THE
HISTORY OF GREECE.
BY
PROFESSOR DR. ERNST CURTIUS.
TRANSLATED BY
ADOLPHUS WILLIAM       WARD, M.A.
FELLOW OF ST. PETER'S COLLEGE, CAMHRIDGE;
PROFESSOR OF HISTORY IN OWENS COLLEGE, MANCHESTER.
VOL. I.
N:EW  O'  K:
CHARLES SCRIBNER & COMPANY, 654 BROADWAY.
1871.








NOTICE.
THIS Translation being, like its German original,
designed for popular use, the Greek names occurring
in it have been spelt in the manner familiar to
English readers. A translation scarcely appears to
offer a suitable occasion for attempting an innovation which has not yet been consistently carried
out in more than one History of Greece in the
English language.
The Translator regrets the inevitable necessity of
altering the division of volumes adopted in the
original.
OWENS COLLEGE, MANCHESTER,
Nov. 9th, 1867.








CONTENTS.
BOOK THE FIRST.
THE GREEKS BEFORE THE DORIAN MIGRATION.
CHAP.                                   PAGE.
I.-LAND AND PEOPLE,......              9
II.-THE PRE-HISTORIC AGES OF THE HELLENES,. 47
III.-THE EARLIEST STATES,.... 79
IV.-THE MIGRATIONS AND CHANGES OF SETTLEMENTS AMONG THE GREEK TRIBErS,..115
BOOK THE SECOND.
FlROM THE DORIAN MIGRATION TO THE PERSIAN
WARS.
I.-HISTORY OF PELOPONNESU.S,..      175
II.-HISTORY OF ATTICA,....          816
III.-THE HELLENES BEYOND THE ARCHIPELAGO,. 432








BOOK THE FIRST.
~TE GREEKS BEFORE THE DORIAN IGRATION —
THE GREEEKS BEFORE THE DORIAN MIGRATION.








THE HISTORY OF GREECE.
CHAPTER I.
LAND AND PEOPLE.
WE speak of Europe and Asia, and involuntarily allow
these terms to suggest to us two distinct quarters of the
globe, separated from one another by natural boundaries.
But where are these boundaries? Possibly a frontier-line
may be found in the north, where the Ural Mountains cut
through the broad complexes of land; but to the south of
the Pontus nature has nowhere severed east from west,
but rather done her utmost closely and inseparably to
unite them. The same mountain-ranges which pass across
the Archipelago extend on dense successions of islands
over the Propbntis: the coast-lands on either side belong
to one another as if they were two halves of one country:
and harbors such as Thessalonica and Athens have from
the first been incomparably nearer to the coast-towns of
Ionia than to their own interior, while from the western
shores of their own continent they are still farther separated by broad tracts of land and by the difficulties of a
lengthy sea-voyage.
Sea and air unite the coasts of the Archipel- Conditions
ago into one connected whole; the same period- of climate.
ical winds blow from the Hellespont as far as Crete; and
regulate navigation by the same conditions, and the cli1*                            9




10                History of Greece.        [BOOK I.
mate by the same changes. Scarcely a single point is to
be found between Asia and Europe where, in clear
weather, a mariner would feel himself left in a solitude
between sky and water; the eye reaches from island to
island, and easy voyages of a day lead from bay to bay.
And therefore at all times the same-nations have inhabited
either shore, and since the days of Priam the same languages and customs have obtained both here and there.
The Greek of the islands is as much at home at Smyrna
as he is at Nauplia: Salonichi lies in Europe, and yet belongs to the trading towns of the Levant: notwithstanding
all changes of political circumstances, Byzantium to this
day ranks as the metropolis on either side: and as one
swell of the waves rolls from the shore of Ionia up to
Salamis, so neither has any movement of population ever
affected the coast on one side without extending itself to
the other. Arbitrary political decisions have in ancient
and moder times separated the two opposite coasts, and
used some of the broader straits between the islands as
boundary-lines; but no separation of this kind has ever
become more than an external one, nor has any succeeded
in dividing what nature has so clearly appointed for the
theatre of a common history.
As decided as the homogeneous character of the coastlands, which lie opposite one another from east to west, is
the difference between the regions in the direction from
north to south. On the northern border of the AEgean
Sea no myrtle-leaf adorns the shore; and the climate resembles that of a district of Central Germany: no southern
fruit grows in any part of Roumelia.
With the 40th degree of latitude a new region begins.
Here, on the coasts and in the sheltered valleys, occur the
first signs of the neighborhood of a warmer world, and the
first forests of constant verdure. But here, also, a trifling
elevation suffices to change the whole condition of its vicinity; thus a mountain like Athos bears on its heights nearly




CHAP. I.]         Land and People.              11
all European species of trees at once. And totally and
utterly different is the natural condition of the interior.
The Bay of Joannina, lying nearly a degree farther south
than Naples, has the climate of Lombardy: in the interior
of Thessaly no olive-tree will flourish, and the entire Pindus is a stranger to the flora of Southern Europe.
At the 39th degree, and not before, the warm air of sea
and coast penetrates into the interior, where a rapid advance makes itself visible. Even in Phthiotis rice and
cotton are already grown, and frequent specimens of the
olive-tree begin to occur. In Euboea and Attica there
are even scattered instances of the palm-tree, which in
larger groups adorns the southern Cyclades, and which in
the plains of Messenia will, under favorable circumstances,
at times even produce edible dates. None of the rarer
southern fruits prosper in the neighborhood of Athens
without special cultivation; while on the east coast of
Argolis lemon and orange trees grow in thick forests, and
in the gardens of the Naxiotes even the tender lime ripens,
whose fragrant fruit, plucked in January, is transported
in the space of a few hours to coasts where neither vine
nor olive will flourish.
Thus, within a boundary of not more than two degrees
of latitude, the land of Greece reaches from the beeches of
Pindus into the climate of the palm; nor is there on the
entire known surface of the globe any other region in
which the different zones of climate and flora meet one
another in so rapid.a succession.
The results are a variety in the living forms of nature
and an abundance of her produce, which necessarily excited the minds of the inhabitants, awakened their attention and industry, and called mercantile interchange into
life among them.
These differences of climate are, as a rule, common to
both shores. Yet even the regions of the eastern and
western shores, with all their homogeneousness, show a




12                 History of Greece.         [BooK I.
thorough difference between one another; for the similarity of the shores is not more strongly marked than the
difference in the formation of the countries themselves.
It would seem as if the AEgean were in possession of the
peculiar power of transforming, after a fashion of its own,
all the mainland,-in other words, of everywhere penetrating into and breaking it up, of forming by this resolving process islands, peninsulas, necks of land, and promontories, and thus creating a line of coast of disproportionately great extent, with innumerable natural harbors.
Such a coast may be called a Greek coast, because those
regions in which Hellenes have settled possess it as peculiar to them before all countries of the earth.
Asia,       The following is the difference between the
Minor.    countries on the eastern and western shore.
The mainland of the eastern is only outwardly affected by
this formation. As a whole, notwithstanding its peninsular shape, it is justly called Asia Minor; for it shares with
the districts of Anterior Asia the mighty elevation of the
whole. Like a lesser Iran it builds itself up out of the
midst of the three seas; presenting in the interior a massy,
inaccessible region of highlands of cool temperature and
dry atmosphere, in which stony and ill-watered plains are
freely interspersed with fertile districts, suitable for the
support of great and hardy nations.
Nowhere is the sea reached by the rim of this great
table-land, which is belted on all sides bymountain ranges.
The mightiest of the latter is the Taurus, a wall of rocks,
whose lofty edges and precipitous walls separate the southern districts from the heart. of the country. Towards ihe
north, in the direction of the Pontus, the terraces are
ranged in more extensive breadth, with undulating hilly
country, and a gradually progressing declivity. Towards
the west is the greatest variety of formation. In the
direction of the Propontis and the Hellespont the edge of
the interior highland country rises to mountains of con



CHAP. I.]         Land and People,              13
siderable height, and well supplied with streams and pastures,-the Mysian Olympus and the Trojan Ida: towards
the side of the Archipelago occurs a sudden transition
from the inland to the coast country. A line drawn from
Constantinople straight through Asia Minor to the Lycian
Sea roughly indicates the degree of longitude at which the
masses of table-land suddenly break off, where the country
is everywhere broken up into natural divisions, and in
wide fertile river-courses opens towards the sea, which runs
to meet them in numerous bays. Here is, as it were, the
beginning of a new world, of another country, which resembles a border of a different material woven on to a garment; and were we desirous of distinguishing the quarters
of the globe according to the formation of their soil, we
should have to set up the boundary marks between Asia
and Europe on this line, which separates the country of
the interior from that of the coast.
Asia Minor, on account of the peculiar forma- The Coasts
of Asia
tion of its countries, comprehending the great-  Minor.
est variety of contrasts, without any unity to connect
them, has altogether never shown itself suited for a common national history. So much the more have the terrace-lands of Asia Minor at all times been the theatre of a
history, and the dwelling-place of nations of their own,
which have known how to keep themselves free from the
dominion of the interior.
The western border of Asia Minor consists, in the first
instance, of the estuary-land of the four great rivers which
flow into the sea through valleys lying parallel to one
another, the Meander, the Cayster, the Hermus, and the
Caicus (to name them in their order of succession from
south to north). In no region of the ancient world was
luxuriance of arable and pasture land so immediately
united to all the advantages of an excellent coast formation. The development of the coast-line of Ionia in all
its bays and projections amounts to more than quadruple




14                History of Greece.         [BooK I.
its extent in a straight line from north to south. On the
north and south sides this formation of coast is not so consistently the same, but only appears here in certain districts, to which on the other hand, this very participation
in the Hellenic formation of country has attached a peculiar mission of taking part in Hellenic history. Among
these districts are the shores of the Propontis and the
Caro-Lycian coast-land.
Thus in the east the sea has not been able to Hellenize
more than the border of the mainland; it is far otherwise
on the opposite side. Here also is massed a mainland,
projected into the sea in a southward direction between the
Adriatic and the Pontus; but this central body is not
only, like Asia Minor, outwardly fashioned by the sea and
dislocated on its coasts, but the very heart of the country
continues to be broken up into peninsulas and islands, till
at last it becomes entirely absorbed into this loose formation.
Greece in   The whole mass of the countries of Western
Europe.   Greece is cut off by the chain of high mountain ranges stretching in a great arc from the Adriatic
to the Black Sea from all the districts belonging to
the territory of the Danube, and is thus bidden to
develop itself in a southward direction, as a world by
itself, according to laws of its own. The Thracian
Hremus, with its impervious ridges, constitutes a natural
boundary, the difficulties of-which prevent all national
intercourse; while from Asia the approach is easy and
open. In the same way it is easy to recognize, in the
development of the entire southern mass of countries between the Adriatic and the 2Egean, the circumstance that
the eastern or Asiatic side is always the favored one, i. e.,
that all the districts on this side enjoy an especially happy
organization for a systematic political life, and that the
abundance of harbors in their coasts imposes on them a
special mission for maritime commerce. Thus, in the




CHAP. I.]          Land and Pople.                15
first instance, Albania and Illyria are nothing but a crowd
of rocky ridges following one another in close succession,
and of narrow defiles, with scarcely sufficient space left for
roads to be constructed through them; their coasts are
savage and inhospitable. Notwithstanding, then, that in
ancient times caravans crossed the mountains, in order to
exchange, in the central land between the two seas, the
produce of the Ionian Islands and of the Archipelago;
notwithstanding that subsequently the Romans constructed
a main road from Dyrrhachium straight across the country; Illyria has, through the whole course of time, remained a land of barbarians.
But how vast is the difference in everything
which meets us on crossing to the eastern side Medoni
over the Scardus Pass! Here numerous springs at the
base of the central chain swell into mighty rivers, which
flow into broad lowlands, and these lowlands are embraced
in great circlets by the mountain ranges which belt the
plain, and leave only a narrow egress into the sea for the
rivers of the country. Inner Macedonia consists of a succession of three such encircled plains, the waters of which
unite and force themselves into the recess of the deeplyindented gulf of Thessalonica. For Macedonia is favored
above Illyria, not only by the great arable plains of its
interior, but also by an accessible, hospitable coast.
Instead of monotonously savage lines of coast, a broad
mass of mountains here springs out between the mouths
of the Axius and the Strymon, and extends far into the
sea with three rocky projections, abounding in bays, of
which the easternmost terminates in Mount Athos.
More than 6,400 feet it rises above the sea, with its precipitous walls of marble; equidistant from the entrance of
the Hellespont and from that of the Pagassean gulf, it
casts its shadow as far as the market-place of Lemnos, and
offers a guiding point for navigation, visible many miles
off, and commanding the whole northern Archipelago.




16               History of Greece.         [BooK I.
By this Greek formation of their coasts Macedonia and
Thrace are connected with the Greek world, while the territorial condition of their interior is totally different from
that of Hellas proper. They are highland countries, where
the population, cut off from the sea, is, as it were, held enchained in secluded circles of valleys.
The 40th degree of latitude cuts the knot of mountain
Northern  ranges, which announces a new formation toGreece.  wards the south. The country loses the character of Alpine land; the mountains, besides becoming
lower, tamer, and more capable of cultivation, arrange
themselves more and more into a discernible system of
hilly chains, surrounding the cultivated plains, and
dividing and protecting the country, without making it inaccessible, savage, and barren. This advance in the
organization of the country, however, again prevails only
on the eastern side, where the fertile basin of the valley of
the PenSus spreads out amidst its hills; on the side of the
sea, too, it is shut out by the Ossa range, which, under the
name of Pelion, parallel to Athos, extends into the sea like
a rocky mole. Twice, however, the mountains are broken
through, and Thessaly at the same time emptied of its
waters and opened to external intercourse towards the
east, viz. at the water-gate of the Vale of Tempe, and
again to the south, where, between Pelion and Othrys, the
Pagassean Gulf stretches deep and broad into the land.
Central    And now towards the south the formation of
Greece.  the country continues to increase in mul$iplicity; and to the ramification of the mountains correspond the bays of the sea, opening into the land from the
east and west. By this means the whole body of the country is so manifoldly broken up, that it becomes a succession of peninsulas, connected with one another by
isthmuses. And at the same point, under the 39th degree
of latitude, begins Central Greece (H-ellas, in the stricter
sense of the name), where, between the Ambracian and




CIAP. I.]         Land and People.                17
Malian Gulfs, the conical height of Tymphrestus rises to a
height of more than 7,000 feet, and once again binds
together in the centre the eastern and western halves of
Greece. Towards the west Tymphrestus towers over the
regions watered by the Achelous, which, with the districts
contiguous to them, remain excluded from the more
broken-up formation of the eastern half. Towards the
east the CEta chain extends, and at the southern border of
the Malian Gulf forms the Pass of Thermopylae, where,
betwixt morass and precipitous rock, the mere breadth of a
road is left for reaching the southern districts. From
Therrmopyla straight across to the Corinthian Gulf the
distance is less than six miles. * This is the isthmus, commencing from which the peninsula of Eastern Central
Greece extends as far as the Promontory of Sunium.
The main mountain range of this peninsula is the Parnassus, whose crest, 7,500 feet in height, was held sacred
by the generations of men dwelling around it, as the
starting-point of a new human race. From its northern
base the Cephissus flows into the great basin of the Bceotian valley, bounded by the Helicon with its ramifications.
Helicon is closely followed by Cithseron, another crossrange from sea to sea, separating Attica from Boeotia. It
would be difficult to find two countries contiguous to and
at the same time more different from one another than
these. Boeotia is an inland territory, complete and secluded
in itself where the superabundant water stagnates in the
depths of the valleys-a land of damp fogs and luxuriant
vegetation on a rich soil. The whole of Attica is projected
into the sea, which it admits into its bays; its soil is dry and
rocky, and covered with a thin coating of earth, and it is
surrounded by the clear transparent atmosphere of the
island-world to which, by situation and climate, it belongs.
Its mountain-ranges carry themselves on in the sea, and
form the inner group of the Cyclades, just as the outer
* Geographical.




18                History of Greece.         [BoosI.
group consists of the continuations of Euboea. Once
upon a time Attica was the southernmost member of the
continent of Greece, till out of the waters emerged the
low narrow bridge of land which was to add the island of
Pelops, as the completest of peninsulas, as last and concluding member to the body of the mainland. Thus,
without severing the continuous cohesion of the country,
in the midst of it two broad inland seas, abounding in
harbors, meet one another, the one opening towards Italy
the other towards Asia.
Pelopon-    The Peloponnesus forms a whole by itself; it
nesus.    contains in its own centre its principal mountain-range, whose mighty bulwarks embrace the high inland country of Arcadia, while its ramifications break up
the surrounding districts. These are either mere terraces of
the inner highland country, like Arcadia and Elis, or new
mountain-ranges issue, and, running in a south or eastward direction, form the trunk of new peninsulas: such is
the origin of the Messenian, Laconian, and Argive peninsulas, and of the deeply-cut gulfs between them, with their
broad straits.
Equal in rich variety to the outline of the country is
the constitution of its interior. On the monotonous tableland of Arcadia one fancies oneself in the midst of an extensive inland district; the basins of its valleys participate in the organization and the heavy foggy atmosphere
of Boeotia: whereas the closely-packed mountain-chains of
Western Arcadia resemble the wild Alpine scenery of
Epirus. The west coast of Peloponnesus corresponds to
the flat shores of the Achelous districts; the rich plains of
the Pamisus and Eurotas are natural gifts of the river, as
in the case of the Thessalian Peneus, which flows out of
mountain clefts; finally, Argolis, with its Inachus Plain,
opens towards the south, and its peninsula, abounding in
rocky harbors and projecting islands, is both by situation
and soil like a second Attica. Thus the creative nature




CHAP. I.]         Land and People.               19
of Hellas once more, in the southernmost member of the
country, repeats all its favorite formations, compressing
within narrow limits the greatest variety of contrasts.
Notwithstanding this confusing multiplicity in the relations of the soil, we find, asserting themselves in all their
severity, certain plain and clear laws, which impress upon
the whole of European Greece the mark of a peculiar organization. Among these are the co-operation of sea and
mountains in marking off the different parts of Laws reguthe country; further, the series of cross-bars lating the
geographrunning out from the central range, and, in ical formation of
combination with the Illyrico-Macedonic high- Oreee in
lands, rendering access to the dwellings of the Europe.
Greeks impossible from the north, isolating them from the
mainland, and confining them entirely to the sea and the
opposite coasts. The very nature of the northern highlands forces their inhabitants to live in their narrow wellwatered valleys as peasants, shepherds, and hunters; to
steel their strength by the Alpine air, and to preserve it
intact amidst their simple and natural conditions of life,
until the time shall have come for them to descend into
the regions farther to the south, the more subdivided and
manifold formation of which has, in turn, assigned to
them the mission of becoming a theatre for the creation
of states, and of leading their inhabitants in an eastward
direction into the maritime and coast intercourse of a new
and wider world. For, in fine, of all the laws which regulat3
the formation of the countries of European Greece, this
is at once the most undeniable and the most important,
that, beginning at the Thracian coast, the east side is
marked out as the frontage of the whole complex of countries. With the exception of two bays and of the Gulf of
Corinth, the western sea, from Dyrrhachium to Methone,
washes nothing but precipitous cliffs or a flat shore, an
accretion of the sea, and disfigured by lagunes; while innumerable deep bays and anchorages open from the mouth




20                History of Greece.         C[ooK I.
of the Strymon, as far as Cape Malea, to invite the inhabitants of the islands hard by to sail into, or their own population to sail out of, them. The form of rocky coast
which prevails on the east side, and renders maritime intercourse possible at almost every point of a long line of
shore, at the same time conduces to a superior healthiness
of climate, and is better adapted for the foundation of
cities. Thus the whole history of Hellas has thrown itself
on the eastern coast, and those tribes which were driven
into the rear of the land, such as, e. g., the Western Locrians, were by this means simultaneously excluded from active participation in the progress of the national development.
(The history of a nation is by no means to be regarded
solely as a consequence of the natural condition of its
local habitations. But thus much it is easy to perceive:
a formation of soil as peculiar as that commanding the
basin of the Archipelago may well give a peculiar direction to the development of the history of its inhabitants.
(In Asia great complexes of countries possess a history
common to all of them. There one nation raises itself
over a multitude of others, and in every case decrees of
fate fall, to which vast regions, with their millions of inhabitants, are uniformly subjected. Against a history of
this kind every foot-breadth of Greek land rises in protest.
There the ramification of the mountains has formed a series of cantons, every one of which has received a natural
call and a natural right to a separate existence.
The villagers of wide plains quail at the thought of defending their laws and property against an overpowering
force of arms; they submit to what is the will of heaven,
and the survivor tranquilly builds himself a new hut near
the ruins of the old. But where the land which has been
with difficulty cultivated is belted by mountains with
lofty ridges and narrow passes, which a little band is able
to hold against a multitude, there men receive, together




CeAP. I.]         Land and People.              21
with these weapons of defence, the courage for using them.
In the members of every local federation arises the feeling
of belonging together by the will and command of God;
the common state grows by itself out of the hamlets of the
valley; and in every such state there springs up at the
same time a consciousness of an independence fully justified before God and man. He who desires to enslave
such a land must attack and conquer it anew in every one
of its mountain valleys. In the worst case the summits
of the mountains and inaccessible caves are able to shelter
the remnant of the free inhabitants of the land.\
But, besides the political independence, it is also the
multiplicity of culture, manners, and language characteristic of Ancient Greece which it is impossible to conceive
as existent without the multiplicitous formation of its territory, for without the barriers of the mountains the various elements composing its population would have early
lost their individuality by contact with one another.
Now Hellas is not only a secluded and wellguarded country, but, on the other hand, again sphere and
more open to commerce than any other country the sea.
of the ancient world. For from three sides the sea penetrates into all parts of the country; and while it accustoms men's eyes to greater acuteness and their minds to
higher enterprise, never ceases to excite their fancy for the
sea, which, in regions where no ice binds it during the
whole course of the year, effects an incomparably closer
union between the lands than is the case with the inhospitable inland seas of the North. If it is easily agitated,
it is also easily calmed again; its dangers are diminished
by the multitude of safe bays for anchorage, which the
mariner may speedily reach at the approach of foul
weather. They are farther decreased by the transparent
clearness'of the atmosphere, which allows the mariner at
daytime to recognize the guiding points of his course at
a distance of as many as twenty miles, and at night spreads




22                History of Greece.          [BOOK I.
over his head a cloudless sky, where the ri'ing and setting
of the stars in peaceful tranquility regulate the business
of peasant and mariner. The winds are the legislators of
the weather; but even they, in these latitudes submit to
certain rules, and only rarely rise to the vehemence of desolatlmg hurricanes. Never, except in the short winter
season, is there any uncertain irregularity in wind and
weather; the commencement of the fair season-the safe
months, as the ancients called it-brings with it an immutable law followed by the winds in the entire Archipelago: every morning the north wind arises from the
coasts of Thrace, and passes over the whole island-sea; so
that men were accustomed to designate all the regions
lying beyond that of these coasts as the side beyond the
north wind. This is the wind which once carried Miltiades to Lemnos, and at all times secured advantages of
such importance to those -who commanded the northern
coasts. Often these winds (the Etesian) for weeks together assume the character of a storm, and when the
sky is clear waves of froth appear as far as the eye can
see; but the winds are regular enough to be free from
danger, and they subside at sunset: then the sea becomes
smooth, and air and water tranquil, till almost imperceptibly a slight contrary wind arises, a breeze from the
south. When the mariner at iJgina becomes aware of
this, he weighs anchor, and drops into the Piraeus in a few
hours of the night. This is the sea-breeze sung of by the
poets of antiquity, and now called the Embates, whose
approach is ever mild, soft, and salutary. The currents
passing along the coasts facilitate navigation in the gulfs
and sounds of the sea; the flight of migratory birds, the
shoals of tunny-fish reappearing at fixed seasons of the
year, serve as welcome signs for the mariner. The regularity in the whole life of nature and in the motion of air
and sea, the mild and humane character of the jEgean,
essentially contributed to make the inhabitants of its




CHAP. I.]        Land and People.               23
coasts use it with the fullest confidence, and live on and
with it.
Men soon learn all the secrets of the art of river navigation to an end, but never those of navigating the sea;
the differences between dwellers on the banks of a river
soon vanish by mutual contact, whereas the sea suddenly
brings the greatest contrasts together; strangers arrive
who have been living under another sky, and according to
other laws: there ensues an endless comparing, learning
and teaching, and the more remunerative the interchange
of the produce of different countries, the more restlessly
the human mind labors victoriously to oppose the dangers
of the sea by a constant succession of new inventions.
The Euphrates and the Nile from year to year offer
the same advantages to the population on their banks,
and regulate its occupations in a constant monotony,
which makes it possible for centuries to pass over the land
without any change taking place in the essential habits,of
the lives of its inhabitants. Revolutions occur, but no
development, and, mummy-like, the civilization of the
Egyptians stagnates, enshrouded in the Valley of the
Nile: they count the monotonous beats of the pendulum of
time, but time contains nothing for them; they possess a
chronology but no history in the full sense of the word.
Such a death-in-life is not permitted by the flowing waves
of the XEgean, which, as soon as commerce and mental
activity have been once awakened, unceasingly continues
and develops them.
Lastly, with regard to the natural gifts of the soil, a
great difference prevailed between the eastern and western
half of the land of Greece. The Athenian had only to
ascend a few hours' journey from the mouths of the rivers
of Asia Minor to assure himself how much more remuni
rative agriculture was there, and to admire and envy
the deep layers of most fertile soil in JEolis and Ionia.
There the growth of both plants and animals manifested




24               History of Greece.        [BooK I
greater luxuriance, the intercourse in the wide plains incomparably greater facility. We know how in the European country the plains are only let in between the mountains, like furrows or narrow basins, or, as it were, washed
on to their extremest ridge; and the single passage from
one valley to the other led over lofty ridges, which men
were obliged to open up for themselves, and then, with
unspeakable labor, to provide with paths for beasts of burden and vehicles. The waters of the plains were equally
grudging of the blessings expected from them. Far the
greater number of them in summer were dried-up rivers,
sons of the Nereides dying in their youth, according to
the version of mythology; and although the drought in
the country is incomparably greater now than it was in
ancient times, yet, since men remembered, the veins of
water of the Ilissus, as well as of the Inachus, had been
hidden under a dry bed of pebbles. Yet this excessive
drought is again accompanied by a superabundance of
water, which, stagnating in one place in the basin of a
valley, in another between mountains and sea, renders the
air pestiferous and cultivation difficult.  Everywhere
there was a call for labor and a struggle. And yet at
how early a date would Greek history have come to an
end had its only theatre been under the skies of IoniaI
It was, after all, only in European Hellas that the fulness
of energy of which the nation was capable came to light,
on that soil so much more sparingly endowed by nature;
here, after all, men's bodies received a more powerful and
their minds a freer development; here the country which
they made their own, by drainage, and embankment, and
artificial irrigation, became their native land in a fuller
sense than the land on t1 3 opposite shore, where the gifts
of God dropped into men's laps without any effort being
necessary for their attainment.
Natural    Thus the special advantages of the land of
oufte soi. Greece consist in the measure of its natural




CHAP. I.]         Land and People.              25
properties. Its inhabitant enjoys the full blessings of
the South; he is rejoiced and animated by the warm
splendor of its skies, by the serene atmosphere of its days,
and the refreshing mildness of its nights. His necessaries of life he easily obtains from land and sea; nature
and climate train him in temperance. His country is
hilly; but his hills, instead of being rude heights are arable and full of pastures, and thus act as the guardians of
liberty. He dwells in an island-country, blessed with all
the advantages of southern coasts, yet enjoying at the
same time the benefits proper to a vast and uninterrupted
complex of territory. Earth and water, hill and plain,
drought and damp, the snow-storms of Thrace and the
heat of a tropical sun-all the contrasts, all the forms of
the life of nature, combine in the greatest variety of ways
to awaken and move the mind of man. But as these
contrasts all dissolve.into a higher harmony, which-embraces the entire coast and island-country of the Archipelago, so man was led to complete the measure of harmony between the contrasts which animate conscious life,
between enjoyment and labor, between the sensual and the
spiritual, between thought and feeling.
The innate powers of a piece of ground only become apparent when the plants created for it by nature drive the
fibres of their roots into it, and develop, on the site so
happily discovered, in the full favor of light and air, the
whole fulness of their natural powers. In the life of
plants the scientific investigator is able to show how the
particular components of the soil favor each particular organization; in the life of nations a deeper mystery surrounds the connection between a country and its history.
Of no nation are the beginnings known to history. Its
horizon is not entered by the nations of the earth till after
they have already gained a peculiar form of their own,
and have learnt to assert their individuality, as against
neighboring nations; but before that period has arrived
2




26                History of Greece.          [Book I.
centuries have passed, of which no man may count the
succession. The science of language is no better able than
her sister sciences to measure this prehistoric time: but to
her alone b'elong the means of casting a light upon its
obscurity; it is in her power to supplement the beginnings
of history out of the most ancient documents of the life of
nations; for in their languages a connection of kinsmanship
may be demonstrated between the most different peoples,
otherwise linked to one another by no tradition of history.
And thus also has the Greek language long been reThe pdi- cognized as one of the Indo-Germanic or Aryan
gree of the sister languages, the mutual agreement of which
Greeks.  is complete enough to justify the conclusion
that all the nations of this family of languages are only
branches of one great nation, which, in times immemorial, was settled in Upper Asia, and included the
ancestors of the Indians, Persians, Greeks, Italicans, Germans, Slaves, and Celts.
f This Aryan primitive people did not at once separate
into its different parts, but the latter grew out of the mother-trunk like branches: gradually the members fell off,
and in very different currents ensued the movements of
population westwards from the common home, to form
settlements in particular localities. It has been assumed
on good grounds that the Celts, who pushed forward farthest to the west, were the first to separate from the main
body, and to immigrate into Europe. The Celts were followed by the Germans, and last of all by the Slaves,
united with the Letts (Lithuanians). These together form
a North-European body of nations and languages.)
Distinct from these, there existed a second succession of
nations, which separated from the primitive trunk at a
later date, and whose mission it was to occupy the islands
on the coast and the peninsulas of the Mediterranean;
whereas the Medo-Persian and-untouched by Western




CHAP. I.]         Land and People.              27
influences-the Indian family of nations remained behind
deep in the heart of Asia.
The two main members of the above-men- Te 
The Greek
tioned second succession of nations, which settled  and Italia
on the coasts of the same sea opposite to one  tongues.
another, in localities of a similar character, and by the
history of classic antiquity were anew united into an inseparable pair of nations, the Greeks and the Italicans,
appear to us so closely intertwined from the very first by
the homogeneous character of their languages, that we are
obliged to assume the existence of a period in which both,
separated from all other nations, formed one nation by
themselves. As such, they not only, in addition to the
most ancient common property of all Sanscrit nations,
collected and developed a new common treasure of words
and terms (as is, e. g., evidenced in the names common to
both for the fruits and implements of the field, for wine
and oil, and in their agreement in the designation of the
goddess presiding over the fire of the hearth); but, which
is still more important, they are at one in their phonetic
laws, especially in the multiplicity and delicacy of shades
peculiar to Latin and Greek in their vocalization. - The
a-sound prevailing in Sanscrit divided itself into three
sounds, a, e, o; and by this subdivision of the vowel there
accrued not only a gain in euphony, but the possibility of
a more delicate organization in the formation of language.
For it constitutes the basis of the formation of the declensions, of the clear distinction between the' masculine and
feminine gender on the one, and the neuter on the other,
side; a main advantage, which these languages possess
above all others. Finally, before the Greeks and Italicans separated into two nations, they perfected a law
which affords a remarkable proof of the fact that these
races were pre-eminently distinguished by a sense of order
and regularity. They would not even leave to arbitrary
decision what is most evanescent in language, the accentu



28                 History of Greece.         [BooK I.
ation of words, but introduced the fixed rule, that no main
accent should fall farther back than the antepenultimate.
By this means the unity of words is protected; the final
syllables are secured, which easily lose by the accent falling farther back; and lastly, notwithstanding all the severity of the rule, sufficient liberty is permitted to make
recognizable by slight changes of accentuation the difference of genders and cases in nouns, and of tenses and
moods in verbs.
These instances of harmony in language are the most
ancient documents of a common national history of the
Greeks and Italicans, the testimonies of a period in which,
on one of the resting-places of the great migration in Asia
from east to west, the two nations dwelt together in concord
as one people of Grseco-Italicans, as we may call them:
and if we may dare to indicate, in accordance with what
is common to both branches in language and history, the
character of the primitive people, we shall find its features
to consist, above all, in a sense of reasonable order, founded
on a peasant life, in a dislike of everything arbitrary and
chaotic, in a manly effort to attain to a clear development,
and to a rational system of laws, life, and thought. 
The dis-    Apart from   these important and vital in-,
tinctive  stances of harmony, we see a very great differisticsfr the ence prevailing between the two languages. To
Greek lan. take vocalization first, the Greek language has
guage.    an abundance of consonant sounds; it especially
preserves the complete series of mute consonants (mutce),
of which the Italicans have entirely lost the aspirates. On
the other hand, the Greek lost at an early period two aspirated sounds, the j and the v (faithfully preserved in
Latin), the so-called Digamma, which was indeed retained
in certain spoken dialects, but was otherwise either utterly
lost, or changed into the aspirate sound (spiritus asper), or
dissolved into a diphthong. Neither were the Greeks able to
preserve the sibilant sound to the acuteness in which it re



CHAP. I.]         Land and People.              29
mains in the Indian and Italic languages (c~ sama, simul,
~ojio).
This loss and weakening of important sounds is very
susceptible in Greek. The roots of words have in many
instances lost their distinguishing characteristics, and the
most various roots have, in consequence of the destruction
of their initial-sounds (anlaute), become confused together,
till it is almost impossible to recognize them individually.
But, in spite of these evils, we continue to remark the
thorough-going process of the language, its consistency and
regularity, the certainty of its orthography-a testimony of
the great delicacy of the vocal organs which distinguished
the Hellenes from the barbarians-and of a clearly-marked
pronunciation, such as the Italic races seem not to have
possessed in an equal degree.
In Greek the sound of the endings of words is equally
subject to a fixed rule. For whilst in Sanscrit all words
in the sounds of their endings completely adapt themselves to the initial-sounds of the next, and in Latin all
words stand independently one by the side of the other,
the Greeks have in this matter fixed the delicately conceived law according to which all their words must end in
vowels, or such consonants as give rise to no harshness
when followed by others; viz. n, r, and s. By this means
words preserve a greater independence than in Sanscrit,
and speech more unity and fluency than. in Latin; while
the endings are secured against constant change, as well
as against being cut short and mutilated.
In variety of forms the Greek language cannot for a
moment compare itself to the Indian, any more than the
vegetation of the Eurotas to that of the banks of the
Ganges. Thus in declension, the Greeks have lost three
out of eight cases, and the rest have accordingly had to be
overloaded with a multiplicity of meanings; an evil which
the language could only meet by a delicate development
of the prepositions. The Italicans, in their love for terse



30                History of Greece.          [BOOK I.
ness and brevity of expression, retained the ablative, and
partially also the locative; on the other hand, according
to the practical tendency of their habits of thought, they
gave up the dual, which the Greeks could not spare. In
declension also the Greeks find a great advantage in the
multiplicity of their diphthongs.  While preserving as
much similarity as possible in the forms, the differences of
gender are easily and clearly marked, and even in the
case-endings (as, e. g., in xoSes and r06aC for pedes) the
Greeks, notwithstanding their poverty, possess the advantage of a clearer distinction.
The Greek  But their strength lies in the verb. The enverb.    tire conservative force of the Greek language
has applied itself to verbal forms; and here it surpasses
the Italic in all main points. It has preserved for itself a
double series of personal affixes, which in a light and
agreeable manner, divide the tenses into principal and
historic tenses (Ayroat r- Aevo); and augment and reduplication are retained for the language, and carried out
with admirable delicacy, so as to be easily perceptible
through the most varying initial-sounds of the verbs.
With the aid of the various verbal forms, that of the root
and that of the accretion in the present tense, the language
succeeds in expressing with the utmost facility the greatest multiplicity of the notions of time, its point and duration, and the completion of an action in itself. Let us
only consider how by a mere lengthening of the vowel in
Ve&roy and'At7roo a double meaning-  each so clearly
and surely distinguished from the other- is obtained; a
mobility which the Latin language, with its linquebam
and liqui, only makes a clumsy and unsatisfactory endeavor to follow. By means of the double formation of the
aorist this distinction becomes possible with every verbal
root, and can everywhere be carried out by the simplest
means of vocalization, through active, middle, and passive
voices. Again, let us remember the forms of the moods,




CHAP. I.]         Land and People..               31
by which the verb is able to follow the ideas of man
through the most delicate distinctions of the conditioned
and the unconditioned, the possible and the actual. The
material for these formations doubtless already existed in
a much earlier state of the language; but the older nations were incapable of using it. For the Greeks the
lengthening of the connecting vowel, together with the
endings of the principal tenses, sufficed for creating in the
subjunctive a fixed type for a conditioned statement; and
in the insertion of an i-sound, together with the endings
of the secondary tenses, we have the creation of the optative, which, like the subjunctive, on account of its easy
formation, could be carried out through the tenses. And
yet these simple means of vocalization are not purely differences of form, or arbitrary. The lengthening of the
sound between the root and the personal ending so naturally and meaningly distinguishes the hesitating and conditioned statement from the unconditioned; and the particular vowel which is the characteristic of the optative,
since, as a root, it signifies "to go," marks the motion of
the soul in desire transcending the limits of the present.
A wish is by its very nature opposed to the present, and
the possible to the actual; accordingly the optative takes
the endings of the secondary tenses, which signify the
non-present, while the conditional mood, on account of its
relation to the present of the speaker, has the endings of
the main tenses. Lastly, in the formation of words the
Greek language shows a great mobility, as compared with
the Italic; by the help of light suffixes it most deftlytContrives to characterize clearly the derivations from substantives and those from adjectives according to their different
significations (7rpa-td, 7parjIa). It forms new words out
of old, by combinations of the latter, with a facility entirely wanting to the Latin; but it abstained from abusing
this facility, or amusing itself, like the later Sanscrit, with
cumulative words, in which the most various elements,




32                History of Greece.          [BooK I.
incapable of ever being amalgamated into one picture or
idea, are as it were massed together into a bundle of roots.
Here, as everywhere, moderation and transparency are the
characteristics of the Greek language.
Historical  The people which knew in so peculiar a mansignifi-  ner how to develop the common treasure of
cance of
the Greek  the Indo-Germanic language was by itself, ever
language. since it grew to look upon itself as a whole, designated under the name of the Hellenes. Their first historic deed is the development of this language, and this
first deed an artistic one. For above all its sister-tongues,
the Greek must be regarded as a work of art, on account
of the sense prevalent in it for symmetry and perfection
of sounds, for transparency of form, for law and organization. If the grammar of their language were the only
thing remaining to us of the Hellenes, it would serve as a
fill and valid testimony to the extraordinary natural gifts
of this people, which, after with creative power appropriating the material of their language, penetrated every
part of it with the spirit, and nowhere left a dead, inert
mass behind it-of a people which, in spite of its decisive
abhorrence against everything, bombastic, circumstantial
or obscure, understood how to accomplish an infinity of
results by the simplest of means. The whole language resembles the body of an artistically trained athlete, in
which every muscle, every sinew, is developed into full
play, where there is no trace of tumidity or of inert matter, and all is power and life.
ThbeHellenes must have received, this material of language while it was yet a plastic form; otherwise they
could never have succeeded in expressing by means of it,
as in the most ductile clay, the whole variety of their
spiritual gifts, their artistic sense of form, as well as that
severity of abstract thought which, long before it manifested itself in the books of their philosophers, was already
apparent in the grammar of their language; above all, in




CHAP..]          Land and People.               33
the structure of the forms of their verbs-a system of
applied logic which will hold good in all times, and to understand which; even in our day, the full power of a
practised thinker is requisite. As in the structure of its
language the best powers of the people asserted themselves in the harmonious exuberance of youth, so again
this language, when fully developed, exerted a most important and influential reaction on the people as a whole
and on its various members; for, in proportion to the perfection of the organization of his language, he who employs it is stimulated, and, as it were, obliged to contract
a habit of consecutive thought, and to develop clearly his
original conceptions. As the language is learnt, it leads
the mind step by step to a continually extending cultivation of itself; the desire to acquire a more and more
perfect command over the language never dies out; and
thus, while educating and advancing the individual to a
constant elevation of his mental activity, it preserves him,
imperceptibly to himself, in a common connection with
the whole people whose expression the language is: every
interruption of this connection, every loss of it, becomes,
in the first instance, manifest in the language.
Their language was accordingly, from the The Greek
beginning, the token of recognition among the dialets.
Hellenes. In it they learnt to look upon themselves as a
peculiar community, as opposed to all the other nations
of the earth; it remained for all times the bond which
held together the various tribes, scattered far and near.
Their language is one through all the dialects; and thus
the people of the Hellenes is also a united and unadulterated people.  Where this language was spoken-in
Asia, in Europe, or in Africa-there was Hellas, there
was Greek life and Greek history. Long before the beginning of history the language stood fully finished, and
long has its life lasted beyond the narrow period of classic history; nay, it survives to this day in the mouth of
0*




34               History of Greece.         [Boo I.
the. people whose tongue testifies to its connection with the
Hellenes. In the language we accordingly recognize the
bond which, through space and time, unites together all
the various elements, taking the expression in its widest
sense, of the history of the Hellenic people.
But this Hellenic language, from the beginning, appears
to us not in the light of a unity without differences, but
of one subdivided into various dialects, of which each
claims in an equal degree to be Hellenic. And with the
dialects, as with the main divisions of languages, the local
separation and parting of peoples constituted the decisive
moment. The tribes of a people are gradually estranged
when their dwelling-places come to lie far apart from one
another, and in each arise certain predilections for particular sounds and combinations of sounds. The words and
their significations, indeed, remain the same, but they receive different kinds of accentuation and pronunciation.
At the same time the material of language is. affected by
soil and climate. One class of sounds is wont to predominate
on the hilly, another in the valleys, and again another on
the plains: and such influences of locality very naturally
prevailed in the highest degree where the component
parts of the country are divided off from one another by
sharp boundary-lines; for in mountain valleys, and on
peninsulas and islands, peculiarities of language are most
apt to arise and continue, whereas in widely-extending
plains contact causes them gradually to vanish. On the
other hand, dialects also require a certain breadth of homogeneous localities, in order to be able to fix and develop
themselves suitably without undergoing too excessive a
subdivision. Both these conditions are fulfilled in Greece.
Ionic and  However great may be the variety of dialect
Doric.   forms of language, only two main classes predominate; and while these are, on the one hand, not sufficiently dissimilar to destroy the feeling of community of
language (as, e. g., is the case with the main divisions of




CHAP. I.]         Land and People.              35
the Italic languages), on the other they differ far enough
to be able to exist independently, one by the side of the
other, and to exercise a mutual influence. The Doric
dialect is, upon the whole, the rougher, and would seem
to belong naturally to the highlands, which are accustomed to expend in everything they undertake, a certain
amount of physical exertion and muscular tension. In
its full and broad sounds we recognize the chest strengthened by mountain air and mountain life; its characteristics are brevity of form and expression,-such as suit a
race which, in the midst of the labors and privations of
its daily life, has neither much care nor time for long
speeches. The character of the Doric dialect becomes
more clearly marked by contrasting with it the Ionic form
of language, with which countries with a long extent of
coast-line are especially familiar. Here life was easier,
the acquisition of property readier to hand, and the incitements from without more numerous and various. The
tendency to ease expresses itself in the restriction of the
number of aspirate sounds, a collision of which is especially avoided; t is thinned down into s: the sounds are
formed less frequently in the back part of the mouth and
the throat; in short men take things easily. The language acquires more liquidity and length of sound by
means of vowels sounded one after the other, or combined
into diphthongs. The vowels themselves possess, at the
same time, greater softness and less strength: e predominates over a and o. The forms of language, as well as of
expression, incline to- a certain easy breadth. Contrasted
with the terse and sinewy Doric, which retains a severer
hold over what is necessary and indispensable, we here
find the language taking, as it were, complacent delight in
a greater fulness, not to say in an exuberance, of forms.
Everywhere a greater degree of liberty is allowed, and a
greater mobility and variety of sounds prevails.
The Ionic and Doric are universally allowed to be the




36                History of Greece.        [Coor I.
two main forms of the Greek language: but they by no
means exhaust its wealth; for there were Greeks who spoke
neither Ionic nor Doric,-and these were said to
speak LEolic. But the.Eolic is not a dialect,
like the Doric and Ionic; it commands no defined territory
of language, and possesses no fixed character. The socalled _Eolic Greek is rather to such an extent colored
differently, according to the different regions in which it
settled itself, that it is impossible to fix upon a universally
prevalent type, upon a fixed law of sounds and a system
of grammatical forms comprehending all its members.
Speaking generally, and leaving out of the question certain
more recent formations, it included those forms which,
when compared with the cognate languages of Asia, we
must recognise as the most ancient. The Eolic stands
nearest to the original tongue of the Greeks, to that tongue
which we must regard as the common mother of the various dialects-among them, of the Grseco-Italic language;
accordingly it is easy to point out undeniable analogies
between JEolic Greek and Latin. By the name of the
Eolic we therefore mean, not a dialect which, like the
others, freely and independently developed itself out of
the more ancient state of the language, but rather the remains, preserved in different localities, of this more ancient
language, which took no part in tle changes which produced the dialects of the Dorians and Ionians. For this
reason the ancients used to say that everything which was
neither Doric nor Ionic, whatever particular differences
might appear in its various forms, was JEolic.
These facts relating to the development of the language
are the foundations of all Greek history.
The Hel-    What is true of the Hellenic language, that,
lenic nationality.  notwithstanding its variety, it is one united in
itself and clearly defined, as against all foreign tongues,
is also true of the nationality of the Hellenes. They were
a race of men distinctly marked out by nature, and com



CHAP. I.]         Land and People.                37
bined into a united body by common mental and physical
gifts. Their possession of the former they first and most
clearly proved in their language, and afterwards more
comprehensively and completely than any other people in
their history. For all their creations in religion and its
worship, in political life, in legislation, in art and science,
are their own; and what they derived from others they
transmuted and reproduced so thoroughly that it became
their spiritual property, and bore the impress of their
spiritual character; the infinite variety of elements thus
becoming thoroughly Greek. Their physical constitution
shows itself in plastic art, which, native as it was to the
people, could find in the people alone its peculiar conception of the human form. Apollo and Hermes, Achilles
and Theseus, as they stand before our eyes in stone or painting, are, after all, merely glorified Greeks; and the noble
harmony of the members of their bodies, the mild and simple lines of the face, the large eye, the short forehead, the
straight nose, the fine mouth, belonged to the people, and
were its natural characteristics. The preservation of measure is a leading point in their physical as well as their spiritual nature. Their height rarely surpassed the right mean.
Excessive fleshiness and fattiness of body were equally
rare. They were freer than other mortal races from all
that hinders and oppresses the motion of the mind. With
the happily-placed nations of the South, they shared the
manifold favors of climate, the early and less dangerous development of the body, and the greater ease in passing
from childhood to the maturity of manhood. And the close
vicinity of nature, to which they could give themselves up
more uninterruptedly and confidently than the children of
the North, the freer life in the air and light of day, gave
to their lungs a greater health and strength, to their bodies
more elasticity, to their muscles more frequent occasions
for exercise, to their whole organization the opportunity
of prospering in a greater and more beneficent liberty.




38                History of Greece.         [BooK I.
Surrounded everywhere by the refreshing breezes of the
sea, the Greeks enjoyed, above all other nations who have
ever dwelt in the same latitudes as they, the blessings of
bodily health and beauty. Among them whoever by nature had a sick or crippled body seemed to be justly condemned to exclusion from  all honors and claims. A
noble physical form was held to be the natural expression
of a healthy and well-formed mind, and nothing seemed
stranger to the Greeks, than that in such ignoble forms as
the skull of Socrates a spirit soaring aloft to the divine
could have taken up its abode. With other nations
beauty, with the Greeks the want of it, was the startling
exception from the rule. And thus no people of the earth
has ever more decisively and resolutely separated itself
from all the rest, and more proudly contrasted itself with
them, than the Hellenes.
Its unity   Thus then the Hellenes, conscious of their
and its divisions.  physical and mental gifts, after the Italic race
had already separated from them, lived for centuries as a
united people. This undivided community of life, however, lies beyond all historical remembrance. The people,
like the language, is only known to us as split up into different branches. We have no knowledge of Hellenes as
such, only of Ionians, Dorians, iEolians. The whole vital
action of a people lies in its races; by them all great performances are accomplished: and accordingly fall into the
divisions of Doric and Ionic art, Doric and Ionic systems
of life, political constitutions, and philosophy. Notwithstanding their separation from one another, they never
lose the common Hellenic character, but yet only by degrees pass into the common possession of the whole people.
The separate life of the individual races had to be exhausted before a common Hellenic type could assert itself
in language, literature, and art.
These great and determining differences in the Greek
people must necessarily have been caused by great revolu



CHAP. I.]         Land and People.                39
tions in its original condition, by great migrations and
resettlements. There must have been a great difference
in the localities in which one part of the Hellenes became
Dorians and another Ionians. How far shall we succeed
in forming a notion of these popular movements, on which
the whole of Greek history rests?
The Hellenes themselves were without any     Pelasgi
and Heltradition of an immigration of their people in  lenes.
masses; in their cycles of myths no reminiscence is preserved of their distant primitive home; nor could they tell
of any strange people which they had originally found in
possession of their land, and then expelled or conquered.
Even those among the Hellenic tribes which had the greatest love of wandering, and the fullest consciousness of their
own powers, could not imagine themselves dwelling out of
Greece; throughout all generations they identified themselves with their soil, and the notion of autochtony is developed among them in the greatest variety of traditions.
Yet, on the other hand, they nowhere considered themselves as the first; everywhere they knew that others had
been there before them, who had, for their benefit, thinned
the forests, drained the marshes, and laid level the rocks.
With these, their predecessors, they felt themselves to be
connected by an uninterrupted tradition of faith and manners; but, on the other hand, they felt sufficiently strange
towards them to forbear from including them among their
own race, in a more limited sense, and even to designate
them under foreign names of foreign peoples, which had
now vanished,-above all, under that of the Pelasgi.
Such information as the Hellenes, careless as to this
contradiction, possessed about the Pelasgi, was in truth
very scanty. They did not look upon them as a mythical
people of huge giants-as, for example, in the popular
tales of the modern Greeks the ancestors of the latter are
represented as mighty warriors, towering to the height of
poplar trees. There exist no Pelasgian myths, no Pelas



40                History of Greece.        [BooK I.
gian gods, to be contrasted with the Greek. The first
genuine Hellene known to us, the Homeric Achilles, prays
to the Pelasgian Zeus; and Dodona, at all times considered the primitive seat of the Pelasgi, was also the most
ancient Hellas in Europe.  The Pelasgi-not a nomad
people of herdsmen and hunters, but husbandmen settled
in their homesteads, and devout worshipers of the gods
-were the first to consecrate the land, and to choose the
sacred mountain tops, on which men during the whole
course of time called upon their native gods.
Thucydides, in whom the historic consciousness of the
Hellenes finds its clearest expression, also regards the
inhabitants of Hellas from the most ancient times, Pelasgi
as well as Hellenes, as one nation; and for this very reason he insists, as upon something worthy of notice, upon the
fact, that, notwithstanding this natural unity, a corresponding common national feeling and name were so long
in establishing themselves. For there would have been
nothing in the least noticeable in this had Hellas been
inhabited by entirely different nations in succession At
least Thucydides would have been obliged to give a name
to this difference of the nations who entered the land, as
constituting the main cause of their tardy union, while, as
it is, he knows of no other cause beyond the slowly-accomplished union of the scattered district communities for the
purpose of common undertakings.
And furthermore, according to his opinion, genuine sons
of these ancient Pelasgi continued through all times to
dwell in different regions, and especially in Attica; and
yet the Athenians were by common consent assuredly
homogeneous with the rest of the Hellenes, and- their
equals by birth; nay, destined to assume the position of a
model race among them. How could this be conceivable
if the Hellenic tribes had obtained dominion in Greece as
an entirely new nationality?
But for all this Pelasgi and Hellenes are by no means




CHAP. I.]         Land and People.              41
identical, or merely different names for one idea. Such a
view is proved untenable by the manifest fact, that from
the Hellenes sprang entirely new currents of life.  The
Pelasgian times lie in the background,-a vast period of
monotony: impulse and motion are first communicated by
IHellen and his sons; and with their arrival history commences. Accordingly we must interpret them to signify
tribes which, endowed with special gifts, and animated by
special powers of action, issue forth from the mass of a
great people, and extend themselves in it as warriors. If
we are to recognise more clearly the meaning of this
important event, everything depends on the possibility
of clearly realizing the points from which these Hellenic
tribes issued, and the modes after which they spread.
The starting-points of the Dorians were     Origin
of the
known to the ancients. They pressed forward  Ionians.
in a southward direction, out of the Thessalian mountains,
forcing for themselves a path from land to land. As to
the Ionians no tradition existed. Their spread and settlements accordingly belong to an earlier time. The localities in which they are first found are islands and tracts of
coast; their migrations, as far as they are known, maritime
expeditions; their life, that of a maritime people, at home
on shipboard; and nothing but the sea unites together
their widely-scattered settlements. But before they spread
thus far they must assuredly have dwelt together in a
common home, where in language and manners they
developed all their peculiarities, and found the means for
so vast an extension. But a connected great Ionic country is only to be found in Asia Minor. Now it is true that
this Asiatic Ionia is according to common tradition
regarded as a country composed of Attic colonies, which
only gradually became Ionic after the Trojan war. Yet
it is easy to see that this coast-land was from the beginning
in the hands of tribes originally akin to the Greeks. The
intercourse between the opposite shores of the Archipelago




42                History of Greece.          [BooK I.
forms the subject of all Greek history, and is more ancient
than this history itself; and it is accordingly obviously
out of the question to look for all its starting-points, and
for all the original extensions of Hellenic tribes, on the
European side. The Ionians, in contradistinction to the
immobile Dorians, are from the beginning the mediators
between Greece and the nations of Asia; they are the outposts in the east; and herein we already gain grounds for
the opinion, that in Asiatic Ionia were the original habitations of the Ionians,-a view on which the course of Greek
history will tend to throw light from several very different
points.
In this place it will accordingly suffice to meet the
objection, that this view contradicts tradition. This objection is unfounded, because there is not a single notice in
the ancients of the first extension of the Ionians. This
silence is to be explained by the manner in which the
migrations of maritime peoples take place. They land in
small bands, gradually introduce themselves among the
inhabitants, unite with them, and lose themselves among
the natives. The consequences are combinations, followed
by the most important results; but no sudden revolutions
in the state of the nations ensue, as in the case of mainland migrations.  Thus it easily happened that the
remembrance of such immigrations coming from the sea
vanished out of men's memories.
Secondly, such was the national pride of the Greeks,
that they regarded their land as central-as the startingpoint of the most important combinations of peoples.
From the time, then, that the barbarians had advanced as
far as the brink of the Archipelago, men accustomed themselves, under the influence of Athens, to look upon what
was then free Greece as the proper land of the Hellenes.
Athens herself was to be made the metropolis of all the
Ionians. Yielding to this influence, all traditions in a
contrary sense were more and more suppressed and abol



CHAP. I.]         Land and People.             43
ished with audacious self-confidence.  Even the Carians
were affirmed to have been pushed out of Europe into
Asia, whereas, according to their own well-founded opinion,
their home was in Asia. In the same way the Lycians were
asserted to have come to Lycia from Attica. Nay, the whole
connection of the Greeks with the nations of Asia Minor
was simply inverted, and the consciousness which had been
preserved of the original kinsmanship of the Hellenes with
the Phrygians and Armenians was expressed by representing the Phrygians as immigrants from Europe to Asia, and
the Armenians, in their turn, as descendants of the Phrygians. But through all this one-sided Hellenic view of
the relations of nations the true opinion again breaks with
the victorious power of fact; and the Phrygians are
regarded as the greatest and oldest of nations known to the
inhabitants of the West, as the people which had always
dwelt in the primitive home of its race in Asia.
Let us, then, seizing hold of the germ of truth amidst
these contradictory opinions, attempt, in the following
manner, to discover the proper place of the people of the
Hellenes in the pedigree of the Aryan nations, and to
understand its most ancient migrations.
Ancient tradition and modern inquiry cor-  The earlibine to induce us to find in the Phrygians the  est migrtions.
most important starting-point for our inquiry,
They, as it were, constitute the link by which the Aryans
of the West are connected with the Asiatics proper. On
the side of Asia they are related to the Armenians, whose
high mountain-country falls off towards the Pontus and the
Halys; on the other side they form a new beginning, and
count as the first-born of all nations turned towards the
West. The Phrygian tongue is closely related to the
Hellenic; more closely perhaps than the Gothic to the
Middle-High-German. Phrygian forms of divine worship
and Phrygian arts are from the earliest times domesticated in Greece, in a degree only possible with races pos



44                History of Greece.          [BOOK I.
sessing an intimate mutual relationship. Accordingly
these broad highlands, watered in the north by the Sangarius, in the south by the Mveander, famous in all ancient
times for their rich corn-fields and excellent pastures, warm
enough for the cultivation of the vine, healthy and well
adapted for the support of sturdy tribes, may be regarded
as the primitive country of the great Phrygo-Hellenic
race of nations. In these regions the principal separations
into nations seem to have taken place, and here, after the
Italicans had separated from them, the Hellenes seem to
have dwelt, at first as a branch of the Phrygian nation,
and afterwards as a distinct people.
An excess of population in the country superinduced a
farther extension, and in different currents the peoples
were pushed westward towards the sea and the mainland
on the other side. Who could dare to name the routes
of this movement of population? So much, however, is
certain, that nowhere are the traces of homogeneous descent in the inhabitants so evident as at the points where
nature has also done her utmost to facilitate the passage
from land to land, i. e., on the two sides of the Hellespont
and the Propontis. Here the nations could cross, even
though ignorant of sea-navigation, and still remain under
the same latitudes and in the same climate. Here, from
the most ancient times, the same names of the peoples and
countries prevail on either side, and it remains impossible
to assign fixed boundaries of locality and nationality between Thracians, Bithynians, Mysians, and Phrygians.
Moreover, sure reminiscences of such Hellespontic movements of population have preserved themselves in the
memory of the Greeks.
Two great epochs, at least, will have to be recognized
in these popular migrations. An earlier current carried
over the population which the ancients called, as that
anterior to the Hellenes, the Pelasgian,-a population
which indiscriminately covered the coasts of Asia Minor,




CHAP. I.]         Land and People.              45
the shores of the Propontis, and, on the farther side, all
the land from Thrace to Cape Tienarum. It constituted
for all times the primitive indigenous race, the main
body oi the people, the dark background of history;
these are the children of the black earth, as the poets
called Pelasgus, who amidst all the changes of the ruling
generations, calmly clave to the soil, leading their life unobserved, under unchanging conditions, as husbandmen
and herdsmen.
This great popular migration was followed by single
tribes subsequently quitting the common primitive seats
of the Greek nation; tribes whose mission it was to awaken historic life among the mass of peoples, connected
with them by descent, who had preceded them and opened
them a path. Though less in number, they were, by their
superior mental powers, rendered capable of collecting the
scattered elements, of bringing order into a state of desolate confusion, of pervading the inert mass like leaven,
and thus stirring it up and advancing it to a higher development. The tribes which followed the main migration pursued different routes.  One division took the
land-way through the Hellespont's ancient portal of the
nations: they passed through Thrace into the Alpine land
of Northern Greece, and there, in mountain-cantons, developed their peculiar life in social communities, as husbandmen, or nations of hunters and herdsmen; among
them the ancestors of that tribe which was afterwards, under the name of the Dorians, to issue forth out of the
obscurity of its hills.
The others descended from the Phrygian table-lands
down the valleys to the coast of Asia Minor; and these
were the forefathers of the Ionians.
The Greek nation had separated into two Dualism of
the Greek
halves, and the first foundation had been laid nation.
of the dualism which pervades the whole history of this
people. But it may be safely asserted, that no common




46                History of Greece.         [BOOK I.
national history could have ever ensued, had not, in spite
of the local separation of the settlements, the feeling of
intimate connection vigorously survived in the tribes on
either side, and had not an inner sense of kinsmanship attracted them to one another.
But by their own unassisted force they could not be
brought into contact. For this purpose the intervention
of other nations was requisite.




