudence of seeking an engageAs the first step towards this end, it was agreed rnent with a superior enemy, and at last by a that they should be put in possession of the long declaration that they would resist every attempt walls which ran down to Nisasa, which would to open the gates. The conspirators were not prevent the Peloponnesian garrison from inter- strong enough to carry their point by sheer fering. For this purpose, the two generals sail- force, and the Athenian generals, perceiving that ed to Minoa in the night, and, having left their some hinderance had occurred.which thwartships there, crossed over to the mainland, where ed their views on the side of Megara, determinHippocrates with 600 heavy-armed concealed ed immediately to invest Nissea. Workmen himself in a brick ground near one of the long and tools were forthwith fetched from Athens; walls, and Demosthenes with a body. of Platae- the trees and buildings of the suburb supplied ans, light armed, and of the young Athenians materials; the houses served here and there as whose ordinary service was confined to the cir- a rampart, and by the joint labours of the whole cuit of Attica,* placed himself in ambuscade army the work was carried forward so briskly, within a piece of. consecrated ground still clo- that by the evening of the second day the. irser to one of the gates which opened into the cumvallation was nearly completed. But t.he space between the city and Nissea. The Mega- garrison seeing itself entirely destitute of proLrian conspirators had devised a stratagem for visions — for it had received its daily rations procuring this gate to be thrown open whenever from the city —believing itself betrayed by the they would during the night. They hadeobtain- Megarians, and having no hope of speedy suced leave to carry a boat down to the sea along cours from Peloponnesus, resolved to make the the trench on the outside of the wall, on the best terms it could with the enemy. It surrenpretext of a nocturnal adventure against the en- dered the place on condition of being set at libemy, in which, the better to elude his observa- erty on payment of a stated ransom, with the tion, they desired to avoid the harbour. This exception of the Spartan commander, and the practice had been begun, to lull suspicion, a long other Lacedaemonians among them, who bewhile before; and now the boat, having'been came prisoners at discretion. The Athenians let through early in the night, was brought back, immediately proceeded to secure their new acas usual, before daybreak to the gates near which quisition, and, among other precautions, threw the Athenians were posted. It was no sooner down a part of the long walls at the end by within the passage, so as to prevent the gates which they abutted on that of the city. from being shut, than they started from their A little patience-the first virtue of a besieambush, and rushed in, aided by their Megarian ged garrison-would have saved Nisea. Brafriends, who overpowered the men on guard. sidas heard of its danger, and was marching to Demosthenes and his band entered first, and its relief, with a body of troops which he had were almost immediately attacked by a part of obtained for this purpose from Corinth, Sicyon, the Peloponnesian garrison, which was near and Phlius, together with his own levies; and enough to hear the alarm. But the Platseans he had also sent into Bceotia for succours, which, kept the gates till all their comrades had passed were directed to meet him at the Megarian vilthrough, and the Peloponnesian did not long lage of Tripodiscus. The Theban government maintain their ground. The greater part took had already been roused by the same alarm, to flight as soon as they discovered that the and had raised all its forces to protect a place enemy was supported by the Megarians; for in so important to its own safety. Its army was the confusion of the darkness.and the struggle, on its march at Plataea when it received the they imagined that the treachery was. general, summons, and as the whole force was no longand that the whole force of Megara would soon er deemed necessary, a detachment of 2200 foot be upon them. This impression was confirmed and 600 cavalry was sent forward to join Brasiby the Athenian herald, who, of his own accord, das, while the rest returned home. Brasidas made a proclamation, like that of the Thebans arrived at Tripodiscus in the night, and there when they surprised Platsa, inviting all Mega- first heard of the surrender of Nisaea. But berians to side with the Athenians. Before morn- fore the Athenians had intelligence of his aping every post on the long walls was abandoned, proach, he pushed forward with 300 picked men. and the Peloponnesians fled to Nisaea.- Soon tothe gates of Megara. Professing that he had after the Athenians were joined by a body of good hopes of recovering Niswea, he desired to 4000 heavy-armed and 600 cavalry, who, as had be admitted into the city, which was the real been preconcerted, marched by night from Eleu- object of his anxiety. But both parties agreed sis. And now their friends in Megara attempt- in refusing his request; the one because it feared to effect their main purpose. They assem- ed that he would recall their exiled enemies;.bled in arms, and, affecting an impatient-desire the other because, knowing the feelings of its to meet the enemy, required that the city gates adversaries, it dreaded a struggle which might * lITepbroXot. See p. 186, and an essay in the Philologi- expose the city without defence to the Athenical Museum, vol. ii., p, 400. ans. And as it was to be expected that a batVonL..-B B B *378 HISTORY OF GREECE. tie would soon take place between the hostile this little army he proceeded to the Trachinian armies, each faction, hoping for the success of Heraclea, and from thence sent a messenger to' its friends, tacitly determined to wait the issue. Pharsalus, where he or Sparta had friends or Brasidas was aware of this critical state of partisans, on whose good offices he relied for a the public mind at Megara, and saw that it was safe passage through Thessaly. The Chalcidinot to be decided by words. At daybreak he ans and Perdiccas had Also friends among the was joined by the Bceotian re-enforcement, Thessalians who were ready to assist their ally, which raised his army to upward of 6000 in- and several of them came to ineet.him at Melifantry, and he first despatched the Beotian cav- tea, a town of Achaia Phthiotis, a long day's alry to fall upon the enemy's light troops, which march from Pharsalus. The Thessalian nation, were scattered over the plain, where they had however, so far as it formed one body, was the been always used to range with impunity.' They ally of Athens; and to march through its terriwere driven down to the sea, but were then pro- tory without leave was, according to Greek na. tected by their own cavalry; and a skirmish tions, a hostile proceeding, which seemed pecuensued, in which, though the Bceotian com- liarly dangerous in such a country for a handful mander lost his life, neither side gained a deci- of troops without cavalry. But the friends of ded advantage. Brasidas now moved forward Brasidas were men of extensive influence; and with his whole force, and having chosen his there was no authority in Thessaly which could ground in the plain, drew up his men in order at once call out its forces to check. the intrusion. of battle. Here he waited for the enemy; and Nevertheless, on the' banks of the Enipeus he he foresaw that whether he should gain a vic- found a number of Thessalians, friendly to the tory, or they should decline an engagement, the Athenian interest, who expostulated with him effect would be equally favourable to his cause on the unjust aggression with which he was at Megara. The Athenian generals, on their violating their territory. When, however, his part, wished to encourage their friends by pre- conductors disclaimed all intention of escorting senting a bold countenance; but they secretly him farther against the will of their countryshrank from risking a battle against superior men, professing to have known nothing beforenumbers, and they hoped to attain their end by hand of his coming, and to have been merely drawing up their troops in front of the long wall. desirous of discharging the common duties of The result proved the sagacity of Brasidas. hospitality; and Brasidas himself-though he His advance was considered as a proof of well- alleged that he came as the friend of the Thesgrounded confidence; the inaction of the Athe- salians, and with no hostile aim against any nians as a confession of weakness. Their but the Athenians, and that he did not know of friends were seized with consternation, and any rupture that had taken place between the suffered the adverse party to open the gates to Thessalians and his countrymen, to prevent Brasidas and the principal officers'of his army, them from passing through each other's landand to confer with them on the means of secu- still declared that he neither would nor could ring the Spartan interest in Megara. And advance without their consent, the remonthough, soon after, both armies withdrew'from strailts, apparently satisfied with these assuranthe Megarian territory, and, as no garrision had ces, withdrew. Brasidas, now, following the been introduced into the city, the parties were advice of his guides, instead of stopping, made apparently restored to their previous situation, a forced march, and reached Pharsalus the same the popular leaders found their influence so day. By the rapidity of his movements, and much weakened that those who had been most the interest and directions of his friends, he notoriously concerned in the conspiracy fled, was enabled to cross the central plains without and the rest of the party consented to recall their interruption, to the mountain region of Peruebia, exiles from Pegae. An ineffectual attempt was at the foot of the Cambunian hills. Here his'made to bind them by solemn oaths to the ob- Thessalian guides took their leave of him; but, servance of a general amnesty. But the oli- probably through their influence, the Pereebians garchs were no sooner restored to power than conducted him through their country to Dium, they disarmed the commonalty under pretext the first Macedonian town on their frontier. of a review, and having selected a hundred of Perdiccas' desired immediately to employ their principal adversaries, compelled'the com- Brasidas for his own object, the conquest of monalty itself to condemn them to death; and Lyncestis; and he offered to furnish pay for for the purpose both of ensuring and of more ful half his troops. Brasidas was induced'to ac-' ly enjoying their triumph, they caused the ex- company him as far as the borders of Lyncestorted votes, instead of being given, according tis; but here he disclosed intentions quite forto usage, in secret, to be taken openly. After eign to the king's wishes. He proposed, before this revolution the oligarchy, which, Thucydi- they invaded the dominions ofArrhibneus, to try des intimates, was extremely narrow,* subsist- whether he might not be persuaded to enter ed at Megara for a longer period than such gov- into alliance with Sparta, and into an amicable ernments were commonly able to stand; a re. compromise with Perdiccas. The Lyncestian sult, it would appear, rather of the natural ha- prince was willing to accept his mediation; and tred to Athens, than of the wisdom of the ru- there were envoys from the Chalcidian cities in lers. the camp, who warned him that Perdiccas About the same time that the affairs of Me- might prove a-less constant and zealous ally gara were thus settled Brasidas set out on his when he had gained all his ends and saw all his expedition to Macedonia. He had not been able dangers removed. Brasidas also felt that he to raise more than a thousand mercenaries in had come not to make enemies, but to win addition to his seven hundred Helots. With friends for Sparta, and that he should be defeatWe think his is implied by thewords of Thucydides, ing the purpose of his mission by gratifying the., 74, even accby theording to the readidesng y. ambition or resentment of Perdiccas. But the v., 74, even according to the reading yevspe'vrj. BRASIDAS AT ACANTHUS. 379 Macedonian king assumed the tone rather of a oppressed, covered some ambitious and unjust master than an ally. "He had not brought designs. To satisfy his audience on both these Brasidas to be an arbitrator in his quarrels, but points, he does not scruple to assert that, with to fight his battles; it was for this he main- the troops which he had brought from Pelopontained the half of hiskoops; and it would be a nesus, he had delivered Megara from the Athebreach of faith if, wle he received his wages, nians, who, though superior in numbers, dehe should enter into negotiation with his ene- clined the battle which he offered; and he inmy." But the Spartan persisted in his resolu- forms those who might suspect the purity of tion, and, in spite of the remonstrances of Per- his intentions that, before he left home, he had diccas, had an interview with Arrhibaeus, who bound the.Spartan magistrates by the most solfinally prevailed on him to withdraw his forces emn oaths to respect the independence of every from Lyncestis. Perdiccas vented his displeas- city which he should bring over to their alliure by reducing the amount of the pay which ance; probably another politic falsehood, though he furnished from the half to a third. with a greater mixture of truth, by which he Brasidas was perhaps the less inclined to claimed for himself the whole merit of an enprosecute this expedition, as objects of greater gagement which had really been required from importance demanded his attention elsewhere. the Spartan government by the Chalcidian enThe Athenian possessions in Chalcidice and voys. on the coast of Thrace were the chief mark of He then proceeds to quiet the fears of the his enterprise; and he had received invitations Acanthian cpmmonalty by assuring them that which induced him, immediately after quitting he is not come to espouse the interests of any *Perdiccas, to make the first attempt upon party, and that he should deem it an encroachAcanthus, an Andrian colony, near the Isth- ment on their rights, which he was sent to vinmus of Mount Athos. His little army was dicate, if he attempted to alter an established strengthened by a body of Chalcidian auxilia- form of government in favour either of the few ries, and he appeared before the town just be- or the many.* This would be to imitate the fore the vintage. Within parties were divided example of Athens, and would be doubly odious in the usual manner, but perhaps with less than in those who reprobated her conduct, and were the ordinary animosity. There was one-an therefore obliged, as well by regard to their oligarchical minority-which had invited him, own reputation and interest as by their oaths, and warmly contended for opening the gates to to observe an opposite course. And, finally, his army. The mass of the people was almost he enforces his arguments with a threat, which suspended between two opposite feelings; im- touched a great number of his hearers in their patience of the Athenian dominion,.and dread personal capacity. He could not patiently suflest, if they should connect themselves with fer them to reject the boon which he offered, Sparta, they might lose their political constitu- and from motives of prudence, though they setion, and still remain subject as before, though cretly wished well to his cause, to continue to to a different power. These *ishes and fears augment the Athenian revenue by their tribute, were so nearly balanced, that a slight motive and thus to injure Sparta and obstruct the libwas sufficient to turn the scale,; and in this eration of Greece. He must endeavour, by state of things, apprehension of the damage ravaging their territory, to force them to dewhich the invading forces, if provoked to hos- clare theselves, and to prevent them from tility, might do to their fields and vineyards, sacrificing the general welfare to their selfish powerfully inclined theAcanthians to listen to fears. But he hoped they would be better adthe friends of Sparta. Brasidas obtained leave vised, and would learn the glory of having tato enter the city alone, and to plead his own ken the lead in the cause of liberty. cause in the popular assembly. He was well The Acanthians, who had much experience aware of the prejudices and suspicions which of Athenian oppression, but none of Spartan duhe had to encounter: he possessed a full share plicity, and who in Brasidas saw a representaof the Spart: prudence, and was gifted with tive of his countrymen whose character and an easier flow of speech than was commonly language were suited to inspire confidence, found among his countrymen, or had been led swayed partly by the desire of independence, by the new emergencies of the times to culti-'partly by the fear of immediate loss, and pervate his talent in a manner more agreeable to haps not a little by the reflection that they had the taste of the age than to the institutions of already taken a step which might provoke the Lycurgus. That the yoke of the Athenians resentment of Athens, after a long debate, was an evil from which all their subjects must came to the resolution of renouncing the Atheeagerly desire to be delivered, he assumes as nian alliance. The votes on this occasion were universally admitted; and only thinks it neces- taken secretly, a precaution which probably consary to apologize for the tardiness of the Spar- tributed to decide tlwi majority; and before the tans in sending the succours which he had Peloponnesian troops were admitted into the brought. But he affects to be surprised that:ity, Brasidas was obliged to take th6 same the Acanthians, for whose sake he had accomplished a difficult and dangerous march, should * The Scholiast of Thucydides on iv., 86, explains rT rhdrpov 7rapcic by ruiv 7rdTrpLOv fKicrsoL Vroci'av KIcarahave shut their gates' against his army, and iwcrat. And it seems necessary to adopt this interpretation should not have received him with joy as a pro- for the sake of the argument. Brasidas would disclaim an tector and an ally-;. and complains that their intention of establishing oligarchy or democracy, not because of his respect to the constitution of Sparta, which he coldness has not 6nly disappointed him, but could not mean to make a model for his new allies, but bealarms him, lest it should elsewhere be con- cause it was inconsistent with his liberal professions to strued into a token, either that his force was change their hereditary institutions. It would have been inadequate to the object of his enterprise, or difficult to make the democratical Acanthians believe that inad equate to the object of r his enterprtse, tor the Spartan Constitution resembled their own, which Dr. that his professiors of restoring liberty to the Arnold thinks was his meaning. 380 HISTORY OF GREECE. oath which he professed to have exacted from left at leisure to complete his preparations for the ephors before his departure from Sparta.* his approaching enterprise. Not long after, the neighbouring town of Stagi- It was in the autumn, soon after the revolt rus followed the example of Acanthus. of Acanthus, that he set sail for Siphae with 400 In the mean while the Athenians were en- heavy-armed Athenians body of Acarnanian gaged at home in an undertaking similar to auxiliaries, and some frl the newly-conquered those by which they had so greatly distressed Agr.eans. But he found the plan completely the enemy in Peloponnesus, and which prom- disconcerted. A mistake was made either by ised no less important advantages. Immedi- himself or his colleague as to the time of their ately after his retreat from Megara, Demosthe- joint operations, and he arrived at Siphae before nes had sailed Keith a squadron of 40 galleys to Hippocrates had left Athens. In the mean Naupactus, to be in readiness for taking part in while a.Phocian of Phanoteus, named Nicomaan extensive plan which had been concerted chus, had betrayed the secret to the Spartans' for a general revolution in Bmotia. Some par- the Boeotians were put on their guard, and betisans of Athens had agreed to betray the port fore any diversion was made on the side of Deof Sipha3 on the Corinthian Gulf, in the territo- lium, marched with all their forces against ry of Thespiae, into her power. Chaeronea, on Siphae and Ch.eronea, which they secured so the borders of Phocis, was to be delivered up as to prevent the malecontents from stirring. by a body of refugees from Orchomenus, to They had already returned from this expediwhich Chaeronea belonged; and.these exiles tion, when Hippocrates, who had drawn out the were prepared to give active assistance in oth- whole serviceable population of Athens, citier ways, and at their own charge had begun to zens and aliens, both residents and sojourners, levy troops in Peloponnesus. In Phocis, too, came to Delium, which he immediately prothere was a party which knew and favoured ceeded to fortify. He enclosed the consecrated the design. The Athenians, on their part, un- ground with a ditch, a rampart, and a palisade, dertook to seize and fortify the sanctuary of for which he found materials in the adjacent Apollo, called Delium, on the coast opposite vineyards, and strengthened the work with Euboea, at about five miles from Tanagra. It stones and bricks taken from the neighbouring' was settled that these movements should take houses. The holy ground was, surrounded on place on the same day, in order that the atten- most sides with a screen of buildings; in one tion of the country might be distracted, and its part where a gallery once stood, but had now force divided. If they were successful, it seem- gone to ruin, Hippocrates surmounted the ramed probable that even if the oligarchical gov- part- with wooden towers. The labour of the ernments throughout Bceotia were not imme- multitude, assembled in the Athenian camp had diately overthrown, they would not be able to nearly finished the intrenchment by the afterstand long, while three points at remote ex- noon of the third day after it was begun. The tremities of the country were occupied by the troops were then ordered to set out on their enemy, and afforded so many rallying-places march homewafd. The light infantry for the for the disaffected, from which incessant in- most part went foxward, and made straight foi roads might be made into the heart of the land. Attica; but the heavy-armed halted at about a Demosthenes, therefore, was sent to Naupac- mile from Delium to wait for the general, whe tus that he might collect a body of I[pops from stayed behind to give orders for the regulation Acarnania and the other western allies, and, at of the garrison and the completion of the works. the appointed time, might sail up the Corinth- In the mean time the Bceotian army had asian Gulf to take possession of Siphae, while sembled in the district of Tanagra, not far from Hippocrates marched from Athens into Bceotia. the place where the Athenians had halted, which The affairs of the Acarnanians appear to have belonged to Oropus, and was therefore, politiprospered after the happy termination of'their cally considered, Attic ground. For this reawar with Ambracia. The year before, with the son most of the Bceoat,* who were all aid of the Athenians stationed at Naupactus, present, were unwilling to attac the retreatthey had made themselves masters of Anacto- ing enemy, who was no longer in Boeotia, but rium, had expelled its Corinthian inhabitants, within his own confines. But Pagondas, one and occupied their place with Acarnanian set- of the two Theban Baeotarchs, and supreme in tlers; and not long before Demosthenes arrived command,/was eager to give battle. Yet he they had compelled (Eniadae to join the Athe- did not venture to exert his authority against nian alliance. In the interval preceding his the judgment of his colleagues without the intended expedition to Bceotia he assembled all general approbation of the army, and he therethe forces of the allies in the west, and march- fore harangued it in separate divisions, to rouse ed. against Salynthius, king of the Agrteans, its patriotic pride and resentment. He remindwhom he reduced to subjection, and was thus ed them that the Athenians were not the less enemies and invaders because they had just * Whether he himself had already taken the same oath recrossed the border; that to abstain' from reat Sparta before he set out, as the position of dl6cavra in Thuc., iv., 88 (see Dr. Arnold's note), seems to intimate, senting such an aggression as they had suffered must depend on the circumstances under which the oath would be no less unwise than dishonourable; was required from the Spartan government. ~ If these were their passiveness would onlr provoke a repetisuch as Brasidas represented to the Acanthians, there would certainly, as Dr. Arnold observes, be no reason why tion of the insult. The neighbour whom they the government should have required such an oath from had to deal with was not content with petty him. But if, as seems much more probable, the oath was encroachments on their territory: the Athenireally required by the Chalcidians, it would be quite conceivable that they might have required it from Brasidas as ans aimed at nothing short of the subjugation well as from the government. Whether Thucydides, after of all Boeotia; arfd the example of Eubma might the language which he had put into the mouth of Brasidas, warn them of the treatment which they had te would in this manner have alluded to' a fact somewhat a; variance with it, is a different question, * See p. 168. BATTLE OF DELIUM. 381 expect if they should ever become subject to mentioned, had. left a squadron of hlorse at DeAthens. Nothing would encourage the Athe- lium, to surprise the Boeotians by a sudden nians more than to find that they might at any charge. But the Bceotian general had been aptime invade Bceotia with impunity, if they could prised of his intentions, and had taken precaueffect their retreat to Attic ground before they tions to counteract the threatened movement; were overtaken. It became the descendants and perceiving the distress of his own left, he of the brave men who conquered at Coronea, to had sent two brigades of cavalry round by the repeat the lesson which their forefathers gave back of the ridge which he had crossed to its to the Athenians in that glorious field; and the relief. The victorious Athenians, when they god, whose sanctuary their enemy had profaned, saw this squadron appearing on the height would guide them to victory. above them, imagined that a fresh army was Having thus inspirited his troops, he led on its march to pour down upon them, and this them at full speed to seek the enemy-for the delusion concurring with the success of the day was now far advanced-and, on reaching a Thebans,. soon spread irreparable confusion place where the two armies were only parted throughout the whole Athenian line. The army by a ridge, made his dispositions for the battle. was completely dispersed, some of the fugitives Hippocrates was still at Delium when he re- taking the direction of Delium, some making ceived the first intelligence of the approach of for Oropus, some for Parnes, and other quarthe Boeotians. He immediately despatched or- ters. A body of Locrian cavalry, which came ders for putting his army in battle array, and up as the rout began, aided the Bceotians in the soon after came to the field. At Delium he slaughter of the flying enemy, which would have left about 300 horse, partly for the protection been much more destructive if it had not been of the place, but likewise with instructions to stopped by the night. But near a thousand of look out for an opportunity of suddenly charging the heavy infantry, and a still greater number the enemy in the heat of the action. The Athe- of the irregular troops and followers of the nian line was scarcely formed before the Bceo- camp, were left in the field, and Hipponicus, tians appeared on the top of the ridge, where one of the generals, was among the slain.* they halted to take breath while Pagondas The conquerors lost less than 500 men. The again addressed them with a few animating spoil served to adorn the Theban agora with words. His forces, which amounted to about new edifices and statues.t 7000 heavy and 10,000 light infantry, with 500 The next day the fugitives who had escaped targeteers and 1000 horse, were drawn up, rot to Delium and Oropus found means of returning in any uniform order, but according to the vary- to Attica by sea; and the Boeotians, when they ing strength or military usages of the confeder- had raised their trophy, taken up their dead, ates. The Thebans, who occupied the right and spoiled those of the enemy, marched to wing; stood five-and-twenty deep: the cavalry Tanagra, and turned their thoughts towards the and light troops were stationed at the two recovery of Delium, which was still occupied wings. The Athenian heavy infantry was by an Athenian garrison; but they left a guard about equal in number to that of the enemy, on the field of battle in the hope of extorting a and was drawn up in a uniform line of eight high price for the usual permission to bury the deep, and each wing was flanked by a squadron slain. The Athenian herald who was sent to of cavalry. But they were almost entirely des- ask it, on his way to the enemy's camp was titute of light troops, which did not at this time stopped by a Bceotian herald, who desired him enter into the composition of an Athenian to turn back, since his errand would be fruitless, army; and out of the multitude which had ac- until he himself had delivered the message with companied the regular forces to Delium, many, which he was charged to the Athenians. This who went not to fight, but to work, were whol- was a complaint against the sacrilegious occuly unarmed, and most of the rest had continued pation of the temple at Delium, which, the Bceotheir march homeward. tians alleged, was contrary to the national cusHippocrates had scarcely time to cheer his tom hitherto observed by all Greek states in men by setting before them the advantages of their wars with one another, of sparing the victory, which would deliver Attica from future temples in the enemy's territory. The Atheinvasions of the Boeotian cavalry - the main nians had turned the sanctuary of Apollo into a support of the Peloponnesians in their past in- fortress, and had profaned it with all the acts vasions-and by recalling the remembrance of of ordinary life; they had polluted the holy their triumph at CEnophyta, before the enemy water, which before had always been reserved raised the paean, and was seen descending from for sacred rites, by applying it to common uses. the top of the ridge. The Athenians advanced In the name of Apollo and of the deities who running to meet them, and a warm action en- were his partners in the consecrated ground, sued, though at each end of the two lines a they bade the Athenians withdraw from it be part of both armies was kept unemployed by fore they asked for anything which it was in the nature of the ground, being on opposite the power of the Boeotians to withhold. banks of two rapid brooks. The Athenians in But, on the other hand, the Athenian herald the right wing broke the ranks of the Boeotian was instructed to reply that the Athenians had left; and the Thespians who were stationed only occupied Delium in the prosecution of a there were surrounded by the enemy and suf- just war, and had committed no wanton damage fered considerable loss. But the mass of the there; that, according to the laws of Grecian Theban division bore down all resistance, and warfare, the temples in an enemy's country bedrove the Athenians before it as it moved longed to the invader who had taken possession steadily forward. Yet the event of the battle of the district in which they stood, and he was.was decided more by chance than by either only bound to treat them with due reverence as prudence or valour. Hippocrates, we have * Andocides, c. Ale., 0 13, Bekk. t Diodor., xii., 70 382 HISTORY OF GREECE. far as he. was able. The Bceotians, when they were only restrained from revolt by their fears, conquered their present territory, had not scru- and were anxiously watching the progress of pled to seize the temples which before belonged her arms, and when all her reputation was to another people. It was the same right which needed to counterbalance the efforts of Brasidas. the Athenians claimed in the small tract which Though it was now winter, the season, which they had now made their own, and which they hindered the enemy from sending succours by meant to keep, as they would any other which sea for the defence of their possessions, rather they might be able to conquer. The water they encouraged than checked him in his military had used to supply their natural wants, and operations; and he was meditating a blow more they trusted that the gods would pardon an in- hurtful to Athens than any which she had sufvoluntary encroachment on their property. If fered during the war. Amphipolis was not only there had been any breach of piety, it was in in itself, on account of its wealth and magnithe proposal of the Bceotians to barter the bod- tude, one of her most valuable tributaries, but ies of the dead for things sacred to the gods. was still more important on account of its posiThe ground which they had conquered was no tion, which commanded the only passage by longer to be considered as a part of Bceotia, which a hostile land force from the south could but, while they held it, as Attic soil; and, reach the Thracian coast, which, with its sub therefore, they could not fairly be called upon to ject towns and gold mines, was one of the main cede it as the condition of recovering their dead. sources of her revenues. One of her generals, The Bceotians sent a reply, in which they named Eucles, had already been sent to ensure seem wilfully to have confounded the position the fidelity of Amphipolis by his presence; and of the Athenians at Delium with that of their the historian Thucydides was associated with slain in the territory of Oropus, which they ac- him in command, with an especial view to the knowledged to belong to Attica. " If the Athe- protection of the towns north of the Strymon. nians were in Bceotia, they must quit it before Thucydides, whose father, Olorus, was a de. they could reasonably expect any indulgence scendant, probably a grandson of Miltiades, and from the Bceotians; but if, as they pretended, had married a lady of the same name, and, they were on their own ground, the Bceotians most likely, of the same blood with the Thrahad nothing to do with a matter pertaining to a cian princess, Hegesipyle, the wife of Miltiades, foreign soil." A dilemma which can only have had come, either by inheritance or by marriage, been meant for the ear, and signified nothing into the possession of a rich estate in the gold more than that it was their pleasure to reject mines of Scaptesyle, near the coast north of the application of the Athenians. Thasos, to which they belonged before they But as this extraordinary proceeding did not were seized by the Athenians. It was probably produce the desired effect, they prepared to re- the influence which he had acquired in this cover Delium by force. They thought it ne- quarter by his property and coanexions, rather cessary to send for dartmen and slingers from than his abilities or his military experiencethe Malian Gulf; and after the battle they had though he is said to have held a command on received a re-enforcement of 2000 Corinthians, some preceding occasions —that induced the together with the Peloponnesian garrison of people to send him with a squadron to the coast Nisea and some Megarian troops. Yet they of Thrace. He was stationed at Thasos, about made many fruitless attempts upon the rude half a day's sail from the mouth of the Strymon, fortifications of Delium, and at length owed when Brasidas moved, with a body of auxiliatheir success to a new engine, with which they ries in addition to his own troops, from the kindled so fierce a flame against that side of the Chalcidian town of Arnie, to surprise Amphipowall which had been constructed chiefly of tim- lis. He had been urged to this attempt by the ber, that its defenders could not keep their promises held out to him at Argilus, a small posts, or prevent the enemy from entering. town a little to the south of the Strymon. The Two hundred of them were made prisoners, but Argilians, who had in some way given umbrage the greater part of those who escaped the sword to Athens, were themselves desirous of casting took refuge in some ships which were lying in off their dependance on her, and wished, for the harbour, and were carried back to Attica. their own security, to draw their powerful Immediately after the capture of Delium, which neighbour Amphipolis into the like revolt. They took place on the seventeenth day after the had an additional motive in the connexion which battle, another herald came from Athens to so- they had.formed with her, through a number of licit for the remains of the slain, and the Bceo- their own citizens who had been admitted to tians no lorfger withheld them. her franchise; and this connexion gave them To complete the,disastrous consequences of hopes and means of effecting their purpose. this Bceotian campaign, Demosthenes, when he The Argilian Amphipolitans promised their aid was repulsed from Siphe, crossed over to the towards reducing their adopted city under the coast of Sicyon, and proceeded to land his power of Brasidas. But he knew that his suctroops as his galleys, came in. But as they cess would depend on the secrecy and rapidity happened to follow each other very wide apart, of his movements; and he so calculated the the division first landed was attacked by a su- time of his march as to arrive at Argilus in the perior Sicyonian force, routed, and driven to its course of the night after he left Arnie. He was ships with some loss, both of lives and prison- admitted at once into the town, and, before ers, while the rest were still at a distance; and, morning, was conducted by his Argilian friends instead of booty, the fleet only carried away the to the bridge which crossed the Strymon neai slain when they had been obtained from the Amphipolis. Partly by surprise, partly by force; victorious enemy. These reverses were ebief- and partly with the help of his Amphipolitan ly important, because they occurred at a time partisans, he made himself master of it, and when many of the distant subjects of Athens immediately occupied he open ground which SURRENDER OF AMPHIPOLIS.-CONQUESTS OF BRASIDAS. 38-3 lay between the city and the river. Many of the same circumstances. Yet his unavoidable the citizens had houses in this quarter; and the failure proved the occasion of a sentence under invasion was so sudden that'a great number which he spent twenty years of his life in exof them had not time to take refuge within ile; and he was only restored to his country in the walls, and fell into the enemy's hands. the season of her deepest humiliation by the Eucles saw himself threatened both from with- public calamities. So much only can be gathin and from without. The citizens of Athe- ered with certainty from his own language, for nian blood formed but a small part of the pop- he has not condescended to mention either the ulation; the rest were either disaffected or charge which was brought aganist him, or'the lukewarm; and so great was the alarm and nature of the sentence, which he may either confusion created by the occupation of the pop- have suffered or avoided by a voluntary exile.* ulous suburb and the flight of its inhabitants, A statement very probable in itself, though restthat Brasidas, if he had not suffered his troops ing upon slight authority, attributes his banishto be' detained by the'pillage, but had advanced ment to Cleon's calumnies; that the irritation immediately to the gates, might, it was gener- produced by the loss of Amphipolis should have ally believed, have taken the city. A despatch been so directed against an innocent object, was sent without delay to Thucydides for suc- would perfectly accord with the character of cour; and as the enemy contented himself the people and of the demagogue. Posterity with overrunning the suburban district, quiet has gain6d by the injustice of his contemporawas in some degree restored within the walls, ries, and he himself found consolation for the and the friends of Athens maintained the as- losses and sufferings of his exile, in the concendency. But Brasidas, who at first'relied on sciousness of his admirable labours, and in the the strength of the party which had invited him, presentiment of imperishable fame. It was to seeing that it was not quite.so powerful as he the liberty which he acquired by his exclusion had hoped, began to fear that his enterprise from public duties that he owed the opportuniwould be utterly defeated by the arrival of Thu- ties he enjoyed of collecting the materials of cydides, whose authority and personal influence, hiis history from the best sources, and of obtainboth among the Greek towns on the Thracian ing access to persons and places which, during coast and among the tribes in the interior, would the war, could not have been visited by an Atheencourage the partisans of the Athenian gov- nian who had not lost his country. With a ernment to look for effectual protection. He greatness of soul equal to the strength of his therefore sent a herald to demand the surrender mind, he mentions his misfortunes only to reof the city upon terms which relieved all class- cord this advantage, which he and his readers es of the inhabitants from their' worst fears. have derived from them. All who would, whether Athenians or of-differ- The acquisition of Amphipolis opened a wide ent race, were allowed to quit the town, with field for conquest and negotiation to Brasidas, all their movable property, within five days; and his activity justified the dismay with which the rest would remain in the unmolested enjoy- the Athenians were struck by their loss. His ment, both of their estates, and of all their civil winning manners, liberal professions, and equiand political rights. ThiS proposal, at a time table conduct, enhanced the effect produced by when the prospect of relief appeared very un- his success on the subjects of Athens. They certain, met the wishes of all. The Athenians, flattered themselves with the hope that the diswho, if the city was taken or betrayed, had the aster of Delium had given a fatal shock to her worst to fear, were glad to withdraw in safety, power, and the longer Brasidas pursued his vicand without much pecuniary loss. Of the rest, torious career, the'more easily he gained credit the greater number felt no attachment to Ath- for his assertion, that the whole force of Athens, and were only anxious to preserve their ens had shrunk from a contest with his little property and franchises, while many whose army at Megara. The desire of change, and friends had been taken in the surprise of the the enthusiasm excited by a new, untried ally, suburb were delighted with the prospect of re- worked strongly in his favour, and the disposicovering them. The partisans of Brasidas, tion to revolt became so general, that many seeing the bias of the public mind, threw off towns vied with each other for the honour of the mask, and openly seconded his proposal; being the first to receive him within their walls. and the Athenian general, when he attempted The Athenians were not able immediately to to interpose his authority, found that it had lost check this spirit, as the season prevented them all j'weight, and was compelled to witness from sending an armament strong enough to the Murrender of the city. overawe it, though they made the best provisOn the evening of the same day Thucydides, ion they could for the defence of those points with seven galleys which he happened to have which seemed to be in the greatest danger. But with him at Thasos,'when he received the de- Brasidas also was in want of troops as well as spatch from Eucles, sailed into the mouth of the of ships. The latter of these wants he endeavStrymon, and learning the fall of Amphipolis, oured to supply himself by building some galproceeded to put Eion in a posture of defence. leys on the Strymon; but he applied in vain for His timely arrival saved the place, which Bra- a re-enforcement to Sparta, where several of sidas attacked the next morning, both from the the leading persons in the state were jealous river and the land, without effect, and the refu- of his glory, and the wish to recover the prisgees who retired by virtue of the treaty from Ampgees who retire found shelby virtue of the treaty from It seems quite as probable that he was condemned to Amphipolis, found shelter at Eion, and contrib- death as to exile. Nobody decently acquainted with the uted to its security. The historian rendered an Greek language would infer from the expression of Thucyd important service to his country, and it does ides, v., 26, that he was banished for twenty years, even if not appear that human prudence and activity the fact mentioned by Pausanias, i., 23, 9, did not afford a clear indication of the contrary. The point is fully dis could have accomplished anything wnore under cussed by Krueger, Laben des Thukydides, p. 46, fol 384 HISTORY OF GREECE. oners generally prevailed over every other mo- of the people, in which he vindicated the con. tive. duct of his friends: " They were not to be lookImmediately after the surrender of Amphipo- ed upon as traitors, and had not been impelled lis, Perdiccas, desirous, perhaps, of healing the by any sordid motives, but had received him as breach which had been made between them by a public benefactor and deliverer; nor, on the the expedition to Lyncestis, came to the camp, other hand, did he condemn those who had adand lent his aid towards the reduction of some hered to the Athenians;. if they returned, they towns in the neighbourhood of Amphipolis. Myr- should experience the same friendly treatment cinus was won from the Edonian Thracians, as their fellow-citizens; and he doubted not through some feud in which their king Pittacus that, as they would find Sparta a better ally than lost his life, and soon after the Greek towns of Athens, they would soon become more attached Galepsus and CEsyme submitted. Brasidas next to her than they had been to her enemy." marched against the semi-barbarous tribes, of On the third day he began the attack of Levarious origin, which inhabited several small cythus. Its fortifications were very imperfect towns in the peninsula of Athos. Most of them or decayed; but the besieged had strengthened surrendered to him; but one, named Dium, and them as well as they could by means of the conthe Greek town of San6, on the Isthmus, made tiguous houses and of palisades, and for one day such an obstinate resistance, that he was obli- they repulsed all the enemy's attacks;: but on ged to content himself with ravaging their fields. the next, Brasidas prepared an engine to disHe was soon called away by a more important charge combustibles against their wooden deenterprise. A small party at Torone, on the fences. To guard against this danger, the garcoast of the peninsula west of Athos, notwith- rison erected a wooden tower on one of the standing the presence of an Athenian garrison, houses in the most exposed quarter, in which offered- to put him in possession of the town. they placed a number of men with casks of He arrived a little before daybreak within two or water and great stones to crush the engine or three furlongs of the walls, observed by none but quench the fire. Buh,.the roof of the house his friends, who were waiting to receive himO. could not sustain the weight laid on it, and fell They proposed to introduce a small number of in with a startling crash. The Athenians on his men, and then to throw open the gates for the adjacent wall were not so much alarmed as the rest of the army. Twenty men were se- grieved by the disaster; but those at a greater lected for this adventure, but only seven had distance, believing that the enemy had entered the courage to persevere and follow their-guides at the breach, abandoned their parapets, and into the city. This little band first mounted to fled to their ships, which lay in the harbour. the top of the hill on which the city stood, and Brasidas took advantage of the panic, and made overpowered a guard which was stationed on himself master of the place. All who could not it. They then proceeded to open a postern and escape on board the Athenian galleys and boats to force the gates nearest to the agora, where were indiscriminately put to the sword. The about fifty Athenian soldiers were sleeping. conqueror razed the fortress, leaving only a Brasidas, while he advanced slowly with the temple of Athene, to,,whom he dedicated the army, sent forward a hundred targeteers to rush vacant ground, and, 4bosing to ascribe his sudin through the first gates which they might find den success to her miraculous interposition, he open, as soon as they should see the precon- honoured her with the reward which he had certed fire-signal. Some of them were let in promised to the first man who should scale the at once through the postern by their Toronaean wall. partisans, who then raised the signal, and threw Such was the state of affairs in the spring of open the gates leading to the agora for tlte rest. 423, when a year's truce was concluded beBrasidas and the army followed with an appal- tween the belligerent powers. Athens, alarmling war-cry: some of his men reached the top ed by the conquests of Brasidas, desired time of the walls by a scaffold which had beenplaced to make preparations for stopping his progress, for raising stones to repair them; all were soon but was not averse to the thought of a peace by within, and Brasidas led the main body to oc- which she might more surely retrieve what she cupy the higher parts of the town. The fifty had already lost. Sparta considered the recovAthenians, though attacked at once in front and ery of her citizens as the most valuable fruit in the rear, made their way with the loss of a she could reap from the victories of Brasidas, few lives to the fort of Lecythus, which stood and thought that the loss of them could never on a point of land connected with the town by be compensated by the most- brilliant suqess a narrow isthmus, and was held by an Atheni- of his arms; and hoped that the Athenians, an garrison; and here those Toronseans who when they had tasted the.sweets of peace after were attached by private or political interests such a hard struggle, would be more inclined to the cause of Athens, likewise took refuge. to deliver up the prisoners' for the sake of a perWhen morning came, Brasidas was in secure manent peace. The articles of the truce were possession of Torone, and now-sent a herald to either framed or adopted at Sparta in a general Lecythus., to invite the citizens who had fled congress of the Peloponnesian confederates, thither to return to their habitations, and to re- and were then ratified by the Athenians. The quire the Athenian garrison peaceably to evac- first two articles related to a subject of great uate the fortress and depart with their proper- importance, though not immediately connected ty. This offer they rejected, but demanded a either with the first occasion of the war, or with day's truce for burying their dead. Brasidas the motives which gave rise to the truce. The granted two days, which were spent on both first provided for the free use of the Delphic sides in fortifying the houses on the outskirts temple and oracle, from which the Athenians of the town and of the fortress. In this inter- and their allies appear to have been excluded val tahe Spartan general convened an assembly during the war, and Sparta engaged to use her REVOLT OF SCIONE AND MENDE. 385 influence with the Phocians and Beeotians to in his interest-before succours should arrive procure their consent. The second article from Athens, where he knew that the revolt of seems to imply that the Athenians had either the towns in Pallene would excite the same discovered or suspected that a part of the sa- alarm and indignation as a rebellion in one of cred treasures, which had been so many years the islands. But his operations were interrupts in the keeping of their enemies, and which, at ed by the arrival of a galley, with a Spartan the beginning of the war, had been openly treat- andean Athenian commissioner on board, who ed, in the consultations of the Peloponnesians, were sent to give notice of the truce. By the as property which they might lawfully borrow fundamental article, which provided that the for their own uses, had really been embezzled parties should retain all their possessions, the or misapplied. It is stipulated that the Lace- towns which had before entered into alliance daemonians and their allies will lend their aid, as with Sparta were, for the time, sheltered from far as they have any authority, to detect all such the vengeance of Athens. But it appeared that abuses. The other articles determined the ba- Scione had revolted after the truce was consis of the treaty-by which each party retained eluded; according to the calculation of Thuits possessions during the truce-and the bound- cydides himself, two days later; and the'Athearies of the Athenian garrisons at Pylus, Trce- nian commissioner insisted that it had no claim zon, and Niswea, forbade all communication be- to the benefits of the treaty; but Brasidas, astween Cythera and the mainland, and the har- signing an earlier date to the revolution at Scibouring of fugitives, whether slaves or freemen; one, contended that it was entitled to the same and there was one which restrained the Spar- protection as the other allies of Sparta. At tans and their allies from the use, not only of Athens, the news of this last revolt excited the ships of war, but of all sailing vessels, and even fiercest resentment, and Cleon instigated the limited those which they were allowed to em- people to send an expedition against the rebelploy to a certain tonnage-a remarkable con- lious city. Envoys came from Sparta to recession to the maritime supremacy of Athens, monstrate against such a proceeding, and to which seems to attribute to her the legitimate require that the question should be submitted sovereignty of the sea. The main end of the to arbitration. But the Athenians were too truce was expressed by a clause which provided angry to bear this delay, or to expose their right for the security of the ministers who should to such a risk. As the acknowledged soverpass to and fro to negotiate a lasting peace, and eigns of the sea, they thought themselves indirected that all differences which might arise suited by the revolt of a town in an insular poon doubtful points should be settled by arbitra- sition, and were impatient to show that the tion. On the side of the Peloponnesians, the power of Sparta could not screen the offenders. articles were ratified by envoys from Sparta, Cleon-who probably reproached them with the Corinth, Sicyon, Epidaurus, and Megara, who lenity which they had shown to Mitylene-premust have represented the other confederates vailed upon thehn to pass a decree that Scione of the peninsula. Negotiations were immedi- be taken, and every man in it put to death. ately opened for a final termination of the war. In the mean while its example was followed But, in the mean while, Brasidas was pursu- by its neighbours of Mende; and Brasidas ing his successful career; and only a day or thought himself justified in receiving them as two after the truce was ratified at Athens, Sci- allies, partly on the ground that they offered one, in the peninsula of Palene, without wait- themselves spontaneously, and partly because, ing for the approach of his army, renounced the even if he was accused of infringing the truce, Athenian alliance, and invited him into her he had similar charges to bring against the w'alls. He crossed over in the night from To- Athenians. It was the firmness which he had rone in a skiff which was escorted by a galley, displayed on behalf of Scione that inspired the so as either to resist or elude an enemy, and MendEans with confidence; yet they would not on reaching Scione, called an assembly of the have ventured on so rash a step if they had people, in which, after the usual professions of not been urged by the interested solicitations of disinterested zeal for the liberties of Greece, a few leading men, who had opened a secret he applauded the courage of the Scionaeans, negotiation with Brasidas before the truce, who, though their situation was that of an isl- and dreaded detection. The Athenians were and, since, while Potidaea was in the hands of fired with fresh indignation by this new rebelthe Athenians, they could receive no succours lion, and prepared for the reduction of both by land, had spontaneously thrown off the yoke, cities; and Brasidas, expecting a speedy atand had thus given a pledge of the constancy tack, conveyed the women and children from with which they would brave every danger in the two threatened towns into Olynthus, and the cause of Sparta and of freedom. The Sci- sent over 500 of his own regular infantry, and onaeans, delighted with his praises, with the 300 Chalcidian targateers, under the command consciousness of a gallant enterprise, and of of Polydamidas, to protect them. the assurances which he gave them of a happy Perdiccas, as we have seen, had thought it issue, not only decreed a crown of gold as the prudent, after the capture of Amphipolis, to pay reward of his efforts for the liberties of Greece, his court to Brasidas, and to.aid him in some but thronged around him to present him with of his subsequent operations; and after the refillets, and to greet him with such congratula- volt of Mende, he prevailed upon him once more tions as were usually offered to one who had to join his forces to a Macedonian army which gained the prize at the public games. He left was about to invade Lyncestis. Perdic~as had a few troops for their protection, and soon af- also engaged a body of Illyrian auxiliaries in ter'transported a larger force across the gulf, his service, who were to meet him when he in the hope of making himself master of Mende had entered the dominions of Arrhibaeus. The and Potidaa-and in both places he had a party troops which he had collected, partly from MaVOL. I.-C C C 386 HISTORY OF GREECE. cedonia and partly from the adjacent barbarous thus earned and maintained their dominion over tribes, amounted to a numerous host; and the the many. As to the barbarians who were apGreek towns within his territories furnished a proaching, they had already made trial of the small corps of heavy infantry. Those which Lyncestians; and the others, when they came Brasidas could spare, after providing for the to the proof, would not be found more formidasafety of his allies on the coast, together with ble, though their fierce aspect, and wild cries, all that he could draw from the Chalcihtan and threatening gestures might strike terror so towns, Acanthus, and other places, only made long as they were new to the eye and ear. All up their number to about 3000 men. The Ma- this was no more than the empty show by which cedonian cavalry, with that of their Chalcidian an undisciplined multitude, without either rules allies, fell a little short of a thousand. Arrhi- of war or principles of honour, sought to conbeeus was prepared to defend his territories, ceal its weakness and to scare its enemies, who andj soon after the allies had entered Lyncestis, must always conquer, if they were prepared to before they were joined by the Illyrian merce- resist. naries, gave them battle. He was defeated As lie began his retreat, the barbarians came with great lo iss; but tOe mountainous region up with their usual clamour, expecting an easy afforded a near and safe refuge to the remnant victory over a yielding foe. But when they of his army; and the victors waited two or found their first onset steadily repulsed, and three days on the field of battle for the arrival were repeatedly charged by the parties in reof the Illyrians. But as they did not then ap- serve, while, in the intervals of quiet they gainpear, Perdiccas was desirous of advancing to ed, the army continued to retreat in good order, plunder the Lyncestian villages. Brasidas, on they were soon dispirited; and, leaving a small the other hand, uneasy about the fate of the part of their force to hover on the rear of the towns which he had left in great danger, made Greeks, the main body pushed forward to overthe delay of the Illyrian re-enforcement an argu- take the flying Macedonians, and to secure the ment for an immediate retreat.- Perdiccas ve- defile through which Brasidas was to pass. hemently resisted this proposal, and the differ. They made such speed as to cut off many of ence between the two chiefs'again grew into a the Macedonian stragglers; and when Brasidas quarrel, when tidings came that the Illyrians came up, he saw the heights which bordered had been induced to enter into the service of each side of the pass already occupied by a Arrhibaeus. As their numbers were not known, small body of the barbarians, while the rest and they were esteemed among the most war- were proceeding to surround him. But before like of the t barbarians, Perdiccas himself now they had quite completed this movement, he thought it advisable to retreat. But Brasidas, ordered his band of 300 to go before at full with the Greek troops, occupied a camp at a speed, and dislodge the party which had posconsiderable distance from the Macedonian session of one of the heights. This Was, haparmy; and Perdiccas was either unable imme- pily, accomplished; and before the barbarians diately to confer with him on his altered plans, had recovered firom the confusion into which or, through feelings of offended pride, neglected they were thrown by this attack, the Greeks, to take the first opportunity of communicating under cover of their victorious comrades, had them. The day passed, while Arrhibaeus, with cleared the defile, and, having crossed the Lynhis Illyrian auxiliaries, was on his march to at- cestian border, prosecuted their march unmotack the invaders, before any orders had been lested through the dominions of Perdiccas, and given for the retreat, and before Brasidas was the same day reached the Macedonian town of informed of the king's intention. But in the Arnissa. On the road they now overtook a part following night a panic spread through the Ma- of the baggage which had been left behind by the cedonian camp; the enemy, whose strength fugitives, whose desertion had exposed them to was greatly exaggerated, was believed to be their recent peril, and they at once gratified close at hand; and the whole army took to their resentment and their love of plunder, by flight so suddenly that Perdiccas was forced to slaughtering the oxen which drew the carts, follow before he could apprise his ally of his and by seizing everything of value that fell in departure. The next morning Brasidas found their way. This hostile proceeding made a himself deserted by his friends, and threatened deeper impression than might have been exwith attack by the barbarians, who were now pected on the mind of Perdiccas, who, probably too near to be avoided. He had to retreat be- coupling it with the disregard which Brasklas fore an enemy greatly superior in numbers, had shown to his interests, and ascribing it to through a valley terminated by a narrow mount- his animosity, began to conceive a jealousy ain pass, the only outlet by which he could issue and aversion towards his Peloponnesian allies, from the territories of Arrhibaeus. In this emer- which nearly balanced his inveterate hatred gency he formed his little army into a hollow and dread of the Athenians, and disposed him square, enclosing the light troops, placed some to seek a reconciliation with his old enemy, parties of his youngest men in reserve, to act, which might rid him of his dangerous friends. if needfill, on the offepsive, and selected 300 as Brasidas led his army back to Torone, and a rear guard, with which he himself prepared to on his arrival learned that Mende was already face the enemy, and sustain the first shock of taken by an Athenian armament, which had his charge. been conducted against it in his absence by He then animated his troops with a short ad- Nicias and Nicostratus. The Athenian generdress. He reminded the Peloponnesians-the als had suffered a check before Mende in an atHelots had, perhaps, been left behind —that the tempt to dislodge Polydarnidas from a strong dereliction of their allies ought the less to dis- position; but within the town the two parties hearten them, as they belonged to states which soon began to disclose the opposite feelings had beern founded by the valour of the few, who with which they viewed the approach of the SIEGE OF SCIONE.-EXPEDITION OF CLEON. 387 Athenians; and when the Spartan commander irksome inaction. From selfish motives of a attempted, somewhat roughly, to enforce obe- baser kind, Cleon was no less desirous of prodience, the bulk of the citizens flew to their longing the war, which afforded him constant arms, fell upon the foreigners and their oligarch- opportunities of exciting the passions of the ical partisans, and opened their gates. The'multitude, calumniating his adversaries, and Peloponnesians, and all who adhered to them, enriching himself by extortion or peculation. supposing that the tumult was preconcerted After his fortunate adventure at Pylus, his inwith the enemy, took refuge in the citadel. fluence had risen at home; and though in the The Athenians, who were close at hand, rush- same year his character and artifices were laid ed into the town and plundered it, as one taken bare by the comic poet Aristophanes, in a draby storm; and it was with difficulty that the matic satire which it might have seemed irngenerals succeeded in preserving the lives of possible for any reputation to sustain; and the inhabitants. They might, indeed, think though chiefly through a combination of the themselves treated with unwonted clemency; higher classes who formed an equestrian orfor they were permitted, after having punished der, which included a large share of the wealth the authors of the revolt who remained in their and of tdfe best spirit of the city, he was coinpower, to retain their ancient Constitution. pelled by a legal prosecution to. disgorge a sum The citadel was invested, and the Athenian of five talents, which he had extorted from generals then marched against Scione. Here some of the insular subjects of Athens; still in they succeeded in dislodging the enemy from a the assembly he was able to efface the impresstrong position outside the walls, and immedi- sion which had been made at the theatre and ately began to break ground for a siege. While in the court, and continued to sway the counthey were thus employed, the garrison of the cit- sels of the state. Fortunately, he was himself adel at Mende, having forced their way through intoxicated with his success, and had begun to the Athenian intrenchments, reached the sea- conceive a high opinion of his own military talside, and, under cover of night, with a slight loss, ents. IHe had probably more than once conthrew themselves into Scione. trasted the energy which he had displayed in While the siege was in progress, Perdic- his famous expedition with the negligence of cas concluded a negotiation, which he began Thucydides and the tardiness of Nicias, and soon after his return from Lyncestis, with Ni- had persuaded both himself and others that he cias and his colleague, who immediately called was the only man capable of arresting the progupon him for a proof of his sincerity. A re-en- ress of Brasidas, and of recovering the ground forcement, under the command of Ischagoras, which had been lost in the north. He no longer was known to be on its march to join Brasidas, desired the aid of a more experienced gdneral, and Nicias required the king to. exert his influ- but persuaded the people to intrust him with ence in Thessaly to interrupt it. This Perdic- the sole command of a squadron of 30 galleys, cas was now disposed to do for his own sake; with 1200 heavy-armed and 300 horse, the and he induced his Thessalian friends-the flower of the Athenian troops, and a still larger same powerful men who, against the general force of Lemnians and Imbrians, the firiest men wishes of the nation, had conducted Brasidas that the islands could furnish. through the country-to stop the passage of the Amphipolis was his ultimate and principal troops. Ischagoras himself was allowed to pro- destination; but in his way he touched at Sciceed, accompanied by two colleagues, and by one, and, having taken on board a part of the several other Spartans, who were sent to take besieging force, he crossed over to a port not the command in the revolted towns; Thucyd- far from Torone. Here he discovered that ides remarks that these officers were all young Brasidas was not in the town, and that. the garmen, and that to appoint persons of their age rison left in it was inadequate to its defence; to such stations was a breach of the Spartan and he immediately landed with his main body, law or usage. The ephors probably perceived, and marched against it, while ten galleys sailand Brasidas himself may have suggested, that ed round to surprise it on the side of the harthe service was one which required the energy bour. The enemy's weakness favoured him in of the prime of life rather than the tardy pru- both operations. He first assaulted a new wall dence of a more advanced age; and perhaps with which Brasidas had enclosed a part of the the elder Spartans generally viewed his expe- outskirts. Pasitelidas and his little garrison dition, and the contest which he had begun in were almost overpowered by superior numbers, so remote a quarter, with no favourable eye. when they were alarmed by the approach of the He intrusted the government of Amphipolis to squadron, which was entering the harbour, and, Clearidas, and that of Torone to Pasitelidas. as the less important post, abandoned the subNicias and his colleague, when they had com- urb; but they were not in time to prevent the pletely invested Scione, leaving a sufficient gar- Athenians from landing, while the assailants rison in the camp, led their armament home. scaled the unguarded wall and poured into the The truce expired in the spring of 422; but heart of the town. Cleon sold the women and hostilities were suspended and negotiations children as slaves, but sent all the men who carried on some months longer. Brasidas survived the first medley, among whom was seems'never to have thought himself bound by Pasitelidas, prisoners to Athens. They amountthe truce, for, before the end of the winter, he ed in all to no more than 700 men, and were made an attempt to surprise Potideea by night, afterward released by treaty or exchange. Perbut was baffled by the vigilance of the Athe- haps the bulk of the population was absent with nian garrison. He would have been glad to Brasidas, who hastened to $he relief of the throw an Additional obstacle in the way of place, but was stopped within seven or eight peace, which threatened to interrupt his brill- miles of it by the news of its capture. iant career, and to consign him to a state of It can scarcely be denied that in this affair 388 HISTORY OF GREECE. though there were few difficulties to overcome, remain motionless, he expressed his regret that Cleon had shown as much skill and promptitude he had brought no scaling-ladders to storm the as the occasion required; and he probably pro- town. He had placed himself in a situation ceeded, with a heightened esteem for his own from which it was impossible to retreat without military capacity, to the mouth of the Strymon, danger; yet the superiority of his force-might, where he took up his headquarters at Eion. perhaps, have enabled him to draw off the Before he made any attempt upon Amphipolis whole with little loss, if he had kept one divishe was desirous of procuring all the re-enforce- ion to face the enemy while the rest moved ments..he, could collect, and sent envoys to away; but he set the whole in motion at once, Perdiccas to demand a body of auxiliaries, and and so as to expose the soldiers' unshielded others to Polles, king of the Odomantian Thra- side. Brasidas no sooner observed the first incians, to raise as many mercenaries as they dications of this movement, which he had been could among his subjects. Brasidas was at waiting for, than he ordered the nearest gates this time at Amphipolis, with a force which, to be thrown open, and, sallying forth with his though about equal in numbers to that which picked men, ran up the hill and charged the Cleon had brought, was very inferioWrboth in enemy's centre. Clearidas followed, with the the quality and the equipment of the men, the rest of the army, through another gate, and atgreater part of whom were barbarians. Cleon tacked the Athenian right wing, on the rear of was aware of his advantage in this respect, and the column. Their left, which was foremost it does not appear to have been any sense of on the road to Eion, broke away and escaped, his personal inferiority which prevented him but the centre was almost immediately routed, from seeking the enemy; but he seems to have and Brasidas was proceeding to support Clearibeen unable to devise any plan of attack but das, when he received a mortal wound. Cleon, that which he had found successful at Pylus too, who, from the first moment of the attack, and Torone, and only hoped to make himself had thought of nothing but flight, was overtamaster of Amphipolis by dint of numbers. ken by the javelin of a.Myr.cinian targeteer; While he waited for re-enforcements, instead yet even after his death the right wing, having of making approaches to the town, or attempt- the advantage of the rising ground, defended ing to draw the enemy into an engagement, themselves for some time; but at length they he undertook an expedition against Stagirus, were surrounded by the enemy's cavalry and where ho was repulsed, and another, in which light troops, and compelled to follow their comhe succeeded, against Galepsus. His troops, rades in the general route. The victors lost who had been used to different generals, and only seven men, while'about 600 fell on the had been from the first displeased with his ap- side of the Athenians. The Amphipolitans inpointment to the command, began soon to vent terred Brasidas within their walls-an extratheir impatience and contempt in murmurs ordinary honour in a Greek town-with a magwhich reached his ear, and induced him to try nificent funeral, which was attended by the to divert them by a march towards Amphipolis. whole army. They commemorated his death Brasidas, who expected this movement, had by annual games, and offered sacrifices at his posted himself, with a division of his forces, tomb, as to a hero: a tribute of respect which on an eminence called Cerdylium, which was appears the less extravagant, as even his eneseparated by the river from that on which Am- mies thought him worthy to be compared to phipolis stood, and commanded a view of the Achilles.