CHAPTER II.
THE PRE-HISTORIC AGES OF THE HELLENES.
GREEK history is one of the youngest in antiquity;
and however great may be the difference between the
Hellenes and all other nations in all their ways of life
and thought, however forcibly they may have asserted
this difference in their consciousness of it, yet they cannot
in any sense be said to have started from the beginning.
Rather was it given to them to avail themselves in full
measure of the inheritance of the earlier civilization of
mankind.
The principal habitations of the civilized na- Origin of
tions of antiquity were, it is true, remote and the Greeks.
inaccessible: India as well as Bactria, Egypt no less than
the river-valleys of Assur and Babylon, leading to other
seas. But at an early period Semitic tribes had emigrated
out of the over-peopled lowlands of Mesopotamia, and
turned westwards, towards the lands bordering the Mediterranean; among them the people of Revelation, which
pursued its own tranquil course, bearing with it the mysteries of God, veiled from the sight of the world. But
when this people approached the Western Sea, it found
others already settled there, also belonging to the race of
Shem, whose homes, according to their tradition, were
originally in the low country on the banks of the Euphrates. These were the Kenanites, so called from the
land of Kenaan (Nether-, i. e. lowlands of Syria), or, according to the Greek name by which we are to this day
accustomed to call them, the Phoenicians.
Pressed hard by the nations following in their rear,
47




48                History of Greece.        [3OOK I.
they built their towns, Byblus, Sidon, Tyre, on the side
of the Lebanon, looking towards the sea, on a narrow
strip of land between mountains and water; so that as
their population grew, it was by sea alone, and in no other
way, that they could extend themselves. In the north
they were bounded by Syria and Cilicia, whose fertile
tracts were more easily approached by water than by
land; in the West by the hills of Cyprus, visible from
Lebanon, and to which, in the fine season, the current
will safely carry an open boat across. Cyprus was the
first goal sought in the broad Western Sea, which, as yet
navigated by no sea-going vessel, lay extended before
them with its unknown shores. Cyprus was the threshold of the land of the West, the starting-point for the
discovery of the Western Continent; a discovery needing
no Columbus, since the voyage led from station to station,
and the mariner's eyes were greeted by new tracts of coast
in a very gradual succession.
The dis-  Here then they found countries which, more
covery of than any previously known to them, lay by and
reee in the sea, and were therefore called by them
the Elisa Islands. In these island-countries they came
upon a numerous, light-colored, and well-formed race of
men, who readily entered into communication with the
strangers. Commerce is opened; the mariners, who are
traders at the same time, are careful to have their vessel
filled with a variety of wares: these are brought to the flat
shore in boats, exhibited under tents, and admired by the
natives, who, in exchange for the tempting property, give
up whatever they possess. Stories of this barter were preserved by primitive traditions in some of these places on
the coast; it will be remembered how Herodotus, at the
very outset of his history, gives a life-like description,
dating from the early ages of Argos, in which we see the
strange mariners exhibiting a bazaar of Phoenician, As-,
syrian, and Egyptian manufactures to a curious crowd of




CBAP. II.  Pre-Historic Ages of the Hellenes.   49
coast-population. "For five or six days," says Herodotus,
"the wares continued to be exhibited:" it was a week's
fair, closing, according to the custom of the Semitic nations,
on the sixth day. The wares they had failed to sell they
transported back into the hold of the vessel; and the best
gain of all was thought to have been secured if they succeeded in tempting curious daughters of the land on board,
as was said to have happened to Io; for the vessel had
been secretly made ready for sailing, to carry them off to
distant slave-markets.
The Punic ships went forth to bring home  The Phcegain of every kind; above all, to import the  nicians in
materials for the manufactories flourishing in
their populous towns. Of these the most important were
for weaving and dyeing. In the entire East the great
ones of the earth were clad in garments of a purple hue;
and for these the coloring-matter was furnished by the
purple-fish, which is only to be found in certain parts of
the Mediterranean, and nowhere in great quantities. This
remunerative branch of industry required considerable
imports; their own seas being insufficient. All the coasts
of the JEgean were examined by means of divers and
pointer-dogs: and probably nothing produced so immediate
a contact between the old and new world of antiquity as
the insignificant muscle in question, which is now left entirely unheeded; for the discovery was made, that, next to
the sea of Tyre, no coasts more largely abounded in purple
than those of the Morea, the deep bays of Laconia and
Argolis, and, after these, the Boeotian shores with the
Euboean channel.
Since the vessels were small, and since it is only a small
drop of fluid which each of these animals gives forth in
death, it was impracticable to transport the shells themselves to the manufacturing towns at home. Accordingly
the fisheries were so arranged as to make it possible to obtain the precious fluid on the spot where the shell was
0




50                Hstory of Greece.           [BooK I.
found. The searching expeditions remained longer away
from home, and other vessels were sent to relieve the first.
Changing landing-places and temporary coast-markets became fixed stations, for which purpose the sagacious mariners selected islands jutting out into the sea, and, in conjunction with the coast close at hand, offering a convenient station for their vessels-such as Tenedus, near Troja,
and Cranse, in the bay of Gytheum; or, again, similarly
projecting peninsulas, such as Nauplium in Argolis. The
Phoenicians were aware of the importance of mercantile
association. The discoveries made by individuals on a
lucky voyage were used by mercantile societies in possession of means sufficient to organize settlements, and to
secure to the business thus commenced a lasting importance. Whilst in civilized countries the right of settlement
had to be purchased dearly, and under oppressive conditions, the rocks on the Greek coasts, hitherto a place of
rest only for swarms of quails, were to be had for nothing,
and yet yielded manifold profits. For a people so wellacquainted with the world as the Phoenicians could not
fail to add new branches of industry to the first and to
unite several purposes in a single settlement. After the
declivities towards the sea of Lebanon and Taurus had
been already exhausted, the Hills of Homer were discovered in a virgin state in Hellas; wooded hills, which by
their oaks, beeches, planes, pines, and cypresses furnished
an infinitely greater variety of materials for ship-building
than the mountains of Syria and the neighborhood, besides that the latter were farther distant from the seashore. The various kinds of oak with which Hellas
abounds were put to many uses; above all, the evergreen
oak, with the bark of its roots extremely serviceable for
tanning, and with its berries, in which a dark-red dye was
discovered, and eagerly seized upon by the manufacturers.
As soon as the densest part of a forest had been thinned,
and a beginning made towards making use of it they pene



CHAP. II.]  Pre-Iistorie Ages of the Hellenes.  51
trated farther inland. They found veins of metal on
islands and promontories; copper mines-so important to
mariners-silver ores, and iron. In order thoroughly to
secure these treasures, it became necessary to make a more
permanent sojourn in the land-to establish factories at
suitable points, to arrange means of transport, and to
build carriage-roads, so as to convey timber and metals to
the ports. The first blocks of rock were rolled into the
sea, to form dams against the waters; while, by means of
signals and beacon-lights, security was given to the routes
connecting Tyre and Sidon with the coasts of Greece. Sea
and shore were in the hands of the strangers, who on the
one hand terrified the natives by craft and force, and
again ever continued to attract them anew to commercial
intercourse. The myth of Helen contains reminiscences
of a time when the island of Cranse, with its sanctuary of
Aphrodite, lay, like a foreign territory, close by the coast
of Laconia, a Phcenician emporium, where the foreigners
safely stowed away the women and the rest of the gain
and loot carried off by them.
So close and so constantly extending a contact with the
foreign traders could not remain without its effect on the
natives. At the market-fairs held on the shore they had
come to an agreement with them about the objects of
trade, about numbers, weights, and measures; in other
words, inasmuch as the strangers had completely developed
all the accidents of mercantile intercourse, the natives,
previously unacquainted with anything of the kind, took
everything at second-hand from them. Thus a series of
the most important inventions, which had been gradually
matured in the East, came as re-arranged by the practical
Phoenicians, to the knowledge of the natives, who wondered, observed, and learnt; their slumbering powers were
awakened, and the spell unbound which had kept men
fettered in their monotonous conditions of life. The motion of the mind begins, and with it Greek history draws
its first breath.




52                History of Greece.         [BooK L
The influence of the Phoenicians varied in time and
manner on the two sides of the Greek Sea. Of course the
Phoenicians had first spread on the eastern side, before
they dared  to sail straight across the broader waters. Cilicia was like a piece of Phcenicia, and similarly
the other lands of the Taurus on the sea of Cyprus: in the
Lycian valley of the Xanthus a tribe related to the Canaanites, the Solymi, took up their abode. It was towards
these districts that the emigration from the over-peopled
home-country had principally turned, and distinct races
of peoples formed themselves out of the mixture of Phoenician colonists with the natives of the south-west of Asia
Minor. Among these were the Carians. Originally akin
to the Greeks, and forming part of the Greek family of
peoples on the coast of Asia, they admitted-as most
readily happens on coasts and islands-so many foreign
elements, that even in language and habits of life they
became estranged from their brethren of the same race.
Astyra, on the Carian coast, over against Rhodes, was a
Phoenician town. In the most ancient history of the nations of the Greek seas the Phoenicians and Carians always appear together.
The tribes dwelling farther north preserved themselves
far purer. Miletus was held to be the most ancient place
of meeting for the population of these districts; it was the
home of the Argonaut Erginus, the centre of the earliest
combinations for purposes of navigation. On account of
its intimate relations with Phoenicia, Byblus, the most ancient of the Phoenician towns, and Miletus were conceived
of in a union as of mother and daughter; the Greeks,
with their usual audacity, not shrinking from appropriating to their own city the superiority in age and dignity.
The Greeks  Among all the Greeks, the inhabitants of
in Asia Mi- this thickly-peopled coast, by virtue of their
nor become
a sea-going special natural endowment and of the exceedpeople.  ingly happy conditions of their land and cli



CHAP. I.]  Pre-Historic Ages of the Hellenes.   53
mate, were the first to secure for themselves the civilization of the Phoenicians. Sagaciously they contrived to
learn their arts from them, while the Pelasgian people remained inert. Familiar with the occupation of fishing
from the earliest times, they now began to provide their
boats with keels, rendering them capable of more daring
voyages; they imitated the construction of the roundbellied Phoenician merchantmen, the "sea-horses," as
they called them; they learnt to combine sails and oars,
and at the helm to direct the watchful eye, not towards
the changing objects of the shore, but towards the stars.
It was the Phoenicians who discovered the insignificant
star at the pole, in which they recognized the surest guide
for their nocturnal voyages: the Greeks chose the more
brilliant constellation of the Great Bear for the leading
sign of their navigation; and though on this head they
fell short of their teachers in accuracy of astronomical
determination, yet in all other points they became their
fortunate emulators and rivals. As such, they gradually
drove back the Phoenicians out of their waters; and it is
for this reason that on the coasts of the Ionian Sea, in
spite of its primitive relations to the Syrian shores, so few
traditions have been preserved of the maritime dominion
of the Phoenicians.
Now, if the dwellers on the coasts of this sea were the
first races speaking the Greek tongue who practised navigation on their own account, it follows that they must
have become known to the nations of the East before any
of the rest of the Greeks. But the common name of the
Greeks in the whole East was no other than that which
the maritime race of Greek descent gave to itself, that of
the Iaones, or Ionians, a name subsequently domesticated
by the Phoenicians in various dialectic forms,-such as
Javan with the Hebrews, Iuna or Iauna with the Persians, Uinim with the Egyptians. Of course the use of
the name was from the very beginning without exact




54                History of Greece.          [Boox I.
limits, but was rather a collective name, comprehending
the homogeneous maritime population found settled on
the coast of Western Asia Minor and the islands in front
of it, the use of which was afterwards extended farther
and farther to the west, the more men came to know of
Greece and of Greek tribes.
After the Ionians had learnt navigation
They extend
themselves to and become the masters of their own sea,
the Southand they sailed in the track of the Phoenicians (as
Thucydides so aptly expresses it in reference
to Sicily), and in the first instance inserted themselves
beside them in all parts of the Eastern Mediterranean,
in order to deprive them of the monopoly of their commercial gains. Especially they settled at the mouths of
the streams, where these were of a kind to afford their
vessels a safe entrance and a voyage a short way into
the interior of the land. The prevalent winds in the
Archipelago are those bearing to the south; and as the
Phoenicians brought no richer commercial gains home
from any region than from the Nile-country, so here
also their rivals at an early period followed in their
track.
It is one of the most remarkable facts in connection
with earliest ethnology, that the same group of symbols
which on the monuments of the Ptolemies designated the
Greek people, and was read " Uinim," already occurs on
the monuments of the eighteenth dynasty, under Tutmosis
III. and IV., as well as under Amenophis III. The
people thus designated is enumerated among other races
subject to the Pharaohs, and settled in the land. The
three papyrus-plants, forming the first part of the group
of hieroglyphics, signify the northern land, i. e., Lower
Egypt; the second part, composed of three baskets, probably means "all," and appears to be a comprehensive
designation of the people settled in different groups and
bands. It cannot be supposed that before the dominion




CHAP. II.]  Pre-Historic Ages of the Hellenes.  55
of the Ptolemies the Egyptian language and writing were
without a fixed term for the Greeks, and that at this late
period a national appellative, which had a totally different
meaning on numberless monuments of native history,
should have been arbitrarily chosen for the purpose of
giving a new signification to it. If, then, we are justified
in assuming that the same group of hieroglyphics on the
monuments of the different dynasties in all essentials designates the same people, the consequence is apparent,that already in the sixteenth and fifteenth centuries before
our era great bodies of maritime Greeks were settled under
Egyptian sovereignty in the land of the Nile. Tutmosis
III. is the same Pharaoh who, according to Manetho, accomplished the expulsion of the Hyksos; and there is
much inherent probability in the supposition, that by the
very expulsion of that people, and of the Phoenicians connected with them, room was made in the Delta for Greek
tribes, and a favorable opportunity afforded them for settlement. The same group of symbols recurs on the monuments of the twenty-second dynasty under Sesonchis, the
Shishak of the Old Testament, i. e., in the tenth century.
At least a century previous to this the children of Javan
are also known to the Hebrews, and mentioned in the
Mosaic table of nations as a great race of men, divided
into many tribes and tongues, and spread over the coast
and island countries of the Mediterranean. In the ninth
century the prophet Joel curses the towns of Tyre and
Sidon, for that they sell the children of Judah and Jerusalem to the children of Javan, and remove them far from
their border among the Gentiles.
We shall gradually succeed in finding in the documents'
of the oriental nations surer points with which to connect
the beginnings of Greek history, by which the period may
be fixed when the Asiatic Hellenes obtained a name in
the south and east of the Mediterranean. But their most
important and fruitful activity was directed westwards.




56                History of Greece.          [Boos I.
Nowhere, as far as we can see, were the Phoenicians able
to offer a lasting resistance to the Greeks; least of all in
the narrow waters of the i2Egean, where for a time they
had settled between the two halves, belonging together by
nature, of Greek land and Greek population. Gradually
they had to evacuate this territory, and the routes of the
island-sea were opened, and now in a more and more rapid
succession of landings the Greeks of the East came to the
Greeks of the West. From their original habitations, as
well as from other regions where they had taken up their
abode, an innate impulse of kinsmanship led them on
across the passage to European Hellas. Here land and
air must have met them with the pleasantest of greetings;
here they were eager to domesticate themselves, to introduce all the arts and inventions which they had gradually
appropriated during a lively intercourse with other nations, and to awaken the natives to a higher phase of
life.
This passage of the Asiatics is the most important epoch
in the pre-historic age of the Greek people, and, whilst no
trace of a native tradition has been preserved as to the
beginnings of civilization on the other side, such a tradition undeniably exists in the case of the tribes in Europe;
a wealth of reminiscences survives in the myths, whose
very essence consists in expressing a people's consciousness
of the beginnings of its history; and this, as the Greek
loves it, not in misty outlines, but in full and rounded
forms, in stories of gods and heroes full of natural life,
which occupy the ages preceding the history of human
beings. The parent soil of these myths is European
Greece; but never any other part of it than the coast:
because here took place the contact which awakened the
people, and chiefly the East Coast, Argos, the shores of
the Corinthian and Euboean Seas, and the coasts of Thessaly. The common idea pervading all the myths is the
admission of elements from abroad.




CHAP. II.]  Pre-Historic Ages of the Hellene.    57
What is more a nation's own than its       s 
Myths connecgods? Such is pre-eminently the case with ted with colothe nations of antiquity, each of which be- nization.
held its own nationality represented by its gods; so that
in their relation to the latter they were not mere human
beings, but Persians, Greeks, or Romans. And yet, with
the exception of Zeus, who dwelleth in rether, there is
scarcely a single Greek divinity which has failed to be
conceived of as one come from abroad, and whose worship
is not connected with ancient myths and customs rooted in
a soil beyond the sea. Their most ancient altars were built
on the shore, where they had first appeared as unknown
gods.  Again, notwithstanding the pride taken by the
Greeks in their autochthony, they constantly connect the
foundation of their social life with the arrival of highlygifted strangers, whose supernatural power and wisdom
were believed to have brought a new order into the life of
men. In short, all the myths reach beyond, the narrow
limits of the European peninsula, and point to a land
beyond the seas, whence the gods and heroes came across.
So far the meaning of the myths is clear and manifest;
viz., a consciousness of a civilization brought over from
the East by colonization. But as to the identity of these
colonists there is a much greater obscurity of conception.
And this is natural; for when these myths attained to a
fully-defined form in the land, the strangers had long been
domesticated in it and their origin forgotten. Moreover
myths, unlike historical inquiry, fail to go back to the
earliest causes; their nature is to incline to what is extraordinary, direct, and wonderful. Aphrodite rises suddenly
out of the foam of the sea, and Pelops comes over its
waters to the coast with the steeds of Posidon.
Two different points of view are however undeniably
maintained throughout these myths.  In the first place
the notion of the foreign element, which subsequently finds
a more definite expression in the names of different locali3*




58                History of Greece.        [BooK I.
ties, such as Crete, Lycia, Phrygia, Lydia, the Troad,
Phoenicia, Cyprus, Egypt, Libya, without however any
peculiar significance being ascribed to, or any deeper reason assigned for, them in the myths themselves; and
secondly, the notion of common relationship. For though
Aphrodite arrives in the land from Syria, yet it is not as
Mylitta or Astarte that she comes, but as a Greek goddess;
as Aphrodite, that she rises from the sea. Cadmus again,
and Pelops-what is foreign in them but their origin?
Are they not the founders of everything genuinely Greek,
the first ancestors of illustrious generations of royal guardians of the state, whose deeds and glories the national
poetry never grew weary of celebrating?
Appelltions Now, in what other way can these two
given to the undeniably dominant ideas be explained and
immigrants. harmonized, except by assuming that the colonists in question were also Hellenes; that they came
from the East indeed, but from a Greek East, where with
the receptivity of mind characteristic of the Ionian race
they had domesticated amongst themselves, and given a
Hellenic transformation to, the civilization of the East, in
order to hand it over in this state to the brethren of their
own race? But since these Ionic Greeks, for so we may
shortly designate them as a body of population, had not
only settled in their own home, but also among the Phcenicians, in lands colonized by the latter, in Lycia and in
Caria, and in the Delta of the Nile, the settlers coming
from the other side, the Heroes and founders of towns
in question, easily came to be called Phoenicians and
Egyptians. For it is inconceivable that Canaanites proper, who everywhere shyly retreated at the advance of the
Hellenes, especially when they came in contact with them
when isolated and far from their own homes, and who as
a nation were despised by the Hellenes to such a degree
as to make the latter regard intermarriage with them in
localities of mixed population, such as Salamis or Cyprus,




CHAP. IL]  Pre-istoric Ages of tHe Hellenes.    59
as disgraceful; it is inconceivable, we repeat, that such
Phoenicians ever founded principalities among a Hellenic
population. Nor could the simple language of the myths
more clearly express their sense of the fact that the Egyptians who came to Argos were no real Egyptians, no race
of men by customs and language totally distinct from the
natives, than by calling these strangers cousins-german of
Danaus, men of the same race as the Argives, whom Io
had once upon a time transplanted to Libya, and who
had now returned to reunite with their ancient race on the
plains of the Inachus.
The Greeks beyond the sea were however
not merely designated in groups, according to  eg
the countries out of which they came, but certain collective names existed for them-such as that of Javan in the
East; and all as comprehensive as this in their meaning,
and as obscure in the limits of their application. Among
all these names the most widely spread was that of the
Leleges, which the ancients themselves designated as that
of a mixed people. In Lycia, in Miletus, and in the
Troad these Leleges had their home; in other words, on
the whole extent of coast in which we have recognized
the primitive seats of the people of Ionic Greeks. Priamus takes a Lelegian wife from the mountains of Ida;
and in Caria castles and moats of the most venerable antiquity were shown under the name of Lelegia. Again, in
Western Greece traces of the same name constantly occur
wherever the Asiatic Greeks found admission for the
spread of their civilization, on the coasts of Messenia, Laconia, and Elis, and in Megara, where a Lelex was placed
as a Hero at the very sources of the national history, and
was said to have immigrated from Egypt. The Epeans,
Locrians, AEtolians, Caucones, and Curetes, who peopled
the western coast of Greece, and under the name of the
Taphians spread over the western islands, are regarded as
belonging to the same race as the Leleges.




60                History of Greece.        [CB(K I.
The Carians may be called the doubles of
~he Carians.,
the Leleges. They are termed the "speakers
of a barbarous tongue," and yet, on the other hand, Apollo is said to have spoken Carian. As a people of pirates
clad in bronze they once upon a time had their day in the
Archipelago, and, like the Normans of the Middle Ages,
swooped down from the sea to desolate the coasts; but
their real home was in Asia Minor, where their settlements lay between those of Phrygians and Pisidians, and
community of religion united them with the Lydians and
Mysians. The seat of the Carians was on account of the
Phoenician immigrations simply called Phoinike, i. e., the
land of the Phoenicians; so that it is not wonderful that
under the Carian name more than any other the Asiatic
Greeks appeared in the light of foreigners, and that the
Europeans professed to have learnt nothing from them
beyond the technical parts of the military art, the employment of shields, the introduction of shield-symbols, the
decoration of the waving crest on. the helmet. And the
fact that the Carians are upon the whole a race which is
the least prone to settle, and the earliest to disappear entirely; that in various localities, above all in Megara, first
the Carians, and then two generations later the Leleges,
entered the land for the purpose of permanent settlements;
of itself sufficiently expresses the notion which conceived
of the former as of a ruder and more foreign body of population belonging to a remoter period, and of the latter as
a younger and more fully developed race.
For we must remember that the Eastern Greeks were
no mere mass of peoples undistinguished from one another,
in which light we are easily led to regard them now that
we are no longer able to recognize their characteristic differences; and furthermore, that they did not always remain
the same. During the centuries through which they occupied the western mainland they were constantly pursuing
the progress of their own development: gradually they




CHAP. II.]  Pre-Historie Ages of the Hellenes.  61
eliminated all foreign elefents; their civilization crystallized; their horizon widened; and some of the successive epochs of this development will, if carefully considered,
be found in the influence exercised on Hellas by the peoples beyond the sea.
The Pelasgi, like their equals among the Earlist forms
branches of the Aryan family, the Persians of religious
and Germans, worshiped the Supreme God worship.
without images or temples: spiritual edification too was
provided for them by their natural high-altars, the lofty
mountain-tops. Their Supreme God was adored The Pelasby them even without a name; for Zeus (Deus) gian Zeus.
merely means the heavens, thesether, the luminous abode
of the Invisible; and when they wished to imply a nearer
relation between him and mankind, they called him as the
author of all things living, Father-Zeus, Dipatyros
(Juppiter). This pure and chaste worship of the god-like
Pelasgi is not only preserved as a pious tradition of antiquity, but in the midst of Greece, when it abounded with
images and temples, there flamed, as of old, on the mountains the altars of Him who dwelleth not in temples made
with hands.  It is the element of primitive simplicity
which always preserved itself longest and safest in the
religions of antiquity. Thus through all the centuries of
Greek history the Arcadian Zeus, formless, unapproachable, dwelt in sacred light over the oak-tops of the Lycsean
mountain; and the boundaries of his domain were marked
by every shadow within them growing pale. Long too
the people retained a pious dread of representing the
Divine Being under a fixed name, or by symbols recognizable by the senses.  For besides the altar of the
"Unknown," whom Paul acknowledged as the living God,
there stood here and there, in the towns, altars to the
" pure," the " great," the " merciful" gods; and by far the
greater number of the names of the Greek gods are originally mere epithets of the unknown deity.




62                History of Greece.          [BooK L
This Pelasgian worship could not long survive in its
purity. As the race split up into tribes and nations, the
character of its religious feelings changed; the newlygained abodes were felt to stand in need of visible signs
and pledges of divine grace, and the different phases of the
Divine Being became themselves new divinities. Thus
the consciousness of the divine existence branched off at
the same time as the nationality of the people; and religious worship came to differ in its forms according to
locality, attached itself to visible things, and thus took the
first step in the subsequent progress of sensualization. To
this was added the contact with foreign nations and their
idols. Left to themselves, men lacked the power of resistance against the foreign element. As they were attracted
into intercourse with the rest of the world, as their relations
of life multiplied, they believed themselves in need of new
gods, since they put no faith in those of their country
beyond the circle of their previous sphere of life. They
failed to withstand the attractive temptation of imageworship, and bowed down before the gods of the strangers,
who under their protection performed such mighty deeds.
The puppet-gods (Xoana) came into the land from abroad;
and particularly the small figures, a span high, which from
the earliest times were venerated in places on the coast,
must be regarded as sailors' idols.
Phoenician de-  The first image of a god which met tle
Phoenician del- 
ties: Aphrodite eyes of the Pelasgi was that of Astarte,
and Heracles. whose worship had been so peculiarly appropriated by the Canaanite traders, that they never weighed
anchor without taking an image of her with them; and
wherever they founded a factory, they set this up as its
sacred centre. So Herodotus saw at Memphis the Tyrian
quarter, isolated from the rest of the town, built round the
grove and chapel of the " strange Aphrodite." The same
was the case with the Phoenician settlements on Cyprus,
in Cythera, in Cranse; with only this difference, that what



CHAP. Ir.]  Pre-Historic Ages of the Hellenes.   63
ever had here been, in Egyptian fashion, preserved
unchanged was accommodated to their own ways of life
and Hellenized by the Greeks. Astarte remained the
goddess of the vital force pervading life and creating it;
but at the same time, inasmuch as her first appearance
among them had been as the goddess of the mariners, she
became for the Greeks a deity of the sea, of navigation
and harbors, who was originally only adored at the anchorages of the coast, but afterwards introduced farther and
farther inland.
From the earliest times the Corinthian Isthmus must
have been a standard-point for navigation in the Greek
waters; for in the same degree as the navigation of our
own days seeks the open sea, the sea-going vessels of the
ancients sailed along the coasts, into the depths of the bays,
into the sounds of the Archipelago; and it was for this
reason that the Phoenicians already marked out the route
of trade straight through Greece, from gulf to gulf. On
the Isthmian ridge df land was the home of Melicertes,
who, notwithstanding his degradation into a Posidonian
Daemon, always remained the centre of the religious worship.
Melicertes is the same name as Melkart, adapted to the
Hellenic tongue. Wherever Tyrians settled, they erected
sanctuaries to Melkar, their city god; they introduced
his worship on the coasts of Hellas, where, under names
of a similar sound (such as Makar, Makareus), on Crete,
Rhodes, Lesbos, and Euboea, he was introduced among
the series of native myths. He is even the father of local
names which bear a most Hellenic sound, such as Macaria
in Messenia and Attica. And, lastly, the essential traits
of the city-Hero of the Tyrians were transferred to Heracles, who was himself adored as Makar on the island of
Thasos, prominent among Phoenician mining settlements,
and in many places became, beyond a doubt, the symbol
of the pioneering agency of the foreign colonists; for he,
the restless wanderer, is the personal type of the unwearied




64               History of Greece.         [Boor I.
people of traders. Accompanied by his dog, he discovers
on the shore the first purple-fish; his goblet, in which he
sails to Erythea, is the type of the Phoenician merchantvessel, whose keel he instructs men to sheath with copper.
Under his name the Phoenicians stemmed the desolating
rush of the mountain-torrents, built the embankments, and
laid down the first roads. The Greeks conceived and
adopted him in a twofold manner. They either adopted
the Tyrian worship, and received him as a divinity like
Astarte, or they venerated him as the benefactor of the
land and the founder of civilization; as one of their own
Heroes, the name and glory of whose deeds reaches from
one end of the Mediterranean to th6 other. In Sicyon
both forms of the worship of Heracles occur-his worship
as a Hero, and the more ancient adoration paid to him as
a god.
The worship of these divinities, as well as that of
Moloch, of which traces occur in Crete and elsewhere,
may be justifiably presumed to have'been brought by the
Phoenicians into European Greece. With them came
various branches of artistic handicraft: such as the weaving of stuffs of different dyes, as practised by the women
of the temples of Aphrodite, on Cos, Thera, and Amorgus;
such as mining, the preparation of bronze, etc. The two
forms of worship mentioned above mark at the same time
the chief epochs of the Phoenician influence which followed
the period of the prevailing dominion of each particular
town: as long as Sidon led out the colonists, the goddess
of Ascalon, Aphrodite Urania, in their company extended
her sway; to her the dove is sacred, whose flight before
the prow announces to the mariner the vicinity of the
coast. At a later period, about the year 1100, begins the
colonization, starting from Tyre, to which Heracles-Melkar
testifies. But at the time when the power of Tyre was on
the increase the Ionic Greeks already possessed a maritime
power of their own; and for this reason in their tradition,




CHAP. II.]  Pre —istoric Ages of the Hellees.    65
such as it lies before us in Homer, Sidop alone is the
centre of the Phoenician dominion over the seas.
When the Asiatic Greeks extended themselves as colonists by the side of the Phoeni- velopment of
cians, they undoubtedly, as they had previous- treesk  olyly done at home, adopted their forms of religious worship, and contributed their agency to the spread
of the latter in a Hellenized phase. Pelops and JEgeus
too found sanctuaries of Aphrodite; and as the new colonists worked at the same time and in the same way as
the Phoenicians, their activity is equally typified by the
Phoenician symbol of the Hero who wrestled with the lions
and killed the serpents: their deeds also appear as works
of Heracles. But they also introduced other forms of
worship, the primitive types of which cannot be demonstrated to have existed in Syria; forms of divine worship,
which were developed amongst themselves, and are the
mirror of their ways of popular life, and at the same time
the measure of the various degrees of their dePosidon.
velopment. First among these is to be mentioned the worship of Posidon, originally unknown in the
interior of Hellas; which explains the commission given
to the sea-king Odysseus to spread it farther inland,
among the men who had never seen salt, and who would
take his oar for a shovel. The worship of Posidon is inseparable from the waves of the sea, and accordingly,
even where he was worshiped in the interior, men believed they heard the salt-waves resounding under his
temple. As the form of his name, Poseidaon, is Ionic,
so also is his worship proper.to the race of the Asiatic
Greeks, whose widely-scattered branches it unites, whether
their appellation be Carians, Leleges, or Ionians, in their
native seats as well as in their subsequent settlements.
Posidon, the god of the sea, like his element, has an unfriendly character; his sacrificial worship, too, is full of
traits of barbarous customs, such as human sacrifices,




66               History of Greece.          [BOOK I.
burial of live horses, etc. Among his companions are
wild Titans and spiteful Daemons, but also figures indicating the advanced geographical knowledge of maritime
nations,-such as Proteus, the herdsman of the sea, the
Egyptian magician, who knows the paths of the sea, and
the depths thereof; and Atlas, the father of nautical astronomy, the associate of the Tyrian Heracles, the guardian of the treasures of the West.
Once upon a time Posidon was the god most venerated
by all Greek maritime nations, and only at a later date
was he obliged to give way, in most localities, to the worship of other gods corresponding to higher degrees of
civilization. But a worship once founded was never
thrown aside with the Hellenes, but retained as a sacred
foundation, and united with the later forms of worship.
Thus in Athens, in Olympia, in Delphi, may be clearly
recognized an originally Posidonian period, of which the
sacrificial customs had never been lost. In this way, as it
were, various strata formed themselves, which recur in a
regular succession in all the more important homes of the
Hellenic religion; and which, when accurately examined
and compared, afford equal means of recognizing the successive stages of the development of national consciousness, even as the series of earth-strata testify to the
gradually completed formation of the surface of the earth.
Certain epochs are sufficiently plain for discernment, especially in those cases in which the' introduction of a new
worship occasioned struggles of which reminiscences survived. For, even in the heathen world, we remark not
only a thoughtless readiness to accept every novelty, but
also a sense of greater earnestness-a feeling of fidelity
towards the ancient gods and their purer and simpler worship. To this effect we may read in Herodotus of the
mountain tribe of the Caunians,-how, in full panoply,
brandishing their spears, they drove the foreign gods back
across their frontiers, over which they had intruded.




CHAP. II.]  Pre-Historic Ages of the Hellenes.   67
Of such struggles Greek mythology had to tell on the
occasion of the introduction of the worship of Dionysus;
for here the distant Eastern origin of the religion, and the
resistance of the native population against its novelty, are
marked with especial clearness. Among the Argives the
story went, how under the leadership of Perseus they had
fought against the wild mermaids, who had come over to
their shore from the islands.
Similar reminiscences attach themselves to the worship
of Artemis, whose origin in Anterior Asia can be clearly
demonstrated. Here again it was the foreign character
of the new worship which met with vehement resistance
on the part of the Hellenes; here, again, the native heroes
fought against the hordes of strange women, who appear
in this instance as troops of Amazons.
Other forms of worship were admitted at so early a
period, and so completely domesticated, that their original
strangeness was completely obliterated and forgotten.
Who can think of Attica without Demeter and Athene?
and yet even the temple-hymns speak of Demeter as
having come across the sea from Crete; and as surely as
no Athene is conceivable without her olive-tree, so certainly was this worship also first developed among the
Ionic tribes on the eastern shores of the Sea.
In the entire religious life of the Greeks, The religion
however, no great epoch is more clearly of Apollo.
marked than the first appearance of Apollo. It resembles a second day of creation in the history of their spiritual development. In all the Greek towns from which a
rich treasure of myths has been handed down to us there
attaches itself to his blessed arrival a lofty revolution of
the social order of things, a higher development of life.
The roads are levelled, the quarters of the towns are
marked out, the castles are encircled. with walls, things
sacred are separated from things profane. The sound of
song and stringed instruments is heard; men approach




68               History of Greece.         [BOOK I.
nearer to the gods; Zeus speaks to them through his prophets; and guilt, even the guilt of blood, no longer rests
inexpiable, like a leaden weight, on ill-fated man, no
longer drags itself as a curse from generation to generation. Rather as the laurel cleanses the sultry air, so the
laurel-crowned god purifies Orestes from his stains of
blood, and restores to him serenity of soul; the dread
power of the Erinnyes is broken; and a world of higher
harmony, a reign of grace, is founded. This Apollo the
Greeks of the hither side only knew as one who had come
to them from abroad, and his chief sanctuaries they only
regarded as the terminating points of the paths along
which he had entered among them. Either these paths
are directly designated as paths of the sea, on which he
approached in the company of dolphins; or, in the instances in which he is said to come by land, his course
is from the coast, where lie his most ancient altars, on the
very brink of the waves, in rocky bays or by the mouths
of rivers,-altars founded by Cretan, Lycian, or OldIonian mariners, who thus were the first to consecrate the
land anew. With the birth of Apollo there grew on
Delos the "first-created" laurel; on the mainland, the
laurel growing at the mouth of the Peneus was held to be
the most ancient.
The religion of Apollo too has its different phases.
Wilder customs prevail in the mountain and forest worship
of Hylatas, on Cyprus, and among the Magnetes; as Delphinius, he is still nothing but a sea-god closely related to
Posidon; finally, as the Pythian god, he sits enthroned at
Delphi, the god of light and right, who guides the course
of states, the spiritual centre of the whole Hellenic world.
In this Apollo Hellenic polytheism received its harmonious
completion and the loftiest glorification of which it was
capable. So that when we look back upon the consciousness of the divine which, according to universal tradition,
the Greeks brought with them as a common inheritance




CHAP. II.]  Pre-Iistoric Ages of the Hellenes.    69
from the seat of the Aryan races to Greece, and of which
they kept a firm hold as Pelasgi, a glimpse is opened to
us of the story of the centuries which elapsed from the
first contact with the Phoenicians and the infinitely more
fruitful opening of intercourse with the Asiatic Greeks up
to the completion of the whole circle of divinities.
The history of the gods constitutes the pre- Introduction
lude to the history of the people, and to that of foreignveof the country at the same time. For the getation.
land, as well as its inhabitants, has meanwhile become
another: the forests are thinned, the soil is made arable,
and in immediate connection with the gods of the East
vine and olive-tree, sanctified by and necessary for their
worship, laurel and myrtle, pomegranate and cypress, have
been planted in JIellas. Did not the Athenians believe
that they still possessed the first shoot of this generous
plantation, the olive-tree placed in the ground by the
goddess herself? Before the walls of temples were thought
of these trees were the living semblances and dwellingplaces of the divinities; the earliest dedicatory gifts were
hung up on their branches, and out of their wood were
cut the formless representations of the invisible beings.
Among their number must be reckoned with the rest the
byssus-plant (probably the bushlike cotton tree), which
was employed in weaving by the women of the temples
of Aphrodite, and the styrax-plant, whose odorous gum
the Phoenicians had brought from Arabia to Hellas before
the plant had been introduced into Boeotia by Cretan
colonists.
Everything relating to the gods and their Mythsof the
worship had been so thoroughly harmonized Heroes.
by the transforming power of the Greek mind into a great
whole, which steps before us complete in itself as a
national possession, that we can only occasionally catch a
glimpse of the gradual process of generation. The myths
of the Heroes indicate more clearly the epochs of the




70                History of Greece.          [Boo I.
earliest history of the land. In these myths the people
recalls to its mind, in their full life, those times in which
the monotonous conditions of existence of the Pelasgian
autochthones were interrupted, and new forms of divine
worship, new openings for national activity, new orders
of life, continuing ever after with an abundance of good
fruits, were called into existence.  These founders are
figures like those of living men, but greater, grander, and
nearer to the Immortals. They are no empty creations
of the fancy, but in them the actual deeds of the early
ages are personified and endowed with life. The stories
of the Heroes contain a certain documentary truth; nor
is there anything arbitrary in them, except what the collectors of myths added for the sake of introducing a systematic and chronological connection.'-Ience, on the
one hand, the agreement in the essential characteristics
of the Heroes; on the other, their variety, and the multiplicity of the groups which represent the epochs of development, differing from one another according to time and
place.
HIIerles.  Most widely famed throughout all the regions
from Crete to Macedonia was the figure of Heracles, who by conquering the lawless powers of nature prepared the soil for a rational order of life; he is the popular symbol of the pioneering agency of the earliest settlements, derived by the Ionians from the Phcenicians, and
from the Ionians by the Western Greeks. Wherever the
Ionians attached themselves to the Tyrians, Iolaus appears as companion-in-arms of Heracles; where the
Greeks most completely succeeded in repelling the advance of the Phoenicians, the Tyrian hero appears in a
glorified form as Theseus.
In the same districts where Heracles is especially at
home, in Argos and in Thebes, we also find the most copious flow of Heroic myths, intended to preserve the great
events of the earliest ages in men's memories. The hos



CHAP. II.]  Pre-Historic Ages of the Hellenes.  71
pitable bay of Argos seems to have been created by nature
for the first place of intercourse between the maritime
and inland tribes and nowhere in Hellas was there so
much historic life before the beginning of all historical
accounts as here. Of this the whole gallery of native
myths is a testimony: Argos, who brings seeds of corn
from Libya; then Io, wandering along all the seas of the
earth, whose descendants, with their love of travel, are
transplanted to the land of the Nile, and return thence in
the person of Danaus, who is a native patriarch, the
ancestor of a genuine Greek race, and at the same time
the founder of the Lycian worship of Apollo; and, again,
the son of the Phoenician Belus, the establisher 3f navigation, who in his fifty-oared galley sails from the mouth of
the Nile to the Inachus.  As in the people itself the
native and foreign elements have become amalgamated, so
also in the person of its ancestor. To the same land of
the Danai belongs Agenor, who establishes the first breed
of horses in Argolis; King Proetus, who builds walls with
the help of Lycian Cyclopes; Perseus, sailing in his
wooden chest; and Palamedes, the Hero of the town of
Nauplia on its island-like promontory, the discoverer of
the nautical art, of light-houses, of the balance, of the arts
of writing and numbers. All these varied figures represent in common the idea, invented by no human ingenuity,
that ~this coast before all others received an immigration
of maritime people, who crossed from Phoenicia, Egypt,
and Asia Minor, and gradually communicated so many
novelties to the natives, that by their reception the latter
were, so to speak, transformed into another people. In
the land of the Isthmus, visited at an early date by Phmenicians and maritime Greeks following in their track, the
figure of the wise King Sisyphus corresponds to that of
Palamedes, and, like him, mirrors the sharp-witted coastpeople in contrast with the simplicity of those dwelling
farther inland. Accordingly he also appears as the found



72               History of Greece.          [BooK I.
er of the worship of Melicertes, just as Ageus and King
Porphyrion, the "man of purple," introduce the worship
of Aphrodite into Attica.
The clearest reminiscence of the debt due
from Western Greece to the East is preserved in
the myth of Cadmus. From the coast beyond the sea,
where his brethren Phoenix and Cilex dwell, Cadmus
follows the track of the wandering Europa to the West.
Wherever he lands on his voyage, on Rhodes, on Thera,
on the Boeotian coast, in Thasos and Samothrace, he
always appears as the spirit of a higher order of life, and
under the protection of Aphrodite plants towns of lasting
fame, which he provides with all the arts of war and
peace.  He is the common ancestor of generations of
Hellenic kings and priests, which remained in high repute
among the Greeks till far down into the historic times.
The A auts. Finally, in Thessaly the central home of
the Heroic myths is the Pegassean Gulf, the
roads of Iolcus, out of whose safe anchorage Iason first
guides his timid bark, and leads a united band of sons of
heroes to voyages of adventure across the sea.
In the rich cluster of myths which surround the captain
of the Argo and his fellows are preserved to us the whole
life and doings of the Greek maritime tribes, which gradually united all the coasts with one another, and attracted
Hellenes dwelling in the most different seats into the
sphere of their activity. The scene of all these Heroic
myths is laid on the coast,-a clear proof that nowhere
was the national history begun by the inland nations of
themselves, but that all the great events to which the
memory of the Hellenes mounted back were occasioned
by the contact of the natives with others which had
arrived by sea.
This popular tradition differs essentially from a later
view; which is the result of reflection, and belongs to a
period when the Greeks began to arrange the beginnings




CHAP. II.]  Pre-Bisoric Ages of the Helenes.    73
of their history for themselves. It was when by personal inspection they grew to be better acquainted with
the kingdoms of the East, when they measured the age
of the walls of their towns by the Pyramids, and came to
know something about the chronology of the priests, that
they were so strongly impressed by the overpowering aspect of the antiquity they found there, and of the written
traditions ascending through thousands of years, explained to them by boastful priests, that now they would
not hear of anything Greek which could not be derived
from these sources. The Phoenicians and the Greek mediators between East and West were forgotten; and now
Cecrops, the serpent-footed national King of Attica, as
well as the priestesses of Dodona, were converted into
settlers exiled from Egypt, from the barlIrians of which
land even the gods and their festivals were declared to
be derived. Under the influence of these impressions
and sentiments, which swayed the more educated men of
the nation from the 7th century B. c., the majority of the
older historians, Herodotus among the rest, composed
their notes. In the course of this history we shall have
frequent occasion to touch again on the question, as to
how the progress'of civilization in the particular districts
of Greece is' io be understood. Our present purpose is
only once more to insist comprehensively on the main
features of this entire period of development.
Out of the great Pelasgian population which Summary Recovered Anterior Asia Minor and the whole view of the
first period of
European peninsular land a younger people the national
had issued forth separately, which we find leelopment.
from the first divided into two races. These main races
we may call, according to the two dialects of the Greek
language, the Dorian and the Ionian, although these
names are not generally used until a later period to designate the division of the Ifellenic nation. No division of
so thorough a bearing could have taken place unless ac4




74                History of Greece.          [Boo I.
companied by an early local separation. We assume that
the two races parted company while yet in Asia Minor.
One of them settles in the mountain-cantons of Northern
Hellas, the other along the Asiatic coast. In the latter
the historic movement begins. With the aid of the art
of navigation, learnt from the Phoenicians, the Asiatic
Greeks at an early period spread over the sea; domesticate themselves in lower Egypt, in countries colonized by
the Phoenicians, in the whole Archipelago, from Crete to
Thrace; and from their original as well as from their
subsequent seats send out numerous settlements to the
coast of European Greece, first from the east side, next
after conquering their timidity, also taking in the country,
beyond Cape Malea from the west. At first they land as
pirates and enemies, then proceed to permanent settlements in gulfs and straits of the sea, and by the mouths
of rivers, where they unite with the Pelasgian population.
The different periods of this colonization may be judged
of by the forms of divine worship, and by the names
under which the maritime tribes were called by the natives. Their rudest appearance is as Carians; as ILeleges
their influence is more beneficent and permanent. To
this Caro-Lelegian period belongs the introduction of the
worship of Posidon. A long series of names of localities
akin to one another, such as iEgse, Egion, AEgina,.Egila,
all of them points on the coast, and Nat the same time
homes of the worship of Posidon, of ancient renown, remain as reminiscences of this first period of colonization.
For, of course, it was the strange mariners who first gave
names to these previously nameless islands and points on
the coast. Withlequal ease we recognize in Samos, Samicon, Same, $amothrace a cognate group of names which
constantly recur on either side of the sea in connection
with the worship of Posidon.
The spread of  A succession of younger forms of religious
the Ionians.  worship announces the progress of civilization




CHAP. II.]  Pre-Historic Ages of the Hellenes.    75
in the maritime Greek tribes, as well as the constantly increasing success and beneficent influence of
their colonization. In connection with the gods whose
altars are founded by them, the Eastern Greeks now appear under more definite names, as Cretans, Dardani, Lycians; the myths gain in intelligibility and consciousness,
and more accurately indicate the benefits derived from
these settlers. In these reminiscences even the occasional
appearance of the Ionian name is unmistakably to be
recognized; for though among the Western peoples the
name of the Iaones never asserted itself as the collective
name of the Asiatic Hellenes, thus corresponding to the
term of Javanim prevailing to the east of the sea, yet
names of the same root and meaning pervade the tradition as to those influences from over the sea. They prove
that the Hellenes were conscious of the fact that this early
civilization of the Asiatic tribes was from the first akin
to, and homogeneous with, what was universally called
Ionic. Thus we have Iasion, the brother of Dardanus,
the intimate associate of Demeter, on Crete, an ancient
Hero who personifies the civilization common to the chief
tribes of the Asiatic race of nations. The same is the
origin of Iason, the name of the founder of navigation
among the European Greeks, whose most ancient port is
called the "landing-place of the Iaones," while the eldest
of all Greek towns in Europe is called the Iasian or
Ionian Argos. But the name of this locality itself, which
according to a clear consciousness of the Hellenes, only
belonged to such arable plains as open towards the sea,
and which so frequently recurs on either side of the
JEgean, as well as on its islands, is an Ionic name. And
by celebrating Argos, with an upper-town'Larissa, in the
most different countries as the first scene of civic association, as the starting-point of political civilization, the fact
is explicitly expressed, that, everywhere, with the combi



76                History of Greece.         [BooK I.
nation of Pelasgians and Ionians commenced, as by an
electric contact, the current of historic life.
The apparently contradictory circumstance, that Greek
tradition, instead of making the Ionians immigrate, appears to represent them as settled on the European shores,
is explained by their arriving not at once, but gradually,
and by their coming in ships; i. e. generally without
women. Moreover, when the northern mountain. tribes
pushed forward into the districts near the coasts, the Ionians were already to such a degree lost among the Pelasgians, that Pelasgians and Jonians together appeared as
one in opposition to those younger tribes.
Thus at the beginning of history we find the central
mountains of European Hellas surrounded by a PelasgoIonic border of coast, to which the more fertile valleys
and plains near the sea also belong. We come upon scattered traces of the Ionians in the bays and places open
towards the sea of Thessaly; we find them in more connected seats on either side of the sea of Euboea, called
Hellopia, after a son of Ion; in southern Boeotia, especially on the Asopus and the declivities of the Helicon;
in the whole of Attica; farther, in a long connected line
on either shore of the Saronic and Corinthian seas; in
Argolis, and on all the coasts of the Peloponnesus; nay,
even into the mountainous country of the interior they
penetrated, as the local myths of Tegea and Caphyse show.
Lastly, on the West coast, the name of the Ionian sea
testifies with sufficient clearness to the nationality of those
who here first opened the "wet paths," and became the
founders of the civilization which meets us in King Odysseus and the sailor-people of the Taphians, who spread
the cultivation of the olive, with all its blessings, as far
north as Istria.
Their infln-  Notwithstanding all the differences marking
ence.    the influence of the Ionians, according to the
degree of favor accorded by the locality or vouchsafed by




CHAP. II.1  Pre-Histori Ages of the Hellees.      77
the receptivity of the natives, the character of the language, manners, and civilization prevailing in all these
coast-districts was, upon the whole, homogeneous. For
these settlers not only domesticated in Hellas the accidents
of navigation and the various fishing trades, but also a
higher national civilization. Having always been accustomed to dwell in wide river-valleys, on which the formation of the land depended, the Ionians especially understood the treatment of low-lying marsh-lands; they sought
for.similar conditions of soil, and found them on the
largest scale in Egypt, on a smaller and on the least scale
in Hellas. Wherever there was a Larissa and Argos,
there, as already observed by Strabo, in general soil had
also been washed up by the water. The Ionians founded
the more difficult kind of cultivation of the soil in the
secluded valleys near the sea, where the local myths make
distinct mention of foreign colonists, as, e. g., in Boeotia of
the Gephyroeans. The Greeks asserted that the same
strangers who had taught them to cultivate their moorlands by means of embankments had also communicated
the art of writing to the natives. Furthermore, since the
Ionians were in the habit of settling in small numbers on
foreign soil, they learnt, in imitation of the Phoenicians, to
fortify their settlements against the attacks of the natives;
and these fortified stationary camps became the primitive
types of the fortified towns, just as these became the centres of associated districts. In antiquity such communities are always based on perfectly fixed numerical proportions, according to which the various tribes distinguish
themselves from one another. The divisors which form a
token of recognition among the Ionians are four and
twelve. All districts divided according to these numbers
we may regard as owing their civilization to Ionian influence. And when we finally observe that everywhere the
sanctuaries of the gods brought over by the tribes of the
Ionic people served as centres of a wider association, even




78                 Hstory of Greece.          Ltoot 1.
among different districts, we must arrive at a conclusion,
well-founded on every kind of consideration, that the Ionians who had crossed from Asia, in opening an intercourse
between the Greek peoples from one side of the sea to the
other, also opened the history of the entire nation. The
ages preceding this history, as well as the earliest part of
it, are chiefly Ionic; and only cease to be so when tribes
of the interior oppose the Ionians by independent assertions of their own strength.
By the very nature of the case the name of these Ionians, whom we may distinguish from the subsequent
Twelve-towns as the Old-Ionians, is very comprehensive,
and it is impossible to define with precision their seats and
their relations of descent amongst themselves. For this is
nowhere feasible till a native formation of states has taken
place. But of this the original conditions lie in the general relations of the peoples and tribes; so that a successful
attempt at discovering these with approximate clearness
will at once remove all obscurity and want of connection
from the earliest facts of the formation of Greek states.




CHAPTER III
THE EARLIEST STATES.
TEE history of the Hellenes begins on the sea; its commencement is the opening intercourse between the islands
and the coasts; but this commencement is Beginnings of
one of wild confusion. For as sooni as the Greek History.
first shy timidity had been overcome, the same sea, on the
shores of which hitherto only fishermen had plied their
peaceful trade, became the scene of the wildest feuds, to
which men were tempted by the newly-learnt art of navigation, and by the new power which they received from
it. Of course this temptation is a very different one here
from what it may be on the brink of an inhospitable
ocean. In these seas, where no knowledge of astronomy
is needed to conduct the light boat to its destined port,
where on all sides protecting harbors, equally suited for
places of ambush and of concealment, offer themselves in
the secrecy of rocky inlets, where sudden surprises easily
succeed, and short predatory expeditions offer rich
profit,-in these seas the tribes dwelling along the coast
accustomed themselves to look upon piracy as a natural
occupation, carried on like all the rest, like the chase
or fishing. Thus, whenever strangers landed on the shore,
according to the testimony of Homer, the unsuspicious
question was put to them, whether they were traders, or
sailing about as pirates. In this matter, also, the Phoenicians had set the example; they had taught their imitators
how boys and girls, carried off from the open fields,
brought a better profit than any other kind of marketwares. The inhabitants of the coast-districts, who were
more-pacifically inclined, retired farther inland in alarm,
79




80                History of Greece.         [IOOK I.
while piracy extended farther and farther; and the
practice of kidnapping prevailed on every coast, till a war
had been kindled of every man against every man. In
order accordingly to prevent the newly-awakened forces
from destroying themselves in desolating struggles, it was
necessary for central points to arise in the midst of this
unchained chaos of rude violence, from which a new order
of things might take its beginning. The Phoenicians were
unable to take upon. themselves the office of disciplinarimans and legislators. Tyre and Sidon lay too far off; nor
were they ever able to assert themselves as capitals of the
territories under their commercial dominion. A centre
was needed nearer at hand, and already forming part of
the Greek world; and this was found in Crete.
This island lies athwart the southern entrance
of the Archipelago like a broad cross-bar, a lofty
citadel of the sea, with its snowy summits visible on the
one side as far as Caria, on the other as far as Cape
Tsenarum, severely and tranquilly defining with the long
extent of their outline, as it appears when seen from the
southern Cyclades, the varied and turbulent aspect of
the island waters. Crete is a small continent by itself,
well endowed by nature, and sufficing for its own wants;
it possesses the wild beauties of Alpine scenery-secluded
mountain-valleys between rocly crags of amazing height
-and, again, the wide frontage of coast towards Asia,
towards Libya, and Hellas. But the Cretan coast abounds
with harbors only on the north side; here bay succeeds
bay; hither the tempestuous north winds of the Archipelago drove the ships-as, for instance, that of Odysseus
-to seek their last refuge. Although at an early date
communications had been opened towards the south also,
especially with the shores of Libya, by the purple-fishers
of Itanus, yet the situation of Crete, and the natural conditions of its north coast, too clearly pointed to a con



CHAP. III.]      The Earliest States.           8
nection with the Archipelago, to allow of its history developing itself in any other direction.
Moreover, the population of Crete was akin and homogeneous to the main race of the Greek lands. The
Pelasgian Zeus ruled on its heights; but Canaanite tribes
coming from Syria and the nearer regions of Lower
Egypt settled here at an earlier date, and in more compact masses, than in other districts belonging to the same
national complex. How these settlements became fortified places is shown by the Punic names of important
towns, such as Itanus and Karat, or Cseratus, afterward
Cnosus. The whole island worshiped the Syrian goddess as the queen of heaven riding on the bull of the
sun, she became Europa, who had first pointed the way
from the Sidonian meadows to this island. The Molochidol was heated to receive his sacrifice in his fiery arms.
Meanwhile the Phoenicians were not more successful in
Crete than elsewhere in expelling or conquering the ancient population.  Native tribes remained, especially
around the Ida range, which called themselves Etea, or
ancient Cretans. The race of the native Pelasgi was recruited by younger Hellenic tribes of Asia Minor, who
introduced a new movement out of their Phrygian homes.
A multitude of nations and languages made Crete its earliest place of meeting, and out of this crowd, in consequence of a many-sided intercourse and happy commingling, specially favored by the locality, which afforded a
wide theatre and ample means of action, but at the same
time a beneficent seclusion, arose that dense succession of
towns, which reaches out of the obscurity of the prehistoric age into the earliest reminiscences of European
history. For the earliest knowledge of Crete handed
down to us speaks of a land of a hundred towns, and of
its capital, Cnosus, whose site is marked by the island of
Dia fronting it-the regal seat of Minos.
4*




82                History of Greece.        [BooK I.
Minos, king  The first imperial power in Hellenic antiof Crete.  quity was an island and coast state, its first
king, a sea-king. The island-groups of the Archipelago, regarded by the ancients as a mighty field of
ruins-as the surviving arches of a bridge broken up by
the waters between Asia and Europe-lie to such a
degree scattered about the sea, that it is impossible to conceive them forming themselves into a systematic state by
and among themselves. Here a power from without was
always necessary to protect the weaker islanders, and
keep in bounds the stronger, and to establish the dominion
of right and law. This first great act of Hellenic history
is connected with the name of Minos. To him all subsequent generations owed the foundation of a maritime
power, which had a different object from that of coast
piracy. It was he who forced all the Greeks of the
Asiatic coast who were mixed up with the Phoenicians,
and, under the name of the Carians, looked upon the
island sea as an arena given up to them for mutual hostilities, and who, with their piratical barks, expelled those
who refused to submit to these conditions out of the
Archipelago. Accordingly, on the one hand, Minos' dominion over the sea could be regarded as based on the
expulsion of the Carians; on the other these same Carians, as far as they had been persuaded to partake in the
new order and civilization, could be considered the people
of Minos,-the sailors of his fleet, the citizens of his empire. Naxos and the Cyclades appear as most intimately
connected with Crete+: in them fortified towns and anchorages for fleets were established, and over them kinsmen of the royal family set as viceroys, through whom
the taxes were levied on the subject population. The
Hellespont, the western entrance to the sea, is the farthest
limit of the settlements of the same islanders, who
guarded its gates in the south against Phoenician privateers, Under the protection of his king's far-reaching




CaAP. III.]     The Earliest States.            83
sway the Cretan mariner pursues his voyage; he opens
new paths beyond Malea, in the wider waters of the West;
he lands at Pylus, at the foot of Parnassus, under the
miraculous guidance of Apollo Delphinius: the lands on
the western coast are discovered, and a grandson of Minos
gives his name to the gulf of Tarentum: in Sicily the
Phoenician Makara becomes the Greek town Minoa: and
thus all the countries participating in the climate of the
Greek coasts, and in Greek vegetation, and now pre-eminently called to participate in Greek culture, appear already united in one great whole.
It is easy to see that to the Crete of Minos Influence
there attaches the notion of a marked epoch of exercised
civilization. Everything connected with it the under MiGreeks, according to their natural tendency, nos.
brought together round the person of Minos, so as to make
it impossible for us to recognize, through the nebulous veil
of the myths, the clear outlines of a historical individual.
But he is not, like a god, the common property of all the
lands and tribes venerating him; he is no Hero, like Heracles, beginning the history of mankind at a number of
the most various localities; for he has a fixed home: he
represents a fixed epoch, the traditional features of which
form a vast complex of indubitable facts. For this
reason his venerable figure stands, since Thucydides wrote,
on the threshold of Greek history. Like all heroic
figures, that of Minos reaches down through different
periods of human development; for though his feet rest
on a soil still rankly overgrown with Pelasgian conditions
of life, mixed up with Phoenician institutions, yet again
he completely overtops this base. Everything ascribed
by the Greeks to Minos, the essence of all the myths
which the calm minxd of Thucydides retains, assuredly
consists in nothing but this,-that order and law, the
foundation of states, and a variety of forms of divine
worship, originated in his island. Crete is the mother's




84                History of Greece.         [BooK I.
womb of that very system of ethics by which the Hellenes are most decidedly distinguished from all nonHellenes.
All Pelasgian countries are the original home of Zeus;
but on Crete his worship was settled, and adorned with
legends and secondary characters, in precisely the fashion
in which he came to be venerated in the whole of Hellas.
Dionysus and Ariadne conduct us by a safe track from
Cnosus, by way of Naxos, into the midst of the Greek
world; in Crete Demeter wedded Iasius on a thriceploughed fallow field; on the declivity of Dicte Artemis
was born. The Sicilian grave of Minos was united with
a sanctuary of Aphrodite; and as Minos was the first
king who sacrificed to the Graces, so his son Androgeus
opens for the Pythian god the sacred way through Attica.
Delphi received its god out of Cretan hands, and in the
Archipelago Delos became the sacred centre for the worship of Apollo, as Naxos for Dionysus, and Paros for.Demeter. Finally the myths concerning DIedalus, rbvered as the father of art by all its lovers among the
Hellenes, who founded the sacred dancing-ground on the
market-place of Cnosus, point to Crete as to the primitive
seat of higher civilization. Thus then, according to universal tradition, contradicted neither by itself nor by other
facts, a civilization bearing the genuine Hellenic stamp
formed itself in Crete out of confused comminglings of
different phases of nationality, by a process of elimination
and refinement. Here the Greek genius first manifested
itself as strong enough, not only to give admission to the
varied impulses offered by the crafty and inventive Semitic race, but also to transmute by its own creative agency
everything it had admitted, and to produce developments
of religious and political life, which are the clear reflection of its own nature.
The awakening impulses derived from the East were




CHAP. III.]     The Earliest States.            85
not all given on the sea. We must remember how the
seats of the Hellenes are also connected with Asia by
broad tracts of land; and it was on these that combinations of population were accomplished, not in single settlements, of which the memory is more easily preserved in
myths, but in compact advances of neighboring nations,
and in the spread of Asiatic despotic dominion.
The despotic empires of the East, founded
on conquest, in proportion to the poverty of The hrygians
their internal development, need a constantly progressing
external extension. Moreover, the great peninsula reaching out into the Mediterranean, populous Asia Minor, necessarily appeared to every empire of Anterior Asia as the
natural complement of its inland dominion. When the
Assyrians in the thirteenth century advanced past the
springs of the Euphrates into the western peninsula, they
found, on the central table-land, a mighty body of native
population-the Phrygians. The remains of their language tend to show them to have been the central link
between the Greeks and the elder Aryans. They called
their Zeus Bagalus (baga in ancient Persian signifying
God; bhaga, in Sanscrit, fortune,) or Sabazius, from a
verb common to- Indian and Greek, and signifying "to
adore." They possessed the vowels of the Greeks, and in
the terminations of words changed the m into n. Kept
off from the sea, they, it is true, lagged behind the coast
tribes in civilization, and were regarded by these as men
slow of understanding, and only suited for inferior duties
in human society. Yet they too had a great and independent past of their own, which is mirrored in the native
myths of their kings. The home of these myths is especially in the northern regions of Phrygia, on the banks
of the springs which feed the Sangarius, flowing in mighty
curves through Bithynia into the Pontus. Here traditions survived of the ancient kings of the land, of Gordius
and Midas-Gordius and Cybele's son rich in gold, who




86               History of Greece.         [Boos I.
was venerated as Hero-founder in the towns of Prymnesus
and Midimum. In the vicinity of these places lies,
between vast forests, a hidden valley of rocks, full of
tombs and catacombs. In their midst rises a rock of red
sandstone, a hundred feet high, and completely transformed into a monument. Its front, sixty square feet in
size, is covered with a sculptured ornamentation repeating
itself like the pattern of tapestry, and in appearance like
an arras hung before the monument. Along a kind of
gable crowning the whole run two lines of inscription,
which, in a character and language closely related to
Greek, make mention of " King Midas." This sepulchre
is the most important monument of the ancient national
kings of the Phrygians,-famous among the Greeks for
their treasures, their breed of horses, their fanatically
savage worship of the Mother of the Gods dwelling on the
mountains, and of Dionysus whose feasts they celebrate
to the sound of the flute. Midas' royal chariot remained
a symbol of dominion over Asia Minor, and Alexander
would not refuse to bow to this tradition.
By the side of these earliest inhabitants
Semitic tribes had pushed in, advancing from
the regions of the Euphrates westwards along the valley
of the Halys, especially into the fertile lowlands of the
river Hermus, where they soon amalgamated with more
ancient tribes of Pelasgian descent. Thus on the basis of
a population related to the Phrygians and Armenians
arose the nation of the Lydians, which through its original
ancestor, Lud, would appear in Eastern tradition also to
be reckoned as a member of the Semitic family. As long
as we remain unacquainted with the spoken and written
language of the Lydians, it will be impossible to define
with any accuracy the mixture of peoples which here took
place. But, speaking generally, there is no doubt of the
double relationship of this people, and of its consequent
important place in civilization. among the groups of the




CHAP. III.]     The Earliest States.            87
nations of Asia Minor. The Lydians became on land, as
the Phoenicians by sea, the mediators between Hellas and
Anterior Asia. As a people whose wits had been at an
early period sharpened by intercourse with the rest of the
world, full of enterprise, and engaged in the pursuits both
of commerce and of domestic industry, they were the first
who knew how to take every advantage of the treasures
of the valley of the Hermus. At the base of Tmolus they
discovered, in the sand of the deciduous rivulets, the seemingly insignificant gold dust; and thus in the vicinity of
the Greeks brought to light the power of gold, so infinitely
important, so fatal, for Greek history. The Lydians are
the first among the nations of Asia Minor of whom we
have any intimate knowledge as a political community;
they are the people, the epochs of whose empire offer the
first sure footing in the history of Asia Minor. The
Lydians reckoned three epochs under three generations of
rulers, the first of which derived its source from Atys, a
god belonging to the mythic circle of the Mother of the
mountains; whose worship filled with its tumultuous
music all the highlands of Lydia and Phrygia. Their
second dynasty the Lydians led back to a Heracles, whom
they called the son of Ninus. Independently of this
myth, Ctesias narrated to the Greeks that king Ninus
had conquered Phrygia, the Troad, and Lydia. Plato,
too, had heard of the power of the Ninevites, as supreme
in Asia Minor at the time of the Trojan war: and the
more light native documents in our day throw upon the
history of the Assyrian empire, the clearer becomes the
fact, so important for the development of Greek civilization, that through five centuries, or thereabouts (the duration assigned by Herodotus to the dynasty of the Heraclidse), the Lydian empire was a state in vassalage to
Nineveh on the Tigris.
The tracts of the coast, which nature had so clearly
separated from the inland districts, had a peculiar de



88                History of Greece.        [BOOK I.
velopment and a history of their own; but it was impossible for them to resist the influence of their neighbors-of
the Phrygians, Lydians, and Assyrians on the one, and
the Phoenicians on the other, side. Rather under this
double set of influences there arose, at favorably situated
points, the first states into which Greek tribes of the West
coast united themselves.
In the whole long extent of this Western coast no
region occupies a fairer situation than the northern proThe Dardani jection, the peninsula jutting out between
and Trojans. Archipelago, Hellespont, and Propontis, of
which the mountain-range of Ida, abounding in springs,
forms the centre. Its woody heights were the seat of the
Phrygian Mother of the Gods; in its depths it concealed
treasures of ore, which the daemons of mining, the Dactyli
of Ida, were here first said to have been taught by Cybele
to win and employ. A hardy race of men dwelt on the
mountains so rich in iron, divided into several tribes, the
Cebrenes, the Gergithians, and above all the beauteous
Dardani, among whom the story went, how their ancestor,
Dardanus, had, under the protection of the Pelasgian
Zeus, founded the city of Dardania. Some of these Dardani descended from the highlands into the tracts by the
coast, which has no harbors, but an island lying in front
of it called Tenedos. Here Phoenicians had settled and
established purple-fisheries in the sea of Sigeum; at a
later period Hellenic tribes arrived from Crete and introduced the worship of Apollo.   In the secure waters
between Tenedos and the mainland took place that contact which drew the Idsean peninsula into the intercourse
subsisting between the coasts of the Archipelago. Opposite Tenedos lay Hamaxitus, so called in remembrance
of the first carriage-road built from the shore inland. In
the midst of this intercourse on the coast arose, out of the
tribe of the Dardani, which had deserted the hills, the
branch of the Trojans. The family of their ancestor Tros




CHAP. III]       The Earliest States.            89
branches off anew in the brothers Ilus and Assaracus.
The name of the latter has been found on monuments in
Nineveh; the son of Assaracus is Capys, a Phrygian
name, as is that of Dymas, a son-in-law of Priamus, and
of Ate, the old name for the city of Troja; the grandson
of Assaracus is Anchises, the favorite of the Aphrodite
whose origin belongs to Assyria. The younger Ilium,
with its Heroes, stands under the especial protection of
Apollo: he watches over the whole city community; he
gives his personal affection to individual families, such as
the Panthoidse; he avenges his Hector on Achilles, and
bears the wounded iEneas into his temple. The Heroes
themselves bear each a double name, as Alexander and
Paris, Hector and Darius; of which the one indicates
their connection with Hellas, the other with Interior Asia.
Thus, in the midst of the full life of the nations of Asia
Minor, on the soil of a peninsula (itself related to either
side) on which Phrygians and Pelasgians, Assyrians,
Phoenicians, and Hellenic mariners met, grows up the
empire of the Dardanides.
The springs of the Ida range collect into rivers, of
which two flow to the Propontis, and one, the Scamander, into the.Egean. The latter first flows through his
bed high in the mountains, through which he then breaks
in a narrow rocky gorge, and quitting the latter enters the
flat plain of his water-shed, surrounded on three sides by
gentle declivities, and open on the West to the sea. This
plain united all elements of national prosperity; independently of the treasures of the sea and the vicinity of
the most important route by water, it possessed an arable
and well-watered soil, broad meadow-lands, where grazed
the three thousand mares of Erichthonius, the demon of
the blessings of the soil, and on the surrounding heights
plantations of olive and vine. In the innermost corner of
this plain projects a rocky height with precipitous sides,
as if it would bar the passage of the river breaking forth




90               History of Greece.         [BOO I.
from the ravine. Skirted in a wide curve by Scamander
on the East, it sinks to the West in gentle declivities,
where numerous veins of water spring from the earth;
these unite into two rivulets, distinguished by the abundance and temperature of their water, which remain the
same at all seasons of the year. This pair of rivulets is
the immutable mark of nature, by which the height towering above is recognized as the citadel of Ilium. They are
the same rivulets to which of old the Trojan women descended from the Scsean gate to fetch water or to wash
linen, and to this day the same ancient walls close around
the flowing water and render it more easily available.
The source of these rivulets was the seat of
power. On the gentler declivity lay Troja; over
which towered the steep citadel of Pergamus, the view
from whose turrets commanded the entire plain, gradually widening towards the sea, with its double rivers
the Scamander and the Simois, and beyond the plain
the broad sea itself, from the point where the mighty
waves of the Hellespont rush into the iEgean southwards
as far as Tenedos. No royal seat of the ancient world
could boast a grander site than this Trojan citadel; hidden far away and secure, but at the same time with a free
view commanding a wide region around. In its rear lay
the wood-clad mountains, abundantly interspersed with
pastures; below it the fertile plain; before it the broad
island-sea, in the midst of which rises the mountain-crest
of Samothrace, the watch-tower of Posidon confronting
the throne of Zeus on Ida.
The situation of the citadel is reflected in the fame of
its princes, as it is expressed in the myths of the kings of
Ilium. For the family of the Dardanidse was highly
favored by the gods, who raised its youths into their company in heaven, and themselves quitted Olympus, as
Aphrodite did, to enjoy the love of the Heroes of this
family.