* At once to display their gratitude whole country down to the coast.' From this and admiration towards him, and their enmity position he watched Cleon, who advanced with to Athens, they conferred on him the honours his army from Eion, until he halted on the high of a Founder, which they had hitherto paid to ground immediately above the city, and, as he Hagnon, whose monuments were all destroyed. saw no enemy stirring, went forward to survey The remains of the Athenian army returned the lake formed by the Strymon, and the posi- home. tion of Amphipolis towards the north. While Earlier in the summer a re-enforcement of he was enjoying this view, Brasidas, who, as 900 heavy infantry had been sent out from Sparsoon as he saw the Athenians in motion, had ta, under the command of Ramphias, to join descended from Cerdylium, and had entered Brasidas. Ramphias was detained for a time the city, was preparing to take advantage of at Heraclea by the disordered affairs of the colthe enemy's error. He selected a band of 150 ony, and there received the news of the battle men to make a sally upon the Athenians at the of Amphipolis. Yet he continued his march, most favourable moment, while Clearidas sup- and advanced far into the interior of Thessaly; ported him with the main body; and, having but at Pierium he was stopped by the friends communicated his plan to Clearidas, and ad- of Athens or of Perdiccas, and as he saw that dressed some words of encouragement to the the object of his expedition was frustrated by troops, he stationed them near the gates through the death of Brasidas, and knew that his govwhich they were to be led out. His movements ernment was strongly bent on peace, he deemof preparation had all been observed by the ed it advisable to acquiesce and to return to Athenians from above, and some of them ap- Sparta. Immediately after the battle of Amproached so near to the gates as to be able to phipolis hostilities had been suspended by tacit see the feet of the men and horses behind. consent between the two belligerents, and early The intelligence was brought to Cleon, -who in the winter negotiations were renewed. All was still indulging his curiosity at a little dis- things now seemed to conspire in favour of tance, and, having returned and ascertained the peace. The Athenians', whose arrogance had fact with his own eyes, he immediately sound- been much lowered by their last years' disased a retreat. He had so little expected an attack, that, when the enemy appeared at first to * Plato, Conviv., p. 221. TREATY OF PEACE. 389 ters in Bceotia, and who had since been alarm- boding of some calamitous reverse. Caution ed by the spirit of revolt which they saw spread- was the leading principle of his conduct, both at ing among their allies, were now by their re- home and abroad. As he did not know from cent defeat more than ever disposed to treat on what quarter th'e dreaded evil might come, he moderate terms. The Spartans, notwithstand- not only imitated the prudence of Pericles in ing their successes abroad, had been suffering his military enterprises, but endeavoured to prothe worst evils of war from theenemy's presence pitiate the gods by daily sacrifices, the people in their country, and they *ere in continual by his splendid munificence, and the sycophants dread of the effect which it might produce on by frequent bribes. He is said to have kept a their disaffected' subjects and serfs. Their de- domestic soothsayer, avowedly with a view to sire of recovering the prisoners of Sphacteria the service of the state, but really to obtain the remained unabated; but they had another mo- earliest warning of every danger which might tive to incline them towards peace, which was threaten his private affairs. And the more efbecoming stronger every day. Their thirty fectually to avert the envy to which his fortune years' truce with Argos was near expiring, and was exposed, he affected, like Pericles, to dethe Argives demanded the cession of Cynuria, vote himself entirely to public duties; he was as the first condition of its renewal. Their hos- never to be seen at the entertainments of his tility, combined with that of Athens, was more friends, and confined himself to the society of a than the power of Sparta could withstand, and very narrow circle at home. Those who were there was reason' to suspect that some of her admitted to his closest intimacy took pains to Peloponnesian allies had already conceived the spread the belief that he sacrificed all the endesign of abandoning her and uniting themselves joyments of life to the interests of the commonwith Argos. All these arguments had now their wealth, and that even his health was impaired full weight on both sides since the fortunate by his unremitting application to business. Nievent which had removed the two men who had cias, therefore, desired peace because it was been most actively opposed to peace, the cho- the state which seemed exposed to the fewest *sen instruments, according to a lively image of risks, and in which his private interests would Aristophanes, employed by the god of war, to be most secure under the shelter of universal crush and confound the general prosperity and prosperity. As one step towards this end, he tranquillity. And two of the persons whose had endeavoured to conciliate the confidence of station and character gave them the greatest Sparta by the good offices with which he softweight in the councils of Sparta and Athens, ened the captivity of her citizens at Athens, were strongly impelled by different motives to and he was thus enabled to assume the characconcur- in bringing the war to a close. ter of a mediator between the two states. The Spartan king, Plistoanax, who had been Yet the negotiation was beset with great difdriven into exile on the charge of receiving a ficulties, and it was thought necessary to inbribe from Pericles, had at length been recalled timidate or to urge the Athenians by a show of to Sparta. But it was commionly believed that preparation for a fresh invasion of Attica, ache had recovered his station by arts like those companied by a threat of seizing a post for perwhich had caused his fall. The Spartans had mament occupation. But after many conferenbeen repeatedly enjoined by the Delphic oracle ces, the basis of a treaty was at length settled with mysterious threats to bring back the de- in the spring of 421, on the footing of a mutual scendant of Hercules, and they at length gave restitution of conquests made in the war; and way to the declared will of the god, and rein- as the Thebans would not admit that Plataea bestated the banished king with sacred rites, such longed to this class, on the ground that it had as, according to their traditions, had been em- been freely surrendered, it was stipulated that ployed in the first inauguration of the Heracleid Athens should keep Nisaa, which she had acprinces. But the enemies of Plistoanax attrib- quired by a similar transaction. A treaty, frauted the interposition of the oracle to his gold, med on this basis, was soon after ratified by the with which, as they pretended, he had corrupt- two leading states, and was accepted by all the ed the prophetess and her brother Aristocles. allies of Sparta except the Bceotians, CorinthEvery new reverse which Sparta experienced, ians, Eleans, and Megarians, who declared themand every danger which threatened her, was selves dissatisfied with its terms. imputed to the Divine anger provoked by this It was a treaty of peace for fifty years. It impious fraud; and hence Plistoanax wished provided, in the first place, for the common and for the return of peace, which would deprive free enjoyment of the national sanctuaries and his enemies of the main handle by which they for the independence of the Delphians, and diturned the superstition of his countrymen against rected that all differences which might arise behim., tween the parties should be peaceably decided. At Athens the death of Cleon had left Nicias The most important articles related to the towns in undisputed possession of the influence due to on the coast of Thrace, which had surrendered the mildness of his disposition, to the liberal to Brasidas, and were in the power of Sparta. use which he made of his ample fortune, and to She engaged to restore Amphipolis to the absohis military skill and success, which, after the lute dominion of the parent state, and to delivdownfall of his presumptuous rival, were, per- er up the others, among which were Argilus, haps, more justly appreciated. Nicias was de- Stagyrus, Acanthus, Scolus, Olynthus, and Sparsirous of peace both fobr the sake of Athens and tolus; but their inhabitants were to be allowed on his own account. He was naturally timid to withdraw, if they would, with their property, and prone to superstition, and from the very be- and they were to be subject only to the ancient ginning of his public life, notwithstanding his tribute assessed by Aristlaes. In other respects wealth, prosperity, ane popularity, he seems to they were to be suffered to remain neutral, have been constantly haunted by a secret fore- though at liberty to enter into alliance with Ath 390 HISTORY OF GREECE. ens. Another clause provided for the safety of ance between Athens and Sparta for the same Mecyberna, Sane, and Singe, which were prob- period. Each state bound itself to succour the ably known to have excited the jealousy or the other if its territory should be invaded; to treat resentment of the Athenians; but it was ex- the invaders as its enemies, and not to make pressly declared that they might deal as they peace with them but with the other's consent; would with Scione, Torone, and Sermylus, only and it was expressly stipulated that the Athenithe Peloponnesian garrison of Scione was to be ans should assist the Spartans in quelling any inincluded in the general exchange of prisoners. surrection of their serfs.* At the end was a Sparta also bound herself to restore Panactum, clause similar to' the concluding article of the a fortress on the borders of Attica, which had treaty of peace, but more strongly worded, mabeen betrayed the summer before into the hands king it lawful for the contracting states to alter of the Bceotiane. A power was reserved to the the terms of their alliance by adding or taking two leading states, of correcting, by mutual con- away, as they might think fit. sent, any oversight which might have been com- As soon as this treaty was ratified, the Athemitted by either party in the framing of the nians gave the surest pledge of their pacific distreaty. positions by releasing the prisoners taken in But a very important question remained: to Sphacteria. And thus, after it had lasted ten determine which of the contracting parties years, with the short interruption of the doubtshould be the first to carry it into execution, ful truce, the Peloponnesian war seemed to be and to put the other in possession of the places brought to an end; and the two powers by and persons which it agreed to restore. This whose rivalry it had been kindled were suddendangerous precedence was to be settled by ly leagued together more closely than they had chance; and the lot fell upon Sparta. Thucyd- ever been since the Persian invasion. The ides does not seem to have heard any complaint policy which the Spartan government thought which he thought woroth notice, of unfairness it necessary to adopt towards the prisoners on in the management of this business; but in la- their return betrays the inward malady and ter times Nicias was believed to have tampered growing danger of the state, even more than. with the commissioners who were intrusted the importance attached to their liberation. with it on behalf of Sparta, and to have secured Though their surrender had been tacitly, if not this great advantage to his country.* The story expressly, sanctioned by the magistrates, it was tests on the authority of Theophrastus, the same generally considered at Sparta as contrary to by whom we were informed that Pericles had the siirit, at least, of their martial law; and fears the leading men of Sparta for years in his pay; were entertained lest, conscious of having sunk but perhaps it only proves the opinion generally in the estimation of their countrymen, they entertained of Spartan venality.t The Spartan should disturb the public tranquillity by some goverhment, however, immediately proceeded attempt at a revolution. The precaution taken to perform its part inthe conditions of the trea- against this danger appears a little strange. ty. It released its prisoners, and. sent three They were degraded from their franchise, and commissioners to the coast of Thrace to order some of them at the same time deposed from Clearidas to deliver up Amphipolis, and to re- offices which they had held, and were disqualiquire the submission of the other towns which fled from holding any, and even from making were to be resigned to Athens. But the new ordinary contracts. It is not quite clear how allies of Sparta rejected this demand, which ex- this severity, which must have seemed in itself tinguished all their hopes, and Clearidas, to unjust and cruel, could have been expected to gratify the Chalcidians, ventured to disobey the prevent them from forming designs against the orders of the ephors, alleging. that he was una- state. But possibly it was regarded as a kind ble to execute them. He immediately set out of expiation of their offence; so that, when they for Sparta, accompanied by envoys from the recovered their former rank, which was restoChalcidian towns, to vindicate his conduct, and red to them some time afterward, they might to ascertain whether the conditions of the trea- once more lift up their heads among their equals ty were irrevocably fixed. But he was obliged without any fear of reproach. to return without delay, and was ordered, if he could not give possession of Amphipolis to the --- Athenians, to withdraw the Peloponnesian garrison. At the same time the Spartans pressed C CHAPTER XXIV. their confederates, who had refused to accede to the treaty, to waive their objections. But find- FROM THE PEACE OF NICIAS TO THE CONQUEST ing them inflexible, and Argos unwilling to treat, OF MELOS. they began to be alarmed lest either the confed- AMONv the various predictions which were eracy should be dissolved, or their supremacy current at the outbreak of the Peloponnesian transferred to their ancient rival; and they saw war, one ornly, Thucydides observes, was known no better way of averting this danger than to to have been fulfilled; and it was, that the war enter into a closer union with Athens, and thus should last thrice nine years. He does not conto deprive both Argos and their refractory allies sider the temporary and partial suspension of of their chief ground of confidence. Nicias co- hostilities which followed the treaties mentionoperated with them for this object, which prom- ed in our last chapter, as a sufficient ground for ised to strengthen his work; and his peace- questioning the accomplishment of the propheas the fifty years' truce was sometimes called- cy,'since it did not lead to a state of peace. was soon followed by a treaty of defensive alli- The treaties were inscribed on pillars or tables of stone or brass, and preserved in the most re* Plut., Nic., 10. vered sanctuaries; but they were for the most t It was to these instances of wholesale corruption that we meant to refer in the remark, p. 135. * "Hv 4 6ovAtC Eraavctar7Irat. Thucyd., v., 23. DISCONTENT AT CORINTH. 391 part a dead letter. This did not arise from the northern coast of the 2Egean, once subject to want of a sincere inclination for peace in the Athens, which, after having been animated to two highest contracting parties. The radical revolt by; the promises of. Sparta, found themvice of the transaction was, that the Spartans selves abandoned to the vengeance of their irhad undertaken more than they were able to ritated sovereign. Even those for which some perform, and the Athenians would accept no- provision had been made in the treaty of peace thing less than they had bargained for. The were disappointed and alarmed. The permistreaty could not be carried into full execution sion stipulated for the inhabitants to migrate, without the concurrence of some of the allies strongly indicated the small value of the indeof Sparta, who refused to accede to it,*,ind pendence which was nominally restored to though, according to the acknowledged laws of them. The unconditional restitution of Amthe confederacy, they were bound by the will of phipolis not only threatened a large part of the the majority, she had no means of enforcing population with the renewal of an oppressive their compliance. Several others were dis- yoke, but extinguished all hopes of relief in the pleased with those parts of the treaty in which more northern dependants of Athens on the they were individually concerned, or had partic- same coast. Notwithstanding, therefore, the ular grounds of jealousy or discontent; and departure of the Peloponnesian garrison, Amthere was one clause in the treaty of alliance phipolis held out, and the war was still carwhich created general offence and alarm. The ried on in this quarter. The cause of the Chalpower reserved to Sparta and Athens of altering cidian towns had always been warmly espoused its terms at their pleasure,'without consulting by Corinth, which had the greatest share in their allies, was thought to indicate designs promoting the revolt. But, besides the offence which threatened the independence of the infe- which she took at the'treaty on their account, rior states. The ancient respect for Sparta, she resented the disregard which had been founded on the invincible spirit with.which her shown in it to her private interests. She had sons were supposed to be animated by the in- expected to recover Sollium, and her important stitutions of Lycurgus, had been much shaken colony Anactorium; and it would seem that by the surrender at Sphacteria, and by the fee- the basis on which the treaty of peace was probleness and timidity afterward betrayed by the fessedly framed, entitled her claim to them;.government in the management of the war. but the Acarnanians were, perhaps, determined But perhaps these causes of alienation might to keep theni, and they were passed over in sinot have come into action, if it had not happen- lence. Thus estranged from Sparta, the Coed that, at the same time, Argos presented a ral- rinthians turned their thoughts towards a new lying point, round which all who were adverse alliance, and now resolved, to execute the to Sparta might collect their forces, and secure- threat with which they had instigated Sparta to ly array themselves in declared opposition. Ar- begin the war. After the congress held at gos had enjoyed a long period of tranquillity in Sparta on the last treaty with Athens, the Cothe midst of the general commQtionj and had rinthian deputies were instructed to proceed been gaining strength while her neighbours immediately to Argos, and to open a negotiation were wasting themselves in a ruinous contest. for the purpose of founding a new confederacy, But as she saw the period approaching when over which Argos was to preside. Some of she might be exposed to the hostility of her old the persons in the highest offices at Argos rival, she looked about her for some addition to adopted their views, and it was agreed that the her means of defence; and the state of Pelo- Argive people should first pass a decree inviting ponnesus encouraged her to revive her ancient every independent (reek state that might be pretension to that supremacy which had been willing, to enter into a defensive alliance with long exercised by Sparta. In the interval be- Argos; and then, for the sake of secrecy, aptween the Persian and the Peloponnesian wars point a select number of commissioners investgreat changes had taken place. in her constitu- ed with full powers to treat with each that tion, which tended to increase the mutual jeal- should offer itself. A decree to this effect was ousy of the two states. About the same time soon after carried in the Argive assembly; and that she reduced Mycenee, she also recovered twelve commissioners were chosen, and emseveral other towns of her ancient territory, powered to conclude an alliance with all Greek which she had lost in the great shock which states, except Sparta and' Athens, who were Cleomenes gave. to her power,* as Tiryns, the not to be admitted into the confederacy without asylum of her revolted bondmen, Orneae, Midea, the express consent of the people. Hysiae. But she treated their inhabitants with The first proposals came from Mantinea. a more liberal policy than she displayed towards The Mantineans had united some.of the neighthe Myceneeans, who had exasperated her by bouring Arcadian cantons in a confederacy, their competition. She transplanted the great- which they governed. But this union had been er part of them within her walls, and admitted effected by force, and they feared that Sparta, them to an equality with her ancient citizens. now that she had more leisure to attend to the The strength thus added to the commonalty en- affairs of Peloponnesus, might interfere to discouraged and enabled it to break down all the solve it, both on the ground of the general polold barriers of aristocratical privileges, and the icy which led her to keep Arcadia, as far as she government henceforth'became more6and more could, divided and feeble, and through a pecudemocratical.' liar jealousy of Mantinea, which was under demAmong the states which felt themselves ag- ocratical government, and. was at war with grieved by the treaties, none, perhaps, had just- Tegea, her ancient and stanch ally. Argos, er cause of complaint than the towns on the on the other hand, was.both able to afford protection, and attracted Mantinea by its similar * See p. 253. constitution. The example set by Mantinea, 392 HISTORY OF GREECE. which seemed to show that the Spartan con- peace.* It was this grievance that led them federacy might be safely abandoned by all who to enter into alliance with Argos; and immewere displeased with its chief, encouraged the diately after, Corinth and the Chalcidians folother Peloponnesian allies freely to express lowed their example. But the Bceotians and their discontent, and tempted them to take the Megarians were as little inclined to ally themsame course. The Spartans, alarmed by the selves with Argos as with Athens. Both, inrumour of this rising spirit of revolt, and ex- deed, thought themselves ill-treated by Sparpecting that Corinth would next follow the ta;t and Megara, in Particular, had reason to movement which she had planned, sent envoys complain that her principal port was left in the to remonstrate with the Corinthians on their hands of her inveterate enemy, though she had conduct, and to persuade them to become par- ta en and demolished the long walls which conties to the treaty with Athens. The envoys nected it with the city.: But the party which insisted on the obligation imposed on every had now the ascendency, both there and in member of the confederacy by an oath, to sub- Boeotia, was, on political grounds, averse to any mit to the decision of the majority. But this connexion with Athens, and probably thought obligation was limited by a clause which ex- war with a democratical neighbour safer than cepted cases in which " any hinderance might peace. During the year's truce the Theban arise from gods or heroes." The Corinthians government had given a signal proof of their now availed themselves of this exception, and jealousy and aversion towards Athens. Thescontended that, since they had bound them- piae had been reduced to extreme weakness by selves by repeated oaths to stand by their Chal- the loss which it had suffered in the cause of cidian allies, this was a hinderance arising from Thebes at the battle of Delium; yet, the year the gods which restrained them from conform- following, the Thebans took advantage of the ing to the will of the majority of their Pelopon- helplessness' of the Thespians, and, charging nesian confederates. "As to the alliance with them with a leaning towards Athens, demolishArgos, they should deliberate withtheir friends." ed their walls. But on similar grounds the There were envoys from Argos at Corinth oligarchs of Boeotia and Megara, closely united when the Spartans were dismissed with this in principles and interests with one another, answer, and they urged the Corinthians to en- shrank from all friendly relations to the demoter into league with Argos without delay. Yet cratical government of Argos. the Corinthians-perhaps with the view of en- The new confederacy, which was opposed to hancing the value of their support-did not im- the two most powerful states of Greece, did not mediately consent, but deferred their final an- yet appear to the Corinthians suffiliently strong, swer to another meeting; it was attended by anrd they were. very anxious to obtain the acan embassy, which they probably expected, cession of the Arcadians; who, if united under from Elis, which came to conclude a separate Argos, would form a safe barrier against Sparalliance with Corinth, and then, according to a ta. For this purpose, the concurrence of Teprevious arrangement, proceeded to Argos, and gea was most important, and might be expectprocured admission for Elis into the Argive con- ed to draw over the smaller Arcadian towns. federacy. Envoys were sent from Corinth and Argos to Sparta had provoked the enmity of the Eleans Tegea, to invite the Tegeans to join the Argive by an act to which she had been prompted by league. But they were attached to Sparta, both her ruling maxim, of keeping Peloponnesus di- by ancient recollections and by their enmity to vided among the greatest possible number of Mantinea, and declined to take any step in opindependent states, which led her to support position to their old ally. The ardour of the the weak against their more powerful neigh- Corinthians was cooled by this disappointment, bours. Before the Peloponnesian war the Tri- and they began to fear that they had embarked phylian town of Lepreum, pressed by the arms in a perilous undertaking. They, however, triof the bordering Arcadians, had sought aid ed to gain Bceotia to their cause; but their perfrom Elis, but could only obtain it at the price suasions could not overcome the repugnance of half its territory, which it ceded to its ally. which was there felt to the alliance with Argos. The Elians, however, only exercised their sov- They then tried another expedient for securing ereignty by charging the cultivators of the land the protection, at least, of the Boeotians against with the yearly payment of a talent to the treas- the danger which threatened them on the side ury of the temple at Olympia. The Lepreans of Athens. Soon after the peace an indefinite patiently bore this slight burden, until the war, truce, terminable at ten days' notice, had been which brought with it other demands, afforded concluded between Athens and Boeotia, and had them a pretext for withholding the tribute; continued ever since. The Corinthians endeavand when Elis threatened to exact it by force, oured to induce the Boeotians to insist on the they submitted their case to Spartan arbitration. The Eleanr at first acquiesced in this * Thuc., v.31,TrvvqOirVv rrpodppovrE —"alleging the agreement in which it was declared that the parties should mode of decision, but afterward, suspecting that be left at the close of the war in possession of all the places Sparta would favour the weaker party, assert- which they possessed at the beginning of it." This seems ed their claims by invading the Leprean terri- to refer to the fundamental preliminary agreement, which Thucydides describes, v., 17, in very different terms — tory. The Spartans, nevertheless, made an dVVEXcWPErO WGrE' ~Ka'Epost rOA4lq E'#XoV alro&6VTac Tlj7 award, declaring Lepreum independent, and Eipfivev 7rotcEoOaL. Otherwise we must suppose that the sent a body of troops to protect it. The Eleans Peloponnesian confederates had given each other a guaraintee to this effect before the war. treated this as a conquest, by which a part of t Thoish, as Dr. Arnold observes (Thucyd., vol. ii., p. their dominions had been wrested from them, 278), the Bseotians were certainly not despised by the Laceand demanded restitution as due to them ac- demonians, yet both they and the Megarians might think that they had been slighted and neglected, both in the cording to the true construction of the aree- terms of the peace and in the preference which had been ument which was the basis of the treaty of given to the Athenian alliance. $ Thuc., iv., 109. RESTORATION OF THE DELIANS. 393 same truce being granted to Corinth, and if this have taken such a bias, than to understand in was refused, to renounce it themselves. The what way they could have betrayed it. But the Bceotians consented, indeed, to apply to Athens sequel seems to show that there was a connexon their behalf;' but, when their demand was ion between them and the Delphic oracle, which evaded by the answer "that the Corinthians, may have afforded them opportunities of injuas allies of Sparta, did not need any separate ring Athens. The Athenians, when they drove truce with Athens," they would not forego the the islanders from their homes, assigned no othbenefit of the armistice, though strongly urged er place for their habitation, but left them to by the Corinthian envoys, who pretended to shift for themselves as they could; and they have received their promise to that effect. Hos- were reduced to the necessity of accepting an tilities remained suspended between Athens asylum which was opened to them by the Perand Corinth, but without the forms of a truce. sian satrap Pharnaces, at Adramyttium, on the The summer, however, did not pass without coast of AEolis. Here they remained until the warfare. The Phocians and Locrians, hitherto summer of 421, when the conscience of the united against' Athens, turned their arms against Athenians was enlightened by the Delphic oraeach other; and the Lacedeemonians took the cle, which attributed the disaster that had been field under the command of Plistoanax, to break brought upon them by the incapacity of their to pieces the little empire which the Mantine- general, through their own folly, to their impians had established, under the name of a con- ous expulsion of the people of Apollo; and enfederacy, among the cantons of the district of joined them to recall the outcasts to their island. Parrhasia, in the southern part of Arcadia. The barbarous punishment of Scione was ill Here they had fortified a place called Cypsela, adapted to conciliate the other revolted towns. in a threatening position near the borders of It probably confirmed the resistance of AmLaconia, from which it was a main object of phipolis; and the Chalcidians appear to have Sparta to dislodge them. All the forces of Man- gained ground in the peninsula of Athos.* The tinea were not more than sufficient to resist Athenians complained that Sparta did not exethis attack, and while they were sent out to cute her part in the treaty, began to suspect guard the frontier, the capital was intrusted to that they had been deceivedmnd to regret that an Argive garrison. But they either came too they had restored the Spartan prisoners. The late, or were found too weak. Plistoanax suc- Spartan government maintained that it had givceeded in both the objects of his expedition; he en a sufficient proof of its sincerity when it rerestored the Parrhasians to independence, and stored its Athenian prisoners, and recalled its destroyed the obnoxious fortress. About the troops from Thrace, and professed to be willing same time the Spartan government made a pro- to do everything that lay in its power towards vision for the security of Lepreum, by which it the execution of the treaty; and in return refreed itself from an internal source of disquie- quired the Athenians to evacuate Pylus, or, at tude. The Helots who had served under Bra- least, to put an Athenian garrison there in the sidas, on their return from Thrace were eman- room of the Messenians and revolted Helots cipated, and shortly afterward transplanted to who infested its territory.' But, in its anxiety Lepreum, with a body of persons of a similar to recover this important post, it had amused class, who, under the name of Neodamodes (new the Athenians with promises which it must commoners), enjoyed a franchise which had have known to be futile, of compelling their reprobably been transmitted to them by various volted subjects to submit, and the Bceotians and degrees from servile ancestors. In the north, Corinthians, and others of its own allies, to acScione was compelled to surrender at discre- cept the treaty. The Athenians, seeing no step tion, and Cleon's bloody decree was carried taken towards the fulfilment of these promises, into complete execution. The male inhabitants would not be satisfied with the excuses which were put to death; the women and children were offered instead, and were with difficulty made slaves. It does not appear whether this prevailed upon to withdraw the garrison from atrocious deed was the subject of a fresh delib- Pylus, by the assurance that Sparta would use eration at Athens, or was'ordered. as a matter her utmost efforts to induce the Bceotians to of course by the officer who conducted the siege. restore Panactum and' their Athenian prisonThe lands of the exterminated people were ers; but the Messenians and their comrades granted to the Platecans, who had lost the pros- were only removed to the neighbouring island pect of recovering their native soil. of Cephallenia. The Delians were more fortunate. During Hitherto, although the complaints of the Athethe year's truce, the Athenians, perhaps refer- nians were not unreasonable, their suspicions ring their reverses to the anger of Apollo, and of the Spartan government were unfounded. wishing to atone for the profanation of his sane- But, in the autumn of 421, the ephors by whom tuary at Delium, completed the purification of the treaties had been concluded went out of ofDelos by removing the whole population of the fice; and among their successors were men who island. There was some ground of ancient tra- were adverse to the new relations between dition-which Thucydides perhaps thought too their country and Athens, and who exercised absurd to record-for treating the Delians as. a great influence over their colleagues. A conpolluted race, unfit to be ministers of the sanc- gress, which was held soon after at Sparta, and tuary. Their expulsion was no.doubt the ef- was attended by ministers from Corinth and feet of an honest superstition. But the manner Boeotia, afforded an opportunity to Cleobulus in which it was executed seems to indicate that and Xenares, the two ephors who were most there was some foundation for the statement eager to dissolve the connexion with Athens, of Diod6ous, that they had incurred the displeasure of Athens by their attachment to Spar- * Thuc., v., 35. The reading AtKrLJtBS is unintelligible; AlS t inconsistent with v., 82. Poppo's conjecture, XaXiuta. It. is easier to conceive how they might 65 or oi X., seems the most probable. VoL. I. —D D D 394 HISTORY OF GREECE. of concerting an intrigue for that end. After by the Bceotians, for the purpose of exchanging the breaking up of the congress, which a long them against Pylus, and they had perhaps been debate brought no nearer to an agreement, they instructed to suggest a new method of attaindrew the Bceotian and Corinthian deputies into ing the end which the preceding clandestine a private conference with some some other negotiations had failed to compass. The BceoSpartans of their party, and counselled the Bceo- tian government consented to deliver up the tians, if they wished to avoid being forced into fortress and the prisoners to Sparta, on condian alliance with Athens, to make common cause tion that she should conclude a separate alliwith Corinth, and first to enter into the Argive ance with Bceotia, as she had with the Atheconfederacy themselves, and then to bring Spar- nians. This was admitted to be a breach of ta also into it. "The alliance with Argos was the treaty with Athens, either in the spirit or so desirable to Sparta that she would be willing the letter,* and was, therefore, just what' the to purchase it even at the cost of a rupture with party of Cleobulus and Xenares desired; and it Athens; as she would then be able to sustain a had now become powerful enough to carry this war with any power north of Peloponnesus. point. In the spring of 420 the treaty was con-'But before she could safely renew the contest eluded; but when the Spartan commissioners with Athens, it was necessary that she should came to receive the prisoners, and to take posrecover' Pylus; and for this purpose the Bceo- session of Panactum, they found that it had tians must consent to deliver up Panactum to been dismantled by order of the Bceotian govbe exchanged for it." ernment, which pleaded an ancient compact beAs the envoys were returning home with this tween Bmeotia and Athens, that the ground on message, they fell in with two of the chief ma- which Panactum stood should not be exclusivegistrates of Argos, who had been waiting for ly occupied by either nation, but should be held them to make a similar proposal. They urged by both in common. the Bceotians to unite with Corinth, Elis, and But the intelligence of these proceedings creMantinea, in their league with Argos; and held ated great alarm at Argos, where their real naout as an inducement the advantage which such ture and objects were not known, and it was a union would gi* them in their future trans- supposed that they had taken place with the actions, whether' of war or peace, with Sparta consent of Athens, and that the Bceotians had or any other state. The Bceotian envoys will- been induced to enter into the Athenian alliingly listened to overtures which so nearly co- ance. Argos did not fear the power of Sparta, incided with the plan of their Spartan friends,* so long as she could reckon on support from and the Argive magistrates, finding them so Athens; but she felt that she must soon be well disposed, promised to send an embassy to overwhelmed by a confederacy which included Boeotia. The B-ceotarchs, when they heard the Sparta, Athens, and Boeotia; and she therefore report of their ministers, gladly adopted the pro- hastened to make her peace with Sparta. Two posal of the Spartan ephors, which removed all envoys, recommended by their personal or potheir objections to the Argive alliance. They litical connexions, were despatched to Sparta welcomed the embassy which soon after came with pacific overtures. The chief obstacle still from Argos, and promised to send one thither lay in the little border district of Cynuria, which to conclude a treaty. The first step towards Argos wished to recover, and Sparta refused to the execution of their plan was to make an al- cede. It was a question in which the Argives liance offensive and defensive with Corinth, felt their national honour concerned; and their Megara, and the Chalcidian towns, and it was envoys did not venture altogether to drop their agreed that Bceotia and Megara should then be- claim; but as the Spartans peremptorily rejectcome confederates of Argos. It was, however, ed it, antvould not even consent to refer it to necessary that the agreement privately made arbitrationi, they devised a somewhat singular by the Bceotarchs with the Corinthian envoys expedient for reconciling it with the more should first be ratified by the four great coun- pressing object of their mission. They prevailcils of Bceotia; but the Bceotarchs believed that ed on the Spartan government to conclude a they should there meet with passive acquies- peace for fifty years, but to let a clause be incence. They did not, therefore, think it neces- serted in the treaty making it lawful for either sary to disclose their secret understanding with party, at any time, when the other was not entheir Spartan friends. But the councils were gaged in war or suffering from any epidemic filled by men strongly averse to a breach with sickness, to demand a combat for the possession Sparta; and as they apprehended that this of Cynuria, like that which was celebrated in might be the consequences of the proposed ancient legends for the exploit of Othryades; union with Corinth, they rejected the measure. on the condition that the victorious champions The government did not now venture to make should not pursue the vanquished beyond the any mention of the Argive alliance, or to send border of the disputed territory. Absurd as the the promised embassy to Argos, and, without proposal now sounded to the Spartans, it served any settled design, waited for a more favourable the purpose of a decent compromise; and the turn of affairs. treaty drawn up on these terms was sent to But in the course of the next winter envoys came from Sporta to obtain possession of Pa- * Thuc., v., 39, elp2pEvov ivscv AXiowsv prie osreaEOal nactum and o'f the Athenian prisoners detained rTo pl)TE iOrECEiV. Yet here. again, no such clause occurs in either of the treaties, nor is there any which appears to require such a construction. But perhaps it was understood * If Thucydides did not so distinctly attribute the coin- to be implied either in the concluding article of the treaty cidence to chance (Kalra rvxnlv, v., 37), and if any reason of alliance (i 6's TXL 0K, K r. A.), or in the provision made could be assigned why the two Argives should have con- for the case in which thle territory of either party should be cealed their communication, if they had any, with Sparta, invaded; when neither was to conclude a peace with the we might suppose that they acted in concert with Cleobu- enemy without the other's consent. It may, however, have lus and Xenares. But the concealment of that fact tended been the subject of a distinct subsequent decree, such as the rather-to thwart than to promote the plan. one mentioned, v., 80, as following a treaty of alliasnc. ALCIBIADES. 395 Argos for the sanction of the people, and, if ap- ple itself, shrank from no enterprise, and bent proved, was to be ratified at the approaching before no obstacle. Even in his childish sports festival of the Hyacinthia at Sparta.' and exercises he attracted notice by the signs But in the mean while the Spartan commis- which he gave of an inflexible energy of pur. sioners appointed to deliver up Panactum and pose. It was remembered that he once laid the prisoners, met with a very angry reception himself down before the wheels of a wagon at Athens. They strove in vain to demonstrate which was passing through a narrow street, to that the destruction of the fortress was equiva- prevent it from interrupting his boyish game.* lent to its restitution; and the Athenians were His petulance did not even spare his masters t no less indignant at the separate trea'ty which and his authority decided the taste of his young Sparta had concluded with the Bceotians, whom companions.$ It may easily'be believed that not long before she had undertaken to force into all the vigilance of his guardians was scarcely their alliance. They now enumerated their sufficient to keep him within the bounds of law other grounds of complaint, which they viewed and usage, though Plutarch could not report as so many proofs of Spartan duplicity, and dis- with confidence any of the numerous stories missed the envoys with a sharp answer. afterward told of his youthful excesses.~ The There was at Athens, as at Sparta, a party love of pleasure was always strong in him, but which aimed at severing the ties that bound the never predominant; even in his earlier years it two states together; and the irritation now pre- seems to have been subordinate to the desire vailing in the people encouraged it to redouble of notoriety and applause, which gradually riits exertions. It was headed by an extraordi- pened into a more manly ambition. But his nary man, who henceforward becomes the most vanity was coupled with an overweening pride, conspicuous person in the history of his age, Al- which displayed itself in a contemptuous disrecibiades, the son of Clinias. Though his name gard for the rights and feelings of others, and is mentioned for the first time on this occasion often broke through all restraints both of justice by Thucydides, and he was now but little past' and prudence. the age of thirty, which at Sparta and in other At the age-not later than eighteen-when Greek states, as once, perhaps, at Athens, was the Athenian laws permitted him to take posthe earliest at which a citizen could take part session of his inheritance, Alcibiades found in public business, the eyes of his countrymen himself his own master, with an ample fortune had for several years been turned towards him at his command, in the city which, beyond evewith anxious attention. Both by his father's ry other in Greece, abounded in fuel for his pasand his mother's side he was connected with sions, and opened the widest field for his ambi the noblest of the Eupatrids. He traced his tion, then at the height of its prosperity, in the paternal line, through Eurysaces, son of Ajax, security of peace, enriched and adorned with to.LEacus and the king of the gods; his mother, the fruits of conquest, commerce, and art, under Dinomache, daughter of Megacles, belonged to the government of his kinsman, Pericles. Such the house of the Alcmpeonids, and he thus reck- a person, in such a place, could not fail to be oned Cleisthenes, the friend of the commonalty, soon surrounded by a large circle of admiring among his ancestors. His paternal ancestor, companions, of needy parasites, and aspiring adAlcibiades, had also distinguished himself as an venturers, drawn to him by various motives, enemy of the Pisistratids.* His father, Clinias, but all conspiring to deceive and corrupt him by had equipped a galley and manned' it with 200 their flattery and their counsels. It was also men at his own charge in the Persian war, and the time when the controversies which had fell at the battle of Coronea,t leaving Alcibia- long been carried on in the ancient schools of des a child, perhaps seven or eight years old;$ philosophy had been succeeded by an interval and Pericles and his brother Ariphron, as rela- of general lassitude, despondence, and indifferted to him by the female side, became his guar- ence to philosophical truth, which afforded room dians. He inherited one of the largest fortunes for a new class of pretenders to wisdom, who, in Athens, and it was no doubt husbanded, du- in a sense which they first attached to the ring his minority, with the same economy which word, were called Sophists. They professed a Pericles exercised in his own domestic affairs. science, superior to all the elder forms of phiTo these advantages of birth and fortune, na- losophy, which it balanced against each other ture added some still rarer endowments; a per- with the imperfect impartiality of universal son, which in every stage of his life was, even skepticism, and an art, which treated them all at Athens, remarked with admiration for its ex- as instruments, useless, indeed, for the discovtraordinary comeliness;~ a mind of singular ery of truth, but equally capable of exhibiting a versatility; a spirit which; like that of the peo- fallacious appearance of it. They offered their instructions to all who, possessing a sufficient * Isocr., De Big., 10. capacity, regarded the pursuit of fame, wealth, t Herod., viii., 17. Plut., Ale., 1. and power as the great business of life, and; He must have been past twenty when he served under undertook to furnish them with the means of Phormio at Potidwea in 432, and therefore could not have acquiring that ascend te minds of been less than five years old at the death of his father in 447, but probably was a few years older. Mr. Clinton (Ta- men which is readily yielded to superior wisbles, B.C. 423, 2) seems not to acknowledge the force of dom and virtue bv the simple force of words. this inference. As, according to their view, there was no real b Of which he seems to have been always*extremely As, according to their view, there was no real vain. Even as general he is said to have worn a shield in- difference between truth and falsehood, right laid with gold and ivory with the device of Love hurling and wrong, the proper learning of a statesman. the thunderbolt (Satyrus in Athenams, xii., p. 534). In consisted in the arts of argumerit and persuaAglaophon's picture he was represented Ka;XAicv r-v yvvacKuewv rVpoarOov. The description of his son, who aped him, quoted from Archippus by Plutarch, Ale,, i., shows * Plut., Ale., 2, t Ibid., 7. X Ibid., 2. that the father was likewise affected in his carriage, anld. -But the homicide in the paltstra was piobably quite perhaps in his lisp: KXaaav;XEVeUral re Kcai rpvMsitrat. justifiable. Plut., Alc,, 3. 396 HISTORY OF GREECE. sion, by which he might sway the opinions of darling objects of his ambitious hopes. He others on every subject at his pleasure, and feared to grow old at the feet of Socrates, these were the arts which they practised and charmed into a fine vision of ideal greatness, taught.' The democratical states, and Athens while the substance of power, honours, and in particular, presented the most frequent op- pleasure slipped from his grasp. He forced portunities for the application of these doctrines, himself away from the siren philosophy, which and the highest rewards for the successful cul- would have beguiled him into the thraldom of tivation of such studies; and the Athenian youth reason and conscience, that he might listen to eagerly crowded round the most eminent mas- the plainer counsels of those who exhorted him ters of the new school. to seize the good which lay within his. reach, to The growing'boldness and influence of the give his desires their widest range, to cultivate Sophists roused the opposition of Socrates, the the arts by which. they might be most surely founder of the Attic philosophy. Victorious in and easily gratified, and to place unbounded dispute, he was seldom able to counteract the confidence in his own genius and energy. Beallurements',vhich they held out to the indo- fore he'entirely withdrew from the society of lence and presumption of their disciples. Al- Socrates he had probably begun to seek it chiefcibiades was one of the young men whom he ly for the sake of that dialectic subtilty which endeavoured to save from their snares; and Socrates possessed in an unequalled degree, this contest was one of the utmost moment for and which was an instrument of the highest the destiny of Athens and of Greece. Socrates value for his own purposes. His estrangement saw in him many elements of a noble charac- from his teacher's train of thinking and feeling ter, which might be easily perverted; abilities manifested itself not so much in the objects of which might greatly serve, or fatally injure his his ambition as. in the methods by which he country; a strength of will capable of the most pursued them. It became more and more eviarduous enterprises, and the more dangerous if dent that he had lost, not only all true loftiness it took a wrong direction; an ardent love of of aim, but all the sincerity and openness of an glory, which needed to be purified and enlight- upright soul; and the quality which in the end ened; and he endeavoured to win all these ad- stamped his character was the singular flexibilvantages for truth, virtue, and the public good. ity with which he adapted himself to tastes and It was one of the best tokens of a generous na- habits most foreign to his own, and assumed ture in Alcibiades, that he could strongly relish the exterior of those whose good-will he desired the conversation of Socrates, and deeply admire to gain.* his exalted character, notwithstanding his re- The advice with which he is said to have pulsive exterior, and the wide difference of urged Pericles to kindle the Peloponnesian war station and habits by which they were parted. may at least be considered as a genuine exThey not only lived for a time in a very inti- pression of his own recklessness in the choice mate intercourse at Athens, but were thrown of means for his ends. Popular favour was the together in situations which tended to strength- step by which he hoped to mount to power; en the hold that the sage had taken on the af- and, to ingratiate himself with the people, he fection of his young friend. They served to- stooped to flattery such as Pericles would have gether, under Phormio, at Potidaea, and in one disdained to use;t but Alcibiades reconciled of the engagements which took place during himself to the sacrifice of dignity by the conthe siege, Alcibiades, severely wounded, was sciousness of superior ingenuity and address. rescued from the enemy by Socrates.* The He would seem to have taken Themistocles for crown and panoply,'the reward of valour, ap- his model, and, like him, to have found pleaspear to have been due to Socrates; but, through ure in artifices and intrigues, so as to prefer a the partiality which, under all political institu- crooked path, even when a straight one might tions, is commonly shown for birth and wealth, have led to the same end. Nevertheless, though' they were awarded to the young Eupatrid, artful and dexterous, he was far from being cirthough he proclaimed the superior merit of his cumspect in his conduct, and as lightly provopreserver, who, on the other hand, attested the ked the enmity of individuals by wanton injuprowess of Alcibiades. They were again com- ries and affronts as he was sedulous in paying rades at the battle of Delium; and Alcibiades, court to the people; and hence the feeling of who was mounted, had an opportunity of pro- mingled fondness and admiration with which tecting his friend from their pursuers.t But he was regarded by the multitude was early this intimacy produced no lasting fruits. It and often chilled by resentment and suspicion. was the immediate object of Socrates to mod- Even the use he made of his wealth —which he crate the confidence and self-complacency of greatly increased by a marriage with EIippa Alcibiades, to raise his standard of excellence, rete, the daughter of Hipponicus, the richest to open his eyes to his own defects, and to' man in Greecet-tended as much to give umconvince him that he needed a long course of brage to his fellow-citizens as to gain their inward discipline before he could engage safely good-will. He was not only liberal to profuand usefully in the conduct of public affairs. *Plut., Ale., 23. " His changes were as rapid as those But Alcibiades was impatient to enter on the of the chameleon; though that, it is said, cannot turn its brilliant career which lay before him; the mark colour to white; but there was no habit or pur-suit which towards which his wise monitor directed his Alcibiades, to whom good and bad were indifferent, could not and would not adopt." aims, though he felt it to be the most truly glo- t Andocides, Alcib., p. 31, iLarErge;cKcv 40Opdov9 #iY rious, was n4 only distant and hard to reach, Itas KoXaKc6tOv, VE'a 6' E'setOV 7rporrTXaKleOYv. but would probably have diverted him from the Nepos, Alcib., 2. Omniun Greca lingua loquentium divitissimum. So Isocr., De Big., 13. IHos6rt Orrp)toso rc'EXXvwov. See Boeckh, Staats d. Ath., iv., 3. Alcibiades * The impertinent skepticism of Demochares, in A'lle- received a portion of ten talents with his wife, the largest naeus, v., c. 55, i well refuted by Casaubon. that had ever been heard of: it was to be doubled ont the t Plato., Conviv., p. 221 birtih of a son, INTRIGUES OF ALCIBIADES. 397 sion in the legal and customary contributions, of the young Athenians, he carried about with with which at Athens the affluent charged him, to escape from under his cloak; and the themselves, as well to4rovide for certain parts business of the assembly was interrupted until of the naval service as to defray the expense the bird was caught, and restored to Alcibiades, of the public spectacles, but aspired to dazzle by the same Antiochus who, first recommendall Greece at the national games by magnifi- ed to him by this trivial service, afterward incence such as had never been displayed there volved him in one of his greatest misfortunes * even by the kings of Macedonia, or by the op- This, indeed, was not quite so extravagant a ulent princes of Syracuse or Cyrene.* He con- condescension as was once shown to Cleon, tended at Olympia with seven chariots in the who, one day, after he had kept the assembly a same race, and won the first, second, and third long while waiting for him, entered it with a or fourth crown-success unexampled as the garland on his head, and begged that it might competition.t He afterward feasted all the be adjourned to the morrow, because he had spectators;t and the entertainment was not just sacrificed to the gods, and had to entermore remarkable for its profusion and for the tain some strangers at home; and obtained his multitude of its guests, than for the new kind request.t But the impunity with which Alcibof homage paid to him by the subjects of Ath- iades was permitted to commit offences, which ens. The Ephesians pitched a splendid Per- would have been severely punished in any other sian tent for him; the Chians furnished prov- citizen, was both unseemly and dangerous. ender for his horses; the Cyzicenes, victims The violence with which he detained the paintfor the sacrifice; the Lesbians, wine, and other er Agatharchus for three or four months in his requisites for the banquet.~ His interest was house, and forced him to adorn it with his pensupposed to be powerful enough to induce the: cil; the blow with which, in sheer wantonElean judges to give a partial sentence in his ness, for a sportive wager, he insulted Hipponifavour. II On his return to Athens, he engaged cus, whose daughter he afterward married;~ Euripides, the favourite poet of the day, to com- the threats, or the plot of assassination with pose a panegyric ode,~ and dedicated two pic- which he terrified his brother-in-law Callias;l tures, works of Aglaophon, to commemorate the outrages with which he revenged himself his victory; one representing him as crowned on his enemies,~ or tried the patience of hit by the powers of the Olympic and the Pythian friends,** might be thought frolics which d~ifestival, the other, as an exquisitely beautiful not concern the public; but the majesty of the youth, reclining on the knees of Nemea.** commonwealth was violated when he disturber Reflecting men could not but ask, whether any the Dionysiac festival by an assault on a com private fortune could support such an expendi- petitor in the midst of the spectacle;tt whet ture, and whether such honours were in har- he used the sacred vessels belonging to tht mony with a spirit of civil equality. This anx- state, while they were required for a public pro iety was the more reasonable, as Alcibiades cession at Olympia, to adorn that with whicl seemed to love to show.that he considered him- lie celebrated his victory;ts when, to protec self as a privileged person, raised above the the Thasian poet Hegemon from a lawsuit, ht laws; and, as he is said once to have disfigured went openly to the public archives, and destroy a valuable animal,anerely that his caprice might ed the record;Q when, after having compelled become the topic of general conversation,tt so his wife Hipparete, by his ill-treatment, to leave it was evident that in his most illegal acts he his house, and to sue for a divorce, he seized hei rather sought to attract public attention than in the presence of the archon, and dragged hex hoped to escape it. The people cherished this home.lll There were also rumours, which wilful humour by the partial indulgence with formed the groundwork of a comedy of Eupolis, which they repaid his flattery. His fiAt ap- of secret orgies, in which Alcibiades acted a pearance in the assembly was marked b a sig- principal part, and which outraged not only nificant specimen of popular levity. and good- good manners, but religion.1~~ Yet it would nature. He was passing by, when several cit- seem that some of the most prudent citizens, izens were offering donations to the treasury. who observed his conduct with uneasiness, He followed their example, and was greeted thought it best to connive at it. The light in with loud applause. In the delight which he which they viewed him is indicated by an imfelt at this first taste of popularity, he suffered age which.Eschylus, in a comedy of Aristophaa tame quail, which, according to the fashion nes,*** is made to apply to Alcibiades: " A lion's whelp ought not to be reared in a city; but * So Plut., Ale., ii. Alcibiades himself in Thucyd., vi., whoever rears one must let him have his way." 16, speaks more moderately (aia oV'cvL irw liiric 7rpSrrporv), Many who saw that Alcibiades was unfolding a probably to ivoid an invidious comparison. t We are not aware that the Olympiad can be certainly character which could scarcely find room for fixed; but it was probably 01. 89, B.C. 424. His marriage itself in the midst of institutions like those of was before the battle of Delium (Andocid., p. 30), and his Athens, might believe that it was likely to bevictory at Olympia was about the same time, according to Isocr., Big., 14. In the next Olympiad the chariot of * Ibid., 10. Compare Xenophon, Hellen., i., 5, 11. Lichas was victorious. 01. 88 seems too early for the allu- t Plut., Nic., 7. sion, Thuc., vi., 16, 7rpdrTEpv E'iSOVE; avrc nv KaraoreroAE- Andoc., p. 31. Demosthenes, Mid., p. 562, seems to iuOeaOa: not to mention that the Lesbians were then at have heard a different story. Q Plut., Ale., 8 war with Athens. 11 Andoc., p. 31. Plut., Alc., 8. t Athenaus, 1., p. 3. Plut., Ale., 12, 7rotov's.c ~1 We allude to the story of Eupolis (Cic. ad Ath., vi., ~ Plut., Ale., 12. Andoc., p. 33, compared with Satyrus 1) only as an illustration. ** Plut., Ale., 4. in Athenaeus, xii., p. 534. But the comparison suggests a tt Andoc., p. 31. Demosth., Mid., p. 562. suspicion that Satyrus amplified the fact mentioned by An- Xt Andoc., p. 33. See Dissen's Pindar, Excurs. i., p. 264 docides and Plutarch into a habitual practice: -r af aroel- ~i Chameleon in Athenaeus, ix., p. 407. ofar o'rors aoTrXorTO. II Andoc,, Ale., p. 32. 1111 Andoc., p. 30. Plut., Alc., 8. ~ Plut., Ale., 11. ** Satyrus in Athen., u. s. rtf[ See Buttmann, Mytholog., ii., p. 164. What Thmydi tt Plut., Alc., 9; where a different turn is given to the des says (vi., 15) of his Kcar 7Tb Iavro0 a, oua rrapavoiuia was story probably connected with these rumours. *** Ran., 1427 398 HISTORY OF GREECE. come still more dangerous if provoked by re- to have had impudence and malignity sufficient sistance and punishment. to make him infamous and hateful. He was During the first ten years of the war Alcibia- eminent enough among-the public men of his des had served, as we have seen, with honour day to be a mark for the comic poets, to whom in several campaigns; but he had acquired his birth, condition, and character afforded inmuch more celebrity by his private adventures exhaustible materials for satire. But his imthan by his exploits in the field, or by his ap- portance is not to be measured by his notoriety. pearance in the. popular, assembly. Though To Thucydides he appeared so contemptible, his youth did not disqualify him for taking part that he is only induced to mention him by the in the public counsels, as it did for military extraordinary circumstances of his death; command, he seems to have come forward but though the occasion by which he was driven, seldom, or with little effect, so long as Cleon as we shall see, from the political stage, might retained his ascendency. His eloquence is de- have been thought memorable enough to described as almost irresistibly powerful;* and serve notice. Among the other competitors of its efficacy, which was undoubtedly much Alcibiades, Andocides, son of Leogoras, and' heightened by the graces of his person and Pheeax, son of Erasistratus, were the most manner, is said to have been rather increased prominent. Andocides was of noble family, than impaired by a slight defect in his voice.t and a pleasing, though not a powerful orator: But it would appear to have been slowly ma- but his character inspired as little confidence tured. He was fastidious in the choice of his as that of Alcibiades, whom he resembled only expressions, and did not always possess a flu- in his vices. Phaeax was likewise of good ency of language equal to the quickness of his birth and engaging manners, but was deficient conceptions, so that when he spoke without as a public speaker. The time, therefore, had preparation, he was often obliged. to pause, hes- come when Alcibiades might reasonably hope itate, and recommence an unfinished period.$ to reach the highest place in the commonThis was an impediment which must have been wealth, which was itself only the first step in painful to his vanity, and,'contrasted with Cle- the scale of his ambition. on's volubility, placed him under a disadvan- Neither Cleon nor Nicias could properly be: tage, which may have retarded the beginning said to be heads of a party. Cleon's' strength of his political career. Yet, at the time which lay in the lowest class of the people, to whose our narrative has now. reached, he seems al- passions he ministered: Nicias was supported ready to have distinguished himself as the au- by all who dreaded or hated Cleon. The perthor of one important measure; for it appears sonal motives which led him to desire peace to have been before the peace of Nicias that he were, indeed, shared by many among them, but carried a decree for raising the tribute of the' did not form the bond of their union. The turn allies,S and having himself been appointed one which the war had taken had created a general of ten commissioners for that purpose; he wish for a cessation of hostilities with Sparta. doubled the amount at which it had been fixed Alcibiades, on the other hand, restless and sanby Aristides. There was, perhaps, no ground guine, had much more to hope than to fear from for the charge afterward brought against him, war, and he exercised an extensive influence of having enriched himself on this occasion by over the Athenian youth of the'higher orders. the abuse of his authority; but the measure it- But he himself saw the necessity of yielding to self indicated that he had adopted the policy the universal call for peace, and would willingwhich had founded the dominion of Athens on ly have taken the lead in the negotiations which force and terror, and that he intended to carry were opened with Sparta, that the treaty might it to a still greater length. Cleon's death open- be considered as his work. His family had of ed a broader avenue for him, and he saw no ri- old bi*in connected with Sparta by ties cf hosval but Nicias standing in his way, whose op- pitalif, but his grandfather had broken off this position he had reason to fear. Cleon, indeed, relation. Alcibiades would have renewed it, had left behind him a man of similar character, and signified his wish to conciliate the Sparwho pushed himself into a temporary celebrity tans by good offices towards the prisoners of by similar arts, and is therefore commonly rep- Sphacteria, in which he vied with Nicias. But resented'as his successor, and as having ob- the Spartan government did not meet those adtained the same kind of political ascendency. vances, and preferred the alliance of Nicias to This was the lamp-maker, Hyperbolus, a man that of a young man who had not yet given any of so base extraction, that, if we may believe proofs that -he could be either formidable or the assertion of a contemporary orator,I1 his fa- useful to them. Alcibiades, disappointed and ther was a branded slave, and was employed provoked by the advantage given to his rival.as a workman in the public mint at the same and the slight shown to himself, endeavoured time that the son was taking a conspicuous from the first to impede the negotiations for part in the deliberations of the popular assem- peace, by attributing perfidious intentions to the bly. But Cleon possessed talents enough to be Spartans, who, he contended, only wanted' to extremely mischievous; Hyperbolus seems only gain time for concluding a treaty with Argos, and as soon as they had secured themselves on * Nepos, Ale., i. Disertus, ut inprimis dicendo valeret, that side, would renew the war with Athens. quod tanta erat commendatio oris atque orationis, ut nenmo He had since industriously fanned the jealousy ei dicendo posset resistere. ]Demosth., Mid., p. 562, yv which had been excited n the people through d6Kcet 7rdvrcov, (i qlaevv, Elvat stvdraro: not expressing the improvident sefihness of Sparta, and the his own opinion, as Plut., Ale., 10, represents it. the improvident selfishness of Sparta, and the t Plut., Alc., 1. A slight lisp (rpav7Odrs), in which his machinations of the Spartan party, which was son affected to imitate him. labouring for the same end with himself, now t Theophrasts in Plut., Ale., 10.'afforded him an opportunity of taking a great'Boeckh, St. d. A., iii., 15. A ndocides ap. Schol. Aristoph., Vesp., 1001. step towards the execution of his designs,. ARTIFICE OF ALCIBIADES. 399 He had friends at Argos, to whom he pri- His arguments or authority prevailed on the vately sent word that the Athenians were now people to send him to Sparta at the head of an in a temper to listen to proposals for an alli- embassy, which was instructed to demand satande with Argos. This, indeed, he perceived isfaction on the three most important points on to be the most natural and advantageous con- which the Athenians felt themselves aggrieved nexion for both states, though he was conscious — the restitution of Amphipolis, the rebuilding of other motives for bringing it about. His of Panactum, and the dissolution of the sepamessage was gladly received at Argos; the ne- rate alliance with Beeotia. This last was the gotiation with Sparta was immediately dropped, point which the Spartan government was most and an embassy, accompanied by envoys from unwilling to concede; and when the Athenian Elis and Mantin'ea, was despatched to Athens. envoys insisted on it as an indispensable conThe Spartan government lost no time in en- dition, on which alone Athens would decline to deavouring to prevent this formidable coalition, connect herself in like manner with Argos, and sent three ambassadors, Philocharidas, Xenares and his party obtained a majority for Leon, and. Endius, selected as personally ac- returning a positive refusal. All that Nicias ~ceptable to the Athenians, to make such apolo- could carry to prevent his mission from appeargies and offers as might divert them from en- ing entirely fruitless was, that the existing tering into it. Endius belonged to the Spartan treaties should be ratified afresh. But the isfamily with which that of Alcibiades had been sue of the embassy, when reported at Athens, anciently connected, and from which he de- excited great indignation against Sparta, and -rived his name-and he was probably chosen murmurs against himself as the- author of the for the purpose of soothing and winning Alcibi- once desired and applauded peace. Alcibiades ades-but the consequence was that Alcibiades no longer met with any opposition when he rethe more easily overreached him and his col- newed his motion; and a treaty was immedileagues. They were first introduced to the ately concluded with Argos, Elis, and Mantinea, council of Five Hundred, where they announced for an alliance offensive and defensive, to last a that they were come with full powers to termi- hundred years. One of its -articles provided nate all differences, and their explanations and that none of the parties should allow the eneproposals were received with such approbation mies of the rest to pass through its territory or as to alarm Alcibiades for the effect which they to cross the sea; a clause which could only might produce in the assembly of the people. concern Athens. The terms on which each Taking advantage, therefore, of the confidence was to send succour to its allies were exactly which he gained through his relation to Endius, regulated. In a common war the command he assumed the character of a'friend, and prom- was to be equally shared by the confederates ised with solemn assurances to aid them in ob- No new articles were to be added but by unani taining the restitution of Pylus, the main object mous consent. of their mission, which he had hitherto strenu- Still, this treaty was not construed as putting. ously opposed, and in re-establishing a good an end to those which subsisted between Sparta understanding between the two states; but he and Athens. Corinth did not enter into it; but, persuaded them that it would be dangerous to as the breach between Sparta and Athens grew let the assembly know the extent of their pow- wider, became more disposed for a reconciliaers, and made it a condition of his co-operation, tion with her old ally; and she had already bethat they should disavow them. The Spartans trayed this change in her views by rejecting a' fell into this trap, and when in the assembly proposal which had been made to her to con they were questioned as to their commission, tract an offensive alliance, in addition to hei they made the answer which had been concert- former engagements, with Argos, Elis, and Maned with Alcibiades. But he now convicted tinea. Peloponnesus remained tranquil for the them of self-contradiction, and, armed with rest of the year, though in the middle of the such specious evidence of their double-dealing, summer it was threatened with a general outinveighed more vehemently than ever against break of hostilities through the animosity cher. Spartan insincerity, and urged the people to ished by Elis against Sparta on the score of break off all negotiation with them, and at once Lepreum, which, as she could not safely vent to close with the proposals of Argos; and this it in daty other-way, she attempted to gratify by motion would have been immediately carried an abuse of her,authority as president of the if the shock of an earthquake had not interrup- Olympic gamres. After the sacred truce for the ted the business of the day. festival of this summer-the ninetieth OlymThe correspondence between the Spattan en- piad —had been proclaimed according to the yoys and Alcibiades had been concealed from usual form in the Elean territory, but bebfore Nicias, whose concurrence did not appear to be the heralds had arrived at Sparta, a Lacedaeneeded, and he was as much surprised as he monian force had marched to Lepreum, and had reason to be offended by the conduct of the had made an attefnpt upon a fortress named Spartans. Still, in the assembly which was Phyrcus, which seems to have been either in Wheld the next day, he endeavoured to heal the Elis or in the hands of the Eleans. They seized -breach made through their imprudence, and this pretext to sentence the Spartans to a fine, urged the expediency of ascertaining the inten- which being, according to what was called the tions of Sparta before her alliance was abandon- Olympic law, proportioned to the number of the ed for that of Argos. The delay required for troops employed in the breach of the truce, this purpose coulmx neith.er injure the interest amounted to upward of thirty-three talents. noi the dignity of Athens, which occupied the The Spartans contended that they, were not vantage ground, and had no reason either to bound by the truce until it had been proclaimed fear or to wish for war, while the power and to them, and that.the legality of their conduct pride of Sparta had suffered a severe shock. had been virtually recognised by the EleanS 400 HISTORY OF GREECE. themselves, since the truce was proclaimed at thinking Sparta too much occupied with the Sparta after the act by which it was now pre- affairs of Peloponnesus to protect her colony, tended that it had been broken; and they re- without consulting her, not only put a garrison fused to pay the penalty. Still, the Eleans into it, but sent Hegesippidas away. The Sparseem to have expected that the name of re- tans felt all the humiliation resulting from such lhglon would at Sparta be powerful enough to an interference, but scarcely ventured to betray extort great concessions; and they offered, if their displeasure. Their attention was soon the Spartans would give up Lepreum, to dis- after drawn towards suspicious movements of charge them from the penalty; remitting the the Athenians nearer home. Alcibiades had part that belonged to themselves, and paying been appointed one of the ten generals, and, that which was due to the god in their stead. with a small Athenian force df heavy infantry When this offer was rejected, they demanded and bowmen, marched into Peloponnesus, where that the Spartans, before they were admitted he was joined by re-enforcements from the allied to the approaching festival, should, in the pres- states, and, traversing the peninsula in various ence of the nation assembled at Olympia, sol- directions, acted as if charged with a general emnly submit to this sentence, and bind them- commission and invested with the largest powselves by an oath to pay the fine at some future ers for promoting the interests of the Argive time. As they refused this acknowledgment, confederacy. The most important step towards they were put under a ban, and forbidden to this end was to introduce or consolidate democelebrate the usual sacrifices at Olympia by a cratical ascendency. It was partly with this public deputation, and to take. part in the games. view, and partly to gain a firm footing for AtheIt was known that they would feel this exclu-' nian:influence in Achaia, that he persuaded the sion very keenly, and the Eleans apprehended people of Patrre to connect their city by means that they might disturb the games by a forcible of long walls with- its port. This success enirruption, and not only stationed a body of their couraged him to attempt to build a fort on the own troops to guard the sacred ground, but ob- Achaean Rhium; but the maritime towns on tained succours from Argos and Mantinea, and this side of the Corinthian Gulf, which would a squadron of Athenian horse. Their fears were have been most endangered by the accomplishredoubled by an occurrence which took place ment of his design, united with Corinth and during the games. A Spartan named Lichas Sicyon to force him to abandon it. had sent a chariot to contend for the prize; but He, however, concerted a plan with the Aras, on account of the ban, it was not permitted give government for a similar object in another to enter the lists under the name of its owner, quarter. Argos was separated from the Saronhe caused it to be described as public property ic Gulf by the territories of Corinth and Epiof the Bceotian confederacy. His horses won, daurus, and could only receive succours from and the Bceotian people Whs proclaimed victor. Athens by a circuitous navigation. If EpiBut Lichas, who was present, could not forbear daurus was subjected to Argos, not only would from stepping forward and making the real com- the Argives be more secure, and better able, if petitor known by placing a chaplet on the head necessary, to act on the offensive on the side of his successful charioteer. This was a breach of Corinth, but their communication with Athof order, at least in a subject of the state which ens through LEgina would be direct and easy. was excluded from the games; and Lichas, a A pretext was discovered on which they might man of the first rank in the first city of Pelopon- invade the Epidaurian territory. There was at nesus, was ignominiously chastised by the Ele- Argos a temple of Apollo for which the Argives an lictors. Those who offered this affront could claimed a periodical sacrifice from Epidaurus scarcely believe that Sparta would brook it; yet The ground of the claim was perhaps obsolete: the games passed off without interruption. Soon the offering had been intermitted, and Argos after the festival, the Argives and their allies now took up arms in behalf of the god. The made a fresh attempt to draw Corinth over to return of the month, which, on account of the the new confederacy. Sparta sent envoys to festival of the Carnea, was held sacred by the Corinth to counteract their efforts; but the de- Dorian tribes, afforded the Argives an opporbate was prematurely closed by an earthquake. tunity of attacking their weaker neighbours Yet the sentiments of the Corinthiansfwere when their allies would be prevented from proscarcely doubtful, and were soon more clearly tecting them. The month, indeed, was sacred discovered. among the Argives themselves, and their reliIn the beginning of 419, the Bceotians gave gion would not have permitted them to set out a proof of their zeal in the cause of their allies, on the expedition in the course of it; but it did which indicated both how little reliance they not oblige them to suspend operations which placed on the.continuance of peace, and how they might have'already begun during the prelow Sparta had sunk in their estimation. In ceding month in an enemy's country. In orthe preceding winter, the colonists at the'Tra- der, therefore, to reap the full benefit which chinean Heraclea had been attacked by the they hoped for from the superstition of others, united forces of several neighbouring tribes, without sacrificing their own, they resolved toW and been defeated in battle with a great loss. invade the territory of Epidaurus just before the The colony was reduced by this blow to ex- beginning of the Carnean month. Yet it seems treme weakness, and was unable to repel its that some intelligence oftheir design had reachenemies; and its distress was aggravated by ed Sparta, for, while they were making theit the unwise administration of the Lacedaemonian preparations, King Agis set out, with the whole governor, Hegesippidas. The Boeotian govern- force of Lacedeemon, to cross the northwestern ment feared that Athens might take the oppor- border at Leuctra. The object of his march tunity of seizing a place so important for the was kept profoundly secret; but it was probsecurity of her northern possessions; and ably to make a diversion in favour of Epidaurus. INVASION OF EPIDAURUS. 401 Perhaps it was found that there would not be mained any longer a passive spectator of the time to spare for this purpose before the end of evils which Epidaurus was sufferiggjn its the month. At Leuctra the sacrifices did not cause, it would'soon see itself abaifoned by permit Agis to cross the frontier, and he led the smaller Peloponnesian states, which were his troops back, but sent a summons round to now wavering. It sent a summons to the Bceothe allies to get their forces in readiness for an tians and its other more distant allies to asexpedition as soon as the sacred month should semble their contingents at Phlius; and, about have expired. The Argives no sooner heard the middle.of the summer, Agis, with the whole of his retreat than they began their march-on force of Sparta, together with those of the Tea day which they had always been used to keep geans and the other Arcadian allies, marched holy-and made an irruption, with the usual to join them. The Argives had early intelliravages, into the Epidaurian territory. The gence of this expedition, and, having united Epidaurians implored the aid of their allies; their forces with those of Mantinea, and 3000 but the sacred month was now so near that it Eleans, proceeded across Arcadia to intercept afforded some a pretext for remaining inactive, the Lacedaemonian army before it should reach and arrested the march of others when they Phlius, and come up with it near Methydrium; had reached the border. In the mean while a but Agis, breaking up in the night, eluded the congress met at Mantinea, summoned by the enemy and joined his allies at Phlius; and the Athenians, and attended by envoys from Co- Argives marched back to defend their own terrinth, to renew the negotiations which had ritory, which they expected would be invaded been broken off the year before by the earth- by the road leading from Nemea into the plain quake; but the Corinthian Euphamidas took of Argos, and posted themselves not far from an early occasion to protest against the conduct the pass. The army assembled at Phlius was, of the Argives, who were prosecuting hostilities both in numbers aiA for the quality of the against Epidaurus, whilAtheir allies were treat- troops, the finest, Thucydides says, that had ing at Mantinea, and inilsted that, before any ever been collected in Greece. But Agis -refarther discussion took place, the Epidaurians solved to distract the enemy's attention by dishould be delivered from their enemy's pres- viding his forces. He himself, with one divisence. The allies of Argos could not help com- ion, consisting of Lacednemonians, Arcadians, plying with this demand, and the Argives were and Epidaurians, descended, by a rugged pass, induced to withdraw their forces. But, as the over Mount Lyrceum upon the western side of debates of the congress led to no conclusion, the Argolic plain, which he began to ravage; they repeated their invasion of Epidaurus; and another corps, which included the Bceotians, they were not interrupted by the Spartans, who Megarians, and Sicyonians, with whom was again marched as far as the frontier at Caryee, the whole of the cavalry, was ordered to take but were again turned back, as they professed, the road through Nemea, on which they expectby the aspect of the victims —really, perhaps, to ed to find the enemy; the third division, comavoid coming into collision with the Athenians, posed of the contingents of Corinth, Phlius, and who sent Alcibiades, with a thousand men, to Pellene, was to come down upon the plain by support the Argives. He returned when he another steep pass from the north. The result heard of the retreat of the Spartans, and the of these operations was nearly what Agis deArgive forces which had marched home on the signed. The Argives, who, as soon as they news of the Spartan preparations Were left at heard that he had entered the plain, quitted liberty to renew their inroads. their position to seek him, found themselves But though the Spartan government was not separated from their city by his troops, while prepared for coming immediately to an open the two other divisions of his army threatened breach with Athens, it was desirous of saving their flank and rear. They haftno cavalry, for Epidaurus, and, in the autumn, found means of the Athenians, who were to have brought a sending 300 men by sea to its relief. The Ar- squadron, had not yet arrived. To a discerngives immediately made a complaint at Athens, ing eye their situation appeared alarming and insisting that, by the late treaty, the Athenians almost desperate; yet it was not generally were bound to prevent the passage of these viewed in this light by the army itself, which troops over the sea, which was their own; and fancied that the Lacedaemonians, being cooped they required, by way of satisfaction, that the up between it and the city, were in much greatMessenian garrison should be brought back to er jeopardy. But Thrasyllus, one of the genPylus. Alcibiades supported this demand, and erals, and Alciphron, an Argive connected by prevailed upon the people not only to grant it, the ties of public hospitality with Sparta, were but to order a declaration to be annexed at the either ignorant of the prevailing opinion, or foot of the treaty with Sparta, on the stone pil- thought the danger so pressing that they might lard which it was inscribed at Athens, that safely neglect it, or generously resolved to sacthq artans had broken their covenant. The rifice themselves for the public good, and, just Arg ves continued, throughout the winter, to as battle was about to be joined, without conharass the Epidaurians with repeated incur- suiting any of their countrymen, obtained an sions, and, towards the spring of 418, attempt- interview with Agis, and, holding out to him ed to take their town by escalade, in the hope the prospect of a permanent peace, prevailed of finding them too weak or too much occupied on him to grant a truce of four months to the with the defence of their territory to resist; Argives, to afford time for negotiation. Agis but the assailants were baffled by the vigour of himself took this step upon his own discretion, the citizens or of the Spartan garrison. having only communicated it to one of the But the Spartan government now began to ephors who was in the camp, and immediately, feel that some exertion was necessary to main- without disclosing his motives to any of his al-.ain its credit, and to apprehend that, if it re- lies, drew off his forces. His authority could VOL.'. -E EE 402 HISTORY OF GREECE. not be disputed; but the army, which believed by which he had flung away so fair an opportuitself seWre of a decisive victory, loudly mur- nity of reducing Argos to subjection. The pubmured X its disappointment. On., the other lic resentment was still more violently inflamed hand, the Argives, who had no less confidently by the news of the breach of the truce, and the looked for an easy and brilliant triumph, was loss of Orchomenus; and measures of extraorequally indignant at the conduct of their gen- dinary rigour were proposed against the author eral, who had suffered the enemy to escape. of this misfortune. Yet the Spartan moderaAccording to the law of Argos, the generals, on tion showed itself even in the heat of a just antheir return from an expedition, before they en- ger; for the penalty with which the delinquent tered the city, were liable to render an account was threatened did not extend beyond a fine of their' proceedings at a place without the and the disgrace of pulling down his house, and walls, on the banks of the Charadus. On this thus would have fallen short of the punishment occasion the troops, now become the judges of inflicted on Thrasyllus for saving his country. Thrasyllus, were so transported by their fury But Agis, by humble deprecations, induced the as to forget both characters, and assailed him ephors or the people to pardon his fault, pledgwith stones, from which he only found refuge ing himself to make amends for it by his future at a neighbouring altar; but though his life was services. They contented themselves with spared, his property was confiscated by a formal marking their displeasure and distrust by the sentence. appointment of a new council of war, composed His colleagues, however, and most of the of ten Spartans, without whose sanction he was persons in office, appear to have thought differ- no longer at liberty to take the field. ently, and to have been awed by the display Shortly after advice was received from Tewhich Sparta had made,of her force, and were gea that the party there friendly to Sparta, unwell content to observe the truce. But short- less it was promptly supported by aid from ly after a body of 1000 infantry and 300 horse without, must soon g way to the machina-'arrived from Athens, under the command of tions of its adversaries, which were backed by Laches and Nicostratus, accompanied by Alcib- all the weight of the Argive confederacy. This iades as ambassador. The Argive government danger excited so much alarm, that the whole was with difficulty persuaded, by the importu- force of Laconia was put in motion with ununity of the Eleans and the Mantineans, who sual rapidity, and proceeded to the border, while had not yet taken their departure, to grant him the Arcadian allies were summoned to join it an audience before the assembly. There, how- at Tegea. After passing the frontier, Agis sent ever, the eloquence of Alcibiades prevailed over back a sixth of his army -the veterans and their prudence. He easily convinced the peo- striplings — and, while his presence restored ple that the truce, concluded without the con- tranquillity at Tegea, he despatched orders to sent of their allies, was void, and urged them the northern states-Corinth, Bceotia, Phocis, to take the favourable opportunity of striking a and Locris-to meet him before Mantinea. In blow while the enemy was unprepared for re- the mean while, with the Arcadian re-enforcesistance. The allies of Argos eagerly adopted ments, he prosecuted his march into the Manhis proposal, which was, to march against the tinean territory, and having encamped near a Arcadian Orchomenus, where the Spartans had sanctuary of Hercules, began to ravage the deposited some hostages which they had taken plain. The Argive-Athenian army, which was from several of the Arcadian towns. Yet, in the neighbourhood of Mantinea, took up a though the Argive assembly annulled the truce strong position, and prepared for battle; and, and approved of the expedition, the influence of notwithstanding the steepness of the ground, some of their leading men seems to hhve delay- Agis, eager to repair his late error, advanced ed hostilities a little longer, and the Argive to attack it,.and was within reach of the enetroops did not set out till their confederates had my's missiles, when one of the elder Spartans, sat down before Orchomenus. The town was who was near his person, cried out to him not weakly fortified, and succour uncertain. The to mend one evil with another. Struck either Orchomenians made no resistance, but deliver- by the hint or by a sudden thought of his own, ed up the hostages intrusted to them, gave oth- Agis suddenly halted, and gave orders for reers of their own to the Mantineans, and became treat, and marching back into the plain of Temembers of the Argive confederacy. The al- gea, set about turning the course of the waters, lies then deliberated upon the next operation. which thence found a subterraneous discharge, The Eleans proposed that they should turn their so as to make them overflow the lands of Manarms against Lepreum, which, though. a point tinea. As the diversion of these streams had of no importance to the rest, was the only ob- frequently'been a stfbject of contention between ject in which they felt any concern. The Man- the Tegeans and their neighbo.urs, he hoped tineans were desirous of gratifying their own that the enemy would be drawn from his"isiambition and old animosity by the reduction of tion to give'battle upon the even ground rnd Tegea. This was an enterprise of great mo- he was not disappointed. His sudden retroment to the' general interests of the confedera- grade movement'had astonished the Argives, cy; and a secret correspondence, which had both commanders and men; the men, after rebeen opened with a party in Tegea, afforded covering from the first surprise, were eager to strong hopes of success. The Argives and pursue; and when the Lacedmemonian army Athenians, therefore, acceded to this proposal; was suffered to ietreat unmolested, reproached but the Eleans were so angry because their their generals with a repetition of the fault wishes were not consulted before any other which they had committed near Argos. The motive, that they marched away home. commanders, perplexed'by the enemy's unexAgis, on his return to Sparta, had been se- pected movement, and apprehensive of some verely censured for his imprudent concession, stratagem, were still more confused by the im BATTLE OF MANTINEA.-BLOCKADE OF EPIDAURUS. 403 patience of their troops; at length, however, was not obeyed; and the left wing, remaining they descended from their position, and en- insulated, was routed, and pursued with much camped upon the plain. slaughter to the baggage wagons; but the The next day they put the army in battle ar- rest of the Lacednemonian army obtained an ray, though they did not know where they might easy victory. The mere terror of its approach light upon the enemy. In the mean while Agis was sufficient to put the greater part of the enwas returning to ascertain the effect of his ma- emy to flight, and the Athenians who were in nceuvre, with the design of occupying the ground the left wing were nearly surrounded. They where he had posted himself the day before. would have suffered a much greater loss, notA projecting ridge concealed the Argive-Athe- withstanding the protection which they receivnian army from his view, until, by a sudden ed from their cavalry, had not Agis thought it turn, the head of his column came close upon it. necessary to proceed with his main body to the Greater consternation, Thucydides observes, relief of his left wing. The victorious Mantiwas not remembered ever to have seized a La- neans did not wait for him; but in the mean cedaemonian army. Yet on this occasion the while the Athenians had leisure to effect their excellence of their system of tactics, as it retreat. The Spartans, according to their usage, was brought to an unusual test, was the more made no long pursuit; and the whole loss of signally displayed. The line of battle was qui- the enemy was not reckoned at more than 1100 etly and rapidly formed-every man falling into men; their own at about 300. *his place with his wonted ease-before the en- Yet the battle of Mantinea was not only, as emy could take any advantage of their vicinity. Thucydides observes, the most memorable that Thucydides —who has described the engage- had been fought for a long time on account of ment which ensued with a minuteness which the parties engaged in it, but was attended seems to indicate that he was either himself with important results. The absence of the present,* or had access to some peculiarly ac- northern allies left Sparta the whole honour of curate information - still does not venture to the victory; and it was rendered the more sigstate the numbers on either side, but observes nal by the faults which had been committed by that the superiority appeared to the eye to be the conquerors. It effaced the impression on the side of the Lacedoemonians. While the which their disaster at Sphacteria had made on commanders of the Argive. confederacy anima- the minds of the Greeks, revived the high repted their men with the various motives proper utation of their military qualities, and thus gave to each national division-the Mantineans with new confidence and strength to their partisans the danger of tieir native land, and the alterna- throughout Greece. With these fruits of their tive of subjection or imperial rule; the Argives victory they seemed to be satisfied, and showed with the hope of regaining their ancient suprem- as little eagerness to push their advantage after acy, the Athenians with that of disabling their the battle, as they had on the field in the purold enemy from again invading their country- suit. They countermanded the re-enforcements the Spartans needed no other incitement than which were coming up from the north, and re the war songst which had roused the valour of turned home to celebrate the Carnean festival. successive generations, perhaps from the time The enemy was more alert; after the battle, of Tyrteeus; and, while the foe rushed impetu- the loss he had sustained was repaired by the ously forward, they advanced with their usual arrival of 3000 Eleans and 1000 Athenians, and steadiness to the sound of their flutes, preserv- the allies determined to avail themselves of the ing an even and unbroken front. The event of leisure in which they were left by the inactivity the battle was only rendered doubtful for a short of the Spartans, to make a more vigorous attime, through a breach of discipline which ex- tack on Epidaurus. To this they were more posed a part of the Spartan line to imminent especially excited by the spirit which had just danger. There was a constant tendency in the been shown by the Epidaurians, who, the day ancient armies, as Thucydides remarks, when before the battle of Mantinea, had made an they came to action, to lean towards the right irruption into the Argive territory, and had wing, so as gradually to outflank the enemy's wasted that part of the Argive forces which left, each man endeavouring to keep close to was left to defend the city. To avenge this his right-hand neighbour, for the protection of insult, while the Spartans were keeping their *his own unshielded side. This had taken place holyday, the confederates set about investing to an unusual extent before the battle began; Epidaurus with.a wall. The work of circumand Agis saw his left wing-which was occu- -vllation was to be divided among them acpied, according to a hereditary privilege, by the cording to the amount of the national forces, men of Sciritis,J next to whom, on this occa- and the Athenians soon completed the part assion, were posted the Brasidean freedmen, and signed to them, which was the fortification of Neodamodes from Lepreum-in danger of be- a promontory, called, from a temple which stood ing taken in flank by the Mantineans, who held there, the Heraeum. But their allies wanted the enemy's right wing. To guard against this zeal or patience to finish their task, and finally danger, he ordered the Scirites and Brasideans resolved to content themselves with putting to break away from the main body, and move a garrison, drawn from each division of the towards the left, and directed two of the pole- army, into the Heranum: this done, all returned marchs to draw off their divisions from the home. right wing, where they could be better spared, But as soon as the festival was at an end, and to fill up the vacant space. This last com- the Spartans again took the field, and advanced mand, given just as the onset was taking place, on the road to Argos as far as Tegea; here IVThe eyewits seens wthey halted to try the effect of negotiation, for araTr eyewitneov rset pKeak when he says, v., 68, which a fair opening seemed now to be made METar Tv r V See 40. Argo Theywere incorrespondence with. MeTrz trV 7rOXElhel.,v veaoiV. ~ See p. 40. at Argos. They were in correspondence with a 404 HISTORY OF GREECE. party there which desired to overthrow the Athenians, until they should have evacuated democratical government, and Which had ac- all the fortified places which they held in Pelquired new boldness and influence from the oponnesus, and made an agreement with Spardefeat at Mantinea. It was concerted that the ta, by which the parties attempted to restrain Argive assembly should be first attracted by each other from making war or peace but with the offer of peace with Sparta, to which, in the mutual consent; they even joined the Spartans fear now prevailing of the Spartan arms, it in an embassy to Perdiccas, who, though he was strongly inclined, and that it should next did not'venture at once openly to break with be drawn into an alliance to secure the peace. the Athenians, was persuaded to enter into the After this it was hoped that the machinations Peloponnesian confederacy; swayed, Thucydof the oligarchical party would have freer play ides seems to think, in some measure by the to bring about a revolution. In pursuance of ancient affinity between his house and the this plan, Lichas-the same Spartan who re- Temenids of Argos; and, at'the same time, ceived the insult at Olympia, and who was the engagements into which Sparta had enproxenus of Argos-was sent to propose the tered with the Chalcidian towns were renewed alternative of war or peace. Alcibiades was and ratified by the Argive government. Arstill at Argos, where he seems to have stayed to give ministers were then sent to Athens to rewatch the turn of events. He exerted all his quire that the Athenian troops should be witheloquence to keep the Argives firm in their drawn from the Heraeum; and the Athenians, union with Athens. But, on the other side, who saw that they could not keep it against stronger than words were the recollections of the will of the states which furnished the maMantinea; and the Spartan army within two or jority of the garrison, sent Demosthenes to three days' march of Argos. The' assembly de- bring their men away. He had the address to cided for peace, and accepted the terms pre- entice the other troops out of the place under scribed by Sparta. A treaty was concluded colour of a gymnastic spectacle, and locked the without any limitation of time, by which the gates upon them. But either thinking himself hostages taken at Orchomenus were to be re- unable or not authorized to keep possession of stored; the Athenians, under pain of being it, he delivered it up to the Epidaurians, who, on treated as common enemies of Argos and Spar- this condition, renewed their ancient friendly ta, to be required to evacuate the Epidaurian relations with Athens. territory; the Epidaurians to be allowed to clear This change in the policy of Argos compelled themselves by an oath tendered by the Argives the Mantineans, after a short resistance, to in the matter of the sacrifice. All the states of abdicate their sovereignty over their subject Peloponnesus, both small and great, to be inde- cantons. And now only one step was wanting pendent, as in old times (a change levelled against to the accomplishment of the plan which had the pretensions of Mantinea and Elis). The been concerted between the Spartan governstates to unite in repelling all foreign aggres- ment and the party which had the ascendency sion on Peloponnesus (a provision against Athe- at Argos. Early in the spring of 417 this con. nian interference). The allies of Sparta be- eluding step was taken, and a revolution effectyond the Isthmus to be on the same footing of ed, which completely united the two governamity and independence as those of both the ments in feelings and interests. It is perhaps contracting powers within Peloponnesus. The more surprising that it was so long delayed, treaty was to be communicated to the allies of than that it was easily achieved. Instruments each, but not to depend upon their sanction.*. sufficient for the work had been for some time This first success irnboldened the party which in readiness. The Argives, when they began carried the measure at Argos to follow it up to cherish hopes of recovering their ancient with the proposal of an alliance with Sparta, rank in Peloponnesus, had been tempted to try which implied a total abandonment of that hith- a dangerous experiment, to maintain a standing erto subsisting with Athens, Elis, and Manti- army without political privileges. They wished nea. As the step already taken placed Argos to unite the advantage of an armed oligarchy, in a neutral-position which she could not safe- like that which at Sparta and elsewhere was ly maintaifi, there was the less difficulty in per- supported by the labour of a servile population, suading the people to attach itself to Sparta; with the equality of the citizens under a demoand an alliance defensive and offensive was cratical constitution. For this end they raised concluded for fifty years, to be open to all the a corps of 1000 young soldiers, who were mainother Peloponnesian states, with guarantees for tained at the public expense, and were enabled their independence, and provisions for the pa- and enjoined to devote their whole time to milcific adjustment of all their quarrels. After itary exercises. The new corps had, indeed, this treaty, the administration of affairs at Ar- done good service on several occasions, and gos seems to have fallen entirely into the hands particularly at Mantinea.* But the Argive' of its authors, who carried a series of measures government seems to have been guilty of great dictated by their enmity to Athens. They not imprudence in the execution of the plan. Inonly obtained a decree forbidding any embassy, stead of selecting the Thousand from the citand even a herald, to be received from the izens of the lowest class, who might have depended on their pay for subsistence, they —-per* This seems to be the purport of the obscure clause at pended on their pay for subsistence, they-perthe end of the treaty, Thuc., v., 77. But the omission of haps from an unwise economy-chose young the four words which Dr. Arnold has printed in brackets, men of good fortune, who might, therefore, be instead of freeing the passage from all difficulty, would leave ill-affected towards the constitution, and could the following words wholly without coherence and meaning. The o'Kica' irrtdXXErv may perhaps refer to the same precaution which the Spartans adopt with the Argive am- * Diodorus (xii., 75) seem to suppose that the Thousand bassadors. Thuc., v., 41. The concurrence of the Athe- were instituted only a verlort time before the battle of nians would scarcely, one would think, have been provided Moantinea; but Thucydide., 67) speaks of them as havfor as a possible case. ing been long established. EXPEDITION TO MELOS. 405 have no prepossession in favour of democracy. of carpenters and masons from Athens. It was The oligarchical faction appears to have gained some time before the Spartans heard of this unthe Thousand over to its views, and then to dertaking, though it was known to several of have taken the pretext of a joint' expedition to the other Peloponnesian states. But as soon Sicyon, which Sparta and Argos undertook as they were informed of it, Agis led an army each.with 1000 men, for the purpose of strength- against Argos, where there was still a remnant ening the oligarchy there, to admit the Spartan of the defeated party, with which he was in cortroops into Argos, and with their aid to have respondence. His expectations, however, were abolished all the forms of the constitution; which disappointed in this quarter; but he came in they replaced by one conformable to the Spar- time to take and demolish the unfinished walls, tan system.* and on his return took Hysiae, and put the ArThe new institutions thus forced upon the give garrison to the sword. Argos was now people depended upon the continued support of reduced to a state of miserable weakness; dethe hands which had founded them. The su- prived by the civil war of the flower of its milipreme power in the state rested with the Thou- tary force, threatened by the exiles who were sand, and, consequently, with any leader who collected near the frontier at Phlius, and agitacould attach them to himself. They were corm- ted by fears of treachery within. To remove manded, it is said, by a chief named Bryas, who, this last cause of uneasiness, Alcibiades was while he upheld the oligarchy, exercised a des- sent in the year following with a squadron to potic power over the disfranchised commonalty, Argos, and carried away 300 persons, who were and abused it to the utmost excess of wanton- suspected of disaffection, and lodged them in ness. He at length filled up the measure of his some of the islands near the coast of Attica. license by carrying off a bride from a nuptial While Athens and Sparta remained on this procession to his house. But he was blinded equivocal footing towards each other, the reby the victim of his lust, who took refuge at an volted towns on the coast of Thrace continued altar, and implored the protection of the people. t to defy the Athenian power, and from time to The author who tells this story. represents this time gained some new points. In 421 Olynthus as the occasion of a popular insurrection, in had surprised Mecyberna; and after the encourwhich the Thousand were overpowered and agement which the Chalcidians received from massacred. But Thucydides, without mention- Sparta and Argos, they won possession of Dium, ing any particular causes of popular discontent, on the peninsula of Athos. Athens did not, inrelates that the commonalty, after it had recov- deed, rest quite passive. An expedition had ered from the first dismay of the revolution, be- been prepared for the reduction of Amphipolis, gan to meditate the overthrow of the oligarchy, and Nicias had been appointed to the command. and at length took the opportunity of the great Perdiccas had promised his co-operation, and it Spartan festival, the Gymnopaedia, to rise against seems to have been concerted that a land force its enemies, of whom some fell in the affray, should march through his dominions. His acand the rest fled from the city. The Spartans cession to the confederacy between Sparta and had been long apprized of the danger which Argos defeated this plan, and the Athenians rethreatened their friends, but had delayed send- venged themselves by blockading the coast of ing them the aid which they called for, till the Macedonia. Yet in 416, instead of making a news of the insurrection arrived in the midst of fresh effort for the recovery of these important the festival. They then interrupted the solem- possessions, they concluded an armistice, terminity, and despatched a body of troops towards nable at ten days' notice, with the Chalcidians,* Argos. But at Tegea they received the intel- and in the mean while fitted out an armament ligence of the total discomfiture of the oligarchs, for an object to which they seem to have been and though they were pressed by the Argive directed rather by passion than by a calm estiexiles to continue their march, they preferred mate of its value. A squadron of 30 Athenian the claims of piety or amusement, and returned galleys, with six Chians and two Lesbians, havto celebrate their holyday. It would seem that ing on board 1200 heavy-armed Athenians, and the conduct of the oligarchical Argives had been 1500 allied troops, together with 320 Athenian such as a little to embarrass their Spartan archer}, sailed, under the command of Cleom friends; for when, after the festival, envoys edes.and Tisias, to reduce the isle of Melos,' came to Sparta, both from the defeated party which had long irritated the pride of Athens by and from the victorious commonalty, a long de- its independence, but, perhaps, at this juncture bate took place in the presence of the deputies chiefly provoked her enmity by its attachment of the confederate states; and though Sparta to Sparta. The influence of Alcibiades seems decided in favour of the exiles, and declared no less discernible in the expedition itself than its resolution of supporting their cause, it was in its tragical issue. He probably wished to tardy in renewing hostilities. But in the mean wound Sparta through the side of her faithful while the people of Argos, dreading an attack, colony, and either to humble her by extorting a and now placing all its hopes in Athenian suc- practical confession of her inability to save it, eour, that it might be in condition to receive or to provoke her to an open rupture with Aththenl even in the last emergency, began to car- ens. The Athenian commanders, after landing ry down long walls to the sea. The whole pop- their forces, did not immediately commence hosulation, men, women, and slaves, put their hands tilities, but sent an embassy into the town to to the work, and they were assisted by a body induce the Melians to submit. They seem to have had hopes of creating a division among * Thuc., v., 81. Compare Diodor., xii., 81. Thucyd- the people which might favour their operations, ides. leaves it uncertain whether the thousand Argives, even if it did not immediately disarm all resistwhom he mentions on this occasion, were the Aoyde;c; but ance. But the Melian government, aware of perhaps this nmay be inferred from Diodorus and Plutarch, ane. Al., 15. t Paus., ii., 20, 2. * Thuc., vi., 7. 406 HISTORY OF GREECE. this danger, refused to permit the envoys to ad- to Sparta and to Athens. He asserts as a nodress the popular assembly, and would only ad- torious fact-'and the Melians do not deny itmit them to a conference with the magistrates that of all states, Sparta is that which has most and the members of the oligarchy, which was glaringly shown by her conduct that, in her poprobably extremely narrow. Thucydides has litical transactions, she measures honour by incomposed a dialogue, such as, from his knowl- clination, and justice by expediency, She might, edge of the views and feelings of the parties, therefore, be expected, instead of being swayed he conceived might have passed on this occa- by the fair names of piety or generosity, calmly sion, for there seems to be no ground for attrib- to calculate the danger to which she would exuting to it any greater degree of historical truth. pose herself by the effort which would be neThe arguments and tone of the Athenians might cessary for the deliverance of a weak, unprofitlead us to believe that Alcibiades himself was able island. On the other hand, Athens had one of the interlocutors, if their language was sufficiently shown, by many examples, that she anything more than an expression of the pre- would not be deterred or diverted from her purvailing maxims of political morality. pose by threats, or by any attack made upon The Athenians at the outset lay down the her in another quarter. grounds on which they proposed to argue the The envoys withdrew, that the Melians might question. They reject all appeals to justice as deliberate on their final answer; and when they distinct from political expediency; not because were called in again, they were informed that they are conscious of a flagrant wrong, but be- the Melians would not so despair of their forcause they have made up their minds on this tune, or distrust their natural allies, as all at head, and wish to prevent a waste of words. once to renounce an independence of seven cenThey do not charge the Melians with any of- turies; but they repeated their offer of neutralfence, or pretend to deny that, though colonists ity and a fair compromise. The Athenians, as of Lacedemon, they had not so much as taken they withdrew, expressed their surprise at the part in any of her expeditions; and the Meli- singular infatuation which was hurrying the ans were willing to engage to observe a strict Melians to inevitable ruin. The siege of this neutrality for the future. But the power of town was immediately begun, and the bulk of Athens depended on the maintenance of a sys- the armament did not withdraw till it was closetem which was inconsistent with the independ- ly blockaded both by sea and land. ence of Melos.' Her empire was in a great The threats of the Athenians were accommeasure founded on opinion, and its stability plished; the hopes of the Melians proved basewould be endangered if it was observed that a less. It does not appear that so much as a single island might defy her with impunity; for thought was entertained at Sparta of stirring the world would not give her credit for such for their relief. The Spartans were too much singular moderation as willingly to abstain from occupied by the incursions with which, about a conquest, which lay within her reach, but this time, the Athenian garrison at Pylus was would certainly attribute her acquiescence to a infesting their territory; and even these they sense of weakness. She was following what only resented by permitting individuals to make seemed to be the universal law of nature, in se- reprisals on Athenian property. They neither curing and strengthening her dominion, and had aided Corinth, when, on some private quarrel, reason to hope that her conduct was no less it renewed hostilities with Athens, nor secondconformable to the will of the gods than it was ed the efforts of the Argive exiles; the sacrifisanctioned by the uniform practice of mankind. ces, it was alleged, did not permit them to cross The Melians vainly endeavoured to prove that the border. The Melians, left to their own rethe interest of Athens herself required that their sources, made a gallant resistance. Twice they neutrality should be respected, on the ground succeeded in surprising a part of the Athenian that other independent states would be alarmed lines, and introduced some supplies into the and provoked by such an aggression as they town. But towards the end of 416 a re-enforcewere now threatened with; an argument which ment was sent from Athens to the camp of the could only have been cogent if Athens had had besiegers. As the place was. pressed more a reputation for equity and moderation to main- closely, and the miseries of the siege began to tain. The question, therefore, was reduced to be mbre generally felt, symptoms of disafbection a simple point, whether the Melians could gain appeared within the walls; and the dread of anything by resistance. And the Athenian treachery hastened the fall of the town, which speaker intimates to them that their resistance, surrendered at discretion. if unsuccessful, would involve them in the most And now the Athenians crowned their unjust dreadful calamities. They acknowledge that, aggression with an act of deliberate cruelty. besides the chances of war, and the favour of They put to death all the adult citizens, and enthe gods towards a righteous cause, they have slaved the women and children. It would seem, no ground of hope but the assistance which they from the threats which Thucydides puts into are entitled to expect from the parent state. the mouth of the Athenian speaker in'the conThey will not believe that Sparta will suffer a. ference, that the same decree which ordered colony which had been true to her for seven the expedition, had also fixed the punishment to hundred years to fall the victim of its fidelity; be inflicted on the Melians, if they resisted; as that even if she cannot find means of sending had been done in fhe case of Scione. In either an armament across the sea to their relief, she case, the guilt of proposing, or, at least, of supwill make an effectual diversion in their be- porting the inhuman decree, is laid to the charge half, either by a fresh invasion of Attica, or by of Alcibiades, whom we thus find sanctioning an expedition like that of Brasidas. The Athe- and even outdoing the most hateful of Cleon's nian in vain endeavours to correct the error into atrocities; for the case of Melos differed widewhich they seem to have fallen with regard both ly from those of' Scione and Mitylene. The SIEGE OF ORNEAE. 407 Athenians themselves were conscious that they.the liberal policy which had been adopted in had not the shadow of a right to the island; several other cases, to have been admitted to and even if the conquest had been really neces- the full franchise of the city, and thus to have sary for the security of their empire, the utmost strengthened the democratical party.* Anothstraining of the tyrant's plea could not palliate er effbrt which Sparta made this winter in the the extermination of the inhabitants. Indeed, way of negotiation was attended with no better it seems probable that they, and especially Al- success. The Athenians had sent a body of cibiades, were instigated to this deed rather by cavalry to Methone, a town on the southern their hatred of Sparta than by any abstract prin- frontier of Macedonia, where it was joined by a ciple, or by resentment against the Melians number of Macedonians, discontented with the themselves.* government of Perdiccas, who formed an auxilThe language of the Athenians in the confer- iary squadron, and with the Athenians made * ence at Melos has been often thought to indi- series of annoying inroads into his territories. cate an extraordinary degree of moral obliquity, Sparta could devise no method of succouring and has been attributed to the pernicious influ- her ally but by sending an embassy to the Chalence of the Sophists; and perhaps it is true cidians to induce them to exert themselves in that their doctrines lie at the bottom of the his behalf. But they were not disposed to sacwhole argument. But, on the other hand, it rifice themselves either for Sparta or for Permay be observed, that the Athenian speaker diccas, and continued to prolong their precarionly rejects the obligations of justice as a rule ous truce with Athens. in political transactions, and that the expediency to which he professes to sacrifice it is the good of the state. Farther than this the ques-TER XXV tion did not lead him; and this conclusion, though quite untenable in theory, seems to flow THE SICILIAN EXPEDITION BEFORE THE ARRIVAL from the ideas which generally prevailed among OF GYLIPPUS IN SICILY. the. ancients, as to the paramount claims of the THE tameness with which Sparta had looked public interest -over every other consideration. on during the siege of Melos, the feeble resistThe conduct of the Athenians in the conquest ance which she offered to,the incursions of the of Melos is far less extraordinary than the open- Athenian garrison at Pylus, the vacillation and ness with which they avow their principles. timidity which she betrayed in her transactions But, unjust as it was, it will not, to a discern- with Argos, and with her allies in Macedonia ing eye, appear the more revolting, because it wid Thrace, encouraged Athens to resume the wanted tha vrnshofsactiy y hih ct of and Thrace, encouraged Athens to resume the wanted that varnish of sanctity by which acts of projects of aggrandizement which the events of much fouler iniquity have been covered in ages the war had compelled her for a time to lay which have professed to revere a higher moral aside. We have seen how ill she brooked the law. Their treatment of the vanquished, what- disappointment which she had suffered through ever may have been its motive, was unworthy the sudden termination to which the quarrels of a civilized nation. Yet some allowance may. of the Sicilian Greeks had been brought by fairly be claimed for the general rigour of the Hermocrates; and she had since shown that ancient usages of war. The milder spirit of she only waited for an opportunity of renewing modern manners would not have punished men her enterprises in their island. Such an opporwho had been guilty of no offence but the as-.tunity had appeared to present itself not long sertion of their rightful independence more se- after the departure of the armament commandverely than by tearing them from their families, ed by Eurymedon. The Leontines, when they and locking them up in a fortress, -or transport- saw the Athenians withdrawn, thought it exing them to the wilds of Scythia. But our ex- pedient to prepare themselves as well as they ultation at the progress of humanity may be could against the attacks which, notwithstandconsistent with a charitable indulgence for the ing the counsels of Hermocrates, they had alimperfections of a lower stage of civilization. ways reason to apprehend from Syrates, they had alIn the course of the same winter the Spartans ways reason to apprehend from Syracuse. It In the course thethe same winter the Spartans seems to have been chiefly with this view that at length found themselves permitted to cross they admitted -a large body of new citizens. the border, and not only ravaged a part of the But it was necessary to provide for these new An territory, but territo, but took possession of Ornee, settlers, and this could not be done without, in anedged the exiles there. They left a small some way, disturhing the previous state of propgarrison for their protection, and their object seems to have been rather to provide for them erty. A proposal was accordingly made, and seems to have been rather to provide fr them obtained'general approbation among the comthan to annoy their enemies in Argos, for before monalty, for a repartition of land. W e h no their departure theyconcluded a truce between information as to the precise nature of the the two parties. The Athenians, however, did measure, so as to -be able to say whether it was no t permit this state of things to last long. an arbitrary act of power, or the exercise of a They sent a squadron of 30 galleys with 600 right. The changes caused by the revolution men, and with this re-enforcement the Argives laid siege to Orneae. It seems that the place Omen, which Strabo (viii., p. 376) distinguishes from the was not in a state fit for defence; and by a kind town of the same name.. of tacit compromise the exiles, after having held Mueller (Dor., ii., c. 7. 2Eginetica, p. 49) supposes that the whole of the ancient population had been previousout for a day, evacuated it, and the besiegers ly transplanted to Argos, and replaced by an Argive colony.. immediately razed it to the ground. The in- Dr. Arnold (Thucyd., vol. ii., p. 838) infers from Herodohabitants appear now for the most partt to have tus, viii., 73, compared with Thucyd., 67, that the old population was not disturbed before the occasion mentioned in been transported to Argos, and, according to the text. It seems rather more probable, from Paus., viii., 27, 1, that there had been-as Wachsmuth suggests, i., 2, ~ Andocides, Alcib., p. 32. p. 86-a partial removal of the original inhabitants before t Some were probably allowed to occupy the village of the Peloponnesian war. 408 HISTORY OF GREECE. which followed t.le death of Hiero leave just as called in the aid of Syracuse, with which she much room for the one supposition as the other; threatened to overpower her weaker neighbour but the burden or expense of the proposed meas- The Segestans, who were, perhaps, originally ure fell upon the rich; and, as it hurt their in- more nearly related to the Phcenicians than to terest, it was felt by them as a grievance. the Greeks, are said to have applied in vain to Their indignation —as we may safely conclude Syracuse and Agrigentum, and then to have from the experience of all ages and countries, sought aid from Carthage; but being rejected as well as from that of the Roman patricians- there also, they finally had recourse to Athens. would have been just as strong if they were Their envoys found willing listeners, when they called upon to resign what they had occupied represented the danger which would arise if the by abuse and held by sufferance, as if they were Syracusans should be permitted to proceed as -prived of what they had enjoyed by the clear- they had begun with Leontium; should cruslh est of titles; but, seeing themselves not strong the states of different origin one after another, enough to maintain their right or their wrong and then should combine all the Dorians of the before any step had been taken to dispossess island in a league to assist their kinsmen in them, they called in the aid of the Syracusans, Peloponnesus against Athens. They magnified and ejected the commonalty. They had now the opulence of Segesta, gave a dazzling detoo much room to feel safe, and, therefore, con- scription of the treasures contained in the temsented to abandon Leontium, and to transfer ples, as well as in the coffers of the state, and their abode to Syracuse, where they were re- undertook to defray the cost of the expedition ceived as citizens. There was, however, a which should be sent to its relief. If the fears party among them which had either yielded to of the Athenians were not alarmed, their ambithis sacrifice with regret, or found its new- situ- tion was inflamed by the thought that the power ation unpleasant; and it quitted Syracuse and of Syracuse might be made to serve as an inreturned, not, indeed, to the deserted city, where strument for subduing their Peloponneslan eneit could not have defended itself, but to two mies. They knew enough of Sicily to covet it strongholds in the Leontine territory, called as a most valuable conquest, but not rightly to Phocaee and Bricinniae. Here they were join- appreciate the difficulty of the attempt. Noted by the greater part of the expelled commu- withstanding the ample means of information nity, and together they carried on a war against which they possessed, great ignorance and Syracuse. many erroneous opinions prevailed among them When this state of things became known to as to the extent and population of the island. the Athenians in 422, about the time of Cleon's On the other hand, the waste of the pestilence last expedition, they sent two galleys, with had been now, in a great measure, repaired, three ambassadors, headed by Phaeax, whom and, during the late interval of repose, they had we have already mentioned as a rival of Alcibi- begun to recruit their finances. They again ades, to use this handle, if he could, for the felt the consciousness of exuberant vigour, and purpose of forming a new league among the Si- among the young there was a general impaceliots against Syracuse, and, at the same time, tience for a new field of action. The cause of to promote the Athenian interest in the south the Segestans found many zealous advocates, of Italy. Pheeax possessed talents well suited and all that could be obtained by those who opfor negotiation, ind he succeeded in his object posed it was, that envoys should be sent to asat Camarina and Agrigentum; but at Gela he certain the means which they had of fulfilling met with such opposition as to deter him from their promises, and to learn the state of the wal proceeding farther on the business of his mis- with Selinus. sion. But, on'his way back, he stopped at Bri- Alcibiades. was foremost among their parti cinniae to animate the resistance of the Leon- sans. If an expedition should be decreed, he tines, and in Italy, on his passage both to and might hope for a share in the command, and in fro, opened negotiations with several of the the distant regions of the west his ambitious Greek cities, and even concluded a treaty with imagination found an unbounded range. It Locri, which had before refilsed to become a wandered from Sicily to Italy, Carthage, and party to the peace between Athens and the Si- Africa; and he considered the subjection of celiots, but now, being engaged in a war with these countries as a step towards the conquest wo of its colonies, thought it prudent to come of Peloponnesus and of Greece. It see to to terms with Phaaax. have been while he was indulging these dns It is not quite clear whether this was the of greatness that he was threatened at home last attempt made by Athens to regain her foot- with a blow which would have dissipated them ing in Sicily before 415. We are informed of all. We have seen how evenly his influence an embassy which seems to have been a differ- balanced that of Nicias, and that before them ent one, on which Andocides was sent, not only their common rivals shrank into insignificance. to Italy and Sicily, but also to Epirus, Thessaly, Hyperbolus, who despaired of rising into the and Macedonia, for purposes similar to that of place of Cleon so long as they both stood in his Phweax. But no distinct prospect seems to way, devised a scheme for getting rid of one have been opened to the Athenians of again di- He suggested to the people that their powel viding the Siceliots and threatening Syracuse, and dissensions were formidable to liberty, and until, soon after the reduction of Melos, they that this was a case in which the ostracism. received a new and, apparently, unsolicited in- which had fallen into disuse, might be advantavitation to interfere in the affairs of Sicily. A geously revived. It was, perhaps, through a diiquarrel had avisen between the neighbouring ferent intrigue that a third person, either Phaeax cities of Segesta and Selinus,'partly out of dis- or Andocides, was associated with them as an puted claims to land in their marches, and part- object of public jealousy. But the result surly, it would seem, out of private feuds. Selinus prised the author of the scheme, and the people NICIAS, ALCIBIADES, AND LAMACHUS. 409 itself. Nicias and Alcibiades, or, according to tides of his simple personal expenditure incuranother account, Alcibiades and Phaeax, united red in the discharge of his public functions. their interest against Hyperbolus; and the pro- Such a man, whose habits and character seemcess by which Aristides, and Themistocles, and ed to secure him from any bias towards either Cimon had been deprived of their country, was of his colleagues, might bethought singularly employed to deliver Athens from the most des- fitted to hold the balance between them, while picable of men. The people, it is said, felt that he zealously co-operated with them in the comthe ostracism had been' debased by the indig- mon cause. Yet it was observed that, notwithnity of the person on whom it fell, and never standing his indifference to money, he was not made use of it again. But neither Nicias nor exempt from an instinctive respect for wealth, Alcibiades had reason to rejoice in the success and that Nicias exercised some authority over of their coalition. him, as over most of the persons who were asThe ambassadors returned in the spring, ac- sociated with him in office, by the weight of companied by some of the Leontine exiles, and his fortune no less than of his personal qualiby envoys from Segesta, and confirmed the ac- ties. count which had been given of its opulence; Nicias as little coveted the honour of the but they brought no more than 60 talents-a command as he approved of the expedition. month's pay for as many galleys-as an earnest The state of his health was ill suited to underof the promised subsidies. An expedition was go the hardships of the sea and the field. But now decreed for the relief of Segesta, the res- he was still more averse to the undertaking on toration of the Leontines, and for all other ob- grounds of policy. Independent of his prejujects which concerned the interests ofAthens in dices against Alcibiades, his disposition led Sicily, and Alcibiades, Nicias, and Lamachus him to view the measure on the dark side, and were appointed to the command. The choice to perceive the obstacles and dangers more of Alcibiades was naturally suggested by the clearly than the means or the fruits of success. active part he had taken in counselling the ex- Even after the decree for granting aid to Segespedition; but the talents which he had display- ta had been carried, he did not despair of opened in the negotiations with which he had been ing the eyes of the people to the rashness of recently intrusted in Peloponnesus pointed him the enterprise; and in an assembly which was out as eminently fitted for a service in which held five days after, to deliberate on the strength there might be as much to be effected by the of the armament to be equipped, he ventured to arts of persuasion as by force or military skill. advise that, instead of entering upon the quesNor was it probably overlooked that his exten- tion which they were met to discuss, they sive connexions and influence among the allies should review the resolution which they had of Athens might be usefully employed in pro- too hastily adopted. He was the better enticuring auxiliaries; while among the more so- tled to attention on this head, as he should ber citizens there were, no doubt, many who speak against his own interest, since no. one were glad to see him removed to a distant field could have more honour to gain by the expedi. of adventure, where his restless and aspiring tion, or less personal risk to apprehend in it. spirit might have ample space, and who con- He knew their character too well to think of templated his departure with feelings not very diverting them from their purpose by any gendifferent from those with which they had once eral reflections on the imprudence of staking a sent out Cleon, divided between their fears of present possession for an uncertain acquisition; the man and their hopes for the state. The but he would point out the unreasonableness principal motive for the appointment of Nicias and the difficulties of the enterprise. They appears to have been the confidence which was must not fancy that when they sailed to a disinspired by his prudence and his uninterrupted tant war they should leave peace at home. good fortune; his name seemed to be one of The enemies by whom they were surrounded happy omen for every momentous enterprise; had not all-so much as formally suspended hosand if his circumspection was sometimes car- tilities; but those who were now kept still by ried to an excess, where it degenerated into tar- a short and hollow truce-which had been exdiness or timidity, it was not more than suffi- torted by an ignominious necessity, and had cient to counterbalance the impatient ardour bred many questions which were yet unsettled, of such a colleague as Alcibiades. Perhaps a and which had been rendered more complicated latent feeling of jealousy also operated with through the intrigues of a party adverse to peace many as an inducement for associating him both at Sparta and at Athens-would undoubtwith his ambitious and unsteady rival in so edly take the first opportunity of falling upon important a command, at so great a distance them, when their forces should be divided; and from the superintending eye of the people.'when they were engaged in a struggle with a Lamachus was recommended by'his establish- state which Sparta had long been anxious to ed reputation as a brave captain, though he gain as her ally. They would be setting out to had not been employed during the war in any found a new empire while many of their old very important commission. He seems to subjects were in open revolt, and others were have been no less conspicuous for his integrity wavering in their obedience. It would surely and disinterested devotion to the public ser- be time enough to send assistance to strangers vice. Though he had been placed in situations when they had provided for the security of their which afforded him many opportunities of en- own dominions. From the Siceliots they had riching himself-having been charged probably nothing to gain —for conquests in so remote a more than once with the collection of tribute quarter could not be long retained-and, unless or the levying of contributions from the sub- they wantonly'provoked them, nothing to fear; jects of Athens-he was so poor as to be forced least of all in the case supposed by the Segesto draw upon the treasury for the minutest ar. tans, from Syracuse, which, the farther she ex. VoL I.-F F F 410 HISTORY OF GREECE. tended her sovereignty, would find the more would meet with no steady resistance, and employment at home, and would be the less might take advantage of their internal dissentempted to assist in overthrowing an empire sions, and, in a war against Syracuse, would which rested on like foundations as her own. be sure to find allies among the barbarians Athens would be most formidable to Sicily while whom she oppressed. The dangers with which her reputation was magnified by distance, and Nicias had laboured to deter them were merely she did not expose it to the risk, which it would imaginary. The enemies whom they would incur on a nearer approach, of being shaken by leave behind were never less disposed to atthe first slight reverse. It was thus they had tack them, and, at the worst, could do nothing themselves been led to undervalue the power more than invade Attica, as they might at all of Sparta, which was still unimpaired, as her times: naval forces would be left sufficient to arimosity was unquenched, and only waiting prevent any other damage. The nature of for an opportunity of revenge. They might find their empire required that they should be ala better use for their newly-recruited strength ways in action, and ready to comply with every than to lend themselves to the desperate proj- call, whether from Greeks or barbarians, who ects of a band of exiles, whose assertions were sought their assistance, and might be made inas little to be trusted as their gratitude. But struments of their aggrandizement. It was they ought to be still more on their guard against the condition of their greatness, that it must be the reckless ambition of their own citizens, es- always growing, and that it could not be safely peclaly of one who cared not in what danger confined to any limits; as soon as they ceased to he involved his country to gratify his desire of attack, they would begin to be threatened. Such a brilliant command, which would afford him a token of their restless activity as they would the means of supporting his extravagance, and give by the invasion of Sicily would cow the of repairing the breach it had made in his pri- spirit of the Peloponnesians: their success vate fortune. Notwithstanding the partisans would probably make them masters of Greece, of like age and character whom he had now or, at least, would crush the power of Syracuse; collected round him, the elder part of the as- and even failure would be attended with no sembly ought fearlessly to vdte as the safety of danger, since their fleet, which would be more Athens required; that the Sicilians be allowed than a match for the whole marine of the islto adjust their own affairs; and the Segestans and, would enable them to stay as long as they in particular, as they had begun the war with- thought fit, and to retire when they would with out consulting Athens, be left to end it, as they safety. Let them not listen to the insinuations might, by themselves. by which Nicias had attempted to set the elder Though this mode of revising a decree of the citizens in opposition to the younger. The fire people was not consistent with the established of youth was no less needed in their public forms of the Athenian assembly, the presiding counsels than the sobriety of ate. The state magistrate, probably perceiving signs of a gen- would grow torpid if its energies were not kept eral willingness to hear the subject again dis- in constant play; and the mastery to which it mussed, complied with the wish of Nicias, and had attained in the arts of war could only be put the question to the vote. Alcibiades took preserved by an uninterrupted series of enterthe opportunity of defending his own character, prises and contests. and the policy of the Sicilian expedition. He These arguments accorded with the prevailclaimed the merit of a wise liberality for that ing temper of the assembly, which passed to use of his wealth which Nicias had censured the order of the day; and Nicias now rested as silly extravagance. The magnificence which his last hopes on the effect which he might prohe had displayed at Olympia had reflected lus- duce by a statement of the preparations necestre upon the city, and had raised its credit at a sary for the intended expedition. He observed juncture when it was commonly supposed to be that they were going to invade an island which exhausted by the war. He delicately touched contained a number of great and independent on the offence which he had given to individu- cities, abundantly furnished with the means of als as an unavoidable effect of the envy which defence; and among them none were more always attended prosperity. He urged the suc- powerful and better provided with every kind cess with which he had conducted the affairs of -of arms for naval and military warfare than the the commonwealth in Peloponnesus, as a proof two which were the immediate objects of their of his capacity for the command with which he hostility-Selinus and Syracuse. And neither was now invested. The battle of Mantinea, in were wanting in public or private opulence; which so many of the ancient allies of Sparta great treasures were said to be accumulated in were arrayed against her on grounds which she the temples of Selinus; and Syracuse drew a had long been used to consider as her own, he revenue from her barbarian subjects. There treated as a signal triumph of dexterous nego- were, in particular, two important points in tiation. He then endeavoured to show that which the Siceliots had an advantage over Aththe enterprise on which they had resolved was ens: the corn they used was of their own neither so difficult nor so dangerous as Nicias growth, and they were strong in cavalry. It had represented it, but that it held out a pros- would not, therefore, be sufficient to send out pect of great advantages at a trifling risk. The a powerful fleet; it must be accompanied by a power of the Sicilian towns had been much ex- land force capable of withstanding the superi-. aggerated. Their mixed population had been ority of the enemy's horse; for they nught find agitated by such a series of revolutions that it themselves unable to procure any cavalry in had not yet become firmly attached to the soil, Sicily except such as the Segestans could furand was destitute of the feelings which led men nish. It must be remembered that the expedi to unite, and to sacrifice their private interests tion in which they were about to embark was for the defence of the country. An invader not like those which they were used to make PREPARATIONS FOR THE EXPEDITION. 