CHAP. III.]     The Earliest tates.             91
But the neighborhood of the sea exercises a daemonic
force. The patriarchal lot of a life of peace and prosperity, with the enjoyment of many flocks and herds, and
all the blessings of the gods, sufficed not for the Dardani.
Them, too, the unquiet impulse of action animating all
dwellers on the coast mastered; timber for building was
dragged down from Ida to the shore; the sons of the
kings quitted the paternal citadel; and the current of the
Hellespont conducted Paris and his companions into the
Southern sea, where they sought booty or adventure.
To the south of the realm of Priamus the myths know
of another royal seat of the earliest times. Ithe countr
lay in Anterior Lydia, where the Sipylus, rich of the Sipyin ores, rises between the valley of the Her- lus.
mus and the bay of Smyrna; and its territory extended
for a distance of twelve days' journey, far Tantalus and
away towards Ida. All the wealth of the Niobe.
land flowed into the treasury of Tantalus, the friend of
the gods, the ancestor of the Niobidse and Pelopidae,
whose glory and precipitous fall filled the imagination of
the Greeks from the earliest times. As a documentary
reminiscence of the myths proper to these regions there
gleams, even at the present day, at two hours' distance
from the ancient Magnesia, in the sunken depth of the
rock, the sitting form of a woman, bending forward in
her grief, over whom the water drips and flows ceaselessly. This is Niobe, the mother of the Phrygian mountains, who saw her happy offspring, the rivulets, playing
around her, till they were all carried away by the dry
heat of the sun. But the fall of Tantalus, and the rock
hanging over his head, are ideas the origin of which is
probably to be sought in the volcanic visitations undergone by the valley of the Hermus and the earthquakes
agitating the mountains, and bringing sudden destruction
over the head of man when wantoning in the height of
his prosperity.




92                History of Greece.          [BOOK I.
South coast of  Closely connected by ancient tradition
Asia Minor.  with the Idoean peninsula is the south coast
of Asia Minor, where even the mainland advances peninsula-like into the sea, with broad masses of mountain.
The formation of the interior is caused by the Taurus,
which in its upper valleys gathers the springs, to cast
them in splendid waterfalls down its heights, from whose
base they meander as rivers through the lowlands. The
grandeur of this mountain scenery is increased by the
volcanic nature of part of it, especially the mountains of
the Solymi, where strange phenomena of fire could not
but excite the fancy of the inhabitants. The mountain
ranges stretch close up to the sea, without an intervening
strip of level land, so that no path along the shore connects the different places on the coast; but numberless
harbor-bays interrupt the precipitous line of coast, and
islands lying in front of it offer roomy roads and anchorages.
Where mountains and sea thus pervade one another,
there all the peoples belonging to the circle of Greek
history found an especial theatre of their development;
and we are fully justified in giving a place in this circle
to the Lycians.
The Lycian  The ancients knew of no unmixed populapeninsula. tion in this district. The Phoenicians explored
the Lycian Taurus as well as the Cilician; and by land
also Semitic tribes seem to have immigrated out of Syria
and Cilicia; and these tribes formed the tribe of the
Solymi. Another influx of population was conducted to
this coast by means of the Rhodian chain of islands:
men of Crete came across, who called themselves Termili
or Trameli, and venerated Sarpedon as their Hero.
After an arduous struggle, they gradually made themselves masters of the land encircled by sea and rock: on
the heights commanding the lower valleys they founded
their citadels, the indestructible strength of which has




HAP. III.]      The Earliest States.           93
resisted all earthquakes. From the mouth of the Xanthus the Cretans entered the land. There Leto had first
found a hospitable reception; in Patara, near by, arose
the first great temple of Apollo, the god of light, or
Lycius, with the worship of whom the inhabitants of the
land became subsequently to such a degree identified as to
receive themselves from the Greeks on whose coasts they
landed the same name as the god, viz. Lycians.
Thus here, as in the Troad, important combinations of
different people were accomplished, who arrived by land
or sea to arouse the native population. But that the
latter also was related to the Hellenes is manifest from
the early civilization of both land and people, which,
with all its homogeneousness with the Cretans and Trojans, yet exhibits a character so national and complete in
itself, that it cannot have been produced by the action
of colonization on an originally barbarous nationality.
Although the history of this country is inThe Lycians.
comparably more obscure than that of Crete    Lyan
and Ilium, yet we know that the Lycians, in courage and
knowledge of the sea fully the equals of the most seafaring nation of the Archipelago, from a desire of an
orderly political life, renounced at an early period the
public practice of piracy, which their neighbors in Pisidia
and Cilicia never relinquished.  Their patriotism they
proved in heroic struggles, and in the quiet of home developed a greater refinement of manners, to which the special
honor in which they held the female sex bears marked
testimony. This is one of the blessings of the religion of
Apollo, which recognised women as the instruments chosen
to give voice to the divine will; oracles were communicated in Patara by virgins who associated with the deity
in his temple, and in the families of the citizens the
matrons were honored by the sons designating their




94                    History of Greece.                [BOOK I.
descent by the names of their mothers.* The same tenderness of feeling is expressed in the loving care which they
devoted to their dead, and of which they have given
proofs in grand monuments. For nothing so much distinguishes the Lycians as their artistic creativeness.     The
boldly and beautifully chosen sites of their citadels are
closely surrounded by the resting-places of the dead, to
honor whom worthily whole masses of rock were converted into streets of tombs and cemeteries. Everywhere
we find evidence of an idealizing sense, which knows how
to breathe a higher life even into inert stone. However
impossible it may be to fix the date of the monuments of
* It is true that the usage of the Lycians, to designate descent by the
mother, was interpreted even in ancient times as a proof that in their
social life they conceded a peculiar influence to women; they are called
women's servants by Heraclides Ponticus,fr. 15. However, it would be
an error to understand the usage in question as a homage offered to the
female sex. It is rather rooted in primitive conditions of society, in
which monogamy was not yet established with sufficient certainty to enable descent on the father's side to be affirmed with assurance. Accordingly this usage extends far beyond the territory commanded by the
Lycian nationality. It occurs, even to this day, in India; it may be
demonstrated to have existed among the ancient Egyptians (Schmidt
Griech. Papyrusurkunden, p. 321); it is mentioned by Sanchuniathon,
page 16, Orell., where the reason for its existence is stated with great
freedom; and beyond the confines of the East it appears among the
Etruscans, among the Cretans, who were so closely connected with the
Lycians, and who called their fatherland motherland, and among the
Athenians.  Cf. Bachofen in the Verhandlungen der Stuttgarter Philologenversammlung, page 44. Accordingly, if Herodotus, I. 173, regards
the usage in question as thoroughly peculiar to the Lycians, it must have
maintained itself longest among them of all the nations related to the
Greeks, as is also proved by the Lycian inscriptions. Hence we must
in general regard the employment of the maternal name for a designation
of descent as the remains of an imperfect condition of social life and
family-law, which, as life became more regulated, was relinquished in
favor of the usage afterwards universal in Greece, of naming children
after the father. This diversity of usage, which is of extreme importance
for the history of ancient civilization, has been recently discussed by
Bachofen in the address mentioned above.




CHAr. III.]      The Earliest States.           95
the Lycians, and of the organization of their civic communities and development of their federal laws, so much
is certain,-that this people was naturally endowed with
a disposition towards this free and universal spiritual
development, and was thus in such important branches of
culture the precursor and model of the Hellenes. The
national princes of the Peloponnesus sent for workmen
from Lycia to wall their citadels; and in Lycia is the
home of the heroic figures of Bellerophon and Perseus.
The first communication by writing, mentioned in Homer,
points from Argos to Lycia. The Lycians are especially
familiar with the conception of Zeus as one in himself,
but ruling the world in a threefold form, of Zeus Triopas.
With this conception was combined the adoration of
Apollo, in whom they thought the hidden Zeus revealed
himself most clearly to them. They venerated him as the
prophet of the supreme deity, and in this belief developed
before all other tribes the Apolline art of divination, in
order to learn the divine will from auguries, sacrifices
and dreams, and out of the mouth of inspired Sibyls.
The Troad and Lycia are countries intiConnection bemately related to one another; they worship tween the Trothe same gods, such as Zeus Triopas and ad Lycia,and
Apollo; the same Heroes, such as Pandarus;
they have the same names for rivers and mountains.
Part of the Troad was called Lycia, after its inhabitants,
just as Lycians in their own country call themselves Trojans. Each of the two countries, sisters by descent and
feeling, is again inseparably connected with Crete; the
Troad by its Ida range and the Idsean daemons, and by its
harbors, and, again, Lycia through Sarpedon. Lycians,
Cretans, and Carians meet together on the west coast,
which lies spread out in the midst between the two peninsulas of Asia Minor; above all, at the outlet of the valley
of the Mveander, in the most ancient maritime city of
Miletus, and opposite Chios, which owes its cultivation of




96                History of Greece.          [BOOK I.
the vine to Crete, in Erythrme.  Who is able to assign a
chronological sequence to these conflicting influences, to
fix the starting-points of these currents in the midst of
their flux and reflux, and to assert whether they are to be
sought in the south or the north, in Asia Minor or in
Crete? For although the more important forms of divine
worship, especially the Phrygian, beyond a doubt came
from the mainland to the islands; yet the island may
have purified and elevated what it had admitted from
the mainland, and may have subsequently again communicated it to the latter endowed with new powers and
impulses. Here for centuries the liveliest intercourse on
the coasts, a constant interchange of giving and taking,
took place, till at last a world of homogeneous culture
had arisen, in the luminous circle of which we find Crete
and the coast of Asia Minor from Lycia to the Troad
united. Common to all is the fact, that in all these
places a Greek national life was refined and developed
out of a confused mixture of different national elements.
The first signs of this development are the realization of
a higher order of life, the foundation of towns, the
increasing refinement of manners; its perfection is the
common religion of Apollo, which was nowhere introduced without taking hold of and transforming the whole
life of the people. It liberated men from dark and grovelling worships of nature; it converted the worship of a
god into the duty of moral elevation; it founded expiations for those oppressed with guilt, and for those astray
without guidance sacred oracles.  The rich blessings
granted by this religion brought with them the obligation
and awakened the desire of unwearyingly spreading it,
and carrying it across the sea into the Western lands, still
lingering in the obscurity of earlier forms of divine worship. The priests of Delos related that the first statutes
of their worship of Apollo had come from Lycia: Delos,
on account of its excellent anchorage in the midst of the




CHAP. III.]     The Earliest States.             97
island-sea, was from the first a station of uncommon
importance for commerce, as well as for the spread of
religion. On Delos the first sacred laurel sent forth its
shoots by the side of olive and palm; from Delos the
priests steered their barks through the islands to the
opposite mainland; and wherever they landed, all things
rejoiced in the light of that sun whose rising the Greek
East had beheld ages before.
Among the earliest of the altars erected to The homes
Apollo in Western Greece were those at the of the Armouth of the Peneus and on the Pagassean gonauts.
Gulf.  The communications by sea, however, to which
these erections owed their origin were by no means the
earliest and most primitive. The memory of the Greeks
mounted back to an earlier period, and knew of the roads
in which the mariners from the other side anchored their
vessels at the brink of the hospitable gulf of Pagaspea; it
recalled the story of the first bark, constructed out of the
timber of woody Pelion, which boldly rowed out of the
tranquil bay.  The race which in consequence of this
life-bringing contact with the nations beyond the sea first
issues forth with a history of its own from the dark background of the Pelasgian people is that of
th I Minyi.  The cycle of their Heroes in-   e Miy
eludes Iason and Euneus, his son, who trades with
Phoenicians and with Greeks; Euphemus, "the runner
across the water"; and Erginus, the steersman, who is at
the same time a native of Miletus. The divinities of the
Argonauts, from Posidon down to Apollo, among them
Glaucus and Leucothea, are equally worshipped by the
tribes on the other side of the sea. The songs of the
Argo, the earliest songs of the Greeks of which we can
divine the theme, celebrate the courageous perseverance
of Heroes of the sea, proved by all manner of troubles,
and at last crowned by Victory and gain; and in the
5




98               History of Greece.        [BooK I.
string of adventures woven into them present the most
graphic picture of Ionic expeditions and feuds by sea, in
which presently brave men from Western Greece bear
their part. Associates in the expedition are announced
from every coast, and even from  places inland.  But
wherever Argonauts have their home, other traces generally appear at the same time of settlements of Ionic
population; so especially in Phlius and Tegea, in Thespise and on the AEtolian coasts. Beyond the confines of
the Greek sea, men seek the entrance into the Pontus,
along whose shores the power of the Ninevites had
already advanced through Armenia.   By this means
international communications were opened on the east of
the Pontus, in which the Phoenicians had participated;
and therefore the Phoenician Phineus is the door-keeper of
the Pontus, and the inexperienced sons of the Hellenes
are obliged to call in the aid of his knowledge of the sea.
These commercial relations were interwoven with religious rites belonging to the worship of a Zeus who calls
for human blood, but, like the God of Abraham, allows
his justice to be satisfied by a ram.
The Argo was said to have weighed anchor from a
variety of ports-from Iolcus in Thessaly, from Anthedon
and Siphse in Boeotia: the home of Iason himself was on
Mount Pelion by the sea, and again on Lemnos and in
Corinth; a clear proof how homogeneous were the influences running on various coasts. However, the myths of
the Argo were developed in the greatest completeness on
the Pagassean gulf, in the seats of the Minyi; and they
are the first with whom a perceptible movement of the
Pelasgian tribes beyond the sea-in other words, a Greek
history in Europe-begins.
The Minyi spread both by land and sea. They migrated southwards into the fertile fields of Boeotia, and settled
on the southern side of the Copaeic valley by the sea.
Here new dangers and new tasks awaited them. For the




CHAP. III.]     The Earliest States.            99
valley in which they took up their abode soon proved an
uncertain and unsafe lowland district, which unexpectedly changed from a rich valley to a dangerous lake of
morass. The Minyi saw that the cultivation of this district entirely depended upon keeping open the cavernous
passages which were by nature designed to carry off the
water, but at the same time exposed to be suddenly
stopped up by land-slips. The most important of these
subterraneous passages, in which the Cephissus flows out
into the sea, they provided with a succession of verticallylaid shafts, descending towards the depths of the canal
which carries off the water, and designed to make its
purification and supervision possible. Besides such gigantic operations in the rocks, they executed embankments
of exceeding grandeur, which were to enclose the influx
of sea-water, and conduct it to the caverns broadened for
the purpose of carrying it off-all admirable works, by
which they transformed into a seat of prosperity and
power a district which, in our day, again lies like a deep
morass in a pestiferous atmosphere, desolate and uninhabited.
For after leaving the low southern coast
Orchomenus.
they founded a new city at the western extremity of the Bceotian valley. There a long mountain
ridge juts out from the direction of Parnassus, and round
its farthest projection flows in a semicircle the Cephissus.
At the lower edge of the height lies the village of Skripu.
Ascending from its huts, one passes over primitive lines
of wall to the peak of the mountain, only approachable
by a rocky staircase of a hundred steps, and forming the
summit of a castle. This is the second city of the Minyi
in Boeotia, called Orchomenus: like the first, the most
ancient walled royal seat which can be proved to have
existed in Hellas, occupying a proud and commanding
position over the valley by the sea. Only a little above
the dirty huts of clay rises out of the depths of the soil




100                History of Greece.        [BOOK I.
the mighty block of marble, more than twenty feet high,
which covered the entrance of a round building. The
ancients called it the treasury of Minyas, in the vaults of
which the ancient kings were believed to have hoarded
the superfluity of their treasures of gold and silver, and
in these remains endeavored to recall to themselves the
glory of Orchomenus sung by Homer. Here the Charites
were venerated as mighty and generous natural divinities,
"the melodious queens of splendid Orchomenus, the guardian goddesses of the ancient Minyi."
The Minyi  Even in Bceotia the Minyi remained navigain Boeotia. tors, and possessed their naval stations at the
mouth of the Cephissus as well as on the southern coast.
They had an active share in the most ancient naval associations; and, in accordance with the union of Boeotia
and Thessaly into one territorial district, tribes of the
same people, moved by a spirit of daring adventure,
spread far over the surrounding countries, and acquired a
leading influence in the development of other states. On
the other hand, in Boeotia itself, that is to say in the eastern half of the land cut off from the valley of the Lake
Copais, another power had arisen, independent of Orchomenus, but, like it, sprung up out of seeds which had been
carried across from the Eastern shore.
The Syliann The channel of the Euripus naturally exervalleyofthe cised an especial attraction of its own on the.
Be&a      seafaring nations of the East. It was a deep,
tranquil passage leading from south to north, as it were
through the very centre of Hellas. On the right of the
voyager sailing through it lay the long line of the mountain-island Euboea, with the wealth of her forests, inexhaustible in supplies for ship-building; with her copper
and iron mines, the working of which in Western Greece
began on this spot, whence with all the artistic handicrafts
connected with it, it spread throughout the other countries of the South. On his left lay the shore of Boeotia,




CHAP. III.]      The Earliest States.            101
offering excellent anchorages, such as Hyria and Aulis:
here were ample opportunities for fisheries, for a successful search after shell-fish, and for diving after sea-fungi;
and the myth of Glaucus, which belongs to the Euripus,
testifies to the brisk life of a fishing population eager after
gain, and carrying on its occupations from the earliest
times on the beach of Anthedon. However, space failed
here for larger settlements, there being a want of arable
and pasture lands. A few hours farther inland the settlers found both, as they glanced over the barren heights
on the shore towards the valley of the Hylian lake.
This lake is connected by subterraneous passages with the
Copseic, but, instead of being a lake of morass, like the
latter, contains fresh mountain water, while a healthy atmosphere and fertile soil surround its banks. Towards
the south, especially, a broad plain, with a deep soil,
stretches as far as the first heights of the Teumessus.
Even these heights are neither rude nor strong, but covered with a layer of earth and interspersed with valleys,
abounding with rippling springs and rivulets. Ismenus
and Dirce flow side by side through a rich garden-land
down to the sea. Here Cadmus slays the dragon, the
jealous daemon of the earth and guardian of the land,
and on the heights above the streams founds his citadel
of Cadmea, the low situation of which, selected only on
account of its fertility, stood more in need of a strong
circumvallation than any other castle in Greece.
Cadmus and Iason, the two dragon-slayers, are Heroes
related to one another, in whom the Western Greeks represented to themselves the civilization they had derived
from the East; the ideas connected with navigation being
however, neglected in the case of Cadmus, on Cadmus and
account of the inland character of the settle- the Cadmement. On the other hand, reminiscences of ones.
mining are indicated by the Bceotian Telchini, the magic
dsemons, who, like the Idean Dactyli, communicated the




102               History of Greece.         [Boor I.
art of manipulating ore originally practised in Asia; the
earth used for the refinement of copper ore was called
Cadmic earth; and the employment of the metal thus
obtained for military armor was an invention of Cadmus.
His name itself among the Cretans signified a panoply,
and his successors, the Cadmeones, were conceived of as
the City Rulers resplendent in purple and gold and glittering bronze. Danaus he resembles as the founder of
artificial irrigation; Palamedes, as the introducer of
writing; the Lycian Heroes in Argos, as architect and
builder of the citadel. For his most important character
is that of founder of a race of king-priests, which, after a
sanguinary conflict, at last obtains a firm seat on the
Cadmea, and spreads its well-ordered dominion over the
shores of the Euripus. It follows that here especially
hardy and numerous settlers immigrated, to found, by
means of their superior power and cultivation, a kingdom
so favorably situated both towards the sea and land.
Several features of tradition point to the supposition that
Crete was the original starting-point of these establishments. Rhadamanthys himself was said to have immigrated thence into Boeotia, and round his grave near Haliartus flourished the odorous branches of the styrax-tree,
the seed of which owned the same native country as himself. By the side of the chivalrous sons of Cadmus we
find descendants. of "earth-born" races, who unite with
the Cadmeones, and assert a certain claim to a share in
their dominion. In addition, new immigrations arrive
from abroad, whose hostile interference interrupts the succession of the Cadmeones; Amphion and Zethus stand at
the head of a new generation of rulers, in which two
lines of princes assert equal rights. Their descent from
Iason points across the sea to Ionia; as do their connection with Niobe and the sound of the Lydian lyre, by the
magic of which Amphion not only charms and softens
human hearts, but bids the rocks fit themselves into a




CHAP. III.]       The Earliest States.         103
structure by rhythmic laws. The Cadmea is encircled by
a double wall, which below the royal residence also
hedges round with its protection an industrious civic community, and through whose lofty gates the high-roads in
all directions meet in the centre of the land. In sevengated Thebes we once more find the race of the Cadmeones ruling, among them Laius and Labdacus. The degenerate condition of the land, brought on by the guilt
of its princes, is indicated by the Sphinx, a.symbol derived by Ionic Greeks from the East, and widely spread.
The alternate rule of the sons of CEdipus produces fraternal conflicts, finally inflaming the family feud and
civil conflict into a general war. Cadmean Thebes comes
to an end; but her highly-gifted sons, even when scattered abroad, carry the germs of higher civilization
into the neighboring states in the South.
The Theban myths comprehended in brief and clear
lines the main movements of historical development
which really occupied centuries. Such epochs as that
which the arrival of Cadmus represented fix the conclusion of a patriarchal condition of innocence and tranquillity; craft and force accompany the blessings of a
higher life, and bring with them into the land evil manners and unheard-of misdeeds, war, and trouble. The
wrath of the gods and the guilt of man, sin and its curse,
follow one another in a close and terrible succession.
Such is the fatal fortune of the children of Cadmus, sung
of by so many poets.
It was at Thebes that the culture of the Seven-gated
Eastern Greeks struck its deepest roots, and Thebes.
by means of a populous settlement most markedly asserted
itself as against the native inhabitants. For this reason
Cadmus, more than any other Heroes of the kind, bears.
a foreign character; his house is persecuted by the neighboring nations with jealous enmity. And thus he neither
found admission into native genealogies, nor became by




104             History of Greeee.          [BooK I.
this means the national property of Western Hellas.
The name of the tEolians was understood to signify the
native Pelasgian tribes, whom the settlements of Asiatic
Greeks and intermixture with them had advanced to a
higher degree of civilization as agriculturists, navigators
and members of orderly political communities.
The ~olidae.
Again, the collective name of the sons of
AEolus, or the iEolidoe, was taken to indicate those Heroes
who were regarded as the main representatives of this civilization. Such were Iason, Athamas, the ancestor of the
Minyi, the priestly Amythaonidse, the descendants of Salmoneus, the Messenian Nebridpe, and the Corinthian Sisyphus, with whom Odysseus is also brought into connection
unless indeed we assume an independent commencement
of seafaring civilization in the Cephallenian island-realm.
All these JEolians and JEolidwe have no farther relationship and family likeness, in a national point of view,
to one another, beyond the common derivation of their
culture from the Greeks on the other side of the sea.
In the first appearance of the Achseans we
The Acheans.
find more peculiar features and a greater distinctness of outline. The ancients regarded them as a
branch of the JEolians, with whom they afterwards reunited into one national body, i. e., not as an orignally distinct nationality or independent branch of the Greek people.
Accordingly we hear neither of an Achsean language nor
of Achsean art. A manifest and decided influence of the
maritime Greeks, wherever the Achseans appear, is common to the latter with the AEolians. Achseans are everywhere settled on the coast, and are always regarded as
particularly near relations of the Ionians. Accordingly
Ion and Achoeus are connected as brothers and as sons
of Apollo, and out of Ionia the Achseans derived the
descent of their greatest royal house; the banks of the
Lydian MmOon were called an Achsean land: with Lycia
and the Troad the Achsans are united by the tribe of the




CHAP. III.]       The Earliest States.          105
Teucri; and Achvean Heroes, such as XEacus, help to
build the walls of Ilium. On Cyprus dwelt primitive
Achseans, as also on Crete, where they appear to signify
Hellenes who had immigrated from Asia Minor; and
again at the mouth of the Peneus and at the foot of
Mount Pelion, on 2Egina and in Attica. In short, the
Achseans appear scattered about in localities on the coast
of the AEgean so remote from one another, that it is impossible to consider all bearing this name as fragments
of a people originally united in one social community;
nor do they in fact anywhere appear, properly speaking, as a popular body, as the main stock of the population, but rather as eminent families, from which spring
princes and heroes: hence the use of the expression
"Sons of the Achseans" to indicate noble descent. But
however clearly the Achseans bear the impress of the culture derived from the East, however closely they are connected with the Asiatic Greeks by their myths and forms
of religious worship, they notwithstanding called forth a
more independent development in European Greece than
the older 7Eolic tribes had succeeded in producing; it was
by them that the first states were formed which asserted
their independence against the East; and it may be said
that with the deeds of the Achmeans first commences a
connected history of the Hellenes.
In none of their many seats did the Achse- The Achseans
ans leave behind them so momentous traces in Phthiotis.
of their presence as in the fertile lowlands between (Eta
and Othrys. This is the district of Phthiotis, where the
Spercheus flows down to the sea and unlocks the rich
regions of his valley to the mariner. Here we come
upon fastnesses of the Achseans,-among them Larissa,
called the "hanging," because it hung like a nest on the
rock; here is the chosen home of their favorite myths,
of the songs of Peleus, who by the woody springs of the
Spercheus vowed his hecatombs of rams to the gods, with
5



106              History of Greece.         [Boo I.
whom he associated as a friend, and of the Pelide Achilles
the son of the silver-footed sea-goddess, who, after spending his childhood on the mountain heights, descends
as a youthful Hero into the valley, to bloom for a brief
season and to die. This high-souled, loveable Hero, who
unhesitatingly prefers a short life full of great deeds to a
long life full of comfort, but devoid of glory, is an imperishable monument of the chivalrous heroism, of the idealism and poetic genius, of the Achaeans. A second of the
same family of myths is that of Pelops, especially remarkable as attaching itself more manifestly and decisively than any other Heroic myth to Ionia and-Lydia.
We remember the royal house of Tantalus enthroned on
the banks of the Sipylus, and intimately associated with
Th P  i the worship of the Phrygian Mother of the
Gods. Members of this royal house emigrate and cross to Hellas from the Ionian ports; they
bring with them bands of adventurous companions, a
treasure of rich culture and knowledge of the world,
arms and ornaments, and splendid implements of furniture, and gain a following among the natives, hitherto
combined in no political union. The latter they collect
around them, and found hereditary principalities in the
newly-discovered land, the inhabitants of which by this
means themselves attain to unity, to a consciousness of
their strength, and to a historical development. This was
the notion formed by men like Thucydides as to the epoch
occasioned by the appearance of the Pelopids in the earliest ages of the nation; and what element in this notion
is either improbable or untenable? Do not all the traditions connected with Achaean princes of the house of PeIlops point with one consent over the sea to Lydia? The
sepulchral mounds, heaped up to a great height, after
the manner of the Lydians, recur among the Achseans;
the worship of the Phrygian Mother of the Gods was
brought to Sparta by the Pelopidae; and guilds of Lydian




CHAP. III.]      The Earliest States.          107
flute-players followed them to the same city, Pelops lay
buried in Pisa near the sanctuary of the Lydian Artemis;
the same Artemis is connected as Iphigenia with Agamemnon, who everywhere appears as the priest of this goddess.
The source of gold nearest to the Greeks, and at the same
time the richest, was the river-sand of the Pactolus and
the depths of Tmolus. The Pelopide arrived resplendent
with this gold among the natives, who were tilling their
fields in the sweat of their brow, and ever afterwards the
Greeks were unable, to separate the ideas of gold and of
royal power. Other mortals, as Herodotus says of the
Scythians, touch gold to their own destruction: to a
born prince it gives power and might; it is the symbol
and the seal of his superhuman position.
Where then was the locality in which this
Combination
union of the foreign royal house with the of the AcheAchseans took place? No myth gives any ans and Pelopidw.
answer to the question. In Peloponnesus we
find both thoroughly amalgamated, and on the coast no
ancient myth of their landing occurs. It is accordingly
not impossible that this important union was already accomplished in Thessaly, and that in consequence of it a
part of the people, under their new dukes, deserted the
over-peopled districts of Phthia for the South, where
cities and states were founded whose glory soon overtopped that of the Thessalian Achseans.
But by whatever route Pelopidxe and The pre-historio
Achseans may have entered Peloponnesus, age of Argos.
in no case were the lands and nations whom they found
there rude and uncultivated. The Greeks regarded
Argos as the oldest of these districts, on the shores of
which the children of the West and of the East held intercourse together. We have already seen in consequence
of what influences the Pelasgi in the land had become
Danai; for such a change in the appellation of nations,
according to the meaning of Greek myths, invariably




108               History of Greece.         [BOOK I.
designates an epoch of greater importance than all those
preceding it. The dry plain of Argos was now provided
with springs, the rocky shafts of which descended to the
veins of water hidden far below, or husbanded the rainwater for the dry season; on the shore stations were arranged for docks or anchorages, and the market-place of
the city had been for all times consecrated to the Lycian
god. Danaus himself was said in the last.instance to
have come from Rhodes, the natural halting-place between the south coast of Asia and the Archipelago.
No district of Greece contains so dense a succession of
powerful citadels in a narrow space as Argolis. Lofty
Larissa, apparently designed by nature as the centre of
the district, is succeeded by Mycense, deep in the recess of
the land; at the foot of the mountain lies Midea, at the
brink of the sea-coast Tiryns; and lastly, at a farther distance of half an hour's march, Nauplia, with its harbor.
This succession of ancient fastnesses, whose indestructible
structure of stone we admire to this day, is clear evidence
of mighty conflicts which agitated the earliest days of
Argos; and proves that in this one plain of Inachus
several principalities must have arisen by the side of one
another, each putting its confidence in the walls of its
citadel; some, according to their position, maintaining an
intercourse with other lands by sea, others rather a connection with the inland country.
The evidence preserved in these monuments is borne
out by that of the myths, according to which the
dominion of Danaus is divided among his successors.
Exiled Prcetus is brought home to Argos by Lycian
bands, with whose help he builds the coast-fortress of
Tiryns, where he holds sway as the first and mightiest in
the land. In the arrogance of his Lycian wife, in the
perverse pride of his daughter, who despise the older
religions of the land, lie hidden historic traits, the inner
connection of which is a proof of their ancient origin.




CHAP. III.]       The Earliest States.          109
The other line of the Danaidse is also intimately connected with Lycia; for Perseus, the grandson of Acrisius,
long desired, but then feared and driven out upon the
sea; Perseus, who, after being announced under the
symbol of a winged lion, as the irresistible conqueror of
land and men, on his return from the East founds Mycenae, as the new regal seat of the united kingdom of
Argos, is himself essentially a native Lycian hero of
light, belonging to the religion of Apollo. In this character he extends his victorious voyages over land and
sea, and is only another form of Bellerophon, whose
name and worship equally with his own unite both sides
of the sea. Finally, Heracles himself is connected with
the family of the Perseidre, as a prince born on the
Tirynthian fastness, and submitted by the statutes of a
severe law of primogeniture to many sufferings at the
behest of Eurystheus.
During the divisions in the house of The Pelopids
Danaus, and the misfortunes befalling that at Argos.
of Proetus, foreign families acquire influence and dominion in Argos: these are of the race of JEolus, and
originally belong to the harbor-country of the western
coast of Peloponnesus; the Amythaonidse,-among them
Melampus and Bias. The might of the children of
Perseus seems broken; the sons and grandsons of the
immigrants are rulers in the land: of the house of Bias
Adrastus, in Sicyon, and Hippomedon; among the descendants of Melampus Amphiaraus, the priestly hero.
Roused to action by the troubles at Thebes, they form an
alliance in arms, to destroy the hated city of the Cadmeones. Two generations are needed to bring the sanguinary feuds to an end. What the wild, heroic force of
the Seven failed in effecting, their sons are able to accomplish with their slighter measure of power. The
Thebans are routed at Glisas, and their city is destroyed.
While the dominion of the Argive land was thus sub



110              History of Greece.         [BooK I.
divided, and the native warrior nobility subsequently exhausted itself in savage internal feuds, a new royal house
succeeded in grasping the supreme power, and giving an
entirely new importance to the country. This house was
that of the Tantalidae, united with the forces of Achaean
population.
Various attempts were made to connect the Achsean
princes with the house of Perseus, by means of marriages, wardships, and regencies committed by one hand
to the other. For it is the habit of genealogical myths
to extinguish by such means the memory of violent revolutions, and to conduct a peaceable succession of legitimate dynasties through the most varying series of epochs.
The residue of fact is, that the ancient dynasty, connected
by descent with Lycia, was overthrown by the house
which derived its origin from Lydia. The Danai remain
the same people and retain the same name; but the deserted fastnesses of the Perseide are occupied by the
Achoean princes, at first, we read, in Midea, then in
Mycenae. Accordingly it is at the outlet of the passes
leading into the land from the direction of the Isthmus
that the new rulers take a firm footing, and, advancing
from the land side towards the shore, extend their royal
dominion.
Th Atd   The poetic myths, abhorring long rows of
names, mention three princes as ruling here in
succession, one leaving the sceptre of Pelops to the other,
viz. Atreus, Thyestes, and Agamemnon. Mycene is the
chief seat of their rule, which is not restricted to the
district of Argos. Atreus' second son Menelaus unites
the valley of the Eurotas with the hereditary dominions
of the Pelopidce, after expelling thence the Lelegian royal
house of the Tyndaridse. In the fraternal rule of the
two Atridoe a picture for the first time unfolds itself in
clearer outlines of a well-ordered royal dominion, gradually in a double way comprehending the whole of Pelo



CHAP. III.]       The Ecrliest State.          Ill
ponnesus. We see partly regions in which they absolutely sway the land and its inhabitants (and these are
the best: portions of the peninsula, the plains of the
Inachus, Eurotas, and Pamisus, the home of Agamemnon
himself being equally at Sparta and at Mycense): partly
separate principalities which recognize the supreme lordship of the Atridse, and do homage to it as armed vassals.
The dominion of the Achseans in Peloponnesus is an
inland one, in contrast to those preceding it; yet it was
impossible to hold a Greek coast-country without at the
same-time holding the dominion of the sea. Thus neither
was the sway of Agamemnon confined to the mainland,
but it extended over the islands; and not only over the
lesser on the coast, where the pirates hid themselves and
their booty, but also over the greater and more distant.
Their conquest was the commencement of a development
of dominion advancing from East to West, the foundation of a maritime power beginning at the European
coasts.
This advance necessarily provoked resistance on the
part of the older maritime towns, which had attained to
eminence and prosperity by their intercourse with the
coasts on the other side, and now saw themselves pressed
hard and endangered by the growth of the Achaean
power. This was especially the case with the three primitive maritime cities of Argolis itself,-with Nauplia, the
earliest centre of the sea trade of the plain of the Inachus, whose city-hero Palamedes is with excellent reason
represented as a jealous neighbor of the Achaean princes,
and was in his turn treated as an enemy by them: with
Prasie, the chief place of the district of Cynuria, which
had gradually by the influx of seafaring population
become wholly Ionic (it lay close by the coast of the rude
district, on a projection of which stood the bronze figures,
a foot high, of the Corybantes, in acknowledgment of
the fact that the city owed its whole existence, as well as




112              History of Greece.         [BOOK I.
its forms of religious worship, to primitive intercourse
with other nations by sea); and lastly with Hermione,
built on a peninsula jutting out into the sea, abounding
in purple, which unites the gulf of Argos with the waters
of IEgina. The very similarity of the situations of these
towns proves their having originated in landing-places of
foreign mariners. Since they were now hard pressed by
an inland power, they sought to aid one another mutually
by sea; for which purpose they entered upon farther
communications with the tribes equally jealous of the
advance of the Achoean power, the Ionians and Minyi,
closely connected with one another. For it must be remembered that Ionians had long been settled on either
side of the Saronic gulf; the chief place on the hither
side being Athens, and on the farther Epidaurus, first a
Carian, then an Ionic, town; while between the two lay
The Naval Con-  Egina, the natural centre of trade in these
federation of Ca- waters. Thus an alliance arose of seven
lauria.      maritime  places, Orchomenus, Athens,
JEgina, Epidaurus, Hermione, Prasise, and Nauplia.
No point could be found better suited for the centre of
this sea-amphictyony than the high-lying island of Calauria, situated in front of the eastern point of Argolis, at
the boundary of the Saronic gulf, and forming with the
near mainland a broad and well protected inland sea. It
is an anchorage created by nature for harboring an assemblage of ships by which the sea may be commanded.
Into this bay juts out, as a peninsula, the red rock of
Mount Trachy, from which rises the modern town of
Poros.  High above it, on the broad chalk ridge of
Calauria, lie the foundations of the temple of Posidon,
one of the most ancient and important sanctuaries in
Greece. Under the protection of this deity, the alliance
of the seven cities was maintained, a curious fragment of
bare history looming out of the mist of mythical tradi



CHAP. III.]     The Earliest States.             113
tion, the first actual event indicative of a wider community of states.
Of the results of this alliance it is impossible to judge.
For the myths which arose among the Achvean people as
to the development of the power of their ancient kings
make no mention of any successful resistance offered to
the latter by coast-towns; they represent their Agamemnon as the lord of the sea, as the leader of the first great
naval expedition ever undertaken from the coasts of
Europe against Asia; and into the circle of events connected with Troja they draw the fall of the glorious
dominion of the ancient kings. According to their version, the long absence of the kings occasioned a breakingup of the sacred establishments of the families at home, a
fatal neglect of household and state, and, in fine, a dissolution of the dominion of the Pelopidwe. To mythology
belongs the poetic privilege of representing the glory of
her heroes as the occasion of their fall. But the historic
causes are to be found in the revolution which overtook
all the peoples in their relations to one another, and in
movements the starting-point of which is to be sought for
in the Thessalian North. Except in their connection
with these events, neither is the end of the Achaean principalities intelligible, nor, on the other hand, the origin of
the Homeric myths, in which the glory of those royal
houses survives to our days.
Though up to this point we could not Certainty of partisucceed in realizing a connected history tularevents in the
earliest history of
of the Greek people, yet there exists a the Greeks.
series of facts which nothing can overthrow; for they rest
on the basis of consentaneous tradition, like the maritime
dominion of Min6s, or on monuments free from any ambiguity of meaning.  For as surely as the fastnesses of
Ilium, of Thebes and Orchomenus, of Tiryns and Mycense, stand before our eyes to this day, so surely there
once existed Dardanian, Minyan, Cadmean, and Argive




114               History of Greece.          [BooK I.
princes and principalities, as they are called in the myths.
All of these belong to a circle of homogeneous growth;
all owe their origin to the superiority of the Asiatic tribes
of Hellenes, and to the combination of the latter with an
ancient Pelasgian population. And this is true of them,
whether they arose on the primitive soil inhabited by
these tribes, or on the European side of the sea; for the
jEolic and Achsean states, as well as the others, unmistakably owed their origin to the influence of immigrations from Asia.




CHAPTER IV.
THE MIGRATIONS AND CHANGES OF SETTLEMENTS AMONG
THE GREEK TRIBES.
THE earliest events of Greek history one Locality of earand all belong to a world combining the liest Greek hiscoasts of the Archipelago into one great tory.
whole. What now ensues has its origin in the midst of
the mainland of Northern Greece, and constitutes a reaction from within to without, from the highlands to the
coast, from the West to the East.  Unknown tribes
arise in their distant hills, one pushing forward the other;
whole series of populations are successively put in motion, the ancient states perish, their royal residences become desolate, new divisions of the land follow, and out
of a long period of wild fermentations Greece at last
issues forth with new tribes, states, and cities.
A considerable number of the Greek tribes IHllasin
which immigrated by land into the European Epirus.
peninsula followed the tracks of the Italicans, and, taking
a westward route through Pa3onia and Macedonia, penetrated through Illyria into the western half of the Alpine
country of Northern Greece, which the formation of its
hill-ranges and valleys renders more easily accessible from
the north than Thessaly in its secluded hollow. The
numerous rivers, abounding in water, which flow close by
one another through' long gorges into the Ionian Sea, here
facilitated an advance to the south; and the rich pastureland invited immigration; so that Epirus became the
dwelling-place of a dense crowd of population, which
commenced its civilized career in the fertile lowlands of
the country.  Among them    three main tribes were
115




116              History of Greece.         [BOOK I.
marked out, of which the Chaones were regarded as the
most ancient; they dwelt to the south of the Acroceraunian promontory, as far down as the shore lying opposite
the island of Corcyra (Corfu). Farther to the south the
Thesprotians had settled, and more inland, in the direction of Pindus, the Molossians. A more ancient appellation than those of this triple division is that of the
Greeks (Graikoi), which the Hellenes thought the earliest
designation of their ancestors. The same name of Grseci
(Greeks) the Italicans applied to the whole family of peoples with whom they had once dwelt together in these districts. This is the first collective name of the Hellenic
tribes in Europe. In later times these Epirotic peoples
were regarded as barbarians, after they had lagged far
behind the southern states in their development, and after
various foreign elements had been mixed up with them;
but, according to their origin, they could claim perfect
equality with the other branches of the Greek people;
and it was they, above all, who especially cherished its
most ancient sanctuaries, and gave to them a national significance.
Far away from the coast, in the seclusion of
Dodona.
the hills, where lie closely together the springs
of the Thyamis, Aous, Arachthus, and Achelous, extends
at the base of Tomarus the lake Ioannina, on the thickly
wooded banks of which, between fields of corn and damp
meadows lay Dodona, a chosen seat of the Pelasgian
Zeus, the invisible God, who announced his presence in
the rustling of the oaks, whose altar was surrounded by a
vast circle of tripods, for a sign that he was the first to
unite the domestic hearths and civic communities into a
great association centering in himself. This Dodona was
the central seat of the Grseci; it was a sacred centre of
the whole district before the Italicans commenced their
westward journey: and at the same time the place where
the subsequent national name of the Greeks can be first




CasP. IV.]     Migrations and Settlements.     117
proved to have prevailed; for the chosen of the people,
who administered the worship of Zeus, were called Selli or
Helli, and after them the surrounding country Hellopia
or Hellas.
However great a distance may appear to intervene between the tranquil mountain-valley of Dodona and the
scene of the doings of the maritime tribes, yet the latter
also at an early period found their way to Epirus. For
all influences from this side the Corcyrsean Sound was
necessarily the chief station. Above it lay the ancient
place of Phcenice, in the land of the Chaones; between
the latter and the Thesprotians at the mouth of the Thyamis stood a city called Ilium, the founders of which
gave to the streams in the vicinity their names of Simois
and Xanthus. The foreign colonists made no advance
from the coast-places into the interior. Even in Dodona,
the Pelasgian Zeus did not remain solitary, but with him
was joined the goddess of the creative power of nature,
transplanted from the distant East, under the name of
Dione. Her symbol here also was the dove, from which
her priestesses were called Peleades.
Out of populous Epirus, at various times, Migrations from
single tribes of pre-eminent power crossed Epirus.
the ridge of Pindus into the Eastern districts. These
faithfully preserved the memories of their home, with
which they had begun their historic life, and thus extended the authority of the Epirotic sanctuaries far over
the limits of the particular country. Thus the Achelous
acquired a national importance, and became for the
Greeks the river of rivers, the sacred primitive spring of
all fresh water, and the witness of the most solemn oaths.
His worship was closely connected with that of the Zeus
of Dodona, who, wherever his own worship prevailed, demanded sacrifices for Achelous as well as himself.
No tradition has been preserved of the earliest migrations, which effected a connection between the oak-forests




118              History of Greece          [BOOK I.
of Epirus and the Eastern districts, and which transplanted the worship of Dodona to the Spercheus, where
Achilles invokes the Epirotic god as the ancestral divinity ot his house. A later immigration from Epirus into
Thessaly was, however, remembered; that of a people
whose horses had grazed in the upper valleys of the Arachthus and Achelous, till, disturbed out of its repose, it advanced in an eastward direction to where the Pindus
forms the high backbone of the land, and separates the
Western from the Eastern districts. From the height of
these passes opens a view on the broad corn-fields of the
Peneus, where prosperous peoples dwelt in commodious
seats and tempted the lust of conquest of the strange tribe.
The easiest way of access leads through the pass of
Gomphi. In crossing the mountains, the Epirotic tribe
passed into the circle of Greek history, and gave the
original impulse to a series of re-settlements, which gradually agitated the whole of Hellas; this tribe was that of
the Thessalians.
The Thessaians.  By origin they were no people of foreigners, but connected by language and religious worship with the earlier inhabitants of the valley
of the Peneus, whom however they met as rude enemies.
They were a tribe of savage strength, passions and violence; accustomed to expeditions of the chase and of war,
they despised the monotonous occupations of agriculture,
and accordingly always retained in their ways a certain irregularity and want of order. To grip the savage bull
with strong arm was the favorite amusement of the men at
their festivals; and their love of feuds impelled them to
search for adventures and booty in the lands of friend and
foe alike. They found settled in the country an JEolic
population, which had long since received the germs of
higher civilization from the coast, and calmly developed
them by itself. Arne, the capital of these Greeks, lay in
a fertile low country at the base of the South-Thessalian




CHAP. IV.]   Migrations and Settlements.         119
mountains, from which numerous rivulets descend to the
Peneus. Near the village of Mataranga have been discovered traces of this ancient federal capital. Posidon
and the Itonian Athene were venerated there, and the
branch of the.Eolic people which cherished this form of
worship called its founder Bceotus, the son of Arne, and
itself the Arnseans or Bceotians.
The invasion of the Thessalian horsemen exercised a
double consequence upon the Bceotians. The great majority of the latter, accustomed to a settled life, and attached to their beautiful home by the force of long habit,
submitted to force and acknowledged their new lords,
who, as the chieftains of the victorious bands, divided the
land amongst themselves. The inhabitants were made
over in villages to single families of the Thessalian warrior-nobility; they became the main-stay of this feudal
power, which mightily increased in the conquered land:
as tributary peasants, they brought in the produce of
fields and pastures, and supported the hereditary wealth
of the noble families. In war they were summoned to
accompany their knightly masters as men-at-arms; in
public life they remained unenfranchised, and in the
towns were forbidden to enter the free market-place, in
which the Thessalian nobles assembled. Thus after the
destruction of the ancient order of life was the condition
of Thessaly fixed once for all. The germs of a community of free citizens were annihilated; nothing was left
but the knightly nobility and a subject multitude, whom
the consciousness of its degrading situation. drove to frequent revolutionary attempts, though they never succeeded in restoring the violently interrupted course of
their development. When JEolis became Thessaly, its
real national history was at an end.
But while the main body of the people submit- Changes in
ted to the foreign dominion, part of them, led Boeotia.
by kings and priests, quitted their homes. Away from




120               History of Greece.        [BOOK I.
fair Arne, which now "like a widowed seat missed its
Boeotian men," they wandered with their herds and portable treasures over the mountains in the south, till in the
valley of Lake Copias they found well-watered lowlands,
abounding with prosperous towns and fertile arable land.
The land had still two centres, Orchomenus and the city
of the Cadmeans. Between the two the Arneans took up
a firm footing on the south side of the lake; here arose a
second Arne, which subsequently again vanished, in consequence of inundations, while the sanctuary of the Itonian Athene maintained its place. The first place where
the JEolian immigrants assembled, by the side of a small
rivulet, they called, also in memory of their home, Coralius. Here they established for themselves a new Boeotia,
which gradually extended its limits. Choeronea, in the
western side bay of the Copaeic valley, is mentioned as
the first city permanently under Boeotian dominion.
Here the memory of their victorious king Opheltas was
preserved to a late date, as well as that of the prophet
Peripoltas, who had conducted his people into their new
habitations by wise interpretations of the divine will.
The more ancient cities of the land were left without
the power of resisting the pressure of this advance. The
lofty citadel of Orchomenus was captured, and the peasantry conquered. The Cadmeones, too, whose power had
been broken in the war of the Epigoni, had to give way
like the Minyi. The last offshoot of the house of the
Labdacidse has to take refuge amongst Northern tribes;
the Egidse, and with them the worship of Apollo Carneus, cross to Peloponnesus; the Gephyrseans to Attica.
Gradually the Arnmeans accomplish the subjection of the
land, which now, for the first time, became a complete
whole within its natural boundaries; for South Boeotia
and Attica had continued to form one continuous country
with Attica, on account of the homogeneous origin of their
inhabitants. In either was an Athens and an Eleusis,




CHAP. IV.]  Migrations and Settlements.        121
and the primitive kings Cecrops and Ogyges were common to both. Now for the first time the mountain ridges
of Cithaeron and Parnes became the separating boundaries
between two distinct countries. It is true that here the
JEolians succeeded last and least completely in subjecting
the inhabitants to their rule, and met with so obstinate a
resistance from them, that though Plataose and Thespise
are protected by no natural boundaries, they never became parts of the new united country. But however
unsuccessful the Boeotians may have been in effecting a
complete union of the country, yet the ancient double dominion was abolished forever, and a common constitution
founded; which, with varying success made Thebes the
centre of a united body of townships surrounding it. The
Itonian Athene was the centre of the national festivals;
and from this period dates a country and a history of Boeotia.
The movement of population occasioned The Perrhbsbians
by the Thessalian invasion by no means and Dorians.
came to an end with the emigration of the lEolic Boeotians.  The same impulse had disturbed other tribes
besides them, dwellers in thickly-peopled Thessaly, and
sufficiently warlike to be constantly changing their
abode in order to escape servitude, and especially to
keep up a constant defensive war for their independence in the mountains; among them the Magnetes
on Pelion, and the Perrhsebians, who, divided into four
districts, maintained themselves at the base of Olympus and the Cambunian hills. One subdivision of these
Perrhmbians were the Dorians. They inhabited one of
the four districts, and the most ancient reminiscences
preserved from their earliest times refer to the struggles
by which they strove to maintain their freedom amidst
the pressure of Thessalian peoples. Here they had
through the neighboring vale of Tempe received the first
impulses to action from the sea: here, under.Egimius,
6




122              History of Greece.         [BOOK I.
their primitive monarch, they had established their first
political system, calling upon Heracles for aid in their
necessity, and assigning to him and his descendants a
third of their land as a hereditary possession. Accordingly, a race claiming descent from Heracles united itself
in this Thessalian coast-district with the Dorians, and established a royal dominion among them. Ever afterwards Heraclidoe and Dorians remained together, but without ever forgetting the original distinction between them.
In their seats by Olympus the foundations were laid of the
peculiarity of the Dorians in political order and social
customs: at the foot of Olympus was their real home,
and as long as their history endured, they placed their
pride in a faithful observance of the statutes of iEgimius.
The Dorians  Here they are said to have been driven out
in Doris.  of the plain into the mountains to the north;
they lost their best land, and lost themselves among the
mountaineers of the North; and were, as Herodotus says,
at that time numbered among the Macedonian people.
But again they unite, and like the rivers of the country,
which vanish under the earth in order to continue their
course with fresh vigor after re-issuing, the Dorian race
reappears out of the darkness; it opens itself a path
through the midst of the Thessalian tribes to the south,
throwing itself upon the Dryopes in their habitations in
the Eastern mountains, and at last forcing an entrance
into the fertile mountain-recess between Parnassus and
CEta. This district, in which the Pindus and other
streams combine into a river which descends, under the
name of the Cephissus, into Boeotia, was never afterwards
relinquished by the Dorians. This is the most ancient
Doris known to us under the name, and here, in the four
places, Boeum, Erineus, Pindus, and Cytinium, a Dorian
community, one by descent, maintained itself up to the
concluding period of Greek history.
Such had been the transplantation of the Dorians from




CHAP. IV.]     Migrations and Settlements.       123
the highlands of Macedonia into the heart of Central
Greece; and now they were settled at the base of Parnassus and CEta, closely surrounded by the greatest variety of population, it was impossible for the latter to live
crowded together in a narrow space without feeling the
necessity for mutually-binding laws; and upon the Dorians, who had become acquainted with a higher order of
life in the regions of the Thessalian coasts, and had farther developed it amongst themselves, devolved in consequence of their frequent change of abode, the special mission of bringing the various populations into mutual connection. Only one form existed in ancient Greece for
such combinations of people, viz.-that of a common religious worship, which at fixed times assembled a number
of neighboring tribes round a generally acknowledged
sanctuary, and laid upon all participators in it the obligation of certain common principles. Such festival-associations, or amphictyonies, are coeval with
Amphictyonies.
Greek history, or may even be said to constitute the first expressions of a common national history.
For before the establishment of the first amphictyonies
there existed nothing but single tribes, each of which
went its own way, adhering to its peculiar code of manners, and worshipping before its own altars, to the exclusion of all worshippers of a foreign race. The Pelasgian
Zeus merely patriarchally united the members of single
tribes among one another. For more extensive associations those forms of divine worship were naturally best
suited, which, belonging to a more advanced state of civilization, were transmitted by tribes of higher culture to
those of lower. For this reason we find in the coast-districts the most ancient kinds of amphictyonic sanctuaries.
The Asiatic Artemis is the federal goddess of the most ancient cities in Euboea, Chalcis, and Eretria; the CaroIonic Posidon is protector of the federation in Tenos, in
the Messenian Samicum, in Calauria; Demeter again




124              History of Greece.         [BOOK I.
among the Achsean tribes on the Malian gulf. Pre-eminently the Apolline religion derived from the majesty of
its moral ideas and the spiritual superiority of its professors the mission of assembling around it, and uniting
amongst themselves, the various districts of the land. The
worship of Apollo had entered Thessaly from the sea long
before the Thessalian immigration. To him the Magnetes
sacrificed on the heights of Pelion; the Pagaseean Apollo
became the national deity of the Achsean race; the Dorians had received the same worship at the mouth of the
Peneus, and erected a Pythium on the heights of Olympus. Even the rude Thessalians could not refuse their
homage to the god in Tempe, where they called him
Aplun. It was in this valley of the Peneus, crowded by
so great a variety of tribes, that Apollo first proved his
power of uniting races and establishing political order, as
is shown by the primitive festivals of Tempe. Here the
noblest of the Hellenic tribes, according to the measure
of their natural gifts and power, adopted this form of
religious worship; above all others the Dorians, who gave
themselves up to it with the whole warmth of their religious feelings, so that they even called Dorus, the ancestor of their race, a son of Apollo, and recognized
in the spread of the worship of the latter their proper
mission in history. Previously this task had been in the
main left to the maritime tribes. Now it became necessary to open paths inland, and thus to unite among themselves the remote coast-stations of this common worship.
In the south of Central Greece there existed no more
important seat of the worship of Apollo than Crissa,
where, according to a local temple-myth, men of Crete
had consecrated the first altar on the shore, and had afterwards, close under the rocky heights of Parnassus,
founded the temple and oracle of Pytho. These sanctuaries became the centres of a priestly state, governing itself by its own laws in the midst of a foreign land, and




CHAP. IV.]    Migrations and Settlements.      125
ruled over by families claiming descent from the Cretan
settlers mentioned above; exposed to frequent attacks,
and unconnected with the land to the north, up to the
time when the Dorians settled in the rear of Parnassus.
The advance of this tribe marked a
progress of the religion of Apollo. They empe an
had overcome the savage Dryopes on the north side of
the mountains, and perpetuated their victory in making
them servants of Apollo, i. e. tributaries to the support of
his temple. They brought over from Thessaly the idea
of a common protection derived from the temple, and of
a fraternal union amongst the Apolline tribes; and thus
connected Delphi with Tempe. Above all other Greek
tribes the Dorians possessed an innate tendency towards
the establishment, preservation and spread of fixed systems. There is, accordingly, the less reason for doubting
that the transmission of the Thessalian forms of federation
to Greece, and its grand result, the combination of all the
tribes of the same descent from Olympus to the bay of
Corinth, was a service rendered by the Dorians. It is
their first great deed, and because to this transmission
Delphi owed its universal importance in Greece, the Dorians were justified in regarding themselves as the second
founders of Delphi, and laying claim, for all times, to
special protection under the temple-state. Next, to connect the several temples of Apollo, and to give security to
religious intercourse, the sacred road was built from
Delphi, through Doris and Thessaly, to Olympus; and
the processions, which at the return of every new year
passed along it to gather the sacred laurel on the borders
of the Peneus, preserved the memory of the blessed opening of this intercourse between the countries. The symbolical meaning of the Thessalian sanctuaries was recognized by a variety of customs. In ancient myths Tempe
is regarded as the first home of the Delphic god; and a
proof of the fact that the political system of the Amphic



126               History of Greece.         [Boos I.
tyony, far from originating in Delphi, had rather experienced a whole series of transformations and extensions before Delphi became its centre, is afforded, if by nothing
else, by the group of the four Thessalian tribes; for it is
assuredly inconceivable that they should have found their
first centre of combination on the south side of Parnassus.
It must be remembered that all Amphictyonies start from
narrow circles of neighboring districts; and for this reason the various groups of the nations belonging to the
federation in the historic times make it possible to recognize its pre-historic epochs.
The most northern, and at the same time
The groups of
peoples form- the most comprehensive group, is the Thesing the Am- salian; and with Thessalian Olympus the
phictyony.  earliest reminiscences of common Hellenic
systems connect themselves. Opposite Olympus and its
Pythian temple lay on Ossa the Homolion, the "place of
union" of the surrounding tribes, which had joined in a
federation as against all foreign tribes. When the Thessalians invaded the district, they endeavored completely
to subject it; but in this they were only successful with
the Eolians in Arne, whilst the other tribes, though they
receded, offered an insuperable resistance. The Thessalians were forced to accord them national independence,
and then, by adopting the worship of Apollo and joining
the ancient federation, tried to gain a firm footing in the
land. Thus out of a previous association arose the group
of peoples, which, as the Delphic Amphictyony, represents the district of Thessaly,-comprehending, besides
the invaders, the Thessalians, such of the native tribes as
had saved their independence in the internal conflict, the
Perrhsebians by Mount Olympus, the Magnetes on their
strong mountain peninsula, and to the south, in their
habitations between mountains and sea, the Phthiotians.
The same feuds occasioned the migrations which resulted in the extension of the Thessalian Amphictyony




CHAP. IV.]   Migrations and Settlements.       127
over the limits of the land,-the migrations of the,Eolians and of the Dorians.
When the Dorians, after conquering the Dryopes, first
entered the circle of peoples dwelling around the CEtarange, the latter, of their own accord or on compulsion,
sought the friendship of this warlike people. So, above
all, the Malians, dwelling in the district between the
Spercheus and the sea. They fell into a triple, division,
composed of the Trachinians-so called from their ancient capital at the entrance of the passes of (Eta, leading out of Thessaly into Doris; the " Holy men" in the
vicinity of Thermopylae, where lay their federal sanctuary; and the "Men of the Coast."  The Malians and
Dorians entered into the closest union, so that Trachis at
a later period could be regarded as the Dorian metropolis. The Pythian Amphictyony they joined in this
wise, that the local festival-association, uniting the dwellers round the Malian gulf in the sanctuary of Demeter,
retained its authority unimpaired, and became a second
sacred centre of the wider national federation. Thus the
second group of Amphictyons formed itself; consisting
of the peoples of the CEta-range settled above Thermopylhe, the.,Enianes, Malians, Dolopes and Locrians.
Finally, the third group was made up of the tribes of
Central Greece which had their nearest centre in Delphi.
It is extremely probable that here also an earlier federation existed, which was merely received into the larger
and wider alliance of peoples. The Delphic state itself
seems at one time to have been an independent member
of such a combination, and Strophius of Crisa is mentioned as the founder of the Pythian Amphictyony. But
this mutual relation underwent a change. The rich locality of the temple, which, as the seat of the oracle, was
a power in the land, was freed from obedience to the
supremacy of the little state in which it lay, and placed
under the supervision of federal authorities. This third




128               Hi8tory of Greece.         [Boos I.
group, that of the Delphic peoples in a limited sense, was
made up of the Phocians, the Boeotians and Ionians
dwelling to the south, and also by the Dorians, whose
migration had given the main impulse to the accomplishment of this vast combination of Hellenic tribes.
Statutes of the  The statutes of the Amphictyony, which
Amphictyony. had now permanently taken up its seat at
Delphi, belong to a period when the tribes lived in open
rural districts, and had as yet no towns which might
count as centres of the land. Among the members exist
no distinctions according to the measure of their power,
but the greater and lesser tribes are admitted into the
federation with equal rights. Lastly, the provisions of
the federal compact itself bear an unmistakable character of primitive simplicity. Two single points were
sworn to by the members: no Hellenic tribe is to lay the
habitations of another level with the ground, and from no
Hellenic city is the water to be cut off during a siege.
These are first attempts at procuring admission for the
principles of humanity in a land filled with border feuds.
There is as yet no question of putting an end to the state
of war, still less of combining for united action; an attempt is merely made to induce a group of states to regard themselves as belonging together, and on the ground
of this feeling to recognize mutual obligations, and in the
case of inevitable feuds at all events mutually to refrain
from extreme measures of force.
Influence ex-  However meagre and scanty may be these
ercised by the provisions-the earliest remains of the public
Amphityony. law of the Hellenes-yet principles of infinite importance, not contained in these statutes, attached
to the establishment and extension of the great Amphictyony. Above all, the worship of the federal god
and the order of the principal festival resulted in the establishment of a similar harmony in the case of the other
festivals, and of the whole religious system. A number




CHAP. IV.]     Migrations and Settlements.      129
of forms of divine worship was recognized as common,
and was constituted as such for ever, at the foot of Thessalian Olympus; it was a canon of Amphictyonic deities.
Their number was the same which had already been
taken as the basis of the federation in Thessaly; no other
than the number of twelve, intimately connected with the
worship of Apollo, the systematic number of the Ionians,
to whose tribe the development of this worship is preeminently due. No religious necessity called forth this
system of deities. Its whole arrangement as well as its
number is political. Even as to the gods a common and
immutable order seemed desirable, so that the circle of
the Olympians might offer a symbol and testimony of
the federation established on earth. The festivals of the
gods thus worshiped in common were national festivals.
From the system of festivals it was only a step to a common calendar. A common purse was needed for the preservation of the buildings in which the worship was carried on, and for furnishing sacrifices; this made a common coinage necessary. The common purse and templetreasures required administrators, for whose choice it was
requisite to assemble, and whose administration of their
office had to be watched by a representation of the federated tribes. In case of dispute between the Amphictyones, a judicial authority was wanted to preserve the
common peace, or punish its violation in the name of the
God. Thus the insignificant beginning of common annual festivals gradually came to transform the whole of
public life; the constant carrying of arms was given up,
intercourse was rendered safe, and the sanctity of temples
and altars recognized. But the most important result of
all was, that the members of the Amphictyony learnt to
regard themselves as one united body against those standing outside it; out of a number of tribes arose a nation,
which required a common name to distinguish it, and its
political and religious system, from all other tribes. And




130             History of Greece.          [BooK I.
the federal name fixed upon. by common consent was that
of Hellenes, which, in the place of the earlier collective
appellation of Grseci, continued to extend its significance
with every step by which the federation advanced. The
connection of this new national name with the Amphictyony is manifest from the circumstance that the
Greeks conceived Hellen and Amphictyon, the mythical
representatives of their nationality and fraternal union of
race, as nearly related to and connected with one another.
Originally a priestly title of honor, it exclusively belonged to no single tribe, but could be pre-eminently bestowed upon those who, like the Dorians, had acquired a
special importance as representatives of the Amphictyony.
The final settlement of a nationality brought with it a
final settlement as to territorial limits. While the maritime Greeks in their continual voyages made a home of
every coast, the tribes participating in the Thessalian
Amphictyony were the first who learnt to regard a territory within fixed limits as their common country, and to
love, honor, and defend it as their fatherland. The
mouth of the Peneus, with the Homolion, became the
northern frontier of this country, and Olympus the guardian of the boundary of Hellas.
Hellas and lel-  These important events were all accomlenes proper.  plished in Thessaly.  Thessaly long remained the proper country of the Hellenes, who with undying veneration revered Olympus as the home of their
gods, and the valley of the Peneus as the cradle of their
political development. The service rendered by the Dorian tribe lay in having carried the germs of national culture out of Thessaly, where the invasion of ruder peoples
disturbed and hindered their farther growth, into the land
towards the south, where these germs received an unexpectedly new and grand development. The Hellenes continued to extend their fatherland as far as Olympus, and
to regard the pass of Tempe as the portal of Hellas. But




CHAP. IV.]  Migrations and Settlements.        131
Thessaly in the course of time became more and more
estranged from them; their connection with it waxed
looser and looser; and when the Thessalians desired to
extend their conquests farther south, a new boundary-line
had to be drawn, the defence of which was the duty of the
Phocseans. Hence the ancient enmity between the latter
and the Thessalians. Central Greece separated from the
north; Hellas proper was reduced to more than half its
original size; Thermopylse became the Tempe of the narrower fatherland, and Parnassus the new centre, whence
the farther destinies of the European mainland were unfolded.
It was only a small complex of countries which belonged to this Hellas in a limited sense..All the lands
lying to the west of Pindus and Parnassus were excluded
from the Apolline federation, and at the same time from
the spiritual development accompanying it. In all these
the ancient state of things continued with the ancient absence of law and order, each man being the champion of
his own rights, and no man shunning a constant appeal to
arms.
This contrast necessarily provoked an at- Farther advance
tempt at a farther extension. A federation of the Dorians.
uniting in its bosom abundant sources of popular vitality
necessarily endeavored to widen its basis, and out of the
highlands of Parnassus, where in consequence of the pressure from the north so dense a crowd of tribes had settled,
new expeditions issued forth, advancing in a western and
southerly direction. The Dorians were the van-guard and
the regulators of this movement; they constituted its real
centre of gravity, and for this reason the movements of
population conducted by them have from ancient times
been called the Dorian migration.
At the same time the Dorians themselves Migration of the
never denied the participation of other Dorians into Petribes in their migration, inasmuch as they loponneaus.