411 to neighbouring countries, where their arma- The stir of preparation immediately began, ments could'receive supplies and re-enforce- both at Athens and in the ports and arsenals ol ments from home in a few days. They were the allies whose contingents were required, and going to a land so distant that in the winter the news spread rapidly through Greece. At season four months might elapse before de- Athens the public mind was entirely occupied spatches from the army could reach Athens. It by this one thought; all conversation turned was therefore necessary carefully to calculate upon this subject. The young greedily listened its demands beforehand, and to provide for them to the descriptions with which the veterans who amply: They would have need of a strong body had already served in Sicily fed their curiosity; of heavy-armed infantry; of archers and sling- and in the palaestra they would interrupt their ers in great numbers to face the enemy's cav- exercises to trace the form of the island in the My; of a fleet which would keep undisputed sand, and to discuss its position with respect Uimand of the sea; and, as they might be to Africa and Carthage. During this interval Stained on their passage by contrary winds, of anxious expectation the desire of looking on points of the coast where provisions were into the future, always active among the Greeks, not to be purchased, they must load a sufficient was unusually excited. It was a time which number of vessels with corn, and press slaves of itself called forth omens and prophecies; and into their service from the mills. Above all, the leaders of the contending parties at Athens they must not go empty-handed, trusting to the seem not to have neglected the ordinary arts of vaunted riches of Segesta, which would proba- working on the popular superstition. Nicias, bly prove mere words. * There could be no who was himself, in this respect, quite on a level prospect of success, nor even of safety, unless with the vulgar, had probably some influence. their preparations were on such a scale as to among the Athenian priests; and they are said give them a decided superiority over the enemy to have announced' a great number of sinister in every respect excepting the numbers of the auguries. An oracle directed the Athenians-to heavy infantry. And they ought to make their fetch the priestess of Athen6 from Clazomene; calculations as if they were sending out a colo- it turned out that her name (Hesychia) signified ny to found a city in the midst of a hostile pop- quiet, and it was interpreted as a declaration ulation, where, unless they obtained the upper that the gods forbade the expedition. News, hand on the first day of their landing, they could too, was brought from Delphi of a portent which never gain a footing. With all these precau- threatened the Athenian arms with some disastions, they' would leave much to depend on the ter.* On the other hand, Alcibiades was not at favour of fortune; but what he had proposed a loss for expedients of a like nature to keep up could not be omitted without rashness. If, the spirits of the people. He, too, had his however, any one present was of a different friendly diviners, who, among their oracular opinion, he was willing to resign his command treasures, found some ancient predictions, imto him. porting that the Athenians' were to reap great The impression which this statement made renown from Sicily. An answer which he obon the assembly was just the opposite of that tained from the temple of Ammon seemed more which Nicias intended. Instead of being dis- distinctly to foretell the conquest of Syracuse;t couraged by the magnitude of the preparations and one no less encouraging was brought from which he described, they thought that they had Dodona.T now the fullest warrant of success that his ex- The preparations for the voyage were nearly perience and judgment could give; even the completed, when one morning it was discoverelder and more cautious of the citizens now be- ed that the numerous stone busts of Hermes, gan to share the confidence of the youthful and with which the piety of private citizens and of sanguine spirits, who were attracted by the nov- public bodies had adorned the streets of Athens, elty of the enterprise and by the remoteness of had almost all been mutilated, in the course of its object; while the largest class reckoned, the night, by unknown hands. So strange an some upon a gainful service, and all upon a con- occurrence would probably at any time have quest which would yield an inexhaustible reve- excited not only astonishment and indignation, nue. The few who still harboured any misgiv- but some degree of alarm; at this juncture the ings were ashamed to express them, and suf- last of these feelings prevailed over every othfered themselves to be carried along by the cur- er.' There were, indeed, two ways of explainrent. Nicias was called upon distinctly to spe- ing the mystery, either of which would have dicify the amount of the force which he deemed vested it of its most threatening aspect. It necessary. He complied with reluctance, re- might have been an unpremeditated drunken serving, as he said, many particulars for a calm- frolic; or it might have been contrived by an er deliberation with his colleagues; but~ as far enemy, for the very purpose of preventing or as he could form an estimate on so short a no- delaying the expedition by the terror of the iice, he believed that he nnist not ask for less omen; and it seems that the Corinthians were than a hundred galleys, together with transports, suspected of having made the attempt to avert and 5000 heavy infantry, with bowmen and the danger which impended over their colony, slingers, and all other things needful in propor- Syracuse.~ But no one could think this a probtion. One of the warmest advocates of the expedition, named Demostratus, now came for- Plut., Nic., 13. Paus., x., 15, 5. A statue of Athen6, ward with a motion,a which, he said, would de- and a palm-tree, in bronze, dedicated after the battles of the prive Nicias of every pretext for hesitation and Eurymedon, were o tripped of a part of the gold with which they were overlaid. The Deiphians attributed the iosa to reserve; and on his proposal a decree was a vast flight of crows which attacked the images with their passed by which the generals were empowered beaks; but they were suspected of having themselves corn to use their own discretion, both as to the force mitted the robbery, to serve at once themselves and the Syr acusans. t Plut., Nic., 13. of the armament, and all the circumstances of t Paus., viii,, 11, 12. P Flut., Al., 1& the expeditior 412 HISTORY OF GREECE. able suspicion; and though at any other time. tion, where Alcibiades performed the part of the deed might easily have been attributed to a the Hierophant, and his companions representsally of intemperate levity, it was difficult to ed other sacred personages-the Torch-bearer believe that it had taken place by mere chance and the Herald —who executed the most solemn at so critical a moment. If, however, it had fuctions in the Eleusinian rites. It seems to been planned, and by Athenians, the object have been after this that Androcles, a man who could not have been slight which had tempted had acquired great influence in the assembly, them to expose themselves to the penalties of and an avowed enemy of Alcibiades, declared sacrilege; and the next thought that presented himself ready to bring forward slaves ahd foritself was, that a plot had been formed against eigners, who could convict him of a variety of the state, and that the outrage was either a similar offences. He endeavoured to connect pledge of union among the conspirators, or was these charges with the mysterious mutilat' in some other way connected with their main de- of the Hermes busts, and to persuade the pi sign. There Wyere demagogues'who foresaw ple that the whole was the result of a deep plot the advantage which they might derive from laid by Alcibiades and his partisans against the fears of the multitude, and who gave them liberty.* a more definite direction, by representing what Alcibiades was desirous of being put immehad happened as a prelude to a revolution by diately upon his trial, for all his hopes of clearwhich the democracy was to be overthrown. ing himself from the accusation depended upon The assembly and the council of Five Hundred his presence. Whether innocent or guilty, he held several extraordinary sittings within a few saw enough of the temper of the people, and days. Commissioners were appointed to in- knew the malice and arts of his enemies well quire into the affair;* and great rewards were enough to be sure that, if he left his cause unoffered for a discovery of the perpetrators of decided, he had no chance of an acquittal. But, the sacrilege. By the same decree, informers, notwithstanding the feverish state of the popuof whatever condition, freemen or slaves, citi- lar feelings, he had reason to expect a favourazens or strangers, were invited by a promise ble verdict, if he was permitted to defend himof impunity, to reveal any other act of impiety self before the armament sailed, for he would which had come to their knowledge. then have a hold on the fears of the people, This invitation seems to have been, secretly which he might trust more safely than either at least, pointed against Alcibiades, who, as we its partiality or its justice. In the army was a have already mentioned, had incurred a suspi- body of troops from Argos and from Mantinea, cion-which the poet Eupolis had even made which hadbeen engaged in the expedition chiefly the subject of a dramatic satire- of having through his interest, and would probably abansometimes, in a circle of his most intimate com- don it if he was deprived of his command, and panions, celebrated a kind of profane and in- it was in the military class of his fellow-cititemperate orgies. It was not known what was zens that his popularity chiefly lay. "His enethe precise nature of these secret revels, and mies were also aware of the advantage which the ludicrous exaggerations of the comic stage he would derive from these auxiliaries, and would not have led to any serious proceedings; perhaps regretted that they had not reserved but the rumour, by its connexion with the sub- their charges to his absence. But as they ject which now engaged public attention, had could not themselves decently resist his deperhaps set the enemies and rivals of Alcibia- mand of an immediate trial, they put forward des on making farther inquiries or on fabrica- some of their partisans, who were not so nototing new charges. Yet the first informations riously unfriendly to him, and who could advise, which were drawn forth by the decree seem with an appearance of impartiality, that the exnot to have concerned him, but to have related pedition should not be delayed on his account, to some offences committed on former occa-. but that he should come back to be tried at a sions, when certain sacred images had been more convenient time. It was in vain that he mutilated like those of Hermes, but, as it plain- protested against the hardship of being sent out ly appeared, merely in sport, by young men with such a charge hanging over him, while his neated with wine. enemies were left at leisure to calumniate him The armament was nearly ready to sail, when behind his back, and that he even urged the imin an assembly held by the generals —perhaps prudence of intrusting a man who was labourto make their last report to the people, and to ing under so grave an imputation with such an fix the day of their departure-one Pythonicus important command.'His remonstrances were rose to lay a new information. He undertook overruled, and the trial was put off to an indefto convict Alcibiades of divulging the Eleusin- inite period. ian mysteries by a profane imitation of them The day at length came which had been apin a private house before uninitiated persons; pointed for the sailing of the fleet. The greatand he offered to produce a slave named An- er part of the alliesand the transports had been dromachus, belonging to one Polemarchus-a ordered to meet it'at Corcyra. Their absence friend, it would seem, of Alcibiades-who had did not diminish the interest of the spectacle been an eye-witness, and who, if assured of im- which presented itself on the morning when punity, would give a decisive proof of the fact; the Athenian forces came down to embark at for he would mention secrets which could law- Piraeus. Almost the whole population of Athfully be known to none but the initiated. The ens, citizens and foreigners, accompanied them slave's evidence was immediately received. He to the water side, and lined the shores of the described a mimic celebration of the mysteries, harbour. The many tender and mournful partat which he had been present with other slaves ings of relatives and friends who now took and uninitiated persons in the house of Poly* On the order in which these charges were made, see Z* ZnrTraL. Appendix 1V. DEPARTURE OF THE ARMAMENT. 413 leave of one another, awakened a general feel- rest. The army included 5000 heavy infantry ing of patriotic anxiety, which could scarcely among whom 1500 were Athenians, selected find room in the first glow of ambitious hope, from the regular muster-rolls; 700 were taken and in the subsequent bustle of preparation, but from the lowest class, the Thetes, to serve on now allayed the pride with which the Athenian board in sea-fights. Among the allies who spectators contemplated so magnificent a dis- made up the'remaining number were i00 Arplay of their power. It was hardly possible for gives, and 250 Mantineans and mercenaries, them to reflect, without uneasiness, how much perhaps from other Arcadian towns. The light of the strength and wealth of Athens was about troops were 480 archers, of whom 80 came to be committed to the perils of a long voyage from Crete; 700 Rhodian slingers, and 150 Meand a distant war. So mighty an armament garians of the exiled party. For cavalry, notkad scarcely ever before issued from Piraeus, or withstanding the warnings of Nicias, the aid om afiy Greek port; and though that with of the Sicilians seems to have been confidently -which Pericles invaded.Peloponnesus in the expected, and it was thought sufficient to send first year of the war, and which was afterward a single transport with a troop of thirty horse. employed against Potidaea, was not inferior in The fleet was accompanied by thirty vessels numbers, this far surpassed it in the care and laden with'provision, having on board, besides cost of its equipment, which corresponded to the slaves employed in preparing it, a company the probable duration, and to the various ob- of masons and carpenters, and a store of tools jects of the expedition. The galleys were fur- for fortification. A hundred boats had been nished by the state, but'according to the Athe- pressed intothe service; but a number of mernian law, were fitted out at the expense of the chantmen and of sntll craft followed on priwealthy citizens who commanded them; and vate commercial adventures. When the genthe captains, transported by the general ardour, erals had reviewed the whole armament, they vied with each other in their endeavours to en- divided it into three squadrons, which they took, gage the best seamen by an increase of the each one under his separate command, the more regular pay allowed by the government, and easily to preserve order, and to find shelter and strove to distinguish themselves by the gallant entertainment on the passage; and they sent show of their vessels. The like emulation pre- forward three ships to learn which of the Italvailed both among officers and men in the land ian and Sicilian towns were willing to receive force, and displayed itself as well in the selec- them, but more particularly to ascertain the tion of the troops as in the splendour of their real amount of the subsidy which might be exarms and accoutrements. To the sums thus pected from Segesta. These ships were to reexpended from necessity or ostentation, and to turn as quickly as possible, and meet them on those which would be required for the future their way. supply of the service, were to be added, as Thu- In'this order the armament crossed over to cydides observes, all that had been provided by the Iapygian Foreland, and proceeded along the prudent men to meet the extraordinary emer- Italian coast to 2Jhegium. None of the cities gencies of the campaign, and those which were by which it passed would either open their exported by merchants and by military adven- gates to the troops, or afford them a rmarket; turers with a view to commercial profit; the at Tarentum and Locri they were not even alwhole of what was thus embarked amounted lowed to come to moorings, or to take in water. to a great treasure. The strangers present, But at Rhegium they found a still stronger while they gazed with wonder on the splendour proof of the alarm which they inspired. Here, of the armament, were no less struck by the as in a city of Chalcidian origin, which had acboldness of the enterprise, and the vastness of tively supported them in their former expedithe objects for which it was designed. tions, and was attached to their interest by its When all was got ready for the departure, si- inveterate enmity to Locri, they had looked for lence was proclaimed bythe sound of the trum- a friendly reception and ready succour. But pet; and, after a pause, the solemn prayers for the Rhegians would not admit them into their a prosperous voyage were offered, not separate- town, and the Athenians were obliged to enly, as usual, in each galley, but pronounced by camp in a sanctuary of Artemis without the a herald, and repeated simultaneously through walls. Here they hauled their ships on shore, the fleet; and the chorus of supplication was and the Rhegians supplied them with a market; swelled by the voices of the multitude, both of but when they were urged to co-operate tocitizens and -if there were any who wished wards redressing the wrongs of their kinsmen, well to Athens -- of foreigners on shore. At the Leontines, they refused to take any part in the same time, in every ship libations were the war without the concurrence of the other poured, both by officers and men, from vessels Italiots. The Athenian generals were forced of gold and silver. When these rites were to content themselves with this answer, and ended, and the paean was sung, the armament anxiously waited for the report which they exmoved slowly out of the. harbour in a column, pected from Segesta, which would, in a great which broke up as soon as it got to sea; and it measure, determine the plan of their future opthen pushed across the gulf with all the speed erations in Sicily. each galley could make, to _AEgina, and thence The news of the Athenian preparation had pursued its voyage to Corcyra. reached Syracuse through several channels beAt Corcyra its whole strength was for the fore the armament sailed; and Hermocrates first time seen collected. The fleet consisted had received some private intelligence which of 134 galleys, besides- two Rhodians of lower left no room for doubt as to its destination. rate. Athens alone furnished a hundred-sixty An assembly was held to deliberate on the rufighting galleys, and forty for the transport of mours which had begun to spread, and which, soldiecks:; Chios and other allies contributed the though generally disbelieved, created some de 414 HISTORY OF GREECE. gree of anxiety. Hermocrates came forward authority was likely to have the greatest weight to confirm their truth, and to offer such coun- with his colleagues, was averse to the entersels as the occasion suggested. After assu- prise, and would seize any fair pretext for giv ring his audience that, incredible as the fact ing it up. might appear, he had ascertained, on good But Hermocrates was so far from being able authority, that the Athenians had fitted out a to carry this vigorous measure, that a large pargreat armament, which by this time was on its ty of the assembly persisted in treating the ruway, and which, under pretence of succouring mour as incredible; some made a jest of it; Segesta and restoring the Leontines, was de- others, supposing it well founded, could see no signed for nothing less than the subjugation, danger; a very small number adopted his views. first of Syracuse, and then of all Sicily, he de- A popular orator, named Athenagoras, who sired them not, through wilful incredulity or seems to have been invested with a kind of presumptuous confidence, to neglect the pre- tribunician character, as'the official advoche cautions required for their safety; but, on the of the commonalty, not only rejected the report other hand, to entertain no fears of the impend- with scorn, but inveighed severely against its ing invasion. The greatness of the hostile ar- authors. It was, he observed, not at all likely, mament would give them one great advantage, though every Syracusan ought to wish it might as it -would probably unite the other Siceliots be true, that the Athenians would be so infatuin their cause; and if, as experience had shown ated as, while the Peloponnesians were still to be the ordinary issue of expeditions sent out hostile to them, to embark in a new war, quite to so great a distance from home, it should as full of difficulty and danger as that which either be totally defeatei or should utterly fail they left behind them. Should they come, they of its object, the state against which it was di- would find Sicily much better provided with rected would reap the glory, though the enemy means of defence than Peloponnesus; and Syrshould have been baffled by natural or accident- acuse alone would be more than equal to twice al obstacles. It was thus that the Athenians such a force as they were said to have raised. had gained the largest share in the honour of It was impossible that they could transport to repelling the barbarians, because they were such a distance the cavalry, or the infantry, or principally threatened. He advised them calm- the stores and ammunition necessary for such ly, but actively, to prepare for meeting the ap- an undertaking. It would be a desperate one, proaching attack; to repair and strengthen the even if they had the command of a city as large defences of their city, to secure their dominion as Syracuse, and in its neighbourhood; how over the Sicels who were subject to them by much more when all Sicily would be hostile to fortifications and garrisons; and to endeavour them, and when, even if they were able to land to gain the independent tribes to their alliance; and to keep their ground, they would be confined to send embassies over Sicily, and engage their to the precincts of such a camp as they could Greek brethren to join them in warding off the form with their ships, and the scanty means at common danger; and others into Italy, to make their disposal. But the greater the absurdity a league with the Italiots, or, at least, to keep of such a project, the less readily ought they to them from siding with the Athenians. He even impute it to a people so politic and conversant thought that it might be advisable to apply to with affairs as the Athenians. It was, howevCarthage, which he knew had long viewed the er, easy to trace these idle rumours to their power of Athens with apprehension, and when fountain-head, and to see that they sprang from she saw it threatening an island so near her the criminal ambition of a restless faction, own shores, might be roused to interpose; and which hoped, by spreading consternation among no state had greater treasures-at its command, the people, to veil its designs, and to steal its or was in other respects a' more powerful ally. way to power. He should be at his post to But, at least, no time should be lost in sending protect the commonalty from the machinations to Sparta and to Corinth to procure succours, of its enemies. And he ended his speech by and to urge them to renew hostilities with addressing the oligarchical party in a strain of Athens. There was, however, another meas- dignified reproof and expostulation on the folly ure which he would propose, though he did not and heinousness of their conduct. feel equally confident of obtaining their consent. One of the generals now rose to put a stop to He would not wait to be attacked, but would fit the debate, and censured the turn which Atheout a fleet, the strongest which they could col- nagoras had given to it by his insinuations. lect with the aid of their Sicilian allies, and "Even if the alarm proved groundless, they would send it, victualled for atwo months' voy- could take no harm from putting themselves on age, to Tarentum. If they arrived there before their guard. HIe and his colleagues would use the Athenians had crossed the Ionian Gulf, they all diligence, both to ascertain the truth and to might find an opportunity, on a friendly coast, provide for the defence of the city." It was of assailing the invading armament to great ad- not before the Athenians had arrived at Rhegivantage on its passage, and of weakening and um that the doubts of the Syracusans were redistressing it, even if they did not strike a fatal moved. They then applied themselves earnestblow. But he thought it still more probable ly to make preparations, as expecting an immethat by the boldness of this movement they diate attack. should so confound the enemy, who expected In the mean while, the three ships which had no resistance, that he would be detained, delib- been sent forward from Corcyra came to the erating and collecting intelligence, at Corcyra, camp at Rhegium. They brought a report from until the sailing season was past, or would aban- Segesta, which did not surprise Nicias so much don the expedition altogether. Such a result as it disappointed his colleagues. It now apwould be the less surprising, as the most expe- peared that the envoys who had been first sent ~ienced of the Athenian commanders, whose from Athens to inspect the state of the Seges CONSULTATION OF THE GENERALS.-CATANA. 415 tan finances had been imposed upon by a false sana, to try his arts of negotiation, but he could show of wealth which had been prepared to prevail no farther with the Messanians than to meet their eye. They had been conducted to obtain the offer of a market for the troops outthe temple of Venus on Mount Eryx, whic.h was side the walls. After his return to Rhegium, indeed rich in consecrated vessels; but, as they the generals manned sixty galleys, with which, were of silver, their value was not so great as leaving the rest at the camp under the care of the splendour of the display. The Athenians, one of his colleagues, most probably Nicias, he however, had been still more dazzled by the sailed, accompanied by the third, along the great quantity of gold and silver plate which coast to Naxos. Naxos opened its gates to they saw piled on the sideboards of the princi- them, and they passed on to Catana; but here pal Segestans by whom they were entertained. was a party favourable to Syracuse, which was But it turned out that these treasures had been strong enough to prevent the' Athenians from borrowed for the purpose from some neighbour- being received into the town, and.the squadron ing cities, and that they had served, in succes- proceeded to the mouth of the river Terias, sion, to adorn all the banquets at which the where it was moored for the night.- The next Athenians had admired them. When it be- morning it moved in a column towards Syrcame necessary for the Segestans to reveal acuse; ten galleys were sent forward to enter their real condition, it appeared that they' were the Great Harbour, to ascertain the state of the unable'to raise more than thirty talents to de- enemy's naval preparations, and to observe the fray the cost of the war. This disappointment general features of the town, the harbours, and increased the dejection with which the Atheni- the neighbourhood which was to be the theatre an generals had been struck by the repulse they of war. It was also ordered that, as they sailmet with in their application to Rhegium. And ed by the town, a proclamation should be made, when they now proceeded to confer with one declaring that the Athenians were come to reanother, Nicias proposed that they should forth- store their allies a]d'kinsmen, the Leontines, with sail to Selinus, and call. upon the Seges- to their country, andd inviting those who were tans to supply pay, if not for the whole arma- residing at Syracuse to quit the hostile, city, ment, at least for the sixty ships which they and to take shelter in the camp of their friends had asked for: that on this condition they and benefactors. No hostile navy appeared in should stay until they had brought the Selinun- the harbour; but a Syracusan galley fell into tians, either by force or negotiation, to a com- the hands of the Athenians, as it was crossing promise; but as this was the avowed object of over to the town with the tablets containing a the expedition, with this he would end it, and list of the serviceable citizens, which were kept -unless some opportunity should offer itself of in a temple in the outskirts: a capture which doing a service to the Leontines, or of gaining was afterward interpreted as an ironical fulfilany other ally among the Sicilian cities-after ment of the prediction which had promised that having coasted the. island, to exhibit the power the Athenians should take all the Syracusans.* of Athens, he would return home, and not sub- When this commission had been executed, the ject the state to any farther cost and risk. Al- whole squadron returned to Catana. During cibiades thought that it would be disgraceful to the absence of the Athenians their Catanian retire without having made any other use of partisans seem to have bestirred themselves, their great armament::he advised that they and succeeded in gaining permission for the should open negotiations with all the Siceliot generals to enter the town and address the astowns except Syracuse and Selinus, and en- sembly, which was held to consider their prodeavour first to win Messana, which, on account posals. Accordingly, they landed with a part of its situation, was peculiarly important; that of their troops, and, leaving them at the gates, they should excite the Sicels, subjects oi Syra- were admitted to an audience. The attention cuse, to revolt; and persuade the rest to aid of all Catana was attracted to the debate; and, them with troopiand corn; and then, having while the people was listening to Alcibiades, ascertained the allies on whom they had to some of the Athenian soldiers, straying round reckon, that they should attack Syracuse and the walls, discovered a postern which had been Selinus. Lamachus was of opinion that, before walled up, but in so slight a manner that they the terror excited by their first appearance was were tempted to force it, and, having entered suffered to subside, they should sail to Syracuse, unobserved, they proceeded quietly, without and endeavour to draw the enemy into a battle any hostile intention, to the market-place; but, before he had collected his strength and his as they were followed by their comrades, their courage. They would probably find the Syra- presence did not remain long unnoticed, and, cusans unprepared and in dismay: they might being attributed to design, it struck the partiexpect to enrich themselves by much booty still sans of Syracuse with such consternation that left in the country; and a victory would be the they immediately withdrew from the city. The most efficacious argument to decide the other Si- opposite party, which was by far the most nucilian cities in their favour. For the farther pros- merous, and had probably only found a difficulty ecution of the war, he would encamp at Megara,' in overcoming the distrust excited by the magwhich was uninhabited, and at a short distance, nitude of the Athenian armament, now met whether by sea or'land, from Syracuae. with no resistance, and carried a decree for It was necessary that two at least of the concluding an alliance with Athens, and for ingenerals should sacrifice their opinions; and, viting the generals to transfer their camp to as the plan of Alcibiades was a middle course Catana, and the whole armament was soon afbetween the two extremes proposed by his col- ter brought over and encamped there. leagues, it was adopted by Lamachus much Information was now received which encoir.less reluctantly than by Nicias. Alcibihdes aged the Athenian commanders to hope that then crossed over in his own galley to Mes- * Plut. Nic., 14. 416 HISTORY OF GREECE. the sight of their forces would induce Camarina the witnesses produced by Androcles, in a forto embrace their cause, and it was at the same mal prosecution of Alcibiades; but the mutilatime reported that the Syracusans were man- tion of the busts was the subject which chiefly ning a fleet. They therefore sailed with the occupied public attention, as the most alarming whole armament, to Camarina, and in their sign'of a conspiracy against the state. The way touched at Syracuse, where they discover- rewards that had been offered were of themed that the rumour of the Syracusan prepara- selves sufficient to attract informers; and it tions was groundless; but at Camarina, like- was the interest of the enemies of Alcibiades wise, they were disappointed. The Camari- to multiply informations, and to involve as neeans showed no disposition to receive them, many persons as they could in the charge, that but pleaded the old compact, by which they the alleged conspiracy might appear the more were only bound to admit a single Athenian extensive and formidable. Andromachus was ship at a time into their harbours, unless they followed by a new informer, an alien named sent for more of their own accord. In their Teucer, who had quitted his residence at Athway back to Catana they made a descent on ens, and had retired to Megara, and now offerthe Syracusan territory, and, for the first time, ed, upon assurance of impunity, to make imwere assailed by a party of the enemy's caval- portant revelations both as to the profanation ry, which cut off some of the light troops that of the mysteries and the mutilation of'the busts. were scattered in quest of plunder. He gave.,a list of eighteen persons who had The course of proceeding which had been been concerned in the latter offence; and all proposed by Nicias, though still the safest, who did not make their escape before they could not be taken without a humiliating con- were arrested were condemned and put to fession of weakness, after different designs had death. Both Andromachus and Teucer were been disclosed. The movement which Lama- rewarded; but Pisander and Charicles, two of chus had recommended ho longer promised the the commissioners appointed to conduct the in same advantage after the 8pportunity on which quest, declared that the information hitherto he calculated had been let slip. The success received unfolded but a small part of the plot; of the plan which had been adopted depended, that the conspirators were much more numerin a great measure, on the personal character ous than Teucer's list, and that it was necesand the peculiar talents of its author, Alcibi- sary to prosecute the inquiry with unabated ades; and of these Athens was now to be de- diligence. This declaration, which opened a prived. On his return to Catana, he found door for an endless succession of false charges there the state galley, the Salaminia, which had and executions, diffused universal terror among been sent with orders to convey him and sev- the honest citizens; so that, if we might beeral other persons who were serving in the lieve an eyewitness,* the signal which announarmy to Athens, there to be put upon their trial, ced a meeting of the Five Hundred, before whom on charges relating either to the mutilation of informations were commonly laid, scared the the Hermes busts or to the profanation of the crowd from the market-place, each dreading mysteries. thathe might be the next victim. Fresh disAfter his departure, his enemies, freed from coveries were made as to the mysteries. A every restraint, redoubled their efforts to in- lady, Agariste, the wife of Alcmaeonides, whom, flame the passions of the multitude against him. from her name, we inight suppose to have been To kindle its anger to a sufficient degree, they a kinswoman of Alcibiades, and a slave named saw that it was necessary to work upon its Lydus, successively gave evidence of new proffears. The foundation of their whole scheme anations committed in other houses besides that was the persuasion which they had contrived of Polytion; but still the public anxiety was from the first to instil into the public mind, that most intent on the other branch of the plot; the mutilation of the images was the effect, not and now a witness named Dioclides came forof levity and wantonness, but of a deep-laid ward to supply the deficien s of Teucer's inplot for overturning the constitution. It is the formation. nature of such suspicions to be daily gaining Dioclides was an impudent and reckless imstrength, and to find food in the most trivial postor. We have no ground but his own stateand indifferent occurrences. The profanation ment for suspecting that he had any accomof the mysteries was easily believed to have plices in his villany. He could safely rely on been part of the same plan which lay at the the public credulity for an eager reception of bottom of the other acts of sacrilege; and any tale which he chose to invent, and he every proof that convicted Alcibiades of an of- seems to have framed one which. he thought fence against religion was held to confirm the best adapted to his two ends of popular favour reality of his treasonable designs; while, on the and private extortion. He stated before the other hand, all discoveries which tended to council that he knew the mutilators of the strengthen the popular prejudice with regard busts, and that they amounted to about 300 to the affair of the images were considered as persons. Chance had led him into a street by additional evidence against him. the theatre on the night of the outrage, and he His rivals and enemies were not confined to had seen about that number of men enter the one class or party. Androcles was probably orchestra, and stand there for a time in groups instigated by a merely personal animosity; but of fifteen or twenty. The full moon shone upon he was aided by Cimon's son, Thessalus, who their faces, and, as he stood concealed behind had, perhaps, no motive but the hereditary feud a pillar, he was able to observe the features of between his family and the house of Alcibiades. almost all. Though he saw no more of them Thessalus, it Would seem, very soon after the that night, the next day, when the sacrilege expedition had sailed, imbodied the testimony was discovered, he concluded for what purpose of the slave Andromachus, and perhaps that of * Asdocides, Myster.. p. 6 DftCLIDES.-ANDOCIDE.. 417 they had been assembled; and his suspicions upon his information was the orator Andocides, were soon confirmed by the admission of some his father Leogoras, and many other members of them whom he recognised when he taxed of his family; a family which, by its noble dethem with the deed. They had offered him scent, was peculiarly exposed to the suspicion hush-money, and he had kept their secret for a of oligarchical views. One of the mysterious month; but, as they broke their promise, he circumstances in the occurrence which had was now come to inform against them. He been the occasion of their misfortune was that, then gave a list of forty-two persons whom he amid the general mutilation of the Hermes had already recognised, reserving to himself busts, one very celebrated image, which had the power of proscribing as many more as he been erected by the AlEgean tribe, and stood should think fit. near the door of Andocides, was left entire: a It is probable that, at the time when this fact which tended to strengthen the belief that story was told, no attempt was made to sift it. he had been privy to the sacrilege committed on Delight at so interesting a discovery, and the the rest. With the prospect of death-the indesire of detecting the unknown conspirators, evitable issue of their approaching trial-before must have been the prevailing feelings, and his eyes, Andocides, or one of his partners in would leave no room for doubts or objections. misery, seems to have been struck by -the Afterward it was remembered that the night on thought of an expedient by which he might exwhich Dioclides. pretended to have noted the tricate himself and his friends, and might foil features of so many persons by the light of the Dioclides at his own weapons. He resolved to full moon, was a night on which the moon was turn informer himself. He adopted the evinot to be seen at all.* Butthe council was not dence of Teucer, combined it with a story by in a mood for such reflections. At the head of which he plausibly accounted for the preservathe list made out by Dioclides were Mantitheus tion of the Hermes near his own ho0 and and Aphepsion, two of the councillors who were cleared himself and most of his frien f all in the room. Pisandermoved that the persons participation in the sacrilege. But he added on the list should be put to the torture, that all four new names to Teucer's list of persons their accomplices might be known before night: who were sufficiently connected with him to aproceeding directly contraryto law, but which confirm his credit for veracity, and yet had seems to have been considered as within the means of making their escape. His statement extraordinary powers with which the council was received with the firmer confidence, as the had been invested; and his proposal was re- calendar demonstrated the falsehood of that of ceived with general acclamations. But the two Dioclides, who confessed it, and pretended that accused councillors took refuge at the altar, he had been suborned by two persons, one of and were at length permitted to give sureties whom was a namesake and a kinsman of Alcibfor their appearance: they did not, however, iades. This was probably another. falsehood, wait for their. trial, but immediately left the suggested by the prejudice which he knew to city. The council then proceeded in person to prevail against all the friends of Alcibiades, and arrest all the others named by Dioclides, and which he hoped might operate in his favour. threw as many as it found into prison. It was The persons whom he named thought it prudent one great object of those who desiredto prolong to go abroad; but he was put to death, and and heighten the prevailing excitement, to per- was, perhaps, among all who had been consuade the people that the plot, aough detect- demned in the course of these proceedings, the ed, was still subsisting, and thatWerty not only first who deserved to suffer. had been, but was still in danger. About the Thucydides could not satisfy himself as to same time that Dioclides laid his information, the credit due to the story of Andocides, and it news was brought that a Bceotian army was would therefore be presumptuous for any one moving towards the frontier,t and it was im- now to pronounce upon it; but the narrative mediately concluded that the enemy was in which we have still remaining from the hand correspondence with the conspirators. The of Andocides himself, in an oration composed council sent for the generals, and ordered them some years after in his own defence, raises a to make a proclamation, enjoining all the citi- strong suspicion that it had, at most, but a very zens to assemble in arms in certain public places slender groundwork of truth. All appears to of the city and Pirmus, and to remain there all have been artfully accommodated to the prevailnight. The presiding part of the council (the ing opinion as far as was consistent with his perPrytanes) slept in the council-chamber, and the sonal objects. He chimes in with the popular rest of the Five Hundred in the citadel. In the suspicion by representing the mutilation of the midst of this alarm Dioclides was honoured images as the result of a deliberate plan, but as with extraordinary marks of public gratitude, as signs no motive for it. And thus, although hih the benefactor of his country. He was crown- information set the public anxiety at rest with ed, and drawn in a chariot to the council-house, regard to this affair, and put an end to the prosto be entertained there among the privileged ecutions grounded on it, so as to restore comguests at the public table. parative tranquillity, it left the general appreAmong the prisoners who had been arrested hensions of a plot against the democracy as * Yet this circumstance rests only on the evidence of active as ever. The attention of the people Plutarch, Alcib., 20, who does not seem to know which of was now directed with undivided earnestness the- informers it was, and Diodorus (xiii., 2), whose ac- to the profanation of the mysteries, in which count, if it was meant toapply to Dioclides, differs totally Alcibiades was more immediately concerned. from that of Andocides; while Andocides, who mentions e c red that Dioclides pretended to have seen the Hermes break- It does not appear that he was even charged ers by the light of the full moon, does not intimate that he with having personally taken a part in the other was detected in his falsehood by the real age of the moon. sacrilege; possibly he was at the time absent t On the variance between Andocides and Thucydides as from the city on business connected witht from the city on business connected with thea:to tise point, see Appendix IV. VOL. I.- G e e 418 HISTORY OF GREECG. expedition. But this mattered little, so long as ciated together as they were in the minds of both were believed to be links in one conspira- the Athenians. But, perhaps, the difficulty may cy, yet great efforts were needed to induce the not without reason have appeared much less to people to take the step, which it was the aim' the contemporaries of Alcibiades, who were of his enemies to accomplish, of recalling him rather disposed by their views of religion to refrom his command to a trial in which the ver- gard them as inseparable. The readiness with diet was already given against him. The det- which they listened to the suggestion of his enriment which the Sicilian expedition would suf- emies is chiefly remarkable, as it shows the fer from his absence, the danger which might high estimate they had formed of his talents arise from driving him to extremities, were and activity, which seemed to render it credible, determents that struck every one who was not that he might at the same time be conducting blinded by personal hatred. It was necessary the war in Sicily, and a conspiracy at Athens. to goad the people by its fears, and to impress The strong apprehensions which were enterit with the belief that it was in hourly danger tained of his influence with the army were inof an oligarchical revolution, and that it would dicated by the orders which accompanied the never be safe from the machinations of the decree for his recall, that he should not be arfriends of Alcibiades as long as he, though at a rested, but only summoned to his trial. Accorddistance, encouraged them to rely on his sup- ingly, he was permitted, together with the other port. But perhaps it would have been scarcely persons involved in the like charges, to accompossible to work so far upon popular credulity, pany the Salaminia in his own galley. His resif some occurrences had not taken place at the olution on the course which he should take was same juncture which powerfully confirmed the formed almost as soon as he received the sumsus, on of domestic treachery. A Spartan mons. He determined not to return to Athens, arp arched as far as the Isthmus, and re- but, as he was no longer able to serve his counmaifeed there while some negotiation, the object try, to show how deeply he could injure it. Beof which was unknown, was carried on with fore he left Sicily, he took measures for defeatthe Bceotians, whose forces were, perhaps, still ing a plan that had been concerted with a party near the borders of Attica.* These movements in Messana for betraying the town to the Athewere all interpreted as connected with the sup- nians. At Thurii he went on shore with his posed conspiracy; anid the alarm was height- companions, and concealed himself until the ened by the intelligence that fears were enter- Salaminia sailed away. When his escape was tained at Argos of a plot against the democracy, known at Athens, sentence of death was passwhich was there imputed to the citizens who ed upon him, his property was confiscated, and were allied by hospitality with Alcibiades. This, the priests and priestesses were ordered to curse indeed, was an almost unavoidable effect of the him according to the forms prescribed by an anscenes which were now passing at Athens; but cient custom, waving red banners, with their his enemies at -home magnified the danger of faces turned towards the west. The priestess Argos, and obtained a decree, by which those Theano alone refused to obey this order; curArgive citizens whom Alcibiades himself had sing, she said, was no part of her priestly funecarried away ibr the security of the democrati- tions. cal government, were consigned to the discre- The departure of Alcibiades left his colleagues tion of the opposite party, which put them all to at liberty to make any change which they might death. The coincidence of so many alarming think fit in th!ir plans. Lamachus was disposed events, which were all referred to Alcibiades as to pay great deference to the authority of Nithe secret mover of their hidden springs, crea- cias. Yet it seems to have been no longer a ted a new panic at Athens, in which the people question' between them, whether the war was -now regardless of every object but that of to be carried on, nor whether Syracuse was to getting their dreaded enemy into their power- be the main point of attack; nor was the course passed the decree which the Salaminia carried of negotiation proposed by Alcibiades wholly to Catana. abandoned. But Nicias was still bent on inWhen we review the whole course of these specting the state of things at Segesta in perproceedings at a distance, which secures us from son; partly with the view of collecting all the the passions that agitated the actors, we may supplies that the Segestans could raise, and be apt to exclaim, "In all history it will be dif- partly, perhaps, with the hope of composing ficult to find such another instance of popular their differences with Selinus, and thus, it might phrensy." But the recollection that these are be, of gaining one step towards a safe and honthe very words in which Hume spoke of our ourable termination of the enterprise. The own Popish Plot, may serve to moderate our want of money may have seemed to render this surprise and our censure of the Athenians.t voyage necessary, though in all other respects Their credulity was in one respect, at least, less it was a mere waste of precious time. The arabsurd than that of our forefathers, inasmuch as mament was disposed in two divisions, one unthere was an evident, strange, and mysterious der each general, which proceeded together fact on which it reposed. We, indeed, see so along the north coast. At Himera they could little connexion betweenacts of daring impiety not gain admittance; but advancing westward, and designs against the state, that we can hard- they made themselves masters of a town na-'ly understand how they could'have been asso- med Hyceara, belonging to the Sicanians, who _______________________, were at war with their neighbours of Segesta. * See.App~endix INV..On this pretext the Athenians carried away the t It is curious enough that'Wachsmuth, aslf he had for- whole population to slavery; the real motive gotten the history of'our Popish Plot, observes of the Athe- was, no doubt, the value of the captives, with nian proceedings in the affair of -the Hermes busts, that whom the feet sailed hack to Catana, while the their like will har.dly bc found n.any state of.mndture.civdiAxion.-I., 2, p. -1tl, army returned bv land tlrougtr thte countr' of BATTLE NEAR SYRACUSE. 419 the Sicels. Nicias himself proceeded to Se- to attack. They were not interrupted in these gesta, where he could obtain no more than thir- operations until the return of the Syracusan ty talents; but the sale of the captives yielded army was announced to them by the appearance a hundred and twenty. of the cavalry, and, it soon after came up and After this expedition, as the armament was offered battle. But as the Athenians did not not to bt -:nployed against Selinus, Syracuse move from their position, the Syracusans fell appeared.o be the only object remaining for its back behind a- causeway which led across the operations. Yet it was not before the autumn marshes to the town of-Helorus on the eastern that the generals prepared to move against it. coast, and there encamped for the night. In the mean while they sent round to the Si- The seeming timidity of the Athenian genereels on the coast for re-enforcements, and made al, who, after landing in an enemy's country, an assault on the town of Hybla near Gela, in took so many precautions to avoid fighting, rewhich they were repulsed. The circumstances vived all the confidence of the Syracusans, under which Lamachus had first proposed to which had been a little abated by the vigour he land the army near Syracuse were now cornm- had displayed in the execution of his stratagem: pletely changed. The fears which their first They concluded that he did not intend to risk a appearance had raised in the Syracusans had battle, and were surprised the next day to see subsided as the expected invasion was delayed, the Athenian forces drawn out for action. The and at length-when, instead of approaching Sy- Syracusan generals hastily formed their line; racuse, the Athenians moved away to the most but some of their men, on the presumption that distant part of the island, and then were baffled Ihey would not be wanted, had been permitted before Hybla-made way for contempt. The to go home, and did not return till the battle had Syracusans called upon their generals, since the begun. They were probably superior in numenemy would not come to them, to lead them bers; but their great advantage consisted in against Catana. And their parties of horse, their cavalry, whimh was 1200 strong, of which sent out to observe the motions of the Atheni- Gela contributed 200. Selinus furnished a larans, would ride up to the camp and ask wheth- ger body of infantry; but Camarina only sent er they were come to reinstate the Leontines, about twenty horse and fifty bowmen. On the or themselves to settle in Sicily. But this ex- other hand, the Athenian army was composed cess of confidence might be no less serviceable of disciplined soldiers, while in the Syracusan to a prudenr enemy than the dejection which it militia there were many who had never fought succeeded; and Nicias skilfully took adv4tage before. Yet Nicias, in the harangue by which of it to effect a landing and take up a position he encouraged his troops, did not think it use-ear Syracuse, without the hinderance which less to remind them that they were about to was to be apprehended from the Syracusan cav- fight on ground where defeat would be destrucairy. He sent a Catanian, whom the Syracu- tive, since their retreat would be cut off by the san generals believed to be in their intereso enemy's cavalry. The Syracusans fought bravesay that their partisans in Catana had laiWra ly; but they were, for the most part, so new tc plan for burning the Athenian fleet. " Most of arms, that even a thunder-storm which happenthe Athenians were used to pass the night in ed during the engagement helped to disconcert the town. If the Syracusans would march with them. They were at length put to flight; but their whole force so as to reach Catana by day- their cavalry checked the pursuit, and enabled break, their friends would shut the gates on them to collect themselves again on the Helotheir Athenian guests, and set fire to their ships, rine Causeway, and to retreat in good order to and the Syracusans would thus be enabled ea- the city, after having sent a garrison to protect sily to make themselves masters of the camp, the Olympieum. Nicias had, it seems, been and of the whole armament." The Syracusan prevented by religious scruples from stripping it generals fell into the snare the more readily, as of its treasures, though he was in great want they had before purposed, in compliance with of money.* the public wish, to make an expedition to Cata- This victory, though in itself of no great mona. A day was fixed for the execution of the ment, for the Syracusans only lost between two plan, and when it approached the whole force and three hundred men, answered the purpose of Syracuse set out for Catana. The Athenian of restoring the reputation of the Athenian generals were apprized of their movements, and arms; and this seems to have been the only embarked their troops so as to enter the har- end that the generals had proposed to thembour of Syracuse nearly at the same hour of selves in the expedition. But the battle itself the morning that the enemy reached Catana, proved that they could not hope to carry on the and discovered the stratagem. While they re- war against Syracuse without cavalry; and it traced their march, the Athenians had leisure was also necessary to raise fresh supplies of to occupy a strong position near the shore of money before they engaged in a difficult and exthe Great Harbour, between the river Anapus pensive siege. They therefore sailed away imand the foot of a steep eminence, on which stood mediately after the battle, intending, while they an Olympieum, or temple of Olympian Zeus, at waited for remittances from Athens, to reap the about a mile's distance from the city, where most important fruits of their victory in negothey would be protected from the enemy's cav- tiation with the Sicilian towns, some of which alry, on one side by the cliffs of the Olympieum, they now hoped to find more compliant. With on the other by trees, buildings, and the Lysi- this view, after depositing their spoil at Catana, melian marsh, through which the Anapus runs they proceeded to Messana, where they expectinto the sea. They destroyed the bridge of the ed to gain admission with the aid of their partiAnapus, enclosed their ships with a palisade, sans. But the treachery of Alcibiades had put and threw up a hasty work at a point called.and threw up a hasty work at a point called * Plut., Nic., 16. But compare IDr. Arnold, Thuc.vdides Dascon, by which theii position was most open vol. iii., p. 522 420 HISTORY OF GREECE. the friends of Syracuse on their guard, dnd they complained, however, not of the Athenians, who had overpowered their adversaries. After stay- merely followed the impulse of natural ambi ing thirteen days before the city, the Athenian tion, but of the disunion of the'Sicilian Greeks, generals, seeing no prospect of success, sailed which had encouraged such projects against away to Naxos, where they took up their win- their liberty, and exposed them to the danger ter quarters, perhaps to avoid molestation from of being separately subdued, Dorians as they Syracuse, and sent a galley to Athens, to soli- were, by an inferior race. He reminded those cit a supply, of money and of cavalry, that they who were jealous of the power of Syracuse, that might be able to prosecute the war in the spring. her strength, which exposed her to the first atMeanwhile the Syracusans had been suffi- tack of a foreign enemy, was likewise a ramciently humbled by their defeat to listen to the part to the weaker states, and that it was idle'advice of Hermocrates, who easily persuaded to wish that this barrier might be strong on one them that their disaster was owing, not to any side and weak on the other; or that Syracuse inferiority in valour, but to the defects of their might continue to protect her neighbours from military system and their discipline; and pre- aggression, and yet be so humbled as not to exvailed on them to reduce the number of their cite their envy. Camarina, as her nearest generals-the supreme command had hitherto neighbour, was bound even by a sense of interbeen divided among fifteen-and to enlarge their est to lend the most active aid in warding off powers, which were before so limited that nei- the danger, which was removed only by the disther secrecy nor subordination could be preserv- tance of Syracuse from her own door. Neued. The people now elected three generals- trality in her case would be equally unjust and of whom Hermocrates himself was one-with impolitic. The relations which she had formerunlimited authority, which was secured to them ly contracted with the Athenians could not prop by an oath. At. the same time, other measures erly be pleaded as an excuse for letting them were adopted for putting thb army on -a better crush the independence of Sicily. Nor were footing; and envoys were sent to Corinth''a:nd they so formidable as to justify an unwilling acSparta, to obtain succours, and to induce thern:cession to their alliance, which even their kinsto make a diversion in favour of Syracuse, by'~ men of Rhegium had declined. They had attacking the Athenians at home. It was prob- shown, by their late retreat from Syracuse aftei ably at the suggestion of the same judicious a victory, how little their forces were able to counsellor, that the Syracusans, in the course copjq;with those of the Sicilian states, if leagued of the winter, took a precaution against the t`o-&er; and now aid was to be expected from siege, which was to be expected if the enemy Peloponnesus. By keeping aloof from the strugshould be victorious in the field. To render gle Camarina would either betray the independ\'ircumvallation more difficult, they enlarged the ence of Syracuse, as well as her own; or, if the circuit of the city wall, and enclosed a new Syracusans prevailed, would incur their just luarter on the north side of the Great Harbour, 4ngeance no less than by open enmity. taking in a Temenos, or tract consecrated to "On the side of Athens, Euphemus filled the.pollo, which contained a celebrated colossal part which, if the occasion had arisen some statue of the god, hence named, as was the new months sooner, would probably have been asq luarter itself, Temenites. A much more ef- signed to Alcibiades. He contended that though'ectual precaution, that of securing the long Athens had been compelled, by the hereditary broad ridge which sloped down towards the city enmity of the Peloponnesian Dorians, to estabfrom the northwest-from its commanding po- lish her maritime empire in her own defence, sition called Epipole, as we should say, Over- she could not be rightly charged with injustice ton-over which a besieging army must carry towards her Ionian subjects, who had forfeited its line of circumvallation, was neglected or de- all claim to milder treatment, when, through a lberred. It was thought sufficient for the pres- pusillanimous selfishness, they lent their forcee ent to fortify the deserted site of Megara, which to the barbarian against their common parent. lay to the north of Epipolae, and the Olympie- The Athenians did not wish to exaggerate the tum, where before there had been only an open merit of their sacrifices in the cause of Greece, hamlet round the temple. The army was also or pretend to be governed by any more exalted led against Catana, where it ravaged the land views than a politic regard to their own safety; End burned the camp left there by the enemy. but, if tried by this test, their professions. as to And when it was known that the Athenians the designs of their present expedition might were renewing their attempt to draw Camarina be safely believed. It was as much their interinto their alliance, Hermocrates was sent at the est to maintain the independence of their Sicilhead of an embassy to secure the Camarinaeans, ian allies, as a -counterpoise to the power of who had betrayed their lukewarmness in the Syracuse, as it was to deprive their subjects in cause of Syracuse by the' scanty succours they the east of the means of resisting them. Yet l tad sent, and might be tempted by the late sue- even there policy prescribed some exceptions c(ess of the Athenians openly to side with them. to their general rule, as in the case of Chios In an assembly which was held at Camarina and Methymna; and several of the islanders in to give audience to the Athenian and the Syra- the Western seas, on account of their position cusan envoys, Hermocrates exposed the shal- with regard to Peloponnesus, were allowed to lowness of the pretext by which the Athenians enjoy entire independence. To the Sicilian attempted to cover their real designs in the in- states the power of Syracuse must always be vasion of Sicily. He contrasted their profes- an object of reasonable jealousy; but the fears sions of sympathy towards the Chalcidians of which had been suggested of Athens-as if she L eontium with their conduct towards the Chal- could either make conquests, in Sicily, or retain cidians of Eubcea, whom, notwithstanding their them, without the concurrence of the Sicilians affinity, they held in degrading subjection. He themselves-were chimerical and absurd; and ALCIBIADES AT SPARTA. 421 it was an affront to the understanding of the conciliate the prejudices of his hearers by a libCamarinaeans to call upon them to take part eral sneer at the Athenian Constitution, and by with the oppressors of Sicilian liberty against ascribing his expulsion to the party which carits upholders. It was sufficient for them to ried democratical license to its most extravknow that their interests were intimately uni- agant excess,* he proceeded to relate the deted with those of Athens, and that they might sign with which. the Sicilian expedition had securely take advantage of that stirring spirit, been undertaken; those which he himself, perwhich prompted her to interpose wherever her haps, in his visions of greatness had really conaid was required, and which rendered her very ceived. The conquest of Sicily was to be a step name a restraint to ambition and a bulwark to that of the Italian Greeks, which was to be for the helpless. followed by an attempt upon the Carthaginian But the Camarinaeans could neither shut empire. If these enterprises succeeded, Peltheir eyes to the danger with which the inde- oponnesus was to be blockaded with a fleet, for pendence of Sicily was threatened by the Athe- which plentiful materials would be furnished by nians, nor suppress their habitual jealousy and the forests of Italy, and with an army raised aversion towards Syracuse; and they decided from the Greek cities and the most warlike baron observing a strict neutrality. The Athe- barians of the west, in addition to the present nians were more successful in their negotia- military and naval, force of Athens, and maintions with the Sicel tribes.' Almost all those tained at the expense of the conquered counwhich were independent of Syracuse joined tries. Thus the reduction of Syracuse would them, and supplied corn, and even money. The Jlead, by easy gradations, to the subjugation of alliance of a Sicel chief named Archonides, Greece, and to a universal empire. It was who had united several cantons under his au- therefore before Syracuse that they must fight thority, mainly conduced to their success. But for the safety of Peloponnesus; and he advised the Sicels subject to Syracuse were, for the' them to lose no time in sending a body of troops most part, restrained from revolting by the to Sicily; but, above all, a Spartan commander, troops which garrisoned their towns, or march- whoiould be of more use than a whole army, ed upon the points threatened' by the Athe- to dWtct the operations of their allies, to ennians. The success of the Athenian arms had courage the timid, and to decide the wavering. even drawn offers of assistance from some bf At the same time, to show that they are in the Etruscan cities, which were probably ani- earnest, and to give employment to the Athemated, partly by the desire of revenging their nians at home, they should openly renew hosancient defeats, and partly by the hope of sha- tilities, and carry war into the heart of Attica. ring the spoil of Syracuse and of Sicily. The But they should no longer content themselves Athenian generals did not neglect these offers, with their old system of yearly inroads, which and they even sent envoys to treat with Car- made but a slight and transient impression. If thage; more, it must be supposed, for the pur- they wished really to injure the enemy, and to pose of counteracting or anticipating the solici- inflict the blow which he himself most dreaded, tations of Syracuse, than in the hope of obtain- they would occupy a permanent post in the ing assistance from a power so jealous of their country, for which they would find no point rivalry. As the winter wore, they shifted their more convenient than Decelea. A garrison quarters again from Naxos to Catana, where placed there would completely deprive the landthey repaired their camp; and they summoned owners of the enjoyment of their property, the Segestans to send all the cavalrythey could would interrupt the working of the LZAurian muster, and began to lay in stores of building mines, afford a ready asylum for runaway slaves; materials, to be ready for commencing the siege and would not only drain most of the internal of Syracuse in the spring. sources of prosperity, but would prove a powIn the mean while, the Syracusan envoys erful incentive to revolt among the allies of who had been sent to Greece found the warm- Athens, who would estimate her prospects by est interest prevailing at Corinth in their be- her domestic condition. Such was the advice half; and Corinthian ministers accompanied which he offered, with all the sincerity of a just them to Sparta'to second their application. resentment against the country which had cast There they met with a new auxiliary in the him off, and which forced him to show the man who had been the chief author of their dan- warmth of his patriotism by the efforts which ger. Alcibiades, with his fellow-exiles, had he made to recover it. crossed from Thurii in a merchant vessel to the The Spartan government had already meditaElean port Cyllene, and had received an invi- ted the invasion of Attica, and was therefore tation from the Spartan government to proceed predisposed to take the advice of Alcibiades on to Sparta. Yet, before he went, he thought it that head. But being now awakened to a sense necessary to require a solemn pledge for his of its imminent danger, it appointed Gylippus, a safety. He found the ephors well disposed to son of the exiled Cleandridas,t to sail to Sicily assist the Syracusans with their good wishes with such succours as he should be able, in and exhortations, but backward to lend them concert with the Corinthians, to raise immeany more solid support. An assembly which diately, and, while the rest followed, to animate was held to deliberate on the question, afforded him an opportunity of seconding the request of * Thuc., vi., 89, ol 7r ra 7rhovepdrepa pS yov TPv XXov'the envoys with arguments more efficacious 0riEP Kal ld itlXaaav. Dr. Arnold's opinion, that these than their own, and of stimulating the sluggish words refer to the high aristocratical party, seems extremeenmity of the Spartans against Athens, by dis- ly improbable. The natural interpretation is to be sought enmity of the Spartans against Athens, by dis- in Thucydides, viii., 65, where the demagogue Androcles closing dangers which they had never dreamed is described as the man, o'asrep Ka2i TV'AXKl6daIJ7V OeX of. After apologizing for his forced opposition 1ctuara iaaIv: as Plutarch, Alcib., 19, observes jv yap to the Spartan interests, and endetvouring to O SeeXab ove,. a305. t See above, p. 305. 422 HISTORY OF GREECE. the Syracusans by his presence. Gylippus, ac- Megara, set about erecting a fortress for the se. cordingly, directed the Corinthians to send two curity of their baggage and treasure. Not long of their galleys to meet him at Asine on the after they received the expected re-enforceMessenian coast, that he might begin his voy- ments of cavalry from Segesta and their other age without' delay, while they completed their allies, amounting with their own to six hundred preparations for the relief of Syracuse. About and fifty; and now, leaving a garrison in Labthe same time, the galley which had been sent dalum, they began the work of circumvallation to Athens for supplies and re'enforcements ar- on the slope of Epipolae near the city, in a line rived there; and the Athenians voted 300 tal- which was the shortest distance between the ents and a squadron of 250 cavalry, and thirty Great Harbour and the Bay of Thapsus. The horse-bowmen, for the prosecution of the war. rapidity with which the work proceeded struck The men, however, were sent without horses, the besieged with consternation, and the genwhich were to be procured in Sicily. These erals drew up their forces to interrupt it. But succours were found at Catana in the spring by as an engagement was about to begin, they obthe Athenian armament on its return from an served an appearance of unevenness and disorexpedition, in which it had made an unsuccess- der in their line, which induced them to retreat ful attempt on the Syracusan fortress at Me- into the city, leaving only a squadron of horse to gara, had reduced the Sicel town, Centoripa, annoy the Athenian workmen; and this also and had ravaged a part of the enemy's terri- was routed in a skirmish with the enemy's cavtory. alry, supported by a battalion of foot. It was now daily expected at Syracuse. No Thus checked, the Syracusans took the adfarther precautions had been taken by the fif- vice of Hermocrates, and renounced all thoughts teen generals, who were permitted to retain of facing the Athenians in the field, and placed their command to the end of its legal term. their whole reliance on the hope of baffling the Hermocrates and his colleagues did not enter besiegers by carrying a counterwork across the into office before the spring. They seem forth- line of the intended circumvallation. Even the with to have concerted measures for g uling attempt might interrupt the enemy's work, and the approaches of EPipolke; and it was re'Mved would, it was thought, be sufficiently covered to occupy the heights with. a body of 600 picked by a part of their own forces. They began, men, under the command of Diomilus, an An- therefore, near the new quarter Temenitesdrian exile, who had probably gained experience not sparing the olive-trees of the consecrated and reputation in the wars of Greece. Before ground for the more sacred purpose —and while they proceeded to their station, their troops, they proceeded with the erection of a wall flankwith the remainder of the Syracusan forces, ed with wooden towers, they endeavoured to were one morning reviewed by the new gener- secure the points by which it was most easily als on the level near the banks of the Anapus. accessible with palisades. The Athenians did But already, the night before, the Athenians not attempt to interrupt their operations, that had sailed from Catana, and on the same morn- their own might not be delayed or their forces ing had landed at a point called Leon, on the divided. But when the Syracusans, laving south side of the bay, which is parted from the carried their work forward as far as seemed Great Harbour of Syracuse by the ridge of Epi- necessary, had returned to the city or to their polte, at less than a mile from the heights; and tents, leaving a guard at the counterwall, the their fleet had been moored at the neighbouring Athenian generals ordered a select bard of 300 peninsula of Thapsus, protected by a palisade men, with some of the light troops, wl om they which was carried across the narrow isthmus. put into heavy armour for the occasion, to surThe Athenian troops immediately at full speed prise it, while they themselves, with the rest of mounted Epipolee, and reached the top, where the army in two divisions, prevented any sucit rises into a rocky hump called Euryelus, be- cours from approaching, and perhaps watched fore the enemy was apprized of their approach. for an opportunity of entering the city. It preAs soon as it was known, the Syracusan forces sented itself; for the Syracusan guard, overtaset out to dislodge them; Diomilus and his ken by the careless languor of a sultry noon, corps among the foremost. But the place of was dislodged, and fled towards the postern of the review was about three miles from the Temenites, near which one division of the eneheights; they came up disordered by the march,; my was- stationed, which rushed in pell-mell and the Athenians had the advantage of the ri- along with other fugitives. They were, indeed, sing ground. The Syracusans were defeated, expelled by the Syracusans, with a trifling loss; and lost three hundred men; Diomilus himself but the whole army proceeded without interrupwas among the slain. The next day the Athe- tion to the counterwork, broke down the wall, nians marched down towards the city and offer- and tore up the palisades. ed battle; but as the enemy did not come out, Still the besieged were not wholly disheart they returned to the high ground, and on the ened. It was the design of the Athenian genvery top of hpipol!e, just before the slope to- erals to prevent the repetition of such an atwards Syracuse begins, at a point called Labda- tempt, by immediately fortifying that part of the lum,* on the edge of the cliff looking towards line which lay between the foot of Epipolae and * On or near the point now called Belvedere (see the the Great Harbour, reserving the rest, where Map of Syracuse in Dr. Arnold's Thucydides). - Mr. Hughes they were less exposed to interruption, till this (Travels, i., p. 85, 8vo edition) is led by Thucydides and Di- should be finished. The Syracusans, who were odorus to think that Labdalus was considerably lower in thetill masters of the Great Harbour, asthe enedescent than even Mongibellisi. The opinion of a learned still masters of the Great Harbour, as' the enetraveller on such a point deserves attention. But since he my's fleet lay at Thapsus, now began to carry only refers to theancient authors, it would have been de- a ditch and a palisade across the marsh nearer sirable that he should have explained how his opinion is to the shore. The Ath be reconciled with the remark of Thucydides, vii., 3 that enians, as before, offered Labdalllm was not visible from the Atbenian lines, 110 interruption; but when they had finished ARRIVAL OF GYLIPPUS. 423 that part of their own work which secured the tures were made to the Athenian general. It south side of Epipolae, they descended at day- seemed as if fortune had deprived Nicias of his break, under the command of Lamachus, to the colleagues, in order that he might enjoy the unmarsh, where they could only make their way divided glory of bringing an enterprise which by laying down planks on the mud, and fell upon he had so strongly condemned to the happiest the new counterwork. The Syracusans were issue. It was a pause, like that of the Iliad, dislodged, but did not give up their last hope while Hector's hand wvas on the ship of Proteswithout a. hard struggle. An engagement en- ilaus. sued, in which the Athenians were again victorious. The right wing of the defeated army fled towards the city; the left attempted to reach the bridge of the Anapus, which would CHAPTER XXVI. have afforded them a passage to the Olymjiieum, THE SICILI and being interrupted by the 300 picked troops, THE SICILIAN EXPEDITION FROM THE ARRIVAL OF drove them back on the Athenian right, which GYLIPPUS TO ITS CLOSE. was thrown into partial disorder. Lamachus, GYLIPPUS had been joined at Asine, where who was in the other wing, advanced with a he had manned two Laconian galleys, by two small body of troops to restore order in his others from Corinth, under the command of right, but having crossed a ditch with a few Pythen. With these they sailed to Leucas, followers, was surrounded and slain. This new where they were led, by a concurrence of many skirmish, being observed by the fugitives of the false rumours, to believe that Syracuse was alSyracusan right wing, encouraged them to make % ready completely invested; and Gylippus, cona stand, and even to conceive the design of sur- sidering the affairs of Sicily desperate, only prising the Athenian lines on Epipolae, where hoped that he might be in time to counteract Nicias had been left behind, only because a pain- the influence of the Athenians among the Italful disorder disabled him from accompanying ian Greeks. While, therefore, the Corinthians his colleague.. His presence prevented a great were fitting out a squadron, consisting of ten disaster. For a detachment of the Syracusans of their own galleys, two Leucadians, and three took and destroyed an outwork which had been from Ambracia, he and Pythen pushed across erected in front of the line of circumvallation, to Tarentum, and proceeded to Thurii, where, and would probably have overpowered the guard through his father, Cleandridas, who in his exwhich defended the main works, if Nicias had ile had been admitted a citizen there, he had not ordered the followers of the camp to set fire connexions which he hoped might enable him to the machines and the timber which lay in the to arm the Thurians against Athens. But his intervening space. The conflagration stopped small force, which seemed only fit for a piratical the enemy's advance, and they were soon for- adventure, did not encourage them to comply ced to retreat before the victorious Athenians with his wishes, and he continued his voyage who returned from the field of battle. At the westward. But before he reached Locri he same time the Athenian fleet, according to or- was driven out to sea by a gale from the north, ders which had been given in the morning, was and with some difficulty made Tarentum again, seen entering the Great Harbour, and by its ap- where he was forced to wait for a time to refit. pearance extinguished every remaining hope of Intelligence of his approach had gone before obstructing the- completion of the circumvalla- him to the Athenian camp; and Nicias might tion. easily have provided means for stopping or inThe besiegers now prosecuted their work tercepting his little squadron. The military with fresh ardour, and, since the arrival of the virtue which Nicias possessed in the highest fleet, with many additional hands. They brought degree was prudence; the failing towards which down a double wall within a very short distance he most leaned, timidity. For the first time, of the shore of the harbour; and all the prepara- perhaps, in his life, he was so elated by success tions were made for finishing that which had as to despise his enemy, and neglected to take been begun on the side of the Bay of Thapsus. any precautions against the danger until they Supplies and auxiliaries flowed in from many were too late. quarters to the prosperous party. Provisions Gylippus and, Pythen, having refitted their came in abundance from all parts of Italy; three shattered galleys, pursued their voyage along galleys brought re-enforcements from Tyrsenia, the coast to Locri; and there they discovered and many of the Sicels who had before waver- that the state of Syracuse, though one of exed, now that the fate of Syracuse seemed fixed, treme peril, was not yet past relief, but that an joined their forces to the victorious side. The army might still be introduced into the town Syracusans themselves began to despair of their from the side of Epipolke. They deliberated own safety. They had lost all confidence in whether they- should make directly for Syrathemselves; no succours were known to be at cuse, or should sail to Himera, and march hand; and before long none which they could across the island with what forces they could hope for would be of any avail. They endeav- collect_; and they decided on the latter course oured to persuade themselves that their rever- without being aware of the risk which they ses had been owing either to the treachery or would have run if they had attempted the other. to the adverse stars of their generals, and depo- Nicias, on hearing of their arrival at Locri, had sed them from their office; but saw no firmer at length despatched four galleys to arrest their ground of reliance in the zeal or the fortune of progress, which, if they had proceeded straight the three whom they elected in their room. towards Syracuse, would, perhaps, have fallen The question of capitulation began to be dis- in with them. But they passed without intercussed; the more anxiously, as suspicions were ruption through The Straits, touching at Rhegi. entertained of treasonable practices; and over- um and Messana, and reached Himera in safe 424 HISTORY OF GREECE. ty. Here they left their galleys, and prevailed safety, and with this view transported thr- army on the Himeraeans both to furnish arms for the across the harbour to the headland of Plemyricrews, and themselves to join their expedition. um, which closes its entrance on the south side, Selinus was directed to send her whole force to being parted by a channel about a mile broad an appointed place of rendezvous; Gela also from the island on which the lower town was was induced to promise a small body of auxil- built. On this headland Nicias erected three iaries; and some of the Sicel tribes, seeing that forts, in which he deposited the greater part ot the interference of Sparta was likely to give a his stores; and here he stationed the largei new turn to the struggle, veered round to the boats and the ships of war. By this operation same side, the more freely as Archonides was he gained the advantage of protecting the in. lately dead. With the re-enforcements drawn troduction of supplies, which, so long as the from all these quarters, Gylippus found himself fleet remained stationed at the bottom of the at the head of a little army of about three thou- harbour, could not be done without much labour sand men, with which he marched upon Syra- and risk. But he incurred an inconvenience cuse. which almost counterbalanced this benefit; fol His arrival in Sicily was not yet known there. the crews were now obliged to go to a distance Despondency had been gaining ground among for their daily provision of wood and water, and the besieged, and an assembly had been ap- the parties on this duty were exposed to con-, pointed to deliberate on terms of capitulation, tinual attacks from the Syracusan horse, a third when one of the Corinthian galleys, which had part of which was stationed at the Olympieum sailed from Leucas after the departure of Gylip- for the express purpose of giving them constant pus, having been detained there a little longer annoyance. than the rest, and, therefore, probably taking In the mean while, the besieged were carry the shorter course to its place of destination, ing on their wall with the materials which had entered the harbour. Gongylus, its command- been collected by the Athenians for their own er, announced the succours which had already circumvallation, while Gylippus covered the reached Sicily, and those which were on the workmen with the line of battle which he every way; and soon after news came that Gylippus day presented to the enemy. But as the counwas approaching. The Syracusans now assem- terwork approached the point at which it would bled in arms, and went forth with all their forces render all that had been done for the blockade to meet their expected deliverer. Nicias was of the city fruitless, Nicias resolved to try the again supine or short-sighted. He suffered chance of a battle, and Gylippus, aware that a Gylippus to ascend the heights of Epipolae; and struggle was inevitable, advanced to the attack. as the Athenian works had only been carried He did not observe that by this movement he across a part of the slope, the two armies hav- was confining himself to the space between the ing effected their junction without iinderance, enemy's wall and his own, where his cavalry crossed the line of circumvallation, and pre- and slingers had not room to act. The Athe sented themselves in battle array on the ground nians again displayed the superiority of theii between the besiegers and the city. Nicias, infantry, and remained masters of the field. though taken by surprise, and though a part of But Gylippus cheered his men by taking upon his troops were still employed in finishing the himself the whole blame of their defeat, and wall on the side of the harbour, did not decline promised shortly to repair his oversight. He an action. But Gylippus, before he advanced, took the earliest opportunity of again offering either to gain time or to animate his men, sent battle on more favourable ground, beyond the a herald to offer the Athenians permission to interval where the two walls converged toquit Sicily in five days with all that belonged to wards each other, and posted his cavalry and them. The proposal was received with de- slingers so as to fall on the left flank of the rision, and the messenger sent back without Athenians during the battle. Their charge an answer. But the Syracusan troops were spread disorder throughout the enemy's line, still so imperfectly disciplined, that Gylippus and he was driven back to his intrenchments. found it necessary to draw them off into the The Syracusans immediately took advantage more open space, for the sake of putting them of their success, and working all night, before into better order; and as Nicias did not ad- the next day had advanced their wall, though vance, he finally retreated into Temenites for in an imperfect condition, yet so as to be secure the night. The next day he again drew up the from immediate attack, beyond the Athenian greater part of his forces in front of the Athe- line. Soon after the Corinthian galleys which nian lines; and while he thus engaged the ene- Gongylus had preceded, having escaped the obmy's attention, he sent a detachment against servation of an Athenian squadron which Nicias Labdalum, which took the fort-the more easi- had sent to look out for them, entered the harly, as it was not within view of the Athenian bour; and with this re-enforcement the Syraintrenchments-and put all the garrison to the cusans rapidly completed their counterwork.* sword. The Syracusans now began a wall, which * Thucyd., vii., 7: #PXpt roVil yKapaioV tEIxovs. The they purposed to carry up the slope of Epipolae, explanation which we have here ventured to offer of this across that part of the line of circumvallation disputed passage is in substance not very different from across that part of the line of circumvallations Goeller's (De Situ Syrac., p. 98), except that we see no which was still open; this work, if accomplish- difficulty in taking the EyKcapartov reiXo (a merely relative ed, would secure the communication between term) to mean the Athenian wall. But we conceive with the city and the country, and thus would put an Goeller, that before the arrival of the Corinthians the coun the city and the country, and thus would put an terwork, though carried to its utmost length, was in an un end to the siege on the land side; and Nicias finished state. Dr. Arnold's remarks do not point out any saw that he should probably be unable to pre- better way of reconciling the seeming contradiction between vent its completion. He began already to turn the language of Thucydides in c. 6, iE'0acav 7ropaOlKotoahw thoughts* towards..pr.e.cavuTES fov tiow'A07av valv oolK0o1oavo and in c., ssorrd.his thoughts towards precautions for his own Xtcav rd X'AOv IAP v AF A3LRo n eYKapaC, diXn) c. LETTER OF NICIAS.-A NEW ARMAMENT DECREED. 425 They now felt themselves in perfect safety the contest had begun to take an unfavourable on this side, and began to meditate a new course turn, desertions had been frequent both among of offensive operations. Gylippus set out to col- the slaves and the foreign seamen. Those lect auxiliaries from the interior, and naval suc- who had been pressed into the service, and cours from the maritime towns, and envoys were those who had been attracted by high pay and despatched to Sparta and Corinth for fresh re- the hope of a profitable campaign, were now enforcements to meet those which the besiegers equally bent on going over to the enemy, or might receive from Athens. At the same time making their escape into the interior of Sicily. the Syracusans began to man and exercise their Several made excursions into the country for fleet, in the hope of being soon able to cope with purposes of traffic, and prevailed on the cap. the Athenians on their own element. Nicias tains of the galleys to fill their places with saw the evils and dangers of his situation gath- slaves whom they had bought from the spoil of ering fast upon him, and perceived that nothing Hyccara. It was difficult for a commander but prompt and very powerful succours could who had to deal with Athenian tempers to presave the armament from utter ruin. It was vent such practices, and the evil which they therefore necessary to lay the whole state of caused was irreparable. The efficacy of a the case before the people. He had hitherto ship's company depended, they well knew, on sent none but oral despatches-a vestige of an- a few able seamen; and in Sicily there was no cient simplicity for which, in so refined an age, means of replacing the lost hands. Naxos and we could hardly have been prepared. * But now Catana wanted the power, the other cities the the extreme importance of the subject suggest- will, to furnish recruits. But there was a caed the apprehension that his messengers might lamity still more to be dreaded, to which the be wanting either in ability or courage to exe- armament was exposed by its altered circumcute a commission which would require them to stances. They depended for food on the Italdeliver many unpleasant truths; and he there- ian cities, and if they should be induced to close fore described his distress, danger, and exigen- their ports, the war would be ended in a few cies in a letter addressed to the people, which days without a battle. being brought to Athens, was read in the as- He might have found matter more agreeable Sembly. to them, but none which it more imported them He related the change which had been made to hear; and he knew the danger of attemptin the aspect of affairs by the arrival of Gylip- ing to deceive them by a flattering statement, pus; the contravallation, which had put a stop which would be belied by the event. Their arto the Athenian works, and which opposed an mament had been adequate to the original obobstacle to the blockade of the place that could jects of the expedition; but now all Sicily was only be overcome by dint of numbers; the su- on the point of uniting against it, another hosperiority of the enemy, especially in cavalry, tile force was expected from Peloponnesus, and which reduced the besiegers nearly to the state it was no longer sufficient for its own safety of a besieged garrison. He then proceeded to- even against its present enemies. Either, mention the succours which the Syracusans therefore, they must recall it, or they must send still expected both from Sicily and from Greece, another to join it; but it must be one not infeand their purpose of attacking him, not only by rior either in military or naval strength to the land, but by sea. Many, he was aware, would last, and with it they must send treasure to no think it almost incredible that their fleet could small amount, and a new commander to supply be threatened; and he therefore enters into a his place, for the disorder with which he had full explanation of the causes by which its con- been for some time afflicted rendered him incadition had been impaired. Neither the ships pable of sustaining the burden of his office; nor the crews were any longer in the same and he hoped that his past services would be flourishing state in which they had been sent thought worthy of this indulgence. Whatever out The ships were growing leaky and un- their resolution might be, it must be executed.sound through the length of time that they had as soon as the season permitted in the apbeen at sea; and it was necessary to keep them'proaching spring; for the succours which the always afloat, as the enemy, who was acquaint- enemy expected from Sicily would arrive soon, ed with their weakness, had an equal, if not a. and it would demand all their vigilance and superior number always ready, and in constant alertness to stop or to get the start of those training, which he could send out at his own which were coming from Peloponnesus. time, and could refit, whenever they needed it, It belonged to the character of the Athenians at his leisure; whereas the whole Athenian not to suffer themselves to be diverted by any force was not more than sufficient to secure the obstacles from an undertaking in which they importation of provisions for the camp. The had once engaged. They had displayed this crews had been thinned and weakened by a va- tenacity of purpose on so many great occasions riety of losses. Many lives had been lost in with such a happy issue, that it had'become not the foraging parties, Which were continually merely a habit on which they prided themselves,.threatened by the enemy's cavalry; and since but a settled maxim of policy, which they had learned to regard as the foundation of their * It is with some hesitation, after considerable reflection, greatness. The gloomy picture which Nicias that we venture to give this interpretation to the words of Thucydides, vii., 8, notwithstanding the first sentence of drew of his situation and prospects, instead of the letter itself. But it seems easier, though difficult, to leading them to conclude that their present enbelieve that Nicias might use the word irtaroras for oral terprise exceeded their strength, only urged despatches, referring it, in the sense of instructions, to the them to increased exertions y voted messengers, than that Thucydides, with the meaning which to increased exertions. They voted a has hitherto been attributed to him, should have used lan- new armament, to be equipped in all respects guage which, but for the first sentence of the letter, could as he designed, but they would not forego the never have suggested any other notion than that expressed benefit of his experience, and only appoited benefit of his experience, and only appointed in our text. VOL. I.-I IT v 426 HISTORY OF GREECE. Demosthenes and Eurymedon as his colleagues, received their ordinary supplies from Eubcea. to command the forces which they decreed to Thus Decelea was in every respect peculiarly send. In the mean while, Menander and Eu- well adapted for enabling an enemy stationed thydemus, two officers who were serving under there to inflict the greatest injury on Attica, him, were invested with equal rank, to relieve and to distress the city. These were undoubthim from a part of his labours. And in the edly the advantages which had recommended depth of the winter, while Demosthenes re- the position to the eye of Alcibiades. The mained to superintend the preparation of the Spartans, perhaps, adopted his advice the more main armament, Eurymedon was sent forward readily, as the deme of Decelea was friendly with ten galleys and 120 talents, and the prom- ground; for a local tradition of services which ise of more ample succours. At the same time the Deceleans had rendered to the Twin Hethey despatched Conon, with a squadron of roes, in their expedition against Theseus, had twenty galleys, to Naupactus, to intercept the been so far respected by the Spartans, that in re-enforcements which were to proceed from their previous invasions they, had spared the Corinth and the rest of Peloponnesus to Sicily. lands of Decelea, and even honoured the DeceTransports had been prepared to convey the leans with certain privileges, which, though Peloponnesian troops, and now the Corinthians they could be seldom enjoyed, were signs of fitted out a squadron of twenty-five galleys to good will.* The fortification was soon comprotect their departure. pleted by the joint efforts of a numerous army; Early in the spring of 413 the Spartans pro- and the presence of the garrison which remainceeded to execute the design which Alcibiades ed there under the command of Agis was speed- had suggested, of occupying a permanent posi- ily attended with most of the effects which Altion in Attica. Notwithstanding'the many cibiades had predicted. The country was comdemonstrations of hostile feelings' which had pletely swept of everything valuable. The been interchanged between them and the Athe- number of the slaves who ran away to Decelea nians since the peace of Nicias, they had hith- was computed at more than 20,000, and conerto scrupled to invade Attica. They had been sisted for the most part of artisans, whose loss led to consider the ill success of their arms in was deeply felt in the Athenian manufactures. the early part of the war as the effect of the The cavalry was worn out by incessant excuranger of the gods, which they had incurred by sions to meet the enemy's fora~ys; the citizens their violation of thq Thirty Year's Truce; for scarcely rested night or day from watch and they were conscious that they had broken it, ward, for by day they took their turns, but at both by the sanction which they gave to the night all were either on the walls, or in stations Theban attack on Plateea, and by declining the where they were ready for action at a moment's offer of the Athenians to refer their differ- call. The city depended entirely on the sea for ences to arbitration, and they feared again to the supply of provisions, and their price was provoke the divine displeasure by a similar ag- raised, while money became every day scarcer, gression. The Athenians, on their part, had by the additional expense which, we learn from long abstained, notwithstanding the repeated Thucydides, attended the water carriage. Athsolicitations of their Argive allies, from making ens was reduced to the condition of a besieged a direct attack on Laconia; and the excursions town. - of their garrison at Pylus had been confined to Yet, as if her treasury had been overflowing, the west of Taygetus, a province, indeed, of and she had been unable to find employment for Sparta, but not viewed as a part of the Spartan her troops at home, at the very time that'this soil. But in the summer of 414 they had sent blockade was beginning, she sent out the seca squadron of thirty galleys to the assistance ond mighty armament destined for the reducof the Argives, whose territory was ravaged by tion of Syracuse - a city as large as Athens, a Lacedaemonian army; and the Athenian corm- and defended by the united strength of'Sicily manders had landed their troops on several and of Peloponnesus. Demosthenes left Pirepoints of the eastern coast of Laconia, and us with a fleet of sixty Attic and five Chian wasted the land; and, as the Athenians per- galleys, having on board, as the core of the sisted in rejecting the proposals of Sparta for army, twelve hundred Athenian infantry. Hq submitting their claim to a peaceful decision, waited a while at _/Egina to collect lingerers, the Spartans now felt that the wrong was alto- and then proceeded to the coast of Argolis, to, gether on the side of the enemy, and that the join a squadron of thirty galleys under Chariinvasion of Attica would only be an act of just cles, which had been sent forward to call upon retaliation. They also hoped that the appear- Argos for her contingent. After it had been ance of their army in Attica might divert the taken on board, they sailed together as far as Athenians from their purpose of sending out the Laconian Gulf opposite Cythera, and on a the great armament which they were equipping point of the Laconian coast erected a fort, to be, for the Sicilian war. Accordingly, as soon as like Pylus, a refuge for runaway Helots, and a the season permitted, Agis marched into Attica sallying place for marauding inroads into the at the head of the Peloponnesian forces, and, heart of the country. Demosthenes then pur., after ravaging the Plain of Athens, began to for- sued his voyage towards Corcyra, and Charitify Decelea. cles, leaving a garrison in the fort, returned The site chosen was strong by nature. It with his squadron, and the Argives, whom he was a steep eminence connected by a narrow landed on their own coast. ridge with the range of Parnes, about fifteen Among the levies which had been raised in miles northeast of Athens, and commanding a the winter for this expedition was a body of view of the plain down to the Saronic Gulf, and 1300 Thracian targeteers, of the independent near its foot was the road leading to the east- tribe called the Dians, who inhabited the highern coast of Bceotia, by which the Athenians' Herod., ix., 73. MYCALESSUS.-LOSS OF PLEMYRIUM. *27 lands of Rhodope. But they did not reach should advance from the Great Harbour, while Athens till Demosthenes had sailed. They had the rest sailed round'from the lesser harbour, been hired at the rate of a drachma a day, and, on the other side of the island, to join them. in the present state of the treasury, this was This double movement would, it was expected,' too heavy a charge to be incurred for any ser- distract the Athenians, and further the main vices which they might render against the ene- design of Gylippus, which was to surprise their my at Decelea. It was therefore resolved that forts on Plemyrium. The Athenians hastily they should be immediately conducted home- manned sixty. galleys,'and with twenty-five they might otherwise, perhaps, have contracted encountered those of the Syracusans in the other engagements-and Diitrephes was char- Great Harbour, while the rest sailed out to ged with this commission. That the cost of meet the other squadron. The battle began their journey might not have been entirely nearly at'the same time at both points; but thrown away, he was ordered to make use of while the Athenians in Plemyrium crowded tothem as any occasion might arise on their pas- wards the shoi to view the action, Gylippus, sage. In compliance with these instructions, who had begun"iis march from the city during he first landed them to plunder the neighbour- the night, arrived, unobserved, by the dawn of hood of Tanagra, and then, having reached day, and stormed the largest of the three forts. Chalcis in the evening, transported them in The garrisons of the two smaller ones, seeing boats across"the Euripus, and encamped for the it taken, abandoned them without resistance, night, unobserved, about two miles from the and made their escape to the shore, where Bceotian town of Mycalessus. It was a small, they and the fugitives from the great fort emquiet town, far enough both from the coast and barked in such vessels as they found at hand. the frontier to seem secure from invasion. The The sea-fight also at first inclined against the walls had been suffered to fall to decay, and Athenians. They were giving way in the Great even the gates were left open. At daybreak Harbour, and the forty-five Syracusan galleys Diitrephes and his barbarians fell upon it like a forced a passage through their opponents, and thunderbolt. No resistance appears to have sailed in. But this success threw them into been attempted; but the helplessness of the in- disorder, and exposed them, while they were habitants only inflamed the cruelty of the Thra- entangled together, to a renewed attack from cians, who, as Thucydides observes —and he the Athenians, who put all to flight, and sank looks upon it as a feature in the character of eleven galleys. Yet such a victory was in all barbarous tribes — were never more blood- itself little better than a defeat; and one much thirsty than when they felt mot secure. The more decided would not have compensated for plundering of the houses and temples was ac- the loss they suffered in the forts, which concompanied by an indiscriminate slaughter, not tained many valuable stores, and property, both only of all human beings, but of all living public and private, or for the difficulty which creatures that fell in their way; and it happen- they experienced in the introduction of supplies, ed that, at the time of the irruption,-the children now that the enemy's fleet was constantly stawere already assembled in the principal school tioned at Plemyrium to dispute the passage. of the place, where all were found and massa-'While general despondency prevailed in the cred by the savages. When at length they re- Athenian camp, the Syracusans, with heighttreated with their booty, they left Mycalessus ened confidence, despatched Agatharchus with almost a desert. They were, however, overta- a squadron of twelve galleys, one of which proken before they had proceeded far by a body of ceeded with ambassadors to Greece, while the Thebans, were deprived of their spoil, and, rest intercepted a convoy on its way from Italy though they made a good defence on their to the enemy, and destroyed most of the vesretreat, and killed one of the Bceotarchs who sels, burned a quantity of timber which had been was among their pursuers, they lost about 250 collected in the territory of Caulonia for the use lives before they regained their boats. Wheth- of the Athenians, and at Locri took on board a er Diitrephes himself was among the slain does band of heavy infantry from Thespiae which had not appear from Thucydides: Pausanias saw just arrived in one of the Peloponnesian transhis statue at Athens, which represented him as ports. On their passage home they were met pierced with arrows.* by a squadron which Nicias had stationed on About the same time that Demosthenes set the look-out, but escaped with the loss of a sinsail from Athens, Gylippus had arrived, with gle galley. In the mean while several sharp all the re-enforcements he could procure, at Syr- contests took place in the Great Harbour, where acuse, and he immediately called an assembly the Athenians attempted to destroy a stockade for the purpose of urging the Syracusans to which the Syracusans had formed for the shelman their ships, and try their strength in a sea- ter of their ships in front of the old docks. A fight. The established reputation of the Athe- great vessel of burden well guarded from the nians for nautical skill made it difficult to rouse enemy's missiles, and mounted with wooden the Syracusans to what seemed so bold an at- towers to give more effect to their own, was tempt; but the proposal was powerfully sec- moored alongside the stockade, to cover the onded by Hermocrates, though he insisted chief- operations of a number of parties in boats, which ly on the effect which their unexpected daring either forced up the piles by means of cranes would produce on the enemy; and it was final- or windlasses, or sent down divers to saw them ly adopted. Eighty ships were manned, and it in two. was concerted that five-and-thirty of them The action of Plemyrium was represented by the envoys of Syracuse at Ambracia, Corinth, * Which, according to the reading ow'w roEvl'parog, Thuc., and Sparta, in its true light, as, notwithstanding vii., 30, appear to have been employed by the pursuers. the partial failure, which in fact arose out of -the surprise which Paasanias affects (i., 23, 4) is outrageously silly.' the heat of victory, a just ground for the most HISTORY OF GREECE. vi Eerlng hopes; and they urged their allies to favourable to them. A sedition had broken out ihasten dtweir succours, which, if they arrived in not long before, in which the party adverse to time, might make an end of the war before the Athenian interest hadbeen expelled. Here, the nesw armament now expected from Athens therefore, they were induced to wait a while came to the relief of Nicias. The same tidings to collect and review their forces, and they preovertook Axurymedon as he was returning to vailed on the government of Thurii, which was join Demosthenes, after leaving the ships and now so deeply interested in their success, actreasure, witb which he had been sent out in the tively to espouse their cause. It furnished them winter, at Syrnrcuse. He found his colleagues with 700 heavy infantry and 300 bowmen. With on the coast of Acarnania, where he was col- their army thus re-enforced they marched across lecting auxilaI ies, as he had done at Zacynthus, the Thurian territory, as far as the River Hylias, Cephallenia, and Naupactus. Here they receiv- which separated it from that of Croton, while ed a visit from Conon, who had left his station the fleet moved towards the same point along at Naupactus to solicit a re-enfrcement for his the coast. But on the banks of the Hylias they squadron, which had been reduced to eighteen were met by envoys from Croton, who forbade galleys, a number with which he did not ven- them to pass through their land, and as they did ture to meet the twenty-five Corinthians, if, as not wish to provoke hostility, they marched seemed likely, they should offer battle. along the left bank to the mouth of the river, The main end of the Corinthian squadron had where they found their fleet, and embarking, been already attained; the transports had sail- moved slowly along the coast, touching at eveed from Peloponnesus with 600 men from La- ry city which they passed except Locri, to Peconia-picked Helots and Neodamodes under a tra in the territory of Rhegium, from whence it Spartan commander —300 Bceotians, and Co- only remained for themn to cross over to Sicily. rinthians, Sicyonians, and Arcadians amount- The seeming slackness of these operations ing to 700. But the Corinthians had made some might lead us to suspect that the new commandimprovements in their ships of war, which led ers were more anxious to render their armatheIn to hope for success even against a supe-. ment as formidable as they could, than concernrior Athenian force.. Conon had procured ten ed about the danger to which Nicias was in the of the fastest sailers from the great fleet, which mean while exposed. His situation would have the admirals believed they might spare, as they been still more alarming, if he had not contrived were to be re-enforced by fifteen from Corcyra; a blow which, for a time, disheartened as well and when he arrived at Naupactus, he found as weakened the enemy. After the reduction five others under Diphilus, who now took the of Plemyrium, the Syracusans had found the command of the whole thirty-three. The Co- other Sicilians more willing to aid them; and rinthians also augmented their force, so as to Agrigentum was almost the only Greek city in bring it near to an equality with the enemy, and the island that remained neutral. Their enstationed themselves in a bay off the town of voys, accompanied by one from Corinth, sucErineus in Achaia, a few miles within the gulf, ceeded in raising upward of 2000 men, and were their troops. lining the shore at either point of marching with them towards Syracuse. As Agthe crescent. They then advanced to meet the rigentum would not give them passage through Athenians, who, strong in numbers, seem not her territory, their road lay among the Sicels, to have tried the manceuvres with which in for- friendly to Athens, who, on the suggestion of mer times they had conquered greatly superior Nicias, placed an ambush in their way. They forces near the same spot. But the Corinth- fell into it, and 800 men, including the Syracuians had strengthened the bows of their galleys san envoys, were slain. The Corinthians led by solid timbers contrived for the occasion, and the remnant, about 1500, to Syracuse. And when the vessels met prow to prow, those of though about the same time a re-enforcement the Athenians, not being thus armed, were stove of 500 heavy infantry, 300 dartmen, and as in- by the shock. Seven were so disabled, yet many archers came from Camarina, and Gela none went down, and they sank three of the sent five galleys, 400 dartmen, and 200 horse, Corinthians, and kept possession of the wrecks, the recent disaster left so deep an impression which were carried by the wind out into the as to prevent the Syracusans from renewing gulf. Nevertheless, when they had sailed away their offensive operations against Nicias until to Naupactus, the Corinthians raised a trophy news arrived that Demosthenes and Eurymeas conquerors, not so much on a comparison of don were on the coast of Rhegium. Then, howthe numbers sunk and disabled, as because to ever, they resolved no longer to delay the athave come off without defeat was, in their eyes, tack which they had meditated immediately a triumph. The Athenians viewed the event after their success at Plemyrium. They had in the same light, though, when the Corinth- adopted the contrivance for strengthening the ian fleet and army had withdrawn, they crossed bows of their galleys which the Corinthians had over and erected their trophy also on the Acha- found so serviceable in the action off Erineus, an coast. and they calculated that the Athenians, penned Demosthenes- and Euraymedon, after having up in narrow room, would be unable to.per strengthened their armament with all the re- form the evolutions in which they excelled, and enforcements they could collect on the western which enabled them in the open sea to strike coast of Greece, crossed over to the southeast their enemy obliquely or on the broadside, and point of Italy, and through their interest with a would be forced to meet them, as they themchief named Artas, of the Messapian race, ob- selves, through the imperfection of their seatained a small body of Iapygian dartmen; and manship, had always been used to fight, stem to at Metapon.turn, besides 300 dartmen, they pro- stem. They had also the advantage of comcured two galleys. At Thurii, where they touch- manding the greater part of the harbour for their ed next,/they found circumstances still more own backward movements, while the enemy, ARRIVAL OF DEMOSTHENES. 429 fighting in a corner, would be unable to back rampart. Seven of their galleys were sunh water without falling into irreparable disorder. many more disabled; the loss of lives and pur When their preparations were made, Gylip- suers even exceeded the usual proportion. The pus led the main body of the Syracusan army pursuers were, however, arrested by the line or out of the city against the Athenian wall-the merchantmen; and two galleys which attempt part of their line included between Epipolae and ed to force their way through were destroyed the harbour, to which, since the heights had by the engines. They therefore retired to erect been occupied by the enemy, they seem to have their trophies - for this and the last battleconfined themselves — while the garrison of but with the confident hope of a still more deOlympieum, the cavalry, and light troops, ad- cisive and complete triumph both by sea, and vanced against the opposite side. While the lahnd. Athenians prepared to resist this double attack, Such was the state of things at Syracuse they were thrown into a new alarm by the sud- when Demosthenes and Eurymedon sailed into' den approach of the whole Syracusan fleet, of the Great Harbour to the sound of martial mueighty sail. They hastily manned seventy-five sic, with an armament no less gallantly equipgalleys, and put out to meet the enemy; but ped than that which left Athens two years bethe day passed in manceuvres which led to no fore, of seventy-three galleys, with 5000 heavy important advantage on either side, except as infantry, and, according to Plutarch, 3000 light they tended to raise the confidence of the Syra- troops. The arrival of this formidable force ~usans, who sank one or two Athenian galleys. astonished and dismayed the Sylacusans,.who, StLhe next day they did not stir; and Nicias em- when they reflected that it had left Attica ocployed this respite in inspecting the state of his cupied by an invading army, concluded that the ships and directing the necessary repairs, and resources of Athens were inexhaustible, and anchored a line of merchant vessels, at inter- were ready to give up all hopes of deliverance. vals of 200 feet, in front of the stockade which But the confidence of the Athenian commanders had been formed as an inner port for the recep- did not equal the terror which they inspired. tion of the fleet. The space now enclosed was Demosthenes, after inspecting the state of afto serve as a retreat for any galley which might fairs, perceived that the conquest of Syracuse be pressed by a pursuer, and the passages be- was still extremely doubtful. But on one point tween the merchantmen were guarded by pro- he at once made up his mind; to avoid the jecting beams, which supported heavy weights, error by which Nicias had flung away the adready to be dropped on a hostile vessel. vantage of a first impression, and the opportuThe next day, at an early hour, the Syracu- nity of completing the blockade of the place besans threatened the Athenians as before with fore the Syracusans were so far aware of their their land and sea force, but it seemed as if the danger as even to call in foreign succours. He day would again be consumed in' ineffectual saw the necessity of immediately striking X manceuvres. A pause took place at the usual blow which would either ensure their. success. meal-time, when, according to their ordinary or, if it failed, would leave no farther question practice, the Syracusan seamen would have as to the expediency of raising the siege. He landed, and have gone into the city to supply therefore proposed to make an attempt to retheir wants; but the master of a Corinthian'cover possession of Epipolae-which the Athegalley, named Aristo, suggested the plan of for- nians appear to have entirely evacuated —and cing the market-people to carry their provisions to dislodge the Syracusans from their counterdown to the seaside, so as to enable the men to work, so that the circumvallation might be resumake their purchases, and finish their meals med and completed. It was, however, thought with the least possible delay. The Athenians, advisable to make a display of their newly-reseeing the enemy retreat towards the city, con- gained superiority by marching out along the cluded that there was no more chance of an en- valley of the Anapus, which they ravaged withgagement that day, and themselves landed to out any interruption, except from the cavalry prepare their meals; but while they were thus and the light troops stationed at the Olympieum, busied, and, for the most part, before they had while the fleet rode without opposition over yet refreshed themselves, they were surprised every part of the harbour. Tle army was then to see the enemy advancing towards them, and led against the counterwork, and an attempt again embarked. A general impatience now was made to storm it in the usual manner with began to lprevail among them for bringing the the aid of machines; but the besieged poured contest to an issue, and, it would seem, was combustibles from the walls, which burned the rashly seconded by Menander and Euthydemus, engines, and the assailants, repeatedly repulsed, who were desirous of distinguishing themselves were at length forced to retire. Demosthenes ry some achievement during their temporary now protested against any farther delay, and command.*. Without attemptingany otherma- obtained the consent of his colleagues to the -.ceuvres, the two fleets met in direct conflict. plan which he seems to have meditated from The solidity of the Syracusan bows overpower- the first, and which'the open attack served at ~.d, as had been foreseen, the slighter frame of least to cover. Epipolae was guarded, not meredie enemy's galleys; the light troops on their ly by the garrison which manned the cross-wall, c.ecks galled the Athenians with their missiles;.but by three distinct camps near the city, by a and they were still more annoyed by a continual body of 600 men, who were posted higher up discharge from a multitude of boats, in which the slope, and by a fort which had been conthe Syracusans came round them, impeded the structed still nearer to the summit. There action of the oars, and picked off the seamen. seemed to be no chance of effecting the ascent After a hard struggle the Athenians were put in the presence of these forces, or of eluding to flight, and sought refuge behind their floating their vigilance in the daytime, and it was there- k Pliut., Ni~., 20. fore resolved to make the attempt by night. 430 HISTORY OF GREECE. The troops were ordered to provide themselves all could not find room in the path, many were with victuals for five days, and the masons and forced over the cliffs; and even among those carpenters to be in readiness with their tools; who reached the plain unhurt, several, who and stores were laid in, as well for the work of were newly arrived and ignorant of the counfortification as for the defence of a fortified line. try, were unable to find their way back, and After these preparations, Demosthenes, Eurym- wandered about till morning, when they were edon, and Menander, leaving their infirm col- overtaken and cut down by the enemy's horse. league in the camp, issued forth in the dead of Thucydides does not mention the number of the night with the whole army, and marched to- slain, which is stated by the later authors at wards Epipolae, to gain the top of the ridge between two and three thousand; but the shields above the enemy's posts near Euryelus. The left behind greatly exceeded the proportion of first attack, which was the most important and the lives lost. difficult, succeeded. The Athenians mounted This unexpected stroke of good fortune reunobserved, and surprised the fort; but most of vived the most sanguine hopes of the Syracuthe men made their escape, and, flying towards sans. Sicanus, one of their generals, was sent the city, gave the alarm to the corps of 600 and with fifteen galleys to Agrigentum, where the to the three camps behind them. The 600 ad- strife of parties had broken out into open viovanced to meet the enemy, but were overpow- lence, and seemed to show a prospect of gainered and put to flight; and while the main body ing its alliance for Syracuse, and Gylippus set of the assailants pressed forward to secure the out to procure fresh re-enforcements from the victory by making themselves masters of the interior. In the mean while the Athenian co*Syracusan camps, a detachment stormed the manders held a council of war with their princross-wall, and immediately began to pull it cipal officers, to deliberate on the new posture down. Gylippus had by this time formed the of their affairs. The views of Demosthenes Syracusan troops, and sallied out of his intrench- were clear, and his opinion decided. He saw ments to stop the progress of the Athenians; that every reasonable hope of conquest and vicbut as they had scarcely yet recovered from the tory was now lost, and that their position consternation of the'first surprise, the division would be growing every day more dangerous.'which was foremost gave way, and the Athe- Sickness had begun to spread widely through nians advanced, no longer apprehending resist- the camp, which, since the loss of Plemyrium, ance, to disperse the remainder. The eager- had been confined, in the most unhealthy season ness of success had produced some disorder in of the year, to the marshy ground near the their ranks, when they were suddenly charged mouth of the Anapus. The men were dejected by a very small body of Bmeotians,* who had by a series of disasters, and impatient to quit kept their ground amid the general retreat. the place. He had urged the attempt upon This unexpected shock entirely broke the Athe- Epipolae for the very purpose of deciding the nian line, and the confusion which it caused in question of going or staying. Prudence requifront rapidly spread to the rear, where some red that they should lose no time in moving had but just gained the top of the ascent, and while the sea was navigable, and their fleet others were still mounting. Now began a commanded it. The force of their armament scene which the historian is only able to ex- would be better employed against the enemy in hibit with an indistinctness corresponding to Attica: to linger at Syracuse was a mere waste its real aspect, over which a bright moon shed of lives and treasure. These were arguments a strong, but partial and misleading light. The which might have been expected to weigh with Athenians who were coming up, ignorant of Nicias more than with any of his colleagues, as what had happened, were unable to distinguish they were both congenial to his character, and their flying comrades from their pursuers. Their accorded with the opinion which he had alwatchword repeatedly passing, at iength be- ways expressed of the expedition. Yet he came known to the enemy, and served to pro- seemed now as reluctant to abandon the entertect those who fell in with a superior Athenian prise, when it had become manifestly hopeless, force; but the Syracusans keeping, in general, as he had been slow to prosecute it when he was closer together, did not betray their own. At encouraged by the fairest prospect of success. a season when friends and foes could only be He professed to shrink from the responsibility recognised by sound, the noise of so great a of raising the siege without the sanction of a multitude in a narrow space soon became so decree of the people. The judges before whom deafening as almost to drown questions and an- they would have to defend their conduct would swers. But the sounds which were most easily not be such as knew the state of the case from caught tended to increase the perplexity and their own observation, but would probably draw terror of the defeated; for in the Athenian their conclusion from the specious calumnies army were many bands of Dorian race-as the of some malevolent orator; and even the men Corcyraeans and Argives-whose paean, exactly who were now loudest in their complaints, and resembling that of the enemy, struck the ear of clamorous for departure, at Athens would change their allies as a hostile note. Hence arose re- their language, and be the foremost to charge peated conflicts, in which they turned their their generals with corruption and treachery. arms against one another. But at length they He declared that, with his knowledge of the were driven back towards the narrow pass by Athenian temper, he preferred meeting death which they had ascended the heights; and, as from the hands of the enemy, to the risk of an ignominious execution at home. But though * These Bceotians appear to have been the Thespians he did not deny that their situation was gloomy, who were brought from Locri (Thuc., vii., 25)-a part, per- that of the Syracusans was still more dishaps the smaller part, of the 300 mentioned, vii., 19. The rest were most probably in the ships which arrived later, tressing and alarting. The finances of Syravii., 50. cuse could not much longer support the enor COUNCIL OF WAR.-ECLIPSE OF THE MOON.. 431 mous expenses of the war, in which, he was opposition, and tacitly consented to a farther informed, she had already spent 2000 talents, delay. and had, besides, contracted a great debt; and During this interval Gylippus and Sicanus When once her funds began to fail for the main- returned to Syracuse. Sicanus had failed in the tenance of the foreign auxiliaries, on whom she object of his expedition: before he arrived at chiefly depended, her affairs would go rapidly Agrigentum, the party which he was sent to to ruin'. He thought it best, therefore, to wait succour had been expelled. But Gylippus had for the effect which time might produce in collected fresh re-enforcements fromi the Siciltheir favour, and not, through unseasonable ian cities, and at Selinus had found the trans parsimony, to lose a contest in which the supe- ports, with the troops which had been sent from. rior wealth of Athens gave them a sure advan- Peloponnesus in the spring. They had been tage. driven to the coast of Cyrene, had obtained two But these arguments did not exactly repre- galleys and pilots from the Cyrenaeans, and, afsent the motives by which Nicias was princi- ter aiding the Greels of the adjacent reglon in pally swayed. The danger which he now af- a war with the neighbouring barbarians, reachfected to dread from the character of the Athe- ed a Carthaginian port, from whence they crossnians was no more than he had been willing to ed over to Selinus. On the arrival of these sucbrave, when, against the judgment of his ori- cours, the Syracusans determined on renewing ginal colleagues, he proposed prematurely to their attack upon the Athenians, both by sea abandon the enterprise.* He could not serious- and land. The colleagues of Nicias now rely intend to try whether the Syracusan or the gretted their acquiescence in his wishes. The Athenian treasury might be the sooner exhaust- ravages of sickness were spreading, every day ed. But the intelligence which he had receiv- more destructively, through the armament; and, ed as to the state of Syracuse, gave him: hopes to expose it in its present enfeebled state to a that it might not be able to hold out much Ion- conflict with the enemy, who had just received ger; and as he believed that his naval supe- so considerable a re-enforcement, would have riority would enable him to retreat whenever been the height of rashness. Nicias himself at he chose, he thought the chance worth a short length opened his eyes to the danger, and addelay. He had, however, another ground of ritted the necessity of an immediate retreat. hope, which he did not disclose to his col- He only urged the policy of keeping their deleagues; there was a party in Syracuse which sign concealed from the enemy to the latest -through causes which Thucydides does not moment; and, accordingly, orders were issued, explain, but which Plutarch leads us to refer to with the utmost secrecy, for all to be in readithe overbearing character of Gylippust-was ness for departure on the first signal. The well disposed to the Athenians, had opened a preparations were completed; the hour of emsecret correspondence with Nicias, and en- barcation was near at hand; notice had been couraged him, perhaps by exaggerated accounts sent to Catana that no farther supply of provisof the public distress, to persevere. Still, he ions would be needed for the camp; the sea did not place a firm reliance on any of these ex- was open; no obstruction was threatened; pectations, and secretly wavered between them when-an eclipse of the moon took place. and his colleagues' arguments, the force of Pericles, who, from the instructions of Anwhich he clearly perceived. He was far from axagoras, had gained some more correct nobeing bent on waiting for a decree from Athens. tions of the heavenly bodies than were common But in any case he thought it prudent to con- in his time, had ventured on a similar occasion ceal the purpose of retreat from the enemy, to disregard an eclipse of the sun, and to enand therefore to oppose it in the public debate. lighten the popular ignorance by an explanation His colleagues, who could only reason upon the of its real cause;* but the nature of an eclipse ground which he professed to take, were not of the moon was still less generally understood. convinced. Demosthenes insisted that if they It was perhaps one of the misfortunes of Athwere to wait for orders from Athens, they ens that the astronomer Meton, whose authorshould at least remove their camp without de- ity might have counteracted the vulgar error, lay to Catana, where they would have a friend- did not accompany the expedition, having, acly city and a healthy country, from which they cording to one account, feigned madness to obmight make inroads into the enemy's territory, tain exemption frm the service.t There was, and an open sea, which was required for the it would seem, in the Athenian camp, no man success of their naval operations. Eurymedon who had both the knowledge and the courage concurred in this opinion, but Nicias adhered to to deny that the eclipse was an omen of evil his own with a pertinacity which, the more un- or a token of divine displeasure, and the genreasonable it appeared, tended the more to in- erals were called upon by the multitude to deduce his colleagues to suspect that he had fer their departure. Still, as, according to the some secret intelligence which afforded him received rules of Greek superstition, thiree days better grounds than those which he avowed; were commonly accounted sufficient for the preand in this uncertainty they suspended their cautions required by presages of the heavenly bodies, the interruption might not have been with that of LeoNic., 22, Byznta th language of Nicias attended with important consequences, even if with that of Leon the Byzantian, who on some like occasion had said to his fellow-citizens, I would rather you no soothsayer could have been found to declare should kill me than die with me. But Thucydides, by the -as appears to have been the opinion of those manner in whichhe distinguishes between the real and the who were most learned on such questions-that pretended motives of Nicias, seems to intimate that his Fear of the Athenians-or, as a modem author, with his for army the veiling of one of the asual candour, expresses it, his extreme horror of the pros- celestial luminaries was an auspicious sign; but. pect of living under the Athenian democracy —was a mere Nicias was deeply imbued with the religious pretext. Compare the beginnings of vii., c. 48 and 49. t Nic., 28. * Plut., Per., 35. t Plut., Nic. 13 432 HISTORY OF GREECE. prejudices of the vulgar, and, instead of in- again masters of the harbour, and determined structing the soothsayers, listened with sub- to close its entrance, so that the enemy might missive credulity to their directions. One of not elude their vigilance by secret flight. They the most intelligent among them, named StiI- immediately proceeded to connect the nearest bides, who had often exerted his influence to points of Ortygia and Plemyrium by a line of allay the general's superstitious fears, and who galleys and smaller craft, anchored with their might now have rendered an inestimable ser- broadsides to the sea, while they made active vice to his country, was lately dead. t1he men preparations for another sea-fight, should the whom Nicias consulted enjoined that the re- Athenians venture to try their fortune again. treat of the armament should' be deferred to the Nicias and Demosthenes called a council of next full moon, and he expressed his unalter- their principal officers. The order which had able resolution of complying with this response. been sent to Catana to stop the supplies had In the mean while the. Syracusans had be- never been revoked: their stock of provisions come acquainted with the object of the Athe- was low, and the communication with all fornian preparations, and were encouraged by it, eign ports was now cut off. They were in a as a tacit confession of inferiority, to more vig- situation in which they could not subsist many orous efforts. They determined to bring the days longer, and from which they could not exenemy to an engagement while he remain- tricate themselves without an extraordinary ed in a situation where the very magnitude of effort. It was determined that they should his armament, too large for the space to which abandon the greater part of their fortification it was confined, would turn to their advantage. on the side of Epipolke, and should enclose and After some days' exercise of their fleet, they fortify a space adjacent to their naval station, began by an attack on the Athenian lines, which just sufficient for the reception of the baggage led to a skirmish, in which they remained mas- and the sick; that the troops thus spared from ters of the field. Animated by this success, the defence of the walls should' be employed to they sailed out the next day with seventy-six man all the galleys they could bring into action, galleys, while their land force again advanced with which they would endeavour to force their towards the enemy's wall. The Athenians way out of the harbour, and, if they succeeded, manned eighty-six galleys, and gave battle. In make for Catana; but should they fail, they the direct shock of the two centres the Syracu- were to burn their ships, and retreat over land sans retained the superiority which they had to some friendly part of the island. gained by their mechanical contrivances, by the Accordingly,'the remains of the two armamultitude of troops which covered their decks, ments were collected, and, including some galand by their flotilla of hoats; but Eurymedon, leys which were scarcely seaworthy, amounted who commanded the Athenian right, aimed at to 110 sail; the crews were made up from the turning the enemy's left, and moved away from serviceable part of the land force, and a great the centre towards the shore. Before he could number of archers and slingers were taken on execute the manceuvre which he designed, the board. The hopes of the Athenians no longer Syracusans, victorious in the centre, turned rested on their nautical evolutions, for which against him with an overwhelming force, while there was no room in the crowded harbour, but he was pent up in a corner of the harbour, and — according to the ancient method of warfare, destroyed almost the whole of his division. He which they had long abandoned, but were now himself perished. After this blow the rest of compelled to resume-on the force which they the Athenian line was soon put to flight, and could bring upon deck; and it was their object the greater part could not even regain their to render the conflict as much as possible like a station or shelter themselves behind their row land battle. For this end they contrived.grapof merchant vessels, but were driven to the pling-irons, or iron hands, to detain the enemy's nearest points of the shore. Gylippus, seeing galleys on the first encounter, till they should this, hastened with a body of troops to the wa- be boarded and taken. When these and all ter side, where a high, firm road ran between other preparations suggested by the urgency of the sea and the Lysimelian marsh, to cut off the occasion were completed, and the men the enemy as they landed, and to aid the vic- were about to embark for the eventful struggle, tors in securing the ship]. which were run Nicias called them together to set before them aground; but as he advance in some disorder, all the motives, both of fear and of hope, that he was encountered by the Tyrrhenians, who could rouse them to the utmost stretch of exerwere stationed on this side of the Athenian tion. He reminded all, from whatever country camp, dislodged from the causeway, and forced they came, that they were on the verge of a: on to the marsh. This skirmish engaged the two' crisis which was to decide whether they should armies in a general action, in which the Athe- ever see it again. But for men who, like the nians, roused to desperate efforts by the danger Athenians and the allies with whom they had of their fleet, at length routed the enemy and shared so many vicissitudes, knew the ficklerescued their remaining galleys. The Syracu- ness of fortune and the uncertainty of war, their sans then, availing themselves of a favouring past reverses were not a ground for despondbreeze, attempted to send a fireship into the ency, and their forces were sufficient to encourmidst of the.Athenian station. In this attempt, age reasonable hopes. Their generals had taindeed, they were baffled by the skill anrd alert- ken every precaution they could devise to counness of the Athenians; but they had destroyed teract the advantage which the enemy derived eighteen galleys, with all their crews. from the narrow sea-room, from his system of After this victory they had but one remain- naval tactics, and from the increased strength ing care: to prevent the great armament, which of his vessels; and they were now prepared for a few hours before had still appeared formi- a battle which would be more like one on shore dable, from making its escape. They were now than a sea-fight. It only remained for all on LAST SEA-FIGHT. 