132               History of Greece.        [BooK I.
themselves called the third division of their own people
Pamphyli, i. e. a compound mixture of population; and
with regard to the first of their tribes, the Hylleans, the
opinion generally prevailed in antiquity that they were of
Achvean origin. These Hylleans venerated Hyllus, the
son of the Tirynthian Heracles, as the ancestral hero of
their race, and laid claim on his account to dominion in
Peloponnesus, on the ground of Heracles having been illegally ousted out of his rights by Eurystheus. According
to these myths, invented and elaborated by poets, the
Dorian expedition conducted by the Hylleans was regarded as the renewal of an ancient and illegally interrupted royal right, and thus the mythological expression,
"the return of the Heraclidse," came to be generally used
for the Dorian migration into the southern peninsula.
There were two routes by which the desired goal might
be reached-one by land and the other by sea; Attica was
the bridge over which the one, and XEtolia, that over
which the other conducted.
In Attica lay the northern tract of land between the
Pentelian mountains and the Eubcean straits, the Ionian
Tetrapolis, the original seat of the worship of Apollo,
which subsequently spread from here over the whole district. This tract of land is from the earliest times closely
connected with Delphi; and the sacred road uniting the
latter with Delos led from the east coast of Attica over
Tanagra through Boeotia and Phocis. It is for this reason that the Dorian Heraclidse have a primitive connection with this part of Attica. The exiled sons of Heracles
were said to have here met with protection and hospitality, and even during the Peloponnesian war the Dorian
troops were ordered to spare the district of Marathon.
The fact lying at the bottom of these myths is the existence of an alliance between Ionian Attica and the Dorians, and accordingly nothing could be more naturafthan
that the Dorians should start hence, supported by the




CHAP. IV.]    Migrations and Settlements.      133
Ionians of the Tetrapolis, in their march towards the
isthmus. Hyllus is narrated to have rapidly advanced as
far as the portal of the peninsula, and here to have fallen
in single fight against Echemus, the king of the Tegeates.
The Peloponnesus remained a closed castle for them till
they recognized the will of the god, according to which
they were not to enter the promised land till they were led
into it by the grandsons of Hyllus by another path.
In the west of Parnassus the Dorians were settled in
the immediate vicinity of foreign and ruder tribes, which
by means of the valley of the Achelous maintained an uninterrupted connexion with Epirus, and acknowledged
Dodona as their national sanctuary. The habitations of
the AEtolians were on the lower Achelous, and they belonged to the great popular body of the Epeans and
Locrians. The immigration of Asiatic Greeks had made
these tribes navigators; and they had spread over the
islands and the western coasts of the Morea. Here existed
so ancient an intercourse of nations, that it was considered
uncertain whether Etolus, the son of Epeus, had immigrated out of Elis into.Etolia, or vice versa. For the
same reason the same forms of divine worship prevailed
on either side of the Corinthian gulf, among them especially the worship of Artemis Laphria; and again the
same names of rivers and towns, such as Achelous and
Olenus. Nature too contributed to facilitate this intercourse. For while at the isthmus the mountain ranges
front one another without any mutual connection, the hills
of ZEtolia and Achaia form parts of the same system of
mountains, and approach one another so closely at their
base as almost to make the inner part of the Corinthian
gulf an inland lake. The gulf-stream as unceasingly
operates to close the straits between the inner and outer
sea, and thus by a second isthmus to unite the peninsula
with the mainland. The land thus washed up is from
time to time again torn away by earthquakes, so that the




134                History of Greece.        [BooK r.
breadth of the sound continues to vary between a distance
of five and of twelve hours' passage. Here even a people
unaccustomed to the sea could venture to cross by water;
and the A tolians, who from an early period constantly
came and went by this path of international communication, were the born guides across it. The myth of the
slaying of Dorus by JEtolus indicates that their mediation
was not obtained without a struggle. At last Oxylus led
his men across from Naupactus on rafts, and the figure of
the three-eyed Zeus, which the AEtolians were said to have
received from Ilium, appears to have been the symbol of
this combination of arms, so fruitful of results.
Dorian con-  The conquest of the peninsula was only very
quest of Pe- gradually accomplished.  The multiplicitous
loponnesus. ramification of the mountains rendered an advance difficult; and the means of defence differed
altogether from those which had been opposed to the
Dorians on their previous expeditions. They had neither
been themselves settled in fortified towns, nor possessed
experience in attacking such places; and now they
entered districts where ancient dynasties sat in feudai castles surrounded by several circles of walls. Here single
battles brought no decision with them; ahd the Dorians,
victorious in the field, stood helpless before the Cyclopean
walls.  In single armed divisions they occupied appropriate spots, and endeavored gradually to exhaust their
adversaries' means of resistance. The loss of time consequent on this is clear, if from nothing else, from the fact
that the camps of the Dorians became fixed settlements
which continued to exist even after the conquest of the
hostile capitals. For in the end the enduring perseverance of the highlanders proved victorious, coupled with
the enthusiasm of a hardy race of warriors conscious of
its great mission. The Achaean Anactes, on their warchariots, and with a following far superior in military
discipline, were unable in the long run to resist the serried




CHAP. IV.]    Migrations and Settlements.      135
ranks and the weight of the Dorian lance. The lions of
its citadel were as little able to protect Mycenae as the
gold in its subterranean vaults, and in large bodies the
descendants of Agamemnon had to abandon their wellpreserved ancestral castles.
Of all the coast districts of the peninsula Conquest of
only a single one was spared a revolution-the the Morea.
northern shore of the Corinthian gulf. Here the Dorians
had landed, but had continued their march to the south,
so that the Ionian inhabitants, dwelling in their twelve
places around the temple of Posidon at Helice had remained undisturbed in their seats, whilst in the southern
and eastern districts the long feuds were fought to an end
which decided the fate of the peninsula.
Into this coast-territory the Achaeans, receding from
the south, penetrated.  They first conquered the open
plains by the coast; then the outlying walled towns,
which fell one after the other; last of all Helice, where
the noblest families of the Ionians had combined to offer
resistance. The story went how Tisamenus himself, the
descendant of Orestes, had been carried as a corpse into
the city; but his descendants obtained the dominion, and
the name of the Achaean race was transferred to the land
of the Ionic JEgialeans.  As many of the Ionians as
could not bear to submit to the Achseans passed over
among their kinsmen in Attica.
The Dorians followed the Achseans, occupying the regions of the isthmus; but left their predecessors undisturbed in their new seats, and pushed across the isthmus
towards the north, where they touched upon the confines
of the Attic land. For Megaris formed part of Attica,
being united with it by its mountains and all the conditions of nature. Dorian warriors took up a threatening
fortified position by the isthmus; the sacred centre of the
Ionians dwelling along both the gulfs.  Megaris was
occupied. Had the rest of Attica been subjected by the




136              History of Greece.         [BooK I.
Dorians, the latter, united with the northern seats of their
race, would have suppressed or expelled the Ionian race;
and European Hellas would have become a single Dorian
district. But in the branch of the Cithseron which separates the plains of Megara and Eleusis, and in the heroic
courage of Athens, which guarded the passes of the land,
the Dorians met with an impassable boundary, and Ionic
Attica was saved.
Emigration  Thus then the seats of the Greek tribes had
by sea.  in the main been settled for all time. But the
mighty movement of population, flowing from the Alpine
land of Epirus to the south point of the Morea, and
thence back again, needed a wider area than the limits of
the western mainland could afford it, before it could
finally settle down. Too vast a multitude had been disturbed out of its seats by the bitter violence with which
Thessalians, Bceotians, Dorians and Achseans, had deprived the older inhabitants of their soil, and themselves
tyrannically occupied it. The restless impulse of migration which had taken hold of the peoples continued its
effects upon them, especially in the royal houses, whom
the revolution in their homes had despoiled of their position, without inclining them to submit to the new order
of things. Thus, since the popular migration from north
to south had attained to its end, the movement turned
aside, and the ports of the entire east-coast filled with
vessels, bearing enterprising crews belonging to every
variety of tribes to the shores on the farther side of the
sea.
Movement   This was no emigration to an unknown part
Movement
among the of the world, no blind adventuring on unknown
Ionians.  tracks. On the contrary, it was the advent of
a great reaction in the intercourse of nations between the
coasts of the Archipelago, which had formerly begun
from Asia, and the natural result of the over-peopling of




CHAP. IV.]    Migrations and Settlements.       137
the districts of South Greece.  But inasmuch as this
mighty revolution had been occasioned by the violent advance of the northern highlanders, of the continental
tribes of the Hellenic nation, it was the maritime Greeks
who, disturbed in their tranquil possession of the coasts,
were in their turn chiefly obliged to quit the country;
and thus the descendants once more returned into the
home of their ancestors.
Accordingly, in a certain sense the whole emigration
may be called Ionic; for all its starting-points were stations of ancient Ionic navigation; its goal was the ancient
home of the great Ionic race, and it was itself accomplished by none but Greeks of Ionic descent. At the
same time the returning Ionians were more or less mixed
with other elements. They had preserved themselves
purest in Attica, where the Pelasgian population by a
long succession of immigrations admitted by it, had become most thoroughly Ionic. In the midst of the popular movements which had revolutionized all the states
from Olympus to Cape Malea, Attica had alone remained
tranquil and unmoved, like a rock in the sea on which the
waves of the agitated waters break without submerging it.
She had preserved her independence against the JEolians
in the. north, and against the Dorians in the south; and
with this resistance commenced the history of the land.
For this unshaken Ionian land now became the refuge of
the multitudes of her kinsmen driven out of the other districts. From Thessaly, from Boeotia, from the whole of
Peloponnesus, but more especially from its north coast, a
concourse of population assembled in Attica: and the
narrow and poor little land was overflowing with inhabitants, so that relief became necessary. Now the eastern
side alone was open; and since in this very direction
intercourse had been opened in times before the memory
of man, Attica became the principal starting-point of the
Ionic re-migration to the opposite shores.  Thus the




138               History of Greece.         [Boox I.
ancient bond of union between the opposite coasts of the
sea was knit anew most closely in Attica.
To Attica belonged the southern tracts of Boeotia, especially the valley of the Asopus, the inhabitants of which
disdained to consider themselves Boeotians. The south
side of Parnassus, also, which juts out into the sea, the
coast-regions of Ambrysus and Stiris, were inhabited by
Ionians, who felt themselves hard pressed and borne down
by the advance of the northern tribes. On the other side
of the bay, on the banks of the Asopus, which flows into
the sea at Sicyon, as far up as its sources, dwelt a population akin by descent to that of the Boeotian river-valley,
to the Asiatic origin of which its myths, forms'of religious worship, and history clearly testified: Asopus himself was said to have immigrated from Phrygia, whence
he introduced the flute of Marsyas. On the other side of
the isthmus lay Epidaurus, a city ascribing its origin to
maritime Greeks of Asia, and connected from a primitive
period with Athens. To these must be added the enterprising maritime tribe of the Minyi, who had obtained
habitations in Iolcus, in Orchomenus, afterwards in Attica, and in Messenian Pylus, and who had now lost each
and all of their homes; and lastly the people of the
Leleges on the western sea, to which belonged the
Epeans, the Taphians, and the Cephallenians. All these
multitudes of Greeks, dwelling by the coasts, belonging
to the great Old-Ionic race, and still preserving an inner
connection with it, notwithstanding  their dispersion
abroad, were now, suffering under the same pressure,
simultaneously stirred, and all followed the same impulse,
leading them back through the island sea of the Archipelago into their ancient homes. They all, from however
different points they had started, re-assembled in the middle coast-tracts of Asia Minor, and this land around the
mouths of the four rivers became the new Ionia.
This elimination of certain' tribes was, however, not




CHAP. IV.1  Mligrations and Settlements.       139
permanent; the Hellenic people was not to be again
separated into its two halves. Especially in Peloponnesus there ensued a mingling of Ionic and non-Ionic
migratory population, and more particularly in the coasttowns, where the Dorians had already obtained the
mastery. Here Doric families joined the migration; so
that it took place under Doric leaders, and for the first
time carried across the sea the Doric forms of national
manners and customs. Finally, migratory swarms were
formed by JEolians, who had been unable to settle down
peacefully in Bceotia, and by Peloponnesian Achaans,
Abantes of Euboea, and Cadmeans.
However impossible, therefore, it is to Threefold courses
separate into its elements of particular of migrations.
colonizing expeditions the grand migration by sea of
Ionic and mixed tribes, yet three main divisions, viz., of
Ionic, Doric, and iEolic migratory population-may be
distinguished: divisions to which the triple direction
taken by the migration' correspond. For the Dorian
movement, as the victorious one, retained its original
direction from north to south, and transplanted itself
from Cape Malea to Cythera and Crete. The Achaeans,
on the contrary, as fugitives from the south, went northwards, where they came upon Boeotian and Thessalian
JEolians, their ancient neighbors. With every increase
of Thessalian power in the north, and Dorian power in
the south, this movement received a fresh impulse, leading from  Euboea to the Thracian Sea. Finally, the
Ionians found their high road marked out for them by
the double series of the Cyclades.
As far as it is possible to arrange these The 0olomigratory movements chronologically, those of Achaans.
the LEolians were the earliest. In Boeotia the tribes
suffering under a pressure from north and south met in
great masses; Bceotia was the land of departure, and was
accordingly in after times regarded as the mother-country




140                History of Greece.         [BOOK I.
of the JEolic colonies, so much so that the latter, in the
Peloponnesian war, from motives of piety, hesitated to
take part against Thebes. The sole route open to them
was the channel of Eubcea, the quiet waters of which had
from the earliest times conducted the migrations of tribes
in and out. Its bays, especially that of Aulis, became
the places where the vessels assembled; the leadership
over the bands of population was in the hands of the
Achseans, whose royal houses were accustomed to rule in
the world now falling to pieces. Therefore the myths
speak of descendants of Agamemnon, of Orestes himself,
or his sons or grandsons, as the leaders of the migratory
expeditions which continued through several generations.
Euboea was the threshold over which the Boeotian expeditions passed from their home, after it had itself given
admission to their first settlements. The Euripus is open
towards the south as well as towards the north; in its
southern waters the Ionians were the masters; besides
which the northern was better and more familiarly known
to the Thessalian emigrants. On the other side of the
Thessalian coast the Thracian Sea received them, along
the islands and coasts of which they slowly continued
their advance. Those in the van chose the first places,
where they settled: those coming after were obliged to
proceed farther; and thus the march was continued along
the coast in an easterly direction. They were not the
first to sail along this sea, or to cultivate these shores.
The woody hills of Thrace, with their rich treasures of
silver, had already been fully explored by Phoenicians,
and the coast-places were occupied by Cretans and OldIonians. Yet there was space still left for immigration,
-and,Enus at the mouth of the Hebrus, Sestus, and
JEoleum, may be regarded as stations of the popular
migration. More adventurous bands crossed the sounds
of the sea (of Marmora), and by way of its islands
reached the peninsula of Cyzicus. Here was reached, in




CHAP. IV.]   Migrations and Settlements.       141
the first instance, the mainland on the other side, the
great peninsula of Mount Ida, which was gradually conquered from the coast. From the summit of Ida they
saw at their feet beautiful Lesbos, lying under the most
genial of skies, with deep-cut harbors fronted by the
richest districts on the coast. With the possession of
this fertile island began a new epoch of 2Eolic settlements
in Asia; and after the pathway had been opened on long
and difficult circuitous routes, the Eubcean ships followed,
sailing straight across the sea, and bringing a great body
of population in dense swarms over to Lesbos. Lesbos
and Cyme became the centres, from which the new settlers and their successors gradually subjected the Troad
and Mysia. Accordingly the Lesbian settlement under
Gras, the great-grandson of Orestes, and the settlement
of the Pelopidse, Cleuas, and Malaus, on the Caicus, were
in after times regarded as the two principal epochs of
_Eolic colonization. From the shore, especially from
Assus and Antandrus, afterwards from the Hellespont
and the mouth of the Scamander, where fortified places,
such as Sigeum and Achilleum, were founded, armed incursions were undertaken into the interior; the native
states fell to the ground, and the old Dardani were thrown
back into the Ida mountains, whence their dominion
had once extended itself towards the coast.
The Eolic expeditions bear in a comparatively greater
degree the character of a popular migration, which without any fixed beginning or goal slowly continued for
generations its movement to the mainland on the other
side, of which it finally pervaded a considerable part in
dense settlements. The Ionic expeditions are in the main
undertaken by bands of lesser numbers, by warlike families, which marched out without wives or children to
found new states. By the accumulation of The Ionian and
Ionic families in Attica, the entire current Dorian.
received a more definite starting-point, and by this means




142               History of Greece.          [BooK I.
gained in unity and force. However, by no means all
these expeditions chose the route by Athens. The Colophonians, e. g. derived the founder of their city directly
from Messenian Pylus, Clazomenve from Cleonse and
Phlius. Yet for the most important settlements, especially for Ephesus, Miletus, and the Cyclades, Athens was
in truth the starting-point; and the political institutions,
priesthoods, and festive rituals of Attica were transplanted into Ionia.
In Peloponnesus, also, the harbors whence the emigrants started were the same as those in which, once upon
a time, the history of the whole peninsula had commenced,
especially the sea-places of Argolis.  Here migratory
bodies belonging to the most various tribes strangely
crossed one another's path. Out of Epidaurus one expedition followed the Ionic migration, and settled on Samos;
but the same Epidaurus again sent out colonists, starting
under Dorian supremacy, who filled the islands of
Nisyrus, Calydna, and Cos, with inhabitants; Old-Ionic
Trcezene became the mother-city of Halicarnassus. The
three cities on Rhodes traced back their origin to Argos;
Cnidus derived itself from Laconia; the field fullest of
struggles and labors the Dorians found in Crete, which
was slowly overcome, but all the more thoroughly penetrated by Dorian population.
After examining the meagre ancient traditions as to the
course of this great triple emigration, we turn with undivided historical interest to its results on the development
of the Greek people.
The settlements  The long extent of coast on which the
on the Asiatic Greeks landed was not uninhabited, and its
coasts.     soil not without its lords. The empire of
the Lydians had long existed, and the princes ruling over
it no doubt claimed a supreme authority over the whole
west coast of Asia Minor. In Caria, which borders so
closely on the lower valley of the Mseander, lay the city




CHaP. IV.]  Migrations and Settlements.        143
of Ninoe, or Ninive, founded by the Lydians in the period
of their connection with Assyria-a city the very situation of which indicates the design of establishing here, as
it were, an outpost of Eastern power and civilization. As
long, however, as the Lydian empire remained under the
Sandonide, and in connexion with the distant city on the
Tigris, the coast was given up to a foreign population;
Oriental notions recognized a very decided difference
between inland and coast population, and to the latter
were left the occupations of fishing, navigation, and seatrade. Greek tribes had been settled here from the beginning as a coast-population of this description; and now,
when from the other side of the sea great multitudes of
people of the same race immigrated, the Lydians quietly
allowed matters to proceed, without seeing in them an encroachment upon the territory of their empire. Accordingly, the newly-arrived population had merely to effect
an understanding with the inhabitants of the coast themselves.
On the part of the latter they indeed met with considerable resistance, for the new-comers had not, it must be remembered, arrived to carry on their occupations peaceably by the side of the older inhabitants, but to rule over
them. They were knightly families, who, with their following, desired to found civic communities, in order to
acquire for themselves honor, power, and possessions.
They therefore demanded rights of supremacy and the
best localities for the foundation of cities for themselves,
and drove the old inhabitants out of their seats and habits
of life, thus necessarily provoking a succession of feuds on
all the islands and coasts. These are the struggles with
the Carians and Leleges of which the legends as to the
foundation of the various cities on the islands and coasts
have to tell. But it was no conflict with barbarians, who
had to be repressed step by step, in order to clear the soil
for an entirely new race of men and for a thoroughly new




144               History of Greece.        [BOOK I.
civilization, as the Hellenes cleared that of Scythia and
the English that of America. According to Greek tradition, such a difference never existed between the two
shores, and the poetry of Homer, in which they are united
into one theatre of common history, is altogether unacquainted with any distinction between Hellenes and barbarians. The new colonists in their settlements attached
themselves to ancient Greek sanctuaries, which had endured unchanged, and now became the connecting centres
of the old and the new population; they came among servants of Apollo, whose worship had formerly been transplanted from these regions to Europe. The cities also
which were now founded cannot be said to have suddenly
sprung out of the ground. Erythrae, Chios, Samos, were
Old-Ionic names and states which were now merely renewed, and in the same way Miletus and Ephesus. The
old inhabitants were not rooted out, but merely after a resistance of greater or less length, embodied in the new
communities. The conquering lords and their followers
took none but natives for their wives, and out of these
marriages sprung not a non-Greek, half-barbarian posterity, but a genuine Greek population, the equal of their
fathers by birth, and soon surpassing all other Hellenes in
Hellenic culture. Nor do we find the cities standing isolated among a foreign peasant-population; but one connected and homogeneous Ionia extended itself over the
entire regions of the coast.
Old-Ionia and  On the other hand there also prevailed an
New-Ionia.  essential difference between the bodies of
younger and older population meeting here. The fundamental popular characteristics and national forms of worship and manners, indeed, had remained the same, but the
European tribes had meanwhile passed through a varied
history. By their intermixture with the nations of.the
Western mainland, by the foundation of well-ordered
states on it, they had made uncommon progress in all the




CHAP. IV.]     Migrations and Settlements.       145
arts of war and peace; and in this sense Attic mythology
was, to a certain extent, justified by history in representing the primitive ancestor of the lonians as merely the son
of an immigrant, but Ion himself as born in Attica.
Here, as in no previous locality, had the characteristics of
the Ionic nationality been fully developed; and the circumstance that of this Ionian people which had attained
to such a degree of progress the noblest and most enterprising families came to Asia, justifies the distinction existing, according to the sentiment of the ancients between
the immigrants on the one hand and the Carians and LeIeges on the other. In short, Greeks came among Greeks,
Ionians returned into their ancient home, but returned so
changed, so richly endowed with materials for a noble
life, and brought with them so vast a treasure of varied
experience of life, that with their arrival commenced an
epoch of the most productive impulses, and that out of the
new union of elements originally akin to one another resulted the beginning of a development thoroughly national, but at the same time exceedingly elevated, varied,
and completely novel in its consequences.
Under these circumstances, it may be understood how
no happier instance of colonization has ever occurred than
the foundation of New-Ionia:;.
The JEolic settlements, Qn-Itie:other hand, had Conquest
a very peculiar character of -their own, inasmuch of ALolis.
as they not only occupied a belt of rocks, with the islands
fronting them, but also an entire piece of the mainland.
Here a conquest. of territory took place, and a long and
arduous struggle with the native states; here the walls of
Dardanian princes resisted the sons of the Achoeans, who
derived Atheir origin from Pelops and Agamemnon and the
son of Thetis. But in order to support themselves during
the slow progress of the struggle, the Achseans, ever lovers
of song, fortified themselves by songs of the deeds of their
ancient lords-in-war, the Atridse, and nourished their
7




146              History of Greece.          [BooK I.
courage by recalling the god-like heroic powers of Achilles. They celebrated these heroes not only as examples,
but as predecessors in the fight; they saw them in the
spirit walking before them in the same paths, and thought
to be following in their footsteps, and merely recovering
the right of possession acquired by them.
The myths  Such songs necessarily arose at the time of
oftheTro- the conquest of the Trojan land; and, even if
jan war.  no vestige of them were preserved, we should
be justified in presuming them according to the general
character of Greek heroic mythology. But as it is, these
songs of Agamemnon and Achilles have not vanished,
but have lasted to our days, as the authentic reminiscences of the warlike deeds of the Acheans in the land
of the Dardanians.
Achseans and Dardanians are tribes of a common descent; for this reason also the whole Trojan war bears no
other character than that of a feud among neighbors, such
as used to prevail among Greek tribes on account of the
rape of women or the carrying off of flocks and herds.
Accordingly, of all the features of the Trojan myths the
great majority is of a kind which necessarily repeated
itself on every similar occasion. No history of any particular war can be restored from features constantly recurring like these. But there are others peculiar to the
myths of the Trojan war, and among them features of
ancient tradition which only suit the particular time and
connection of the AEolo-Achsean colonization.  The departure from Arlis, e. g. is inexplicable, if a prince quietly
ruling in Mycense really was the leader of the expedition;
such a one would have assembled the fleet in the Argolic
bay, whereas for the masses of population emigrating
from the direction of North and South, the shores of
Aulis were the natural place of assembly. Again, it was
assuredly not a general levy on the part cf the feudal
lord of Mycense, but this same emigration, which brought




CHAP. IV.]   Migrations and Settlements.        147
into connection with one another the two widely separated
branches of the Achean people, -the Thessalian Myrmidons and the Peloponnesians; and all the stories of the
jealousy of the two leaders, and the disputes about the
booty between Achilles and Agamemnon, point to the
period when the descendants of these Achsean princes met
on their migratory expeditions.
To these must be added the reminiscences of other conflicts which pervade the Trojan myths, without having
any real connection with the city of Priam and the rape
of Helen.  The distant expeditions of Achilles on land
and sea, the conquests of Tenedos, Lesbos, Lyrnessus,
Thebie, Pedasus; the coming, going, and return of the
besiegers;.all these are features which enable us to recognize a long period of war, a territorial conquest advancing
from place to place, and an endeavor permanently to occupy the country. The more ancient myths, moreover,
busy themselves with nothing beyond the fighting in the
Trojan land; and the stories of the return of the heroes
belong entirely to a subsequent extension of this complex
of myths. The sons of the Achaeans, who cast down the
kingdom of Priam, really remained in the land, and built
a new i2Eolic Ilium below Perganmus, the fated city, on
the actual site of which they feared to build. The Trojan
war remains for us the same as it appeared to Thucydides,
the first collective deed of a great part of the noblest Hellenic tribes; but at the same time we are justified in
transposing this war out of its isolation, in which it remains incomprehensible, into a wider connection of events,
and out of the poetic times, whither it was carried by
songs, into its actual period.
The circumstance that such songs were Mutual influences
especially occasioned by the 2Eolic colo- of the intercourse
nization explains itself by the peculiar between the tribes.
conditions under which the latter was carried out. In it
the amplest opportunity existed for acquiring heroic famle;




148               History of Greece.         LBOOK I.
in it the Achsean race was aitively engaged, whom a
poetic spirit inmpelled to combW e chivalry and song. But
these songs did not on this account remain the private
property of the iEolo-Achsean race, a treasure of reminiscences of the glorious deeds of the Conquistadors preserved in the Trojan land alone; but they were carried
ar beyond the limits of the new 2Eolis, and eagerly received: by its neighbors.  For in this,.after all, consisted
the extraordinary effect of the settlements in Asia Minor,
that not only were branches of one popular race which
had long been separated, such as the two Achsean peoples,
united anew, but that on the same side of the sea the different tribes of the Hellenic nation, as they had gradually
developed themselves to the fulness of their growth-the
manifold action of each mutually affecting that of the
rest-that JEolians, Achseans, Ionians, and Dorians, now
came into close and immediate contact in these regions.
The consequences were an interchange so multiplicitous, a
mutually communicated impulse, so varied and manysided, as had nowhere, as yet, taken place between the
members of the Greek nation. An especial importance,
therefore, belonged to the places on the confines of the
territories occupied by the different tribes, because they
were the real marts of exchange, and, so to speak, the
focus of the electric contact. Such a place was Smyrna,
on the north side of the beautiful gulf into which the
Meles flows, situated in the midst between the valleys of
the Cayster and Hermus.      While in other regions
2Eolians and Ionians maintained the unbending bearing
of strangers towards one another, they were here closely
united together-nay, blended into one single community.
Here the most varied interchange took place. The -Eolians brought copious materials for myths, whilst the
Ionians-who, after the fashion of southern sailors,
delighted in listening to and: repeating wonderful narratives, admitted into their easily excited imaginations the




CHAP. IV.]   Migrations and Settlements,        149
deteds and sufferings of their 2Eolian neighbors and their
Achlean princes, and reproduced them in a plastic form.
It was herl at the Hellenic language, long a language
for song, fi  lost the stiffness of dialectic peculiarities.
It became fuller and richer, as life assumed freer and
more mAnifold forms; it became the organ of an art in
which the most highly-gifted tribes of the nation united
in a loftier harmony, and for this reason first produced
what held good for all Hellenes-produced what was a
national Greek result.  The praise of Achean heroes
sounded on Ionian lips, the individual deeds and adventures were united into larger complexes, and thus the
Greek epos grew up on the banks of the Meles, whom the
people called the father of Homer.
The Homeric epos is the sole source of Originofepio
tradition as to the fall of the Dardanian poetrykingdom and the foundation of -Eolis; but at the same
time also as to the entire life of the Hellenes up to the
period of the great migrations. For the emigrants carried across with them, o  of their ancient home, not only
their gods and heroes, but also their conception of the
world and the princ'pes of their public and social life.
The more utterly they saw the world in which they felt at
home crumbling to pieces under the rude tread of the
northern mountaineers, the more closely they locked their
memories in their breasts and fixed them in the songs
which the old men taught to the young.   The Greek
]Muse is a daughter of Memory, and just as the songs of
Beovulf, though they originated in England, supply us
with information concerning the life of the Saxons in war
and peace on the German peninsula which they had
quitted, so also the Homeric epos mirrors the conditions
of life which we must imagine to have prevailed among
the migratory tribes before they left their homes.  We
must accordingly cast a glance on this picture, in order to




150               History of Greece.           [BOOK I.
understand, in its main features, the Greek world, as it
existed up to the period of the great migrations.
General view of the  Through the Homeric epos we first
IHomeric age.   become   acquainted  with  the  Greek
world. Yet it is not on this account a world of beginnings; it is no world still engaged in an uncertain development, but one thoroughly complete, matured and defined by fixed rules and orders of life. The latter we
perceive to have become familiar to men at a period receding long beyond the reach of their memory, so that
they are sufficiently conscious of it to contrast it with the
existence of other nationalities who have remained behind
at a lower degree of advancement, and who lead a handto-mouth existence without a legally-constituted commonwealth, without agriculture and fixed boundaries for their
fields, without habitations conveniently furnished by arts
and handicrafts, under the primitive forms of family life.
The life of the Greeks, on the other hand, from the earliest period shows itself as one which is not one-sidedly
based on agriculture and farminrut in an equal degree
on navigation and trade. This is tI; activity first developed by the Asiatic Greeks, and the features of the epos
itself occasionally display a contrast between the Greeks
of the sea and those of the land. The former, e. g. fed
principally on fish, which the latter disliked; accordingly
the Ionian bard never wearies in insisting   upon the
mighty meat-banquets of the AchTcans, and the intrepidity witlh which they attacked them. In essentials, however, these diferenccs of race are equalized, and all the
branches of the Greek nation, which had participated in
the migratory expeditions, by mutual interchange came
to be the equals and brothers of one another.  Vhat had
been the property peculiar to each race among the several
branches became a common national property. The numerous Ionic terms belonging to maritime life pervaded
the whole language, and as the majority of Ionic deities




CHAP. IV.]    Migrations and Settlements.        151
of navigation and daemons of the sea gradually became
domesticated in the whole land of the Greeks, so, too, are
all the coasts familiar with Ionian handicrafts. The acquisitive impulse deeply inherent by nature in the Greeks,
excited them at an early period to a many-sided activity.
The same Pleiades, by their rising and setting, fix the occupations of agriculture as well as the seasons of navigation; and even the heavy Boeotians follow the rule of
seeking farther gain on shipboard in the month of May
after the termination of field labors. Boeotian Orchomenus is simultaneously an inland and a maritime town,
a place where all manner of strangers and all kinds of
news are collected, so that we find the shade of Agamemnon inquiring of Odysseus whether he has not perchance
heard aught of his son Orestes at Orchomenus.
The people has long ceased to be a confused mass, and
is distributed into classes, marked off from one another
by perfectly fixed and certain distinctions. First stand
the nobles of the people, the Anaktes or lords, who are
alone entitled to any consideration. Like giants they
overtop the mass of the people, in which only single individuals are distinguished by their office or by especial natural gifts as priests or soothsayers or artists; all the rest
remain anonymous; though personally freemen, they are
without any franchise in public life. Without a will of
their own, like flocks of sheep they follow the prince, and
timidly disperse when one of the grandees confronts them;
their multitude merely forms the dark background from
which the figures of the nobles stand out in so much the
more brilliant a relief. By rape or purchase, methods
learnt from the Phcenicians, men and women of foreign
birth also come into the possession of the rich; but there
exists no state of slavery properly so called. The contrasts of nationality have not as yet found a clear expression, and accordingly those who have by their misfortunes
forfeited home and freedom are received into the domestic




152               HEistory of Greece.           [BooK I.
circle; they easily grow accustomed to it, and in an imperceptible, but extremely effective manner, serve to
spread arts and handicrafts of all kinds, and to facilitate
the equalization of culture on the islands and coasts.
The H c.   These classes of human society, withThe Heroic kings.. 
out any unity of their own, are only harm6nized into one community by acknowledging a common head. This is the duke (Basileus) or king. His
power, uniting the people into a state, is not transmitted
to him by the people, but Zeus has bestowed upon him
the calling of king with the hereditary sceptre. Thus
among all the tribes of the Homeric world ancient royal
houses appear in the accustomed possession of their power,
and receive without contradiction the gifts of honor and
the homage of their people. With the royal office the
prince unites the calling of general and supreme judge, and
it is he whose justice and strong arm have to protect the
state against collapse from within and against foes from
without. Even as towards the gods he is the representative of his people, for whom he prays and sacrifices to the
divinity protecting the state; according to his conduct he
may bring upon his subjects the rich blessings of the gods
or a curse and misery.
Monuments of  This single individual is the centre not
their rule.  only of political life, but at the same time
of all the higher efforts of humanity. In his service
art arises and flourishes; in the first place the art of song.
For the songs with which the Homeric world resounds
bear from place to place the great deeds and the gentler
virtues of the king, who like the gods rules upon numerous hosts, guarding the laws and spreading blessings
around,"there the black soil grants for a harvest
Barley and wheat; and the fruit hangs heavily down from the branches;
Flocks and herds increase; and fishes abound in the water;
For that his rule is wise, and the peoples prosper around him."




CHAP. IV.]   Migrations and Settlements.        153
Him, the king, plastic art and architecture also serve,
and furnish for him what he requires to add security and
dignity to his life. The best craftsmen forge his weapons
and adorn them with symbolic devices; the ivory, colored
purple by Carian women, is reserved to decorate the
steeds drawing the royal chariots. From afar come the
masons to build up his castle-wall for the lord of the
land, and commodious dwellings for hisN family and
serving-men. Massive vaults received the inherited treasures, which the prince may leave intact, because he lives
on what the people grants him, on the crown-domains
parcelled off from the rest of the land and on the free
gifts of the community.
Of this architecture the grandest mon- The architecture of
uments remain to our day, which, on ac- the Heroio age.
count of their indestructible strength are better preserved
than any others on the soil of Greek history. They are
older than Greek history itself; for when the Greeks began to recall their past these castles had long been desolated spots, antiquities of the land, reaching over into
the present out of the obscurity of the past. So that if
no trace had remained of the name of Agamemnon, the
walls of the Argive cities would testify for us to the existence of a mighty royal house holding this land by force
of arms, served by numerous forced laborers who erected
these strongholds, and dwelling and ruling here for generations in the security of its power. And these princes
must have been Achsean, for when the Dorians came into
the land they found these cities there before them, and up
to the time of the Persian wars Achaean communities
dwelt around these monuments.
The most ancient among these monuments of the prehistoric Achsean age are the castles. Their narrow circumference shows that they were only calculated to house
the royal family and its immediate followers. These followers were the sons of noble houses, who had voluntarily
7*




154               History of Greece.         [BOOK I.
attached themselves to the more powerful among the
princes, and performed honorable service to them as charioteers or heralds, and in war as companions in tent and
fight. The people itself dwelt scattered over the fields, or
herded together in open hamlets.
The walls enclosing the castle must not be called rude,
a notion which was least of all in the minds of the later
HIellenes when they ascribed them to the Cyclopes. For
the name of these daemonic workmen is an expression intended to designate the gigantic, miraculous, and incomprehensible character of these early monuments, just as
the German people calls works of the Romans devil's
dykes, because these erections have no connection of any
kind with the world as known to the existing generation.
Common to all these Cyclopean castle-walls is the mighty
size of the single blocks, which an extraordinary and
reckless expenditure of human strength broke out of the
rock and dragged away and piled over one another, so
that their massive weight forced them to remain where
they were first placed, and to form a fixed structure
without the adoption of any method of combination.
But within this general style of wall-architecture may be
recognized a great variety, a whole series of steps. Originally mere barricades of blocks of rock were thrown up
at particularly accessible points of the height on which
the castle stood, while the precipitous sides of the rocky
hill were left to the defence of their natural strength:
ancient feudal castles on Crete may be seen fortified in
this way, the enclosure of which was never completed.
But as a rule the summits of the rock are completely
walled round, the line of wall following the most precipitous declivities along the entire circuit of the summit.
The most ancient forms of the work of the wall itself are
recognizable on the rock of Tiryns. Here the
gigantic blocks are rudely heaped up on   one
another; here the law of weight alone keeps them to



CHAP. IV.]   Migrations and Settlements.         155
gether. The gaps which everywhere remain between the
single blocks are filled out with smaller stones shoved in
between them. In Mycenae similar fragments of
wall occur; but by far the greater portion of the 
circular wall is built so as to show each block to be cut in
shape for its particular place, and united with a group of
contiguous blocks in a manner enabling all mutually to
hold, overlie, and bear up one another. The polygon
shape of the particular blocks and the multiplicity of
their functions form a net-like structure of indestructible
firmness, such as it has proved itself to be by its endurance through thousands of years. The art of mural
architecture here developed has never been surpassed;
nay, it manifestly demands a higher technical skill, and
bears a more artistic character than the common style of
square blocks, for which one stone after the other is mechanically cut into shape. But these castle-walls were in
yet another manner endowed with indications of a higher
kind of art. In Tiryns the walls, whose entire thickness
is twenty-five feet, are pervaded by inner passages, which
were connected by a series of windows, like gates, with
the outer court-yard; they were very probably spaces
destined for keeping in them provisions, arms, and live
cattle. And again, the castle gates serve especially to
distinguish a Cyclopean city. As an example, the chief
gate of Mycene is preserved to us with its passage within
the gate fifty feet in length, its mighty side-posts leaning
over towards one another, and the dripstone lying over it
fifteen feet in length, over which, in the triangular aperture of the wall, remains immovably fixed to this day the
sculptured slab which once in a solemn hour the lords of
this castle placed over the gate in order to unite the expression of divine power with that of their earthly royal
dominion. In flat relief these remarkable outlines of
the earliest sculpture existing in Europe stand forth: in
the centre the pillar, the symbol of Apollo, the guardian




156               History of Greece.         [BOOK rI
of gate and castle; on the sides, the two lions resting
their front paws on the ground, admirably chosen symbols
of the consciousness of supreme royal power. Symmetrically stiff, after the fashion of heraldic beasts, they are
yet designed with the truthfulness of nature, and their
attitude is correct and expressive, and executed by a
chisel perfectly sure of its work.
Castle-walls the warlike princes could not miss; but
outside the castle is a group of buildings, proving still
more clearly how the architectural works of the heroic
age far exceed the demands of mere necessity. One of
these is preserved in sufficient completeness to enable the
spectator to derive from it a clear view of the general
style of architecture. This is a subterraneous building,
inserted into a flat hill of the lower town of Mycenae.
The hill had been hollowed out for the purpose, and on
the bottom of the space dug out a ring of well-cut and
closely-fitting blocks had been laid down; on it a second,
a third, &c., each upper ring of stones reaching over the
lower towards the inside, so that the succession of rings
gradually formed a lofty circular vault resembling in
shape a bee-hive. This vault is approached from without
by a gate, the opening of which is spanned by a block
twenty-seven feet in length; at the posts of this gate
stood semi-circular columns of colored marble, their shaft
and base decorated with stripes in zigzag and spiral lines.
By this gate the great conical structure was entered, of
which the blocks to this day adhere to one another in
proper order. Its inner walls were covered from top to
bottom with metal plates attached to them, the smooth
polish of which, especially by torch-light, must have given
an extraordinary splendor to the large space, a circumstance accurately agreeing with the Homeric descriptions
in which the splendor of the bronze on the walls of the
royal palaces is celebrated. The grandeur and glorious
magnificence of the whole design leave no doubt as to its




CHAP. IV.]    Migrations and Settlements.        157
object. Art was not only to protect and adorn the living
prince, but also to found an imperishable monument for
the departed monarch. The whole building was a sepulchre. A deep rocky chamber, contiguous to the vault of
the dome and forming the innermost part of the whole
building, contained the sacred remains of the prince,
while the wide circular building was used for the purpose
of preserving his arms, chariots, treasures, and precious
stones. The whole building was afterwards covered with
earth, so that while glancing round the country outside
none could divine the royal structure hidden deep beneath
the herbage of the hill, the sacred treasure of the land.
The historical significance of these monuments is undeniable. They could only arise among a population
long settled on this soil, and in the full possession of a
civilization perfectly conscious of its means Historical signi
and ends. Here exists a complete com- ficance of these
mand over stone and metal; here fixed remains.
styles of art have been developed which are executed
with proud splendor and a thoroughness calculated for
imperishable permanence. Royal houses which perpetuated their memory in works of this kind necessarily
possessed in addition to their hereditary wealth far-extending connections, since they were able to procure
foreign bronze and foreign kinds of stone. Nowhere is
there a question of mere beginnings. Who in the view
of such monuments of castle and sepulchral architecture
will deny that what serves us and ancient inquirers like
Thucydides, as the earliest point from which to start
under the guidance of Greek tradition, as the first beginning of an authenticated history, is in point of fact the
definitive perfection of a civilization which arose and
matured itself beyond the narrow limits of Hellas, and
with its ripe results reaches over'into the beginnings of
Greek history in Europe.
Their earliest native fortifications of towns the Greeks




158              History of Greece.         [BOOK I.
thought to discover inland; on the declivity of the
Lycseus, Lycosura was shown as the most ancient city
on which the Hellenic sun cast its rays. The remains
are yet to be seen of the city wall, an unsystematic mural
work composed of comparatively small and irregular
fragments. Greek patriotism never dared to ascribe the
magnificent monuments of Argos to native art; and
tradition spoke of Lycian men as the architects employed
by the Argive kings. But if the early civilization of the
Lycian people is a demonstrable fact; if the connection
between Argos and Lycia is proved by the myths and the
forms of religious worship; if, finally, since the discovery
of their country we know the Lycians as a people gifted
with an especial mission for architecture and the plastic
arts, these traditions receive hence an important confirmation. But the Lycians were from a primitive period
connected with the Phoenicians, and certain styles of art
which we also find employed in Argolis, especially the use
of metal in the decoration of buildings, and the covering
of vast spaces of wall with polished plates of bronze,
were certainly introduced, together with the technical
skill requisite for such works, from Syria into Greece
The Hellenes subsequently developed from entirely different bases a new art peculiar to themselves, which has
nothing in common with the decorative style of the
ancient royal monuments, with the massive Tholus-structure, and with the flat heraldic relieved-work over the
gate.
Standing before the castle-portal of Mycenae, even he
who knows nothing of Homer must imagine to himself a
king like the Homeric Agamemnon, a warlike lord with
army and fleet, who maintained relations with Asia and
her wealth of gold and arts, the eminent power and the
extraordinary wealth of whose royal house enabled him
not only to give a fixed unity to his own country, but also
to subject lesser princes to his supreme sovereignty. Sin



CHAP. IV.]  Migrations and Settlements.        159
gle myths and legends are, it is true, occasioned by architectural structures of doubtful meaning: they grow up
like moss on the ruins; but not in this way can epic
poems originate, abounding with figures as manifold and
full of character as the Homeric. Nor can it be deemed
a mere chance that such monuments, which could only
have been built in the Heroic times, should be found in
the very cities and districts which are surrounded by the
halo of the Homeric poetry. Wealthy Orchomenus we
recognize in the remains of the same building which the
later Greeks reckoned one of the wonders of the world
under the name of the "Treasury of Minyas."  Similarly
in the territory of the dominion of the At.ridoe, on the
Eurotas as well as on the Inachus, occur royal palaces of
a perfectly homogeneous style. The fact that such monuments were not to be found in every spot where Homeric
princes dwelt, and that so brilliant a life was not led in
the whole of Ilellas, is manifest from the astonishment of
Telemachus, when in the palace of Menelaus his eye fell
upon a splendor and pomp to which he was unaccustomed.
The same monuments which stand as faith- Origin of the
ful witnesses by the side of the Homeric poe- Pelopida.
try, however, also warn us against being deceived by the
poet, and regarding the times of which they are testimonies as a brief period of exceptional brilliancy, which is
exhausted by a few names, such as Agamemnon and
Menelaus. The unmistakable difference between the different Cyclopean styles of mural architecture between the
ruder at Tiryns and the perfected at Mycense, leave no
doubt as to the fact that between the two intervene entire
periods, and that long intervals of time must be assumed
which only appear' closely packed together on account of
the distance at which we view them. It is remarkable
that the Pelopidse have no kind of connection with the
myths relating to the foundation of Argos, Tiryns, My



160               History of Greece.        [BooK I.
cense, and Midea; none but descendants of Perseus are
mentioned in connection with Lycia as the founders of
these mountain-fastnesses. On the other hand, the royal
sepulchres and the treasury-vaults belonging to them are
connected with the memory of the Pelopidse, a connection
confirmed by the origin of this house. For Lydia is the
land which is the home of structures of vast sepulchral
tumuli with chambers walled into them; at the Sipylus,
where Tantalus dwelt, occur subterraneous buildings of
the same kind as that of Mycense, and this is the same
country where the Greeks first became acquainted with
gold and its splendor and power. Pluto (abundance of
gold) was the name given to the first ancestress of the Pelopidse: and Mycense, "abounding in gold," owed her
wealth, her greatness, and her splendor, as well as the
curse of calamity, to the gold which the Pelopidae had
brought into the land.
Aristotle already was occupied with the question as to
how the power of the princes of the Homeric times arose,
and how one house gained so exclusive a position above
all the rest of the population. The first kings,
The political condi- such is his opinion, were benefactors of their
tion of the contemporaries, founders of the arts of peace
and war, who united the people in common settlements. How then were individuals able to confer such
benefits, by which they raised the whole popular development to a higher footing? Surely only because they possessed themselves the resources of a civilization foreign to
the land, i. e. because they belonged to tribes akin to the
European Greeks, but which had advanced to an earlier
development in their own settlements. Such men were
enabled to unite into states the tribes living in a loose
mutual connection in the surrounding districts, and to
found a Homeric Basileia, which is at the same time the
head and the foundation of the political life. Such
strangers, whose home and origin lay in an unknown dis



CHAP. IV.]    Migrations and Settlments.       161
tance, might be accounted sons of the gods, an honor
which natives could scarcely have received from their
countrymen; nor would so ambitious a people as the
Greeks have derived the most glorious royal houses of
their early ages from Lydia except on the ground of a
fixed tradition. But not all the kings were Pelopidae;
not all confronted their subjects as so pre-eminent a house
— so pre-eminent by its descent, resources, and fulness of
power. In the Cephallenian country there is no trace of
such a difference, and the nobles on Ithaca may venture
to regard Odysseus as a man like themselves. Nor can
we refuse to peceive that even the mightiest warrior-kings
of the Homeric world are no arbitrarily ruling despots.
From the very first the Greeks manifest a decided abhorrence of everything unmeasured and unconditioned.
Even of the king of gods they could not conceive, except
as subjects to a higher sacred system; and thus the power
of the king is also limited by legal statutes and acknowledged customs. True, by virtue of his rights of sovereignty he is also the supreme judge of the people, as the
father is in his family; but he dares not administer this
responsible office by himself. He chooses his assessors out
of the noble families of the people, called on account of
their dignity the aged, or gerontes; and within the defined
limits of the circle consecrated by altars and sacrifices, the
judges sit around to point out to the people the law, and
to settle it anew wherever it has fallen into confusion.
Only where human life is in question the family has not
renounced its rights; blood cries out for blood according
to the ancient statute of Rhadamanthys, and none but the
avenger whom ties of kindred bid to do the deed has the
right of shedding blood. But even in this instance,
where the political system as yet remains unfinished,
everything is fixed by certain rules; and however arrogant in other respects may be the bearing of those whose
hands are strong, scarcely a single instance occurs of stiff



162              History of Greece.           [BooK L
necked resistance against the demands of sacred Law.
Even the mightiest flees the land when he has slain one
of the lowest; and accordingly fugitive wanderings and
banishments form the centre of so many stories and complications of the early ages. He who has quitted his
tribe enters a totally different world, and no legal statutes
reach over from one state into the other.
Nationalcha-  In general, however, as to culture and
raoter.    manners, there prevails a remarkable symmetry in the Homeric world. There are few distinctions in
the characters of the tribes dwelling opposite one another
on either side of the JEgean and forming the Greek world
proper. On both sides prevail the same religion, language, and manners; Trojans and Greeks meet one another like fellow-countrymen, and if there is any difference recognizable between the two sides of the sea, it consists in the advantage of a higher culture and more fullydeveloped civilization being not explicitly, but in most expressive features, conceded to those of the Eastern shore.
Among the Achaean princes a wild and selfish passion
never ceases to work against their common ends; for the
sake of the possession of a female slave the leader of all
the hosts places in jeopardy the success of the whole undertaking. Notwithstanding all its moral loftiness, there
is something savage about the character of Achilles; the
unrestrained vigor of nature meets us in the two Ajaces;
the deeds of Odysseus will not admit of being measured
by the standard of chivalrous honor, and Nestor's only
right to the title of a wise man is that of age. On the
other hand, Priam and his princes are described in a manner constraining us to love them for their faithful life-incommon, for their fear of the gods, their heroic patriotism,
and the refinement of their manners; only in the character of Paris are already to be. recognized the traits of
Asiatic effeminacy as it developed itself in Ionia.




CHAP. IV.]     Migrations and Settlements.       163
As with the human beings, so with the Characterof
gods. Of none of the gods can it be shown the gods.
that they were exclusively venerated in one of the two
camps. But they belong chiefly to the one or the other
side. The cause of the Achleans is asserted by Hero.
Her home was at Argos, where, not far from Mycenae, the
ruins of her sanctuary, built in the form of a castle, are
recognizable to this day. It was she above all the rest,
who lit up the conflict between the two shores, and in the
face of all difficulties succeeded at last in assembling the
naval armament. Notwithstanding her lofty rank, she is
a spiteful and intriguing woman, ruled by impure passions. Although endowed with the highest honors, Apollo
never shows a vestige of opposition against the will of
Zeus, with whom he is spiritually one, the prototype of
free obedience and lofty sentiment: in his purity he shines
out among the gods, as Hector stands out among men;
and both. together testify to the higher degree of spiritual
development already attained to by the states and tribes
of the Eastern side when the conflict with the West broke
out.
At the time when the features of the Heroic world
of gods and men were collected in song and united into
one great picture, this world had long passed away and
other conditions of life usurped its place, signs of a change
both in their original home, which the inthetimes:
descendants of the Homeric heroes had been forced to
cede to the northern mountaineers, and in the newlygained seats, where, in consequence of the universal revolutions and migrations, the inheritors of Achaean royal
power could not again obtain such a position as their ancestors had occupied at home. And if, notwithstanding
this, the picture of the Homeric world possesses an inner
harmony sufficient to deprive the influence of this contrast
of its natural effects, the cause must be sought in the high
endowment of the tribes which knew how to retain and




164               History of Greece.          [BooK I.
express in forms the reminiscences of their past. They
possessed in an eminent degree the privilege proper to
poetic natures, of forgetting the mysterious troubles of the
present in an idealizing view of the past, without allowing their enjoyment of the latter to be marred by any dissonance.
At the same time a certain melancholy pervades the
Homeric poems, a painful consciousness of the degeneracy of the present world and of the inferiority of "men
as they are now" when compared with the generations
preceding them. But this general sentiment is not left
standing by itself. Involuntarily features of the present
penetrate the picture of the past, and prove that the relations of life forming the essential characteristics of the
Heroic period no longer prevailed during the lifetime of
the singer.
As to the royal  The royal power is the centre of the
power;       world, and in the field its authority was necessarily heightened and unconditional. But the Homeric
Agamemnon fails to correspond to the type of Heroic
royal grandeur as it meets us in the monuments of
Mycenae and impresses itself upon us by the tradition of
the celestial descent and godlike rule of the ancient monarchs. In the camp before Troja we find a prince involved in innumerable difficulties, limited in the choice
of his means, devoid of either decision or independence,
between whose will and power lies a vast gap; he lays
claim to more power than he possesses, and has to devise
-all kinds of ways and means in order to obtain the assent
of the rest. It is hard to understand how this Agamemnon, who everywhere meets with resistance and disobedience, was ever able to unite under his standard the varied
hosts. The central power in the Hellenic world has been
shaken: another authority has risen by the side of the
royal, that of the nobility, whose assistance the king can
already no longer spare in the government and in the ad



CHAP. IV.]     Migrations and Settlements.        165
ministration of justice. The very saying which has from
ancient times been quoted to prove the acknowledged
prevalence of the Heroic royal power:
"Ill for the commonweal is the sway of many: let one man
Rule and be king alone; from Zeus he holdeth his office,"
testifies with sufficient clearness to the existence of a
stand-point of political reflection; and shows that men
have already tasted the evils of a many-headed aristocracy, as they appear in their fullest measure on Ithaca.
The priests, especially the soothsayers, s to thepriestly
also oppo  themselves to the royal power; and popular powthemselves constituting another authority  er.
by the grace of God, which is proportionately more obstinatfand dangerous. Finally, agitations are not absent
from the obscure multitude of the people. The marketplace.ich could have no significance as long as the
royal   wer stood uncurtailed, gradually becomes the
centre of public life. Questions of public interest are decided in the market assemblies, which accordinglyo;Iontinue to increase in i  ttance and i   endence; and ii
all decisions of grea.momenta  e       gve   depends o.
gaining the peo |   ie,    the' mi       s only to hear
and obey; but      t:peopl6                ing the debate; already            oice is a>        ch the king
may not with imp           se; an     S      en in the
camp before Troja       ar such meas~      ersites. He
is contemptuously ordered to retire/.ithin. his proper
bounds; but the very fact of his figui"':eing a: caricature,
proves that already the parties in the s'tate. ere fully
aware of their mutual opposition, and that aristocratic
wit was already practised in scourging with its derision
the speakers of the multitude; and we feel Fiat such occurrences:will soon find more fortunate imitations. On
Ithaca thle'people is even made to take part -in th:e- action
itself: Mentor endeavors to influence it in a dynastic




166                History of Greece.          [BooK I.
sense; he goes so far as to remind the people of the
strength inherent in numbers:
"But'tis the rest of the people I blame; who sit in a body
Silent all: and none of ye dares with stern resolution,
None of ye many the few to compel, the arrogant suitors."
True, a few words on the part of the suitors suffice to
scatter immediately the gathering crowd; but the parties
are in existence, the one completely developed, before
which the royal power has already fallen, the other
arising in the background and summoned by the royal
power itself in self-defence.
Ionic characteris-  Thus, notwithstanding the epic calm
tics of the epos.  which Ionic poetry knew how tospread
over the whole of this picture of the world, we, ficd this
world full of inner contradictions; everything is in a state
of fermentation, the ancient conditions of life i: dissolution, and new powers, which found no place in te earlier
social systems, in full development.  Herein we recognize
the phenomena of the period in which the poems were
finally complet    Among thTehseans in their new
seats the co'iarrior-  ility-,rose against the
royal power,           Ionian          egal the life of
the market- iich th                     t learned to assert itself,        cccasioned   r      a     change in the
social co          ife. That ^      aditions of the Heroic times -  ei their last fo':~:ng an Ionian population is principally manifest from those features of the
poems which show    the importance attached to public
opinion, and the power belonging to persuasive speech.
To the Ionians again are principally due all references to
trade and navigation; and the intercourse which their
newly-founded towns opened with every coast, and extended over the inner waters of the Archipelago to Cyprus, Egypt, and Italy, was naively transposed into the
conditions of the Heroic world. This new Ionic charac



CHAP. IV.]  IMigrations and Settlements.         167
ter the Odyssey bears in a much higher degree than the
Iliad; for whilst the latter is founded on manifold materials of historic tradition, such as had especially been preserved in the Achlean royal families, in the songs of
Odysseus Ionic fancy, with infinitely greater fieedom,
interwove the most varied sailors' fables and adventures
of the sea.
Commercial intercourse still remains essentially one of
barter; and in point of fact retained this character for a
very long time in the iEgean on account of the extraordinary variety of its produce. At an early season, however,
a tendency made its appearance towards the employment,
as standards, of such objects as possess a constant, easily
determinable, and generally recognized value.  Originally, flocks and herds form the wealth of the different
families; accordingly, oxen and sheep are especially used
both for gifts and dowries, and also for the ransom of prisoners and the purchase of slaves: one suit of armor is
valued at nine oxen, the other at a hundred. Intercourse
by sea necessarily demanded a more convenient standard
of value, and this was found in metals. Copper and iron
were themselves essentially articles of trade, and in proportion as the importance of the former for manufacturing
industry was superior, vessels hastened to cross from Hellas, so poor in veins of copper, to the western coasts, to
bring home in exchange for copper glittering iron. The
precious metals also already enjoy universal esteem in
Homer. Gold is the most precious possession of man.
Friend betrays friend, and wife husband, for ornaments
of gold; and the king's treasures of gold are so greatly
insisted upon, only because gold was a power in the land,
because for gold everything was to be obtained. It was
the Ionians who introduced gold into the mutual intercourse of Greeks; and the admiration of its splendor and
charm, with which the Homeric poems abound, is to be
principally ascribed to the Ionic view  of the matter.