433 ooard to do their duty. They must remember The command of the Athenian fleet was as that the land would be near from all points, signed to Demosthenes, with whom were assoand, except the small space which they might ciated Menander and Euthydemrus. Nicias reoccupy with the troops left tt guard the, camp, mained with the land force, which he drew up everywhere hostile. It must, therefore, be their outside the encampment, so as to line as much aim to keep clear of it, and when they had once of the shore as he could safely occupy, for the.grappled with an enemy's vessel, not to quit encouragement and protection of the fleet. But their hold until they had dislodged his troops he could not take his station before he had callfrom the deck, and had become masters of it. ed round him the captains of the galleys, just as It was for this purpose they had taken on board they were on the point of embarking, and had adso great a military force; and he exhorted and dressed them, in a strain of still deeper and more entreated the seamen, now that they were thus passionate earnestness, each by his name, with strongly supported, and that their ships so great- the addition of his father and his tribe, remindly outnumbered the enemy, to be no longer rlis- ing them of every distinction, hereditary or perheartened by the remembrance of their disas- sonal, that might rouse their emulation, and of ters. He bade those of them who, though aliens every tie, political, domestic, religious, of every in blood, were, by residence, language, and man- dear and every hallowed name, of wives and ners, Athenians, recollect the privileges which children, and hearths and altars, that could they enjoyed, the pride with which they had brace their courage; then, still dissatisfied with shared the glory of Athens, and once more all that he had said and done, he reluctantly disprove the superiority of their skill, as well over missed them to their posts. the enemies whom, like the Corinthians, they The Athenians began the battle with an imhad repeatedly vanquished, as over the Sicilians, petuous attack on the bar at the mouth of the who had but lately been encouraged by favour- harbour, which was guarded by a part of the able circumstances to face them for the first Syracusan fleet; the rest were disposed all time. His countrymen he reminded thatthey round the harbour, and the shore, except so far had no ships and no men at home like those as it was covered by the enemy, was lined with which were there assembled. They must con- their troops. The assailants at the first onset quer, or the enemy whom they had sought at overpowered the resistance of the squadron staSyracuse would join those whom they had left tioned near the bar, and were proceeding to in Attica, and the remaining strength of the break its fastenings, when they were interruptcommonwealth would be unable to sustain their ed by a simultaneous movement of the whole combined attacks. They might judge of the Syracusan fleet, which fell upon them from all treatment which they had to expect by their quarters, and the engagement soon became genconsciousness of the evils which they designed eral. The earnestness with which it was mainto inflict on the Syracusans. It was a crisis tained was such as had not before been display worthy of the most strenuous efforts of their ed on either side; the preceding battles might skill and valour. Not' one fleet and one army, have seemed sham-fights in comparison., Evbut the whole power, and the last hopes, and ery man, whether it was skill, or courage, or lathe great name of Athens were at stake and in bour that his post chiefly demanded, vied both their hands. with the enemy and his comrades in discharThe preparations of the Athenians were soon ging its duties, as if all depended on his own known to the enemy, and the Syracusans had exertions. But the skill of the officers and the devised the expedient of stretching a screen of zeal of the men had to contend not only with hides over the stems of their galleys, to elude the resistance of the enemy, but with the obthe grasp of the iron hands. They manned a stacles arising from the scene of the combatfleet equal to that with which they had gained the narrowest, Thucydides observes, in which their last victory; and they listened with exult- two such armaments had ever met. Innumering confidence to the exhortations of their gen- able accidents were perpetually occurring to erars, who held out to them the prospect of a cross the best-planned manceuvres; and the complete triumph over that ambitious power most judicious orders, however promptly obeywhich had threatened the liberties of Sicily and ed, might produce an effect directly opposite to of Greece. The Athenians, they were assured, the intention with which they were given. It were reduced by their late defeats to a despond- was seldom that two galleys found room and: ency proportioned to the persuasion they had time for a regular conflict. The stroke aimed before entertained of their naval superiority. at one was frequently intercepted by another, Their present Preparations were no more than which was itself engaged in flight or pursuit. the last desperate efforts of men who found their Attack and defence were completely diverted situation intolerable, and were fain to try every by unforeseen objects; and friends and foes chance of evcape. But their imitation of the were entangled and confounded together in inSyracusan Vctics would only produce irrepara- extricable disorder; during which the decks beble confusion among the crowds, unusedto the came a field of battle for the heavy-armed troops. service, with which they covered their decks; The din of so many shocks distracted the atand the number of shipswhich they had collect- tention of the combatants and drowned the ed within so narrow a space, instead of being words of command, and the noise was incieasformidable to an inferior force, would but suffer ed by a dissonant clamour of exhortation,, enthe more from its attacks. It was no longer treaty, and remonstrance: on the side of the for safety that the Syracusans were about to Athenians, as they urged one anQther to. force fight, but for revenge, the sweetest and most the outlet, through which alone they could find rightful, on an enemy who had wantonly invaded a passage home, or not to fall back from the them, and who, if he had succeeded, would have sea, which they had made their own by so many plunged them into the worst calamities of war. hard struggles, on a hostile shore; on the side VOL. I -I I' 434 HISTORY OF GREECE. of the Syracusans, as they animated each other He knew that Nicias had agents in Syracuse, to prevent the enemy's escape, or expostulated who conveyed information to him of all that with those that fled before the Athenians, whose passed there. t~ therefore sent some of his only aim was flight. The tumult of sounds was friends as soon as it grew dark, with a party of heightened by the voices of the numberless horse, to the Athenian lines. When they had spectators who lined the shore, all intent upon'approached within hearing, they sent a message the combat, all deeply affected by its vicissi- to Nicias in the name of his Syracusan parti-. tudes, but with different feelings and according. sans, bidding him beware of beginning his reto various views. As friend or foe appeared to treat that night, because the enemy were guardbe conquering in the quarter towards which their ing the roads: " it would be safer to set out afeyes were turned,, the air resounded with the ter'due preparation in the daytime." This strat cries of joy and grief, of exultation or terror, with agem succeeded; and when morning came, as prayers, and shouts, and lamentations; and, it was too late to steal a march, it was thought like men in a dream, they accompanied the mo- best to postpone their departure to the morrow, tions of their distant friends with ineffectual to allow time for collecting all that might be gestures. What were the causes which deci- useful to the men on their retreat. In the mean ded the event of the day, Thucydides only inti- while Gylippus led out the Syracusan troops to mates by-the language which he puts into the block up the passes and to guard the fords; mouth of the Syracusan generals before the bat- and the fleet, sailing up to the Athenian station, tie. Plutarch attributes great importance to the and meeting with no resistance, burned some different weapons of the light troops. In the of the ships which they found there, and carrimotion of the vessels the arrows and darts of ed off the rest in triumph to Syracuse. the Athenians did less execution than the stones On the third day after the battle the Atheniwith which the Syracusans were armed; a sug- ans began their retreat. If the recollection of gestion of Aristo, who did not survive the vic- the past, the thought of the great armament tory which he helped to gain. But at length which they left in the enemy's hands, weighed doubt and anxiety were set at rest; the Athe- down their spirits, the aspect of the present nians were seen chased by the enemy, and ma- was no; less saddening. As they quitted the king for the nearest land; and the confused camp, the sight of the unburied dead struck clamour of their comrades who witnessed the their surviving friends with pious grief and recalamity was changed for one universal wail ligious fear; but still more painful was the partof agony and despair. ing from the living, the sick and wounded, The Syracusans, masters of the sea, and be- whom they were obliged - to leave behind. lieving themselves secure on that side, did not There were few who could refrain from tears follow up their victory by an attack on the re- when they heard these unhappy men entreatmains of the enemy's fleet, but, after collecting ing to be taken along with them, and saw them the wrecks and the dead, sailed to the city, and collecting their remaining strength to detain raised their trophy.. While they were celebra- their departing comrades, or dragging their feeting their triumph, the Athenians, in whom ev- ble limbs in the rear of the army until they ery ordinary feeling was stifled by the pressure dropped down from fatigue, and could -only folof danger, instead of sending a herald to recover low it with cries of anguish and despair. It their slain, turned all their thoughts towards an was still, in appearance, a formidable host-for immediate retreat. Demosthenes, however, re- the whole multitude of all classes amounted to tained his presence of mind, and proposed to no less than forty thousand men-but its numNicias, with their remaining galleys, which were bers did not raise its confidence; it seemed to still superior in number to those of the enemy- itself not an army ready to face an enemy, but for though the Athenians had lost fifty out of a garrison making its escape from a besieged their hundred and ten, the Syracusan fleet had city. The general dejection was heightened by been reduced to fifty-to attempt at daybreak to hardships and privations, suffered or apprehendforce a passage through the bar. Nicias con- ed. The followers of the camp had almost all sented to this project; but the spirits of the men deserted; those who remained could no longer were so downcast, that the generals could not be trusted; and hence the soldier, both in the induce them to embark, and were obliged to infantry and the cavalry, was compelled to caryield to the prevailing wish of setting out on ry his own provisions-a burden which a Rotheir retreat in the course of the following night. man would not have felt, but to which the Greek Their design, as that which was most likely to was unused. But the scarcity of victuals was occur to men in their circumstances, was sus- more distressing than their weight. Amid these pected at Syracuse, and Hermocrates was de- sights and sounds of wo, the imagination was sirous of taking immediate precautions against carried back to the martial pomp, the cheering it. He urged the government to give directions crowds, the prayer and the paean of the day for drawing out their whole force, and securing when the proud armada, now to the last ship all the passes by which the enemy might re- destroyed or taken, had sailed from Athens treat. The magistrates acknowledged the wis- for the conquest of the land on which, a band dom of the proposal; but all Syracuse was now of miserable fugitives, they were seeking a reposing after.the toils of a hard day, and deep place of shelter from a victorious enemy. And in revelry, under the double pretext of celebra- still the sadness of the present spectacle, anm ting the victory, and a festival of Hercules, the bitterness of the recollections it awakened, which happened to coincide with it. It seem- were more tolerable than the thought of the ed hopeless to think of inducing men. at such a dangers which were still impending. season to interrupt their carousings for a night Nicias-whose character, like that of many march; and Hermocrates was forced to resort weak but upright men, gained strength from adto another expedient for attaining his object. versity-though himself ready to sink under the RETREAT OF THE ATHENIANS. 435 pressure of bodily and mental sufferings, exert- enemy's observation; and, goaded by necessied himself to cheer the troops with all the top- ty, the Athenians set out early the next mornics of consolation he could find, and to impart ing to make a desperate effort to storm the hopes which he could not feel. As he passed ridge. They forced their way to it, but found along the line, he raised his voice to its highest the Syracusans drawn up in deep array behind pitch, that, if possible, none might lose such the wall which they had built, and waiting to comfort as he could bestow, while he bade them receive their assault with all the advantage not to give way to despondency, and endeavour- which the higher ground gave them in the dised to extract encouragement out of the very charge of their missiles. The Athenians bradepth of their present misery. He pointed to ved this shower for a time, but the strength of his own feeble frame, and reminded them of his the position baffled their attack; a thunderonce envied fortune, for an example of one who storm, which happened during the combat, insuffered a double share of the common distress terpreted by their despondency, served to inand danger, and yet was conscious of a life crease it, and they retreated to a short distance blameless in all its dealings both towards gods for repose. While they rested, Gylippus sent and men. And, as he himself had reason con- a body of troops to block up the road by which fidently to expect deliverance from the calami- they had come with another wall; but this dety which he had not incurred by any breach of sign was frustrated by a detachment of Athenipiety or justice, so, after the disasters they had an troops, and the whole army then descended, experienced, which were sufficient to satisfy and once more encamped in the plain. The the envy and to move the pity of the gods, all next day they moved again-it would seem tomight hope for a happy turn in their affairs. wards the high ground, but scarcely with even Their situation, however, was not in itself des- a hope of reaching it-and the whole day was perate; and they might well take courage, spent in skirmishes with an enemy who dealt when they considered the formidable strength his deadly blows with perfect impunity, and of their numbers, which, wherever they went, whom they could neither overtake nor avoid. would overpower resistance and defy attack. At night they found themselves little more than Only they must observe order and vigilance on half a mile from their last encampment. their march, remembering that all was hostile The Athenian generals now saw that their ground but what they could win and keep with only chance of escape was to steal a night's the sword; and it must be prosecuted without march on the enemy, and, descending to the intermission, by day and night; for famine was coast, to follow it southward as far as the valat their heels. But let them once reach the ley of the Cacyparis, by which they hoped to country of the friendly Sicels-to whom mes- ascend into the interior, and to meet their Sicel sengers'had been sent for succours and a sup- allies. Fires were accordingly lighted in the ply of provisions-and they would be safe. The camp to deceive the enemy, and the army set present emergency was, indeed, one which call- forward. But it had scarcely begun to move, ed for all their manhood; but, when they had when the troops in the rear were seized with a passed happily through it, they might hope all panic, which disordered and delayed them so to see their homes and families, and the Athe- that they were separated by an interval of some nians to recover the great power of their city, miles from the van, which Nicias led in good which, though fallen, since it rested not on order into the Helorus road, and along it to the walls or on ships, but on men, might still be banks of the Cacyparis. Here he found a guard restored by their hands. of Syracusans employed in blocking up the pasThe army was formed in a hollow square, en- sage of the river with a wall and palisade; but, closing the baggage and the followers of the having overpowered them, instead of immedicamp. Nicias led the van, Demosthenes the ately quitting the coast, by the advice of his rear. At the ford of the Anapus, which they guides he proceeded towards the valley of the had to cross in order to ascend the valley on its Erineus. Demosthenes followed, though more right bank, they found a body of Syracusans slowly and less steadily, in the same direction.* prepared to dispute the passage with them; The Syracusans, when they found that the but, having put them to flight, they pursued enemy had slipped through their hands, broke their march on the opposite side of the river, out into violent complaints and absurd charges only molested by the enemy's cavalry and light of treachery against Gylippus; but as they had troops, which prevented them from making more no difficulty in learning the road which the futhan about five miles this day. On the morrow gitives had taken, they pursued with all speed, they advanced only half that distance, and en- and before noon came up with the division of camped in a little plain for the sake of collect- Demosthenes. Instead of pressing forward as ing all the provisions they could seize, and of they approached, he put his troops into fighting laying in a supply of water for the next part of order, and waited for their attack. But they their march, in which, for a long tract, none were soon surrounded by the enemy's cavalry, was to be found. In the mean while the Syra- and driven into a hollow place,t which proved cusans had fortified a narrow ridge between two deep ravines, which the Athenians had to * There is some obscurity in the description given by Thucydides of the movements of the two generals after cross in order to issue from the valley of the their separation; and the account in the text differs mateAnapus. But the next, day, when the retreat- rially from that which the reader may find in other histoing army resumed its march, it was so galled ries of Greece. But it seems tolerably clear that both Niby the hostile cavalry and dartmen, that it could cias and Demosthenes pursued the Helorus road, and crossed the Cacyparis at the same point; but that Demostheneg not even reach the ridge, but fell back upon the was overtaken before he reached the Erineus, which Niciplain where it had encamped the night before. as crossed late in the same day on which his colleague surBut now provisions could no longer be procured rendered. for no foraging parties could elude the The close of Polyzelus-lnoXv~ cetoc airi —Plutarch, here, for no foraging parties could elude the Nic., 27, from some Sicilian author, probably Timaus But -436 HISTORY OF GREECE. to be an olive ground enclosed by a wall, and cuse as property of the state; and he lot or commanded on two sides by an upper road. those who fell into private hands was the mildHere the Syracusans were able to ply the Athe- est. A considerable number effected their esnians with their missiles, without any danger cape; but the 300 who had fled in the night of losing a man or receiving a wound, until, were pursued and taken in the course of the seeing their strength nearly spent, Gylippus day. made a proclamation, inviting the islanders, Demosthenes, it seems, had not, any more subjects of Athens, to come over to him, on than Nicias, made terms for himself;* and the condition of retaining their liberty. Few, how- fate of the two captive generals was one of the ever, accepted this offer; and at length De- first subjects of deliberation in the Syracusan mosthenes concluded a capitulation in behalf assembly. Gylippus was desirous of carrying of all his troops, by which their lives were both of them back with him, to exhibit, as troguarantied, with an express provision against phies of his triumph, the conqueror of Sphacteevery kind of violent death, whether inflict- ria, who had done so much to injure and humed by bloodshed, chains, or hunger. On these ble Sparta, and the author of the peace to which terms 6000 men laid down their arms, and she was so deeply indebted. But the secret delivered up their money, which filled four correspondence which Nicias had opened at Syrshields. acuse, and which induced him to waste the irNicias had crossed the Erineus, and encamp- resistible opportunity of a safe retreat, seems ed on a neighbouring height; but the next day now to have proved the occasion of his destruche was overtaken by the Syracusans, who in- tion; for his Syracusan partisans, dreading formed him of the surrender of Demosthenes, that he might be led to betray them, exerted all and invited him to' accept the same conditions. their influence and arts to induce the people to He was at first incredulous, but after he had condemn him and his colleague to death. That ascertained the fact by means of a horseman the Corinthians should have been moved either whom he was permitted to send, he proposed to by resentment or fear to concur towards this the enemy that he should be suffered to retreat object, would have been more difficult to beunder an engagement that Athens would in- lieve if Thucydides had not given his sanction demnify Syracuse for the whole cost of the to the report. In either case his death filled up war, and, in the mean while, would give hosta- the measure of a singular destiny, by which the ges, a man for every talent of the stipulated reputation he had acquired by his prudence and sum. The Syracusans rejected the offer, and, fortune, his liberality and patriotism,,his strength without farther parley, encircled his troops, and as well as his weakness, all the good and the kept up an incessant discharge of missiles upon bad qualities of his mind and character, his them till the evening. In the dead of the night, talents and judgment, as well as his' credulity though nearly exhausted by wounds, toil, and and superstition, his premature timidity, his hunger, the Athenians made an attempt to es- tardy courage, his long-protracted wavering, cape; but the sound of the - Syracusan paean and his unseasonable resolution, contributed, in soon convinced them that they were observed, nearly equal degrees, to his own ruin and to the and they laid down their arms again, all but fall of his country. The historian deplores his 300 men, who went off unmolested. At day- undeserved calamity; but the fate of the thoubreak the army moved once more, harassed as sands whom he involved in his disasters was usual by the enemy, until they approached the perhaps still more pitiable. banks of a little stream, the Assinarus, which Hermocrates, it is said-and we wish to beflowed at the bottom of a deep hollow. The lieve the best' of so wise a patriott —vainly enAthenians rushed down to the water, both to deavoured to awaken a feeling of generous forslake their raging thirst, and to gain a shelter bearance in his countrymen. The decree, proon the other side from the attacks of the ene- posed by a demagogue named Diocles,T which my; but, with most, appetite was stronger than fear; and the eagerness with which all strove * According to Plutarch (Nic., 27), he attempted to kill himself before he surrendered, and was prevented by the to gratify it, turned the bed of the river into the enemy. But, unless Plutarch has been grossly careless, scene of a fatal struggle, in which numbers his author made no mention of the capitulation, which renwere trampled under foot, and suffocated by dersthestory doubtful. their comrades. The Syracusansstandingon t The statement (Plut., Nic., 28) probabij rests on the their comrades. The Syracusans, standing on evidence of Timaus, who, among other apocryphal stories, the precipitous bank, showered their weapons on related that Hermocrates sent notice to the two generals of the crowed, which, while it quenched its thirst, their doom, and that they anticipated the executioner by suicide. hardly'felt the stroke of death. But at length, t Plutlarch (Nic., 28), unless his manuscripts are in the Peloponnesians, descending into the hol- fault, writes the name Eurycles, clearly meaning the same low, began a more active massacre of the un- person. The conduct of the Syracusans towards their prisresisting foewho still struggled, not for life, oners has, as was to be expected, afforded an occasion for resisting foe, who still struggled, not for life, the usual declamation on the jealous, cruel, and faithless but with each other for a draught of the muddy temper of democratical despotism to a modern author, who and blood-stained water. Nicias, seeing that seems to have thought, or to have been willing to make his even those who escaped from this slaughter readers believe, that it was only under such a despotism that instances have ever occurred; in which terms made were overtaken and cut down by the cavalry, with an enemy by a victorious general have been disavowed surrendered to Gylippus, only requesting that by his government. The reader may perhaps remember he would put a stop to the carnage; and Gy- such cases under other forms of government, like the one mentioned in this volume, p. 303. The conduct of the Syrlippus now ordered that quarter should be given. acusans was certainly ungenerous and cruel; but the More of the prisoners were reserved by their charge of faithlessness rests on an assumption which, in the captors and sold than were carried to Syra- case of Demosthenes, is not warranted by the langitage ot Thucydides, and in that of Nicias is directly contradicted by it. The Syiacusans, according to innumerable precethe notion we have here expressed of the situation is no dents, had a clear right to deal as they thought fit with more than a conjecture, which must be left to the judgment Nicias; and it does not appear that they were bound by any of the intelligent reader. compact with Demosthenes. The same author, who think RECEPTION OF THE NEWS AT ATHENS. 437 ordered the execution of the generals, doomed the event of the Sicilian expedition as a subject the other captives, according to their condition of conversation which he supposed to be comand country, either to slavery or to'the most monly notorious;. and the barber, having hastrigorous form of imprisonment. But for the ened to the city to convey the intelligence to first two months all' were subjected to the the archons, was immediately brought before same treatment, and by their numbers aggrava- an assembly of the people, which they summonted the common misfortune. The slaughter ed to hear his report; but as he was unable to made among the troops of Nicias had been so give any account of his informer, he was put to great, and so many had been secreted by -the the rack, as the author of a false alarm, until captors, that the state prisoners, including those the truth was confirmed by other witnesses. surrendered by Demosthenes, are -computed by According to another story,* in itself not more Thucydides at little more than 7000. But all improbable, the multitude was assembled in the were confined in the same place. A vast quar- theatre, listening with unusual delight to a burry, hollowed in the side of Epipolee to a depth of lesque poem of the Thasian Hegemon, the clia hundred felt below the surface, served as a ent of Alcibiades,t which, by a singular coinciprison for the whole multitude. Here, enclosed dence, turned on the overthrow of the Giants, by the precipitous rock which precluded all pos- when the sad tidings arrived, and soon spread sibility of escape, they were exposed alternate- through the spectators; yet, though almost each ly to the direct or reflected beams of a scorch- had some private loss to bewail besides the ing sun, and to the chilly damps of the autum- public calamity, they both kept their seats and nal nights. The wants of nature'were sup- *hid their tears, that their grief might not be obplied by an allowance of bread and water so served by the foreigners present, and would not scanty as never to still the gnawings of hunger even suffer the poet to leave off. But Thucydor the burning of thirst. No greater indul- ides informs us that it was only after repeated gence was shown to the wounded and the sick; accounts had. been brought by eyewitnesses and when death put an end to their sufferings, who had escaped from the scene of action, that their unburied corpses, still adding to the ever- the people could be induced to believe the whole growing noisomeness of the crowded dungeon, extent of the catastrophe, the most signal and constantly heightened the torment of the sur- complete that had ever befallen any Grecian arvivers. At the end of seventy days their mis- mament. ery was somewhat alleviated by the diminution The first emotions of grief were accompanied of their numbers; the: greater part were then by bitter reflections on the past, under which sold as slaves:'only the Athenians and Sice- the people sought relief by throwing the blame liots were detained six months longer, and were on the orators who had counselled the ill-starred then, perhaps, disposed of in the same manner. expedition-as if it had not been impelled by its In the other parts of Sicily to which the Athe- own ambition and cupidity-and on the soothnians were carried as slaves, or wandered as sayers who had promised a happy issue-as if fugitives, they experienced milder treatment. their predictions might not have been fulfilled, Some, it is said, owed their freedom, or hospi- if it had not blindly deprived itself of the servitable shelter, to their familiarity with the works ces of the man who was best fitted for conductof their popular poet Euripides, which in Sicily ing the enterprise, or had placed less confidence were more celebrated than known. The pa- in a general who was unequal to his station. thetic strains with which they had stored their But recrimination and regret were speedily stimemory to amuse the leisure of their happier fled by the magnitude of the impending danger. days, now served as their ransom or the price The victorious enemy might soon be expected of their entertainment: a melancholy anticipa- from Sicily before Pireuis, while the Pelopontion of the period when Athens herself was to nesians prosecuted the war with renewed arbe indebted to the literary achievements of her dour and redoubled forces, both by sea and land, sons for the indulgence and protection of her aided by the revolted subjects of the commonmasters. wealth; and there were neither troops on the muster-rolls, nor ships and stores in the arse--,. b —-- I nals, to replace what had been lost. The treasury was drained, and most of the sources from CHAPTER XXVII. which it had hitherto been supplied we're now likely to fail. On every side the prospect was MTHE BEGINNING OF THE S NRUPTURE BETWEEDN THE gloomy; no less than the retrospect was painful; RTHE BEGINNING OF THE RUPTURE BETWEEN THE yet, though scarcely a ray of hope was visible, the strong heart of the people, which had susTHE news of the disaster which had befallen tained it in so many desperate conflicts, did not the Athenian arms in Sicily was no doubt sowi sink even now; and, with a spirit worthy of conveyed by many channels to Greece; but, if the best days of the Persian wars, they calmly we may believe an anecdote preserved by Plu- applied themselves to examine their wants and tarch,* it did not reach Athens until it was gen- their resources, and to prepare as well as they erally known elsewhere. He relates that a could for the new emergency. It was necessaforeigner who had landed at Pirteus, as he took ry to procure timber for the building of a new his seat in a barber's shop, happened to mention navy, to raise funds for fitting it out. The utmost vigilance was requisite to keep down the the decree, so far as it concerned the two generals, so black disposition to revolt among their allies, more that no one would have owned himself the author of it-as if such a fact could have been kept secret-with a genuine particularly in Eubca, on which their very subaristocratical feeling, is willing to believe that there might sistence might sometimes depend. The indishave been some unknown provocation, sufficient to palliate pensable service of the state demanded the rethe barbarity exercised towards the vulgar herd of the Athenian prisoners. * Nic., 30. * Chamaeleon in Athenmus, ix., p. 407. t P. 397 438 HISTORY OF GREECE. trenchment of all superfluous expenses. It going forward, Agis made an expedition northwas a juncture which called for great exertions ward from Decelea, to levy pecuniary contriand many sacrifices, and the people was ready butions on the allies of Sparta, and, suddenly for them all. As prosperity had elated it with entering the territories of the hostile CEtaeans, arrogance and presumption, and had -rendered collected a large booty, which they were fain to it passionate and headstrong, its misfortunes redeem with a sum of money. He next venmade it for a time sober, diffident, and tracta- tured on a still bolder step, which might have ble. The ordinary council was not thought served to warn those who trusted Spartan prosufficient to meet the dangers and difficulties fessions of moderation and justice. In spite of of this crisis, and a new board of elderly citizens the expostulations of the Thessalians,* he exwas created* for the special purpose of provi- acted money and hostages, whom he deposited ding for the present emergencies. Thucydides at Corinth, from the Achaeans of Phthia, and does not enter into any details on the constitu- the rest of the dependant tribes in the south of tion of this body, which, though limited to cer- Thessaly, and endeavoured to bring them over tain objects, and not designed to be permanent, to the Peloponnesian confederacy. bears the aspect of an oligarchical institution; In this affair, however, he seems to have actbut subsequent events render it probable that ed on his own discretion, though his conduct the measure may have been proposed with was apparently sanctioned by his government. views different from those which its authors So long as he commanded at Decelea, he was professed. It seems, however, to have applied in a great measure free from superintendence itself actively to the discharge of/ its proper and restraint, employed the force intrusted to functions. In the course of the ensuing winter, him according to his own judgment, and exerwhile a new fleet was on the stocks, the head- cised an almost independent authority overthe land of Sunium was fortified for the protection allies. And hence, when the general tendency of their corn-ships, and, among other economi- to revolt began to manifest itself among the cal measures, the fortress erected on the coast subjects of Athens, the first application for asof Laconia by Charicles and Demosthenes, on sistance was made to him. Euboea took the the last voyage to Sicily, was evacuated; at lead, and in the course of the winter sent an the same time the proceedings of the subject embassy to Agis, who promised support; and states were observed with jealous attention. on his demand two Spartan officers, AlcameIt was, in fact, the opinion which prevailed nes and Melanthus, were despatched from Sparthroughout Greece of the hopelessness of the ta to take the command in the island, with about condition to which Athens was reduced, that 300 neodamode troops. But while they were rendered it most alarming. It was generally at Decelea, concerting the plan of their operabelieved that she could not'hold out another tions with Agis, envoys came to him on a like summer. The states which had hitherto re- *commission from Lesbos. Their solicitations mained neutral, and had viewed the attempt were warmly seconded by the Bceotians,t who upon Sicily with apprehension for their own in- prevailed on Agis for the present to drop' the dependence, now hastened to revenge them- expedition to Eubcea, and to send Alcamenes to selves for their fears, and to share the triumph Lesbos with a squadron of twenty galleys, half of her enemies, which they supposed to be at of which they engaged to furnish themselves. harid. The allies of Sparta were eager to exert But in the mean while other embassies came themselves for the purpose of putting a speedy from the east with similar proposals to Sparta, end to the tedious and wasting struggle. Those holding out still more inviting prospects. A of Athens, or, at least, the party in each state strong party at Chios and at Erythrte was eager which was adverse to her interests, were still -to renounce the Athenian alliance; and the enmore impatient to shake off her dominion, and, voys whom they sent to Sparta for aid were measuring their prospects by their desires, were accompanied by'a still more important ambasstill more sanguine as to the certainty and near- sador from the Persian satrap Tissaphernes, ness of the event. The Spartans themselves, who had been recently appointed by Darius to with all their coolness and caution, could not the government of the maritime provinces in help sharing this confidence, which seemed to the southwest of Asia Minor, including Caria be especially justified by the naval re-enforce- and Ionia. The court of Persia saw a favoura ment which they had to expect from Sicily, and ble opportunity now offered for recovering its they prepared to make an unusually strenuous ancient dominion over the Greek cities on this effort to urge their rival's downfall, and to se- coast; and, to ensure the zealous exertions of cure their own ascendency. They sent a re- Tissaphernes for this purpose, Darius had callquisition to their allies for the fitting out of a ed upon him for the tribute due from his govfleet of a hundred galleys. Of this number, one ernment, without any abatement for that porhalf was to be furnished by themselves and the tion of it which he had hitherto been unable to Bceotians, twenty-five by each; fifteen were raise from the towns which were under the proassigned to Corinth, as many to the Phocians tection of Athens. Tissaphernes had likewise and Locrians; ten to the Arcadians, and the been ordered by his master to secure the person Achaeans of Pellene and Sicyon; Megara, Trce- of Amorges, a natural son of Pissuthnes, forzen, Epidaurus, and Hermione were to contrib- merly satrap of Ionia. Pissllthnes had rebelled ute the rest. While these preparations' were against Darius, and had for some time maintained himself against Tissaphernes and two * Under the title of rpd6ovot. There were probably other generals, who were sent against him, ten. Aristotle, Pol., vi., 5, speaks of vpd6ov~ot as an oli- chiefly with the aid of some Greek auiliaries garchical institution contrasted to the'democratical. chiefly ith the aid of some Greek auxiliaries'He is, therefore, not alluding to a case where, as at Ath- commanded by an Athenian named Lycon. The ens, the two existed together. Yet it seems probable that this innovation was designed by its authors as a step to * Compare the professions of Brasidas, Thucyd., iv., 78, farther changes of ai oligarchical tendency. p. 378. t Compare p. 346 and p. 196. NEGOTIATIONS AT SPARTA. 439 Persian generals were obliged to buy off the earthquake, which induced the government not Greek mercenaries and their leader, and then only to substitute another officer, named Chalinduced Pissuthnes to surrender himself by sol-'cideus, in the room of Melancridas, but to reemn assurances of personal safety; but when duce the numbers of the first squadron to five, he was led to court, Darius condemned him to perhaps-unless it merely served as a pretext a death of lingering torture.* Tissaphernes was for saving expense-that the malignity of the rewarded with the vacant satrapy. It was no omen, if it was not to be averted, might be doubt this treacherous cruelty that kept Amor- spent on a comparatively unimportant object. ges, son of Pissuthnes, in rebellion after his fa- All these embassies were kept carefully conther's death; and he had fortified himself in the cealed from the Athenians; and the Chian town of Iasus, on the coast of Caria, where he ministers, anxious to avoid a discovery, pressed might receive succours from Athens. Tissa- the departure of the ships early in the spring oc phernes, therefore, had many motives for wish- 412. Accordingly, three Spartans were sent to ing to deprive the Athenians of all footing in Corinth, with orders that all the ships lying Asia; and his envoy was instructed to second there, including those which Agis had prepared the application of the Chians, and to offer Per- for the expedition to Lesbos, should be transsian pay for any forces which the Peloponne- ported with all speed across the Isthmus into the sians might send to Ionia for that purpose. This Saronic Gulf, and sail to Chios: they amounted he hoped would be the first step towards an alli- in all to thirty-nine. A congress was held at ance which he aimed at concluding between his Corinth, in which the plan of operations in the master and Sparta. AEgean was more distinctly traced out. It was But at the same time'two Greeks, Calligitus, resolved that Chios should be the first object, a Megarian, and Timagoras of Cyzicus, both and that Chalcideus should command there; exiles from their native cities, arrived with and that, as soon as Chios should be sufficientproposals from Pharnabazus, the hereditary sa- ly secured, the expedition should proceed, contrap of the provinces near the Hellespont, at ducted by Alcamenes, to Lesbos; and, finally, whose court' they had sought shelter. Phar- that a squadron should sail, under the command nabazug was hostile to Athens on like grounds of Clearchus, to the Hellespont; but to divide with Tissaphernes, in respect to the tribute of the attention of the Athenians, it was ordered the Greek towns on his part of the Asiatic that twenty-one out of the thirty-nine galleys coast; and he was no less anxious for the hon- should put to sea first. The weakness of Athour of gaining the alliance of Sparta for the ens was supposed to be such that no resistance king. His agents therefore urged the Spartan would be offered to the sailing of this division, government to send a fleet to the Hellespont, and that the one left behind would be sufficient' and they brought five-and-twenty talents to de- to keep her in fear and suspense. The first fray a part of the iost. Sparta became the squadron was immediately drawn over the Isthscene of an active competition between the mus, and the Spartans and most of their allies ministers of the rival satraps. But tle cause were anxious that it should sail without delay; of Tissaphernes and the Chians was supported but the Corinthians refused to embark on this by an abler and more powerful advocate. Al- expedition before they should have celebrated cibiades, who was still residing at Sparta, had. the Isthmian festival, which was to take place private motives for desiring that the Pelopon- in May, and would not even consent to a pronesian arms should be turned towards Ionia, posal of Agis, who thought to remove this imand one of the ephors, Endius, son of Alcibiades, pediment by taking the responsibility of the voywas the hereditary ally~of his house. Through age upon himself. During the delay caused by this interest the Ionian ministers prevailed. this scruple, the Athenians heard some rumours Yet the Spartan government would not take which roused their suspicions of the Chians, any active step until they had sent an agent to and they sent Aristocrates, one of their generChios to ascertain whether the state of its navy, als, to Chios, to demand explanation and secuand its strength in other respects, corresponded rities. The mass of the people there had no with the representations of its envoys; but on intention or wish to revolt, and was entirely igreceiving'a favourable report, they admitted the norant of the negotiations which the oligarchiChians and Erythraeans into their alliance, and cal party was carrying on with Sparta!; and the engaged to support them with a squadron of enemies of Athens, though apparently the govforty galleys, to which the Chians undertook ernment was in their hands, did not venture to to add sixty of their own. Sparta herself was avow their designs, especially as they began to to furnish ten out of the forty, and they were despair of the succours they had been so long to be placed under the command of the admiral expecting from Peloponnesus. They therefore Melancridas; but before they were fitted out, sent seven galleys with Aristocrates to Athens the Spartan superstition was alarmed by an as a pledge of their loyalty. But at the Isthmian festival the Athenians, * The cnrogdc (Ctesias, 52), one of the torments in which who by virtue of the sacred truce wvere permitPersian ingenuity was so peculiarly fertile. It is said to ted to attend it, gained information which conhave been the invention of Darius himself, contrived to ease firmed their suspicions, and they immediately the royal conscience, and, at the same time, to gratify the keenest appetite for revenge. The victim was first enter- prepared to stop the passage of the Peloponnetained with a plentiful meal, and was allowed to fall asleep. sian squadron, which was ready to sail from If he then sank through a trapdoor into a pit filled with the port of Cenchreae, under the command of cinders, where he rotted and starved, this was probably held by the Magian casuists to be no fault of the king's (Va- lcamenes. They manned an equal number lerius Max., ix., 2, E. 7), and so the promise given by the of galleys, including the seven Chians, and, royal generals to Pissuthnes was not broken. The reader when the enemy appeared, retired before him may contrast this instance of good faith with the dishonourable conduct of the-Syracusans mentioned in the uotes into the 0pen sea, as to invite an engagement; p. 436 but the rbloponnesians, who had not expected 440 HISTORY OF GREECE. this challenge, did not accept it, and turned back. himself was his personal enemy, it would apThe Athenians, however, who, after the discov- pear, as we shall soon have occasion to show, eries they had just made, could not trust their for no other reason than because he was conChian allies, were well pleased for the present scious of having deeply injured him. This apto avoid a battle, and took advantage of the en- peal, whether to the judgment or the passions of emy's retreat to strengthen their squadron with the ephors, prevailed, and the five galleys were sixteen additional galleys.* With this force immediately despatched, with Chalcideus and they suddenly presented themselves when the Alcibiades, for Ionia. It was about the same Peloponnesians next ventured out, keeping time that the Peloponnesian ships which had close to the south coast of the gulf, and chased been employed in the Sicilian war, sixteen in them as far as a desert harbour, named Piraeus, number, after having been roughly handled by on the confines of the Corinthian and Epidau- an Athenian squadron of seVen-and-twenty sail, rian territories. One galley was overtaken; which had been stationed at Leucas to interand when the remaining twenty were moored cept them, made their escape, with the loss of in the harbour, they had to sustain a warm at- one, to Corinth. tack, both by sea and land, in which most of Chalcideus and Alcibiades pursued their voythem suffered great damage, and Alcamenes, age with the utmost speed, detaining all veswith some of his people, was killed. The Athe- sels that fell in their way, to prevent the news nians at length withdrew for the night, leaving of their approach from going before them. At a part of their squadron to guard the harbour, Corycus-a port in the territory of Erythrae*to a small island not far from it, and sent to where they first touched, they had an interview Athens for re-enforcements. The next day with some of their Chian partisans, who advised troops marched from Corinth and other adja- them to sail immediately to the city of Chios. cent points to protect the squadron at Piraeus; They complied; and their sudden appearance but the duty of keeping guard over it on that in the harbour struck all who were not in the desert coast seemed likely to prove so incon- secret with amazement and dismay. The Convenient, that the first inclination of the cornm- stitution of Chios appears to have been, at least manders was to get rid of it by burning the in its main elements, oligarchical. We heal ships. On second thoughts, however, they re- nothing of a popular assembly, but there was a solved to haul them up on shore, and to leave council, which, according to the preconcerted a force sufficient to protect them until some op- plan, was sitting when Chalcideus and Alcibiaportunity of escape should present itself. des arrived. They were immediately introduced But the Spartans were completely dishearten- to it; its members were probably, for the most ed when they received the tidings of this disas- part, in the plot; they were, however, made to ter. They had been apprized by a courier from believe that the five galleys were only the preAlcamenes of the sailing of the squadron from cursors of a powerful fleef, and the occurrences Cenchreae, and were on the point of sending of Piraeus had not been heard of. The council their five galleys to join it, under the command decidedifor a revolt, and the assent of the comof Chalcideus, who'was to be accompanied by monalty seems not to have been asked. EryAlcibiades; but the occurrences at Piraeus, three immediately followed the example of Chiwhich were next reported to them, seemed so os, and the like effect was produced at Clazominauspicious an omen at the outset of an expe- enae by the appearance of Chalcideus and Aldition, that they began to think of abandoning cibiades with three of their galleys. But as their-designs upon Ionia, and it required all the Clazomenae stood on an island, which still did influence of Alcibiades, with his friend Endius not seem secure from an Athenian fleet, the inand the other ephors, to counteract this prema- habitants proceeded to fortify a suburb on the ture despondency. He represented to them mainland for a refuge, if it should be needed. that their five galleys, if they sailed immediate- The revolt of Chios excited the deepest conly, would reach Chios before the disaster of the sternation at Athens, not only as the loss of other squadron was known there; and nothing the most important of all the subject states, but was necessary but the assurances which he as an indication of a spirit which might be exwould give, and which would be received with pected to break out among the rest, now that more confidence from him than from any one the greatest encouraged them by its example. else, of the weakness of Athens, and of the zeal The danger which had looked most formidable with which Sparta espoused their cause, to kin- at a distance was now actually present, and it rdle a general revolt among the Ionian cities. seemed folly to wait for any more pressing With Endius, in private, he enlarged upon the emergency before the commonwealth put forth honour which would result to his administra- all'her remaining strength and made use of her tion if, with a force sent exclusively from home, last resources. The' absurd penal clause in the he should accomplish the two great objects of decree, which forbade the proposing to employ detaching Ionia from Athens, and of uniting the thousand talents set apart at the beginning Persia in alliance with Sparta-an honour which of the war until the city should be attacked by might otherwise be earned by Agis. Agis, as a naval armament, was rescinded, and the fund king, was viewed with some degree of jealousy set at liberty. Whether it had been found pracby every ephor, and, perhaps, was more partic- ticable, after the Sicilian calamity, to observe ularly on ill terms with Endius. Alcibiades that part of the decree which directed that a hundred galleys should be kept in reserve for * It seems safer to adopt this interpretation of the words the same occasion, is not quite clear.t If such of Thucydides, viii., 10, dXage rpo'7rX7p6aavreS E7rra Kal,ptadcoKra, than with Krueger (Comment. ad'Dionys., His- * The " Corycus portus qui supra Cyssuntem (Cyssun. tor., p. 312), to strike out the words Kat rpatdKovra, though, tem portum Erythraeorum) est," mentioned by Livy, xxxvi., as he observes, they may have, crept into theAext from c. 43. 15, and if omitted, they would leave the eon!Mt perfectly * Krueger (ad Dionys., p. 311) thinks that the reserved Intelligible and probable. galleys had been employed, either in the fourth year of the ALCIBIADES AT MILETUS.-INSURRECTION AT SAMOS. 441 a navy was now in the docks, it was no doubt pointed against Amorges-and the king was to also released; and the only difficulty must have deal in like manner with all who should Jevolt been in fitting it out and manning it. Twenty from the Peloponnesian confederacy. of the galleys on the station at Piraeus were The Athenian forces were soon after strengthsent off in two divisions successively to the coast ened by the arrival of sixteen galleys under Diof Asia, eight under the command of Strombi- omedon, who, falling in with a squadron of ten chides, and afterward twelve under Thrasycles. Chians, made himself master of four of them, The seven Chian galleys were also withdrawn, with which he sailed to Samos; but the rest, the freemen on board thrown into prison, and aided by a land force, engaged Lebedos and Erae the slaves emancipated. In the room of these, in revolt. Tissaphernes also marched to Teos, others were sent to Piraeus, so as to make up and completed the destruction of its -fortificaa number equal to that of the Peloponnesian tions, which the Peloponnesians had begun. squadron confined there, and preparations were The Teians were now perfectly helpless; and made for manning thirty more. when the satrap had retreated, and Diomedon The first care of Strombichides, on reaching appeared with ten galleys, they consentedtto rethe Asiatic coast, was to prevent the revolt from ceive the Athenians on the same terms as the spreading to Teos; but he had not been long Peloponnesians. In an attempt which he next there with his little squadron, to which he had made to recover Erie he was repulsed. But duadded a Samian galley, before he was chased ring his absence an advantage, much more imback to Samos by Chalcideus, who brought with portant to Athens, though tarnished, perhaps, by him three-and-twenty from'Chios. At the same unnecessary bloodshed, was gained at Samos. time, the land force of Clazomenae and Erythrae, We have no information as to the state of having marched to Teos, began to demolish a Samos after its last unfortunate struggle with fortification which had been built by the Athe- Athens. It may, however, be safely presumed nians for the protection of the city on the land that Pericles, when he conquered the island, reside, and Stages, an officer in the service of established the democratical constitution which Tissaphernes, lent his aid to a work so favour- he had substituted for the oligarchical governable to the Persian interest. Chalcideus and ment in'his first expedition. And that democAlcibiades, when they had returned from the racy continued to subsist there down to the pepursuit of Strombichides to Chios, landed the riod at which we are now arrived, is confirmed crews of their five Laconian vessels, whom they by the hostility kept up throughout the war by armed, and left in the island for the security of the oligarchical refugees at Anaea. Still, as the their partisans,* supplying their place with Chi- island gradually recovered its prosperity, the ans, who were probably so chosen as to weak- privileged class seems also to have looked upen the disaffected party and to serve as hosta- ward, perhaps contrived to regain a part of the ges. With these, anrd twenty Chian galleys, substance of power under different forms, and they made for Miletus, where Alcibiades had probably betrayed a strong inclination to revive great interest among the leading men, by which, its ancient pretensions on the first opportunity. according to the promise he had made to End'i- That it had not yet advanced beyond this point, us, he hoped to win this important city before may. be regarded as certain, because otherwise he received any re-enforcement from Pelopon- Samos would have been among the foremost to nesus. They arrived there just in time for this revolt from Athens;* and, on the other hand, it purpose; and almost immediately after the Mi- is no less clear, that the state of parties there lesians had revolted from Athens, the united was such as to excite a high degree of mutual squadrons of Strombichides and Thrasycles, jealousy and great alarm in the Athenians, to nineteen galleys, appeared before the harbour; whom the loss of the island at this'juncture but not being admitted, they took their station would have been almost irreparable. The isat Lade. sue is very briefly related by Thucydides. The The success of Alcibiades at Miletus was im- commonalty rose against the oligarchical party, mediately followed by a treaty-the first that killed 200, sentenced twice that number to banhad yet been concluded —between Sparta and ishment, and took possession of their lands and the King' of Persia. It would seem as if the houses. It seems to have been a sudden outterms had been dictated by Tissaphernes, and break of popular feeling, if it was not an act of that Chalcideus, in his eagerness to secure so self-defence; for otherwise a time would have important an advantage for his country, adopted been.'chosen when there was a greater Athenithem without weighing their full import; for an force at hand. During the insurrection there the first clause declared, that whatever territo- were but three Athenian galleys in the harbour; ry and towns the king or his ancestors had pos- the crews, of course, took an active part with sessed, should again be his.' The allies:were to their friends in a struggle which so deeply inco-operate to prevent the Athenians from draw- volved the interest and the safety of Athens; but ing tribute, or any other benefit from the cities. there is no reason to charge them with the guilt, Revolted subjects of the king were to be treat- whatever it may have been, of the bloodshed.t ed as enemies by the Peloponnesians —a clause As this event afforded a sure pledge of the zeal-,._ _ ~ ous loyalty of the Samians, they were rewarded war, or on the occasion described by Thucydides, iii., 16 (p. 348), or in the Sicilian expedition. lf, however, they were * Krueger's grammatical proof that oligarchy was estabused on the first of'these occasions, they were probably re- lished at Samos, derived from the use of the conjunctive in stored Qr replaced. If they contributed to the armaments Tbucyd., viii., 63, f7rava-racdrr aroi a-iXot's iva s #e ALtsent to Sicily, Thucydides would probably have noticed this yapXivrat, does not seem sufficient to outweigh these archange in their destination. Yet he could scarcely have guments. spoken as he does (viii., 1) about the state of the Atheni- t It may be proper to remark that the language of Thuan navy if there had been a hundred galleys in the docks. cydides does not bear out the calumnious assertion, that be* That Alcibiades had any other view is a conjecture as fore the insurrection " intelligence was sent to the com needless as it is unsupported. mander of three Athenian triremes then at Samos." VOL. I.-K K r 442 HISTORY OF GREECE. by a decree of the Athenian assembly, which de- walls, leaving their rich fields —which were claret them independent, and they requited this adorned with all the arts of peace, and, since mark of confidence with a rigorous precaution the Persian war, had never been trodden by an against the remains of the oligarchical party, enemy —exposed to the ravages of the invaders. who were not only deprived of all political rights, This turn of affairs excited the more discontent, but, as a degraded caste, were forbidden to in- as the revolt, which was the occasion of these termarry with the plebeian families. evils, had not been approved of by the people at In the mean while the twenty Peloponnesian large; and a conspiracy was set on foot for regalleys at Pirceus had suddenly sallied out storing the sovereignty of Athens. But the against the observing squadron, defeated it, and government was apprized of this design, and sailed away with four prizes to Cenchreae, where sent for Astyochus, who was at Erythrae with they renewed their preparations for the voyage four galleys, to concert measures with him for to Ionia. They were soon after joined by As- averting the danger. tyochus, who had succeeded Melanchridas* in Late in the summer an armament of fortythe office of high admiral. It seems, however, eight ships, including some transports with 1000 that there were very few of them ready for a heavy-armed Athenians, 1500 Argives, and a long voyage; for Astyochus, who was ordered thousand from other allied states, arrived at Sato proceed to Asia, took with him no more than mos, under the command of Phrynichus, Onomfour galleys. What prevented him from using acles, and Scironides, and forthwith crossed some of those which had been long collected at over and encamped in the territory of Miletus. Corinth-whether he had secret motives for Chalcideus had fallen some time before in a haste which did not permit him to wait till they skirmish with the Athenians stationed at Lade, could be drawn across the Isthmus-Thucydi- who had landed at Panormus on the Milesian des does not inform us. But on arriving at coast. But his Peloponnesian troops, with 800 Chios, he found that Lesbos had become the Milesians and some auxiliaries furnished by Tistheatre of war. The Chians, wishing to draw saphernes, who himself brought a body of cavas many of the subjects of Athens as they could alry into the field, gave battle to the enemy.* into their revolt, and ambitious of showing what The Athenians gaied the victory, though theii they could effect without Peloponnesian suc- Argive allies, who were opposed to the Mile cours, had made an expedition, under the com- sians, and advanced tbo carelessly against an mand of Diniadas, a Laconian, with thirteen gal- enemy whom they despised, were worsted, and leys to Lesbos, according to the plan arranged lost 300 men; and as, in the end, the Milesians in the congress at Corinth. A land force, con- were driven within their walls, the Athenians sisting partly of Peloponnesian, partly of Asiat- immediately prepared to invest their city. But ic Greeks, marched at the same time, under on the same day they received intelligence of Evalas, a Spartan, to Cume, to be transported the approach of an armament composed ofthirfrom the coast of lEolis to the opposite island. ty-three Peloponnesian galleys, twenty from The appearance of the Chian squadron was im- Syracuse, and two from Selinus. The Siceliot mediately attended with the revolt of Methym- squadron was commanded by Hermocrates, na, where it left four galleys, under the com- whose persuasions had mainly induced his mand of Eubulus and of Mitylene. But here it countrymen to prosecute the war, with a view was surprised by twenty-five Athenian galleys, to the final overthrow of Athens. But the whole under Diomedon and Leon, who had recently fleet was consigned to the charge of Theramearrived with ten from Athens. All the Chian nes, a Lacedamonian, who was to deliver it up vessels in the harbour fell into their hands; to Astyochus. They first touched at the isle of and then, landing their men, after defeating the Leros, and there hearing that the Athenians enemy's land force, they stormed the city. In were before Miletus, sailed into the Bay of Iathis state the affairs of Lesbos were found by sus to gain farther information on the state of Astyochus, who arrived soon after, with his four affairs. While they were encamped for the galleys and one from Chios, at Eresus. Here night at Tichiussa, a Milesian town on this he was joined by Eubulus, who, after the cap- coast, they received a visit from Alcibiades, ture of Mitylene, had: escaped from Methymna who acquainted them with the recent battle, in with the loss of a galley. Astyochus made an which he himself had fought, and pressed them, ineffectual effort to preserve Methymna; and if they wished to save Ionia, to lose no time in when it failed, sailed back to Chios, where he succouring Miletus; and it was resolved that was joined by six galleys from the squadron at they should sail next morning to its relief. Cenchreee. Leon and Diomedon, after having Meanwhile the Athenian commanders were completely re-established the Athenian domin- informed of their movements, and deliberated ion in Lesbos, returning southward, took the on their own plan of action. Most of them were new town which the Clazomenians were forti- desirous of waiting for the enemy, and giving fying on the main over against their island, and him battle; but Phrynichus declared that he transported all whom they found there — the would never consent to expose the commonchief movers of the rebellion made their escape wealth to such a risk. They could always find -back to the island, which again submitted to opportunities enough of fighting when they had the rule of Athens. They then proceeded to ascertained the enemy's strength, and had tacarry on the war against Chios; and having ken every precaution to ensure a victory. Aflanded at several points of the coast, and de- ter the disasters they had experienced, it would feated the troops which marched against them, be prudent to avoid a battle, if they could, under they compelled the Chians to keep within their any but the most favourable circumstances; but * For it does not appear that he was deposed from his of- * The Spartan who, according to usage (see Dr. Arnold's fice, though Chalcideus was appointed to the command of Thuc., vol. ii., p. 65), succeeded Chalcideus, probably took the expedition to Chios. the command in this battle; but his name is not mentioned. TREATY BETWEEN SPARTA AND PERSIA. 443 it would be madness for a point of honour to himself seems to have been provoked, by his rush into a voluntary danger, the extent of former failure, with a strong desire torenew which they could not yet estimate. He there- the attempt. But as the Corinthians and other fore advised that they should immediately sail allies were only disheartened by the rememaway to Samos, with their wounded, and all the brance of the same event, he reluctantly reproperty which they had brought with them; turned to Chios, where he was soon after joinbut that they should not, even encumber them- ed by Pedaritus. The Lesbian malecontents, selves with their booty. From Samos, when however, did not abandon their object, but sent they had collected all their forces, they might envoys with fresh proposals to Chios, and they commence offensive operations as occasion were again warmly supported by Astyochus; might offer itself. This advice, which Thucyd- but the Chians, who felt that they had need of ides considers highly judicious, was adopted by all their forces for their own defence, were no his colleagues, and that very day they quitted longer inclined to seek a distant adventure, and Miletus, which after their victory had seemed Pedaritus peremptorily refused to concur in the to be within their grasp. Their Argive auxili- enterprise. Vexed at this rebuff, Astyochus so aries, mortified bytheir recent defeat, returned far forgot his duty and his dignity as to threaten home. The Peloponnesians arrived at Miletus that, to whatever distress the Chians might be on the morrow of their departure, and, having reduced, they should obtain no succours from stayed a day there, sailed back, with the twen- him, and then sailed away, with a few Peloponty Chian galleys, which were commanded by nesian galleys, to take the command of the arChalcideus at the time of his death, to fetch the mament at Miletus. He arrived there after masts, sails, and rigging, which they had left having very narrowly escaped falling in with when they were preparing for action at Tiehi- the Athenian squadron bound for Chios, through ussa. Tissaphernes met them there with an a false alarm of ameditated insurrection at Ery: army, and prevailed on them to sail immediate- three, which induced him to turn back to ascerly against Iasus, the stronghold of his rival, tain the truth. About the same time, a squaAmorges. At Iasus they were taken for an dron of twelve galleys, one Laconian, one SyrAthenian fleet-for no other had yet been seen acusan, and ten from Thurii, where the Pelothere-and were thus enabled the more easily ponnesian interest now prevailed again, arrived to take the place and Amorges himself alive. at Cnidus under the command of a Rhodian exThey delivered him up to Tissaphernes, and ile, Dorieus, son of Diagoras. Cnridus hiad been sacked the town, where they found great treas- induced by Tissaphernes to revolt from Athens, ures, the fruits of long prosperity. A body of and half of the galleys remained to g-aard it, mercenaries, mostly Peloponnesians, who had while the rest took their stationqat the Triopian served Amorges, was incorporated with the con- foreland, with the view of intercepting some quering armament. The town was given up to corn-ships which were known to be on their Tissaphernes, with the captive inhabitants, for way from Egypt, and probably bound for Athwhom he paid a stipulated ransom. The fleet ens. But the Athenian fleet, sailing from Sathen returned to Miletus, where Philippus was mos, captured the six galleys at Triopium, and stationed as governor, and Pedaritus was sent nearly succeeded in storming Cnidus, which' in the like capacity to Chios. was without walls, but was at length forced to In the autumn the Athenians at Samos were return, after ravaging the Cnidian territory, to re-enforced by thirty-five galleys under Char- its station at Samos. minus, Strombichides, and Euctemon, and their One of the first objects that engaged the atwhole force, which was collected at Samos, tention of Astyochus, when he came to Miletus, amounted to a hundred and four. They now was the revision of the treaty which Chalcideus determined to divide it into two squadrons, and had concluded with Tissaphernes. The Peloto send one of thirty sail, with part of the heavy ponnesians had begun to be somewhat dissatinfantry, in transports, under Strombichides, isfied with the conduct of the satrap, who, from Onomacles, and Euctemon, to Chios, while motives which we shall soon find a fitter occaseventy-four remained to command the sea and sion to explain, had made a considerable reducto carry on the war against Miletus. tion in the rate of pay which he had promised Astyochus was at Chios, busied in exacting to their seamen. Still the pay, though lowerhostages, and taking other precautions against ed, was sufficient, and regularly furnished, and the plans of the disaffected, when he heard of the plunder of Iasus was not yet expended. -the arrival of Theramenes; and, after such an The Milesians zealously contributed to all the accession to his strength, being no longer appre- demands of the war; but it was thought expehensive of insurrection at Chios, he sailed, with dient to bind Tissaphernes by articles more exa squadron of ten Chian and as many Pelopon- plicit than those of the former treaty, and a nesian galleys, to make an attempt upon Clazom- new one was framed, which provided that the enae. He first tried to persuade the partisans king should maintain all the forces he might of Athens to migrate to Daphnus, a place on send for as long as they remained in his dothe mainland, where the refugees of the oppo- minions. This seems to have been the most site party had previously settled; but when his important alteration made in the conditions of arguments, though seconded by those of Tamos, the alliance; for the clause in the first treaty the lieutenant-governor of Ionia under Tissa- which declared the king entitled to all the ter phernes, proved unavailing, he assaulted the ritories and cities which he or his ancestors town, which was unwalled; but he was, never- had ever possessed, was retained Svith a very theless, repulsed, and sailed away to Cuma. slight variation of expression. After the new Here he received an application from Lesbos, treaty was ratified, Theramenqs resigned his where the enemies of Athens wished to try the command to Astyochus, and departed; but, success of another revolution; and Astyochus venturing to cross the LEgean in a small vessel, 444 HISTORY OF GREECE. in the most dangerous season, he was lost at reached Caunus, from whence they sent to Mi. sea.* letus to apprize, Astyochus of their arrival. The Athenian squadron designed for the He immediately dropped the design of the siege of Chios, after losing three galleys in a expedition to Chios for an object which, both storm, first sailed to Lesbost to complete its on public and personal grounds, was so much preparations; and, on arriving at Chios, the more interesting to him, and proceeded southnew generals, being decidedly superior both by ward for the purpose of escorting the squadron sea and land, began to fortify a place called and his assessors to Miletus. As he passed by Delphinium, not far from the city, which was the Isle of Cos, he took advantage of a terrible both naturally strong on the land side and com- earthquake, which had recently thrown down a manded several harbours. The Chians, dis- great part of the principal city, to complete its pirited by their past defeats, and distrustful of destruction, and to spoil the islanders, who took one another-for several citizens had been put refuge in the mountains, of all their property. to death by the oligarchical government on the He had purposed to land at Cnidus for the night; charge of favouring the Athenians'-did not but when he arrived there he learned that Charventure on any attempt to interrupt the enemy's minus, the Athenian admiral,,was stationed works, but sent to Miletus for aid. Astyochus, with 20 galleys on the southeast coast, to look as he had threatened, turned a deaf ear to their out for the squadron that had just put into Caurequest, and Pedaritus, in his despatches to nus; and he was persuaded by the Cnidians to Sparta, complained of the admiral's conduct, pursue his voyage until he fell in with Charmibut was obliged to remain inactive. The loss- nus. He therefore held on his course to the es and sufferings of the Chians were greatly Isle of Syme, where the Athenians lay; and a increased by the desertion of their slaves, who, past of his fleet having been separated in a dark, as they were extraordinarily numerous, and rainy night from the rest, presented itself in the had been treated with much harshness on ac- morning alone to the view of Charminus, who count of the jealousy which their numbers in- took it for the squadron which he was seeking, spired, now that the besiegers began to en- and immediately attacked it, sank three galleys, trench themselves in a permanent position, ran and disabled some others. But his victory was away in crowds, and, by their knowledge of suddenly interrupted by the main body of the the country, were enabled most grievously to Peloponnesian fleet, which, coming up from his annoy their tnasters. As the evil grew, and rear to the scene of action, began to surround the Athenian works advanced, Pedaritus sent his small squadron. He lost six, but effected again to expostulate with Astyochus, and to his escape with the rest to Halicarnassus. Asurge him to come to the relief of Chios with tyochus returned to Cnidus, where he was joinhis whole fleet, while it was yet time to save ed by the squadron from Caunus; and the uniit, before the enemy's fortifications were com- ted armament proceeded in triumph to erect a pleted; and, as the allies began to express their trophy on Syme. Soon after it had sailed back anxiety on behalf of the Chians, the admiral's to Cnidus, the Athenian fleet also repaired to pride and resentment at length gave way, and Syme, to fetch away the naval stores which he prepared to comply with their demand. But Charminus had left there; but, though it passas he was on the point of sailing he received ed near the Peloponnesian station, no offer of advice from Caunus that a squadron of twenty- battle was made on either side. seven galleys had arrived there from Pelopon- While the Peloponnesians were refitting their nesus, with eleven Spartan commissioners on galleys at Cnidus, Tissaphernes came to confer board, who were appointed to aid him with with the Spartan commissioners on their comtheir counsels. This squadron had been fitted mon interests; and they both laid before him out at the solicitation of the two agents whom their views as to the future conduct of the war, Pharnabazus had sent to Sparta, and was pla- and remonstrated with him on some points of ced under the command of Antisthenes. The his past proceedings. Among them was Lichas, commissioners were appointed in consequence the same person whom we have met with on of the complaints of Pedaritus, and were em- other occasions,* and who on this was the powered, if they should.think fit, to remove foremost to sustain the dignity of Sparta. He Astyochus,. and to put Antisthenes in his room. alone appears to have been struck by the imporThey were also instructed to send this squa- tance of the concessions which had been made dron, or any other force which they should deem to the court of Persia in both the treaties conrequisite, to the Hellespont, under the com- cluded with Tissaphernes. If the king was mand of Clearchus. At Melos, as they cross- acknowledged to have a right to all the territoed the AXgean, they had fallen in with ten Athe- ries that his ancestors had ever ruled, it would nian galleys, and captured three of them; but, follow, he observed, that not only all the islands fearing that the rest would give notice of their of the AEgean, but Thessaly, Locris, and Bceoapproach at Samos, they shaped their course to tia must again be parts of the Persian empire; Crete, and, fetching a large compass, at length and Sparta, instead of restoring liberty to Greece, would be replacing the barbarian yoke * This seems clearly the meaning of the words aTro7rX&ov on her neck. " He could not consent to receive Iv KEAhrLt jaavIt'Era, Thuc., viii., 38, which have given the Persian pay for their troops on such terms. rise to various conjectures, as may be seen in Dr. Arnold's note.'Aqavi;o is the word commonly used on such occasions, meaning simply to sink or drown. So Xenophon, must cease." It is not clear that the inferenHell., i., 6, 38, KaXKKpariLas'7rromreav Is rOv NSXarrav ces pointed out by Lichas were contemplated tavrene. Elian, v. IH., xii., 61, B0fppas-T)-v clvatltv by either party at the making of the treaty; but artU rei7)V VavrTLKjV- )'ffkdVitV. t Yet Dobree's difficulty is not removed by Dr. Arnold's his remark rendered some declaration necessaobservation on Thuc., viii., 34. It is far from clear why ry. Tissaphernes would neither alter nor exthe Athenians should have gone to Lesbos for building- tools, instead of bringing them from Samos. * P. 400, 404. AGIS AND ALCIBIADES. 445 plain the obnoxious clause, and broke off the ly by the flexibility with which he adapted himconference with signs of indignant anger. It self to the national character and habits, he is certainly possible that he may have been re- does not seem to have gained any friends, and ally irritated by the observation of Lichas, hay- he made at least one implacable enemy in King ing hoped to gratify the pride of his master by Agis. Thucydides only mentions the fact, withobtaining a nominal admission of antiquated pre- out explaining the cause of his animosity. One tensions without giving offence to the'Greeks. quite adequate, and perfectly probable, is asBut his character renders it more probable that signed by later writers,* who relate that Agis if lie had felt any anger, he would rot have be- suspected Alcibiades of having dishonoured his trayed it, and that the emotion he displayed was queen Timiea. The silence of Thucydides on a mere pretext for abruptly terminating an in- a point of this nature cannot cast any doubt on terview which did not promise him any advan- the story; and si ce it is certain that Agis was tage. convinced of his vife's infidelity, it would be ar. The issue of this scene disposed the Pelopon- absurd stretch of incredulity to doubt that ho nesians the more Readily to receive overtures believed Alcibiades to be her paramour. Whethwhich, about this time, were made to them by er his jealousy was well founded is a different some of the principal Rhodians, who desired to question; but the character of Alcibiades renbreak, off their connexion with Athens. The ders it very credible that he should have engaaccession of this great and flourishing island to ged in such an intrigue, less perhaps under the the Spartan confederacy would open a prospect impulse of passion than of vanity,t ambitious, of re-enforcements for their fleet, and of sup- as he is reported to have avowed, of giving a plies which might enable them to maintain it king to Sparta. Timnea's fondness for him is without the aid of Tissaphernes. They there- said to have been carried to such an excess fore sailed from Cnidus with ninety-four gal- that, in her private apartments, among her feleys, and suddenly appeared before Camirus. male attendants, she called her infant son LeoThe greater part of the inhabitants, who knew tychides by his name. Agis had no difficulty nothing of the invitation on which they had in finding instruments for his revenge. The come, were terrified at the sight of this formi- success and influence of Alcibiades among the dable armament, espedially as their town was Asiatic Greeks, though immediately subservient not fortified, and fled. The Spartans, however, to the interest of Sparta; were of themselves called a meeting, which was attended by their sufficient to awaken the jealousy of the governpartisans who remdined in Camirus, and by ment, as well as the envy of many leading indeputations from the two other principal towns dividuals. The suggestions of Agis probably of the island, Lindus and Ialysus, and which contributed towards representing him as a dandecided on revolt. The Athenians at Samos gerous person, whom it was necessary for the heard a little too late of the danger, and though public safety to put out of the way. The great they sailed to Rhodes without delay, they found armament under Theramenes seemed to afford it in the enemy's power. Henceforth it be- full security; and orders were sent, eitherfwith came a principal object of their operations; it or soon after, to Astyochus, to despatch Albut, as it was able to defend itself against their cibiades. According to one account, he was attacks, the Peloponnesians, having levied a warned of his danger by Timsa; he at least sum of about two-and-thirty talents from the received timely notice of it, and henceforth did Rhodians, laid up their fleet for the rest of the not again put himself in the power of the Sparwinter. tans, but attmched himself wholly to the court of Tissaphernes. The treachery of the Spartan government, if it did not strongly rouse his resentment, so alCHAPTER XXVIII. tered his position as to compel him to adopt a new course. It was no longer with the aid of FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE RUPTURE BETWEEN Sparta, but in spite of her hostility, that he THE SPARTANS AND ALCIBIADES TO THE OVERcould hope to overthrow his enemies, and to reTHROW OF THIE FOUR HUNDRED AT ATHENS, AND cover his station at Athens; and the safety of THE RESTORATION OF ALCIBIADES. THE RESTORATION OF ciBIADES. his country became indissolubly linked with his. IN the interval between the battle of Miletus own. But though the same motive now induand the interview of Tissaphernes with the ced him to thwart the Peloponnesians, which Spartan commissioners at Cnidus, some trans- had hitherto engaged him in their service, he actions had taken place which were pregnant was also desirous that.the Athenians, before with very important changes, and gave a sin- they received his assistance, should feel their gular complexity to the affairs of the contend- need of him, and should look up to him as a powing parties. Alcibiades, as we have seen, not erful benefactor. Both these objects he hoped only fought against his countrymen at Miletus, to accomplish through the favour of Tissapherbut exerted himself with great apparent ear- nes. He easily insinuated himself into the sanestness and activity to deprive them of the trap's good grace, by those arts of flattery in fruits of their victory. Up to this moment there which he was so profound a master, as not to is no reasan to doubt that he was seriously bent fear competition even with an Oriental courtier. on serving the cause of the Peloponnesians, as Tissaphernes was so much delighted with his that which was the sole foundation of his am- society, that he is said to have given the name bitious or vindictive hopes. But henceforth his *1 Justin, v., 2. Plutarch, Ale., 23. conduct was entirely changed, and his views t So our Buckingham-whose character in many points appear to have taken an opposite direction. resembled that of Alcibiades-during his embassy in France, Though he had attracted great admiration at as clarendonrsays, "had the ambition to fix his eyes upon, and to dedicate his most violent affection to, a lady of avery Sparta by his talents and address, and especial- sublime quality." 446 HISTORY OF GREECE. of Alcibiades to his favourite park. But for the des now moderated his eagerness by pointing purpose of gaining his patron's confidence, so out to him a new and greater danger, with as to make him the instrument of his own de- which the king would be threatened, if the same signs, Alcibiades well knew that something state should acquire the ascendency in Greece more was requisite than to minister to the both by sea and land. So long as Greece was amusements of his leisure hours; It was not a divided between two rival powers, neither could conformity of taste and habits, but of interest, ever be formidable to the king, who might althat could effect a solid union between them. ways turn the arms of the one against the othIt was therefore his aim to draw Tissaphernes er. But if the empire of the sea should be uniinto the train of measures which he had plan- ted to that of the land, he might be brought into ned for his own ends, by representing it as in- an immediate and hazardous struggle with the dispensable to his safety and prosperity. single mistress of Greece. It was both cheaper The first step was not difficult. He counsel- and safer to let the Greeks grind each other led Tissaphernes to contract the supplies which down in a protracted conflict. If, however, it he had hitherto furnished for the maintenance was necessary to side with either party, the of the Peloponnesian fleet; and this advice was king's interests were less at variance with those too congenial to the satrap's avarice not to be of Athens than with her rival's. Her views readily adopted. It was at the instigation of were mainly directed to the establishment of Alcibiades that he reduced the pay of the sea- her maritime dominion; and for the sake of semen from a drachma a day, first to three fifths, curing it, she would probably be willing to reand then to one half of that amount, and be- sign the sovereignty of the Asiatic Greeks to came gradually less and less punctual in his dis- the king; whereas the Spartans professed thembursements.* His counsellor likewise prompt- selves the champions of Grecian liberty and ined him with arguments to meet the remonstran- dependence, and, therefore, if they were victoces of the Peloponnesians, instructing Nim to rious in their contest with Athens, could not plead the example of the Athenians, who, from consistently suffer the Greek colonies in Asia motives not of parsimony, but of policy, for the to remain subject to the Persian empire. It preservation of temperance and discipline in should therefore be the object of Tissaphernes their fleets, allowed their sailors only half a first to extort what concessions he could from drachma a day; and he suggested to him that the Athenians, and then to rid himself of the a small sum of money, judiciously distributed Peloponnesians. among the commanders of the allied forces, These suggestions sank deep in the mind of would silence their complaints; and, in fact, Tissaphernes, whose temper and capacity they none but Hermocrates was able to withstand exactly suited. He appears to have dismissed this bait. He himself undertook, in the satrap's all intentions of bringing his Phcenician fleet name, to answer the applications which were into the _AEgean, and to have resolved to use it made to him by the revolted cities for pecunia- only as a pretext for keeping the Peloponnery aid. The Chians he dismissed with a sharp sians inactive, by the constant expectation of rebuke: " Wealthy as they were, they ought to being soon joined by a force which would overbe ashamed of calling upon others, not only to whelm the enemy, until the strength of their risk their lives, but to spend their resources, for navy was wasted, while the most favourable the defence of their liberty." The others he opportunities were lost. He admitted Alcibiaadmonished that it was only reasonable they des to his most confidential intimacy, and Alcibshould contribute as much, at least, if not more, iades, it may be supposed, did not fail to make for the protection of their independence, as they the most public display of the footing which he had heretofore paid to the Athenians. For all, had gained in the satrap's favour. The report there was one specious pretext to cover the re- of his potent influence, perhaps somewhat exjection of their demands. "Tissaphernes was aggerated, reached the Athenian camp at Saobliged to' use a strict economy, so long as he mos, and produced such an effect there, that he carried on the war with his private funds; he now thought it time to intimate to some of the would be both just and liberal, whenever he re- leading men that his resentment was not imceived a sufficient supply of treasure from the placable,' and that he would be no less willing king." than able to render the most important services But at the same time he endeavoured to im- to his country,.if he might depend on returning press Tissaphernes with a view of.the war, and to it with safety; but that he could not feel seof his own relation to the belligerents, different cure so long as the government was in the hands from that which he had hitherto taken. Tissa- of the same violent democratical party which phernes had hitherto been sincerely anxious to had driven him into exile. The persons to overthrow the power of Athens, which he had whom this message was sent eagerly caught been used to consider as the only enemy that at the prospect which it held out, that Alcibiahis master had to fear in the west, and he had des would lend his aid towards overthrowing been preparing to bring a great armament from the Constitution, and establishing an oligarchy, Phcenicia to aid the Peloponnesians. Alcibia- An which they would be among the principal'members. The burdens to which the wealthier i Krueger (Comment. ad Dionys., p. 354) seems to have citizens were subjected since the Sicilian disasquite bewildered himself in his account of these transac- ter, added to their ordinary causes of discontent, tions. He has not observed that Thucydides, c. 45, clearly had worn out the patience of many, and dispoascribes the first reduction of the payto the influence of Al- sed them to desire a revolution at any cost, cibiades. He therefore resorts to conjectures equally unnecessary and improbable: that Tissaphernes made an addi- even at the risk of sacrificing the independence tion out of his own coffers to the pay allowed by the king, of the state. They were, therefore, delighted so as to raise it to a drachma a day, which he then cut with overtures which promised to gratify their dowrn to one half by the advice of Alcibiades,; or that the wordc:ivridpaXypg'Ar'?KIK are an interuolation. chief wish, and by means which, at the same TREACHERY OF PHRYNICHUS. 447 time, might enable them to overcome their for- chus as to the designs of Alcibiades; and there eign enemies. Some of them crossed over to can be no;doubt that he would have preferred the continent, and had an interview with Alcib- any form-of democracy to the kind of oligarchy iades, which confirmed their hopes and quick- which his new friends wished to establish. ened their resolution. Let democracy be abol-; But he seems to have had two motives for proished at Atnens, and he engaged to put them fessing himself hostile to the existing constitu-.upon good terms, first with Tissaphernes, and tion. He might expect that the first attempt then with the king, who would be more inclined made to subvert it would involve the ruin of to trust them under a different government. Androcies and other demagogues,'his personal On their return to Samos, they mustered their enemies, who, as long as they retained their friends and concerted their measures, which influence, would stand in the way of his recall; embraced not only Athens, but the subject and he might think that the condition which he states, in which they proposed to bring about a attached to his offers, while it rendered them similar revolution; and. they now ventured pub- the more plausible, might serve as a colour for licly to announce the offers of Alcibiades, with evasion and delay. Perhaps, as the final result, the condition annexed to them. The great body he anticipated a contest between two factions, of the citizens in the fleet, startled by the sac- in which he might be umpire, and might carry rifice required from them, but attracted by the away the stake. advantages of the Persian alliance, which would But the oligarchical party at Samos, king supply the deficiencies of their own exhausted their wishes the measure of probability, ~..hted treasury, remained in a state of suspense, which the warnings of Phrynichus, adhered to their was interpreted by the authors of the project first resolution, and sent a deputation to Athens as acquiescence. Having made this first and headed by Pisander, one of the persons who most critical step, they again held a private had been most active in keeping up the public meeting of their adherents,' and took the propo- alarm in the affair of the Hermes busts, to nesals of Alcibiades into more mature considera- gotiate for the recall of4lcibiades, the abolition tion. No objection was offered by any one pres- of democratical institutions, and alliance with ent, except by Phrynichus the general, an un- Persia. Phrynichus now began to think hie principled but sharpsighted adventurer, who de- own position dangerous; he foresaw that, if dared that he placed no confidence either in the Alcibiades should be restored, he should be ex intentions of Alcibiades, or in his ability to ful- posed to his fiercest resentment, as the man fil his promises, and that their whole scheme who alone had endeavoured to thwart his views; appeared to him big with dangers which they he therefore determined to strike the first blow. had not sufficiently weighed. He could not be- He sent a letter to Astyochus, informing him lieve that Alcibiades was at heart more friendly of the injury that Alcibiades was doing to the to oligarchy than to democracy, or that he de- Peloponnesian cause, and of the attempts he sired any other revolution than one which would was making to gain Tissaphernes for Athens, enable his partisans to bring him back in tri- adding an excuse or explanation of his own umph; and they must be on their guard that treachery. But Astyochus had neither the he did not involve them in a civil war. On the means nor the will to serve the wishes of other hand, it seemed incredible that the king Phrynichus. Alcibiades, after the warning he could ever be persuaded to expose himself to had received, no longer put himself in the power the enmity of the Peloponnesians, who were of the Spartans, and Astyochus, as clearly apnow formidable at sea, and masters of several pears from the sequel, had sold himself to Tisimportant cities in his dominions, for the sake saphernes. He repaired to Magnesia, where of the Athenians, whom he could not trust. the satrap was residing, and communicated the Their plan of establishing oligarchical govern- contents of the letter to him and Alcibiades. ment in the subject states would, he was con- Alcibiades immediately wrote to the principal vinced, be attended with consequences which officers at Samos, complaining of the treason they did not expect. Instead of inducing the of Phrynichus, and demanding that he should revolted towns to submit to their authority, it be put to death. On this occasion, Phrynichus would encourage the others to rebel. What blinded, perhaps, by his fears, seems to have their subjects wanted was not a change in their been deserted by his wonted sagacity, unless constitution, but independence; and if they were we should suppose his conduct the result of a forced to continue under Athenian sovereignty, very bold as well as subtle artifice. He again they would prefer the rule of the Athenian peo- wrote to Astyochus, intimating no suspicion of ple to that of an oligarchy, which they knew by his breach of secrecy, but only complaining of experience to be far more oppressive. It was his want of caution, and offered to betray the by the very persons who would take the lead Athenian armament into his hands, with the in an oligarchical government that they were town of Samos, which, like most of the others plundered and trampled on, and it was to the in Ionia, was unfortified, minutely describing people alone that they looked for protection, all the particulars of the plan. Astyochus bewhen their property or their persons were trayed this letter also to Alcibiades, who sent a threatened with violence.' If the supreme pow- fresh charge against Phrynichus to Samos. er should fall into the hands of their oppressors, But, before his despatch arrived there, Phrynithey would have no refuge left. chus-who had either discovered or foreseen These reflections do, indeed, give us a still the behaviour of Astyochus-announced that higher opinion of the sagacity and judgment of the enemy, as he had been informed on good Phrynichus than the circumspection which he authority, was preparing to take advantage of displayed, on a former occasion, in his military the weakness of the town and of the absence character. Thucydides adds the sanction of of a part of the fleet, and to surprise their enhis own authority to the conjecture of Phryni- campment; and that no time should be lost in 448 HISTORY OF GREECE. fortifying Samos and taking other precautions; object. for which these changes are to be made." and he immediately gave his orders as general Urged by the apparent necessity of the case, to the same effect. After this, the letter of Al- and soothed by the hope of resuming its con cibiades, which confirmed his information as to cessions, the people yielded, and passed a de-' the enemy's designs, was not only harmless, cree, by which Pisander and ten other commisbut seemed to prove that both the charges were sioners were invested with full powers to negomalicious fabrications. Alcibiades now labour- tiate with Tissaphernes and Alcibiades. Pied still more earnestly to convince Tissaphernes sander, at the same time, wishing to get rid of of the policy of siding with Athens; and the Phrynichus, imputed the fall of Iasus to his conference at Cnidus, which showed that he treachery. He and Scironides, one of his colhad judged rightly of the temper and views of leagues, were recalled, and Leon and Diomedon Sparta, added fresh weight to his arguments. were sent to supply their place. The satrap's inclination now tended this way; Pisander neither had fully disclosed the naand he was only restrained from yielding to it ture of the political changes which he had in by his fear of the Peloponnesians, whose naval view, nor did he mean to rely on the consent of superiority made it dangerous to provoke them.* the people for bringing them about; he had In the mean while Pisander and his colleagues more convenient instruments at his command. executed their commission at Athens with great In most of the Greek states the ambition of insucci s. In the popular assembly he exhibited dividuals, or the conflict of parties, had given the. Ibspect which was now opened of over- rise to a number of private associations, for coming the Peloponnesians with the aid of Per- purposes either wholly or mainly political, some sia, and stated the terms on which this benefit attached to a single leader, others united by was to be purchased; that the decree against the common interests of the members. These Alcibiades must first be repealed, and that some clubs were of long standing at Athens. Cimon changes must be made in the Constitution. Pi- had formed one, which rallied round him as its sadnder had to encounte a vehement opposition centre, attracted not more, perhaps, by his forboth from the ardent friends of democracy and tune and abilities than by his principles, shared from the personal enemies of Alcibiades. He the reproach which he incurred by his partiality probably had some in the great priestly families, for Sparta, and proved its devotedness to his the Eumolpids and Ceryces, which filled the person at the battle of Tanagra. It seems to most important offices in the Eleusinian mys- have been by means of a similar union that teries. They endeavoured to alarm the super- Thucydides, the rival of Pericles, endeavoured stition of the people, while others appealed to to collect and guide the strength of the aristoits pride, and exclaimed against the indignity cratical party. It was so, perhaps, that Nicias of making a way for the return of Alcibiades on and Alcibiades had been enabled to defeat the the ruin of the laws. But the main point had attempt of Hyperbolus. It was on his combeen already gained, when the public spirit was mand over such associations that Alcibiades brought down to a state in which it could tol- relied for the, accomplishment of his ambitious erate such a proposal, though cautiously worded, designs. But there appear to have been many so as to leave it doubtful what parts of its insti- political clubs at Athens which did not acknowltutions the people would be required to sacri- edge any chief, but merely aimed at certain obfice. Pisander felt the strong ground on which jects in which all the members were equally he stood, and was not moved either by the in- concerned. The defective administration of dignant protestations of the demagogues, or by justice exposed unprotected individuals to vexthe solemn adjurations of the priests, but calm- ation and wrong, but enabled a number who ly called on his opponents to answer a plain combined their fortunes and credit the more question. He successively interrogated each easily to shield each other, or to strike a comof them, whether he saw any hope of safety for mon enemy. Another end for which such the commonwealth, now that the Peloponne- coalitions were formed, was to control the elecsians had raised a navy at least as powerful as tions for offices of trust and power, either with their own, which was maintained by Persian a view to self-defence, or to the extension of gold, and were masters of more cities than re- their influence. In every case both the object mained attached to the Athenian confederacy, and the means, if not positively illegal, were unless the king could be brought over to their such as the law did not recognise; the mutual side. None ventured to reply in the affirmative, attachment of the associates was stronger than and Pisander triumphantly concluded, "The only the ties by which they were bound to the state, way.of gaining this ally is to temper our Consti- and even than those of blood; and the law of tution, and to fill the chief offices of the state in honour which generally prevailed among them such a manner that he may be able, to trust us; required that they should shrink from no sacrithis is not a time to discuss forms of govern- fice and from no crime which the common in ment, but to provide for the public safety. If terest might demand. These associations, the innovations that may be expedient for the therefore, were hotbeds of seditious and revolupresent should not satisfy us, they may be here- tionary projects, and Pisander found it easy to after revised. Alcibiades must be restored; engage, them on his side; and before he left for he is the only man who can accomplish the Athens, he had organized an extensive conspiracy among them for the immediate subversion * This appears to be the meaning of Thucydides, viii., 52, of the democratical government. and not to be improperly or harshly expressed according to Leon and Diomedon arrived off the coast of the reading 7retasi'vat. According to the reading urcui- Asia before him to tak the command of the fleet, vat, which Krueger prefers, the views attributed to Tissa- a before him to take the command of the fleet, phernes; whether it was the confidence of Alcibiades or and soon after sailed to Rhodes to inspect the that of the Athenians that he is supposed to desire to gain, enemy's condition. They found the Peloponwould, even if in themselves probable, be much snore ob- fleet still laid scurely intimated. nesan up, but made a landing on TREATY BETWEEN SPARTA AND PERSIA. 449 the island, and gained a victory over the troops interview. He saw that the policy he had which marched against them, and then station- adopted required that he should open his coffers ed themselves at Chalce to watch the move- to them; that without a supply of money they ments of the enemy, and to seize all occasions could not maintain their fleet, or would be comof annoying him. While they were here Peda- pelled to hazard a battle on disadvantageous ritus sent to Rhodes to announce that the Athe- terms with the Athenians; in either case the nians had completed their works, and that Chios balance which he wished to preserve would be could only be saved by the immediate succour lost. There was, however, besides, a danger to of the whole Peloponnesian armament; but be- apprehend, which still more nearly concerned fore it could move to his relief, collecting all him. Urged by their need, and irritated by his his land forces, he made a sudden attack on the conduct, they might easily be tempted to seize enemy's naval camp, and succeeded in storm- by force what he withheld from them, and ing it, and in taking some of their galleys which at once to satisfy their wants and their venwere hauled up there; but the Athenians soon geance by plundering and ravaging his province. brought up their main body, and an action en- Yet, after the conference at Cnidus, they could sued, in which he was defeated and slain. The not accept his subsidies until a new treaty had siege now became closer than before, both by been concluded, on terms which would remove sea and land, and the Chians began to suffer the objections of Lichas. All, therefore, he greatly from hunger. could attempt was to save his master's dignity About the same time, Pisander and his col- as far as possible, and to elude the jealousy of leagues arrived, and opened the negotiation Sparta by vague and ambiguous language. with which they were intrusted, and which Al- These objects he seems to have accomplish cibiades conducted on behalf of Tissaphernes. ed in a third treaty, dated from the plain of the But affairs were no longer in the state in which Maeander, but ratified, it would appear, by the Pisander had left them, when he was deputed governors of all the western maritime provinces by the oligarchical party at Samos to Athens. of Persia; for besides Tissaphernes, the sons of Tissaphernes was then, in appearance at least, Pharnaces, the father of Pharnabazus, are menwavering between the two bclligerants, but in- tioned as parties, with a personage named Hieclined to espouse the cause of the Athenians. ramanes, probably the same who is elsewhere His, however, was a character in which fear said to have married a sister of Darius. In predominated over every other impulse, and he this treaty, the article which had before given had soon abandoned all thoughts of the more offence was so limited as to imply nothing inhazardous course which had been last suggest- consistent with the independence of the Euroed by Alcibiades, which would -have involved pean Greeks, but yet so as not to renounce any him in a contest with the Peloponnesians, and claim that the Persian king had ever advanced, recurred to the plan, which, when it was first and distinctly enough, though in a singular proposed to him, he had adopted with entire ap- form, to recognise his right to the sovereignty probation, of letting both powers waste them- of the Asiatic colonies. It declared that the selves in a protracted conflict with each other. king's country, so far as it lay in Asia, belonged Alcibiades saw that he could not hope to lead to the king-language which could have no the satrap beyond the line of neutrality, and meaning unless it referred to districts which had therefore to devise a scheme for saving his had for a time ceased to be subject to him in credit, and extricating himself from his engage- fact, and in this sense it seems to have been ments. He determined to force the Athenians understood by all parties. A more explicit stipthemselves to break off the negotiations by ulation than was contained in either of the making demands which it was impossible for preceding treaties as to the maintenance of them to grant; and Tissaphernes thought it the Peloponnesian fleet was introduced into prudent to mask his intentions, and to leave a this, though with reference to a previous comdoor open for a future accommodation, and was pact, the terms of which are not stated. Tistherefore willing that they should seem to have saphernes engages to furnish pay for the ships rejected his overtures. The conferences were which had been sent from Peloponnesus, acheld in his presence, and Alcibiades, who spoke cording to the original contract,* until those for him, advanced in his demands as the Athe- which the king was fitting out should arrive. nian commissioners gave way. He was hardly After that the Peloponnesians must either mainprepared for. the full extent of their compliance. tain their own armament, or consider all the Even when he exacted the cession of all Ionia supplies which they receive for that purpose and of the adjacent islands, he found them still from Tissaphernes, though he bound himself to yielding; but when, in a third interview, he advance them, as a loan to be repaid at the end required that the king should be at liberty to of the war, which was to be carried on in conkeep as many ships as he would on the sea, cert by the two allied fleets. As soon as this and to send them in any direction along his treaty was concluded, Tissaphernes executed own coasts, the patience of the commissioners one part of its conditions by an immediate paywas exhausted. This seemed equivalent to ment,t and assumed the appearance of actively an abdication of the maritime sovereignty of. Athens; and being now convinced that Alcib- * Xipav Tnri faoalSto, ari T7il'Aalas blar,',3aCizos iades was trifling with them, they indignantly elvat. Thuc., viii.7 58. put an end to the negotiation, and returned to t Karr TA lVypcetvEa. Itisnotclearwhetherthisrelers Samos. to the rate of pay, or only to the general undertaking mentioned, viii., 5, nnrt(veT0ro rpotiiOv rapintv. The rate of pay Having thus broken with the Athenians, Tis- specified at Sparta appears, from viii., 29, to have been a saphernes made it his next care to soothe the drachma a day; but it seems that after the third treatywith Tissaphernes the Peloponnesians contented themselves with the ordinary allowance: for Xenophon, Hell., 1., 5, 5, speaks to Caunus, and invited their commanders to an of a contract by which the king had engaged to give half a VOL. I.- L L 450 HISTORY OF GREECE. preparing to bring up the great Phoenician fleet, mitted the citizens to return to their dwellings. to which the two contending parties had long He then marched against Abydos, but could not been looking forward with anxious expectation. succeed there, either by force or persuasion, and The Peloponnesians now determined to re- therefore crossed over to Sestus, which he turn, as Tissaphernes himself wished them to made his station for the protection of the Heldo. to Miletus; but before they had left Rhodes, lespont. After his departure the Chians bethey were invited by an embassy from Eretria came decidedly superior to the enemy by sea, to lend their aid towards effecting the revolt and Astyochus ventured to sail along the coast which had been long meditated in Eubcea. One with two galleys to Chios, and to bring away of the main obstacles to the execution of that the squadron with which they had been last redesign had been recently removed. The town enforced to Miletus.* The armament under of Oropus, which, so long as it remained in the his command now amounted to upward of a hands of the Athenians, afforded them the hundred sail, and he soon after appeared with means of continually annoying the island, and it before Samos to offer battle to the Athenians; especially its opposite neighbour Eretria, had but the state of affairs at Samos, which he was been betrayed to the Bceotians, notwithstand- probably acquainted with, did not permit them ing the presence of an Athenian garrison, by' to accept his challenge, and he sailed back to a party of the citizens, aided by some Eretri- Miletus. ans, who were now eager to shake off the au- Pisander and his colleagues were not disthority of Athens. But the Peloponnesian com- heartened by the issue of their negotiation with manders considered the relief of Chios as an Tissaphernes, and, on their return to Samos, object of superior importance, and towards the they both strengthened the resolutions of the beginning of the spring of 411 set sail from oligarchical faction in the fleet, and found means Rhodes with their whole armament. In their to form a new oligarchical party among the passage, off the Triopian foreland, they saw the Samians, who had so lately overpowered and Athenian fleet, which had just left its station persecuted their old nobility. Their Athenian at Chalce. There was no disposition on either partisans, though sensible of their weakness side to risk an immediate attack; but this and danger, came to the determination of removement of the Athenians, who arrived at Sa- nouncing all dependance on. Alcibiades, who, mos about the same time that the enemy reach- they began to see, could never become a cordial ed Miletus, convinced the Peloponnesians that adherent to such a cause as theirs, and prethey should not be able to relieve Chios without pared to meet the emergency by extraordinary a battle. But while they remained in suspense, efforts and sacrifices, to which they encouraged the Chians, hard pressed by the siege, made a one another by the reflection that they should vigorous effort for their own deliverance. A no longer be labouring for any end but their Spartan, named Leon, who accompanied Antis- own private advantage. With this purpose thenes to Miletus, had taken the command in they sent Pisander home, with five of his colthe room of Pedaritus, and had brought a squa- leagues, to prosecute the work which he had dron of twelve galleys, which had been left to begun there, and instructed them to establish guard Miletus while the fleet lay at Rhodes. oligarchical government in all the subject cities With this re-enforcement the Chians were able at which they might stop in their voyage; and to man thirty-six galleys;* the Athenians only the remaining five were despatched on the like numbered thirty-two. The besieged drew out mission to other quarters. Diotrephes, who their whole military force, and occupied a strong had been appointed to command on the coast of position, while their fleet advanced against the Thrace, was sent from Chios with instructions enemy. A warm engagement ensued, which of the same kind. Accordingly, on his arrival lasted till late in the evening, and the Chians, at Thasos, he abolished the democratical conif not victorious, were at least not worsted; stitution; but the result of this change was and this, in an action with an Athenian fleet very different from that which its authors exnearly equal in numoers, was still a triumph. pected, though Phrynichus had predicted it. This success was immediately followed by a Within two months after, when Diotrephes had happy change in the state of their affairs. left the island, the Thasians began to fortify Early in the spring Dercyllidas, a Spartan, their city, and prepared to resume their indemarched from Miletus with a small body of pendence; and a party of refugees who, from troops towards the Hellespont, to excite the their places of exile in Peloponnesus, had long cities in the satrapy of Pharna iazus to revolt been concerting measures with their friends at from Athens. As soon as he arrived there, home for this end, unexpectedly found the prinAbydos opened her gates to him, and Lampsa- cipal obstacle to the accomplishment of their cus imitated the example two days after. On designs-the opposition of the commonaltyhearing of these events, Strombichides sailed removed by the Athenians themselves. And from Chios with twenty-four ships, including such, Thucydides observes, were the consesome transports, and took Lampsacus, an un- quences of the revolution in most of the states walled city, by storm, after defeating its troops, where it was effected. Instead of reconciling but contented himself with the pillage, and per- them to the rule of Athens, it was viewed, not as an equivalent for independence, but as a step drachma a day. Krueger, p. 356, supposes that this was towards it; and the sober, wary spirit of the olithe rate always implied when no particular sum was expressed. *. viii., 63, Ko#icEt abrf0ev rTg vaou. Not certainly all * Nothing, it might have been supposed, can be clearer the ships-which the Chians would not have parted withthan the statement of Thucydides, viii., 61, that the Chians and therefore it seems that Leon's squadron must be referhad received the re-enforcement brought to them by Leon red to. Yet the Chians might have added some of their beofore they went out to fight the Athenians, and did not go own, so as to raise the number of the Peloponnesian fleet out to meet him. Perhaps some Latin translator has obscured from 94 to 112. Krueger, p. 303, supposes that the galleys the authbr's meaning. I not accounted fCr may have been furnished by the Rhodians OLIGARCHICAL MOVEMENTS. 451 garchlcal governments* rendered their success speakers in every debate, and no proposition the more certain. was brought forward, either in the council or Pisander, while he executed his commission, the assembly, which had not been previously drew some re-enforcements of armed followers discussed in their private meetings. Their from several of the cities where he established boldness created an exaggerated persuasion of oligarchical ascendency on his voyage to Ath- their strength. As the extent of the conspiracy ens. On his arrival he found that during his could not be ascertained, none could know that absence great progress had been made there to- any man he met, whether friend or stranger, wards the completion of the work which he had was not privy to it; and some notorious cases, set on foot. His associates, by the language in which men who were believed most adverse which they openly held, had prepared the public to oligarchy were discovered to have taken a mind for various changes in the laws and con- part in it, contributed to destroy all mutual constitution, some of which were clearly desirable, fidence among the patriotic citizens, and to stifle and none v' repugnant to the feelings of mod- every murmur of indignation, and all counsels erate men hey contended that no pay ought of resistance. to be allowed for any but military service; a Such was the state of affairs when Pisander reform levelled against the abuses of the courts arrived; and though he had totally failed in the of justice and the popular assembly, but which principal object of his mission, the undertaking was also strongly recommended by grounds of had advanced too far, and his associates were economy. It was intimately connected with too deeply engaged in it to be affected by this another measure, which they suggested at the disappointment. The aid of Alcibiades was only same time as the basis of the new constitution, important with a view to the foreign war; the for limiting the enjoyment of all political rights domestic revolution now stood in no need of to a body of not more than five thousand citi- him, and in some respects even gained strength zens, who were to be chosen with regard both by his estrangement from it. Neither Pisander to property and to personal qualifications. Thu- nor any of the principal conspirators were percydides justly admires the ingenuity of this pro- sonally attached to him; most of them, perhaps, posal. The number was large enough to con- were secretly jealous of him, and their rupture ciliate those who had apprehended that the oli- with him procured one very useful accession to' garchy to be prescribed to them was to be form- their party. Phrynichus, as soon as he perceived on a much narrower foundation, and who ed that the establishment of oligarchy, instead did not perceive the hollowness of this seeming offurthering the restoration of Alcibiades, would liberality; and it secured the good-will of all be an effectual bar to it, became one of their who might hope to be included in the privileged warmest abettors. Among the rest there was class, and who were not aware that its privi- probably a great diversity of views and motives. leges would be merely nom!ial, and that the au- Antiphon, the man whom Thucydides reprethors of the revolution would reserve the sub- sents as the soul of the plot, and whose charstance of power to themselves.t But while the acter and abilities he describes with the affecleaders of the party covered their designs with tionate admiration of a friend and a scholar,* these specious professions, some of their young- was a person qualified, perhaps, for filling a staer associates were serving their cause in a dif- tion like that of Pericles, but neither capable of ferent manner, by ridding themselves of their reaching such an eminence, nor disposed to acmost obnoxious and formidable adversaries. quiece in a lower sphere; and it seems to have Androcles was first marked out, both as a pow- been disappointed ambition that made him hoserful demagogue, interested in upholding de- tile to the democratical institutions, under which mocracy, and as a victim the most agreeable to he felt himself depressed below his proper level. his enemy, Alcibiades, on whom the hopes of Thucydides extols. his eloquence, which he had the oligarchs at Athens still rested. He was cultivated with extraordinary care-undoubtedremoved by secret assassination, and some oth- ly as an instrument for acquiring reputation and er persons, who were deemed irreconcilably hos- power —and believes that he was only preventtile to their plans, shared his fate. These proofs ed from displaying it in the popular assembly of reckless daring and determined resolution by the jealousy which the people conceived of struck all classes of the citizens with terror, and his intellectual superiority, and that, finding himprepared them passively to submit to the will self thus excluded from public life, he aided those of the party which wielded such instruments. who were unable to plead their own cause in No formal change, indeed, was yet made in the the assembly or the courts of justice with his mechanism of the constitution; the popular as- counsels. Antiphon, indeed' is said to have sembly and the council of Five Hundred still been the first orator who wrote speeches for his met, as usual, for the transaction of public busi- clients,t as he was one of the first that opened ness; but they deliberated under fear of the a school of rhetoric. But that he was driven oligarchical dagger, which was sure to reach to this occupation by the cause which Thucydevery one who thwarted the wishes of the con- ides mentions, is a view of the matter which we spirators. And thus by degrees they usurped can hardly adopt, even on this authority. Aththe entire management of affairs, were the only ens had surely been too long inured to the pres* woipocov27, viii., 64. This quality seems to be mention- * By this we do not mean that the testimony to the fact, ed here with reference, not to the motives for desiring the that Thucydides was the disciple of Antiphon, is decisive, change, but to the means of effecting it; but the expres- though we know of no reason for questioning its truth. But sion (ro)0poaV;v Xag6ovat is very singular and obscure. even if the manner in which Thucydides speaks of him was t Thuc., viii., 66, br E'e Ecv ys 7riv r6XlvV o'eEp Kai' pOt'a- the sole ground of the tradition, it will be not the less true, Taeav EseXXov. The manner in which these words have that from some cause or other the historian does use lansometimes been interpreted proves that a moderate ac- guage which naturally suggests the thought of such a rela quaintance with the language of the Greek authors maybe tion. See the dissertation De Antiphonte, in Ruhnkens as useful a qualification for the historian of Greece as the Opuqcula, p. 9, 10. lrt of handling an oar or of shouldering a firelock. tf See the dissertation De Antiph., p. 18. 452 HISTORY OF GREECE. ence of great men to be alarmed by the genius strain this freedom with severe penalties. Ae of Antiphon, even if he had had ampler means soon as this decree was passed, the principal of displaying it, and though it may have been articles of the new constitution were openly much more powerful than the literary remains brought forward. They included an entire attributed to him would have led us to suppose. change in the mode of filling public offices, the But the eloquence which Thucydides admired, nature of which Thucydides does not explain. and which perhaps contributed to form his own, It may have related both to the term for which may not have been of the kind best adapted to they were held, and to the process of appointsway the popular assembly, where, we venture ment, which was probably no longer subjected to believe, that Thucydides himself would never to chance. The principle was laid down that have produced any great effect. But if by this no pay should be granted for any but military or any other cause Antiphon was prevented service. The limitation of the highest franfrom taking a part in public affairs, we could chise to five thousand citizens would seem only understand both why he was discontented with to have been declared in genera-rms, as a the existing order of things, and how he might measure the details of which were eserved to incur the suspicion of disaffection, which natu- another time. But the most important of the rally fell on a man of eminent talents who kept proposed institutions was a new council, which aloof from all political pursuits. It seems that was to take the place of the Five Hundred. he had harboured the project of a revolution Five presidents* were to be first appointed, long before circumstances were ripe for carry- who were to elect a hundred persons, and each ing it into effect;* he had probably never ceas- of these three others, so as to make up a body ed to direct his thoughts towards this object, of Four Hundred, which was to be invested since the failure of the' Athenian expedition with unlimited power. What limit was assignopened a clearer prospect of success; and it ed to the duration of their office, whether it dewould not be a groundless conjecture if we as- pended in any way on the five original electors, cribed the institution of the extraordinary coun- and whether these had any farther share in the cil already mentionedt to his suggestion; it at government, are points on which Thucydides least shows a close affinity to measures which has not gratified our curiosity. The Four Hunwere undoubtedly his. It was he who had con- dred were to have the power of assembling the certed the whole plan which was now about to Five Thousand'as often as they thought proper. be put into immediate execution; and he had, Whether these assemblies were, in theory, to no doubt, a very distinct conception of his own possess equal authority with those held under ultimate aims. But it is probable that these the old constitution, we do not learn. But the were still a secret to many of his associates, clause which left their meetings to depend on who may have been no less deceived by his pro- the pleasure of the Four Hundred seems to fessions than those who were entirely strangers have been so worded) as to cherish the persuato his schemes. In the number of those who sion that the Five Thousand were to be a real had thus been drawn into an undertaking, the and effective body. precise nature of which they did not understand, All the articles were adopted without opposiwe may reckon Theramenes, son of Hagnon, a tion, and the mock assembly was dismissed. person whose character will be more clearly The Four Hundred, as soon as they were electunfolded in the progress of the history by his ed, proceeded to assume the reins of governactions than it would be by words. He is cpup- ment. But they did not feel sure that the Five led by Thucydides with Antiphon, Phryaichus, Hundred would quietly resign their places, and and Pisander, as a prime leader in the conspir- apprehended that their resistance might rouse any. But it seems evident that, though he was a general insurrection. Against this danger one of their most active instruments, he never they thought it necessary to take extraordinary wras admitted to their inmost councils. precautions. Ever since the enemy had occuAfter the return of Pisander, it only remain- pied Decelea, all Athenians capable of military ed to give a legal form to that supreme author- service had been kept on duty, with no interity which he and his associates had already in mission but for needful refreshment, either on substance usurped. The first step was to hold the walls, or at their arms, which were piled, an assembly of the people, in which ten com- in constant readiness for action, in various parts missioners were appointed, under the title of of the city. On the day appointed for the exCompilers,T with full powers to frame any meas- pulsion of the old council, the adherents of the ure which they might judge expedient for the oligarchs were directed, when they withdrew better government of the commonwealth, to be with their comrades from their stands, to let laid before the people on a certain day. When the rest disperse, but themselves to remain at the day came, the assembly was held, not at a short distance from the arms, to wait for the Athens, but in a celebrated sanctuary of Posei- turn of events; and they were re-enforced with don, at Colonus, a village a mile or two from some troops which were brought over for the the city —a precaution, probably, for the pur- purpose —perhaps the same which accompanied pose of making it more select and subservient. Pisander-from Andros Tenos, Carystus, and The commissioners, however, only brought in a.IEgina. The Four Hundred then armed themproposal for a decree, which made it lawful for selves each with a short sword, which they every Athenian to propose any measure he probably did not take great care to conceal, and, might think fit, without fear either of the pros- escorted by a hundred and twenty of the younger ecution to which thp movers of illegal proposi- conspirators, whom they selected as a permations were liable, or of any other ill consequence, nent guard, proceeded to the council chamber, and threatening all who should attempt to re- where the Five Hundred appear to have been all assembled. But, as they were unarmed, a *EK 7EUar arovU p1rLEXte70LS, Viii., 68. t Above, p. 438. $ Evyypaoias avrOKPTopaS. Thuc., viii 67. * IIpdEapo. MEASURES OF THE OLIGARCHS. 453 less formidable display of force might have been that the government was in the hands, not of sufficient to overawe them. When they were the Four Hundred only, but of five thousand cit. commanded to leave the room they silently izens, a greater number than the calls of foreign obeyed, and at the door each received his pay service in war time had e.ver been permitted to for the remainder of the year. The rest of the assemble at Athens for deliberation on any subcitizens were equally passive; and the Four ject, however important.* The sound qf this Hundred quietly installed themselves with the argument was probably designed to catch the religious ceremonies usual on such occasions, unthinking, and to persuade them that the-new and drew lots for their presiding members un- institutions were really more popular than those der the constitutional title of Prytanes. which had been abolished.t In substance it There were, perhaps, not wanting advocates seems to turn upon the fallacy, that a right of the oligarchy, who represented the erection which can be but seldom exercised is thereof the new council as a return to Solon's insti- fore of little value. But the effect which it tutions. But the spirit of a government hostile would have produced at this time on the minds to the great body of the people, which could of the hearers cannot be estimated; for the only reign, as it had usurped its authority, by deputation was stopped on its way by intelliterror, soon made itself felt in every part of the gence of some untoward events, which had ocadministration. Obnoxious citizens were re- curred at Samos during the time that the Four moved, a few by executions, others by imprison- Hundred were establishing their dominion at ment or exile. Only one of the measures which Athens, and was induced to wait at Delos until commonly accompanied a revolution in a Greek it should find an opportunity of executing its city was wanting on this occasion. The refu- commission with a fairer prospect of success. gees, many of whom might have been useful Pisander, as we have seen, before his deparauxiliaries, were not recalled, through fear of ture from Samos, had formed a new oligarchical Alcibiades, whom it was probably deemed im- faction there in the bosom of the commonalty prudent to provoke, by excepting him from a itself, composed of persons who were averse, general act of indulgence. But still the gov- not to the principles, but only to the power of ernment was aware that it had no chance of the defeated party, or who had been forced to permanently keeping its ground without foreign dissemble their sentiments. They soon grew support; and one of its first objects was to into a band of about 300 conspirators, and make peace with Sparta. It addressed its over- thought themselves strong enough to overthrow tures to Agis, and urged its claims to the con- the democratical government; a design in which fidence of an oligarchical power. But the Spar- they were warmly encouraged by their Athenitan king, believing these proposals to be the ef- an friends, whom, to prove their zeal, they abetfect of conscious weakness, and thinking it im- ted in several acts of violence, similar to those possible that so great a revolution could have by which the partisans of oligarchy had silenced been quietly brought about, gave no encourage- opposition at Athens. Hyperbolus was at this ment to the envoys, but sent for a strong re- time living at Samos; whether he took any part enforcement from Peloponnesus, and, as soon in the late political transactions does not apas he had received it, marched down from De- pear. It is probable that he had several enecelea towards Athens. He hoped either to find mies in the fleet, and among them Charminus, disorder prevailing within the city, or to create one of the generals. The Samian conspirators it by the approach of his army; and expected aided them in assassinating him, and it seems that, even if the gates were not thrown open to that their hatred was not satiated by his death, him on his own terms, he should at least be able but that they put his body into a sack, and sank. to carry the Long Walls, which, in a time of it in the sea.$ The impunity with which they general confusion, would be left unprotected, at perpetrated this and like other deeds animated the first assault. But he was disappointed by the Samians to the greater enterprise which they the unanimity with which the Athenians were were meditating; but it seems also to have inspired by the presence of the invaders. All rendered them so confident of success, that they remained tranquil within, and, as he came near did not take sufficient care to conceal their purto the city, the foremost of his troops were pose. The commonalty, having discovered its charged by a body of cWalry,, supported by danger, applied to some of the Athenian comheavy and light infantry, who cut down some, manders and other leading men, who were and kept possession of the slain. This repulse known to be adverse to the plans of the oliconvinced him of his error; he gave orders for retreat, and a few days after dismissed the * This. Dr. Arnold observes, cannot have been literally newly-arrived troops. He now listened more true, since there were occasions which required the presence of six thousand citizens in the assembly. But the asfavourably to the Athenian oligarchs, who, not sertion is clearly limited to times of war; and it could harddiscouraged by their failure, or by the recent ly have been ventured upon, even by so imprudent a facdisplay of hihostile designs, renewed their ap- tion, if it had not been at least generally wellfounded. The learned reader needs not to be informed that Thucydides plication to him, and, by his advice, sent an does not make this assertion himself. embassy to treat for peace at Sparta. t This is a remark of the Greek scholiast on Thuc., viii., They had likewise, as soon as the revolution 72. hamlikse, d on o theireu Theopompus, quoted by the Scholiast on Lucian, Tiwas accomplished, deputed ten of their number mon, c. 30, and Schol. Arist., Pax., 680. It is only for the to Samos —where they foresaw that their pro- sake of readers who do not understand thelanguage of Thuceedings would probably give great offence to cydides we need observe, that he does not mean that Char minus was with some -others unfortunately killed, but that the the mass of the citizens in the fleet, and might Samians, in conjunction with Charminus and some othes provoke -a dangerous opposition-to vindicate Athenians, killed Hyperbolus, and committed other like acts." the purity of their intentions, and to exhibit the But it required no common effrontery first to omit all menchanges which had just taken place in the fair- tion of Hyperbolus, and then to represent the death of Charst whieht samen re t he minus as an unfortunate accident, because it was supposed est light The seamen were to be informed to be an oligarchical murder. 454 HISTORY OF GREECE. garchs, for assistance to ward off the blow, the against the oligarchical usurpers. The city, effect of which would be to alienate Samos, they observed, had revolted from them, who, as hitherto the main support of the shaken pow- they were greatly superior in numbers and er of Athens, from the Athenian democracy. strength, might properly regard themselves as Among the generals, Leon and Diomedon were representing the state. Their means of collectsincerely attached to the -institutions under ing supplies from their subjects, and of carrying which they had risen to a station which satis- on the war, were just the same as ever, though flied their honourable ambition; and, among the Samos —once a formidable rival of the Athenian persons of chief note in an inferior rank, Thra- power-was now to them what Athens had hithsybulus, son of Lycus, who commanded a gal- erto been. The navy had not only provided for ley, and Thrasyllus, who was serving in the its own subsistence, but had secured that of the army, shared their sentiments, and exerted their city, which, without the protection which they influence with the soldiers and seamen, to en- afforded to its commerce, would soon be reduced gage them to resist the threatened attack. The to distress, and might thus be compelled to recrew of the state galley, the Paralus, which was spect the claims of so numerous a body of citientirely manned by Athenian citizens, were es- zens, whom the oligarchs had disfranchised., pecially ready to comply with their call; and They might very well dispense with all the as-'with their aid the conspirators, when they made sistance they could hope to receive from Athens their attempt, were repulsed and overpowered. in their contest with the enemy. Its treasury Thirty were killed in the affray; but the survi- was empty, and it could not even pretend to dlvers were treated with extraordinary lenity. rect ther9 with its counsels; for in upholding Three only —the principal ringleaders-were their hereditary constitution, they had shown punished with banishment; the rest received as great a superiority in wisdom over those a free pardon and amnesty. who abolished it, as they possessed in power A This event decided the triumph of the demo- to restore it. The name of Alcibiades was also cratical cause in the Athenian armament; and held out as an encouragement. It was still asas the revolution which took place about the sumed that he was able to transfer the alliance same time at Athens was not yet known at Sa- of Persia from the enemy to them, and that he mos, Chcereas, one of the persons who had taken would gladly purchase his own recall at this the most active part in the late proceedings, price. Should all other resorces fail, with such was despatched on board the Paralus, to an- a naval force as they possessed, they had their nounce what it was supposed would be agreea- choice of many cities and territories, where they ble news to the government. But on its arri- might find a new home. val the Four Hundred threw two or three of Before these disturbances had subsided, the the most obnoxious among the ship's company rumour of them reached Miletus, and contribuinto prison, and transferred the rest to another ted to irritate the discontent which had for galley, which was ordered to a station on the some time prevailed in the armament at the coast of Euboea. Choereas himself made his conduct of Astyochus and Tissaphernes. The escape, and, returning to Samos, spread an ex- satrap, after he had gained his point by the aggerated report of the tyranny of the new gov- treaty concluded in the winter, had become as ernment, charging it with wanton outrages on remiss as before in making the stipulated paythe persons and families of the citizens, and ments, and thde Spartan admiral not only conwith the design of arresting the relatives of those nived at this breach of faith, and omitted to who were serving at Samos, and of keeping second the remonstrances of Hermocrates and them as hostages, to be put to death if the fleet others who loudly complained of it, but, affectshould hold out against the oligarchy. These ing to place entire confidence in the professions calumnies so irritated the multitude, that it was of Tissaphernes, under pretence of waiting fox with difficulty they were restrained by the re- the Phoenician galleys, kept the fleet in a state monstrances of their more discreet friends, who of inaction in which its strength was continupointed out the danger of a tumult in the camp ally wearing away. Even when the report of while the enemy was so near at hand, from fall- the intestine dissensions which were agitating ing on the chief authors of the oligarchical con- the camp at Samos, while a considerable part spiracy. But Thrasybulus and Thrasyllus took of the Athenian fores was in the Hellespont, this opportunity to bind them by a solemn oath, seemed to offer the most favourable opportuniwhich waes exacted even from those who were ty for attacking the remainder, Astyochus known to entertain opposite sentiments, to showed no disposition to take advantage of it; maintain dtnocratical government and mutual till at length the murmurs of the men, especialconcord, and to persevere in the war with the ly of the Syracusans, grew so loud, that he no Peloponnesians, and in implacable enmity to- longer ventured to neglect them, but held a wards the Four Hundred. All the Samians of council of war, in which it was determined to ripe age took the same oath, and were hence- make an attempt to draw the Eemy into a forth indissolubly united with the Athenians of decisive engagement. Accordingly the fleet, the fleet by a sense of common interests and which had been raised by the re-enforcement$ dangers. last received from Chios to 112 galleys, moved After this an assembly was held in the pamp, towards Mycal6, while the Milesian troops were in which the generals and some of the captains ordered to march in the same direction to supwho were suspected of disaffection were re- port it. The Athenians, with 82 galleys, were 3moved, and their places filled with more trust- at this time lying off Glauc6, a point on the worthy men; among the new generals were coast at the foot of Mycal6 divided by a narrow Thrasybulus and Thrasyllus. The speakers channel from Samos, and perceiving the Pelowho came forward in this assembly animated ponnesians approaching with a force which their hearers boldly to maintain their rights they thought it imprudent to encounter, they SEDITION AT SAMOS. 