168               History of Greece.          [BooK I,
Pieces of gold were carefully weighed in the scales to settle the value of a particular amount; and it is plain, from
the above-mentioned valuation of the suits of armor, that
a fixed proportion existed between gold and copper, viz.
100: 9.
Ionic notions  To this Ionic method of dealing with the
of the gods.  Heroic myths must in conclusion be ascribed
the bold treatment of the gods and of religion. With the
exception of Apollo, the god of the old Ionic race, all the
gods are treated with a kind of irony; Olympus becomes
the type of the world with all its infirmities. The more
serious tendencies of human consciousness are less prominent; whatever might disturb the comfortable enjoyment
of the listeners is kept at a distance; the Homeric gods
spoil no man's full enjoyment of the desires of his senses.
Already Plato recognized Ionic life, with all its charms
and all its evils and infirmities, in the epos of Homer;
and we should wrong the Greeks who lived before Homer.ifvwe judged of their moral and religious condition by the
fivolity of the Ionic singer, if we would deny the people
to have possessed what Homer omits to mention, e. g. the
idea of the pollution incurred by the shedding of the
blood of a fellow-citizen, and of the expiation it demands.
Thus then Homer presents no pure or perfect picture
of the times to which his Heroes belong. As a compensation for this, his testimony reaches far beyond those
times. He shows the downfall of the old and the transition into the new state of things; he also implicitly testifies to the migrations of the northern tribes and to the
wholi series of events occasioned by them. For, after all,
it W~'the movements of population in distant Epirus, the
conquests of the Thessalians, Boeotians, and Dorians
whidh provoked, in an uninterrupted succession, the emigration of the coast tribes and the settlements in Asia
Mlinor, wheren lay the materials of the Homeric epos,
and the reasoi of its development in Ionia.




CHAP. IV.]   Migrations and Settlements.        169
When the circle of Trojan myths presented chronology
itself fully completed in the Homeric epos, of the Epos.
men were not content with obtaining from it a general
view of the world designated the Heroic age as of one
endowed with higher powers and swayed by the sons of
the gods, but endeavored to make the epos, in its single
features, serve as a documentary representation of the
early ages. Thus the Heroes of song were regarded as
historic kings, and the deeds of the Achaean conquerors
poetically ascribed to their ancestors as historic actualities; and the mirrored picture of poetry assumed a fixed
position as history. Thus arose the tradition of a double
departure from Aulis, of a double conquest of the Trojan
land, of two wars with the same events and carried on by
the same tribes and families. And since the first, as a
torn-off' fragment of heroic mythology, remained, as it
were, suspended in the air, the mythical materials naturally had to be spun out, in order to provide it with a
beginning and an end. The heroes of the first war had
to be made to return to Argos, because it was known, on
good authority, that the descendants of Agamemnon had
reigned at Mycenae up to the Dorian migration. Thus
the struggle of the expelled Achmeans for a new home was
converted into a war undertaken by princes at the height
of their power, into a military expedition of ten years'
duration; while the migration which had occasioned the
whole movement of population had to be fitted in between
the first and second war. It is a remarkable testimony to
the power of song among the people of the Hellenes, that
the poetical Trojan war completely obscured the actual,
and that the struggle which has no foundation or basis
beyond that of the Homeric poems, became the fixed
point from which the Greeks, in good faith, commenced
their entire chronology.
Accordingly, they dated the fall of Ilium as the year 1;
the Thessalian immigration, 50; the immigration of the
8




170              History of Greece.         [Bo0Ko:I.
Ameans into Bceotia, 60; the expedition of the Bceotians
and Dorians, 80; the ZEolo-Achean occupation of the
Troad, 130; the foundation of New-Ionia, 140, after the
fall of Troja.
In Lesbos, where Achean families of Hoof the thro- meric fame endured longest, and in the Ioninology ofthe an seaports, where an acquaintance with the
Heroic age. antiquity of other nations called forth a tendency towards applying an historical method to the prehistoric ages of the inhabitants' ancestors, the first attempts of fhe kind were made of introducing a chronological order into the traditions of the Homeric period. This
forms part of the wide-spreading activity of the Logographi, the earliest cultivators of history as a science.
Their wish was to introduce a connection into their
national traditions after the example of the histories of
Oriental empires; and accordingly they calculated the
pedigrees of the more considerable houses, and endeavored
to fill up the gap lying in the middle between the two
great periods of time, the ante-Dorian and the postDorian.
After attempting, in the first instance, to group single
events according to generations.of men, farther steps were
taken, as the science pressed on farther and farther in the
direction of systematic learning.  This was principally
effected at Alexandria. Through Erastothenes, the chronological calculation, dating the fall of Troja 407 years
before the first Olympiad, attained to a wide-spread adoption. Before the Trojan expedition (1194-1184) were
next inserted those national reminiscences of which a
resonance remained in more ancient songs, the double
siege of Thebes and the voyage of the Argonauts. Thus
with the earliest dates of Greek history in Europe the
middle of the thirteenth century before our era was
reached.'Finally, the immigrants from the East, Cadmus, Cecrops, Danaus and Pelops, were placed as the




CHAP. IV.]   Migrations and  ettlements.       171
originators of all Greek national history at the apex of
the whole system. And this notion was justified by the
true consciousness that the real beginnings of Hellenic
civilization were to be sought for on the eastern side of
the Archipelago, where as early as in the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries we may assume the existence of Greek
tribes participating in the general maritime intercourse
of the nations of the world.








BOOK THE SECOND.
FROM THE DORIAN MIGRATION TO THE PERSIAN
WARS.








CHAPTER I.
HISTORY OF PELOPONNESUS.
WITH the wandering of the Dorians the strength of
the highland tribes came forth from the North to assert
its claim to take part in the national history. They had
been outstripped by centuries by the tribes of the coasts
and islands, but now made their appearance among the
latter with a doubly impressive vigor of healthy nature;
so that the changes and new formations arising from their
expeditions of conquest endured through the whole course
of Greek history. And for this reason the ancient historical writers begun the historic times in contradistinction to the Heroic pre-historic age with the first deeds of
the Dorians.
But this fact does not help us to any ampler
supply of information with regard to the deeds ledge as to
in question. On the contrary, the old sources the Dorian
dry up at the appearance of this epoch without mgton
new sources opening in their stead. Homer has nothing
to say as to the march of the Heraclidae. The Achsean
emigrants were totally absorbed in the memory of the
past, and cherished it, faithfully deposited in song, on the
farther side of the sea. For those who remained behind,
and had to submit to foreign institutions and a rule of
force, it was not a time for song. The Dorians themselves were ever niggards of tradition; it was not their
fashion to expend many words on their deeds; nor had
they the lofty enthusiasm of the Achaean tribe, still less
were they able, after the manner of the Ionians, to spil
175




176               History of Greece.         tBooK II.
out their experiences with easy breadth of narrative.
Their wishes and powers turned towards practical life,
towards the performance of fixed tasks, towards serious
and purposed action. Thus then the great events of the
Dorian migration were left to accidental tradition, of
which all but a few meagre traces are lost; and therefore
the whole sum of our knowledge as to the conquest of
the peninsula is equally scanty as to names and as to
events. For not till a late period, when the popular epos
had long died out, was an attempt made to restore the
beginnings of Peloponnesian history also. But these later
poets no longer found any fresh and living current of
tradition, nor were they animated by the pure and naive
delight in the pictures of the past which forms the vital
breath of the Homeric poetry; but they were rather consciously desirous of filling up a gap in tradition and reuniting the broken threads between the Achvean and
Dorian periods. They endeavored to connect the myths
of various localities, to supply the missing links, and to
reconcile contradictions. Thus arose a history of the
march of the Heraclidse, in which the gradual accretions
of centuries were compressed in pragmatic brevity.
Dorization of  The Dorians crossed, in repeated expediPeloponnesus. tions, with wife and child, from the mainland, and extended themselves by degrees. But wherever
they settled, they occasioned a thorough transformation
in the state of society. They brought with them their
systems of domestic and civil economy; adhered, with
obstinate rigor, to their peculiarities of language and
manners; in proud reserve kept apart from the rest of
the Greeks; and instead of, like the Ionians, losing themselves among the older population they found in their
new homes, impressed upon the latter the character of
their own race. The peninsula became Dorian.
This Dorization, however, was carried out in very different ways; nor was it effected from one, but from three




CaAP. I.]     vidtory of Peloyonneu s.          177
main centres. This has been expressed in Pelo- The Herponnesian mythology by assuming three bro- clids and
thers to have existed belonging to the race of their lots.
Heracles, the ancient legitimate hereditary lord of Argos,
who represented the claims of their ancestor-viz. Temenus, Aristodemus, and Cresphontes. They sacrifice in
common on the three altars of Zeus Patrous, and cast
lots amongst one another for dominion in the various
parts of the land. Argos was the lot of honor, which
fell to Temenus; Lacedaemon, the second, was the share
of the children of Aristodemus, both under age; whereas
fair Messenia, by a crafty trick, became the possession of
the third brother.
This story of the Heraclida and their lots arose in
Peloponnesus, after the states in question had long developed their individualities; and contains an account of
the origin of the three primitive places, and a mythical
legitimation of the rights of the Heraclids to Peloponnesus, and of the new political order of things, removed
into the Heroic ages. The historical germ contained in
the myth is the fact, that the Dorians from the first maintained, not the interests of their own tribe, but those of
their dukes, who were not Dorians, but Achaeans: accordingly the god under whose authority the territorial division takes place is no other than the ancient family
divinity of the.AEacide. A farther fact lying at the
foundation of the myth is this, that the Dorians, with an
eye to the three principal plains of the peninsula, soon
after their immigration divided into three principal
bands. Each had its Heraclidae as popular leaders; each
in itself its three tribes of Hylleans, Dymanes, and Pamphyli. Each division of the host was a type of the entire
people.' Accordingly, in the progress of Peloponnesian
history, everything depended on the manner in which the
different divisions settled in their new seats, on the degree
in which, notwithstanding the foreign origin of the
8*




178               History of Greece.         [Boox It.
leaders to whose service they devoted their powers and
the surrounding influences of the earlier inhabitants, they
remained true to themselves and the native manners of
their race, and on the consequent development of political and social life in both directions.
Foundation of  The new states were partly also new terMcssenia.   ritories; above all, Messenia: for in the
Homeric Peloponnesus there exists no district of that
name; but the eastern portion, where the waters of the
Pamisus connect an upper and lower plain with one
another, forms part of the dominion of Menelaus, and the
western half belongs to the empire of the Neleidse, the
centre of which lay on the coast. The Dorians arrived
from the north in the upper of these two plains, and settled here in Stenyclarus. From this position they spread
farther and farther, and urged the Thessalian Neleidve to
move towards the sea. The lofty, insulated sea-citadel of
Old-Navarino seems to have been the last point on the
coast where the latter maintained themselves, till, finally,
pressed closer and closer, they left the land by the sea.
The inland plain of Stenyclarus now became the centre
of the newly-formed district, which for this reason might
properly receive the name of Messene-i. e., the land in
the middle or interior.
The Dorians  With the exception of this important transoccupy Mes- formation, the change was carried out in a
Sonia.
nla.    more peaceable manner than at most of the
remaining points. At all events the native myths are
silent as to any conquest by force. The Dorians are to
receive a certain portion of arable and pasture land, the
rest is to remain in the undisputed possession of the inhabitants. The victorious immigrants even forbore to
claim a distinct and privileged position; the new princes
of the land were not in the least regarded as foreign conquerors, but as kinsmen of the ancient lEolic kings, and
on account of the popular dislike of the rule of the Pelo



CHAP. I.]     History of Peloponneeus.         179
pidse, were received with sympathy by the nation. In
perfect confidence they and their followers settled m the
midst of the Messenians, and evidently pursued no object
beyond a peaceable amalgamation into one body under
their rule of the new and old inhabitants. But the new
state of affairs failed to continue to develop itself with
equal tranquillity. The Dorians thought themselves betrayed by their leaders. By a Dorian counter-movement
Cresphontes found himself forced to overthrow again the
first order of things, to abolish the equality of rights, to
unite the whole body of the Dorians as a separate community in Stenyclarus, and to make the latter place the
capital of the country, so that the rest of Messene was
constituted a subject territory. The disturbances continue. Cresphontes himself falls as the victim of a
sanguinary sedition; his family is overthrown, and no
house of Cresphontids follows. The next king is JEpytus. He is al Arcadian by name and race, brought up
in Arcadia, and thence invading Messenia, which was in
a state of dissolution. He introduces a more definite
system and tendency into the national life, and accordingly the princes of the land are now called iEpytidse
after him. But the whole tendency pursued from this
time by the history of the land becomes Non-Dorian and
pacific. The 2Epytidse, instead of military sovereigns,
are the regulators of festivals and establishers of forms
of divine worship. And these latter are not those of the
Dorians, but decidedly Non-Dorian and Old-Peloponnesian-e. g., those of Demeter, Asclepius, and the Asclepiadse. The principal rite of the land was a mysteryworship, foreign to the Dorian race, of the so-called
"great divinities;" and on Ithome, the citadel of the
land, loftily rising up between the two plains, the Pelasgian Zeus held sway, whose worship was looked upon as
the distinctive mark of the Messenian people.
-Notwithstanding the scantiness of the remaining frag



180               History of Greece.       [Boos IL
ments of Messenian national history, there is no doubt but
that a few very important facts lie at the foundation of it.
In this Dorian establishment there prevailed from the
first a remarkable want of security, a deep division between leader and people, the origin of which is to be
sought in the king's attaching himself to the ancient and
pre-Achaean population. He failed to found a dynasty,
for only later myths, which in this as in all other cases
of Greek pedigrees endeavored to hide the occurrence of
violent interruptions, have made out of JEpytus a son of
Cresphontes. The Dorian warriors, on the other hand,
must have been so greatly weakened by their constant
fighting, that they were unable to pervade the people with
the peculiarities of their race; for in the main the Dorization of Messenia failed, and thus were determined the
leading features of its national history. Though the country was amply supplied by nature with her resources, with
two of the fairest river-plains in addition to a coast-country abounding in harbors and extending along two seas,
yet from the beginning its political development was
not the less unfavorable. Here no thorough renovation,
no vigorous Hellenic regeneration of the country, took
place.
And Lconia.  Totally different was the success attending
And Laconia.
upon a second body of Dorian warriors who
entered the valley of the Eurotas, which out of a narrow
gorge gradually widens into the fertile plain of corn-fields
at the base of Taygetus-" hollow.Lacedremon." There is
scarcely any district of Greece in which, as decisively as
here, a plain constitutes the centre-piece of the whole.
Deeply imbedded between rude mountains, and separated
from the surrounding country by high passes, it unites in
itself all the means of an easy prosperity. Here, on the
hillocks by the Eurotas above Amyclse, the Dorians
pitched their camp, which subsequently grew into Sparta,
the youngest city of the plain.




CHAP. I.]       History of Peloponnesus.         181
Since Sparta and Amyclse simultaneously existed for
centuries as a Dorian and an Achaean city, it is manifest
that no uninterrupted state of hostilities lasted during this
period. Accordingly here, no more than in Messenia, can
a thorough occupation of the whole district have taken
place; but here, as well as there, treaties must have regulated the relations between the old and new inhabitants.
Iere too the Dorians were scattered in various places, and
intermixed in them with a ibreign population.
The centre of the third state was the plain of Dorians in
the Inachus, the lot, as it was held, of the first- Argolis.
born of the Heraclidse. For the fame of the royal power
of the Atridse, principally adhering to Mycenae, was transmitted to the state founded on the ruins of the Mycenoean
empire. The germ of Dorian Argos lay on the coast,
where, between the mouth of the Inachus, choked up with
sand, and that of the Erasinus, full of water, a more solid
terrace of land rises out of the morass. Here was the
camping-ground of the Dorians, and here were their sanctuaries; here their leader Temenus had found his death
and grave before he had seen his people securely possessed
of the upper plain; and after him this coast-place retained
the name of Temenium. Its situation proves that the
fastnesses and passes of the interior were held with vigorous obstinacy by the Achseans, so that the Dorians were
long forced to be content with a place extremely unfavorable as to position. For the entire tract of the coast only
gradually became habitable, and its morasses, according
to Aristotle, were one of the main causes why the site of
the royal city of the Pelopidoe receded so far into the
background of the upper plain. Now as the Dorian
power advanced, the high rocky citadel of Larissa became
the political, as well as the geographical centre of the district; and Pelasgian Argos at its base, once the most ancient place of meeting for the population, again became
the capital. It became the seat of the ruling generations




182             History of Gh'eece.        [BooK II.
of the house of Temenus, and the starting-point for farther
extensions of their dominion.
This extension did not however in this, any more than
in the former instance, take place in the form of a complete conquest and annihilation of the previous settlements, but was effected by the sending out of Dorian communities which settled at important points between the
Ionian and Achaean populations. And these operations
again were carried out in different ways, not always by
the same application of simple force, and in a direction
radiating doubly, on the one side, towards the Corinthian,
and on the other towards the Saronic gulf. Low passes
lead from Argos into the valley of the Asopus. Into the
upper valley, where Old-Ionic Phlius flourished under the
blessing of Dionysus, Rhegnidas the Temenide led across
Dorian bands, while Phalces conducted others into the
lower valley, at the outlet of which, on a fine table-land,
lay Sicyon, the primitive capital of the coast-land of iEgialea. At both points a peaceable division of territory was
said to have taken place, as also in the neighboring city
of the Phliasians, Cleonie. Of course, no one will be ready
to imagine, that in these narrow and densely-peopled districts land without masters was at hand to satisfy the hungry strangers, or that the old proprietors willingly gave
up their hereditary possessions; but the meaning of the
tradition is this, that the immigration only forced single
wealthy families to quit, while the rest of the population
remained as before, and was spared a political revolution.
The impulse towards emigration which had seized upon
the Ionian families in the entire north of the peninsula
facilitated the change in the state of the country. They
were driven to wander forth by a mysterious feeling, that
they were destined to find fairer habitations and a more
prosperous future beyond the seas. Thus Hippasus, the
ancestor of Pythagoras, deserted the narrow valley of
Phlius, to find with his family a new home on Samos.




CHAP. I.]     History of Peloponnesus.           183
By this means good arable land became vacant in all the
coast-districts, which the governments of the smaller
states, either retaining their authority or assuming that of
the emigrants, could transfer, partitioned out into hides,
to the members of the Dorian warrior-tribe. For it was
no object of the latter to overthrow the ancient political
systems and assert the rule of new political principles; but
they merely desired sufficient territorial possessions for
themselves and their families, and, in connection therewith, the full honors and rights of citizens. Accordingly,
homogeneous forms of worship of gods and heroes were
employed as means towards opening a peaceful intercourse. Thus it is expressly related by Sicyon, how from
the earliest ages Heraclidse had held sway there; for
which reason Phalces, when he entered with his Dorians,
left the family ruling there in full possession of its dignity
and authority, and came to an arrangement with it by
means of an amicable treaty.
Two divisions under Deiphontes and Agmeus The Dorian
marched towards the coast of the Saronic gulf Hcxapolis.
and Dorized Epidaurus, and Trcezene; from Epidaurus they continued their march to the isthmus, where
in the strong and important city of Corinth, a fastness which was the key of the whole peninsula, the
series of the settlements of the Temenidwe terminated.
Beyond a doubt these settlements form the most brilliant episode of the Dorian expeditions in Peloponnesus. By the energy of the Dorians and their leaders
of the house of Heracles, who must have combined in exceptionally large numbers for these undertakings, all the
parts of the much-subdivided district had been successfully occupied; and the new Argos, extending from the
island of Cythera to the Attic frontier, was far superior
in power to the more modest settlements on the Pamisus
and Eurotas. Though the leaders had not everywhere
founded new states, yet by receiving a body of Doria pop



184               History of Greece.       [BooK II.
ulation, which now formed the armed and stronger portion of the inhabitants, all had acquired a homogeneous
character. This transformation had taken its origin from
Argos; and accordingly all these settlements stood in a
filial relation to the mother-city, so that we may regard
Argos, Phlius, Sicyon, Trcezene, Epidaurus and Corinth
as a Dorian hexapolis, forming a federative state just as
in Caria. Nor was this by any means a novel institution.
In the time of the Achseans Mycenae and its Herseum
had been the centre of the land; in the Heroeum Agamemnon's vassals had sworn the oath of homage to him.
Therefore, also was the goddess Here said to have preceded the Temenidwe on their march to Sicyon, when she
desired to connect by a new bond of union the cities
which had fallen away from one another. Thus in this
case also the new formation closely followed ancient tradition. Now, however, the worship of Apollo became
the centre of the federation, a worship found extant at
Argos by the Doriane, and newly established by them, as
that of the Delphic or Pythian god under whose influence they had grown into a people of mighty deeds, under
whose protection they had hitherto been guided. The
cities despatched their annual sacrificial gifts to the temple of Apollo Pytheus, at the foot of the Larisa in Argos,
while the metropolis combined with the administration of
the sanctuary the rights of a federal capital.
Meanwhile the greatness of Argos and the splendor of
its new settlements constituted a dangerous advantage.
For the spread of power involved its dispersion, and this
was greatly hurried on by the natural condition of the
Argive district, the most manifoldly sub-divided of all the
districts of Peloponnesus.
Mutual relations  In reference to the internal relations also
of the tribes.  of the single states, there prevailed a great
variety, according to the mutual relations of the old and
new inhabitants. For where the force of arms decided




CHAP. I.]    History of Peloponnesus.          185
the day for the Dorians, there the ancient inhabitants
were driven out of their rights and possessions; there an
Achseo-Dorian state was formed, of which none were citizens but those belonging to the three Dorian tribes. But
in general it befell otherwise; especially where an ancient
prosperity existed, founded on agriculture, manufacturing
industry and trade, as in Phlius and Sicyon, the population could not be entirely, at all events not permanently,
oppressed and put aside. It remained no nameless and
insignificant multitude, but was recognized, though with
unequal rights, by the side of the three Dorian tribes as a
tribe by itself, or distributed into several tribes. Everywhere then, where more than three tribes exist, where
besides the Hylleans, Dymanes, and Pamphyli, we hear
of Hyrnethians, as in Argos, or of Chthonophyle (aborigines of the soil), as in Phlius, or of iEgialeans (men
of the shore), as in Sicyon, there we may assume that
the Dorian immigrants failed to keep the ancient population entirely separate from the newly-established community, and accorded to it a certain measure of rights.
However small the latter was, yet it became the germ of
an important progress, and the existence of such additional tribes suffices to indicate a peculiar history belonging to the states in which they occur. These tribes originally dwelt locally, as well as politically, apart. As in
the camp the various parts of the host had their separate
quarters, so the Pamphyli, Dymanes, and Hylleans had
theirs in Argos, which for a long time continued to exist
as such; when the Hyrnethians were admitted into the
city community, they formed a fourth quarter of the city
by the side of the rest. The length of time occupied in
the amalgamation with one another of the different parts
of the population is best seen from the circumstance that
places like Mycense remain undisturbed as Achsean communities. Here, in their ancient homes, the ancient traditions of the period of the Pelopidse lived on; here, year




186              History of Greece.         LBOO K Ir.
after year, the anniversary of the death of Agamemnon
was celebrated with mournful solemnities, and as late as
the time of the Persian wars we find the men of Mycense
and Tiryns, mindful of their ancient Hero-kings, taking
part in the national wars against Asia.
Thus in the south and east of the peninsula three new
states were founded under Dorian influence, Messenia,
Laconia, and Argos, which already in their first foundations as well as in their subsequent tendencies exhibited a
wide divergence.
The western division  On the distant western coast great
of the peninsula.  and important changes simultaneously
occurred. The states known to Homer on the north and
south of the Alpheus were overthrown; JEtolian houses
venerating Oxylus as their ancestor founded new dominions on the territory of the Epeans and Pylians. These
establishments cannot be proved to be in any way connected with the Dorian expeditions; and it is a mere mythological fiction of later times, according to which Oxylus demanded from the Dorians the western land as a
reward in advance for his services. The lateness of the
invention betrays itself by the representation of the new
settlements on the peninsula as a vast undertaking duly
planned; a notion utterly contradicted by historical
events. And when the story goes on to say that the
Dorians were conducted by their crafty leader, not by the
level path along the coast, but straight across Arcadia, in
order that the view of the lands given up to Oxylus might
not fill them with envy, or even cause them to break theiI
word, this myth is merely founded on the fact that the
western coast-land, from the sound by PRhium down to
Navarino, is distinguished by wide-spreading prosperous
corn-fields, such as are not easily to be found elsewhere in
the land of Greece. The best corn-land lies at the base
of the Erymanthus mountains, a broad plain, watered by
the Peneus, surrounded by vine-clad hills, and fronted by




CHIAP..]    History of Peloponnesus.          187
groups of islands. Where the Peneus issues forth from
the Arcadian highlands into the plain by the coast, there
rises on his left bank a considerable height, with an open
view over land, sea, and islands, and therefore in the Middle Ages called Calascope, i. e. Belvedere. This height
was selected as their royal citadel by the.Etolian immigrants, able judges of sites; it became the royal castle of
the Oxylide and their followers, who took the best lands
for themselves. Under the name of Elis, the JEtolian
state extended southwards from here over the whole lowland district, where formerly on the banks of the Alpheus
the Epeans and Pylians had fought out their border feuds
which Nestor was so fond of relating. When the coastempire of the Neleidse, attacked in the South by the Messenian Dorians, and in the North by the Epeans, fell into
decay, Eolian tribes penetrated from the interior of the
peninsula, Minyi who after being driven out from the
Taygetus, occupied the mountains projecting farthest
from Arcadia towards the Sicilian sea. Here they settled
in six fortified towns, connected by the common worship
of Posidon, of which Macistus and Lepreus were the most
considerable. Thus between Alpheus and Neda, in the
land called subsequently after the invasion of the Eleans,
Triphylia, or the land of the three tribes, a new Minyan
state formed itself. Finally in the valley of the Alpheus
also was planted the germ of a new state, by means of a
union between scattered families of the Achseans under
Agorius of Helice and LEtolian families, who here founded
together the state of Pisa. Thus a part of the west-coast
became, like the north-coast, a refuge of the older tribes,
driven out from the principal plains of the peninsula; and
thus the whole coast-land had by degrees received new inhabitants and new divisions. Only the centre of the peninsula had undergone no essential disturbance of its
previous condition.
Arcadia the ancients regarded as a pre-eminently Pc



188               History of Greece.         [BoOK II.
lasgian country; here, as they thought, the autochthonic
condition of the primitive inhabitants had preserved itself
longest, and had been least disturbed by the intrusion of
foreign elements. However, the native myths themselves
clearly point to the various immigrations having taken
place here as well as elsewhere, which interrupted the
monotonous conditions of Pelasgian life, and occasioned
an intermixture of tribes of different manners and origin.
Nor is there even in this instance any possibility of mistaking the occurrence of an epoch with which, as in all
districts of Greece, the movement of history commenced.
After Pelasgus and his sons,Areas, as the common ancestor of the Arcadians, opens a new epoch in the pre-historic age of the country. But Arcadians occur in Phrygia and Bithynia, as well as on Crete and Cyprus, and a
multiplicity of mutual relations proves that from the
islands and coasts of the eastern sea colonists ascended
into the highlands of Peloponnesus, to settle there in fertile valleys.  The Cretan legends of Zeus recur most
accurately on the Arcadian Lycseon; Tegea and Gortys
are Cretan as well as Arcadian towns, and their forms of
religious worship harmonize. Arcadians were known as
navigators in the western as well as the eastern sea, and
Nauplius, the Hero of the most ancient Peloponnesian
port, appears as the servant of kings of Tegea, to whose
house also belong Argonauts, e. g. Ancseus.
In consequence of such immigrations there grew out of
the union of the surrounding districts a group of cities of
considerable importance, above all in the fertile hollow
valleys of the eastern side, whose natural boundaries
induced them to be the first to assume fixed limits as city
districts; among them Pheneus, Stymphalus, Orchomenus, Clitor, and again the cities connected with Tegea:
Mantinea, Alea, Camplylse, and Gortys. In the southwestern division of Arcadia, in the mountain-forests of the
Lycseon and in the valley of the Alpheus, existed also




CHAP. I.]     History of Peloponnesum.         189
primitive citadels, such as Lycosura; but these castles
never became central cities of the districts.  The communities remained dwelling in scattered seats, and were
only loosely connected with one another as members of
one local federation. Thus the whole of Arcadia consisted of a numerous group of urban and rural cantons.
Only the former could attain to any historic significance,
and among them above all Tegea, which, situated in the
most fertile part of the great table-land of the district
country, must from an early period have in a certain
sense occupied the position of capital.  Accordingly a
king of Tegea, Echemus, i. e. the "holder-fast," is said
to have resisted the Dorians on their entrance into the
peninsula. But even the Tegeate never succeeded in giving a character of unity to the land. It is by nature too
varying in form, too manifold in condition and sub-divided into too many and sharply-severed parts by high
mountain-ranges, to have ever been capable of attaining
to a common national history. Only to certain forms of
worship and temple-festivals belonged usages and statutes
common to the entire people; viz. in the northern division the worship of Artemis Hymnia, in the southern that
of Zeus Lycseus, whose summit was from the early Pelasgian ages venerated as the sacred mountain of the whole
Arcadian people.
Such was the state of the district when the Pelopidce
were founding their states; and such it continued when
the Dorians invaded the peninsula. As a rough mountain-country difficult of access and inhabited by a dense
and hardy population, Arcadia offered the tribes, eager
for land, small expectations of easy success, and could not
detain them from their designs on the river-plains of the
southern and eastern districts. According to mythology,
they were granted a free passage through the Arcadian
territory. No change took place, except that the Arcadians continued to be pushed back from the sea, and by




190               History of Greece.        [BooK n.
this means to be secluded from the progress of Hellenic
civilization.
General re-  If then we cast a glance on the peninsula as
suits of the a whole, and on the political constitution
migration. which in consequence of the immigrations it
for all times obtained, we find in the first place the interior remaining undisturbed in its ancient conditions of
life; secondly, three districts, which were immediately
subjected to an essential transformation by the immigrant
tribes; and lastly, the two tracts of coast in the north and
west, left untouched indeed by the Dorians, but which
were partly occupied by new settlements of the older
tribes disturbed by the Dorians, as in the case of Triphylia and Achaja, and partly at all events underwent a
simultaneous transformation, as in the case of Elis.
So manifold were the results of the Dorian immigration. They sufficiently demonstrate, how little question
there is here of a transformation effected by one blow,
like the result of a fortunate campaign. After a long succession of immigrations and re-migrations of the tribes,
the fate of the peninsula was by degrees decided in a
varied series of distinct feuds and mutual treaties. Not
till the weary period of disturbances and ferment, of
which no events remained to preserve the memory, had
sunk into oblivion, could the new formation of the peninsula come to be regarded as a sudden change which had
made the Peloponnesus Dorian.
Dorians and  Even in the three countries principally
Heraclide.  sought and occupied by the Dorians, a Dorization of the population was only very gradually and
veryimperfectly accomplished. How indeed could it have
been otherwise? The hosts of the conquerors themselves
were not all Dorians of pure descent, but mixed with people of every kind of tribes. The leaders again claimed
power and dominion not as Dorians, but as kinsmen of
the Achsean princes of the land. Thus Plato also re



CHAP:I.]    Hittory of Peloponnmsus.          191
garded the expedition of the Heraclidoe as a combination
between Dorians and Achseans which had arisen in the
times of the universal movement of Greek population;
and the lack of an original and natural unity between
leaders and armies is manifest from a number of detached
circumstances. For as soon as the strength of the armies
had gained them a firm footing in the countries, the interests of the Heraclide and those of the Dorians diverged,
and disputes broke out, either endangering or rendering
useless the entire results of the settlements. The dukes
endeavored to obtain an intermixture of the older and
newer inhabitants, in order thereby to gain a broader
basis for their rule and a position of greater independence
towards the influence of the Dorian warriors. Everywhere we find the same phenomena, and most evidently
of all in Messenia. But even in Laconia, the first Heraclidse excite hatred by the admission of strange people,
whom they wish to make the equals of the Dorians; and
in Argolis we see the Heraclide Deiphontes, whose name
is thoroughly Ionic, in union with Hyrnetho, the representative of the original population of the coast-land, and
at the same time called the daughter of Temenus. It is
the same Deiphontes who angers the other Heraclidae and
the Dorians by helping to build up the throne of the
Temenidse in Argos; here again the new royalty is evidently based on the support of the ante-Dorian population. Thus in all three countries of the peninsula, immediately after their occupation, the connection between
Heraclidae and Dorians was dissolved. The first institutions were founded in opposition to the Dorians; and if
the newly-added popular force was to operate as a beneficent fertilizer upon the soil of the land, the art of wise
legislation was needed for reconciling the opposing elements and arranging systematically tie forces which
threatened to consume one another. The first example
was given beyond the limits of the peninsula, on Crete.




192               History of Greece.         [Boor II.
Dorians on  To Crete Dorians crossed in considerable
Crete.   numbers from Argos and Laconia, and though
elsewhere the Dorians were not wont especially to prosper
on islands and sea-coasts, inasmuch as the immediate
vicinity of the sea acted as a disturbing element on the
development of their peculiar life no less than it was for
the Ionians the vital atmosphere necessary to their existence-yet here the results were different. Crete is rather
mainland than island. With the aid of the abundant
gifts of all kinds by which nature has distinguished the
island, the Cretan towns could resist the tendency to disturbances prevalent in all sea-towns, and unfold in greater
tranquillity the new germs of life brought on the island by
the Dorians. Here also they arrived as conquerors; in
armed bands they overcame the islanders, who were held
together by no bond of union. We find Dorian tribes in
Cydonia, which was the nearest place of settlement for'
those crossing from Cythera. Next, Cnosus, and especially Lyctus, whose Dorian inhabitants derived their origin from Laconia, became the chief places of the new settlements.
The Dorians here entered a country, the productive
germs of whose ancient civilization had not utterly died
away. They found primitive cities with constitutions
proved by time and with families experienced in the art
of government. Political administration and religious
worship had here in the greatest possible tranquillity retained their ancient connection, and above all the religion
of Apollo, cherished in ancient priestly families, had unfolded to their full extent its humanizing and spiritualizing influences. The Dorians brought with them nothing
but their arduous valor and the strength of their spears.
As to the establishment of states, the art of government
and legislation, they were as mere children when compared with the noble houses of Crete. They demanded
land, and left others to find out the ways and means of




CHAr. I.]      iistory of Peloponnesus.         13
satisfying their demands; for they had no interest in the
overthrow of ancient constitutions. That the Dorians
were far from founding new states on Crete and beginning
at the beginning is clear, if from nothing else, from the
fact that the states and laws of Doric Crete are in no instance ascribed to a Dorian legislator, that in general no
break or gap is assumed between the Dorian and the
earlier period, but that the old and the new are equally
connected with the name of Minos. Patrician houses, deriving their rights from the early ages of royal government, continue to retain possession of the administration;
from them in the several towns are taken the ten supreme
political rulers, the Cosmi; from them also the senate,
whose members enjoy their irresponsible dignity for life.
These houses were able to maintain themselves even when
the Dorians invaded the land,'They made over to the
immigrants as a free possession a sufficient portion of the
land at the disposal of the state, with the obligation of
military service attached to it and the right of giving in
their adhesion as a community of citizens to all decrees of
importance, especially such as touched on the question of
war and peace. They were assigned their place in the
state as the military class. For this reason the young
Dorians, as soon as they had reached manhood, were submitted to public discipline, arranged in bands, exercised
according to rule in public gymnasia, made hardy by a
severe course of life, and prepared for serious war by military games. Thus, kept apart from all effeminate influences, the military rigor peculiar to the Dorian race was
to be preserved; but even in this matter ancient Cretan
customs were introduced, such as, pre-eminently, the practice of shooting with the bow, originally foreign to the
Dorians. The grown-up youths and men, even when
heads of families, were above all to look upon one another
as companions in arms ready to march out at any moment, like soldiers in a camp. Accordingly they sat toge9




1 94      -       History of Greece.         [BooK II.
ther in bands, just as they served in the army, at the daily
meal of the men; and similarly they slept in common dormitories. The costs were paid by the state out of a common purse, supplied by each man contributing the tithe
of his agricultural produce to the association of which he
was a member, and the association in its turn paying the
whole into the public purse. In return the state undertook the support of the warriors as well as of the women
who kept the house with the servants and children, in
times both of war and of peace. In all this is easily recognizable a mutual relation of the old and new members
of the state, arranged by means of a compact. But in
order that the Dorian military class might entirely devote
itself to its military duties, its members had to be rid of
the task of themselves cultivating their lot of land; otherwise war would have left them poor and unable to pay
their contributions in consequence of their land remaining
neglected, and peace would have detained them from military exercises, and from the chase among the plentiful
game'of the Ida mountains-a pursuit held in equal esteem. Accordingly the occupation of husbandry was entirely left in the hands of the primitive possessors of the
land, the so-called Clarotse, whom the hard law of war
had forced into a subject and politically disfranchised
position. The Dorian proprietors were their lords, and
were entitled to demand from them at fixed terms the produce of their fields; nay, it was their duty to watch the
cultivation of the latter, lest the state might lose part of
its revenues. Otherwise they lived free from care and
reckless of the support of life, and could say, as the proverbial lines of the Cretan Hybrias have it: "Here is
my sword, spear, and shield, my whole treasure; with
these I plough and gather in my harvest: with these I
press my grapes."  Their whole education confined itself
to the art of war and to the acquisition of self-command;
their arts to discipline and subordination-subordination




CnAP.L]      History of Peloponnesu8.         195
of the young to the old, of the soldier to his superior, of
all to the state. A higher and more liberal culture
seemed not only unnecessary, but dangerous. For with
the Greeks culture was power; and as the Mityleneans in
the country-towns of their island abolished the superior
schools, in order to concentrate culture and power in their
capital, so the ruling families of Crete instituted a onesided and restricted training for the Dorian communities,
in order that they might regard themselves as merely a
subsidiary member of the whole political body, and
not be tempted to exceed the limits of their military
calling.
But there remained on the island considerable elements
of the earlier population, which had been left entirely untouched in their condition by the Dorian immigration;
the inhabitants of the mountains and also of the countrytowns, who were dependent on the larger cities of the
island, and according to an ancient custom paid an annual
tribute to the governments of the former; a people of
peasants and herdsmen, handicraftsmen, fishermen and
mariners, who had nothing to do with the state beyond
submitting to its ordinances and peaceably following their
avocations.  Undeniably an  organization of human
society was here called into life, which Plato thought
worthy of taking as a starting point for the institutions of
his Ideal State; for here three classes exist, that of the
rulers of the state endowed with wisdom for looking forward into the future, and circumspectly surveying the
present; again that of the guardians,.in whom the virtue
of courage is to be sought for to the exclusion of a more
liberal development by arts and sciences; and lastly, the
industrial class, the class which feeds the. rest, to which is
accorded. an incomparably ampler measure of arbitrary
license; its only duty being to provide for the physical
support of itself and the entire body. The first and third
class might form the state by themselves alone, in so far




196               History of Greece.         [BooK lI.
as they sufficiently represent the mutual relation between
the rulers and the ruled. Between the two the class of
guardians or defenders is inserted for the purpose of
greater strength and endurance. In this way Crete presented the first instance of a successful attempt to assign a
place to the Dorian race in the more ancient political system; and by this means the island of Minos for the second
time became a starting point of typical importance for the
growth of Hellenic political life.
This second Crete, like the first, we know rather from
the influences originating from it, than in its native condition, as in the case of a heavenly body, the amount of
whose light is measured by the reflection on other bodies.
From Crete sprung a number of men, who partly founded
a peculiar Hellenic phase of plastic art, and spread its
seeds over all the lands of Greece (for the first sculptors
in marble, Dipcenus and Scyllis, were born in the home
of Daedalus), partly acquired pre-eminence as adepts in
the prophetic art, and in the characters of Bards and musicians, trained in their native worship of Apollo, gained
so great a power over the human soul as to be summoned
by other states to heal falling communities by means of
their heaven-sent powers, and to found permanent institutions of religious worship and the Music art. Such
Cretan masters as Thaletas and Epimenides were as little
as the plastic artists members of the Dorian race; these
were new shoots which grew from the ancient root of native culture, although it is true that the mixture of the
different Greek tribes essentially contributed to call forth
the energy of a new life.
Notwithstanding that Crete had received so large an
accession of population and knew so well how to employ
it for the invigoration of her states, yet since the days of
Minos she never again gained a power reaching beyond
her own shores. The main cause of this is to be sought
in the excessive sub-division of the Cretan territory, where




CarP. I.]     History of Peloponnesus.         197
different towns carried on open feuds, or at all events
maintained an attitude of suspicion against one another.
Nor could the vigor of the Dorian population fully assert
itself except on the mainland, because it was ill-adapted
for a maritime dominion. Accordingly, of all the conquests made by the Dorians since their march out of the
mountain-recess between Parnassus and CEta, the Peloponnesian remained the most important, and here in Peloponnesus it was again only one single point, from which
a Dorian history of independent and far-reaching significance developed itself. This point was Sparta.
In the myths referring to the casting of Earliest history
lots by the Heraclidoe, Laconia is designated
as the worst of the three countries, and in point of fact, in
none of the coast-districts is the soil so mainly mountainland and so unfavorable for agriculture. There was yet
another circumstance occasioned by the condition of the
soil which operated disadvantageously upon the development of this community. Inasmuch as the fertile part of
the country lies quite in its centre, secluded by lofty
mountains both from the sea and the neighboring countries, here more than elsewhere ensued a pressure of the
various component elements of the population. The
elimination of the foreign, and the distribution of the conflicting elements, was far more difficult to effect here than
in a coast-district open on all sides like Argolis. Thus
nowhere was the struggle between the ancient and new inhabitants more protracted and obstinate than in the hollow valley of the Eurotas.
And how great a variety of population Laconia before the
arrival of the Dohad met here in the course of time! rians.
First, the earliest original strata of the native population, then the maritime strangers from the other side of
the sea, including in the first place the Phoenicians, who
had constituted Cythera a central point of earliest naviga



198             Hlistory of Greece.         [BOOK II.
tion, and Gytheum a staple-place of their purple-fishery,
an industrial occupation which had extended upwards
from the coast, so that the purple robes of Amyclse acquired an early celebrity. Next, the mariners of Greek
nationality, who under the name of Leleges, had so intimately united with the inhabitants, that in opposition to the
later immigrants they were themselves considered as natives, and that the most ancient Laconia could after them
be called a land of the Leleges. The birth-place of the
Dioscuri on the rocky island opposite Thalamse bears testimony to the earliest landing-places of these tribes together with which Leda.herself became domesticated in
Laconia; Leda, the mother of the divine twins, whose
kindly light appears to mariners after that of all other
stars has paled. As Leda may be recognized with her
ancient symbols on the monuments.of Lycia, so there also
occur many other instances of connection between Laconia and the shores of the Greek East. The house of Euphemus, the Argonaut, to whom the myth ascribes the
power of walking dry-footed across the waves, was on the
promontory of Tsenarum. Not far from the birth-place
of the Dioscuri was the dream-oracle of Ino, who was
adored in Crete under the name of Pasiphae, together
with Helius and Selene; and Amycla, too, the most ancient centre of the national history of Laconia, also bears
a Cretan name.
This is the first period of the history of Laconia,
which is indicated as such with sufficient clearness in the
native myths of the national kings. For after the primitive ruler, who bears the name of the national river because he made the Eurotas a "fair-flowing" stream, follows an 2Eolic family of kings-the house of the Tyndaridse, intimately connected with Leda and the Dioscuri,
the Lycian divinities of light, and star-gods; akin to and
contemporaneous with the Perseidse in Argos, and the
Aphareidse in Messenia. Into these pre-historic ages enter




CHaAP.; LI    History of Peponnesus.           199
the Achaeans, founding their citadels in the same valley
of the Eurotas. Here, as in Argos, mythology peaceably
connects them with the earlier dynasty; the Atridse become the sons-in-law of Tyndareus, and Menelaus rests
with the Dioscuri in the mound of Therapne. After the
Pelopidse with their warlike following had taken up their
fixed abode in hollow Lacedaemon, there arrived, in consequence of fresh agitations in the North, Cadmeans and
Minyans. Boeotian Minyans long sat on the Taygetus,
and this range, whose high rocky peaks overlook the
plain of the Eurotas, and which afterwards ends in the
peninsula of Tsenarus, is especially adapted for preserving
among scattered fragments of population their independence and ancient customs. With the worship of Posidon
on Tsenarum the Minyans were intimately enough connected to have instituted a worship exactly corresponding
to it on their island of Thera. On the border of the
same mountain-range was the home of Ino, who was connected with the Minyans, and long continued here to give
oracles to the kings of Sparta.
Thus the narrow valley-district was already filled with
a variety of tribes who had arrived at different times by
land and sea, when the Dorians descended The foundation
from the sources of the Eurotas to acquire of Sparta
land for themselves and their families. They, too, forced
an entrance into the same plain, the luxuriant corn-fields
of which were every time the prize tempting the victor.
Their first proceeding was to conquer a habitation for
themselves. They took possession of the heights on the
right bank of the Eurotas where that river is divided by
an island, and more easily crossed than at other points.
Here they commanded the northern inlets of the country,
both those from Arcadia and those from Argos. Here
theylay, as it were, before the gates of Amycle, the fixed
centre of the Achaean territorial dominion; here on the
heights of the left bank in Therapne, were the tombs of




200               History of Greece.        [BOOK II.
the ancient Heroes of the land, and of the kings, their
descendants; whilst the soil which they took for their
dwelling-place was occupied by a group of communities,
viz. Limnx and Pitane in the marshy lowlands by the
river, and close to them Mesoa and Cynosura. A sanctuary of Artemis, adored with bloody sacrifices, formed
the centre of these districts; on the heights stood. an ancient sanctuary of Athene. Hills and lowlands were
chosen by the Dorians as their camping-ground, out of
which gradually grew a fixed settlement.  Its name,
"Sparte," indicates the rich and arable soil chosen for
the settlement, in contrast to most cities of the Greeks,
which stood on a rocky base. The hill of Athene became the centre of the settlement, resembling a citadel.
This first settlement cannot have succeeded otherwise
than by means of an occupation by force of arms. But
this method of procedure was speedily discontinued.
Here no more than on Crete did a subjection of the
whole country population, an overthrow of all previous
conditions, and an establishment of others totally new,
take place. Moreover, in the Dorian camp itself so
many ties of relationship asserted themselves towards the
iEolic and Achmean tribes remaining in the valley of the
Eurotas, that no sharply defined contrast could develop
itself, and that a totally different method from that of
military conquest and forcible Dorization had soon to be
pursued for establishing a fixed national system. Nay,
more; for if we more accurately examine the facts
handed down by impartial tradition, it becomes evident
that not even the first settlement was at all conducted by
Dorian hands. For the personage who first administers
the royal office of the Heraclidse of Sparta is Theras the
Cadmean, whose house had come to Sparta from the
ruins of the ancient seven-gated Thebes, partly before and
partly with the Dorians. Thus Thebes essentially participated in this formation of the Heraclidme, and Pindar




CHAP. I.]      History of Peloponnesu.         201
reminds his native city how she should rejoice in the
memory of having been the agent in creating a fixed
basis for the Dorian settlement. Yet the poet thus
already complains against the misinterpretation of historical truth; this debt of gratitude slumbers, and nowhere
is any mortal mindful of the events of the past. So
again the tradition was early forgotten as to how the
same JEgidoe had at Sparta taught the art of war, and
how the national deity, the bronze-clad Apollo Carneus,
had originally been a god of the AEgidse. Without entering into a more accurate examination of causes, the
right of the Spartan kings to their throne was derived
from the hereditary claims of the Heraclidse, and the
double kingship explained by the circumstance that the
wife of the Heraclide to whom Laconia had fallen by lot
had by chance borne twins.
Whoever is not content with these explana- The "twitions, will easily perceive that so unusual a kings."
form of government, wholly exceptional among all Dorian settlements, cannot have been introduced into the land
by the Dorians, but that its origin must be sought in the
peculiar development of the national history of Laconia.
And when we remark how hostile a position the " twinkings" occupy towards one another, how this marked opposition continues uninterruptedly from generation to
generation, how either of the two houses throughout refrains from connecting itself with the other by marriage
or hereditary ties, and preserves to itself its particular
history, its particular annals, its particular dwelling and
sepulchre, we shall be inclined to assume that these were
two utterly different families, which had agreed upon a
mutual recognition, and by means of a compact arranged
a common exercise of royal rights of supremacy. Nothing is common to both houses except the circumstance
that neither of them is Dorian, and that the power of
neither is derived from the Dorian people as a public
i*




202               History of Greece.         [Boos II.
dignity bestowed by the latter. Like Heroic houses, they
stood before the people with immutable privileges, utterly
foreign to Dorian manners; and all they possessed of
power and honor, their dignity as lords of war and priests,
their share of honor in the sacrificial banquets, the splendid funeral and passionate lament bestowed upon their
bodies, all these things have their root in a time far
anterior to the Dorian migration. And this assumption
perfectly agrees with the circumstance that one of the
royal houses incontestably derived its origin from the
same families which already in the Heroic times were the
shepherds of the people, descended from Zeus. How else
could the Agiade Cleomenes have dared to declare publicly on the citadel at Athens, where as the supreme head
of a Dorian state he was denied access to the sanctuary
of Athene, that he was no Dorian, but an Achaean? As
to the origin of the other house no testimony of equal certainty exists, and we are left to suppose it to have been
connected with the ancient JEolic princely houses of Laconia.
The Laconian  But in point of fact the double houses of
hexapolis.  Agis and Eurypon did not rule from   the
first, as we should be led to expect if the Dorians had instituted the royal power as we find it in the historic
times; it rather grew up gradually in the course of the
national history. The earliest condition of the district
after the immigration of the Dorians consisted in its subdivision into the territories of six capital cities-Sparta,
Amycle, Pharis (the three inland places on the Eurotas,)
farther, gEgys, on the Arcadian frontier; Las, on the bay
of Gytheum; and a sixth, probably the sea-port Boese.
As in Messenia, the Dorians are distributed among the
various places which are ruled over by kings; they eom —
bine with the older inhabitants; new settlers, like the
Minyans, come from the country into the towns. It is
plain that here they settled under previous national insti



CHAP. I. ]     History of Peloponnesus.        208
tutions; the Laconian six-kings had begun to reign before
this period. Already under the supremacy of the Pelopidse many vassal principalities existed, the. occupants of
which dwelt in the various parts of the land, and, as
having rights of sovereignty of their own, submitted with
much repugnance to the supreme king. Heroic mythology contains many a tradition of recalcitrant vassals; it
tells of the Arcadian king Oryntus, who refuses military
service to Agamemnon in Aulis, and the best known example of a vassal's guile is Jlgistheus, the assassin of his
liege lord. On the most various spots the royal power of
the heroic period was overthrown by rebellion on the part
of the vassal kings. As 2Egistheus was supposed to have
dwelt in the neighborhood of Cape Malea, so other vassal
princes were distributed over Laconia, and when the
Atridse had fallen, and everything immediately connected
with them gave way, the vassals raised their heads as independent princes. It was they who concluded treaties
with the immigrant warriors upon whom they bestowed
fixed allotments of land in return for the recognition of
their royal rights and support of their power. Thus
here, as on Crete, the Dorians were distributed among the
single towns, and the connection existing among the latter
preserved the ancient unity of the land. Thus Laconia
must be conceived of as a hexapolis, a federal state
strangely made up out of old and new elements.
This state was without cohesion; too many unsettled
elements were working by the side of one another, princes
and states were carrying on feuds provoked by their mutual jealousy, till in the end two of the ruling families
succeeded in gaining over to the other side the central
body of the Dorian people, in eliminating it from its intermixture with the rest of the population, collecting its
scattered elements at one point, and, supported by the
power of the Dorians, establishing this point as the centre
of the district and the seat of their government. This is




204              History of Greece.          [BooK II.
the second epoch of the national history after the immigration of the Dorians; the two families, whose succession of kings continues uninterruptedly from this point,
are the Agiadee and Eurypontidoe. Tradition commences
with them a new series, thus clearly showing that here a
totally new beginning was made. Subsequently the
names of the twin sons of Aristodemus, Procles, and
Eurystheus, were inserted before Agis and Eurypon, in
order to provide a mythical explanation of the double
royal power, to bury the disturbances which had preceded
the new order of things in oblivion, and to connect both
houses peacefully with one common ancestor, with Heracles. Yet, for the sake of maintaining this artistic connection, no tradition ever dared to contradict the genuine
one, and to call.the kings of Sparta Eurysthenidse and
Proclidse.
Remains of the  Of course the princes whose power surAchaen age.  vived the downfall of the Achaean kingships
were far from occupying a lonely and solitary position
among the strange people: how else could they have preserved their power? They were surrounded by families
of the same descent, whose dignity and significance were
rooted in the early Heroic ages as deeply as their own.
The priesthoods of the ancient national divinities continued to exist, as did the military and court-offices of the
Achean state.   The family of the Talthybiadse, who
derived their descent from the herald of Agamemnon,
administered from  first to last the office of the state
herald; similarly the Lydian flute-players, the cooks,
bakers, and wine-mixers handed down their offices as
hereditary honors from father to son, and the statues of
the Heroes from whom they derived name and office, Daeton, Matton, Ceraon, stood on the Hyacinthine festivalroad, because the institution of these offices was connected
with the ancient festive rites.  Thus, lastly, we find the
house of the iEgidse, whose family sepulchre stood in the




CHAP. I.]    History of Peloponnes,.           2
centre of Sparta, close to the Heroum of Cadmus, the
ancient and illustrious royal house of Thebes, whose
strength had not withered away, but in war and peace
took so important a share in the progress of Sparta.
The kings found farther aid and support in the anteDorian country people, who continued to live a life unchanged in the main, like the peasants of Crete. They
paid their annual taxes to the new kings of the land, as
they had formerly paid them to the Pelopidse; and, as
subjects, offered them all the honors due to the sovereigns
of the land; above all, at the death of one of the princes
they assembled for a solemn lament over his body. Thus
in Laconia, no more than elsewhere, was everything old
suddenly changed into something new, nor was the past
abruptly flung aside. The royal rule of the Pelopids is
fallen, but the strength of the ancient families remains
unextinguished, and the ancient institutions and conditions of life undisturbed; the sacred traditions retain
their force, and the royal families whose dominion was
supported by the Dorians are constantly exerting themselves to renew the glorious memories of the age of the
Pelopidwe. For this reason the bones of Tisamenus, and
those of Orestes, were brought back to Sparta, in order
thus to re-attach the threads of the national history
severed by a violent revolution.
The new epoch of the national history The new kingwhich had commenced with the appearance dom of Sparta.
of the Agiadse and Eurypontidse could not be carried
through without labor and conflicts; for it was based on
the subjection of independent princes, on the annihilation
of the independence of cities, and on the abolition of the
equality of rights which had been conceded to the earlier
inhabitants by the side of the Dorians. Accordingly, a
new conquest of the land begins. The same towns which
were regarded as federal centres —tEgys, Pharis, Geronthrae-fall one after the other, and become subject coun



206              History of Greece.         [BOOK II.
try towns; the power of the double Spartan royalty
extends from the inclosure of the Eurotas in every direction, and thus, advancing towards the coast under a succession of sanguinary struggles, gradually grows up a
united kingdom.
Meanwhile during this process of extension, there is no
lack of interior quarrels and disputes between the conquering kings and their Dorian warriors.  Nay, these
disturbances had very nearly ended in completely crippling and dissolving the State which was newly forming
itself, had not at the right time a firm and vigorous hand
brought order into public affairs.  This saving deed
Lycurgus the Sparta owed to Lycurgus, and the divine
legislator.  honors with which she celebrated his memory
prove how clearly the ancients recognized the fact that
without him the state of the community would have fallen
from chaos into annihilation. They regarded him as the
real founder of the state of Sparta.
But though the recognition of his services
His personality.
was universal, all farther conditions concerning him are equally uncertain and doubtful.  His work
was done at the time when confusion was at its height;
accordingly no documentary notices are extant about
him, nor is he brought into any trustworthy connection
with contemporary personages or events. The ancients
themselves had very early lost the definite outlines of his
personality and its relations to history, in consequence of
which loss they surrounded him with symbolical figures;
they called his father Eunomus (good law), and his son,
whose statue stood by the temple of Lycurgus at Limnse,
Eucosmus (good order). And yet for all this it is not to
be denied that there really lived and worked in the first
half of the ninth century a legislator of the name of
Lycurgus, a man who as a born Heraclide was called to
take part in public affairs. After the manner of Theras
the JEgide some time before, Lycurgus also placed the




CHAP. I]       History of Peloponnesus.        207
trembling double throne on a firmer footing, and steadied
the state anew not as a king, but as the guardian of an
heir to the throne under age. He was generally regarded
as a member of the house of Eurypon. That he did not
himself belong to the Dorian race appears probable from
the breadth of his mental horizon, from his travels by sea
and wide-spreading connections, which among the rest
especially included Ionia. In no part of his legislation
is the interest of the Dorian race taken as the standard,
and we can scarcely believe him to have been a Dorian,
who transplanted the rhapsodies of Homer to Sparta. An
undeniable knowledge of the world, and a wise statecraft
practised by observation, are the foundation of the laws
of Lycurgus, and there exists of him no more credible
notice than that which states him to have studied the
institutions of Crete. Here he found the problem awaiting him happily solved, and nothing exercised a more
beneficent influence upon Sparta than her connection with
the political and religious life of Crete as it was established by Lycurgus.
His activity was threefold. The first thing to Hi tak.
be done was to put an end to the sanguinary
feud to which the land had become a prey; accordingly
he began his great work as the founder of peace throughout the land. The second was an equable arrangement
between the different tribes and orders in the state, based
on a fixed determination of their mutual rights and
duties; the third, tlie establishment of a political and
social system for the Dorian civic community. For the
whole he sought to obtain a permanent sanction by means
of the Delphic oracle, because this had from an early age
been regarded as a sacred authority in Sparta; and by it
he caused his entire legislation to be authorized as harmonizing with the divine will.
However, the goal of a general pacification was not:
reached at once. The same Charilaus who is mentioned




208               History of Greece.         [Boot II.
as the ward of Lycurgus, the fellow-king of the Agiade
Archelaus in common with whom he destroyed IEgys, an
enterprising and warlike prince, was enabled by the support of the eminent native population to raise his royal
power to such a height as against the Dorians, that notwithstanding his being otherwise famed for the gentleness
of his sway, he was designated as a lord of force or tyrant.
Thus we see that already fixed limits had been set to the
royal power, a transgression of which could fix upon him
the stigma of a name such as this. There ensued a rising
of the Dorian people, which saw its rights encroached
upon; and only in consequence of new statutes essentially
limiting the royal prerogatives, in order to defeat forever
the desires of the princes for the restoration of a Pelopidean royal power, was finally established a permanent
order of things, which preserved itself unaltered in the
main as the Spartan system of state. According to the
usual conception of the Greeks, who felt the need of assuming an author for every great historical work, without
caring to distinguish what had previously existed from
what subsequently ensued, the whole political system was
regarded as the legislation of Lycurgus.
No legislator can ever have found a more difficult task
awaiting him.   Two royal families, with their rights
founded on the historic reminiscences of the land, jealous
of one another, and in feud with the families formerly
their equals by birth, covet an unlimited plenitude of
power; together with them many other remains of manners, institutions and religious worship of the heroic age
had existed here for centuries, and driven their roots far
too deeply into the soil to be susceptible of removal; on
the other side the people of the Dorians, strange to the
whole of this previous period, inflexible and indocile, in
the full consciousness of superior military power, jealously
watched over the rights which had been conceded to it.
All these contrasts remained opposed to one another with-'




CHAP. I.]      History of Peloponnesus.         209
out anything to mediate between them; and the various
elements of the older and younger population of the land,
already too closely interwoven with one another to be
capable of being again dissevered, occasioned a state of
uninterrupted ferment, in which the strength of the people
was uselessly consuming itself. In all Greece there was
no more chaotic and unhappy state than Sparta before the
time of Lycurgus. Everything here evidently depended
on mediation, on a gentle reconciliation of the existing
contrasts, and on the establishment of a permanent compact advantageous to both sides. The lasting success
which attended the endeavor to achieve this result remains for all times one of the most brilliant results of that
wisdom which is able to systematize the institutions of a
state. w
The whole legislation was essentially a 
His legislation.
compact, as the name generally used for the
Lycurgic statutes-Rhetrce-itself indicates. The substance of the legislation was anything but purely Doric;
since the royal families were left undisturbed at the head
of the state with all the attributes of royal The Kings and
power known to us in the Homeric world. their power.
This royal power could not be spared in the new political
system, for it formed the bond between the earlier and later
elements of the population, and was the guarantee of the
unity of the empire. The kings were the representatives
of the whole body towards the national gods; they alone
made it possible for the new order of things to be brought'
into connection with the past without any disturbance of
consecrated tradition; dwelling in the midst of the Dorian
people they were pledges for the obedience and loyalty of
the earlier population, which venerated its leaders in
them. The fact that two dynasties continued to exist by
the side of one another, offered the important advantage
of binding two powerful parties and their interests to the
state, and of allowing not only the Achaean population,




210              History of Greece.         [BooK IL
but, according to a most probable supposition, also the
older, the.Eolic, to find themselves represented in the
supreme guidance of the state, and represented with equal
rights.  For the special prerogative enjoyed by the
Achaean line alone in memory of the royal power of Agamemnon was confined to mere unessential privileges of
honor. Moreover, the double kingship was a guarantee
for preventing by means of the mutual jealousy of the two
lines a tyrannical outstepping of the royal prerogatives.
The same was the meaning of the rule forbidding the kings
to marry foreign wives. They were not to be seduced by
forming a connection with other royal houses into a
dynastic policy and tyrannical ambition. Thus it is curious to find a suspiciously watchful policy, as it had arisen
in the centuries of civil party-strife, united with the simplicity of the Heroic royal power and the patriarchal insignia of the double-goblet and the double-mess at the
banquet. The extreme deference paid in these institutions
to the tradition of the Heroic age, which was everywhere
taken as the standard, is most evidenf:from the circumstance that Lycurgus introduced the Homeric poems into
Sparta. The glory of the Achaean princes now resounded
from the coasts of Ionia to the Peloponnesus; in the
epos the rights of the kings were, so to speak, securely
signed and sealed in a national document, which in Sparta
also was to serve as a protection for the throne.
The Lacedsemonian, like the Homeric kings,
The Senate.
were assisted by a council, composed of the
chosen men of the people. But what had formerly been
left to the royal pleasure was now fixed once for all.
Above all, where a matter of life and death was in question, the kings were not to judge as such, but as members
of the Council of the Elders, of whose thirty votes each of
the kings possessed not more than one. These elders were
senators for life, designated by popular acclamation as the
best men of the community, and only such as had proved