45b sailed across to their own camp. No meas- ponnesians with such distrust of Tissaphernea ures, it seems, had been preconcerted for the as might lead to an open rupture. He there. event, though it was one which might have fore did not scruple to pretend that the satrap been reasonably expected, of their declining a had assured him that, if he could only rely on battle, and Astyochus did not desire one. He, the Athenians, they should not want pay for however, formed an encampment, both for his their seamen, no, not if he should be forced to naval and land forces, on the coast of Mycale, turn the furniture of his palace into money for and the next day prepared to sail up to Samos; the, apd that he would bring the Phoenician but he was stopped by the intelligence that fle:which had already come westward as far Strombichides had arrived with his squadron as Aspendus, to their aid instead of the enefrom the Hellespont. He had been sent for as my's; but that he could rely upon them only soon as it was known that the Peloponnesians when he saw Alcibiades recalled, and placed in were meditating a hostile movement, and the a situation where he might engage for the ships which he brought with him raised the steadiness of their conduct. The success of numbers of the Athenians to 108. Astyochus these boasts was greater, perhaps, than he immediately led his armament back to Miletus, hoped or even desired; or the assembly not only and when the Athenians came up and chal- created him general, and intrusted him with the lenged him in their turn, he kept within. the whole management of the negotiation with Tisharbour. saphernes, but, passing at once to an excess of His judgment in avoiding a battle with an confidence, as if there was no longer anything enemy so little inferior in numerical strength to fear from the Peloponnesian armament, was seems not to have been questioned; but, as of- eager to turn its arms against the Four Hunfensive movements were held to be no longer dred, and a proposition was formally made, and practicable in this quarter, and the difficulty of found many warm supporters, for sailing forthproviding for the subsistence of the armament with to attack Pireus. Alcibiades, however, became more pressing, while the supplies of checked this temerity, and declared that the Tissaphernes grew every day scantier, it was first duty which his new office imposed on him thought expedient to embrace the offers of was to treat with Tissaphernes on the means Pharnabazus, who had sent repeated invita- of finishing the war. And accordingly, as soon tions with the promise of furnishing pay for as as the assembly broke up, he set off for the samany ships as should come to him, and to car- trap's court, at once to make a display of their ry into effect that part of the original plan of intimacy, which would raise his own credit with operations which related to the Hellespont. the Athenians, and by the exhibition of his new Overtures which were received at the same dignity to exalt the importance of his friendship time from Byzantium enforced these motives, in the eyes of Tissaphernes. and Clearchus was despatched with a squadron The recall of Alcibiades, and the means by of forty galleys; it was, however, dispersed by which it was accomplished, were soon known a storm which overtook it on the open. sea, into in the Peloponnesian camp, and the news prowhich he ventured out, to escape the notice of duced much of the effect which he had expectthe Athenians, and only ten galleys, under the ed. It strengthened the suspicions which had command of Helixus the Megarian, held on long prevailed against Tissaphernes, and retheir course to the Hellespont. Their arrival, vived the murmurs which had before broken however, gave the Byzantians courage to re- out against Astyochus. Not only the common volt. Clearchus himself, with the rest of his seamen, but persons of higher station in the squadron, after having put into Delos for shel- fleet, charged the admiral with having sold the ter, returned to Miletus, and thence he pro- interests of the service to Tissaphernes; and ceeded by land to the Hellespont. The Athe- his imprudence aggravated the popular disconnians also despatched a small force to the same tent into an uproar, which threatened his life. quarter from Samos. The Syracusan and Thurian seamen, accompaIn the mean while Thrasybulus and his col- nied by their commander, Diagoras, came in a leaues, who had always looked to Alcibiades body to him, and, with the plainness of men as the chief hope of their cause in the contest who were not used to restraints on their freewhich they had to maintain against his and dom of speech, demanded the arrears of their their common enemies, at length procured a pay. Astyochus answered haughtily, threatendecree from the camp assembly, by which he ed the claimants, and at last raised his staff, as was pardoned and recalled. Thrasybulus, who if to strike Dorieus, who was foremost to plead was the principal author of the measure, him- the cause of his men. The insolent gesture self sailed to fetch him from the court of Tis- kindled the indignation of the crowd; they saphernes, and brought him to Samos, where rushed upon the admiral with a fierce outcry, an assembly was held to receive him. He ad- and he only escaped their violence by flying to dressed it in language fitted to move its sym- an altar, where he remained till the tumult was pathy with his personal misfortunes, and to appeased. The temper thus displayed encourcheer it with brighter prospects of public affairs. aged the people of Miletus to make an attack He magnified the influence which he pretended upon a fortress which Tissaphernes had built to possess over Tissaphernes to an extravagant in their city, and to expel the garrison which degree, and his object, Thucydides observes, in he had placed there, and their proceedings were this exaggeration, was not merely to dazzle viewed with approbation by their allies, espeand encourage his hearers; he knew that an cially by the Syracusans. Lichas, however, account of his speech would find its way both condemned them, and laid it down as a general to Athens and to the Peloponnesian camp, and principle, that the Greeks within the province he hoped that his assertions would inspire the of Tissaphernes must submit to his authority, oligarchical faction with terror, and the Pelo- if moderately exercised; but at the same time 456 HISTORY OF GREECE. he intimated that their subjection was only to which, however, was designed to conciliate last until the war should have been' happily not the Four Hundred, but the great mass of terminated. Vet even this hint did not soothe their partisans. As to the Five Thousand, he the anger he excited by his resistance to the did not mean to deprive them of their franpopular will on this and some similar occa- chise; but he required that the Four Hundred sions; and it showed itself even after his death, should be' deposed, and the old council of Five which happened at Miletus, when the Milesians Hundred reinstated in its legitimate authority. interfered to deprive him of the honours which All measures of retrenchment, by which a greathis countrymen wished to pay to his remns. er part of the public revenue was spared for Just at this juncture, by a seasonable coinci- the maintenance of the troops, should have his dence, a new admiral, named Mindarus, arrived hearty approbation; and he exhorted his counfrom Sparta to take the place of Astyochus, who trymen at home to persevere in resisting the sailed home. He was accompanied by an agent enemy. As long as they all continued to deof Tissaphernes, a Carian, named Gaulites, who fend themselves against attacks from without was equally familiar with the Greek as with there was good hope that they would be able to his own tongue, and who was instructed to compose their domestic quarrels; but the discomplain of the conduct of the Milesians, in the position for reconciliation would come too late expulsion of the Persian garrison, and to vindi- if any fatal blow should be struck either against cate his master from the charges with which Athens or against the armament at Samos. he knew himself to be threatened; for Milesian The assembly was likewise attended by an emenvoys were on their way to Sparta with Her- bassy which brought offers of assistance from mocrates, to expose the satrap's duplicity, his Argos. The Argive envoys came along with connexion with Alcibiades, and the injury which the crew of the Paralus, whom the Athenlan the cause of the Peloponnesians had suffered government had first degraded by transferring from it. them to another vessel, and had then incauIn the mean while Alcibiades had returned tiously intrusted them with the charge of conto Samos. His presence seems to have en- veying three ambassadors to Sparta. But in couraged the ministers of the Four Hundred, their passage they stopped at Argos, where who, as we have seen, had stopped at Delos, they left their oligarchical companions in custo continue their voyage to the camp. There tody, and sailed with the. Argive ministers to they were introduced into the military assem- Samos. Alcibiades, in the name of the assembly, and executed their commission. It was bly, thanked the Argives for their offers, and some time before they could gain a hearing; expressed his hope that the Athenians would they were interrupted by cries which threaten- find them equally prompt on future occasions ed the subverters of the constitution with death. when their aid might be needed. But when the tumult was hushed, they defend- Though Tissaphernes had adopted the policy ed the conduct of the Four Hundred, and the suggested to him by Alcibiades towards the changes which had taken place at Athens, and Peloponnesians, so far as to determine that he endeavoured to remove the impression which would never grant them any effectual succours, had been made by the exaggerations and fic- he was still as anxious as ever to avoid an tions of Chtereas. They contended, that if the open breach with them, into which itwas the government had ever harboured the design aim of his counsellor to draw him. He therewhich had beeni imputed to it, of betraying the fore thought it necessary, when the suspicions city to the enemy, it would have seized the op- of his allies had been raised to their greatest portunity afforded by the appearance of Agis height by the restoration of Alcibiades, to make before the walls. It had proved, on that occa- some attempt to recover their confidence, or, sion, that it had no views inconsistent with the at least, to revive their hopes. For this pursafety and honour of the commonwealth. The pose he proceeded in person to Aspendus, with political privileges bestowed by the new order the avowed object of bringing the Phoenician of things were not appropriated to a narrow fleet to join the Peloponnesians. He desired oligarchy, but were to be shared by five thou- that Lichas might accompany him, and appqintsand citizens. All that they had heard of the ed Tamos to provide for the subsistence of the ill treatment of their relatives was a groundless Peloponnesian armament in his absence. The calumny: none were molested either in their forethought of Tissaphernes never went beyond persons or their property. But the assembly an expedient for gaining time; and he trusted either did not believe this assertion or was not to his ingenuity for inventing a new one when satisfied with their explanations, and seemed that which served his immediate purpose was to be only irritated by the attempts made to worn out. The journey to Aspendus, which conciliate it. Among various proposals sug- seemed to offer a decisive test of his sincerity, gested by its resentment, that of sailing to Pi- appeased the allies,. and probably persuaded reus was renewed, and was recommended with many that he was at last in earnest. This great vehemence by many voices; but Alcibi- belief was confirmed when, after his arrival ades again interposed to prevent a step which there, he sent for a Lacedaemonian officer to would have left Ionia and the Hellespont in the take charge of the Phcenician fleet; and Phienemy's power; and, manifest as the danger lippus was despatched with two galleys for this was, Thucydides believes that no other man purpose. But Alcibiades knew his mind betpossessed influence enough to have averted it. ter, and, when' the news reached Samos, de It was the first great service which he had ren- dlared his intention of following him to Aspendered to his country. He silenced those who dus, and engaged either to return with the would have indulged in personal invectives Phoenician fleet, or to prevent it from being em against the envoys with a severe reproof, and ployed in the enemy's service. He was prob. dismissed them with a fkm but mild answer, ably aware that the Athenians had as little to OPPOSITION TO THE OLIGARCHY. 457 hope as to fear from the satrap's journey; but fected by the arguments and motives which he thought that his own might serve to embroil swayed most of their adherents. They deterhim the sooner with the Peloponnesians, and mined neither to resign nor to relax their auso to force him into alliance with Athens. He thority, but sooner, if driven to extremities, to therefore set sail, with a squadron of thirteen sacrifice the independence of the state. They galleys, for Aspendus. hacdalready begun to provide for their own seThe answer which the deputies of the Four curity under the pretext of guarding the city Hundred brought home from Samos produced against the attack with which it was threatened an impression at Athens very unfavourable to by the armament at Samos. With this view the interest of the oligarchical leaders. It was, they had begun to fortify the mole called Eetihowever, only the occasion which drew forth onea, which formed one side of the outer enthe expression of feelings that had for some trance of Piraeus, with a tower at its extreme time been secretly gaining ground among their point by the harbour's mouth, and a wall which subordinate associates. Most of them were ran from this point along the shore of the haralready disappointed, or offended, or alarmed, bour. The tower connected this new wall with by the course which affairs had taken. Many the old one, which protected Piraeus on the land had engaged in the revolution with views of side, and thus enabled a handful of men to compersonal aggrandizement or distinction, and mand the entrance of the port. The new fortifound that they were only the instruments of fication also took in a large building, which was others. Some had sincerely desired the refor- converted into a public granary, where all the mation of abuses, and had hoped to effect it by corn-dealers were compelled to deposite their moderately contracting the popular basis on stock of grain, and the masters of the cornwhich the old constitution rested; but they ships which came into Piraeus to house their found that they had lodged absolute power in cargoes. But when, on the return of their minthe hands of a very small body of men, which isters from Samos, they saw themselves not was itself, perhaps, secretly governed by a still only exposed to the hostility of the fleet, but smaller number of unseen directors. Others deserted by several of their most active partihad, perhaps, been chiefly impelled by the be- sans, and the tide of public opinion setting in lief that a change in the Constitution, whether *fast against them, they began to look to an acdesirable or not for its own sake, was neces- commodation with Sparta as their only sure sary to procure them the means of withstanding ground of hope; and the first embassy having their foreign enemies; and they found that they miscarried, as we have seen, Antiphon and had nearly involved themselves in a civil war Phrynichus themselves, with ten colleagues, set with their own navy, which must either over- out to negotiate a peace on the best terms they power them or leave them helpless. This last could procure. Thucydides expresses his conreflection not only operated powerfully with viction that, though they would have wished to many, but served as a pretext for some who rule Athens as an independent and sovereign could not decently avow their real motives. state, they would have consented, if they could Among the ambitious and disappointed men obtain no better conditions, to cede, not only who covered their selfish ends under a show of her tributary cities, but her ships and her walls. zeal for the public good were Theramenes, who It was, therefore, not without good ground, was one of the generals, and Aristocrates, who though, perhaps, without any certain evidence also held a high military office.* They took of the fact, that Theramenes and his party lathe lead among the discontented of their party, boured to excite a suspicion in the public mind who began to cabal against the oligarchy, as that the works at Eetionea were designed not before against the democracy. They profess- to exclude their political adversaries, but to ened, indeed, not to have changed their opinions, able them to admit the enemy into Piranus; and but only to desire. that the Five Thousand when Antiphon and his colleagues -returned should be no longer a mere name, but a real without having concluded any publicly acknowland active body. They affected to fear that edged treaty, their seeming failure was interthe embassy which had been lately sent to preted as a sign of some secret agreement to Sparta had been secretly instructed to concert betray the city into the enemy's.hands. measures for betraying the city into the ene- These suspicions were greatly strengthened.my's hands. They urged the necessity of com- by the intelligence which.was received about ing to terms with Alcibiades and the fleet; but the same time, that a squadron of forty-two they were really dissatisfied with the subordi- galleys, including some from Italy and Sicily, nate places which they occupied in the new was collected on the coast of Laconia, under system: they were eager to abandon a cause the command of the Spartan HegesandridasA which they perceived to be sinking, and to seize avowedly destined to act against Euboea, whereA the foremost station in the triumph of the com- in truth, the aid of the Peloponnesians had been monalty, which appeared to be now at hand. solicited; but Theramenes represented it as The leading oligarchs, however, the men who, much more probable that the real object of this like Phrynichus, dreaded above all the return expedition was connected with the works which of Alcibiades, or who were implacably hostile were proceeding at Eetionea, and that the eneto democratical ascendency, as Antiphon and my was only waiting for their completion to Aristarchus, one of the generals most congenial enter Pirteus unresisted. And the aspect of the to him in his political principles, or who, like fortifications themselves,.which were provided Pisander, were conscious of having taken too with posterns and passages adapted for the active a part in the revolution to be forgiven, or clandestine admission of troops, seemed to atwho thought the power they wielded worth test the purpose for which they were constructkeeping.at any risk and cost, could not be af- ed. Still, these surmises had hitherto been confined to private circles; not a breath of opVoL T,-M MM, 458 HISTORY OF GREECE. position had yet been publicly vented against the couraged by the approbation, not only of Aris. authority of the government; and the first inti- tocrates, but of Hermon, the commander of the mation which it received of an immediate danger young militia on duty at Munychia. The Four was given, not by words, but by a deed of blood. Hundred were sitting in council when this news Soon after his return from Sparta, Phrynichus was brought to them, and Theramenes was was assassinated in broad day in the agobra, present. As his colleagues were acquainted while it was thronged with people, at a short dis- with his sentiments, they at once imputed the tance from the council-chamber, which he had act of the troops to his instigation, and threatjust quitted. The person who struck the blow es- ened him with their vengeance; and they caped through the crowd, and was not immedi- were on the point of arming their followers ately discovered'; he was known, however, to be immediately to quell the mutiny. Therameone of the young citizens employed in the home es, however, asserted his innocence, and observice;* but his accomplice was arrested and tained leave to go with another general, one of put to the torture. He proved to be an Argive; his own partisans, to rescue Alexicles. Arisbut no confession could be wrung from him as tarchus also set out for the same purpose, acto the authors of the plot, except that he knew companied by some of the younger citizens of of sundry meetings which had been held, and the equestrian order. But their departure did numerously attended, in private houses; and, not pacify the adherents of the oligarchy, who among the rest, in that of the commander of were alarmed by a report that Ale'xicles had the home troops.t Though it seems probable, been put to death, and that the insurgents had from the various accounts which have been left taken entire possession of Piraeus; and it was of this occurrence, that some other persons with difficulty that, by the persuasions of the were thrown into prison on suspicion of having elder citizens and of Thucydides, a Thessalian been privy to it, it appears that the government. of Pharsalus, proxenus of the city, who repredid not think it prudent to follow the clew which sented the fatal consequences which might the disclosures of the Argive put into its hands. ensue from a civil war while the enemy was so It might have led to discoveries which it was near at hand, they were restrained from taking safest to suppress, as they might reveal the up arms, and marching down to attack their adnumbers and increase the confidence of the dis- versaries. Theramenes found Piraeus in a state affected. No farther steps, therefore, were of equal agitation, every moment expecting taken to avenge the murder of Phrynichus. some hostile movement from the city. His This was, perhaps, one of the results anticipa- presence raised the confidence of the troops, ted by those who planned the deed, in which which was not checked by the language and they followed the example of his own party. tone in which he affected to condemn their It served to sound the disposition of the people, conduct, and they as little regarded the sincere and to detect the weakness of the oligarchs, indignation of Aristarchus. They appealed to and encouraged Theramenes and his partisans Theramenes to pronounce whether the fortress -though it is not certain that they had any was designed for the public good, and whether share in it-to engage in a bolder and more im- it was better it should stand br fall; and he portant enterprise. then so far laid aside the mask as to leave the Their proceedings were quickened by the question to their own judgment, and to give his movements of the Peloponnesian squadron, consent if they thought it best to demolish their which soon after appeared in the Saronic Gulf, work. On this permission they immediately directly in face of Piraeus, off _/Egina. The began to pull down the buildings at Eetionea, troops were landed to ravage the island, and it and they were aided by a great part of the popthen proceeded to anchor at Epidaurus. This ulation of Piraeus. The cry, however, by which Theramenes treated as a clear proof of a secret they invited the multitude to join them was correspondence between the government and only a, call upon those who preferred the rule the enemy, who, if Euboea had been his real of the Five Thousand to that of the Four Hundestination, would not have turned so far aside dred. Yet those who used this language aimed out of his course, and he urged his friends no at nothing short of the restoration of democralonger to remain passive. After long debate cy. But as it was possible that the list of the the plans of his party were settled, and were Five Thousand had been formed,' and commupromptly executed. A body of heavy infantry nicated to all who were included in it, there was was employed in building at Eetionea; it inclu- still room to apprehend that every citizen whose ded the corps commanded by Aristocrates, but aid they sought might be a member of this in-,Alexicles, one of the generals' devoted to the visible body, and interested in securing its priv-.ligarchical cause, superintended the work. ileges. TLhe men were generally ill affected towards By the next day the destruction of the forthe government, and were now induced to break tress was completed; Alexicles was now set out into open mutiny; they seized Alexicles, at liberty, and the troops, after a public meetand kept him in custody; and they were en- ing in the theatre at Munychia, marched up to the city and posted themselves in the Anaceum, *'AvppbS riv 7rcpLnfr~ov rTvos. One might be inclined the.sanctuary of the Twins. The Four Hunto conjacture, from this expression, that the body of thhe ctuary the replhroXoi, at this time, included some citizens of maturer dred, who were assembled in great alarm, sent age than the youths of whom it was regularly composed. a deputation to soothe them. with promises and Indeed, if we would attempt to reconcile the accounts of entreaties. The deputies addressed themselves Thucydides and Lycias, who (c. Agorat., p. 136) states the es person who struck the blow to have been a foreigner, we individually to those who discovered a spirit of should be obliged to suppose that the resident aliens were moderation, assured them that the list of the admitted into it. Five Thousand-would shortly be published, and Toermon whIo this de the sae person as the that to this body the election of the Four HunpTrdXwAov TWrV Movvvxtae reray#ivav rg pXwv? dred would be committed, according to such REVOLUTION AT ATHENS. 459 rules as it mn.ight think fit to adopt, and exhort- oponnesians, and the crews were all either ed them to wait patiently for this satisfaction killed or made prisoners. This blow was very of their doubts, and in the mean while to exert soon followed by the revolt of Euboea, where their influence to prevent a tumult, which would Oreus alone remained attached to the parent endanger the public safety. The troops, calmed, state. perhaps, as much by the consciousness of their The consternation excited by this intelligence strength as by the arguments addressed to at Athens was even greater than that which them, but sincerely concerned for the common- followed the Sicilian disaster; and, indeed, the wealth, declared themselves willing to accede state had never before seemed so near the to an amicable compromise, and a day was brink of ruin. The city, at enmity with its fixed for an assembly to be held for this pur- fleet, divided between two parties which had pose in the sanctuary of Dionysus; but when been very lately on the point of turning their the day came, and just as the assembly was on arms against each other, deprived of almost all the point of meeting, news was brought that its remaining naval force and of the island-on the Peloponnesian squadron was advancing which it chiefly depended for subsistence, had along the coast of Salamis. The suspicion scarcely a glimpse of hope left, and had every which Theramenes had so often expressed now reason to fear that the victorious enemy would appeared to be fully confirmed; and his party shortly appear to attack or to blockade Piraeus. congratulated themselves that the fortress, The timidity of the Spartan commander, which which was so clearly the mark of the enemy's prevented him from taking advantage of so fair movements, had fallen in time. Thucydides an opportunity, when he might either have himself, though he observes that the disturbed forced Athens to surrender, or, by drawing the state of Athens might have been sufficient with- armament from Samos to its relief, have deout any invitation from within to induce the prived it of all its foreign possessions, provokes Spartan admiral to shape his course this way, Thucydides himself to an unusually sarcastic does not think it improbable that he acted in remark: that it was not on this occasion only, concert with the oligarchs. For the time, how- but on many others, that the Lacedeemonians ever, all reflections were absorbed by the care showed themselves most convenient enemies of defending the city. All the serviceable pop- to the Athenians. The Athenians, however, ulation of Athens rushed down with one accord merited the praise of exerting a degree of pruto Pirateus to man the ships, guard the walls, dence and energy scarcely inferior to the imbe and secure the mouth of the harbour. cility and inertness of their antagonists. They The Peloponnesians, however, quietly pur- were still able to man twenty galleys, with sued their course past the town, and did not which they prepared to defend themselves as stop until they had doubled Sunium, and, after they could; and they immediately applied thema short stay on the eastern coast of Attica, pro- selves to the no less important~ task of healing ceeded to Oropus. The danger which now ap- their civil discord. An assembly was called in peared to threaten Eubcea created almost as the Pnyx, the old place of meeting, which had great alarm at Athens as that which had been been used ever since the expulsion of the tyjust felt for the city itself. A squadron, the rants, and a decree was passed, by which the largest that could be immediately fitted out, was Four Hundred were deposed, and the supreme manned with all the haste that the exigency power was committed to Five Thousand citdemanded, and was sent under the command izens. All that was done on this occasion was of Thymochares to Eretria, where it joined to abolish the oligarchy and to lay down the bathat which had before been stationed on the sis of a new constitution in very general terms. coast of Euboea. But together they amounted In subsequent assemblies, legislative committo no more than thirty-six galleys; and these, tees were appointed, which defined the particfor the most part, were but ill prepared far ac- ulars of the new institutions. Unfortunately, tion; and they had scarcely reached Eretria Thucydides has left no more than a very short before they were forced into a combat under ana slight description of them, in which there the most unfavourable circumstances. The are only two or three points clearly discernible. Eretrians, who were in correspondence with There was a sovereign body of Five Thousand, the Spartan admiral, took measures to prevent into which none were admissible but citizens the Athenian seamen from finding provisions in who served in the heavy-armed infantry; but the ordinary market, and compelled them to go all who belonged to this class had a share of in quest of them to the outskirts of the town, some kind in the privileges of the Five Thouat a great distance from their ships. A signal sand. How this participation was regulated, was then made to the Peloponnesians, who im- we are not informed; but it seems most probmediately pushed across the channel from Oro- able that the members of the ruling body were pus. I The.Athenians had time, indeed, to em- changed from time to time, according to a fixed bark, but in disorder, and meeting with the en- order of succession, so that none were excluded emy near the mouth of the harbour, before they from the actual enjoyment of the highest franhad recovered from the confusion of the first chise except the citizens whose means did not alarm, and before all were collected and dis- enable them to support the expense of serving posed in any order of'battle, were soon put to in the regular infantry. The pay of all civil of flight. Those who took refuge in Eretria itself, flees was abolished, with a solemn imprecation trusting to the loyalty of their allies, were. at- against its revival; a measure, which, as it intacked by the Eretrians, and almost all slain; eluded the courts of justice and the popular asa part of the rest found shelter in a neighbour- sembly,* would of itself have limited the exering fort, which was held by an Athenian garri- son. Fourteen galleys escaped to Chalcis * Thuc., viii., 97. MwaBiv Bl3Eva 0ipnlv'pi6mi Aptif, butson. Fourteentyt fegall into the hands of the where ipX must be interpreted by the observations of but twenty-two fell into the hands of the Pel- Aristotle, Pol., iii., 1, on the definition of a citizen 71' 460 HISTORY OF GREECE. cise of political rights to a class not much lar- or five years he was put to death;* and Alexiger than that which was formally invested with cles appears to have suffered at the same time, them, and tended to reconcile the poorer cit- though on a different charge.t Antiphon prob. izens to their loss of power; especially as no ably remained at Athens, either trusting to his bar was fixed to prevent them from gaining a eloquence and influence, or because he was place in the privileged class, which might be prevented from escaping; for, not long after, he considered asia reward held out to their indus- was brought to trial,T with Archeptolemus and try at a distance not so high as to discourage Onomacles, two of his colleagues in the embastheir ambition. sy to Sparta; and Theramenes, lately his intiThe Athenian constitution thus assumed the mate friend, became his accuser.b The main form to which Aristotle assigned the name of a charge was, that they had gone on a treasonapolity; it differed but slightly in substance from ble embassy, had sailed in an enemy's ship,lf that which existed before the time of Pericles; and had passed through Decelea-perhaps on though the number of citizens belonging to the their return from Sparta, when they had no class now disfranchised was then probably much longer any pretext for visiting the enemy's smaller. Thucydides expresses the highest ap- camp-but the part they had taken in the esprobation of the new constitution, as a happy tablishment of the oligarchy was, as we learn mean between democracy and oligarchy, and from Thucydides, their real offence, though it -the opening of a new era which promised a re- might have seemed incredible that Theramenes turn of prosperity to the commonwealth. Per- should have impeached them on this ground, if haps its most beneficial effect was, that it uni- his subsequent conduct did not prove that he ted the citizens of the middle class-the largest, was capable, if not of every crime, yet of any the most powerful, and the most enlightened- baseness. Antiphon's defence was considered more closely together, and took away most of by Thucydides as the ablest he had ever met the pretexts and motives by which the oligarchs with. But he and Archeptolemus-Onomacles had been able to divide, overpower, and oppress seems to have escaped, or to have died before them., The great advantage which it immedi- sentence was passed —were condemned to ately yielded was, that it afforded a basis for a. death, their property confiscated, their houses reconciliation with the fleet. A decree was razed to the ground, and the site marked with passed for recalling Alcibiades and other exiles a memorial of their crimes, their bodies cast to -probably all those who had been involved in the dogs beyond the borders of Attica, and their his sentence-and a deputation was sent to the descendants doomed to perpetual infamy. camp to announce the recent revolution, and But it does not seem that a very rigorous into exhort the troops to prosecute the war with vestigation was instituted into the conduct of vigour. And though the limitation of the old the Four Hundred; and those who had not tademocracy cannot have been equally acceptable ken a conspicuous part in their proceedings, to all the citizens who were serving in the fleet, and who might therefore be considered as reit probably met the wishes of the greater num- luctant instruments of the leading men, were ber. The overthrow of the Four Hundred was permitted to remain unmolested at Athens. universally agreeable; and the appearance at.Among them were some who were, perhaps, not least of unanimity was at once completely re- less implacably hostile to popular government stored. than Antiphon himself, and who only waited for The leaders of the oligarchical faction, as an opportunity of recovering their power. In soon as they saw themselves deprived of power, the mean while they seem to have assumed the secretly withdrew from the city, and sought mask of patriotic zeal and indignation against shelter among their friends at Decelea. Thu- the oligarchy.: So, not only Theramenes, but cydides only names Pisander, Alexicles, and Andron, who proposed the rigorous ordinance Aristarchus among the fugitives. Aristarchus for the impeachment of Antiphon and his two had the consolation of inflicting a considerable colleagues, was himself one of the Four Huninjury on his country while he abandoned it. dred.~ And such, undoubtedly, was the policy When the cause of his party had become hope- adopted by Critias, son of Callaeschrus, a man less, he quitted the city with a few bowmen, whom we shall hereafter find taking the lead taken from among the rudest of the barbarians among the enemies of liberty, but who now diswho were employed in the public service, and tinguished himself by the ardour with which he proceeded to the border fortress of (Enoe, which embraced the prevailing cause. It was he who happened at this time to be besieged by a force proposed the recall of Alcibiades.** To this consisting of Corinthians and of Boeotian volunteers. The Corinthians had come to revenge * Not later than 406. Xenophon, Hell., i., 7, 29. a blow which a body of their troops, on its way t Lycurgus c. Leocr., p. 164. It is remarkable that the orator should not mention the real offence of Aristarchus, home from Decelea, had suffered from the Athe- though so much t% his purpose, but represent him and nian garrison; and they had called in the aid Alexicles as suffering for their participation in the guilt of of the Bceotians, who were always desirous to Phrynichus. t That it was'soon after the revolution is implied in the get possession of the place. Aristarchus, in expression of Thucydides, i'rcti) MI rTiv rcrpaKosonev braconcert with the besiegers, deceived the garri- Kosro. ~ Lysias c. Eratosth., p. 126. son by a story for which his office gained cred- 1 Caecilius in Plutarch, X. Orat. Vit. Antipho, where the of an agreement lately concluded at Athens ordinance of the council (which was, perhaps, empowered it, of an agreement lately concluded at Athens to direct the form of proceeding, as in the case of the victowith the enemy, and induced it to surrender the rious generals, Xen., Hell., i., 7, 7) and the judkment are fortress to the Bceotians. We do not know given at full length. But the words te TOV orpaTO*isaOV Through what means he afterward fell into the *rEtv want explanation. * Harpocratio,'Avdpxv. "* Plutarch, Ale., 32, quotes some lines of a poem addresshands of justice; but we find that within four ed-how long after the event we do not know-by Critias to Alcibiades, in which he claims this merit. rvdv? 6 3' ius &pxiv). aol yv Elat c 7ps7Ipvat icatr Xp6vov —b 6' idptr-OS, Ka'r6yay', iy ravroqv iv a rarav EZxrov, Kai' ypdac rodpyo'., lov b 3&Kaar7s Kat i;icXnrtaacr4i.. paca irds. MINDARUS IN THE HELLESPONT. 461 step he may have been led by personal friend- crossed over with some political volunteers ship, or by the wish to conciliate a powerful po- from Cuma, and after having been repulsed in litical associate. But it was likewise at his an attempt on their own town, gained admismotion that, after the ceremony of a judicial in- sion at Eresus. Thrasyllus prepared to assault vestigation, the remains of Phrynichus were the place with his whole force, which w.#s raisdisinterred, and carried, as those of a traitor, ed to sixty-seven galleys by the addition of five, out of Attica, while Apollodorus, a Megarian, with which Thrasybulus had been sent ftrward and Thrasybulus, an./Etolian of Calydon, who on the first news of the danger, but arrived too had been imprisoned as privy to his murder, late before Eresus, five belonging to Methymna. were released, and rewarded with the freedom and two which happened to be returning from of the city.* the Hellespont. It was the design of Thrasyllus, as soon as he had reduced Eresus, to advance against the Peloponnesians at Chios; and he had ordered a supply of provisions to be CHAPTER XXIX. laid in at Methymna for this expedition. But in the mean while he stationed scouts both on FROM THE OVAERTHROW OF THE FOUR HUNDRED TO the coast of Lesbos and on that of the opposite'aR$IE BATTLE OF NOTItUM. continent, that the enemy might not pass unob — WHILE the revolution just described was ta- served through the channel while he was engaking place, the operations of the hostile fleets, ged in the siege on the western side of the islwhich had hitherto been opposed to each other and. Mindarus, however, having stayed only on the south coast of Ionia, were transferred to two days at Chios, where he victualled his fleet, a new theatre of war. The Peloponnesians and obtained a small subsidy from the Chians found Tamos no more attentive to their wants for the pay of his men, by dint of extraordinary than Tissaphernes had been; and at length speed, contrived to effect his passage between even the scanty and irregular supplies which Lesbos and the main, and to reach the mouth they at first received wholly ceased. At the of the Hellespont before Thrasyllus received same time Mindarus was informed, by despatch- any advice of his movements. An Athenian es both from Philippus and front another Spar- squadron of eighteen galleys was at this time tan named Hippocrates, who had been sent to lying at Sestus, and sixteen, which had been Phaselis, that it was now evident Tissaphernes sent by the Peloponnesians after Clearchus, had no intention of fulfilling his promise with were at Abydus. They had received notice regard to the Phcenician fleet. He therefore of the approach of their friends, and were resolved to accept the invitation of Pharnaba- charged to prevent the escape of the Athenian zus, who continued to urge him to bring up his squadron; but though Mindarus arrived in the whole force to the Hellespont, and effect the straits a little before midnight, the Athenians revolt of all the other towns which remained were soon apprized of his presence by the fires subject to Athens in the satrap's province. which they saw suddenly kindled on the hostile Having first despatched Dorieus, with thirteen coast, as well as by fire signals, which were galleys, to Rhodes,t where some movements raised from their own, and they instantly set were apprehended from the party adverse to the sail to gain the open sea. They were not obPeloponnesian or aristocratical interest, he set served by the squadron at Abydus, but at daysail for Miletus with seventy-three galleys. break they found themselves in view of the PelHis orders for sailing were given so suddenly oponnesian armament, which chased them as as to prevent any notice of his design from be- they made for Imbrus and Lemnos, and took or ing conveyed to the enemy; but having, like destroyed four galleys. Thrasyllus, on this inClearchus, put out into- the open sea to escape telligence, immediately raised the siege of Ereobservation, he was driven by a gale to the Isle sus, and proceeded towards the Hellespont with of Icarus, and detained there five or six days, such rapidity, that he fell in with two of the Pelbut at length arrived safe at Chios. oponnesian galleys, which had been carried out In the mean while Thrasyllus, who, in the beyond the rest in the heat of the pursuit after absence of Alcibiades, had the supreme com- the Athenian squadron. The next day he came mand of the Athenian fleet, on discovering the to anchor at Elmeus, and was joined by-the fourdeparture of the Peloponnesians, immediately teen fugitive galleys, which, the five Methymset sail with fifty-five galleys in pursuit of them. naeans having been left behind at Lesbos, raised Finding, however, that they were lying at Chios, his forces to seventy-six sail. he proceeded to Lesbos, both to take precau- The Peloponnesians numbered ten more; an tions for stopping their progress, and to recover advantage which made Mindarus, now no longer Eresus, which had been recently induced to re- hampered by the intrigues of Tissaphernes, volt by a body of exiled Methymnteans, who had willing to try the event of a battle. On the other hand, the Athenian commanders were no * Lysias c. Agorat., p. 136, where Thrasybulus is said to less desirous of striking a blow which would have struck the blow, and, agreeably to the statement of raise the spirits of their men, and thought themThucydides, in a frequented part of the city. The singular selves not too unequally matched. Five days variation as to the time and place in Lycurgus c. Leocr., p. 164-where the murder is said to have been committed by were spent in preparations, and the Athenians night, and near a fountain among osiers, therefore, it might then moved in a single column along the shore be supposed, outside the city-may have arisen from some towards Sestus, and were met by the Peloponconfusion between this and some other event of the sale kind. It is Lycurgus who informs us that Critias was the nesans, who perceived their approach from mover of the decree for the investigation which terminated Abydus. Their right was commanded by Thraas we have mentioned in the text. But to suppose that sybulus; their left, which was parted from the these proceedings took place before the overthrow of the centre by the headland of Cynossea, by ThraFour Hundred was a somewhat gross mistake. + Diodorus, xiii., 358. syllus. The Peloponnesians had two main ob 462 HISTORY OF GREECE. jects in view: to break the Athenian centre, transferred to Pharnabazus. He was also and to outflank their right wing, so as to pre- alarmed by an occurrence which took place soon vent them from issuing out of the straits. And. after Mindarus arrived in the Hellespont, and accordingly, Mindarus himself, with his fastest which he considered as a sign of the animosity galleys, commanded the left of his line against of the Peloponnesians towards himself. The Thrasybulus, while Thrasyllus was opposed to _/Eolians of Antandrus, which -was included in the Syracusans. The attack on the Athenian his satrapy, found themselves oppressed by Arcentre succeeded; it was overpowered by su- saces his lieutenant, and dreaded some deeper perior numbers, several galleys were driven injury from his perfidy and cruelty, of which he aground, and the Peloponnesians landed to fobl- had given a signal proof on a former occasion low up their victory on shore. In the mean while towards the Delians, during their sojourn at Thrasyllus was engaged in a warm combat with Adramyttium, when, without any apparent provthe Syracusans, and was prevented by the inter- ocation, having drawn many of their best troops vening headland from seeing the distress of his into his service, as auxiliaries in a pretended centre; and Thrasybulus was employed in en- expedition, he had them massacred in cold deavouring to baffle the manoeuvres of Minda- blood. The Antandrians, therefore, availed rus. But, according to Thucydides, the partial themselves of the presence of the Peloponnesuccess of the Peloponnesians threw them into sians at Abydus, and, with the ai-dof a body of confusion, which spread through their whole heavy infantry which Mindarus sent over to line, when Thrasybulus suddenly turned upon them through the passes of Mount Ida, dislodgthe enemy who were striving to outflank him, ed the Persian garrison from their citadel. Tisand having put them to flight, attacked their saphernes, coupling this transaction with the victorious but disordered centre. The Syracu- conduct of the Peloponnesians at Miletus and sans, who had hitherto maintained their station, at Cnidus, where his garrison had likewise been though with difficulty, against Thrasyllus, were expelled, began to apprehend farther detriment involved in the general defeat. The narrow- from their hostility, and was again anxious to ness of the channel, as the vanquished found propitiate them. Notwithstanding the assushelter near at hand, prevented the Athenians rances which Alcibiades professed to have refrom making many captures. They'took only ceived from him-by which it is possible that one-and-twenty galleys, and lost fifteen of their the Athenian may have been himself deceived own. But the value of their victory was not -he had neither authority from his master to to be measured by these visible fruits. This declare himself in favour of Athens, nor any inwas the first great battle they had fought since tention to serve her cause. He did not despair their disasters in Sicily; their success restored of being able to find excuses which would apthe confidence of their seamen, and the news, pease the Peloponnesians, even with regard to which was immediately carried to Athens, light- the delay of the Phcenician fleet, and would give ened the dark cloud which had hitherto hung him a fair colour for expostulating with them over the prospects of the state, and consoled the on their proceedings at Antandrus. With this people for the recent losses in Eubcea, and ani- view, he proceeded towards the Hellespont, and mated it with the hope that it might still con- on his journey stopped at Ephesus to sacrifice quer, even without any other resources than to the great goddess of the Ephesians; a fact those of its own energy and courage. chiefly remarkable as the last which Thucydides The victors, having left their prizes at Elaeus, records; for with it his history abruptly\termiand having stayed three days at Sestus to refit, nates; and we are left to conjecture in what sailed northward to reduce Cyzicus, which had point of view-whether as indicating a desire lately revolted. In their way they fell in with of conciliating the Ionians, or in any other way eight galleys-part of the squadron with which connected with the objects of the satrap's jourHelixus the Megarian had taken possession of ney-it appeared to him worth mentioning.* Byzantium-and after a battle on shore, cap- Xenophon's Greek History-in which he has tured them all. Cyzicus, being unfortified, made related the events of the forty-eight years folno resistance, and was forced to pay for its re- lowing the period described by Thucydides — bellion. But in the mean while the Peloponne- opens as abruptly as that of Thucydides breaks sians sailed to Elaeus, and recovered those of off, and with a manifest reference to some octheir galleys left there which were in servicea- currences which his predecessor had not menble condition; the rest had been burned by the tioned. It seems clear that the beginning of people of Eleus. They also despatched Hip- his work has been lost, and it is at least certain pocrates and Epicles to Eubcea, to bring away that an interval of five or six weeks must have the squadron of Hegesandridas. intervened between the last event related by About the same time Alcibiades returned with Thucydides and that with which Xenophon's his thirteen galleys to Samos, to claim the mer- narrative at present opens. It is to Diodorus it of having withheld Tissaphernes from send- that we are indebted for all the means we have ing the Phcenician fleet to assist the enemy, and of having biased him in favour of the Atheni- * But assuredly Thucydides was not so ignorant or for ans; and, having manned nine additional gal- getful as to suppose that this act of Tissaphernes was inleys, he proceeded to Halicarnassus, where he consistent with the Persian religious belief which prevailed leys, he proceeded to Halicarnassus, where he both at this and at an earlier period. He could not have levied large contributions, fortified Cos, and ap- forgotten the motive assigned by Datis for the honours which pointed a governor there. While he was thus he paid to the Delians. (See p. 243.) He must have known employed, Tissaphernes also left Aspendus to that the Persians were commonly believed to have burned employed, Tissapernes also left Aspendus to the Greek temples in revenge for the conflagration of the return to Ionia. He had been startled by the temple of Cybele (p. 238. See HIerod., v., 102), even if he intelligence that the Peloponnesian armament was not aware that the many-sided divinity of Ephesus wat had wholly withdrawn from his province, and much less a Greek than an Asiatic goddess, intimately alli an ed with the leading personages of the Persian theology was much displeased at seeing its services SeeCreuzer, Mythol.,ii.,p. 187. Baur, Symbolik, ii.,p. 221. FORTIPICATIONS OF CHALCIS. 463 of filling up this blank; and as we know that built at the end of each mole, commanding the he had Ephorus before him in this part of his passage, which was covered by a wooden, per. compilation, we have reason to believe that no haps a movable bridge. The Bceotians zealtransactions of any great importance that oc- ously co-operated in this work, which tended to curred during this interval have been buried in strengthen their influence in Euboea, while it oblivion. Still Diodorous has elsewhere given subjected the Athenians to a great permanent such flagrant proofs of his want of diligence and inconvenience, as it barred the channel against judgment, that we cannot be sure that even all vessels bound for Athens from the north, what he relates on the authority of Ephorus has and compelled them to make the difficult and beer. accurately reported. Unless, however, he dangerous circuit of the eastern coast, the dreadhas been more than usually negligent or bewil- ed scene of many calamitous shipwrecks.* Afdered, he cannot have misrepresented the main ter the departure of Hegesandridas, Theramefacts contained in this part of his narrative, and nes was sent from Athens with thirty galleys to as they are consistent enough with all that we obstruct the work; but he found too strong a find in Xenophon, there seems to be no reason force collected for the protection of the workfor calling them in question. Mindarus, as we men, and probably the work itself too far adhave seen, had sent Epicles and Hippocrates to vanced, to offer any effectual interruption. But Eubeea for the ships which were stationed there having no enemy to fear on the sea, he prounder Hegesandridas. It seems that Hegesan- ceeded on a cruise among the islands, to levy dridas, after his victory, with the aid of his Eu- contributions both from friends and foes. Bebcean allies, was able to send a squadron of fif- sides exacting heavy penalties from those who ty galleys to the aid of Mindarus, and yet to re- had incurred the charge of treasonable attempts tain a considerable force on his own station. or designs against the majesty of the commonHippocrates appears to have remained in Eu- wealth, he appears now to have undone some bcea, waiting, perhaps, for fresh re-enforcements, part of the political changes which had been efwhile Epicles sailed with the squadron towards fected by Pisander and his oligarchical associthe Hellespont; but off Mount Athos he was ates among the subjects of Athens. In most overtaken by a terrible storm, which destroyed cases, perhaps, the revolution at Athens was atevery galley, and all their crews, except twelve tended by a similar one in the states which had men. An inscription, dedicated by the twelve before followed her example. But at Paros, survivers in the temple of Athene Itonia, at Cor- Theramenes found oligarchy still established; onea, was quoted, and most pably seen, by and while he restored the democratical governEphorus;* and it affords incor0 vertible evi- ment, he forced'the defeated party to pay deardence of the fact; nor is there sufficient ground ly for its brief enjoyment of power. for suspecting that Diodorus so grossly misun-'Not long after Hegesandridas quitted Eubcea, derstood his author as to refer the event to a Thymochares, whom he had defeated at Erewrong epoch, especially as no other can be found tria, was sent with a small squadron in the for so memorable a disaster. There can, there- same direction; and the first event related in fore, be little doubt that Epicles —for he is nev- Xenophon's History is an action which took er again mentioned-really perished with his place between the squadron commanded by whole squadron. Hegesandridas and a part of the Athenian navy Yet the immediate consequences of this event re-enforced by Thymochares. The battle apdo not appear in the narrative of Diodorus, and pears to have been the second that was fought can only be collected from the state of affairs within the'course of a few days; it was won which Xenophon represents at the beginning of by the Lacedaemonians; but, as no farther rehis history, where we find Hegesandridas still suits are mentioned, we may conclude that both in command of a squadron, and Hippocrates this and the preceding one were of slight imagain serving under Mindarus in the Helles- portance. Hegesandridas was perhaps on his pont. But hence it seems clear that, when the way to the coast of Thrace, where, not long afnews of the shipwreck reached Euboea, Hege- ter, we find him stationed; and it seems not sandridas sailed, with as many galleys as he improbable that it was off this coast that the could collect, or as could be spared, accompani- actions took place, and that the main squadron ed by Hippocrates, towards the north. He opposed to him on both occasions was that of would feel the less scruple in withdrawing his Theramenes. The hostile fleets in the Helles forces from Eubcea, as a work had been lately pont were still watching each other's movebegun which prorrised to secure the island from ments, waiting, perhaps, for supplies and re-enthe attacks of the Athenians;t for it was prob- forcements, towards the end of September, ably before his departure, and with his sanction when Dorieus, having executed his commisand assistance, that the Eubeeans had set about sion at Rhodes, sailed in with fourteen galleys. an undertaking which they had planned as soon Information was immediately given of his apas they revolted from Athens, though Diodorus proach to the Athenian commanders, who were places its execution a little later. Their main encamped at Madytus, on the coast of the Cherobject was to connect their island with the main- sonesus, and they put out with twenty galleys land by a bridge over the Euripus, so as to en- to attack him; but he ran his squadron aground sure the introduction of supplies and succours near the headland of Rheeteum, and defended from Baeotia, and to prevent the Athenians, even himself so vigorously that his assailants were though masters of the sea, from besieging them forced to retire, baffled, to their camp. This on that side. For this purpose a mole was car- action was observed by Mindarus, who was ried out from Chalcis, and another from the opposite Boeotian town of Aulis, leaving a passage * See a memoir by Mr. Hawkins in Walpole, i., p. 545, between them for only one ship. A tower was where, however, we can hardly help suspecting that he somewhat underrates the ancient productiveness of Eubcea ~ Diodor. xiii., 41 t Ibid., 47. itself. 464 HISTORY OF GREECE. sacrificing to Athene in the citadel of Ilium, prevented him from parting with a force which which commanded a view of the coast, and he was needed to protect the king's dominions. hastened to embark and join Dorieus with his But, as his character was now generally underwhole fleet. The Athenians now came out stood, his assertions appear to have gained litfrom Madytus to meet them, and an engage- tie credit; and when, after a month's imprisment ensued near Abydus, which lasted, with onment, Alcibiades contrived to effect his esfluctuating success, nearly the whole day. To- cape from Sardis'to Clazomenae, he easily made wards evening, Alcibiades was seen entering it to be believed that he had been released by the straits with eighteen galleys; and, on the the satrap's orders.* In the mean while, Minappearance of this squadron, the Peloponne- darus, who had still sixty galleys left, or had sians took to flight, and were pursued and driv- received re-enforcements which raised his fleet en ashore, where, however, they maintained to that number,t prepared to take advantage of the combat in defence of their ships, and were the enemy's temporary weakness; and the supported by Pharnabazus, who came to their Athenians, having been apprized of the attack aid with a body of troops. He displayed the which he meditated, withdrew under cover of utmost zeal in their behalf, animated his men, night from Sestus to Cardia, on the Isthmus Of not only by his exhortations, but by his exam- the peninsula. Here they were joined by Alple, pushing forward with his horse into the cibiades, who brought with him five galleys and sea, and persevering as long as there was an a smaller vessel, which he had found at Cla enemy to oppose. The Athenians, however, zomene. But, hearing that the Peloponnesucceeded in carrying off thirty of the Pelopon- sians had left Abydus for Cyzicus, he crossed nesian galleys, and in recovering those which over by land to Sestus, and ordered the fleet to they had themselves lost, with which they re- sail round and meet him there; for, notwithtired to Sestus. I standing his great inferiority in numbers, he Notwithstanding this victory, the want of was resolved to seek an engagement. But, just money was so pressing, that while Thrasyllus as he was on the point of sailing, Thrasybulus sailed to Athens to bear the good tidings and and Theramenes arrived, each with a squadron to procure re-enforcements, other officers were of twenty galleys; for Theramenes had joined despatched in various directions to collect pe- Thrasybulus on the coast of Thrace, and they cuniary supplies: no more than forty galleys had been engaged in levying contributions till were left at Sestus. It was at this juncture they were called away by a despatch from the that Tissaphernes, who, perhaps, had not only fleet at Cardi/The object of Alcibiades now travelled slowly, after the fashion of an East- was to overtalhe enemy before this augmenern grandee, but had taken time to watch the tation of his force should have been heard of. turn of events, arrived in the neighbourhood of Making all speed, he arrived in the forenoon of the Hellespont, bent, perhaps, the more on con- the next day at the island of Proconnesus, ciliating the Peloponnesians on account of their where he learned that Mindarus was at Cyzrecent losses, which may have led him to fear icus, with Pharnabazus and his troops. He relest the balance which he wished to preserve mained the rest of the day at Proconnesus, tashould be destroyed, and he himself might in- king the most rigorous precautions, to prevent cur his master's displeasure as having contrib- intelligence of his coming from reaching the uted to the success of his old enemies, the- enemy. Early the next morning he assembled Athenians. When, therefore, Alcibiades went the men, and told them that they must be preto greet him on his arrival with presents which pared to fight, not only on the water, but on were at once offerings of friendship and- a trib- land, and even against walled towns, for it was ute of homage, not, perhaps, without hope of by their arms alone they could hope to provide obtaining some supplies for the necessities of themselves with those supplies which the enethe fleet, instead of the usual gracious recep- my received in abundance from the Persian tion, he was arrested and sent prisoner to Sar- treasury. He then set sail, in a heavy rain dis. Tissaphernes, at the same time, profess- and a thick mist, for Cyzicus. As he approach ed that he had orders from the king to treat the ed the harbour the weather suddenly cleared up, Athenians as enemies; and he seems to have and, as the sun broke the raist, the Peloponnetaken this opportunity of opening a fresh cor- sian fleet was discovered exercising, a great respondence with the Peloponnesian command- way off at sea. When the Peloponnesians saw ers, and of apologizing for the breach of his the Athenians with so large a force between promise with regard to the Phoenician fleet. them and the harbour, they made for the nearAt Aspendus, it appears, he had pleaded, as a est land, and, laying their ships together in a pretext for delay, that the numbers of the fleet compact mass, defended themselves a while fell so far short of the force which he had been from the decks; but at length Alcibiades, havcommanded to raise, that he did not venture to ing sailed round with twenty galleys to another run the risk of offending his master by sending point of the coast, landed his men, and came such inadequate succours. Now, as we may up to attack them in the rear. Mindarus himcollect from Diodorus,* he offered a new excuse, self now landed to repel the assailants, but fell alleging that news which had been received of in the battle, and his men were put to flight. certain designs formed by.the king of the Ara- _ bians and the ruler of the revolted Egyptians, *Plutarch, Alc., 28. which threatened the safety of Phoenicia, had t Diodorus, xiii., 49, speaks of great accessions from Pel oponnesus and other quarters, as to which Xenophon is * Diodor., xiii., 46. Though Diodorus here and else- silent. Yet, as Mindarus lost twenty-one galleys out of where, by a blunder which alone might serve to stanmp his eighty-six at the battle of Cynossema, though he afterward character as an historian, has confounded Tissaphernes with recovered a part of them, he must have been strongly rePharnabazus, the apology which he puts into the mouth of enforced either before or after his loss at Abydus. And it Pharnabazus for the conduct of Tissaphernes is too charac- is probable that a part at least of these re-enforcement. teristic of its real author not to be genuine came from Euboea OVERTURES FOR PEACE. 405 The whole fleet, except the galleys of the Syr- against as many Athenians. BA Cleophon, acusans, which they fired, fell into the hands one of the upstart demagogues who from time of the Athenians, who carried them away to to time pushed themselves forward into a disProconnesus. graceful notoriety and a pernicious influence, The next day they sailed to Cyzicus, which, now took the same course which Cleon had being abandoned by the enemy, was forced to pursued on a sitilar occasion, and prevailed on receive them, and was laid under heavy contri- the assembly to reject an offer which, a few butions by Alcibiades during a stay of twenty weeks before, would probably have been hailed days which he made there. He then proceeded as an unexpected deliverance. Cleophon's sway to the Bosporus; in his way he was admitted over the public'mind might lead us to conjecinto Perinthus, and at Selymbria, though the ture that the poli which Thueydides applaudgates were closed against him, he obtained ed had already'given way to the old democracy. money. On his arrival in the Bosporus, he But all classes were alike capable of being elafortified the town of Chrysopolis on the eastern ted by sudden prosperity, and we do not know coast, opposite Byzantium, and established a what may have been the demands of the Athecustom-house there, where he compelled all nians on which the negotiation was broken off. vessels which passed from the Euxine to pay While the building of the new fleet was goa tithe on their cargoes. Then leaving thirty ing on at Antandrus, news was brought to Hergalleys under Theramenes and Eubulus to col- mocrates and his colleagues that they had been lect these duties, with general instructions to condemned to banishment by the people at do whatever harm they could to the enemy, he home, where an adverse faction was now prereturned with the rest of the fleet to the Hel- dominant. They immediately assembled their lespont. While he was reaping these fruits of men, and after protesting against the illegal the victory of Cyzicus, it had for a time reduced proceedings by which they had been sentenced the Peloponnesians to great distress, which was unheard and in a mass, they exhorted them described by Hippocrates, who took the com- not to relax their zeal or their discipline, and mand after the death of Mindarus, in. a despatch desired them to elect commanders in their -copied by Xenophon from the original, which room until their successors should have arwas intercepted and carried to Athens —con- rived from Syracuse. This request was resistirlg of four laconic sentences. The tide has ceived with a general acclamation, especially turned; Mindarus has perished; the men are from the officers and the soldiers, bidding them hungering; we are in a strait.* But their ema retain their office. But the generals deprecabarrassment did not last long, for Pharnabazus, ted all resistance to legal authority, however who was as true and generous as Tissaphernes unjustly exercised, though at the same time was faithless and selfish, came forward of his they declared themselves ready to give an acown accord to their relief. He bade them take count of their administration, if any one presheart; for s;o long as their lives were saved, ent had aught to allege against them, and rethey would find timber enough in the king's minded their hfearers of the victories they had forests to replace their lost ships. In the mean gained and of the distinctions with which they while he clothed and armed the men, gave them had been honoured by their allies.' This appeal pay for two months, and stationed them to guard was attended with an effect which they probathe coasts of his province. He then called the bly expected. Not a voice was raised except officers together, and bade them set about build- to renew the former acclamations, and they acing new galleys at Antandrus, equal. in number cordingly consented to remain in command unto those which they had lost, advanced the til they were superseded by the new generals. money required, and gave them leave to take Hermocrates had especially endeared himself the timber from the woods of Ida. While the to his inferior officers by the affability with ships were on the stocks, the Syracusans earn- which he had been used to communicate his ed the gratitude of the Antandrians by helping plans, and to listen to their suggestions, colthem to fortify and guard their town, and were lecting those of the captains and masters, and requited with the title of benefactors and with even the soldiers, whom he found the aptest the freedom of Antandrus. learners, every morning and evening in his Still the news of the loss of the whole fleet, tent for consultation and discourse. When he on which the Peloponnesians had hitherto re- took his leave, most of'the captains pledged lied for carrying on the war, created so much themselves by a solemn oath, as soon as they alarm at Sparta, that an embassy was sent to returned to Syracuse, to exert their utmost efAthens, with Endius at its head, to make over- forts for his recall. He appears to have protures for peace. The fact, notwithstanding ceeded to Sparta before the arrival of his sucXenophon's silence, cannot reasonably be doubt- cessors, leaving his colleagues at Miletus with ed, and the account which Diodorus gives of a newly-built squadron of 20 galleys. His main the terms proposed by Endius is at least per- object at Sparta' was apparently to counteract fectly probable.' Each party was to retain the the machinations of Tissaphernes, who was, places which it possessed, but to withdraw its perhaps, endeavouring by the intrigues of his troops from the other's territory, and the Lace- emissaries to supplant Pharnabazus in the condnemonian prisoners were to be exchanged fidence of the Spartans. The satrap's agents were instructed to meet the charges of Her* EiPAeL T raXciM Mtiv(apos arreicova' 7rLvtJvrL Twv6peE mocrates with a calumnious allegation, that he &rroptwoAs' Tr xpii pavr. The strangest circumstance had applied to Tissaphernes for money, and about this despatch is, that it runs so very nearly in two that the refusal he met with was the motive of Hipponactean iambics. But the anxiety of some learned men to complete the first line by inserting a R' or a ye (see his resentment.* But this story was not beValckenaer, Theoc., p. 264)-as if the Spartans had consoled themselves under their misfortunes by putting them * Thucyd., viii., 85. An intelligent reader of the origiIn verse-is a ludicrous example of misapplied erudition. nal will not requ;re a proof that this is the epoch to which VOL. 1.-N N N 466 HISTORY OF GREECE. lieved, andvthe statements of Hermocrates he sailed to Notium, and thence led his troops were supported by Astyochus, who seems no against Colophon, which immediately surrenlonger to have had anything to gain by false- dered; he stayed there but a few hours, and in hood. And the public opinion at Sparta turned the middle of the night resumed his march. and so strongly against Tissaphernes, that he was made an inroad into the interior of Lydia, where suspected of having concerted a revolution the corn was just ripe; here he burned several which took place about this time at Thasos, in villages, and returned to the coast laden with which the partisans of Sparta and the Spartan plunder, having only experienced one very slight governor, Eteonicus, were expelled. Hermoc- interruption from a troop of cavalry commnandrates, after thus defeating t