CHAP. I.]     History of Peloponnesus.         211
their worth in a life of sixty years; they were, together
with the kings, the representatives of the popular community, the men of public confidence.
As a matter of course the existing divisions of the people were taken into consideration in this institution; and
in order that all might have their proper share, the
Gerontes or Elder-men were taken from its different tribes
and their subdivisions. Accordingly it cannot be the result of chance that their number corresponds to that of
these subdivisions (Oboe). Ten of them belonged to each
of the three tribes; two were represented by the kings.
The latter met in this assembly as peers among their
peers, and had no privilege above the rest, except the
honor of presiding.
In this college, which formed the supreme government
authority, the leading families were able to satisfy their
ambition, and to find an influential sphere of action; in it
Achaean and Dorian families sat side by side. At the
same time the whole community found comfort in the
knowledge that the supreme guidance of its affairs and
the judicial decision in questions of life and property were
in the hands of men chosen from amongst its own body
and by its own votes.
With regard to the populationthe con- Thu
The population
trast between natives and immigrants, the of the city and
attempted removal of which had failed on country.
account of the inflexibility of the Dorians, had to be
maintained. The Dorians were newly constituted as a
distinct community, and their obsolete institutions revived.
This is the meaning of the command Lycurgus received
from Delphi, to divide the people into phylae and obce.
The Dorian community continued to have its centre in
Sparta. This centre was however to be no closed citadel
like an ancient Achsean castle. For this would have
separated a part of the whole community with the kings
in their midst from the rest, and occasioned a dangerous
division. Therefore Sparta was for ever to remain with



212               History of Greece.         [BOox II.
out walls or citadel, an open place, in which the kings
lived in their simple private houses, among the population. Sparta was not, like other towns of the Greeks,
composed of a solid body of houses, but, originally in a
rural and open situation on the river and its canals, it
gradually stretched out into the open country, and Dorians lived far beyond Sparta along the entire valley, without the inhabitants of remoter points being on that acount in any less degree citizens of Sparta than those
dwelling by the ford of the Eurotas. They were all Spartiats, as by a stricter term they were called, as distinguished from the Lacedamonians.
The Spar-   To regulate definitively their relation to the
tiates and soil was the most important task of a legislator
their lands. wishing to effect a permanent pacification of
the state: for all the confusion which he found had
chiefly originated in the prevailing inequality of property.
Those who had contrived to amass a large quantity of
land in their family arrogantly asserted an overbearing
position, while the rest, who had lost all their property,
were unwilling to bear the same burdens as the former.
The land belonged to the state; therefore, although not
without a violent resistance on the part of the rich, yet
without any violation ef right, all the land might be confiscated for the purpose of a new distribution. Nine
thousand lots of land were made (such was the number,
according to a thoroughly trustworthy tradition, either
already in the time of Lycurgus, or soon afterwards under
King Polydorus), and these were distributed among an
equal number of Spartiatee; accordingly, there were at
this time nine thousand men forming the community,
divided into three tribes, thirty Obce, three hundred Triacades (bodies of thirty), of which each comprehended
thirty households. This division also regulated their
places of habitation; at least there existed in Sparta a
place of the name of Dyme, so called from the Dymanes,




CHAP. I.]     Hitory of Peloponnesu.             213
as well as a district of the Agiadae, where the members
of the first Heraclidic Obe originally dwelt together.
But the above-mentioned nine thousand lots of land were
not scattered about the whole country, but formed a connected district in the midst of it. Its northern boundary
was the narrow part of the river at Pellene and the pass
of the CEnus valley at Sellasia. In the south the fertile
lowlands opening to the Laconian bay, and stretching towards Cape Malea, still formed part of the land of the
Spartiatse; on the two sides the lofty ranges of Parnon
and Taygetus were the boundaries. Thus the Spartiatae
occupied all the best land; but even now they became
anything but freeholders of it; they were not allowed to
add anything to, or sell, give away, or let any part of it.
The lots of land were entailed unchanged from the father
upon the eldest son, and in case of the absence of heirs
male reverted to the state, i. e., the disposition over them
belonged to the kings who had originally given the land
to the Dorians. As to the question whence the land for
distribution was taken, it seems most natural to assume
that it consisted of the domains which had lost their proprietors by the expulsion of the Pelopidae, and that the
princes who claimed the succession of the Pelopidae used
this land to satisfy with it the demands of the immigrants, from whom they in return required military service. This mutual relation is here, as on Crete, the basis
of the state. Since the kings bestow the land, the army
is in the first instance their phrura, or body-guard; and
in the field their tent is its head-quarters. To every piece
of land is attached the obligation of military service;
and as the latter is the same for all, so also are all the
lots equal in size and value. Here everything depended
on the maintenance of the system established, and over it
the kings watched as supreme lords of the manor and
original proprietors of the soil. It was, above all, their
business to provide for the marriage of heiresses of landed




214             History of Greece.          [BOOK IL.
property, so as to place members of the warrior-community as yet without land in possession of a share of it.
To marry at the proper season was a state duty of every
Dorian enfeoffed of land, who had to do his part towards
bringing up a sturdy younger generation for his lot of
land. This was so openly regarded as the object of marriage, that a childless wedlock was not looked upon as
any wedlock at all, and its dissolution ordered by the
state.
The P i  Strictly apart from  this exclusive comThe Perioeci.
munity of Spartiatme there remained, with its
ancient conditions of life intact, the older population of
the land, which dwelt scattered on the mountains surrounding the land of the Spartiate on all sides (hence
called the dwellers-around, or Periceci). More than
trebling the Spartiatse in number, they cultivated the incomparably less remunerative arable land of the mountains, the precipitous declivities of which they made
available by means of terraced walls for corn-fields and
vineyards. They worked the stone-quarries and mines of
the Taygetus, engaged in pasture and navigation, and
supplied the market of Sparta with iron implements,
building materials, woolen-stuffs, leather-wares, &c. Free
proprietors on their own holdings, they, according to
primitive custom, offered their tribute to the kings. The
Th Helots. country-people, on the other hand, residing on
the fields of the Spartiatea, met with a harder
fate. Part of them probably consisted of peasants on the
domains; others had been conquered in the course of internal feuds. They were left on the fields which had
been once their own, on the condition of handing over to
the Spartiatse quartered upon them an important portion
of their produce. This oppression provoked several risings; and we must assume that the ancient sea-town of
Helos was for a time the centre of one of these outbreaks.
For this is the only admissible explanation of the opinion




CHAP. I.]    History of Pelponnreus.           215
universally prevailing among the ancients, that from that
town is derived the name of the Helots, which now came
to be the common designation for the class of inhabitants
subjected by force of arms, and deprived of their liberty.
Here in essential points the same relation prevailed which
the Dorians had already become acquainted with in the
case of the Penestse in the Thessalian land. The Helot
families lived distributed among the lots of the Spartiatae,
who gave the land into their hands, and demanded the
regular payment of the annual produce at which it was
estimated. This produce amounted for every farm to
eighty-two bushels of barley and a corresponding measure of wine and oil; any surplus obtained by the Helots
belonged to themselves, and thus each had an opportunity
of attaining to a certain degree of wealth. The Helots
were serfs, and devoid of any share of civic rights; yet
they were not given up to the arbitrary and unlimited
will of their masters. They were serfs of the community; so that no individual was allowed to harm them
to the damage of the commonwealth. As a member of
the state the Spartiate could claim honors and services
from every Helot, but none might treat one of these as
his personal property. They might not be sold or given
away: they belonged to the inventory of a farm, the
possessor of which was forbidden under a heavy penalty to
demand, even in case of the most ample harvest, a single
bushel more barley than was his legal due.
The legislator had thus arranged these Theeiviocommu.
nity of Sparta.
relations after the model of Crete, in order
that the Spartiatm, free from all cares of sustenance,
and careless as to providing their means of life, might
have full time and leisure to devote themselves to the duties which they have taken upon them on behalf of the
commonwealth. Of the latter, there were not only the
guardians and the armed force at its disposal, but as the
community of full citizens they had their fixed share in




216               History of Greece.       [Boox II.
the supreme rights of the state, in government and legisRights, duties, and lation. It was the duty of the kings to
training of the Do- assemble the citizens at least once every
ccitizens  month, on the day of the full moon;
and for this purpose they were allowed to choose no other
place than a part of the low valley of the Eurotas between "Babyca and Cnacion," i. e. probably between the
bridge of the Eurotas and the point where that river is
joined by the (Enus; in other words in the very centre
of the proper habitations of the Dorians, out of whose
vicinity the political centre of gravity was never to be removed. This day of assembly for the civic community
was at the same time a review of the citizens capable of
bearing arms before the eyes of their military lords; here
the election of the Gerontes and other public officers took
place, the communications of the public authorities were
received, and important affairs of state, such as declarations of war and peace, treaties and new laws, offered for
constitutional sanction. No debate was permitted, no
amendments or new motions proceeded from the citizens:
nothing but Ay or No. Even-the voting was as a rule
an empty form, as the very way in which it was taken
shows; for the will of the people was announced neither
by voting-pebbles nor by show of hands, but merely by
acclamation in soldier-fashion. The assemblies lasted as
short a time as possible; they were carried on standing;
everything was avoided which might have led men to remain together for a longer time and with any degree of
comfort; no ornamental or architectural arrangement was
introduced. For the same reason the place of assembly
was from the first totally different from that of public intercourse in the market. Evidently, the participation of
the Dorian people in the business of the state was so arranged that the citizens might content themselves with the
consciousness of having a fixed share in the supreme
rights of the state, and of being able to decide the mea



CasP. I.]       History of Peloponneau.          217
sures of the latter in cases of importance as a final court
of appeal; they did not feel as if they were placed in a
foreign state, but they were the citizens of their own-not
merely the objects of legislation, but also participators in
it, for they only obeyed such statutes as they had themselves agreed to. And yet as a rule they were governed
instead of governing. Their whole training had in view
to make them feel it neither their duty nor their inclination to occupy themselves with political matters; their
horizon was far too limited to allow them an opinion on
foreign affairs. Besides, everything in Sparta moved in
the grooves of rules so firmly fixed that it was not often
that a change was made in the political system. Hence
in general the Spartiate was very rarely and to a very
small degree occupied with the exercise of his political
rights. All the more were their full leisure and strength
devoted to military exercises. For the attention of the
legislation was directed to this above all other things, that
the military vigor of the people, the possession of which
the state had bought with its best lands, might be preserved to it in undiminished fulness. Hence all the manners and customs of the Dorian people, with which it had
once upon a time so powerfully and irresistibly appeared
among the effete Achean world, their severity of discipline
and manly simplicity of life, were established in their full
strength, and guarded by the whole rigor of the law.
This rigor was all the more necessary, inasmuch as the
luxuriance of the valley invited its inhabitants to a life
of ease. Military efficiency was the condition attached to
the enjoyment of the rights and privileges conceded. For
birth alone established no claim. The state expressly
reserved to itself the right of subjecting the children of
the Spartiatse immediately after birth to an examination
of their physical condition, before they were recognized
as children of the house. The weakly and -cripples were
exposed on Taygetus, where there were none but the
10




218               History of Greece.         [Booa II.
Pericmci for them to grow up among; for the interests of
the state were endangered by one incapable of military
service becoming entitled to the heritage of a lot of land.
Even those who had grown up as genuine sons of Spartiatse were liable to degradation. They lost their rights
when they failed to perform the full measure of their military duties, or to contribute their quota to the common
meal. On the other hand, the legislator of Sparta had
with great wisdom provided for the possibility of supplementing the community of the Spartiate by new
blood and fresh forces; for even those not descended from
a Dorian, or at all events purely Dorian marriage, children
of Perioeci and Helots, might, after they had conscientiously passed through the whole course of military training, be received into the community of the Dorians, and
enter into possession of vacant lots of land. To this admission of new citizens Sparta owed her greatest statesmen
and generals. Thus it was training and discipline, and
not ancestral blood, which constituted a Spartiate.
Doric disci-  It is certain that the Spartan discipline in
pline.     many respects corresponded to the primitive
customs of the Dorians, and that by constant practice,
handed down from generation to generation, it grew into
the second nature of the members of the community. On
this head Lycurgus had added to the severity of the
Cretan institutions. In Crete the young Dorians were
left in the houses of their mothers till they grew up into
Life in Sprt. youths; at Sparta boys were as early as their
eighth year taken into public training, and
assigned their places in their respective divisions, where
they had to go through all the exercises introductory to
military service, and accustom their bodies to endurance
and exercise, in exact obedience to the forms required by
the state through its officers. Thus, even before a boy
was able to reflect, he found himself in a system of fixed
and severe rules, in the midst of which he let all his own




CHAP. I.]     History of Peloponnesus.         219
inclinations and tendencies fall to the ground from disuse.
On the other hand, such a life could never fail of displaying its forced and unnatural character. Accordingly it
was the interest of the legislation to hinder intercourse
with external nations, lest the view of freer and more favorable conditions of life might dissatisfy the Spartiate
with his life at home. The whole life of the Spartan community had a secluded, impenetrable, and secret character. The hidden situation of the Eurotas valley facilitated seclusion; it resembled a well-guarded camp, out of
or into which no one was admitted unannounced; sentinelposts stood in the narrow valleys of Belmina, Sellasia,
Caryse, which led like portals into the inner valley of the
Eurotas. The emigration of a Spartiate was punished by
death (for it amounted to nothing short of desertion), and
travelling made impossible by the prohibition against any
individual possessing any other but the native iron money
-a kind of money not only in the highest degree clumsy
and burdensome for a traveller, but also without any circulation at all beyond the Laconian territory. The possession of gold and silver was so strictly forbidden, that
he who was found to have either suffered death. And,
since designedly every mental progress was avoided which
might have opened a wider horizon, since even of the arts
which formed the closest bond of union among the Hellenes, of poetry and music, nothing was admitted except
what had been by the state assimilated to a fixed pattern
and was introduced in an official form, the whole culture
of the Spartan, like his coinage, was only valid and good
for his own country, and while every more liberally
educated Greek necessarily felt cramped by mysterious
bounds at Sparta, every Spartan felt strange, awkward,
and uneasy, when away from his home. Even at home
the individual was nothing; but what a man was, he was
merely by his participation in the whole, and by the fixed
place which he occupied in its system.




220               History of Greece.       [BooK II.
In this consciousness the boy grew up to be a youth,
and in the same feeling youths and men lived on, swarming closely together like bees, as it were by a natural instinct. The choral songs served to keep alive this feeling,
because the success of their execution depended entirely
on subordination under the entire body, on the self-denying assistance afforded by one and all to a common task;
it was farther fostered by the common exercises of arms
and the common meals of the men, from which even those
who had founded a family of their own were forbidden to
stay away. The family was always to remain a consideration of secondary importance, and even at home the father
of a family was never to lose the feeling and the habit of
an uninterrupted service in the field and life in the camp;
hence the dining together was called "camping together,"
the associates at the meal were the same as the associates
under the tents; the food was so plain, that it might easily
be obtained in equal quality even in the field. To one
looking down from the heights of the Taygetus into the
hollow land, it must have appeared like a great drillingground-like a position taken up by an army ready for
battle; for even the festivals had a military character.
To give and to obey the word of command, this was the
science of the Spartan; and after this pattern his speech
too was short and terse. Jests and jokes were not excluded. On the contrary, the social life of the men as
comrades supplied ample opportunity for them; for it lay
in the design of the legislation to mitigate the dry seriousness of the pedantic and severe system of life. The proper home of the Spartan art of speech, the original source
of so many Spartan jokes current over all Greece, was the
Lesche, the place of meeting for men at leisure, near the
public drilling-grounds, where they met in small bands,
and exchanged merry talk, as soldiers do by their watchfires in the camp. Here men learnt the give-and-take




CHAP. I.]     History of Peloponnesus.         221
of Spartan speech, and became adepts in presence of
mind.
Notwithstanding all this, the monotony of a life removed from all wider relations, and attaching itself with
all its interests to the drilling-grounds and the service of
arms, must have proved oppressive, had not the chase
offered change and adventures even in times of peace.
The forests covering the middle height of the The hase.
Taygetus contained an inexhaustible abundance
of wild goats, boars, stags, and.bears, especially the range
of heights above Sparta, between the peaked mountains
Taleton and Euoras, which bore the name of Therm
(hunting-ground). Hither along the steep gorges, from
which the mountain streams rushed down into the valley
beneath, ascended the merry hunting expeditions of Dorian men, with their Laconian pointer dogs, the best breed
of the kind, barking eagerly around them.  The wild
crags, on which the snow remains lying for three-fourths
of the year, offered ample opportunity for proving the
agility, courage, and endurance of vigorous manhood.
The game was looked upon like booty taken in war, and
might be served up at table in Sparta, in order to afford a
festive interruption of the monotonous farre of the
Phiditia, whilst the adventures of the chase were narrated again and again to give zest to the talk at the
Leschse.
Since the design of the Lycurgian disciThe household.
pline was to comprehend the entire social
life, it could not leave out the family and domestic system. Nor was there any lack of prescriptions and rules
possessing the force of law with regard to the married
state, the life and discipline of the women, the nourishment and training of the children. The nurses of Laconia
were eagerly sought as the best in all Greece. The legislator could not, however, succeed in penetrating with the
severe rule of his statutes over the threshold of the house




222               History of Greece.        [BooK I.
and extending his political discipline into the bosom of
the family. Here the housewife retained her rights; and
in proportion as after all his house and family remained
the only place in which the Spartan could still feel himself as a human being, and move freely as such, were
dignity and influence thus acquired by the wife ruling in
the interior of the house-the "Mesodoma," who was required at the same time to know how to superintend the
whole family during the absence of her husband, and to
rule the Helots. Peculiarly difficult, but also peculiarly
influential, her position necessarily came to be where more
than one family had to content themselves with one lot of
land; and thus it not unfrequently happened that several
brothers had one wife between them.
Puc of.  Such a state as this was not in want of
Public officers.
many public officers. The Spartiate community was kept together by the subordination of the
younger under their elders, of the soldiers under their superiors, and of all under the law; while the whole political
system stood under the guardianship of the kings of the
house of Heracles, who preserved the state with its gods
and heroes in an ancient sacred and beneficent connection,
maintained the legislation, and especially watched over
all matters relating to the division of the soil, which lay
at the root of the whole system. For this office of superintendence they chose assistants and vicegerents. In Laconia, where so many sorts of men, so different both in
origin and rank, lived close together, such substitutions
were especially desirable, in order to prevent disputes
which might lead to disturbances of the public~peace.
Especially on the market-place in Sparta, where every
description of people crowded together, a strict police was
requisite. Every tumult,' every disorderly concourse, was
doubly dangerous in a state like Sparta, intended to preserve her form of existence perfectly unchanged. It was
her pride to have no capital with crowded streets and a




.CHAP. I.]   History of Peloponnesus.          223
tumultuous mob; but to represent even in the exterior of
her dwelling-houses and in the tranquillity of her daily
life a pleasing picture of order. So Terpander sings of
the city as one in whose broad streets Justice has taken
up her abode.
In the superintendence of public order, in the settlement of disputes, especially those arising in buying and
selling, we probably have to look for the origin of the
office of the Ephors, which is much older than the Lycurgic legislation, and has its roots altogether outside the
Dorian political system.  But, like many other institutions, it continued to exist in the state of Lycurgus-nay,
it acquired a totally new significance in the latter, when
the success of-the Lycurgic work of reconciliation was
being wrecked on the tyrannical ambition of the kings,
and when the distrust which continued to spring up anew
from the old germs demanded an official authority which
should assert the Lycurgic order of things against all attacks.
The office of the Ephors was subsequently Th Ephorate.
entrusted with the guardianship of the
public laws in higher and wider spheres than that of
police magistrates, with the superintendence of the different powers in the state and the censorship over every
transgression of public order. And this latter duty grew
into the right of hindering those who exceeded the limits
of their power in its exercise.
This activity was in the first instance Powers of the
directed against the kings. Hence, the wife Ephors.
of Theopompus, the second successor of Charilaus, under
whom the Ephors acquired their new powers, bitterly
blamed her husband for his unroyal conduct. He ought
to be ashamed of not handing down his royal office as he
had received it to his successors. Theopompus returned
the humble answer that the royal office was now in a better condition than before, for that its permanence had




224               History of Greece.        [BoOK II.
now been insured.  Most assuredly he was right, inasmuch as it was rendered so incapable of doing any harm
that it no longer tempted to the abuse of power, and so
narrowly limited that it ceased to be an object of jealousy
and hostile attack. The Ephors saved the throne at a
time when in the majority of states the royal dignity was
abolished.  But in its essentials they destroyed the
royal power, and Sparta ceased to be a monarchy, without the connection with the Heroic age being violently
and criminally broken. The office of the Ephors which
had originated in the conflict of powers, constantly continued to extend its range of authority.  As guardians of
the laws and superintendents of the public officers they
had authority for every act.  Every month they made
the kings swear an oath of duty: they appropriated the
honor of representing the state towards foreign powers,
and signed the public treaties. They ousted the Heraclidse even from the proper sphere of the royal power, the
levy and command of the army. They chose the Hippagretse, or leaders of cavalry, who, after assigning definite
reasons (in order to prevent the prevalence of partiality),
selected three hundred out of the entire body of the army
for distinguished service near the persons of the kings:
the latter had no influence whatsoever on the formation
of their own guard of honor, in the midst of which they
felt rather watched than guarded. Every action of the
kings was subject to the criticism of the Ephors, into
whose hands fell even the observation of the heavens, on
which depended the uninterrupted continuance of the
royal office; they had authority to suspend the kings, till
these were permitted to re-assume their functions by a
declaration from Delphi, the supreme spiritual authority
of Sparta. In the same way the Ephors ousted the Senate
of the Elders from its position. They assumed the right
of treating with the people, developed legislation, and
acquired the right of deciding all public matters of greater




CHAP. I.]     History of Peloponnesus.          225
importance. In short, the ancient dignities and offices,
the origin of which dated from the Homeric age, continue
to pale into mere shadowy forms; the royal power becomes a mere ornament of the state; it is nothing beyond
a sacred decoration, a standard still borne aloft on account
of the reminiscences attaching to it, in order that the
entire population, of all ranks and every kind of descent,
may flock around it; and in the same way the senate
becomes more and more a mere honorary council in
which certain families are prominently represented. The
office of the Ephors is proportionately enlarged into an
unlimited power. Their presidency gives the name to the
year, and they give unity to the state: to them the policy
of Sparta owes its firmness and consistency; their official
residence is the centre of the state, the hearth of Sparta,
close to which the sanctuary of Fear shows how severe a
discipline abides in it. The Ephors were chosen out of
the Dorian community of citizens, whose interests it had
become their mission to represent against the Achaean
royal power. The influence of the Dori- Increasing Dorizaans increases simultaneously with the tion of the stato
authority of the Ephors. Externally Sparta retains her
antiquated appearance, and the wanderer through her
streets found no monuments dedicated to any but the gods
and heroes of the early Achaeo-2Eolic age. But internally
a thorough transformation took place, and the strength
of the Dorian people, invigorated and systematized
by the laws of Lycurgus, penetrated deeper and deeper.
Thus the state, whose essential institutions had originally
been Achsean, became more and more a Dorian state.
This Dorism also communicated itself to and its neighthe surrounding population, the Leleges and bors.
Achaeans; the Doric dialect came to prevail as the official
language of the land. From the market-place of Sparta,
the centre of the whole country, it spread into the districta  where Dorians and non-Dorians lived close to10*




226               History of Greece.        [BooK II.
gether, and into which the Dorian army made its conquering advance. The administration of the country was
also carried on by Dorians. Cythera was the most dangerous point in the Lacedaemonian dominion, because its
population had, from the earliest times, been composed
of a great variety of elements, and because at such a meeting-point of navigation it was impossible to carry through
with the same strictness the exclusion of every foreign
element. Hither a governor was annually sent with a
Dorian garrison, to keep a strict rein over the unquiet
islanders. By military service also the Dorian and nonDorian inhabitants were brought into closer contact with
one another.  For though originally the warrior-class
proper was exclusively composed of the Dorian community, yet the Periceci had never been absolved from
their original military obligations; and we hear of no
Lacedemonian armies in which there are not Perioeci serving as heavy-armed soldiers. For this service they were
employed and drilled by the Spartiatse, who were, one
and all, officers born.  When they had completed the
course of military training, and learnt to despise hunger
and thirst and wounds; when they had proved their
valor on the wrestling-grounds by the Eurotas, and on
the shady Eurotas-islands of the Platanistas, in the sportive contests of the youthful bands, they first performed
military service at home, in order to show whether they
knew how to act with independence, vigor, and presence
of mind. Here they behaved as the lords of the land,
watching over the Helots and their constant plots, and
keeping order and discipline from the mountains on the
Arcadian frontier to Cape Tenarum, the centre of the
Helot population. With whichever of the various elements of population it came into contact, the Dorian
character prevailed over and leavened the rest. Thus,
after a long period of unsettling agitations, the Dorian
immigration into the Eurotas-valley had at last, in the




CHAP. I.]     History of Peloponnesus.         227
eighth century, led to the attainment of a fixed goal; and
this epoch of its internal history necessarily also determined the progress of external events.
Originally, the Spartan state, so far from  Warlike characbeing designed with a view to an extension ter of Sparta.
of its limits, was rather intended to confine itself within
its natural boundaries and exclude everything foreign;
and every approximation from without was accounted
dangerous. The army was the guard of defence for the
throne, and was simply to preserve the existing establishment. However, it is impossible to educate all the citizens of a state for no purposes but those of war; and
while designedly neglecting all other tendencies of the
mind, to excite the ambition of its youths and keep alive
that of its men for this one object, without at the same
time causing the desire for real and active military service to make its appearance.  The Periceci of Laconia,
like the citizens of all other states, after the termination
of a campaign, returned to their ordinary occupations.
The Spartiatae remained always under arms; they had
only the choice between the monotony of military life in
times of peace, which even lacked the attraction of ease,
and the freer life of the camp in the field. They had
been taught to march to battle with a quick and merry
step, in the pride of their garments and arms, and led on
by the sound of music. No hesitation held them back.
Whom had they to fear, they, warriors unequalled by any
else in Hellas, who looked down with contempt upon the
militia of the other states hastily summoned from the
fields and the work-shops? An additional motive was the
closeness with which the members of the Spartiate community pressed upon one another on their native soil.
Occasionally several brothers had to subsist on one lot
of land; there existed a danger of some of them losing
their full rights of citizenship.  There remained then no




228               History of Greece.        [BOOK II.
means of relief but conquest and new distributions of land.
A well-grounded assurance of victory heightened the
desire for war, and thus the city of the Spartiatse was involuntarily driven into the path of a conquering state, on
which they more and more forgot how to keep peace.
But this only came to pass very gradually. For at
first the country had itself to be conquered as far as its
natural boundaries by the Spartiate community, and the
definition of these boundaries occasioned the first disputes
with the neighboring states of Messenia and Argos.
Rela s    It is true that natural boundaries could
Relations betweenLaconia impossibly be more accurately defined than
and Messenia. there, where the high sharp line of the Taygetus, with its untracked ridges, separates the two southern countries. On its summit stood, as a guardian of the
frontier, the sanctuary of Artemis Limnatis, whose festival was common to both the neighboring states, as yet
peaceable allies. However, even sworn treaties were not
strong enough to overcome the attractions of war. It
was remembered that in the Achaean times, the glorious
reminiscences of which were not to be sacrificed, Messenia had been a piece of Lacedsemon. The temptation
once more to advance the frontiers of the kingdom beyond the mountains was increased by the circumstance
that their western declivities have an incomparably richer
and more fertile soil than the eastern; and that while the
valley of the Eurotas still bore the traces of the long
civil wars which had desolated its whole extent, Messenia,
after passing through the first agitations of the Dorian invasion, had, under a succession of peaceable governments,
quietly attained to a state of uncommon prosperity. The
different tribes composing its population had amalgamated with one another; the densely-peopled valley of
the Pamisus offered a picture of the most flourishing
husbandry, the gulf was full of ships and Methone the
busy port of the land. It was unavoidable that the




CHAP. I]      History of Peloponness.          229
Spartans should look down with envy from their bare
rocky ridges into the prosperous land of their neighbors
and the terraces close by, descending to the river with
their well-cultivated plantations of oil and wine. Besides,
the Dorians who had immigrated into Messenia had,
under the influence of the native population and of a
life of comfortable ease, lost their primitive character.
Messenia seemed like a piece of Arcadia, with which it
was most intimately connected by the dynasty of the.AEpytide, by its mysteries and sanctuaries, and every
description of relations of kin. The Pelasgian Zeus, who
dwelt invisible on the mountain-tops, and demanded the
sacrifice of human blood, held his sway on the Lycseon as
on Ithome. Hence this was no war of Dorians against
Dorians; it rather seemed to be Sparta's mission to make
good the failure of the Dorization of Messenia which
had sunk back into Pelasgic conditions of life, and to
unite with herself the remains of the Dorian people still
surviving there. In short, a variety of motives contributed to provoke a forcible extension of Spartan military
power on this particular side; and the quarrels of those
who met at the festivals in the sanctuary of Artemis
were merely the fortuitous occasion which caused the
border-feud which had long glowed as a spark, to break
out into flames of war. Nor was there any lack of divisions in the Messenian land to promise a facilitation of
success. Even on the occasion of the first border-feud a
considerable party was for not refusing the Spartans the
satisfaction demanded by them, and so great was this disunion, that the adherents of this party emigrated to Elis.
The house of the Androclidse had openly gone over to
the Spartans.
The latter commenced the war after the Ft 
First Messenian
fashion adopted by their Dorian ancestors War. 01. ix. 2
of old when entering upon the conquest of 74572.  (B. C.
successive peninsulas. They occupied Am



230               History of Greece.         [BOOK IL
pnea, a point on the extreme projection of the ridge extending to the west from Taygetus. The declivities of
these heights fall vertically towards two rivulets, rendering them inaccessible from the Stenyclarian plain, whilst
its fields are open to every descent from above. From
this point they commenced their attacks and the devastation of the fields. Here they commanded the passes and
captured the messengers wandering about to seek advice
and aid among the neighbors, at Delphi and at Argos.
The resistance of the Messenians surpassed expectation.
When they were no longer able to hold the open country
they found a fixed point of resistance in the high rocky
citadel of Ithome, the common sanctuary of their land.
Here they settled in a body, and, occupying a strong position on its wooded terraces, are said to have gained
Its conse- a victory against the Spartans as late as the
quences. eleventh year of the war. But their strength
was exhausted, as year after year they saw the produce
of their fields fall into the hands of the foe; and the
bloody sacrifices offered to Zeus on Ithome had been offered in vain. With increasing vigor the two Heraclidse, Theopompus and the heroic king Polydorus, continued the war; and after a struggle of twenty years the
citadel of Aristodemus, and with it the whole land, fell
into the hands of the enemy. The royal seats became
desolate; the castles were destroyed, and the remains of
the JEolic national king Aphareus removed to the
market-place of Sparta, in order to mark this as the new
capital of the land. The fields were partly confiscated as
conquered land, and the soil parcelled out according to
the measure of Dorian lots of land. To their victorious
Polydorus the Spartiates owed an increase of these lots by
the number of three thousand. By this means it became
possible to free the Laconian farms, on which large
families dwelt together, of their burden, and to give complete independence to the younger sons of the Spartiate.




CHAP. I.]     History of Peloponness.          231
There were probably also instances of Messenian Dorians
being received into the community of citizens. In addition, the Androclidse were brought back, and rewarded
with family lands in Hyamia.  Finally, the Dryopian
population, expelled by the Argives out of their coastdistricts, was transplanted into Messenia. To the exiles
a dwelling-place offering great advantages was assigned,
where they built a new Asine. Of the former proprietors
the noble families emigrated, to seek a home in Arcadia,
Argolis, or the Sicyon. Otherwise the population of the
land remained unchanged. Their houses and homesteads
were left to the Messenians; but whatever was left to
them they received at the hands of the Spartan state, to
which they had to pay half the yearly produce. Sparta
was now their capital city. There, when a Heraclide departed this life, they had to appear for the national
mourning; and generally in peace and war they had to
be ready to perform the same service, as the Periceci.
Upper M/essenia was least affected by the Renewal of disinroads of Sparta. Here the strength of turbances.
the people remained unbroken; and all collected who refused to bow down before the bitter oppression of the
foreign yoke. The ancient royal city of Andania at the
outlet of the Arcadian mountain-passes became the focus
of the national rising; and, after the walls of Ithome
had lain in the dust for a generation, the sullen quiet of
the land was broken by a resolute rebellion. The mountaineers stood under arms; their leaders were the sons
and grandsons of the heroes of Ithome, as brave as these,
and brought up in a thirst for revenge; prominent among
all the rest the youthful Aristomenes, of the royal house
of the JEpytidoe. He was the soul of the whole rising,
and, after him, the ancients called the whole war which
was now kindled, the Aristomenian War. At first the
Messenians stood alone, the mountaineers and the revolutionary patriots of the lower country, who were also




232               History of Greece.         [BooK II.
joined by the Androclidae, a proof how little the Spartans
were able to retain the fidelity of their own party in the
land. The Messenians dared by themselves to oppose the
army of Sparta, and were able to hold their ground.
This success exercised an extraordinary effect. The Spartans lost courage, while the Messenians employed the
term of respite to send their messengers into all the
neighboring countries, who pointed out that now was the
time to unite their forces and drive this ambitious state
back within its own boundaries.
The cry for assistance was not raised in vain. The sufficiently plain answer given by King Polydorus, when
starting on his first march, to the inquiry as to its goal,
"The land not yet meted out!" was well remembered. It
is a sign of the arrogance of the Sparta of the day; all
the land of Peloponnesus was divided into lots among the
Spartiatse, or was to be so divided in future. Argos as
well as Arcadia had already had sufficient experience of
Sparta's serious intentions of realizing this threat in their
case also. War had been made upon both these states by
Charilaus; and his son had devastated a great part of Argolis, and supported Argive cities which were rising
against the rule of the Achseans, such as especially Asine;
the exiled Asineans had been subsequently received as
friends by Sparta. It happened to be a period at which
the Argive royal power was asserting new claims in its
own land, and saw itself most vexatiously impeded by the
policy of Sparta in the humiliation of rebellious countrytowns. A short time before the rising at Andania, the
Temenide Democratidas, while occupied with bending the
people of Nauplia beneath his yoke, had been attacked
anew in the blood-stained frontier-land of Thyreatis by
Sparta; how then could he be deaf to Aristomenes' call
for assistance? Arcadia, where Orchomenus under its
king Aristocrates at that time occupied the position of a
federal capital, was in the same situation. Here the Mes



CHAP. I.]     Hitory of Peoponneus.            233
senians were met half way, not only by the interests of the
dynasty, but by the liveliest sympathy of the land. A
movement began in all the cantons; eager for The allies of
war, the people assembled round the standard Messenia.
of Aristocrates, the townsmen in armor of bronze, the
mountaineers in wolf and bear-skins. From the coast of
the Northern Sea came Sicyonians, who had early developed an anti-Spartan tendency, and Athenians from Eleusis, where the descendants of Pylian families looked
upon Messenia as their ancient father-land. Among the
states of the western coast this feud was the first occasion on which a deeply-seated division made its appearance. Elis, the state on the Peneus, had for a long time
sought to support her policy by an alliance with Sparta,
being unable to accomplish her ambitious designs unassisted. On the other side Pisa, at that time under Pantaleon, the son of Omphaleon, was making a powerful endeavor to rival the Eleans; his dynastic interests could
only prosper if the power of Sparta was broken. Hence
he zealously took up the cause of Messenia, and himself,
full of ambitious hopes, entered the alliance forming
against Sparta, as commander. Thus the flame of the
Andanian rising had kindled in a large circle, and grown
into a Peloponnesian war; Sparta saw herself surrounded
on all sides by powerful enemies, against whom she could
count on no friends besides the Eleans, except the Lepreates and the Corinthians, who were animated by hostility
against Sicyon.
But the worst enemy of all was in the
camp of the Spartans themselves. Their Discor at Spart
power of victory was based on their remaining under all
circumstances steadily true to themselves, and opposing
their serried ranks as one man to the foreigner. Now
this attitude had been lost, and their firmness accordingly
shaken at its very base. The dearly-bought victories had
exercised a pernicious reaction on_ the condition of the




234              History of Greece.        [Boos I.
land. Immediately after the conclusion of the first war
threatening disturbances had broken out, which for a long
period of years shook the entire political system  During
the campaigns the authority of the kings had increased,
the more so that Polydorus and Theopompus had put an
end to the ancient jealousy between the two houses, which
the Spartans rightly regarded as the guarantee of their
liberties, and had held firmly together. From this period
dates the addition to the Lycurgic legislation containing
the regulation that, when the community of citizens had
agreed upon an erroneous and faulty resolution, the kings,
together with the Gerontes, should have the right and the
obligation to avert the same for the common good. This
rendered the consultation of the community a mere form,
and it had merely to obey as an assembled army. The
war had made great gaps in the military body itself, and
it was in the interest of the state to fill these up. For
this purpose young men were selected who had acquired
the full discipline of the Spartiatse, but were sprung from
Spartiate women who had formed unequal matches. This
supplementation miscarried, on account of the aristocratic resistance of the Spartiatse, who refused to recognize these marriages and to adopt the sons of unequal
birth. The latter, deceived in their expectations, united
in a conspiracy which endangered the welfare of the whole
state. The rising was with difficulty suppressed, but a reconciliation was impossible. At last it was resolved in
the Hellenium at Sparta, that those who in mockery were
called sons of maidens, or Parthenii, should emigrate;
they passed away far beyond the sea, and the subsequent
prosperity of Tarentum proved what a fulness of noble
strength the home-country had forfeited at a time when it
The Parthenii. stood in the greatest need of it. This event
01. xviii. 2. is connected with new attacks on the re(B. C. 70.)  cently strengthened royal dignity.  Polydorus himself, the model of a Heraclide, the favorite of




CHAP. I.      History of Peloponnesus.         235
the people, fell by the hand of an assassin; his surviving
friend could only save the throne by placing it under the
superintendence of a civic officer, by means of the then
created Ephorate, and ended his life in deep sorrow
over the damaged honor of the Heraclidse.
Evil signs had displayed the weak points of public life;
the one-sidedness of its tendency and the neglect of a
finer culture which is a defence against brutality, were
being avenged. This neglect it was endeavored to make
good; a connection was opened with foreign towns, where,
under conditions of greater freedom, Hellenic art had unfolded its blessings for the community; foreign artists
were invited, whose songs were able to affect the mind
more powerfully than the Homeric rhapsodies.
Perhaps even the arrival of Terpander, the 
Lesbian master of song, is to be connected with the rising
of the Parthenii.
On Lesbos the Bceotian emigrants, favored by the beautiful situation of the island and the manifold impulses received from the side of the Asiatic coast, had advanced
to a high state of success in song and the use of the lyre.
The 1Egidse were Bceotians, to whose highly-gifted house
Euryleon belonged, who had commanded the centre of
the Lacedsemonian army under Polydorus and Theopompus in the Messenian war. In war and peace their influence was great in the state of Lycurgus, and by means of
the widely-extending connections of their house, especially
adapted to counteract the one-sided and inflexible Dorism
and to introduce the beneficent germs of Universal Hellenic culture into Sparta. Hence we may ascribe to their
influence the circumstance that Terpander was invited to
domesticate at Sparta the Lyric art which his creative
mind had systematized, to ban the evil dmemons of discord by the kindly charm of music, and to widen the
narrow bounds of Spartan culture. His art was officially
introduced and assigned a well-defined position in the




236               Hi8tory of Greece.         [BOO II.
commonwealth; his seven-stringed either received legal
sanction. The public worship of the gods was animated
Reform of the Car- anew by his lofty strains; and above all
nean Festival. 01. the great national festival of Apollo Carxvi.. (B. c. 676.) neus, the family-divinity of the,LEgidoe,,which, full of all the reminiscences of the march of the
Dorians, had become a pre-eminently military festival,
was reformed so as to be combined with a competitive exhibition of JEolic music. The heightened splendor of the
festival was to bring with it a reconciliation of all parties,
an oblivion of the past, and the beginning of a new and
happier era.
The invitation of Terpander is no solitary phenomenon
in this remarkable period of inner movements in Sparta.
A few Olympiads after the reform of the Carnean festival
a new trouble came over the land. A malignant disease
broke out, such as frequently burrowed with extreme obstinacy in the secluded hot valley of the Eurotas; and
in its train came discontent, disorder, and sedition. Again
help was sought abroad, and most naturally looked for
in the state which had already served as a model for the
Sparta of Lycurgus, and had known how to unite on its
island the old and the new, law and religion, severity of
discipline and progress of culture. From Crete the religion of Apollo had once, with its purifying power, risen
upon all Greek lands like the advent of a new era, and
here, even at this date, the expiating priests of Apollo,
enjoyed a high reputation. They had appropriated in full
measure the faculties of the music art without sacrificing
its connection with the religious worship; and as the service of Apollo demanded a collected serenity of soul, a
genial trust in the god, and a confident command over
the higher powers of the mind, so these priestly singers
had also preserved the full power of poetry and music in
the service of the same objects. On the other hand,
Cretan art was not without a political end. In the inter



CHAP. I.]      History of Peloponnesus.        237
est of its native political system it used its best endeavors
to keep up military vigor in the immigrant Dorians, and
to animate their courage as warriors. This purpose was
fulfilled by livelier measures of instrumental and vocal
music, and of the dance, as well as by festive rites according to which boys and youths danced to the sound of
the flute, partly in full panoply, partly naked, in order
joyously to prove their health of body and soul.
Of this many-sided art the Gortynian Tha- Thaletas and
letas was a master; and the greater the origi- the Gymno-,   pssdia.  01.
nal connection between the Laconian and Cre- xxviii. 4. (B.
tan institutions, the firmer had the alliance re- c. 665.)
mained between Crete and Sparta, even in the latter days
of dangerous wars, and the more readily was the attention
of the Spartans, when again oppressed by the menaces of
public disorder, directed towards Thaletas, whose great services towards the animation of political discipline were
known to them   through their Cretan auxiliaries. As
they owed to Terpander the renovation of the Carnean, so
they were indebted to Thaletas for the institution of the
Gymnopedic festival. The latter was dedicated to the
system of public training; the dances of the naked boys
were to strengthen and steel the body after the years of
disease through which the land had passed, to re-animate
public spirit and unite men's minds in common festive enjoyment. That Thaletas penetrated farther and deeper,
that his work was legislative and permanently systematized the long-neglected music culture on the basis laid
down by Terpander in connection with religious institutions, is evident, if from nothing else, from the fact that in
defiance of all chronology he was brought into connection
with Lycurgus, as everything was wont to be brought that
had permanently and powerfully penetrated Spartan
society and, so to speak, entered into its life's blood.
The work of Terpander and Thaaletas has probably
much to do with the internal movements which had made




238               History of Greece.         [BOOK II.
their appearance after the close of the first Messenian war.
By the latter Sparta had been driven out of her ancient
course, and brought into the stream of new and widelyspreading relations. With these the ancient forms of society calculated on isolation refused to harmonize, on account of the narrow limits and the purely military
character of their discipline.  We have seen how the
craving for an extended national culture was felt and satisfied.
Fresh disturbances  However, even with these modificaduring the war.  tions, the Lycurgic state proved itself unequal to the performance of the difficult tasks which
offered themselves after the successful rising of Messenia.
The resistance in the open field was unexpected, and shook
the confident military courage of the army. When finally
the surrounding countries one after the other joined the
rebels, and in the whole peninsula an anti-Spartan party
raised its head, Sparta again showed signs of weakness
and helplessness. This state, with all its appearance of
vigor and manliness, was never prepared for any unusual
event, because it was, as it were, only trained for a fixed
course of things. For the great part she had been called
upon to play, Sparta was still too poor in moral resources,
and far from the perfect independence which the ancients
required above all from a well-ordered political system.
The greatest trouble of all was again caused by the territorial condition. To a number of Spartiatse, it will be remembered, land had been assigned in Messenia; these and
their families had now, ever since the war had broken out,
been deprived of their means of sustenance, and demanded
compensation, which could not be given without a new
distribution of land. The most violent disturbances broke
out, and threatened to overtake the state at the very moment when it needed the fullest display of its powers
against its enemies. As supreme lords of the soil, the
kings had to watch over the order of territorial possession;




CHAP. I.]     History of Peloponnesus.          239
against them the public discontent turned, and the throne
of the Heraclidae was in the first instance menaced. In
this trouble they turned their eyes to the land with which
their house stood in a primitive connection, to Attica, the
country which, little touched by the agitation of the
migrations of Greek tribes, had quietly established its own
political system.
In accordance with her situation, Attica Tyrt  and
Tyrtseus and
had received into her bosom the germs of Hel- elegiac poelenic mental culture from the most various re- try
gions, especially from Ionia, in order to cherish them at
home into the fulness of development. In this her inhabitants had particularly succeeded with elegiac verse, a
species of poetry which, originally belonging to Homer's
native land, by shortening the second hexameter changed
the epic measure into a new metre, in which the dignity
of Homeric verse was preserved, but at the same time the
charming movement of a lyric strophe obtained. Never
in the field of poetry has so minute a change.produced so
great results. Already in the cities of Ionia elegiac verse
was employed to call forth military valor in the citizens
by its vigorous rhythm; transplanted into the quieter conditions of life in Attica, it served to uphold a loyal adherence to ancient statutes and a love of civil older. After
this fashion it was practiced by Tyrtaeus, whom the mere
connection between his native place of Amphidna and the
Heraclidie served to recommend, and in a yet higher degree the serious and instructive, and at the same time
lofty and impetuous, vigor of his muse. That he was summoned to Sparta in the interest of the endangered royal
power is proved by the fact that his elegies composed for
Sparta insisted, above all, on the rule of the Heraclids as
founded by the divine will, and on the division of power
among king, people, and popular assembly, as accomplished under the sanction of the Pythian oracle. The
sense of military honor and loyalty to the royal house of




240              History of Greece.          (BooK II.
the land, such were the sentiments sung by Tyrtseus;
hence his songs were sung by the soldiers before the tent
of the king. In phrases easily imprinting themselves on
the memory they described how Dorian discipline must
show itself in the bearing of each individual, in the serried
ranks, in the firm order of battle, in a devotion to the
whole, regardless of self, and how every dereliction of
order brought disgrace and ruin upon the whole. Besides
these, however, songs for the march, to animate the troops
during the charge, which was regulated by a fixed
rhythm, were also taught by him in Sparta. He was not
merely a singer for army and people, who by the gentle
power of poetry assuaged the troubled spirits and led the
hesitating back to their duty, but his agency was also that
of a statesman. He succeeded in inducing the aristocratic obstinacy of the Spartiats, which had shown itself
so inflexible towards the Parthenii, to allow the admission
of new citizens, and thus re-invigorated and reformed, the
people of the Spartiats marched onward on its victorious
course.
Meanwhile the war itself had taken a
Second Messenian
War (War of Aris- different turn from that hoped for by the
tomenes.) Post 01. Messenians, and feared by the Spartans.
All the notices we have of Tyrtseus prove
of themselves that the superior strength of the enemies
left the Spartans time to strengthen and collect themselves
at home. No attack was dared upon Laconia in her
strong natural fortifications. The allies themselves were
locally too distant from one another to act with unanimity. Of yet superior importance was the circumstance
that the single members of the alliance one and all pursued objects of their own; at Argos and at Pisa, the
princes at the head of the army, after all, only desired to
strengthen the power of their own houses; and no auxiliary troops were sent by them. Messenia's truest and most
faithful ally was Arcadia; their armies were united, and




CHAP. I.]     History of Peloponnesus.         241
protected the newly-gained land with so superior a force
against the Spartans, that the latter are said to have been
obliged to employ the method of bribery to separate the
allies. The villainy of Aristocrates allowed them to succeed. When the armies were standing opposite one another by the "great foss," a canal of the Messenian plain,
for the decisive struggle, the faithless king, whose troops
made up two-thirds of the army, under the pretext of unfavorable signs in the sacrificial victims, recalled his army
out of the battle, which had already begun. This created
confusion and disorder among the Messenians on the right
wing, so that they were easily surrounded by the Spartans,
who obtained a facile victory. The Arcadians cursed the
king, when his crime was discovered; and he was stoned
as a traitor. On the most sacred spot of the Arcadian
land, high up on Lyceon, by Zeus' altar of ashes, stood
for centuries the pillar whose warning inscription announced that "by the favor of Zeus, Messenia had discovered the traitor, and that he had suffered the penalty of
perjury. No crime remains undiscovered." Meanwhile
no new assistance arrived, and Messenia was lost., True, the struggle was continued. But it took a
totally different turn. The plains could no longer be
held; and the contest became a guerilla-war, with its
centre in the inaccessible mountains on the Arcadian
frontier. Starting hence, Aristomenes succeeded in penetrating by venturous incursions into the heart of Laconia,
and returning loaded with booty even from the securelysituated Pharis, where the Spartan state kept its supplies
and treasures. Though he was himself no longer able
to levy an army, the Lacedsemonians trembled at his
name on the banks of the Eurotas, and with bitter wrath
saw their fields devastated year after year by his raiders.
Their tactics, calculated for battle in the open field, were
utterly unable to terminate a war of this kind. Accordingly Aristomenes could carry it on for'several years.
11




242               History of Greece.         [BOOK II.
His head-quarters were at Eira, a steep height of extensive circumference in the wildest mountain-country,
between two streams flowing down to the Neda. The
whole highland district, which belongs to Arcadia rather
than to Elis, resembles a fortress; through its gorges no
army could advance in marching order, and the troops
which had fallen out of their ranks were lost in impervious clefts of the rocks. Here with their flocks and herds
and other moveables had settled the remnant of the free
Messenians and awaited better times with Aristomenes,
who continued to look around for his old allies. Surrounded more and more closely by the Spartans, they at
last commanded nothing beyond the narrow valley of the
Neda, through which they obtained their supplies and
kept up their connection with friendly places. For two
important ports, Methone and Pylus, had still remained
in the hands of the Messenians, and endeavored to
damage the Spartans on shipboard, as Aristomenes did
by land. These three remote points could not be held
in the long run; and at last the remnants of the best
Messenian families which had survived through the long
exhausting years of war, had to make up their minds to
quit their native soil, which, deserted by all extraneous
ll of Eir aid, they could not hope to re-conquer. They
01. xxxiii. retreated into Arcadian territory, where they
4, cir. (B. c. were hospitably received. The more unquiet
and active spirits emigrated farther; some to
Cyllene, the port of Elis, through which Arcadia from the
earliest times has been connected with the Western sea,
and hence across the water in the same direction, which
had already been followed by bands of Messenians after
the first war, to the Messenian sound. One band was led
by Gorgus, the son of Aristomenes, the other by Manticles, the son of Theocles, the seer who had foretold the
fall of Eira from the fulfilment of the Divine omens.
From the Messenians who derived their descent from these




CHAP. I.]      History of Peloponnesus.        243
ancestors, there grew up a fortunate and powerful race
which obtained dominion in Rhegium and afterwards also
in Zancle. Others turned towards the Eastern seas;
among them Aristomenes himself, who died at Rhodes, in
the midst of fresh plans of vengeance, for the realization
of which he is said even to have sought the co-operation
of Asiatic despots. The Diagoride on Rhodes boasted
that through the daughter of Aristomenes his heroic blood
had found its way into their family.
Messenia herself, after losing her noble families, sank
into a pitiable condition; the fair land, once famed as the
most fortunate of the lots of the Heraclidse, was extinguished from out of the history of the Greek people.
Now as of old the springs of the Pamisus watered the
luxuriant lands; but those who had remained were forced
to till their native soil as villeins of the Spartans; and
the farther they were removed from the centre of the
ruling power, the harder and the more suspicious was the
treatment they experienced. The mountain-sacrifices of
the Messenian Zeus, every divine worship and sacred rite
of their fathers which had been celebrated in the Pelasgian oak-groves, were suppressed by force. The land
that had not been distributed in lots was left uncultivated
for the purpose of pasture. Dreariest of all was the desolation of the coast-districts, the inhabitants of which
had emigrated in large bodies; the name of Pylus sank
into oblivion, and the fairest harbor of the peninsula lay
empty and waste. To guard the coast, besides the Asinseans, the Nauplieans, whom a similar fate had expelled
out of Argolis, were settled in Methone. No increase of
Spartan homesteads took place. In the same way, a distribution of the Spartiate community on either side of the
Taygetus was sagaciously avoided, because it would have
endangered the common discipline and the unity of the
state. Probably a great part of the Messenian revenues
was appropriated by the state as such, and expended for




244               History of Greece.        [BooK II.
The hundred the benefit of the commonwealth. A new
The hundred
towns of La- division of districts took place; and, like
conia.     ancient Crete, Laconia now  nunbered one
hundred places, a number pleasing to the gods. )f these
places some lay on the frontier of Argolis, others in the
vicinity of the river Neda, and on behalf of the land
thus enlarged, the kings annually offered up the great
sacrifice of one hundred oxen, in order to beseech the
gods to maintain the powerful state under the guardianship of the Heraclidse in undiminished greatness.
Sparta, however, could not rest satisfied with preserving her acquisitions, after she had once entered upon the
path of conquest, and now amassed more than a third of
the whole peninsula as a mighty hereditary dominion.
During the Messenian wars the tendencies hostile to her
had too clearly manifested themselves not to oblige her
after her victory to think of nothing so eagerly as of
overthrowing for ever the hostile party, and extending
and strengthening her own power in the peninsula.
Wars between   As to the object of these endeavors no
Sparta and Ar- doubt could exist. The wide interior of
cadia.       the peninsula had supported and given
confidence to the whole Messenian popular movement.
The Arcadian cities had offered hospitality and their
citizenship to the exiles: the daughters of Aristomenes
were married in Phigalea and Heraea, and brought up
their children in hatred against Sparta and her lust of
land. The Messenian war had been an Arcadian war at
the same time, and Phigalea, the stronghold in the valley
of the Neda, and situated in the close vicinity of Eira,
had been already once taken by the Spartans, in order to
cut off Aristomenes from the other. Yet they had not
succeeded in taking up a permanent position in this, the
most savage part of the mountain-country.




CHAP.. ]       History of Peloponnesus.        245
With all the greater energy they reAlliance of Tegem
newed their attacks from the more ac- with Sparta. 01.
cessible eastern side. Here the road led xlv. circ., (B. c.
over low ridges out of the upper valley
of the Eurotas into the country of the Alpheus, whose
springs meet on the broad table-land, for which the scattered districts found an early and permanent centre in
the city of the Tegeatse. Part of the Arcadian population, so far as it dwelt along the gradual fall of land
along the Eurotas, had here been long reduced to the
condition of Spartan Periceci; and for securing and completing this conquest, avenging old offences suffered at the
hands of Tegea, and extinguishing the memory of the
capture of their kings Charilaus and Theopompus by new
victories, the time seemed now to have arrived, the
rather that, after the fall of Aristocrates, Arcadia had
again been broken up into a number of autonomous
cantons. Accordingly, after the expulsion of the Messenians had been refused, the armies of the Spartiatse entered Tegeatis, to whose inhabitants the Spartan kings
endeavored to prove, from Delphic oracles, that Arcadia
had been destined to them by the gods, and that the wide
plain would soon be measured with the measuring-line, to
be allotted to Spartiatse as their possession.
But it was not long before they were made to understand the difficulty of the conquest of a lofty and rude
mountain-country, abounding in sturdy and temperate inhabitants.  The Spartans suffered sore troubles of war,
and instead of dividing the conquered territory amongst
themselves according to their fancy, many of them had to
learn to dig as captives at the canals of the Alpheus, and
themselves to experience the fate of prisoners-of-war.
Force was of no avail against Tegea, the immovable bulwark of the free mountain-land; whereupon the oracle
pointed out another way to the Spartans. They were to
conquer by means of the remains of Orestes, which must




246              History of Greece.         [BOOK II
be securely transported to Sparta from the soil of
Tegeatis. The transportation of these relics was doubtless itself a consequence of a turn in the fortune of war,
which had gradually come to smile upon the Spartan
military forces, in return for their endurance and superior
tactics.  The royal power in Sparta availed itself of
every opportunity to revive the connection with the traditions of the Heroic age, and to extinguish, by acts of
piety towards the remains of the Pelopidse, the memory
of the mighty revolution to which the present order of
things at Sparta owed its beginning.  Both sides were
sickening of the desolating war; Sparta had long had to
relinquish the idea of subjecting Arcadia: and the heroism of the citizens of Tegea preserved Arcadia from the
fate of Messenia, and turned the foreign policy of Sparta
into another course.  For the purpose of effecting a
mutual reconciliation the common worship of Heroes was
employed, and the reminiscences of the glorious hegemony
of Agamemnon revived, which Arcadia too had once
acknowledged. The Heraclidse of Sparta were recognized
as his successors, and, to express this recognition, the
remains of Orestes were solemnly transported into Laconia. Near the sources of the Alpheus was erected the
pillar on which were inscribed the treaties between Tegea
and Sparta. The Tegeatse entered into this new relation
with their military honor unblemished; and hereafter followed the Spartan policy and swore military fealty to the
Heraclidse. The place of honor conceded to them on the
left wing of the federal army shows how glad the Spartans were to have changed these obstinate enemies into
brothers-in-arms; and the fidelity with which Tegea
maintained this association is as honorable a testimony of
the bravery of her citizens as the successful endurance
they had shown in their struggle for freedom.
The pillar on the Alpheus marks an epoch of change
in Peloponnesian history; institutions of political law,




CHAP. I.]     History of Pelotponnesus.        247
established centuries previously by the legislators of
Sparta, now for the first time acquired their full importance.
For even Lycurgus is said already to have cast his eyes
beyond the internal affairs of his country, upon the entire
peninsula, and to have recognized the necessity of measures for a union of all its tribes and states. Among the
immigrant tribes, next to the Dorians, the LEtolians, possessed the greatest amount of independent vigor: they had
spread along the west coast, as the Dorians had along the
east. Thus a double centre of gravity existed in the peninsula. Hence if the latter was to attain to a development of strength and unity, everything depended on
creating a peaceable and permanently established relation
between the Western and Eastern states. For this purpose a religious centre was requisite, a sanctuary of universal significance both for the immigrant tribes and for
those who had been from the first settled in the peninsula.
The Pelasgian Zeus owned a primitive sanctuary in the valley of the Alpheus, where the The sanctuar
at Olympia.
greatest river of the peninsula enters the lowlands of the western coast out of the narrow valley of the
Arcadian mountains.   The height above bore, like the
Arcadian Lyceon, the name given to the seats of the gods
-Olympus; at its base Zeus had, descending in lightning,
marked the earth with tokens, to which the feeling of a
special local presence of the invisible god attached itself:
his altar arose out of sacrificial ashes, and priestly families here announced his hidden will. This oracle had
existed long before the foundation of the states of Eiis\
and Pisa. The Achteans, who arrived under Agorius the
Pelopide, to take part in the foundation of Pisa, joined
this worship of Zeus and combined with it the adoration
as Hero of their ancestor Pelops, in whose honor they instituted festive games. By the side of Zeus, Here was
adored; her sanctuary was the federal sanctuary of the




248             History of Greece.          [BOOK IL
two neighbor-states, and the choir of sixteen women who
in company wove the robe of Here was represented by the
sixteen country-towns which lay equally distributed in
Elis and Pisatis. This federal relation was also extended
to the worship of Zeus, which had gained a totally new
importance from the accession of the Achaean Pelopidse.
Pisa, from the first the weaker state, endeavored to find
protection for her sanctuaries against her neighbors on the
south and east, especially against the Arcadians, who
asserted an ancient claim to the river-shed of the Alpheus,
by adhering closely to Elis; and Elis again found in her
participation in the administration of Pisa the desired
opportunity of acquiring power and influence beyond the
frontiers of her own territory. Both states divided between them the superintendence of the sacred worship.
Olympia became a centre for the states of the west coast,
and as Sparta aimed at union with these, a form here presented itself than which none more suitable could be
found. For Zeus, especially according to the conception
of the Achvean tribe, was the common guardian of the
peoples, the most ancient federal deity of all the Hellenes,
and at the same time the protector of the Heraclidic
principalities in Peloponnesus. In his worship at Olympia, Sparta joined all the more readily, inasmuch as it
was closely combined with the adoration of Pelops as the
founder of the Olympian festive games, and the model of
all Olympian athletes; for to honor this house in every
way was the family policy of the Heraclidse.
In the temple of Here at Olympia was preLyrgus and served, as late as the age of the Antonines, a
disc of bronze on which a circular inscription
contained the legal statutes as to the celebration of the
Olympian festival. Aristotle recognized and examined
this inscription as the most important document of Peloponnesian history. According to his testimony, the name
of Lycurgus stood on it next to that of Iphitus, king of




CHAP. I.]      History of Peloponnesus.        249
Elis. Nowhere, however, is there any evidence that the
document was itself made out at the same time, and by
both, in the name of their respective states  They might
have been mentioned as the authors of the mutual agreement on a monumental inscription composed at a much
later date. In any case, King Iphitus was regarded in
the native tradition as the real founder of the federal festival, and as the author of its significance, which extended
beyond the countries in the immediate vicinity. Accordingly, in the court of the temple of Zeus stood the bronze
figure of a woman of lofty stature, representing the Olympic cessation of arms, and by her side Iphitus, whom she
gratefully crowned with a wreath. Although the Pissean
Cleomenes is named, as well as Iphitus, yet even at that
time both the preponderance in power and the first place
in honor belonged to Elis. The name of Iphitus indicates the most important epoch in the progress of these
transactions. It was found impossible to establish a definite connection between him and his predecessors of the
house of Oxylus. He is himself called a Heraclide, and
is at all events said to have introduced the worship of
Heracles, against which the Eleans up to that time manifested an aversion, and to have established a connection
between himself and his state and the Delphic god. This
was the same epoch in which the ancient connection with
Achaia, of which the invitation to Agorius is a proof, was
dissolved to make way for a feeling of decided aversion
from Sparta. About the same time the myths of the
primitive alliance in arms between Oxylus and the Heraclidse grew up. Elis and Sparta were at one in the interests of their policy, and in order mutually to support one
another in carrying it into execution they concluded an
alliance, with the sanctuary of the Pissean Zeus for its centre. This alliance was in all main points complete and
firmly established, when, with the victory of Corcebus, 776
B. C., the catalogue of the Olympic victors commenced to
11*




250               History of Greece.         [BOOK II.
be regularly kept, and with it the documentary history of
the federal sanctuary took its beginning.
The basis of the federation was the common recognition
of the Olympian Zeus and the common participation in
his festivals, which were to be held regularly every fifth
year, after the summer solstice, at the time of the appearance of the full-moon, as a federal festival. With this
were connected many circumstances which brought into
close and beneficent contact the sides of the peninsula
hitherto kept apart. Roads were built, the seasons for
the festivals received a fixed arrangement, and mutual obligations were undertaken. Elis was confirmed in the
right of presidency she had taken for herself out of the
hands of the Pisseans; and the Eleans were entrusted
with the duty of announcing the approach of the festival
by means of sacred messengers. With this announcement commenced the cessation of arms; the roads to Pisa
had to remain open and unimperilled, and all the land
round the temple perfectly secure. Whoever by a deed of
violence disturbed this interval of peace was cited before
the temple-court of Eleans, Every convict became the
serf of the offended god, and could only be ransomed
by payment of a considerable sum. A temple-treasure
was formed, and a series of statutes established, which
obtained validity as the sacred law of Olympia.
In the first place Elis, thanks to her poAlliance of EliS litic rulers, reaped the advantages of this
association. By nature the most open and
defenceless land of the peninsula for the attacks of the
Arcadian highland tribes, she succeeded, by her alliance
with Sparta, in effecting this result, that not only was the
integrity of her territory guaranteed by the more powerful state, but in general every attack on it declared a violation of the Olympic truce of the gods. Thus Elis was
left free to pursue her own course, and could undisturb



CHAP. I.]    History of Peloponnesus.          251
edly extend and strengthen her power to the south, advancing from the Peneus.
As for Sparta, this federation enabled her to quit her
position as a mere canton, and assert the influence of a
federal capital upon the general affairs of the land. As
representative of the Dorian population, she, in conjunction with Elis, arranged the Olympian statutes in a Dorian sense. The festive combatants ran naked on the
banks of the Alpheus as on those of the Eurotas from the
date of the fifteenth celebration, and from the first a
wreath of the wild olive was the victor's prize. Sparta,
with Elis, determined the admission of those who announced themselves as competitors in the common sacrifices and games.
As for the inhabitants of Pisa themselves they made a
similar experience in this matter to that of the citizens of
Crisa by Parnassus. The sanctuary lying before the gates
of their city, and founded by their an- Revolt of the Pisacestors, they had to see pass into the tae. 01. xxvi. (B. c.
hands of others, together with all the 676).
honors and privileges attaching to it. A deep resentment
took possession of them, which only awaited an opportunity for breaking out. This arose when a vigorous family
assumed a prominent position among them, and with the
help of the people obtained a heightened princely power.
This was the house of Omphalion, probably belonging to
a branch of the Eltolian nobility which had immigrated
into Pisa. The son of Omphalion was Pantaleon. He assumed the government when Sparta
was so fully occupied with the internal troubles consequent upon the Messenian wars that it became impossible
for her to assert her influence abroad. Fortified by the
alliance with Arcadia, Pantaleon knew how to use this
time well enough to re-acquire the rights and honors
taken from the Pisseans; two Olympiads, the twenty-sixth
and -seventh, he celebrated, in the name of his state, with




252              History of Greece.         [BooII.
rights equal to those of the Eleans. Matters assumed a
still more favorable aspect when the Temenide,
Phidon, rose with great success in the east of the
peninsula, drove the Spartans out of the conquered borderdistrict of Argolis, beat them in open battle near Hysise,
and then took his victorious march straight across Arcadia, in order to destroy their influence on the west coast
as well as the east. Elis was not only deserted by her
allies, but also involved in a struggle with the Achseans,
who entertained an ancient and just wrath against their
neighbors on account of the exclusion of their families
from Olympia. Thus the Argive dynast succeeded without much labor in attaining to the goal of his ambitious
desires. As the heir of Heracles he performed in the
sacred field of the Altis, formerly measured out by his
ancestor, the great sacrifice, which had already obtained a
significance extending beyond the peninsula. The festival
(the twenty-eighth after Corcebus) he held in company
with the Pisseans; the Eleans were excluded as well as
the Spartans; and thus the hegemony of the peninsula,
which the Spartans already imagined they possessed, had
again returned to the royal house which occupied the seat
of Agamemnon.
Meanwhile these brilliant successes lasted
Defet iof PiSa only for a brief time. The Spartans succeeded in coming to the assistance of the
Eleans before the outbreak of the Messenian revolt, while
the latter in their turn used their utmost endeavor to reconquer the possession of their rights.  The eight-and
twentieth was erased from the series of the Olympiads as
a revolutionary celebration, and the following again held
under the presidency of the exiled officers. Pisa remained under her dynasty, which had no intention of resigning its rights. She availed herself once more of the
troubles of Sparta in order to collect an army of Pisseans,
Arcadians, and Triphylians, and to celebrate the four



CHAP. I.]     Hi8tory of Peloponnesu.           253
and-thirtieth Olympiad in her own name. This was the
last triumph of the daring house of the Omphalionidfe.
For after the fall of Eira which it had been the great
error of the Anti-Spartan party to permit, a complete revulsion took place; nor did the Spartans allow a moment's delay before settling matters at Eira in conformity
to their interests. Pisa herself was again treated without
any harshness, doubtless from a fear of polluting the
sacred territory, of the temple with the blood of those
whose home it was. They retained their independence.
The participators in the last rising were treated with
less consideration. The cities of Triphylia which had
their centre in the temple of Posidon at Samicum, and although founded by Minyi, were yet nearly allied with Arcadia, were now destroyed. The Spartans were assuredly
interested in clearing the ground from here as far as the
frontier of what had been Messenia, and in effectually
preventing any attempts at a rising from  this quarter.
In Lepreum two parties had opposed one another like
Guelphs and Ghibellines; the Messenian party under the
leadership of Demothoides, the son-in-law of Aristomenes;
while the other had been strong enough to send armed aid
to the Spartans in Messenia. Hence Lepreum not only
continued to exist, but was even increased and strengthened by an end being put to the existence of smaller
places. It was to serve as a fortified post, and an important support of the Laconian interests on the confines of
Arcadia, Elis, and Messenia.
Thus the national affairs of Elis seemed to
Destruction
have been permanently settled by Sparta; but of Pisa. oi.
the ancient enmity between Elis and Pisa re- 1. ci5c. (B.
mained unappeased. Pantaleon had left behind him two sons, Damophon and Pyrrhus. Already
Damophon, the elder brother, was regarded with eyes of
suspicion by the princes of Elis; and preparatory measures for a new secession were believed to be perceptible.




254               History of Greece.        [B1OK II
But scarcely had Pyrrhus assumed the reins of government, when, resolved to break the oppressive relation of
the alliance, he called the whole valley of the Alpheus
under arms against Elis. Triphylia again joined the alliance, as well as the neighboring districts of Arcadia,
which, although their state took no public part in the war,
were yet always ready to help the Pisseans by bands of
volunteers. This war decided the fate of the whole western coast. The Pisseans were incapable of resisting the
united armies of Elis and Sparta; their military force was
small; their small land scarcely at one with itself; and
since on this occasion it was they who had boldly broken
the public peace, every consideration for the sanctity of
their city was now cast to the winds. It was destroyed,
and that according to so elaborate and complete a plan,
that at a later period its traces were in vain sought for on
the vine-clad hills near Olympia. As many of the inhabitants as remained in the land became the tributaries of
the temple of Zeus. A great number emigrated from the
coast in the vicinity, in order to escape the yoke of the
hated Eleans, among them especially the Dyspontians,
while their neighbors the Letrinoeans, who had held by
Elis, remained undisturbed on their lands.
Pisatis was, after Messenia, the second country which
was forcibly erased out' of the history of the peninsula.
The antique sound of its name continued to survive in the
mouth of the people and the language of the poets; nor,
with the exception of the capital Pisa, the place of which
was filled up in another way, were the ancient eight towns
of the district destroyed. They continued to exist as village communities under the supremacy of Elis; and as the
flowers of the earth continue to bloom over battle-fields
and graves, so, after all these troubles, the sacred company
of the sixteen women who embroidered the festive robe of
Here remained as a charming type of the primitive sisterly union between the two countries.




CAP. I.]     History of Peloponnesus.           255
The ruling families which occupied the
ancient royal seat of Oxylus had at last at- tPowofuElisitained to the goal of their desires. The
hated land of their neighbors was a subject territory, while
their own was doubled in size and at the same time
secured by the newly-confirmed treaties against hostile
attacks from without. They now removed the administration of the Olympic sanctuary to their capital, and the
utter destruction of Pisa served them as a pledge that here
no city would again arise able to dispute with them the
conduct of the games.
As they had carried on the last war in the name of the
Olympic god, the booty obtained in it was appropriated
to him; and the Eleans, as administrators of the templetreasure, undertook the obligation of employing the
moneys in his honor. The honor of Zeus was a convenient form for them under which to satisfy their own ambition; for, under the pretext of adding to the treasure, they
were able by force as well as craft, and by purchase of
land, to extend their territory step by step farther south.
Triphylia, which Sparta had reduced to a defenceless
state, also became Periceci-land of Elis, whose twelve districts, four of which belonged to the ruling state on the
Peneus and eight to the subject or Perieci territory, extended as a compact country from the Achfean Larisus
down to the Neda. This brilliant success testifies to the
political activity of the ruling families, who dwelt together
in strict seclusion on the Peneus.
With great sagacity they had availed themselves of the
circumstances of the land for the maintenance of their privileges. For notwithstanding her possessing an extensive
line of coast, Elis' want of harbors disqualified her for
navigation, and directed her towards agriculture, for
which, by the equal excellence of all her soil, she was better endowed than any other country of Peloponnesus. To
foster this tendency was the constant endeavor of the gov



256               History of Greece.        [BooK II.
ernment.  A  careful system  of agricultural laws, the
origin of which was dated back to Oxylus, forbade the
mortgaging of lands assigned by the state. By these
means their feudal holdings were to be preserved to the
military bands that had immigrated, and the impoverishment of the nobility and a revolution in the proprietorship of the soil to be permanently prevented. The small
proprietors were to remain undisturbed in their avocations,
and not to be forced to come to town even for the decision
of lawsuits. For the latter purpose local judges were appointed, who dwelt among the country population and
went circuit at certain fixed terms. On account of the
public peace no walled cities were allowed; the dense
population lived in nothing but open hamlets or single
farms. As the land abounded in corn, wine, and fruittrees, no imports were needed; the lagunes of the coast
supplied excellent fish, and the mountains game. The
people lived on in a constant condition of easy prosperity.
Endangered neither by trade nor the prosperous rise of
towns, the privileges of the noble families maintained
themselves for centuries, and they themselves ruled the
destinies of the land according to fixed principles.
Hence the wise consistency and comparatively great success of the policy of the Elean state.
The real reason of the good fortune of the
The lympic Eleans was their distance from Sparta, who
Games.
needed their support without being dangerous
to them on account of her superior power; the most priceless of their possessions was their relations of patrons towards Olympia, which served them as an inexhaustible
spring of resources and claims, of which they understood
how to make the most. Hence they never wearied in
their exertions, not only for maintaining the splendor of
the Olympic festival, but also for progressively developing
it in accordance with the times, and securing it against
the rivalry of other festive games. The narrow circle of




CHAP. I.]    History of Peloponnesus.          257
Spartan exercises had long been passed; to the single footrace had been added the double (the Diaulus, in which
the stadium was traversed twice), and a still longer race
(the Dolichus): besides wrestling, leaping, throwing of the
discus and spear, and boxing. These games were one and
all held in the stadium, which stretched among the
wooded heights of the Olympian mountains. A new
epoch began with the introduction of horse-races. The
hippodrome was made level, a race-course double the
length of the stadium, and meeting the latter at a right
angle. It was the twenty-fifth Olympiad when for the
first time the four-horse chariots assembled to race on the
banks of the Alpheus.  But as the Greeks connected
everything new with ancient tradition, so now the myth
was formed that already Pelops had won the land by a
chariot-race from its previous native king, although Hippodamea's statue with the fillet of victory stood in the
stadium. The introduction of the chariot-race was followed by that of the race of horsemen. The more public
interest increased, the more was consideration given to the
preferences of different tribes; and even such exercises as
were decidedly repugnant to Dorian discipline, as e. g., the
combination of the wrestling and boxing match in the
Pancratium, were adopted among the games of Olympia.
As their national importance advanced, the position of
the Eleans became more and more distinguished; they
grew to be a Hellenic power, and their public officers,
whom a traditional technical knowledge invested with an
irresistible authority, called themselves judges of the Hellenes (IHellanodicce), because it was their business to decide, according to ancient statutes, as to the admission of
Hellenic citizens to the games, and as to their result.
The preliminary testing of the competitors for the prizes
took place at Elis, in the gymnasium of the city, which
itself became a Hellenic model institution, where even
Greeks of other states fell more and more into the habit




258              HIistory of Greece.        [BOOK II.
of passing through the ten months' training, in order to
improve their chances for the Olympic wreath. Thus, a
chain of fortunate circumstances made the little town on
the Peneus, which had no Homeric fame to appeal to, the
capital of the entire west coast; raised to greatness by
Sparta, Elis notwithstanding acquired, independently of
Sparta, a national importance extending over the whole
of the peninsula, and even beyond its limits.
Relations be-  Sparta had left to the Eleans the religious
tween Sparta side of the connection with Olympia, and
and Olympia.
and   ympia. every advantage which might be derived
from it. The political rights she took into her own
hands. After perceiving from the resistance of Arcadia
that any farther advance on the path of the Messenian
wars was impossible, she no longer attempted to become
the only state of the peninsula, but merely endeavored to
be the first; instead of ruling the weaker states, she
aimed at leading them. As everywhere she attempted to
revive or keep up the reminiscences of the age of the
Achaeans, so, too, was the hegemony of Agamemnon to be
restored by the royal Heraclidae of Sparta: for which
purpose, according to an ancient tradition of Greek political law, the religious consecration of a national sanctuary was employed with extraordinary success. Sparta
stood by the side of the Eleans as the protecting power
of Olympia, and the guardian of the sworn treaties. By
her military power she preserved the public peace at the
season of the festivals, and her allies had to hold their
troops ready for the same purpose. The Delphic oracle
had transmitted its consecrated power to the sanctuary of
Olympia, and given the latter a similar Amphictyonic
significance to that which Delphi had long possessed for
the Dorians. The Olympic festival-year was regulated
according to the Pythian year of ninety-nine lunar
months. As Apollo was the god who had created the
system of the state of Sparta, so he placed himself by the




CHAP. I.]    History of Peloponnesus.           259
side of Zeus as guardian of the Olympian institutions.
The Spartans, as well as their allies, pledged themselves
to acknowledge the laws proceeding from Olympia, and
in obedience to them to lay down or to take up their
arms. Together with the influence of Sparta spreads the
recognition of Olympia, and this recognition again is
the support of the power of the former. Sparta attained
her position as a representative capital not on the Eurotas, but on the Alpheus; here she became the head of
the peninsula, which obeyed her provident counsel and
energetic action. Armed with a domestic power of her
own superier to every single state of the peninsula, she
had a right to a decisive voice. Her citizens, on account
of their thorough military training, were the born leaders
and commanders of the posts. Against the abuse of her
power protection was afforded by sworn treaties over
which watched the Olympian Zeus. There was ground
for assuming that after the experiences of the Arcadian
feuds Sparta had overcome her cravings for conquest, and
in wise moderation recognized the limits of her territorial
dominion. Differences between the members of the alliance were settled by Peloponnesian officers, who, like the
judges of the games at Elis, were called Hellanodicse.
Disputes of greater importance were brought before the
judicial tribunal of the Olympian temple.
Thus from insignificant beginnings a new  The Pelopon.
Greek Amphictyony had formed itself, nesian Amphicwhich on the one hand claimed for itself a tyony.
national importance, as the constant recurrence of the
name of Hellenes in conjunction with all Amphictyonic
efforts proves, on the other comprehended a fixed and
naturally defined circle of districts, for which, in reference to the common Pelops-festival on the Alpheus, the
collective name " island of Pelops," or Peloponnesus, obtained universal currency.




260                History of Greece.         [Boos II.
Anti-Dorian ten-  But, however  clearly the  peninsula
dencies remaining seems to be destined by nature to form a
in Peloponnesus.
in Peloponnesus. whole, this union has not the less at all
times been a work of difficulty. Thus, at this period
also, within the peninsula itself the Amphictyony and
the establishment of the institutions connected with it met
with obstinate resistance. Cities and states of considerable importance developed in a direction hostile to Dorian
Sparta and everything proceeding from her.
The system of the Spartan constitution is so artificial,
and was gradually perfected under circumstances of such
peculiarity; it is moreover to so great a degree based
upon the special locality of Sparta, that it is not astonishing that no similar system should ever have been established in the other countries of the peninsula, although
here, as well as in Laconia, Dorians had immigrated and
acquired land under similar conditions. Least of all
could such a result be achieved on the north and east
borders of the peninsula, where the new states had been
founded on a soil previously occupied by an Ionic coast
population. Here a seclusion from everything external,
such as that which was the fundamental condition' of a
Spartan constitution, could never be achieved. Here:the
new states would necessarily be attracted into the general
movement of the Greek'world; and the relation between
the two shores of the 2Egean be earliest re-opened, and
hence also it was here that the opposites of the Spartan
political constitution most clearly manifested themselves.
The.ellenes  The confusion and agitation which followed
on the Asia- upon the re-settlement of the tribes had pretic coasts.
tic coasts. vailed in no less a degree upon the eastern
side of the sea than in the districts on the hither side.
True, the settlements in Asia Minor, although undertaken
by scattered bands, had achieved a general and brilliant
success, which can only be explained by the fact that
these bands met with no connected and organized resist



CHAP. I.]     History of Peloponnesu8.         261
ance. No state existed where collective force might have
warded off these landings, and vigorously defended the
soil of the Asiatic coast as its own country, Only on the
Caystrus, whose valley lay nearest to the centre of the
Lydian dominion, struggles were undergone, of which the
memory has remained. Here Hellenic men for the first
time contested the dominion in Asia with Oriental hosts;
and the traditions of the foundation of Ephesus prove
that the new-comers had manifold diifficultiLs to contend
against. Their efforts in the stfugglo were facilitated by
their kinsmanship with the inhabitants of the coast, who,
conquered or hard pressed by the barbarian nations of
the interior, may very probably at several points have
been ready to give their assistance. But even with them
conflicts took place, especially with the Carians, who were
least ready to submit to the new order of things. These
conflicts were not confined to the first landing, or to the
occupation and circumvallation of the localities chosen
for cities. Even after their foundation, the cities had to
defend themselves against violent attacks, which their unassisted force could not have withstood. Thus the Ephesians had to assist the Prieneans against the Carians. In
the midst of such feuds the narrow limits of the cities
were gradually confirmed and extended, and Carian and
Lydian villages incorporated with them.
The disturbances on the coast extended to the sea.
For in proportion as the settlers were unable to extend
themselves into the interior, the coasts.became overcrowded, and incapable of containing the growing masses
of the older and younger population. An emigration of
swarms of population commenced, who relinquished their
soil to the Ionians and went on shipboard in quest of
fresh habitations. The two opposite coasts of the Archipelago were already occupied; along) these the exiled
navigators could only pass as pirates, making booty and
hindering the prosperity of the new foundations, without




262              History of Greece.        [EooK II.
finding room for settlements of their own. They had to
advance farther and farther on less known courses to
remoter shores.
Of these fugitive wanderings of coast-tribes of Asia
Minor, a necessary consequence of the AEolic and Doric
foundations of cities, the tradition has been preserved in a
wide ramification of myths. These tell of the wanderings hither and thither of Trojan heroes, of the emigration of the Tyrrhenians from Lydia, of the settlement of
fugitive Dardanians in Lycia, Pamphylia and Cilicia, in
Sicily and Italy. It was a separation of the older and
younger elements of the people, lasting over a long space
of time, which alone enabled the new states to prosper in
peace; it was a dispersion of nations, which spread the
genius of Greek civilization into the remotest regions of
the Mediterranean; it was one of the most important
epochs in the development of the ancient world. But in
the first instance it was a time of the direst confusion; as
wild doings took place on the.Egean as in the days before
Minos; and all peaceable communication between the
two opposite shores was stopped. The very nature of
times like these prevents any but obscure and uncertain
memories from being preserved of them.
In the midst of this wild period of agitaAsia Minor. tion are to be distinguished the cities of Asia
Minor, each ready in its own defence, and
eager to avail itself of the special advantages of its situation. The consequences, after the common danger had
passed away, were new conflicts and mutual feuds. The
attraction to enter into these lay partly in the unequal relations of population. On Samos, e. g., the older and
younger population had united to found a city in common; Old and New Samians together adhered to the Carians, and with them engaged in feuds against the Ionian
coast towns. On Chios, too, the older body of the population seems to have maintained a preponderating influ



CHAP. I.]     History of Peloponnesus.         263
ence. For the development of the new Ionian states, on
the other hand, Miletus and Ephesus were the main
centres, not only on account of their situation at the
outlet of the two most important river valleys, but chiefly
because of the prominence of the families which had settled here. They were descendants of Attic kings who
knew how to maintain their royal and priestly rights, and
to obtain an influence over the general affairs of the colonies even beyond the sea.
In Miletus and Ephesus originated the federal institutions, of which the centre was the temple of Posidon on
Mycale, and which here, as in Attica and Achaia, gradually united twelve cities into one body. It was a fundamental law of the Amphictyony that in every federal city
descendants of Codrus held sway; accordingly it was established, at a time when the Androclidse at Ephesus and
the Neleidse at Miletus still possessed absolute dominion.
Thus the existence of the new states was successfully
confirmed, and their political systems established by the
royal families which had come over from the mother
country, and by the adoption of the political systems
which had there held their ground. As soon as they began to flourish on a secure basis, they pursued a tendency
totally new, and different from all previous developments
of Greek states.
The colonies had mostly grown into cities on the same
ground which the settlers had first occupied and fortified,
close upon the brink of the coast, on projecting promontories, the narrow approaches of which could be defended
against the mainland. While the earlier cities of the
Hellenes had in fear of piracy been built at a distance of
one or several hours inland in the midst of fertile plains,
on the cultivation of which their prosperity depended, agriculture had in this instance to fall inlto the background.
The possession of land was small in amount and insecure
in character. Founded from the sea, the colonies had to




264               History of Greece.         [BOOK II.
establish their independence on sea as well as on land,
and to seek the sources of their civic prosperity especially
in occupations connected with the former.
In the northern country the vast majority of the population had dwelt on its own lands, and nothing but open
hamlets surrounded the narrow royal citadels; but where
cities had arisen, these, as in Attica, had gradually, after
the country had already for centuries formed a whole,
grown up out of the collective settlements of the peasantry. How different was the case here! The. cities had
been built from ship-board; with their building had commenced the history of Ionia; within the city walls the
settlers had learnt to look upon themselves as a community; and the origin of their political system was on the
city market. The settlers themselves had only reached
the goal after long wanderings; they had arrived in
swarms, in variously composed multitudes; and most of
them had long forgotten the manners and customs of
their homes. On a limited space, in the midst of danger
and conflict, the population now herded together; the
original founders were joined by new additions of adventurers, Hellenes of all tribes; Hellenes and barbarians
dwelt mixed up with one another. The necessary results
were a many-sided movement of life, a rivalry of every
kind of power, and unconditioned freedom of human development, such as had been impossible in the mother
country.
Political revolu-  Equally unavoidable was a reaction in
tions in the col- the constitutional state of these cities. Duonies.                                    X.
onies.    ring the struggles against enemies by sea
and land, during the first establishment of institutions in
the newly founded cities, there existed a necessity for
union under single leaders, and the ancient royal families
knew, in the new world as well as the old, how to maintain their beneficent influence by their bravery and wisdom. But a change took place in the state of affairs.




CHAP. 1.]       History of Peloponnesus.       265
The ancient traditions continued to lose power; the more
so because the reminiscences of the ancient houses gave
way before the living current of a new development, before the impressions and claims of an over-rich present.
In proportion as the prosperity of the new states rested on
the free action and the competition of all forces, in political matters the consciousness of free and equal rights asserted itself. A farther cause was the smallness of the
states. While in larger countries the prince appears as
the necessary centre, here where city and state were identical, such a centre was not needed. Here the relations
between all the members of the state were so intimate,
that the prince found it difficult to preserve distinct from
the rest of the community the personal position requisite
for the maintenance of a dynasty. Everything, again,
on which the privileged position of the individual and his
house depended, superiority of culture, practical ability
and wealth, was necessarily more and more equalized;
and with it vanished at the same time the readiness to do
homage with ancient loyalty to the royal house of hereditary princes. Revolt and conflicts ensued; conflicts in
which the powers of the new age always prevailed. Thus
wherever the life of cities had unfolded itself, the royal
power, the heritage of the heroic age, was put aside.
The first attacks had not proceeded from the
whole community, but from the families which Aroistoorat
felt themselves the equals of the princes by
birth; and they in the first instance inherited the dignity
they had themselves overthrown. As descendants of the
founders of the city they claimed the honor of leading
the state, and let the public offices, which comprehended
the full ruling power, alternate amongst themselves in a
fixed rotation. These circumstances produced a new conflict. For instead of the civic equality, to which the
royal power had fallen as a sacrifice, an intolerable inequality now made its appearance. A small number of
12




266             History of Greece.           [Boox II.
families wished to assert themselves as the only citizens
in full possession of the civic rights; and whilst it had
been the natural and inevitable interest of the ancient
kings to extend justice to the different classes of the population, now every equalization, every mediation, was at
an end, and the two parties stood opposite one another as
declared adversaries. A conflict of classes was called into
existence, and as the nobility diminished in strength and
the citizens grew in numbers and consciousness of their
power, the state necessarily found itself on the eve of
fresh revolutions.
When the peace of a commonwealth is shaken, and the
national prosperity is at stake, there arises the want of a
saving power capable of upholding the state which has
fallen into condition of dissolution. The gentlest means
of rescue is to invest one man in the community by common consent with extraordinary authority, in order that
he may again restore order to public affairs. Such restorers of order were called AEsymnetce. Where such a
plan could not be adopted, the progress of events took a
more violent course. Either the dignitaries of the state
used their position to raise themselves above the entire
community to an unconditioned fulness of power, or the
people in revolt against the nobility sought for a leader
and found him, at one time among its own masses, at
another among the members of the nobility who had renounced their party on account of a sentiment of offended
honor, or in consequence of their own unsatisfied ambition. These were men distinguished by eloquence, sagacity, and courage, and enjoying a personal authority.
Under them the people gathered; they
Popular opposi-..
tionunder demo- gave the opposition unity and vigor, and
eratic and aris- accordingly became the main object of intocratio leaders.
sidious hostility on the part of the adverse
party. These dangers, to which their persons were exposed in the interests of the community, they craftily used




CHAP. I.]    History of Peloponnesus.          267
in order to surround themselves with armed defenders.
Supported by a guard, and in possession of strongly-situated points, they at last obtained unlimited dominion over
the entire state and its parties, out of whose conflict their
power had grown. Instead of the cause of the people
they soon asserted their own, surrounded themselves with
splendor and luxury, and endeavored to found a strong
hereditary power for themselves and their posterity. And
in proportion as the basis of their power at home lacked
legitimacy, they sought to obtain assistance from abroad,
for which purpose the best opportunity offered itself to
the Ionians in attaching themselves to the dynasties
ruling in the interior of the land.
This vicinity of the Asiatic empires serb Influence of the
ously affeted the whole life of the people. empires of the
The attention of the Ionians was necessarily interior.
directed towards bringing the treasures of the interior to
the coast and into the sphere of the maritime trade; and
they were by nature too excellent merchants to spoil their
trade by any narrow Hellenism. They never thought of
opposing to the barbarians a rude national pride such as
that of the Dorians; but as pliant men of the world they
endeavored to use every opportunity of profitable intercourse and confidential approximation. The primitive international relations were renewed; and in this lively
interchange the boundaries vanished between what was
Ionian and what was Lydian and Phrygian. Even
Homer himself was called a Phrygian, and brought into
connection with the Phrygian king Midas, whose dynasty
held sway in the eighth century.
The princes, no less than the people as a The Tyrannis.
body, entered into this connection with the
interior. Already among the Neleide, notwithstanding
that they still adhered to the Attic traditions and ruled
at Miletus by the good old hereditary right of kings, we
find a Phrygius, whose name points to amicable relations




268                History of Greece.         [BooK II.
with the Phrygian princes.  In Phrygia and Lydia the
despotic lords of Ionic towns found their models to a yet
far greater extent; they endeavored to emulate the dynasts of those countries in the luxury of their courts, in
the splendor of their body-guards, and in the recklessness
of their autocracy, to a degree hitherto unknown in Greek
communities. Hence arose the custom, first in Ionia, and
afterwards in all other Greek regions, of designating such
despotic rulers by the Lydian term  Tyrannus. The first
Greek Tyrant of whom history makes mention was a
Milesian, who, after the fall of the Neleidse, ruled his
native city in the eighth century.
Thus Ionia became the theatre of revolutions and
changes which affected the entire national life, and called
forth a whole series of new political systems and social
tendencies. In Ionia trade and navigation first became,
in the place of agriculture, the basis of the prosperity of
whole states; in Ionia.civic life developed itself so as to
make the city market the centre of the whole political
system. Here for the first time men devoid of any landed
property rose to power and dignity, here civic equality
was first asserted as the principle of public life, here the
ancient monarchy was for ever cast aside, while out of the
conflict between aristocracy and democracy issued forth
the Tyrannis.
Extension by sea  These all-important movements could
of ihe revolution-, not indeed remain limited to Ionia. Duary movement.  ring the first centuries the insecurity of the
sea kept the opposite shores of the Archipelago apart
from  one another. On either side the states were sufficiently occupied with working their way out of the confusion which had followed upon the re-settlements. But for
any length of time a separation could not last which
stood in so direct a contradiction to the natural connection of the coasts and their inhabitants. As the maritime
trade of Ionia spread, it again connected the opposite
shores with one another.




CHAP. I.]      History of Peloponnesus.          269
This connection was not always of a pacific character.
For, as a mutual consequence of the extraordinary increase of the trading ports which had suddenly taken
place, their interests were often conflicting, and their close
neighborhood  to one another mutually unfavorable.
Hence ensued manifold disputes and hostile manceuvres,
first between the Ionic towns themselves, between Miletus
and Naxos, Miletus and Erythrae, Miletus and Samos.
Then the circles of amicable and hostile 
Commercial wars.
relations extended farther and farther.
Already in the age of the Neleide'the. Milesians are
at feud with Carystus and Eubcea. One of the widest
gaps in Greek tradition makes it impossible to pursue the
history of these city feuds, which for the chief part originated in commercial jealousy.
The most important among them was War between Chalthat between Chalcis and Eretria, origi- cis and Eretria. 01.
nally a mere border-feud between the xx. circ. (B.. 700.)
two Eubcean cities concerning the Lelantian fields situated
between them. In this feud so many other states came
one after the other to take part, that according to the
opinion of Thucydides no war of more universal impor'
tance for the whole nation was fought between the fall of
Troja and the Persian wars. Miletus espoused the side
of Eretria, Samos that of Chalcis. The Thessalians, too,
sent assistance to the Chalcidians, as well as the Thracian
cities founded by the latter. The whole of maritime
Greece was divided into two parties; and the whole Archipelago was the theatre of the war.
This war, the date of which is probably the beginning
of the seventh century, clearly proves how intimate a connection existed between the shores of the Archipelago,
how widely remote cities were united by alliances, and
what an importance the sea-trade had reached, for the interests of which the powerful cities shrank from no sacrifice. Commercial intercourse itself might be temporarily




270             History of Greece.          [BooK II.
interrupted by the war; in general, however, it only contributed to promote in a high degree the interchange
which had been begun so long ago between the Asiatic and
the European cities. With the vessels of the Ionians, not
only their money and their articles of luxury
Reaction of
Ionio life crossed the sea, but also their culture, their
upon Pelo- views of life and manners. The glittering picponnesus.
ture of commercial wealth tempted the inhabitants of all the coasts to participate actively in this grand
style of life. An eager curiosity seized also upon the
coast populatiolnTof Peloponnesus. Everything now depended upon the reaction which the movements of a new
era, which had commenced in Ionia, would exercise upon
the mother-country.
oli  Argolis had always been the member of the
peninsula, whose situation and territorial formation had qualified it before all others to open an intercourse with the lands on the opposite shore. Here from
the beginnings of history existed an Ionic body of population, which had not quitted its seats, even at the time of
Character of the migration. Rather were new additions of
its early his- the same tribe received into the land, togetory.     ther with the Dorian immigrants, as is especially testified of the city of Epidaurus, where, with the
Heraclidse, settled Ionians from Attica. On such a basis,
a Dorization of the country, as it had been effected by the
Spartans on the coast of Laconia, was impossible; and
hence we find the Temenidse from the first, not basing
their dominion on the Dorian warriors, but on the Ionian
population. They were themselves as little Dorians as the
other Peloponnesians were Heraclidse. Starting from the
sea-shore, they conquered the plain of the Inachus; and
the Ionian Deiphontes, who belongs to those very families by which Epidaurus replaced its emigrant inhabitants,
became, according to the faithful narrative of the national




CHAP. I.]     History of Peloponnesus.          271
mythology, the most effective support of the Temenidfe in
the establishment and confirmation of their dominion. In
proportion as a fixed unity of this dominion failed to be
realized; and as the Dorians continued to disperse in
small bands over the district, they lost their influence,
while the older population remained true to the manners of its race, and to its native tendencies and habits of
life.
These circumstances directed the course A    
Ancient enmity
of the whole national history of Argolis, for against Dorian
in them lies the cause of the hostility to and influence.
of Sparta, which increased in the same degree in which
the Spartans became Dorian, and accordingly endeavored
everywhere to oppress the ancient Ionic population.
They afford an explanation of the conflicts which broke
out in Argolis itself between the national party and the
Dorians, and led to violent commotions of its internal
peace. An Argive king was expelled by his Dorian soldiery for favoring the Arcadians, whom he supported in
their war against the Spartans, and died as an exile at
Tegea, while at the same time the Temenide Caranus left
his home, as a fugitive on ship-board, in order to found a
new habitation for his family in the distant north among
the Macedonians.
After these events, which may be as- Trannical ovsumed to have been contemporaneous with ernment in Arthe legislation of Lycurgus, a new line gols.
ascends the throne with AEgon. But if the earlier princes
had already provoked a rupture with the Dorians by their
non-Dorian tendency, this latter appears with incomparably greater distinctness in the younger line. To it belongs Eratus, who, about the time of the commencement
of the Olympiads, conquers the Dryopian coast-places in
order to form a maritime dominion. During the Messenian wars, the dynastic power of the Temenidoe rises at the
expense of the Dorian party. Damocratidas makes




272                History of Greece.         [BOOK r.
Nauplia his port, and the conflicts with Sparta increase in
sanguinary vehemence. The question is no longer as to a
few foot-breadths of land in the Cynurian frontier-district,
but as to a policy which could not prevail by the side of
Phidon. Sparta. In the tenth Temenide Phidon this policy
manifests itself with perfect clearness. He succeeds in setting aside all limitations of the royal power
created by his obligations to the Dorians settled in the
land, and accordingly like Charilaus, who had endeavored
to obtain a similar result at Sparta, he was notwithstanding his royal descent called a tyrant.
A complete revulsion in both the internal and external
state of things ensued. Of all the domestic institutions of
the Spartans which they wished to force as a rule of life
upon the other states, the exact opposite was now carried
out. Instead of concentration in the interior the coastland, instead of' separation a mixture and equalization of
classes, instead of seclusion from everything foreign a free
intercourse, were fostered and encouraged; and as effective
steps taken towards facilitating this intercourse, as Lycurgus had put difficulties in its way.
The times of the Homeric trade by barter
His commeriail reforms. were past. The Ionians had long learnt from
the Lydians to shape precious metals in accurately weighed pieces and to provide them with the signs
of their value. All the islands and coasts were acquainted
with this Ionic gold, viz. the bullet-shaped gold pieces of a
pale yellow color, formed out of the electrum of the Pactolus. But men hesitated to accept the strange money
which possessed no currency in the land. Every businesstransaction in the Peloponnesian harbors gave rise to a
complication of difficulties. For in Argolis also there existed none but a clumsy kind of money, of iron and
bronze, founded in bars, which were weighed out to each
customer, totally unsuited on account of its form, its
weight, and the inequality of its value for purposes of fo



CHAP. I.]     History of Peloponnesus.          273
reign trade. Phidon accomplished a vital reform, by completely adopting the system of weights and money which
Phoenicians and Lydians had spread from Babylon over
the whole of Asia. The talent, a term used by IHomer to
express a perfectly indefinite value, henceforth became in
the European country also the fixed unit for weights and
money; it was divided into sixty parts, for which the Semitic name of mna or mina was retained, and each mina again
was divided into one hundred drachmce. The ancient barmoney was suspended in the temple of Hera as a reminiscence of ancient times, and the new money coined first in
Euboea, then on the territory of Argos itself, in.tEgina.
On this island, which notwithstanding the Dorian migration had always remained in the full current of maritime
commerce and exchange of wares, was instituted under
public inspectors the first Peloponnesian silver-mint and
the tortoise, the symbol of the ancient Phcenician goddess of the sea and of trade, Aphrodite, adopted as a
stamp. At the same time a regular system was introduced
of liquid and solid measures.
The grand style in which Phidon carried Political dout these reforms shows that they were not in- signs of Phitended for the narrow territory of a single don.
city. They are the undertaking of a man who desired to
found an empire, and who had received the first impulse
towards this desire from Asia, where in the rear of the
Hellenic cities existed vast empires with well-ordered systems of commerce.
Phidon, after the example of his predeces- is victory.'       ^     1        1         His victory.
sors, contrived to incorporate one port of
Argolis after the other with the territory of the capital.
By craft and by force he succeeded in capturing the revolted cities as far as the Isthmus, and uniting in his
powerful hands the broken-up inheritance of the Temenidse. He succeeded by a levy upon the population in
forming an armed force competent to meet the Spartiate.
12 n"




274              History of Greece.         [BOOK II.
He reconquered the whole coast-line as far down as
Cythera, whose inhabitants under the yoke of Sparta
sighed for the restoration of their nationality and of a free
intercourse with foreigners: he fell upon and routed the
Spartans who were advancing upon the centre of his
power, in the gorge of Hysike, on the road from Tegea to
Argos; he next hastened to use the anti-Spartan movements on the west coast for his purposes, to drive Sparta
from the banks of the Alpheus, to break her alliance with
Elis, and to destroy the hated hegemony of the Dorians.
When he celebrated the twenty-eighth Olympiad in company with the Pisceans, this daring man thought he had
reached the goal; he thought that the times had come
back when Argos ihad been the capital of the peninsula,
to which it was his mission to give a new collective constitution in accordance with his ideas.
He triumphed too soon. The spirit of the new era,
with which he intended to conquer, was an ally less trustworthy than the inflexible consistency of the Spartans
and the obstinate force of habit. On the one hand he
wished to unfetter all the powers of the people, on the
other hand to exercise an unlimited dominion himself.
The work of Phidon split on the rock of this inner contradiction, which lies at the foundation of every Tyrannis. Partly he may have himself lived to see its failure,
before he marched upon Corinth, and there, about the
time of the thirtieth Olympiad, fell in a hand-to-hand
And dath. fight with the party of his opponents. In the
weak hands of his son the royal power of the
Temenidae lost all its importance, and it was abolished
under his grandson Meltas.
Reult of his poli.  However greatly Phidon may resemble a brilliant apparition, whose traces
pass away with itself, yet his services exercised one permanent effect. In opposition to one-sided Dorism he
caused the Ionic popular elements to assert themselves;




CHAP. I]      History of Peloponnesus.          275
he brought Peloponnesus into the intercourse between the
coasts of the Archipelago; he destroyed the charm which
Spartan oppression threatened to lay upon the peninsula,
and aroused a new life in its northern and eastern sides.
The ancient monotony was interrupted; new paths were
opened to talent, industry, and a bold spirit of enterprise;
and highly-gifted men, such as Dorian states were able
neither to produce nor to tolerate, placed themselves at
the head of the several communities.
The new movement, which had first ac- Anti-Dorian tenquired power and influence through Phi- dencies at the
Isthmus.
don, could not have found any ground
more favorable for it outside Argos than the Isthmus
which unites Peloponnesus with the mainland. Here
from the earliest times an Ionic population had been settled, and here, where the two gulfs lead like broad roadways to the East and West, the natural tendency of the
Ionians towards navigation and trade necessarily first
manifested itself, and revolted against the narrowing pressure of the Dorian political system. Here especially in
the cities situate on the Crissean gulf the anti-Dorian tendency asserted itself. They opened the commerce towards
the West, as Phidon had towards the East. The whole
of Achaia had remained an Ionic land as to the fundamental elements of its population, and in the midst of
the early advances of trade and navigation aristocratic
constitutions were here least of all able to take root.
The Ionians everywhere loved to settle at the mouths
of rivers, where they on the one hand enjoyed all the advantages of a maritime situation, and on the other could
at their ease avail themselves of all the products of the
interior. Thus they also founded Sicyon in the lower
valley of the Asopus, whose sources are on the Argive
hills and combine into a rivulet in the wide vine-clad.
valley of Phlius. It flows in curves through a long and




276              History of Greece.          [Boo II.
narrow gorge, and at last at the base of the broad height
of Sicyon enters the open plain of the coast.
Sicyon was the starting-point of the
History of Sicyon.....
Ionic civilization which  pervaded the
whole valley of the Asopus; the long series of kings of
Sicyon testifies to the high age with which the city was
credited. At one time it was the capital of all Asopia as
well as of the shore in front of it, and the myth of
Adrastus has preserved the memory of this the historic
glory of Sicyon. The Dorian immigration dissolved the
political connection between the cities of the Asopus.
Sicyon itself had to admit Dorian families. This was
accomplished without measures of force; notwithstanding
which the three Dorian tribes came into possession of the
best land, and formed the defensive force of the heart of
the civic community, and as such possessed a privileged
title to dignities and offices. They inhabited the height
overlooking the shore, in the neighborhood of the mountains abounding in game; the old Ionians, amalgamated
with the original Pelasgian body of the population, dwelt
below, their whole condition of life directing them to the
pursuits of fishing and navigation in the gulf. Hence
they were, in contradistinction to the families, called the
coast-men or JEgialeans.
Apparently, border-feuds first occasioned the ancient
body of the citizens to invite the JEgialeans to undertake
public duties; they had to support the heavy-armed
phalanx as club-men. As a consequence the commons
soon put forth their first claims; they refused to remain
excluded as foreigners from the states which they helped
to defend at the risk of their lives. The JEgialeans were
admitted as a fourth tribe by the side of the Dorian
tribes. Wherever this took place, it may be assumed
that a union of tribes was attempted by legislative means.
For the fact that Sicyon had a political constitution
before the beginning of the Tyrannis, is proved by the




CHAP. I.]     History of Peloponneum.           277
statement of Aristotle, that the Tyrants there ruled according to the laws of the land; in other words, they
respected the existing institutions, as the Pisistratidse respected the laws of Solon, in so far as it was compatible
with their arbitrary rule.
In Sicyon such laws were as little able as in Athens to
enable the state to continue a career of undisturbed progress. With the growth of commerce which since the
eighth century connected anew the Ionic Sea and the
Archipelago, a new life simultaneously arose among the
people of the AEgialeans; they acquired culture, prosperity, and self-consciousness, and naturally demanded a
full share in the commonwealth. From their midst
sprang forth a family, which at the head of the popular
party overthrew the Doric state, a family which for a
longer period than any other house of Tyrants, that is to
say for a whole century, kept the power in its hands and
humiliated the aristocracy more thoroughly than was the
case in any other state.
The origin of this family is obscure.
The Orthagoridae.
The circumstance that its founder is called
a cook, is nothing but a ribald jest of the adverse party.
The first ruler out of this house was named Andreas, and
seems to have assumed the dynastic name of Orthagoras,
in order to designate himself, in opposition to the intrigues of the hostile party, as the man who meant
honestly by the people. After this name the whole series
of princes of Sicyon were called the Orthagoridse.
Totally unlike the Dorian proprietors of land and lords
of war, they had acquired wealth, culture, and a bold
spirit of enterprise by means of a wide-spread commercial connection. With the aid of their wealth they contrived to obtain power. The' former they superbly displayed, and used above all for training a splendid breed
of horses, in order thus to gain a name in wide circles
and obtain the victor's wreath in the national games.




278              History of Greece.        [BOOK IL
This was a luxurious indulgence for which the Dorians
lacked both the inclination and the means; for only the
very wealthiest could provide the expenditure necessary
for maintaining and training during a period of several
years a stud of horses and mules for the days of the
games. Hence the introduction of chariot-races at Olympia also, in the twenty-sixth Olympiad, was a victory of
the anti-Dorian tendency in Peloponnesus. Dating from
this time there arose in the peninsula also a new chivalrous nobility, consisting of those who trained horses and
had conquered in the chariot-race, a knighthood which in
a certain sense revived the splendor of the Achaean anactes. It was a chivalry of Ionic origin, open-handed,
pliable and as popular among the people, to whom the
festive celebrations of its victories offered brilliant spectacles and banquets, as the niggardly Dorian warrior-caste
had been unpopular.
This tendency was followed by the Tyrants with eager
zeal; it was a source of their power, since it at the same
time afforded them an opportunity of placing themselves
in connection with the national sanctuaries
Chariot victory
of Myron. 01. of Hellas. Twenty years after the Olymxxxiii. (B. c. piad of Phidon, Myron the Orthagoride
gained his chariot-victory at Olympia,
which created an epoch for the glory of his ambitious
house. Under the authority of the god of the Peloponnesian federation he felt elevated above the common level
of a citizen's rank; and his eager desire of approaching
the sanctuary is manifest from the rich presents which
he offered to it, as well as from the treasury built by him
to contain the gifts consecrated by his house to the god.
But this treasury was to constitute a lasting memorial
not merely of the victories and the piety of the Orthagoridse, but also of the new resources, the industrial arts
and the artistic and industrial inventions at the command
of a prince of Sicyon. Myron caused his architects to




CIAP. I.]     History of Peloponnesus.         279
execute a double chamber, the vaults of which, like
those of the Heroic palaces, were covered with plates of
bronze. This bronze came from Tartessus, and had been
imported by the friendly intervention of cities'of Lower
Italy, amongst which Siris and Sybaris maintained an intimate connection with Sicyon. But not only were ancient forms of art to be brilliantly revived; but also the
architecture of unsupported columns and architrave which
had been especially developed in the newly-founded cities
of Italy and Ionia, both in the simple and severe style,
called the Doric, and the freer form, peculiar to the Ionians. Both styles of this national Hellenic architecture
were here, as far as is known, for the first time exhibited
to the Peloponnesians in juxtaposition: a brilliant proof
of the prosperity and the many-sided culture to which
Sicyon had attained by her intercourse with the West and
the East.
Libya, too, had a share in this commerce, which was
assuredly not without importance for the Sicyonic breed
of horses. Clisthenes himself, the brother of Myron,
was returning thence when he found the Tyrannis in
his native city degenerated into a luxurious despotism,
and the honor of his younger brother Isodemus deeply
injured by Myron. He excited the citizens to vengeance,
occasioned the death of the Tyrant after a dominion
of seven years, then expelled Isodemus as one polluted by the guilt of blood; and thus by
a fresh application of force brought into of Sicyon.
his hands the dominion of the Orthagoridse which force and revolt had originally founded.
All the actions of the new Tyrant display signs of a
more violent party-coloring, of a roughness of energy.
The old times were to be once for all cast aside, and a return to then rendered impossible. Accordingly the union
which still subsisted between Sicyon and her Dorian
mother-country Argos was dissolved. The mystical rep



280               History of Greece.       [BOOK II.
resentative of this union was Adrastus, whose name was
celebrated in either place by splendid civic festivals in
memory of the ancient alliance-in-arms
Rhefrms ofClis- against Thebes. Adrastus had to make
way for a hero out of the hostile camp,
Melanippus of Thebes; Theban families were domesticated with him at Sicyon, and the ancient families which
had hitherto been the depositaries of the worship of
Adrastus, emigrated. The name of that Hero-King died
away; the sacrifices annually offered to him were transferred to Melanippus, and the festive choirs which had
been wont on the market-place of Sicyon to surround the
altar of Adrastus, singing his deeds and his sufferings,
were henceforth consecrated to the god of the peasantry,
Dionysus.
The same opposition against Argos, where at this period upon the fall of Phidon a Dorian reaction had probably taken place, occasioned the ordinance which abolished the public recital of the Homeric poems; for since
the feeling of filial piety towards the Dorian metropolis
was to be extinguished, the poet, too, had to be removed
whose lips were full of the praise of Argos, and who
helped to support the Lycurgic state of the Heraclidse.
But the most important link between both Argos and
Sparta on the one side, and Sicyon on the other, consisted
in the common descent of the tribes and the corresponding
character of their respective divisions, which were sanctioned by primitive tradition. Clisthenes was bold enough
to overthrow this system. The JEgialeans were by him
under the name of the Archelai, the "First of the people," raised to the place of the privileged class of the community; the three remaining classes whose members had
formerly alone constituted the citizens with full rights,
but had since been weakened by emigration,' mortality,
and impoverishment, were placed in the position of inferiors.  Their ancient names of honor were done away




CHAP. I.]   History of Peloponnesus.           281
with, and three others given to them, derived not from
Heroes, but from beasts: Hyates, Oneates, Chvereates.
The ribaldry underlying these names, appears to be based
on the contrast which existed between the articles of food
respectively used by the two divisions of the population.
In allusion to the beasts which were the most offensive to
the fish-eating Ionians, popular humor designated the
aristocratic tribe by names which may be translated by
something like "Fitz-Cochons, De l'Anes, and St. Porques."* In any case we have some difficulty in believing honest Herodotus when he asserts that these names
were officially introduced, and continued to be employed
for sixty years after the death of Clisthenes.
Already Myron had shown himself eager to do honor
to the Olympian Zeus by voluntary arts of homage, and
by these means to acquire the respect of the sacred institutions which were centres of Hellenic life. Clisthenes
attempted to support his dynasty in a similar way; and
advanced in this as in all other transactions with bold
energy, sagaciously availing himself of the circumstances
of the times beyond as well as within the limits of the
peninsula.
The Delphic sanctuary formed a free Th S   d W
The Sacred War.
community in Phocis; it was a spiritual
state amongst the temporal; independent, and administered according to its own laws, but too weak of itself to
assert its rights. Its protection had been undertaken by
the Dorians as their office of honor in the name of the
Amphictyony; as the patrons of this sanctuary they had
formerly become powerful in Central Greece; and to extend its authority, they had penetrated into Peloponnesus.
Here their race had gradually scattered itself over many
districts, and in every one of these assumed so peculiar a
development, that their race as a whole was unable to
* "Sohweinichen, Eselinger, und Ferkelheimer," in the original,




282              History of Greece.         [BOOK II.
maintain the ancient relations belonging to its northern
home. True, Sparta, as soon as she attained to a fixed
order at home, had begun to resume her connection with
Delphi, but the great distance between the two prevented
a restoration of the ancient relation of protector and protected. An additional cause of difficulty was the unwieldy and secluded character of the Lycurgic state, as
well as the peculiarity of the Dorian race, which loved to
enclose its habitations within narrow limits, and found it
hard to maintain points of view remote from its immediate vicinity.
Nothing could be more welcome to a man like Clisthenes, than a suitable opportunity for assuming the relation of patron towards Delphi, and the sacred duties neglected by the tardy Dorians. He readily consented to
forget the unfriendly reception which had been accorded
to his envoys, at Delphi, when its priesthood, at that time
under Dorian influence, had sharply and roughly refused
to sanction his bold innovation in the religious worship
at Sicyon; he readily renounced the enjoyment of comfortable peace in his royal citadel at Sicyon, and armed a
considerable body of troops, in order to offer to the sacred
seat of Apollo the protection of which it now stood in need.
For the existence and prosperity of Delphi depended
on the security of its approaches by land and sea. With
eyes of envy the inhabitants of the neighborhood saw the
rich processions of pilgrims ascending the paths to Parnassus, and were constantly tempted to break the divine
peace guaranteed to these roads. The wealth, haughtiness, and spoilt waywardness of Delphi were. a thorn in
the side of the Phocians, especially of the citizens of
Crisa, a trading city of primitive age, and the metropolis
of Delphi. Crisa lay at the lower outlet of the Plistusgorge, commanding the ascent to Parnassus, and by
means of its port of Cirrha, also the approach of the vessels which crossed in constantly increasing numbers from




CHAP. I.]     History of Peloponnesus.          283
the opposite coasts and from Italy. The Crisseans ventured under all kinds of pretences to impose taxes upon
harbors and roads, and thus to levy forced contributions
upon the pilgrims.
This amounted to an open act of impiety, a violation
of sacred treaties; and since the Dorians were tardy in
repressing it, the principal states of the Ionic race, who
at that time had at two points especially attained to considerable power, viz., at Athens and at Sicyon, united for
the purpose. Parnassus lay before the very eyes of the
Sicyonians; their own prosperity was based on the security of the god, and their honor as well as their commercial interests demanded that their friends from Lower
Italy should be able to sail without danger through any
part of these waters, and maintain their relations with the
national Hellenic sanctuary. Athens, at that time ruled
by the genius of Solon, readily acceded to the bold plans
of the Tyrant of Sicyon; both these men felt that no
more favorable opportunity could arise for their states to
assert themselves worthily and gloriously. By means of
the connection with the Scopadse the military force of
Thessaly was also made available; and thus was formed
a new Amphictyonic power, which unfolded a vigorous
and lasting activity in the place of the federation now becoming obsolete. The struggle was no easy one. Crisa
was humbled, but the port of Cirrha which
contrived to obtain supplies from the sea, and Cirrha
long maintained itself with the help of its
strong walls.
All the greater was the brilliancy of the victory when
obtained at last. The city in which the foes of the god
had so obstinately defied his warriors, was, The Second Py
under the leadership of Clisthenes, cap- thiad. 01. xlix. 3.
tured and destroyed; her name vanished (B. C. 582.)
out of the list of Hellenic cities, her fields were devoted to
the god, whose immediate territory now extended as far as




284              History of Greece.        [BOOK II.
the sea; and while on the market of Sicyon, a marble
hall, splendidly encompassing the festive place of worship
of Apollo, was erected in memory of the victorious campaign, a general resolution of the allies, dedicated a tithe
of the rich booty to the revival and extension of the ancient festive games at Delphi itself. For up to this time
the Pythian games had been only celebrated once in
every eight years, and confined to music and poetry; singers of the Pgean had emulated one another in celebrating
to the accompaniment of the either the deeds of the
Pythian god. Now a quadrennial cycle was instituted,
and wrestling matches and chariot races included.  At
the second celebration the name of Clisthenes himself was
proclaimed as a victor.
Clisthenes stood at the height of his fame; his relations
with other states were honorable to him and widely
spread; his authority extended far beyond the boundaries
of his state, the limitA of which he had carried farther
inland; the high-roads of commerce were secured afresh,
and all sources of prosperity opened. Within content
reigned; for after he had seized the power by force, he
was a kindly prince to his subjects, and made his hospitable court a gathering-place of men of eminent talent, and
the scene of splendid festivals in honor of the gods. One
thing alone he lacked: the presence of an heir to his
royal power. He therefore attached a proportionately
great importance to the marriage of his daughter
Agariste, now in the bloom of girlhood.
The news that the ruler of Sicyon would befh Agaristr. stow the hand of his daughter upon whosoever
among the Hellenes should seem to hi- the
worthiest, attracted to his royal halls from all the cities
connected with Sicyon those among their youth most
highly distinguished by birth, wealth, and gifts of mind.
In Lower Italy, Sybaris, situated in luxuriant fields on
the bay of Tarentum, was at that period the most flourish



CHAP. I. ]      istory of Peloponnesus.       285
ing -of the cities of the Greeks.  In her foundation,
Achseans and Ionians had taken part; for how could the
Achaeans, after their expulsion out of the south, have developed so great an energy in the foundation of cities
beyond the sea, had not the old Ionian population of those
regions given the real impulse, and provided vessels and
men? Thus, these so-called Achaean cities had again an
essentially Ionic character, and were well inclined to enter
into new relations of commerce and amity with the Sicyonian dynasty. The city of the Sybaris was equalled by no
other Greek city of the seventh century in exuberance of
prosperity; and had gorgeousness of apparel and a prodigal expenditure of money decided the day, all the other
suitors would have had to fall back, when Smindyrides,
the son of Hippocrates, with his suite, entered the gates of
Sicyon. The Sybarite was followed by Damasus, the son
of Amyris of Siris, where his father had gained for himself the name of the Wise. These were the two representatives of Hellenic Italy. From the shores of the Ionic
Sea came the Epidaurian Amphimnestus; from the land
of the AEtolians, Males the brother of Titormus, who surpassed all Hellenes in strength of body, but from feelings
of gloomy disgust avoided the cities as the seats of a life
of luxurious enjoyment, and dwelt on the frontiers of the
Etolian land, a barbarian by choice.
Of Peloponnesian princes came Leocedes the son of the
Tyrant Phidon, from Arcadia; Amiantys, from Trapezus,
and Laphanes the son of Euphorion, from Paeupolis. A
beautiful myth told how Castor and Pollux had once
passed by the latter city as wanderers astray, and had
there, though unknown, received hospitality. From that
day an abundant blessing rested upon the house of
Euphorion; the Dioscuri became its domestic deities, and
in their name the gates were opened to every stranger.
Onomastus the son of Agseus, from Elis, completed the
group of the Peloponnesians who possessed both the ambi



286               History of Greece.         [BooK II.
tion and the means of appearing as suitors of the princess.
The house of the Scopadse at Cranon was represented by
Diactoridas; the Molossian royal family in Epirus by
Alcon. But as yet there were missing the two chief
houses of Ionic culture, Euboea and Attica. On the Euripus, Eretria was at this time the most prosperous commercial city, and from it came Lysanias; while Athens sent
two men whose wealth and personal distinction seemed to
entitle them before all the rest to claim a great gift of fortune, Hippoclides the son of Tisander and a relative of
the Cypselidie, and Megacles the son of Alcmseon, the
wealthiest man known in European Greece.
We cannot ascribe to mere chance the cirSignifilance of cumstance that exactly twelve cities, represented by chosen youths, met round the
throne of Clisthenes. This number the more easily
admits of explanation, inasmuch as it is clear that al1
these cities were intertwined with the interests of the
Ionic race, and that Clisthenes, in assembling round him
for the space of twelve months the representatives of these
twelve cities, assuredly had some object in view beyond a
marriage-feast.
The Pythian Amphictyony had proved itself an obsolete institution: it was to all intents broken up by the
Sacred War, and a man as far-seeing as Clisthenes must
have regarded it as a task worthy of his life to form new
combinations among the Hellenes. He had established
his dominion not merely to satisfy his personal ambition;
and was proportionately anxious that his plans should
survive the term of his own existence. The husband or
son of Agariste was to carry on her father's work. For
this reason he desired, after an unusually protracted season of social intercourse with a chosen circle, to select
from it the best man; at the same time he wished to unite
all the suitors amongst one another as friends and confederates; and doubtless, according to the example of




CHAP..]       History of Peloponneus.         287
Heroic courtships, he pledged all the suitors by an oath
to accept his decision without jealousy, and to defend him
whom the father should choose in the possession of his
wealth and his rights. It was an anti-Dorian
confederation, by which beyond a doubt the Anti-Dorian
Federation.
continued existence of the Sicyonian state was
also incidentally to be secured.
During the year which the suitors spent in daily intercourse with one another and Clisthenes, his eyes were soon
opened to the superiority of the Athenians. In them he
discovered that loftier tone of mind, without which the
true significance of all earthly treasures remains hidden;
he divined the future towards which their native city was
quietly maturing. Of the two Athenians, Hippoclides, by
his riches, his beauty, and the chivalrous skill he displayed
in the games of the suitors, gained the father's preference.
Moreover, his relationship with the house of the Cypselide,
at Corinth, gave him special importance in the eyes of
Clisthenes.
Meanwhile the day of decision was approaching. The oxen were driven into the city for Dhesiouitf
the festive hecatomb; all the Sicyonians were
bidden as guests, and encamped around the royal halls.
It was the most brilliant day in the annals of Sicyon.
Hippoclides, confident of the prize, betrayed the hilarity
of his mood by a variety of antics ill-becoming the occasion. And when at last, in the intoxication of the
moment, he forgot himself so far as to display his skill in
indecent dances, Clisthenes indignantly exclaimed, " Hippoclides, thou hast danced away thy good fortune," and
gave the hand of the fair Agariste to the more Hippoclide
self-contained  Megacles.  The disappointed and Megarival quickly recovered his surprise, and said, cles.
"What does Hippoclides care?"-a saying which afterwards became a proverb, and pregnantly indicates the
audacious spirit of the Ionian, who after a failure snaps




288               History of Greece.        [Boot II
his fingers, and, without indulging in any farther regrets,
stakes his fortune on another number.
Clisthenes had succeeded in wedding his daughter to
the most important family of that city, in which his farseeing glance recognized the future metropolis of the
Ionian race.  His hopes approached their fulfilment in
the birth of a grandson, who received the name of Clisthenes, and whom his grandfather doubtlessly marked out
for great things. These plans suffered shipwreck under
circumstances unknown to us; but Clisthenes the younger
was destined to be the successor of his grandfather on
another field.
What Sicyon was, it was by virtue of the industrial
activity of its inhabitants and the talents of families preeminent in it; without these it would have remained an
obscure, out-of-the-way little town. Far different was the
case of the neighboring city of Corinth, who owed everything to her situation. The double sea by the isthmus, the
confluence of the high-road of the whole of Hellas, the
rocky citadel towering aloft over land and sea, through
which rushed-or around which flowed-an abundance of
springs; all these formed so extraordinary a commixture
of advantages, that, if the intercourse with other countries
remained undisturbed, they could not but call forth an
important city.
As in Argolis, so on the Isthmus also,
Th foundation other besides Dorian families had in the
of Corinth.
days of the migration helped to found the
new state. The ancient city of Sisyphus was founded
anew from the sea: the myths relating to this new foundation are stories of mariners. On ship-board arrives Aletes
the Heraclide; on the shore he receives a glebe of sand as
a pledge of his future dominion. Both his name and his
personality are anything but Dorian. Moreover, the ancient Sisyphids remained settled in the city, whilst new




CHAP. I.       History of Peloponnesus.        289
population enters from all quarters. Among the rest,
Melas, of Thessaly, who derived his descent from the Lapithre. At a later period, Dorian warriors added themselves to the population from the land side, and by force of
arms secured land and the rights of citizens. By the side
of the Dorian, five non-Dorian tribes existed in Corinth,
attesting the multitude and variety of population, which
were kept together as one state by the royal power of the
Heraclidse, supported by the armed force of the Dorians.
In the ninth century the royal power passed into the
hands of a branch of the Heraclidse deriving The Bachisas.
its descent from Bacchis; and it was in the
extraordinary genius of this royal line that the greatness
of the city originated.
The Bacchiadae opened the city to the immigration of
the industrious settlers who hoped to make their fortunes
more speedily than elsewhere at this meeting-point of all
Greek high-roads of commerce. They cher- Trade and inished and advanced every invention of im- dustry in regal
Corinth.
portance; and, in proportion as the popula- Corinth
tion grew in numbers they perceived that Corinth ought
to seek to extend her territory, not on the land side, but
on the sea; that she was destined not, like a hundred
other places on the coast, to be a mere ferrying-station
with a lucrative transit-trade, but to rule the sea. Of exceeding importance was the connection with Chalcis on
Euboea, where an industry and trade in bronze found
their starting-point. From here these pursuits were established on the Isthmus, and the sea routes beyond
opened towards the coasts of Italy and their wealth of
metals. The city of Chalcis, on the tEtolian shore, attests the existence of their route, on which Corinth was
originally nothing but the half-way station: Under the
Bacchiadse, the Corinthians asserted themselves as an independent trading community. They took commerce
into their own hands, and established the tramway on the
13




290               History of Greee.        [BOOK II.
Isthmus, along which the ships were, on rollers, transported from one gulf to the other. These establishments
led to manifold technical inventions: the Corinthians
commenced to build for strangers such ships as were
adapted for crossing the Isthmus; and the transport
itself secured considerable receipts to the public treasury,
which were employed for the improvement of the fleet of
the city. They converted the gulf, which had hitherto
taken its name from Crisa, into the "Corinthian," and secured its narrow inlet by means of the fortified place of
Molycria, which they built between Naupactus and
Chalcis on Antirrhium. They continued their advance
along the coast, and occupied the most important points
on the Achelous, whose broad country, abounding in corn
and timber, supplied them with everything denied to
them by their barren and narrow home. They domesticated themselves on the Achelous to so great a degree,as
to introduce the river-god, as the father of Pirene, into
the circle of their native mythology.
A new destiny unfolded itself for them
Corinth naval when the ships began to sail out of the
power.
outer bay of the gulf northwards into the
Ionian sea. Here they came into contact with states
lying entirely outside the circle of Greek culture, and recognizing no law but that of force. Here a necessity
arose for an armed force to keep open the paths of commerce. As a consequence of this, the Corinthians developed the higher branches of the art of navigation
chiefly at home. In the sands of Lechaeum, accumulated
by the hand of nature, they formed the first artificial
harbor, and surrounded it with docks, on which one important invention after the other was made, till at last the
fragile bark was changed into the Greek triera, a lofty
vessel with three tiers of rowing-benches on either side,
firmly built in order to be equal to the open sea, and at




CIAP; I.]     History of Peloponesus.          291
the e.nme time, by its impetus, well adapted for attack and
for the defence of the clumsier merchantmen.
Those were the heroic days of Corinth,
when her trierse annually at the first appear- Cetinsthin in
ance of the Pleiades bore their youthful
crews out to fresh adventures and fresh fame. Corinth
had discovered her true path, and the Bacchiadve did
their utmost to lead the city forward on it. They were
equal to their times, and, by means of a variety of relations with foreign lands, possessed a widely extended
knowledge of the world. They advanced native manufacturing industry, in order to make their maritime trade
more and more the lever of a universal prosperity. The
potter's wheel was an invention of Corinth; the plastic
shaping of pottery and its ornamentation by painting
originated here, in the native city of Eucheir (fine hand),
and Eugrammus (skilful designer). The potter's art was
here, too, the mother of bronze-founding; and no bronze
was more widely famed than that cooled in the waters of
the spring of Pirene. Though poor in precious metals,
Corinth first gave a fixed development to Hellenic temple-architecture; above all, the temple roof,-the two
wings of which, like the pinions of an eagle, protected the
house of the god,-was in so far an invention of the
Corinthians, that they first thought of building a roof
broken through in the centre, a double-eagle roof, and by
this means rendered it possible for light to be given from
above to the cellar of the temple. The Bacchiadse
themselves cultivated the fine arts. Eumelus celebrated
in epic poems the foundation of the glorious city of the
sea: his songs attest the spiritual elevation which accompanied the material rise of Corinth. The legends of her
foundation were employed to inspire the living generation
to deeds of chivalry. The Bacchiadae themselves commanded the fleet, like the Venetian nobili, and sought to




292               History of Greee.         [ooK AL
satisfy beyond the seas the ambition which the narrow
limits of their home were unable to bound.
The kings of Corinth had already favored these undertakings, in order to employ abroad the members of the
-wealthy families, who environed the throne with constantly increasing claims. When in the middle of the
eighth century the royal power succumbed to the ambition of the families, and two hundred of the
Corinth under latter, all of whom derived their descent
the Prytanes.
from Bacchis and recognized one another as
mutually equal, established a new form of government,
according to which one of their body was annually, as
Prytanis, to administer public affairs with the uncurtailed
powers of royalty, this political change necessarily
brought with it fresh agitation and party struggles.
Younger lines, who saw themselves excluded from  the
roll of governing families, entered into a contest with the
newly-founded oligarchy, and again the fleet had to be
employed to remove out of the city the threatening elecloi    ments of revolution.  Accordingly, soon
Her colonies.
afterwards there arose on the sea-coast opposite a series of important colonial cities, founded under
the guidance of young Bacchiadse.
The most important of all these was Corcyra,
Corcyra.. the meeting-point of the whole navigation in
the Ionian sea. Here they became acquainted with a
succession of new routes of trade. Here they also entered the toutea of EuBabe &neigatoi, oMn waiih CLhaec
and Eretria emulated one another. As friends of the
Chalcidians, they drove the Eretrians out of Corcyra,
and, starting hence, commenced their ulterior expeditions,
partly towards the north to the Illyrian harbors; partly
towards the west to Italy and Sicily.
This latter island, so highly favored by nature, Ionian
navigators had brought into connection with the Ionian
islands; and among these navigators, especially Chalci



CGAP. I.]     Hitory of Pedoponneus.           293
dians, who, in obedience to the Pythia's behest, had established the first altar of Apollo on the east coast of the
island. These expeditions were joined by the Corinthians,
who, with their triremes, conducted and protected the
colonization which took a westerly direction from the
Crisaean Gulf; and themselves, under the Bacchiada
Archias, laid the first stone of Syracuse in
the fairest harbor of Sicily, on the island Sru. c. 735 i.
of Ortygia. The Bacchiade Eumelus, a
bard and a hero in one, took part in this expedition, from
which the mother-city obtained a splendid increase of
fame and power, as well as the opening of fresh sources
of the most lucrative colonial trade.
Corinth stood in the centre of far-reaching Participation
relations, and was by her powerful fleet ena- of Corinth in
bled to interfere decisively in the commercial foreign wars.
wars which broke out in those troubled times. Above
all, she assuredly remained no stranger to the great maritime war kindled by the feud of Chalcis (page 269). Nor
can there be any doubt as to the side she took. Accordingly, when we find the Corinthians, who kept their building of triremes a profound secret, about the 19th Olympiad sending their naval architect Aminocles to Samos,
where he built four ships of war for the Samians, the
allies of Chalcis, this circumstance is probably connected
with the Lelantian war, and attests Corinth's share in the
great transactions of the world of Greek commerce.
At home the Bacchiadse endeavored to Her legislation.
fulfil their double task of, on the one hand,
advancing undisturbed the free development of the popular power necessary for a mercantile city, and, on the
other, maintaining discipline and order, and opposing the
boundless desire for change, characteristic of an Ionian
market and port population. This purpose was served by
their attaching themselves to Sparta, whose cause they
upheld in the Messenian wars, and by the Dorian




294               History of Greece.        [BOK II.
soldiery, who here, as in the Cretan towns, acted as a support of an aristocratic dominion. The difficulty of the
tasks incumbent upon the leaders of Corinth, awakened
and exercised reflection on questions of internal policy.
The Corinthian Phidon is one of the founders of political
science among the Greeks.  He perceived that large
landed property continued to lose its importance by being
broken up into smaller possessions, whilst the mass of the
working-class of the population increased disproportionately, so that it daily became more difficult to lead the
multitude. The force of circumstances had already produced this effect-that in no Dorian state was so favorable a position enjoyed by the industrial classes as in
Corinth; they were allowed to acquire real property in
the city, and there seemed a danger of their gradually
coming more and more into the possession of the best of
the land, by buying up everything belonging to the impoverished members of the ancient families. For this reason the laws of Phidon strove to effect the preservation of
the great landed interest, and a limitation of the influx of
inhabitants, by which means the influence of the ancient
citizens on the commonwealth would be strengthened.
In the treatment of this perplexing question, sharper
and milder principles opposed one another, and parties
were formed in the very heart of the administration.
Among the consequences of these party disputes was the
emigration of the Bacchiade Philolaus to Thebes, where
his experience was employed for the development of the
legal code of that city. To him was ascribed the law of
adoption, by which probably nothing was intended beyond
insuring the preservation of the noble families, and as
equal as possible a division of landed property, by means
of a suitable superintendence on the part of the state.
Thus even beyond Corinth itself the BacFallcfi te chiadse were regarded as authorities in legislation, whilst at home they were themselves una



CAP. I.]     Hitory of Pelopopnne.            295
ble to prevent violent constitutional changes. The number of the Bacchiadae dwindled to less and less, and the
smaller it became, the more jealously they watched over
their privileges; while- suspicious and despotic habits
gained upon them, and their rule assumed a proportionate appearance of injustice in the eyes of the people, to
whom their luxurious life rendered them contemptible;
and finally, failure abroad, above all the loss of Corcyra,
contributed to heighten the general agitation.
Broils amongst the families themselves led to the overthrow of the government at Corinth; for the Bacchiadse
had excluded ancient families who could trace their pedigree back to founders of the state, from all share in the
rights of government, and had broken off all closer intimacy with them. Among these ancient families, whom
their unworthy treatment filled with deep resentment,
were the descendants of Melas. They dwelt outside the
walls of Corinth in the deme of Petra, remote from the
centre of the state: and unexpectedly came into a new
kind of contact with the oligarchs, when the Bacchiade
Amphion gave the hand of his daughter Labda, who had
no chance of marriage with an equal, to Eetion, who led
her home to Petra. From this union sprang a son, who,
having been successfully removed beyond the reach of
hostile attempts on the part of the oligarchs, grew up to
man's estate. He is said to have received his name of
Cypselus in memory of his having been miraculously
saved in a coffer. As a matter of fact, it was the name
which gave rise to the legend.
Ninety times had the annual change Cypselus. 01. xxxi.
of Prytanes recurred in the house of the 2-xxxviii. 4. (B. C.
655-625.)
Bacchiadse, when Cypselus overthrew
this order of things, and, supported by the favor of the
people, made himself the unrestricted master of city and
land, of army and fleet. For thirty years he continued
to maintain himself on this lofty eminence of power in the




296              History of Greece.        [BooK II.
midst of the surging city. As a kinsman of the Bacchiadse, he was intimately acquainted with the previous
policy of the state, out of which he understood how to
appropriate what seemed advantageous for himself. For
this reason his Tyrannis entered upon no opposition to
everything which had preceded it of so marked a character as that of Sicyon; and if, as is stated, he needed no
body-guard to help him to remain master of Corinth up
to the day of his death, he was in all probability also able
to gain over the Dorian soldiery to his interests. The
severity with which Cypselus was reproached by his opponents cannot have been without its purpose. His edicts
of banishment were directed against the party-leaders of
the oligarchy; and as to the stories of his forced levies of
money, it must be remembered that this is a dark shadow
which everywhere pursued the memory of the Tyrants,
however bright a halo might in other respects environ it.
Everywhere the main difference between a free commonwealth and one governed by Tyrants, consisted in this; in
the former the citizens only when the necessity arose, and
after coming to a common resolution, offered up voluntary sacrifices on behalf of their native land; whereas the
Tyrant in order to maintain his troops, to defray the cost
of his court, and to be able to execute the great works
destined to glorify his government, immediately taxed the
possessors of property. The gifts dedicated by the Cypselidse were proverbially mentioned in conjunction with the
pyramids of Egypt. Two of them, the colossus of Zeus,
of relieved gold, and the coffer of Cypselus, belonged to
the most precious articles in the rich inventory of Olympia. It was a happy conception to dedicate to Zeus the
Saviour the coffer in which Cypselus had been hidden as a
child, artistically imitated in cedar-wood.  This dedicatory gift was, as it were, bathed in the full current of
Greek poetic mythology; for on delicate plates of ivory
were successively represented the most important features




CHAP. I.]    History of Peloponnesus.          297
of the national Greek, and especially of the Corinthian,
legends. Hexameters, in raised letters of gold, explained
the representations, which together formed a well-rounded
whole, and afforded the desired opportunity of connecting
the young royal house with the pre-historic ages of the
Hellenes. To the national deity of Peloponnesus the gift
of so splendid a masterpiece formed an act of grateful
homage; while the priesthood, by no means unwilling to
receive such contributions to the splendors of its sanctuary, became proportionately ready to further the interests
of the house of Cypselus. In the same way the favor of
the Delphic priesthood was gained, whose authority essentially facilitated the constitutional changes at Corinth.
At Delphi, a palm-tree of bronze announced the victory
of Cypselus, who had consecrated at the same place a
Corinthian treasury in the name of the commonwealth.
At the court of the ruler of Corinth, the generous patron of art, in the centre of extensive commercial relations, opening a view over the cities of the Hellenes in
Asia and Africa, in Italy and Sicily, in intercourse with
wise men and artists, instructive, both by example and by
precept, grew up Cypselus' son Periander. His fiery soul
eagerly received into it all these impressions; he employed the advantages of his position to make himself
master of a culture of unusual comprehensiveness, and
contrived to such a degree to impress upon it the character of his own personality, that among the wise men of his
time he was accounted a wise man. On the other hand
he failed to avoid the dangers besetting youthful royalty.
He had too little learnt to respect the rights of others;
and thus through all the refinement of his manners and
the mild wisdom of his views of life, the untamed wildness
of an arbitrary will, never bent or broken, occasionally
made its way.
18*




298               Haistory of Greece.        [BooK II.
When Periander assumed the dominion
Pxrixani. 401 Of his father, confirmed by thirty years of
xlviii. 4. (B. government, like a legitimate inheritance, he. 625-55.)  had long maturely considered his task as a
ruler in a mind naturally disposed to theoretical reflection. In everything he showed well-considered action
and a previously determined policy. He was the systematizer of the Tyrannis; and most of the wise saws usually
recommended to the notice of rulers in similar circumstances, were ascribed to Periander. His father's rule
seemed to him a mere transition; he believed himself
called permanently to establish the throne of Cypselidse,
on the slippery soil of the revolutionary city of the sea,
by all the means of external force and auspicious sagacity.
He separated himself from the people, in order that the
origin of his power might be forgotten; on his lofty
citadel, where unseen he could watch over everything that
passed the gulf and the isthmus, he sat surrounded by a
strong body-guard and a court, as by a wall. None was
to possess power beside him; nor would he suffer any
wealth which might fill single citizens with self-confidence,
and unscrupulously claimed extraordinary contributions
from their fortunes, in order to reduce them to the desired
mean. The odious character of such a system was
softened down by his not retaining the money for himself,
but expending it in extraordinary gifts to the gods. Munificent at other men's expense, he thus made himself
a favorite of the gods and of their influential priesthoods,
increased the fame of the city, employed a multitude of
artists and artisans, and gained popularity by diffusing
the money of the capitalists among the less wealthy
classes. As in Sicyon, the non-Dorian forms of worship
were here also encouraged. Those prevalent amongst the
peasantry were brought into the city, and all the pomp of
the rights enjoyed by the gods of the nobility transferred
to them. Thus in Corinth the dithyrambus, which had




CHAP..]       History of Peloponnesus.        299
arisen out of the worship of Dionysus, was officially developed as a public choral song under the guidance of
Arion.
The Dorian civic system, which had continued to exist
in Corinth, was also abolished by Periander as a focus of
republican sentiments. The men were no longer at the
common banquets to hold easy and unfettered discourse;
the youths no longer to engage in the inspiriting communion of joyous exercises of mind and body. These
ordinances were abolished under all manner of pretexts;
the community was again to be dissolved into a mere
body of single families, while each citizen was to attend to
nothing beyond his own hearth and everywhere to feel
himself surrounded and guarded by the police-institutions
of the state. For even private life was not left free.
Periander intended to give to everything a form in accordance with his own ideas, and laid his hand upon the
relations of society without the least consideration for any
one of them. He drove a large number of families out of
the city in order to preserve the tranquillity of the latter
against the dangers of over-population. He superintended the exercise of all handicrafts; he punished idlers, restricted the number of slaves, chastised spendthrifts, and
caused every man to render an account of his domestic
income and expenditure.
For a period of forty years Periander held sway at
Corinth, acknowledged far and near as a model of royal
sagacity, and frequently called upon to mediate in foreign
disputes. Considering the wise favor extended by him to
all the higher efforts of human art, we cannot doubt that
as a statesman, too, he originally pursued a noble aim.
At first he was more considerate and condescending than
his father; and took pleasure in permitting a free movement among his subjects. Men felt that he desired to
make them happy, but he wished to make them so after
his fashion, and according to his theory. If he failed in




300              History of Greece.        [Boos I.
this, it was because he was unable to conquer himself so
as patiently to essay other paths; instead of which, irritated by any opposition, and indignant at every failure,
he wished to obtain by force what could not be effected
by gentle means. One measure of force provoked another; every application of tyrannical means created a
wider gap between him and his people, and between him
and his own better self.
Periander in his old age was a totally different man
from him who had with so high hopes ascended the throne
of the Cypselidse. The change was ascribed to the influence exercised on him by his intercourse with other Tyrants and by the contagion of their example. Attempts
at revolt and menaces from without may also have contributed to change him more and more into a suspicious
despot. Finally domestic misfortune enveloped the head
of the dying Periander with the blackest clouds, and
darkened his inner sense. His wife was the daughter of
the Tyrant Procles, Melissa of Epirus, whom he had
come to love, when he had beheld her in the house of
her father, charmingly attired in a light Dorian garment,
and moving about to pour out the wine for the laborers at
a festive banquet.
After Melissa had borne him two sons and
Theifamily of a daughter, she suddenly died; and by whose
guilt those knew who cared to know. Then
men saw Periander himself in agony of conscience holding intercourse with the oracle of the dead on the Acheron, where the ghost of Melissa appeared to him and complained that the last honors had been.denied her. It
would appear that he desired to compensate for this neglect, when one day he bade all the Corinthian women
burn their gorgeous robes in Lydian fashion in the sanctuary of Here.
Meanwhile the children of Melissa grew up in unsuspecting innocence. The two sons, Cypselus and Lyoo.




CHAP. I.]    History of Peloponneus.         301
phron, were glad to join their grandfather at his court in
Epidaurus. Procles attached them to himself, and when
he found them matured for the serious work of life, he
led them out of his palace and inquired of them whether
they knew the murderer of their mother. The elder of
the pair, dull of mind, recked not of the question; but in
the breast of the younger it rankled from that day. He
had no peace till he had acquired certainty in the matter;
and then he threw himself with the fulness of passion
into this the first grief of his life, so that he became a
stranger to any feeling but sorrow for his mother and
loathing against his father. Periander found his son totally changed; he could obtain no salutation, no glance
from him; angrily he drove him from his house, and on
penalty of death, forbade the opening of any citizen's door
to his unnatural son. Soon men saw Lycophron, disfigured by hunger and misery, straying through the halls of
the rich city, resembling an idiot beggar rather than the
son of great Periander and a prince born in the purple.
Hereupon the father took pity on his son; he approached
him, whose spirit he thought misery had broken, bade
him enter his house, and offered him all things becoming
the heir of the richest throne in Hellas: he should perceive how much better it is to be envied than to be
pitied; but he received no other reply than the mocking
answer: he would put himself in the way of punishment
for holding converse with Lycophron.
Nothing remained but to send him abroad. Periander
caused him to be carried to the island of Corcyra, which
the Cypselide had again brought under the jurisdiction
of Corinth; where he hoped that his son, removed fr6m
the impressions of his parental home, would recover his
reason. There he remained for years as one forgotten by
all men. But upon Periander in his desolate palace came
a greater and more awful fear, the older he grew and the
more his mind relaxed the tension enabling him to con



302              History of Greece.       [Boox H.
duct his elaborate affairs of state. His younger son was
his only hope: on him he had counted for the time of his
old age: in his strong power of will he had seen a pledge
for the continuance of his dynasty. Now an unhappy
fate had placed this power of will in a state of obstinate
revolt; he saw himself loathed by the one human heart
for whose love he cared; and the plans of his life were
wrecked on him on whom they had been founded.
Of what avail was it for the ill-fated old man that he
made war upon Procles, the author of his wretchedness,
and united the land of his father-in-law, as well as jEgina,
with the Corinthian territory? The curse of Melissa still
lay upon him, and the proud Tyrant had once more to
approach his son as a suppliant. He sent his daughter to
Corcyra. She was to remind her brother of their father's
old age and solitude, and of the danger threatening the
dynasty. In vain; he declared he would never come to
Corinth as long as there he would have to behold his
mother's murderer. The strength of Periander was
broken; he resolved to sacrifice everything rather than
see the eager foes of his house triumph. Once more a
trireme lands at Corcyra. A herald announces that Periander will resign his government to his son, and himself
end his days at Corcyra.
Lyoophron and  Lycophron had always remained a prince
Psammetichus. at heart. His will had conquered; he now
nd of the CY P hoped to be able to honor the memory of
-xix. 3. (B. C. his mother with all the resources at the com582.)    mand of a ruler of Corinth. He answered
that he would come. But the curse resting upon the
house was not yet appeased. The prospect of Periander,
who had year by year conceived a deeper hatred of mankind, being about to take up his dwelling amongst them,
filled the Corcyrseans with exquisite fear; everything for
them depended on defeating his plans; they murdered
Lycophron, and thus all the steps of utter humiliation




CHAP. I.]     History of Peloponnesus.          303
which the Tyrant had brought himself to take remained
fruitless. The Corcyraeans had after all to look upon his
wrathful countenance; for he came upon them with his
fleet of war as the avenger of his son, despoiled their
island, and sent their noblest youths to be shamefully mutilated at the Lydian court. But the might of the Cypselidie was broken for ever. Tortured by terrors of conscience, and bent to the ground by grief, the prince whom
his poets had sung of, as the wealthiest, wisest, and happiest of all the Hellenes, lay down upon his solitary
death-bed. His nephew Psammetichus, a youth under
age, was only able to hold sway for a few years. Under
the influence of Sparta a Dorian constitution was again
established; the banished families returned. The entire
rule of the Cypselidse now came to be regarded as a violent and criminal interruption of the legitimate constitution, and the younger generations learned to loathe the
name of Periander as that of an accursed despot. Thus
the Pythia had spoken the truth, who had answered his
father's inquiry before her tripod as to the future of his
house, by these words:"Happy I hold the man whose foot now passes the threshold,
Cypselus hight, Eetion's son, a prince of CorinthusCypselus' self and his children, but never the sons of his children."
To the east of Corinth the state of Megara had
Megara.
formed itself in consequence of the migrations.
Here also the Dorians had entered, under the leadership
of the same families which had founded Corinth. The
Corinthian Bacchiadve had contrived to maintain the
small neighboring territory in a state of dependency; and
the Megareans, like the Lacedaemonian Periceci, were
obliged to appear at the official mourning on the death of
a Heraclide king. After the termination of the royal
dominion, the families settled at Megara succeeded in
achieving independence. As the guardians of the frontier




304              History of Greece.        [Boon II.
of the Dorian peninsula, surrounded by neighbors of superior strength, they had been able to maintain an honorable freedom; and the success with which, according to
Dorian habits, they cultivated physical endurance and
the military gymnastic art, is attested in the case of Orsippus, who glorified the name of his native city, when in the
15th Olympiad he first among all the Hellenes ran wholly
naked and came forth conqueror. Under this same Orsippus the Megarians succeeded in restoring the ancient boundaries of their land.
Aristocratic  A vigorous nobility kept the government in
government its hands; it occupied the city and the fertile
t Megara. arable land in the vicinity, while the commons
dwelt scattered about on the inferior soil of the mountains
and the strand, and only brought their produce to the prescribed place on market-days. Any over-population of
the little country the oligarchs contrived to prevent by
sending out colonies, for which purpose they availed themselves of the favorable situation of the land between two
seas. In the first instance they followed in the wake of
the Corinthians, as is evidenced by the Sicilian Megara;
afterwards they turned farther to the east, domesticated
themselves in the sea of Salamis and AEgina, and pursued
the wider tracks which the Chalcidians had opened
towards the northern shores of the Archipelago. Familiar with narrow straits, they preferred to seek out similar
regions of the sea, and about the 26th Olympiad firmly
established themselves at the entrance of the Black Sea,
at first on the Asiatic shore of the Hellespont; and seventeen years later they founded Byzantium, in a situation
obliquely opposite to their previous establishment. Nissea
became the most frequented port of the eastern gulf, and
the starting-point for Hellespontine emigration, conducted
with great sagacity by the oligarchs, who secured their
rule by draining off the superfluous and restless population, while at the same time they raised the docks and all




CRAP. I.1     History of Peloponnemus.         305
the occupations connected with them at Megara to a
degree of unusual prosperity.
Herein lay also the germ of their fall.
They could not prevent the people from gain- Revolution of
Theagenes.
ing self-consciousness as its prosperity increased, and from taking a lively interest in the general
rising of the Ionic maritime population against the oligarchy supported by Dorian lances. The division into
parties had long existed, and they stood suspiciously opposite one another, when Theagenes led the commons to a
bold deed of violence, which was the outbreak of revolution at Megara. The immediate occasion was insignificant. The matter in dispute was a tract of pasture by the
little river of Megara, which the ancient body of citizens,
as the others averred, used without having any right to it.
Theagenes fell upon the cattle, caused the greater part of
them to be slaughtered, and when the nobility called him
to account, persuaded the people to give him a bodyguard, which enabled him to put an end to the rule of the
nobility, and to assume all the power himself in the name
of the people. He was probably supported in this deed
by neighboring families of Tyrants.
Hereupon ensued a total revulsion of the political state
of Megara. The men of the Demos, who had hitherto
remained apart "like shy deer," entered the city. The industrial classes were now the masters, and triumphed over
the fallen greatness of the families. Theagenes took care
to designate this turning-point in public affairs as the commencement of a new era. By means of a'long canal
he brought the veins of water from the mountains into the
heart of the city, where the water bubbling up in a fountain formed an ornament of the market-place. The city
had now in a new sense become the centre of the land;
the odious limits had been broken down which had kept
the different domains and classes of the country separated,




306               History of G'eeee.        [BooK II.
and, freed from their fetters, arose all the forces which
had so long been in a state of ferment.
Theagenes himself, though bold and resolute,
ny. T1. xl. and, after the fashion of the Tyrants, supportcirc. (B. C. ing himself by means of relations with.foreign
cities, was unable tosretain the dominion over
the excited people. After his fall, a moderate party succeeded for a time in ruling the state; but afterwards the
helm came again into the hands of popular leaders who
encouraged the wildest party fury. The wealthy were
exiled, and their lands confiscated without moderation,
after the people had once tasted the benefit of these measures of violence; and at last the number of those expelled
from house and home was so great that they formed a
power outside the city sufficiently large to reconquer their
native country and carry through an armed re-action.
Thus the unhappy state oscillated between the passions of
irreconcilable parties, and exhausted itself in wearisome
civic strife.
In the midst of these troubles Theognis
Ceo.nThfconfi- grew up. That such a poet could be trained
in Megara, that he could find a welcome for
his elegies among his fellow-citizens in the midst.of their
feverish excitement, that he could at all conceive the idea
of giving expression in poems of so perfect a character to
the internal history of his native city, to his sorrow for the
change of its condition, to hatred against the disturbers
of peace, allows us to assume an unusual elevation of
mental and social culture, especially in the circles of society to which the aristocratic poet belonged. Hence also
he regards the latter as a separate class of human beings;
they are for him the " educated," the "persons of standing," the "best."  And hitherto they had in fact been the
first and the only'members of the state; henceforth all is
changed. The men from without revel in the wealLh of
the ancient citizens who have been deprived of their here



CaAP. I.]      Hitory of Peloponneus.           307
ditary possessions; they are able to wag their tongues concerning right and law; the city is no longer to be recognized as its former self. Vile money has overturned every
relation of life. Money has abolished the beneficent separation of classes. Most of all, Theognis mourns the fact
that for the sake of money even men of his own rank
enter into combinations with men of the community. He
is proportionately anxious to keep alive the right sentiments in those who have remained loyal; above all, in the
young men, that they may, by culture and manners, preserve their internal superiority, although the external advantages of birth may be taken away by rude force.
Thus his poems are a mirror of chivalry, in which the
feelings of the aristocratic classes find a perfect expression.
Even in this instance the rage of party breaks with untamable ferocity through the noblest form; and when the
poet expresses his wish to drink the blood of his enemies,
he enables us to form a notion as to the passion which
must have agitated the mass of the people. By this heat
of political excitement the state of Megara destroyed itself, and for ever exhausted the forces of its national life.
Thus after the glorious period which continues through
the two centuries, more or less, following upon the commencement of the Olympiads, Megara was never again
able to attain to an independent position.
In Argolis the mighty popular movement,
of which the Tyrannis was a result, first Sayrand  the
made way. Phidon had employed it with
brilliant success to form for himself a royal power, which
seemed to terminate in a new course the history of the entire peninsula. But he had been unable to establish a
coherence among the fermenting forces of population
which he had called upon to take part in his work. His
power had fallen to pieces as quickly as it had risen, whilst
the movement he had commenced continued its irrepressible course. Within the limits-of his new empire and the




308              History of Greece.        [Boox IL
countries immediately surrounding it, on the soil agitated
and re-organized by his proceedings, in Sicyon, Corinth,
and Megara, the Tyrannis attained to a full measure of
power and splendor. The Cypselide had placed a branchline of their house on the throne in Ambracia; they were
related by marriage with the house of Procles in Epidaurus,
and Procles in his turn with Aristocrates, the Tyrant of
Orchomenus and the faithless ally of the Messenians.
Theagenes endeavored to establish a Tyrannis for his sonin-law Cylon at Athens. Phidon himself had already
joined hands with the Tyrants of Pisa. With the increase of commerce and local intercourse in Greece, the
Tyrannis manifestly spread farther and farther, not merely
as an involuntary contagion, epidemically advancing from
city to city, but as a designed combination jointly carried
out by the several rulers for the purpose of strengthening
and extending tyrannical dominion. The Spartans necessarily recognized in this a revolutionary propaganda,
which, in constantly widening circles, threatened the
overthrow of the political system represented by themselves.
Under these circumstances, the common constitution of
the peninsula which had been established under the
leadership of Sparta, could not continue to exist. For,
although the Peloponnesian national sanctuary received
the most brilliant homage from these Tyrants; yet the
head of the federation could not depend on the services it
claimed from them. The violent constitutional changes,
the expulsion of the Heraclidic families, and the humiliation of the Doric tribes, amounted to a virtual renunciation of obedience, and an open hostility against the
Dorian federal capital. But Sparta was necessarily disquieted, not only by the progressive dissolution of the
Peloponnesian federation, but also by the dangers at
home, which seriously increased as the rule of the Tyrants came to be more firmly established. For along the




CHAP. I.]     History of Peloponneus.          309
whole circuit of the Peloponnesian coasts, there was no
lack of popular elements inclined to revolt against the
Dorian political system; nay, even among her own Heraclidse, Sparta had numbered princes pursuing the same
tendency as Phidon.
The Tyrannis had arisen while Sparta was weak; it
had spread, because Sparta had been unable to bar the
coasts of the peninsula against the contagious influence
of the maritime towns on the opposite coasts; because,
long hindered by the Messenian wars, she had been forced
to leave the remoter districts to themselves. But as soon
as her hands were once more free, she necessarily recognized it as her political duty to oppose the Tyrannis as
far as its power extended; to combat revolution, and restore their ancient system to the states forgetful of it.
The difficulty of this task was diminished by the fact
that the Tyrannis mostly rested on very insecure foundations, and itself bore the germs of dissolution within it.
The Spartans were careful to avoid an impatient rush:
with sagacious caution they waited till the bitter fruit of
the Tyrannis was ripe, and till, under the pressure of despotism, the desire for legal order showed itself. Sparta
possessed another ally in the camp of her foes;-the selfish ambition of the individual Tyrants, each of whom
thought of nothing but increasing the power of his own
dynasty. Hence they could never unite in a strong alliance, in a permanent coalition against Sparta. They
were hostile to one another, as e. g. Sicyon was to
Corinth; or when they actually united for a common
struggle, they deserted one another at the critical moment,
or let the best opportunities pass, and allowed Sparta the
opportunity of overcoming her enemies one by one.
The struggle against the Tyrants is the most glorious
episode of Spartan history; for while calmly carrying
out their policy, the Spartans not only saved the Dorian
character of the peninsula, and with it their own position




310               History of Greec.          [BOOK II.
of power inseparable from it, but also preserved the Hellenic nation from the most dangerous form of natiolial
degeneracy. For however splendidly the Tyrannis asserted itself, in whatever degree it contributed to free the
fettered energies of the particular peoples, and to connect
them and their countries by greater freedom of intercourse; to spread prosperity and culture; to foster art,
science, and industrial activity; yet this one-sided brilliancy ought not to be permitted to dazzle the eye. It
ought not to be overlooked that the Tyrants everywhere
entered into hostile opposition against the popular power
to which they owed their dominion; that, in order to
maintain their revolutionary thrones, they pursued a narrow-minded dynastic policy which availed itself of every
kind of aid, and that, in obedience to the cosmopolitan
influences of the Ionian character, they unconditionally
gave themselves up to the attractions of everything
foreign. In commercial and maritime cities, foreign
habits of life are wont, in every case, to gain an easy entrance with foreign wares; one-sided, limited, and local
views of life disappear; but together with them vanish
strength of character, and the peculiar types of hereditary national manners. This tendency was recklessly encouraged under the Tyrants. The distinction between
Hellenes and barbarians became obliterated. The characteristics of a truthful adherence to nature, of simplicity and love of measure, were exchanged for the temptations of pomp, sensual luxury, and for the arrogance of
Oriental dynasties. The noblest families were expelled,
eminent men got rid of, and suspected persons, according
to Persian fashion, held fast and watched. A secret
police tended to dissolve all the bonds of confidence, to
kill every consciousness of personal merit; until the commons who had given the power into the hands of the Tyrants, in order that their interests might be represented




CHAt. I.]     istory of Peloponneu.           311
by them, had been brought by them into a state more utterly the reverse of freedom than any previous one.
At Corinth, all the evils of Tyranny had been most
completely displayed. Here the Tyrants had shown the
least hesitation in adopting as their models those nations
from which the Hellenes at other times were only accustomed to take their slaves, and in fawning upon
foreign princes. The brother of Periander, who was established in Ambracia, was named Gordius, after Phrygian princes; his son received the name of the Egyptian
king Psamtik, who first opened the valley of the Nile to
Greek commerce, probably in consequence of a union by
marriage between the Cypselidoo and the Pharaohs at
Sais. Lastly, Periander was not ashamed to sell Hellenic youths to serve as eunuchs at the court of Lydia.
Truly, had this tendency proved victorious, the Persians, when they claimed the supreme sovereignty of
Greece, would have met with no national resistance, but
with an effeminate and demoralized people headed by
princes who, in order to obtain the recognition of their
royal power, would have been equally ready to do formal
homage to the great king as their supreme lord and protector. This we ought clearly to perceive, if we wish to
recognize the debt Greece owed to the Spartans.
For herself, such being the fruit of every consistent
and vigorous policy, Sparta obtained a position of constantly increasing dignity among the states of the peninsula. After an experience of the various evil forms of
tyranny, men knew how to appreciate the blessings of an
established system of law; and Sparta, immovably adhering t her Lycurgic statutes, acquired the position of
a model state, and an authority of increasing significance.
In many cases, there was no need for any armed intervention, in order to establish a system of public right harmonizing with the Doric laws; and the appearance of a
simple citizen, without any suite, but armed with official




312               History of Greece.         [BooC II.
authority from Sparta, sufficed to induce the Tyrant of a
Peloponnesian city to lay down his sovereignty, and the
civic community to join once more the federation of
which Sparta was the head.
Made wise by the course of events, men no longer
thought of carrying out violent reactions in the interior
of the states. For this remained the lasting result of the
rising of the Ionic populations, to which the Tyrannical
governments owed their origin: that Sparta had to relinquish for ever the idea of forcing the whole peninsula and
its great sea-ports under the inflexible fetters of a Dorian
system, as was possible indeed in the inland-valley of the
Eurotas, but not on the shores of the double bay of
Corinth. From a monotonous condition such as this, the
peninsula was saved once for all. Nor was it consonant
with the character of the Dorians to give themselves more
trouble than was necessary; they were content, if the
states performed their federal obligations.  They conducted the common affairs, fixed the number each state
was to hold in readiness out of its contingent, and determined on what day and at what place each should place
its troops under the leadership of their king. In matters
of importance, they convoked the deputies of the states of
the peninsula to a common consultation; in which such a
state as Corinth, important by her trade and manufactories, could assert her particular interests, as well as her
more comprehensive views and freer judgment of the circumstances of the times.
Thus Sparta, after overcoming the revoNational autho- lution, became the capital of the peninsula,
and the centre of a federation in which a
fixed common system was as largely as possible combined
with freedom of movement on the part of its members.
Insignificant to all external appearance, without citadel
or palaces, the proud citizens dwelt in the valley of the
Eurotas, which wanderers from districts beyond the can



CHAP. I.]     History of Peloponneeu.           313
tons in its immediate neighborhood sought out, that they
might gaze upon the queen of the cities, in the ornament
of her simplicity.
True, Sparta, unlike the Tyrannis which coquetted
with foreign countries, entertained an antipathy against
strangers and their notions, and a fear against infection
by the poison of their vices. As yet, however, this tendency had not hardened into a blind hatred of foreigners,
and a reckless resistance against every influence from
without.  Sparta, it must be remembered, had appropriated the germs of a beneficent development of art from
Crete, from Lesbos, from Ionia, and from Attica;
wherever a usage of art had asserted itself which found a
place in the spiritual life of Sparta, it was admitted with
honors; and artists, desirous of a national recognition,
exhibited themselves before the eyes and ears of the Spartans. Alcman proudly boasts that he belongs to Sparta,
the city abounding in sacred tripods, where the Heliconian muses had revealed themselves to him. But not
everything new was applauded; for nothing was more opposed to the ways of the Dorians, than to bow down before
the capricious changes of fashion. Unlike the arbitrary
fancies, according to which the arts of the muses were
cherished at the Tyrannical courts, the Spartans were
careful in this matter also to adhere to a fixed measure
for all efforts, and to a law harmonizing with the whole
system of the state.
After Sparta had achieved so mighty a success in the
eyes of the Greek nation; after she had incorporated Messenia, formed a close alliance for offence and defence with
Arcadia, and broken the hostile power of Tyranny; after
Argos, too, utterly disabled, had relinquished all claims to
the Hegemony, the authority of the victorious city necessarily spread far beyond the limits of the peninsula. For
as far as Hellenes dwelt along the long coast-line of the,Egean and Ionian sea, they inhabited a series of single
14




314              History of Greece.          [Boos II.
cities, here and there united by loose bonds in wider associations, which were unable to attain to any importance
as states. The Peloponnesian federation of states was indeed itself loose and incomplete; for Achaia and Argos
had not acknowledged the supreme leadership of Sparta.
But even as it was, there had not existed since the dissolution of the ancient Amphictyony, a united Hellenic power
of equal importance. The natural isolation of the peninsula contributed to implant in its inhabitants a feeling
that they naturally belonged to one another, while the
Greeks dwelling outside of the Peloponnesus were accustomed to regard it as the innermost, securest, and most
important part, as the citadel of Hellas. This helped to
invest the alliance of Peloponnesian states and its leading
member with a national authority.
The Spartans, in virtue of their position as a federal
capital, were practised above all other states in the management of foreign affairs. They were invited to give
decisions as umpires, and their advice and aid were sought
by remote states.  Thus as early as the eighth century
B. C., under king Alcamenes, the wise Spartan Charmidas
visited Crete, in order to rescue the very cities, which had
served as the model of the Spartan constitution, out of the
disorder of their internal affairs.  Again, in the dispute
which prevailed for so many years between the Athenians
and Megareans, as to the possession of Salamis, the decision
was intrusted to a commission of five Spartans; a proof
that even in a legal dispute of this kind, carried on between an Ionian and a Dorian state, both sides confided
in the justice and impartiality of the Dorian capital. And
when the Platseans were hard-pressed by the claims of the
Thebans, to whose rule they would not submit at any
price, they, notwithstanding their natural inclination towards their kinsmen of Athens, yet thought it their duty
to turn in the first instance to the Spartans, and to declare
themselves ready to join the federation of the latter.




CHP. L]       History of Peloponnesus.         315
Thus the Spartans more and more accustomed themselves
to exercising a decisive voice in matters of national interest. Their firm and well-ordered state, in which alone,
through all the times of ferment and revolution, the
ancient royal power had uninterruptedly maintained itself,
supported by free citizen-soldiers, surrounded by a numerous multitude of subjects partly free and partly not, had
proved itself a model polity, whose citizens were silently
recognized as the chiefs of the nation.  It was deemed
just that they should raise their strong arm even in the.Egean, to overthrow despotic governments; and thus the
Peloponnesian Hegemony gradually developed into a
superintendence exercised by the federal capital over all
the national affairs of Hellas.
This position Sparta as a matter of
course maintained and strengthened, tillpar a
a state arose which felt itself her equal, and which was
too conscious of its own power and too confident in its
future, to submit to the claims of Sparta. This opposition could spring from none but the Ionic race, as had
already been the case with the Tyrannis. But in the latter the opposition of the Ionians had been only put forward in single instances and in too violent a manner; it
had moreover asserted itself too much in the unhealthy
form of a revolutionary despotism, to engender a power
permanently dangerous to Sparta. A totally different result was inevitable, if at a greater distance from Sparta,
and beyond the limits of the peninsula, a state matured in
healthful progress, which understood how to refine the
ample natural gifts of the Ionic race by the discipline of
law, and to establish a fixed centre for the fulness of its
energies. That state was Athens.




CHAPTER II.
HISTORY OF ATTICA.
ATTICA was not a land to tempt the migratory tribes of
warriors to enter upon its conquests. It is
Natural condition
of Attica.  i  without a river-valley such as Thessaly or
Laconia possesses, without well-watered
lowlands like those of Boeotia, or broad plains along the
shores like those of Elis. It forms a rocky peninsula,
separated from the mainland by trackless mountains, and
jutting so far out into the eastern sea, that it lay out of
the path of the tribes moving from north to south.
Hence the migratory passages which agitated the whole
of Hellas, left Attica untouched, and for this reason Attic
history is not divided into such marked epochs as that of
Peloponnesus; it possesses a superior unity, and presents
an uninterrupted development of conditions of life native
in their origin to the land.
So far Attica was in the same situation as Arcadia, a
seat of Pelasgian population, which had never been either
expelled by foreign force or obliged to admit among it a
large body of foreigners, and to become subject to them.
Hence the Pelasgian Zeus retained his honors undiminished, and the most ancient national festivals celebrated
in his honor in the open places of the country remained
for all time the most sacred of feasts. On the other hand
Attica was perfectly adapted by nature for receiving immigrants from the sea. For the whole country, as its
name indicates, consists of coast-land; and the coast
abounds in harbors, and on account of the depth of the
water in the roads is everywhere accessible; while the
316




CHAP. II.1          story of Attica.             317
best of its plains open towards the coast and invite the
mariner to land.
The first landings by which the monoto[Earliest landings.
nous conditions of the age of the Pelasgi- 
ans were interrupted, were those of the Phoenicians, who
domesticated the worship of Aphrodite, as well as that of
the Tyrian Melcar on the coasts. Afterwards the tribes
of the shores of Asia Minor came across; in the first place
the Carians who introduced the worship of the Carian
Zeus and of Posidon, and were followed by Cretans,
Lycians, Dardanians and Old-Ionians. The population
became mixed, and a primary proof of the variety of the
elements which met here is supplied by the existence in
Attica of districts lying in the immediate vicinity of one
another, and yet admitting no inter-marriage.  Great
families from abroad settled in the land, acquired power
among the natives, and entrenched and fortified their
seats in favorably situated localities, which as royal citadels became the centres of particular parts of the land.
This first epoch of the national hisAttica a Dodecapolis.
tory the ancients connected with the
name of Cecrops. It forms the transition from the life of
rural districts and villages to that of a state. Attica has
become a land with twelve citadels, in each of which
dwells a chieftain or king, who has his domains, his suite,
and his subjects. Every twelfth is a state by itself, with
its separate public hall and common hearth. If under
these circumstances a common national history was to be
attained to, one of the twelve towns, distinguished by special advantages of situation, would have to become the
capital. And to such a position undeniable advantages
entitled the city whose seat was in the plain of the
Cephisus.
This plain lies to the south of Parnes, the branch of
Cithseron which constitutes the frontier of the land against
Boeotia, and wards off the morass-atmosphere of the valley




318               History of Greece.         [Boox II.
of Lake Copais. To the north-east of the plain rise the
Pentelian mountains, along whose precipitous sides pass
the roads leading to the Eubcean sea; to the east
Hymettus, abounding in herbs, and to the west the less
lofty range of itEgaleus, the boundary-line against Eleusis.
The northern mountains surpass the rest in size, and contain the sources of the Cephisus, whose waters descend
into a broad plain of rich soil.
Closed in on the rear and flanks by mountains, and
only accessible through passes facile of defence, the whole
plain gradually falls off towards the south, lying open to
the wind from the sea, which brings the inhabitants
warmth in winter, and in summer blows cool and refreshing breezes. The flat shore would be without harbors,
had not a body of rock lying before it been joined to it as
a peninsula by alluvion. The jewel of the land, the
Pirseus, forms a series of well-protected roads and harborbays.
Into the centre of the entire plain advances
Athen and from  the direction of Hymettus a group of
rocky heights, among them an entirely separate and mighty block which, with the exception of a
narrow access from the west, offers on all sides vertically
precipitous walls, surmounted by a broad level sufficiently
roomy to afford space for the sanctuaries of the national
gods and the habitations of the national rulers. It seems
as if nature had designedly placed this rock in this position as the ruling castle and the centre of the national
history. This is the Acropolis of Athens, among the
twelve castles of the land, that which was pre-eminently
named after the national king Cecrops.
This rocky height derived a peculiarly sacred character
from the sanctuaries with which it was in the course of
time successively covered. Zeus, who wherever cities are
built descends from the mountain-tops to take up his
abode in the midst of men, was here also the first and




CHAP. II.1        Eistory of Attica.            319
most ancient guardian of the city. By his side Posidon
establishes his dominion on the citadel, from the rocky
foundations of which he calls forth the watery spring.
As the third divinity Athene enters, the martial goddess,
aided and accompanied by warlike families, but at the
same time the patroness of husbandry, of the cultivation
of trees and of all the arts of peace. By the side of Posidon's tripod she plants in the ground her spear which
sprouts up as the beneficent olive-tree. It needs a contest
before she can maintain her place. Halirrhothius, the
son of the sea-god, cuts down her tree with his axe, and
the servants of Posidon, the Eumolpidse at Eleusis, commence a sanguinary war upon Athens, till at last the conflict is settled by a reconciliation of the claims of the
worship of either divinity. For in the house of Erechtheus the priesthoods of the hostile deities are united, and
the latter are in future adored one by the side of the
other. Zeus, after the fashion of earlier dynasties, retains
the title and office of honor of Polieus, or guardian of the
city; while Athene, by means of the olive-tree, becomes
the real Polias, the true divinity of the citadel and the
land. In the olive-tree she was adored, long before the
cella of a temple surrounded her figure; and as the shoots
of the olive spread over the plain, so henceforth instead
of wine, figs and honey, the cultivation of the olive becomes the basis of the prosperity of Attica. Erichthonius, the serpent-shaped daemon, the nursling of the goddess, is the symbol of the unceasing abundance of the
earth, which was her gift to the land. This is the second
epoch of the pre-historic age of Attica; Cecropia has
changed into Athens, and the Cecropidse into Erechthide.
Athens is the first city, but not the capital of the country, which under the Erech- Attica becomes
thide Pandion, extended from the Corinthian isthmus as far as the sea of Euboea. All the forces




320               History of Greece.         [Boox II.
of the population were not as yet united at this one centre.
As yet, there dwelt isolated in the north-east of the land,
the families which, after immigrating from Ionia, had
founded the Tetrapolis of Marathon, opposite Euboea,
halfway between Delos and Delphi, and venerated Apollo-Xuthus as the god of their race. The inhabitants of
this Tetrapolis defend the frontiers of the land of Attica
against hostile attempts from Euboea, during the war with
the bronze-clad warriors of Chalcis. Ion, the son of
Xuthus, the saviour of the land, becomes the husband of
the daughter of Erechtheus, Creusa; and a new house
of rulers whose victory is, however, based on their military reputation, steps into the seat of the Erechthidse.
But while this house is achieving this victory, they have
long ceased to be a strange family in the land; nor are
theirs the hands of strangers interfering with rude violence in the development of national affairs. Ion himself
could be regarded as a son of the land, of which he was
the benefactor before he became king.  is victory was
followed by no subjugation; no part of the population is
here violently oppressed, nor, as in Thessaly and Lacedremon, a germ of internal discord by this means implanted for all times in the land; but the chief basis of
his victory is the gentler force of a higher culture, and
the religion of Apollo. Ion instructs the Athenians in
the religion of his father, and all families descended
from  him  are to be recognized by their adoration of
Apollo as a paternal deity. By the assumption of the
leadership in Attic affairs, on the part of these families,
the land becomes Ionic.
Union of the  The older divinities occupy the citadel and
country dis- retain it, together with all privileges of honor.
trict.  Athene and Apollo enter into close relations,
but Apollo remains outside the citadel. At its base gathers a denser population, and from Athens Ionic families
endeavor to give a firmer unity to the entire country.




CHAP. II.        History of Attica.           821
Here again, Apollo is the god who unites the communities and founds states, Apollo Amphictyon. But before
the union of cities could come to constitute a state, eleven
places had to renounce their independence, and bow down
before the city of the principal plain. Against this submission those districts revolted which had most fully developed their own systems as communities, and were represented by vigorous priestly and military families.
Above all, Eleusis, the second principal plain of the land,
the primitive seat of the worship of Posidon and Demeter;
farther, the inhabitants of the rough hill-district of Pallene, where Pallas Athene had been worshiped from a
very early period. But the Athenians overcome the rockhurling Pallantidse, and break the resistance opposed to
them in the single cantons. The separate governments
are abolished, the eminent families with their systems of
religious worship transferred to Athens, and the whole
land is united in one city. This union of the twelve
towns the Athenians were perfectly justified in regarding
as the most important event of their earliest ages, and as
the beginning of their real political life. It was accomplished in the name of the divinity, who had long been
acknowledged as the national goddess. The festival of
Athene in the capital became the political collective
festival, the Panathensea; the sanguinary days of feuds
were forgotten, and with the new national festival was
united for all times the sacrificial worship of the goddess
of peace.
As the author of this union of the land the
Athenians venerated Theseus; with him the third
or Ionic period was completely called into life.
Attica had thus taken the step which no Ionic people
in any other land accomplished with so perfect a success;
and it was now, when in the pacified land surrounding a
capital which was a conflux of all its vital energies, the
various elements of population, originally different by
14*




322               History of Greece.       [BooK II.
descent, were blended into one whole-now, and not before an Attic history commenced, and an Attic people
grew up able to avail itself in full measure of the peculiar
blessings bestowed upon the land.
So far from being sufficiently luxuriant
oil   productsto allow even the idle to find easy means
of Attica.
of sustenance, the Attic soil was stony,
devoid of a sufficient supply of water, and for the most
part only adapted to the cultivation of barley; everywhere, by the declivities of the chalk rocks, as well as in
the lowlands and their morasses, labor and a regulated
industry were needed. But this labor was not unremunerative. Whatever orchard and garden fruits prospered,
were peculiarly delicate and agreeable to the taste; the
mountain-herbs were nowhere more odorous than on Hymettus; and the sea abounded with fish. The mountains
not only by the beauty of their form invest the whole
scenery with a certain nobility, but in their depths lay an
abundance of the most excellent building-stone and silver
ore; in the lowlands was to be found the best kind of
clay for purposes of manufacture. The materials existed
for all arts and handicrafts; and finally Attica rejoiced
in what the ancients were wise enough to recognize as a
special favor of Heaven, a dry and transparent atmosphere, by its peculiar clearness productive of bodily
freshness, health, and elasticity, while it sharpened the
senses, disposed the soul to cheerfulness, and aroused and
animated the powers of the mind.
Admission  Such were the institutions of the land which
of foreign was developing the germs of its peculiar hisfamle tory at the time when the migrations were
agitating the whole mainland. Though Attica was not
herself overrun by hostile multitudes, vet about the same
time she admitted manifold accessions of foreign population in smaller groups. By this means she enjoyed all
the advantages of an invigorating impulse without ex



CIAP. IL]         History of Attica.            323
posing herself to the evils of violent revolution. She
could gradually take in the new elements, till they imperceptibly became part of the growth of the native race
which through all times entirely identified itself with the
soil it inhabited. The immigrants who domesticated
themselves in Attica were of the number of those exiled
by civil feuds; i. e. they were chiefly families of superior
eminence, so that Attica gained not only in numbers of
population, but also in materials of culture of every description. Thus there arrived Minyans from Boeotia;
and from the same country Tyrrhenians, and Gephyrseans
who brought with them the worship of the Achwean
Demeter, and the invention of written characters. From
Peloponnesus came large bodies of Ionic population;
whole districts, such as Sphettus and Anaphlystus, were
peopled from   Trcezene.  From.Egina the AEacidse
directed their flight hither, from whom sprang the house
of Miltiades. From suffering Messenia came a number
of illustrious families, who domesticated the rites of the
great goddesses in Attica; there came heads of houses,
like Melanthus, Pisistratus, Alcmaeon, and the sons of
Paeon, all descendants of the Pylian kings, of Neleus,
and Nestor. These were families accustomed to hold
sway, and determined to act as became the memory of
their ancestors in their new as they had in their old
home.
Herein lies the germ of the contrast, so important for
Attica, between the autochthonous country-nobility and
the immigrant noble families. How vigorous a part the
latter played in the history of the land, is clear from the
circumstance that, after Ionic princes had stepped into
the seats of the Erechthidse, the Nelide Melanthus, one
of the Pylian immigrants, assumed the supreme power,
who defended his new country against Boeotia in the
north, as his son Codrus did against the Dorians advancing from the south.




324                History of Greece.        (Boos II.
The peaceable reception of so many distinlrof tica.n  guished families contributed more than anything else to lay the foundation pf the political greatness of Athens. For with them the city acquired an abundance of noble forces, and a variety of
forms of religion, which were hereditary in the different
houses. From this period dates the many-sidedness of
Hellenic culture, the attention to foreign customs and inventions, the desire of acquiring knowledge and experience, and of domesticating at home every progress of
Hellenic civilization. Since the Athenians were spared
the violent revolutions through which the other states
had to pass, they were all the better able to avail themselves of the blessings of a peaceful interchange; and the
consequence was that Attica, sooner than any other country, attained to a fixed system of social relations, and realized the idea of a Hellenic state, whose authorities
pledged themselves to maintain internal peace, and rendered it possible for the members of the community to
lay aside their arms and undisturbedly follow their civil
occupations. In these occupations there prevailed from
the first a great many-sidedness, such as advantaged a
country, half mainland and half island, situate in the
centre of all Hellas. For from the earliest period the
Athenians contrived felicitously to combine the life of
husbandmen with maritime trade, the endurance which
agriculture demands with the merchant's bold spirit of
enterprise, and attachment to their native manners and
customs with a comprehensive knowledge of the world.
In the epoch which the ancients designated by the
name of Theseus Attica received all the fundamental institutions of her political and social life. As towards
foreign nations, she is independent, after throwing off the
yoke of Crete, the ruler of the sea. At home she has
successfully passed through the loose system of the canton
constitution. There is now one state, and'there is one




CHAP. II.]        istory of ttiea.             325
people. The population is divided into     th
The three classes.
three classes: the Eupatridce, or "wellborn;" the Geomori, or f husbandmen;" and the Demiurgi, or "handicraftsmen."  The state, in a more
limited sense, consisted of the first alone, who were the
families that had immigrated at various times, the older
and the younger; the difference between whom was never
entirely removed. Already the change of the dynasties
testifies to the conflicts dividing them. Hence it was a
fundamental condition of internal concord that these
families should keep the peace towards one another; that
the forms of religious worship peculiar to the single families should become common public property; for by this
means the families were guaranteed the honor of the
hereditary priesthood, fixed possessions, and a lasting authority in the state. Thus by the domestication of the
gods the clans and houses were amalgamated with one
another: the proud Butadse followed the Ionic Apollo
and his system of state, as formerly the Eumolpidse had
adopted the worship of Athene.
Every noble clan comprehended a group of
families which either actually descended from Tfhe clan
of Attica.
one common ancestor, or had in ancient times
united in one body of gossips. They were united by the
common worship of the divinity of the clan and of its
Heroic founder; all its members were united by the obligation of avenging the violent death of any one of
their number, by a common sepulchre, and by mutual
rights of inheritance; every clan had one common place
of assembly, and one common sacrificial hearth; and
constituted one great house, a strictly exclusive and
sacred social community.
When the Attic land under Ionic influence transformed itself into a state, a fixed number of these clans,
among which it was possible to combine several whose
numbers had dwindled, were recognized as of the full




326               History of Greece.        [BOOK IL
blood. Their number amounted to 360, and each clan
again comprehended thirty houses. With this sum-total
of clans and households, the whole state stood under the
protection of the divinity. The sacrificial rites which,
according to ancient tradition, were performed at the
hearth of every clan and house were pledges of the divine
blessing, and hence every precaution had to be taken to
prevent the sacred number from ever decreasing, and to
allow no Attic house to die out.
These clans and households, after they had all adopted
the worship of Apollo, were inserted among the Ionic
tribes, which were derived from and named after four
sons of Ion:-Geleon, Hoples, JEgicoreus, and Argadeus.
The unions of clans, or phratries, which, like the families
themselves, had existed in the land before the Ionic
epoch, served as intervening links. Thus the whole
order of the Eupatridse was definitely and systematically
divided into 4 tribes, 12 phratries, 360 clans, and 10,800
houses. They were united amongst one another by the
worship of the most ancient and of the youngest god-of
Zeus, the guardian of the hearth, and of Apollo Patrous:
they dwelt together on the citadel and in its immediate
vicinity, a priestly nobility, alone and exclusively in possession of all that seemed requisite for the sacrificial service in which the gods delighted, for the maintenance of
the rites of religion, for the practice of sacred law, and
for the calm guidance of the whole community.
Ath.  This nobility surrounded the throne of the
Regal Athens.
King, who dwelt on the citadel of Cecrops.
Here was the seat of government: before his palace he
assembled the heads of the Eupatridse, to consult with
him as to the welfare of the state. Out of their body he
chose his assessors, when he sat in judgment in the market-place.
The Areopagus.  But not every kind of judicial process
might take place in the market; for who



CHAP. II.1       History of Attica.            327
ever was suspected of having blood upon his hands had to
abstain from approaching the common altars of the land:
Accordingly, for the purpose of judgments concerning the
guilt of blood, choice had been made of the barren, rocky
height which lies opposite the ascent to the citadel: it was
dedicated to Ares, who was said to have been the first who
was ever judged here for the guilt of blood; and to the
Erinyes, the dark powers of the guilt-stained conscience.
Here, instead of a single judge, a college of twelve men of
proved integrity conducted the trial. If.the accused had
an equal number of votes for and against him, he was acquitted. The court on the hill of Ares is one of the most
ancient institutions of Athens, and none achieved for the
city an earlier or more widely-spread recognition. The
Areopagitic penal code was adopted as a form by all subsequent legislators.
A patriotic mythology, which refused to
recognize such facts as the violation of the  lerngaltp~onef
constitution and the victory of one party in a
struggle of force, represented the termination of the regal
rule in Attica as due to the circumstance of no man having
felt worthy after the self-sacrifice of Codrus to succeed
him. As a matter of fact, in this case, again, the transition from the monarchy to the aristocracy was effected by
the jealousy of the younger branches of the royal line and
the other noble families. But nowhere was this transition
carried out so gradually as at Athens. A    s f lif.
First followed heads of the state, chosen for
life out of the house of the Codridae, succeeding one
another according to the right of primogeniture; the only
difference apparently consisting in their being no longer
called Kings, but Archons. Yet this cannot have been
a mere idle change of title: rather that which in Attica
was always principally looked upon as the essence of the
basileia, viz. the high-priesthood and superintendence of
religious affairs, was taken away from them.  By this




328               History of Greece.         [BooK II.
means their office was deprived of the sacred attributes
which were a pledge of its immutability, and which
averted the intervention of any other power. The Eupatridse, who had already enjoyed a constitutional authority
by the side of the Kings, now advanced to a wider sphere
of rights, and superintended the administration of the
royal, judicial, and executive office.
Thirteen rulers had followed upon one
Decennial Archons. 01. viii. another when the aristocracy succeeded in a
c. 748-6852(  new attack upon the heirs of the royal
power. The tenure for life was abolished,
and a cycle of ten years introduced. Probably a period
of nine years had already previously existed, after the expiration of which a new confirmation ensued by divine
signs and popular acclamation.  The renewal of the governmental power now became identical with a change in
it, and the account which the Archon had to give of his
administration in its tenth year constituted an essential
progress in the reform of the political system, as did the
abolition of hereditary succession and the introduction of
election.  Yet the royal house continued to retain its
privileged right through four governments down to the
fall of Hippomenes.  For so great a length of
o1. Xv. 3. time did the monarchical rights maintain themselves, so that they must have been supported
by a vigorous family and deeply rooted in the feelings of
the people, inasmuch as, in spite of all attacks, and in
spite of the hostile tendencies of the times, they could
maintain themselves for three centuries and a half after
the death of Codrus; till at last the nobility, hitherto excluded from the highest offices, broke through this limit
and obtained free access to them.  Soon afterwards the
office itself underwent an essential change.  Its tenure
became annual, and its powers were divided among nine
colleagues, who had to give an account of their administration after its termination. This was the real end of the




CHAP. II.]        History of Attica.             329
Attic monarchy: it was the most thorough of changes,
since now the supreme power of the state passed from the
family called to it by birth to the circle of those who filled
the political offices by election.
The first Archon possessed a kind of Distribution of
right to a general superintendence of the the royal power
commonwealth: he took care of those who among the Archons.
stood most in need of effectual and personal protection, viz. of orphans and minors; he watched
over the maintenance of the sacred number of the civic
households, and enjoyed the distinction of the year being
named after him in all public documents. The second
Archon wore the title and the ornaments of the King:
like the latter, he had to watch over the public sanctuaries and sacrifices, in order that everything might be done
to the satisfaction of the gods, according to the ordinances
of tradition. Of the ancient royal dignity he also retained
the privilege of his wife having a share in his official dignity, and being honored as Basilissa. To the third Archon was transferred the office of commander-in-chief of
the army, the ducal dignity, as his official title, Polemarchus, i. e. "leader in war," testifies.  Hence it is easy to
see that the three principal attributes of the royal power
were distributed among these three Archons: for the rest
no peculiar sovereign rights remained over; nor had they
any official names except that common to them all of
Thesmothetce, or legislators.  Hence they formed by the
side of the bearers of the royal power a separate college
by themselves: their duty was the protection of the laws.
The Archons continued the sacrifices of the Kings in the
citadel, on the altar of Zeus'Epxzcoy, the domestic altar
of the ancient Anacts of the house of Cecrops: they
offered up in company the sacrifices for the welfare of the
state, whose course they endeavored to guide in the
ancient tracks.




330               History of Greece.        [BooK II.
Political sys  As had been the case under the Kings,
tern of the At- the Archons were careful to maintain the
tic Aristocracy. military power of the people in readiness for
a contest in defence of Attica by land and sea. To cover
the coast was from the first their main object.  For this
purpose the whole country was divided into forty-eight
dock-districts, or naucrarice, each of which had to furnish
a ship and crew; and according to the same districts the
land-militia and the entire taxation were also arranged.
The collectors of taxes retained the ancient name of the
Colacretac, as those royal officers were called who had formerly levied the gifts of honor due to the princes of the
land. At the head of every naucraria stood a Prytanis,
who at the same time was answerable for order and peace
in his district. The Prytanes were Eupatridse; amongst
whom doubtless those were chosen who were settled in the
different districts of which they undertook the superintendence.
While in the external institutions of the national administration everything was left as much as possible in its
pristine state, a proportionately greater number of changes
took place in its internal course. All the advantages of
the political changes were on the side of the Eupatridse;
the demus was here, as everywhere, a loser by the cessation of the monarchy. The annual rulers were necessarily
mere organs of their party; they could not and might not
act otherwise than according to the wishes of their electors
and fellows. Amidst so rapid a succession of personal
changes a fixed policy was unattainable, except by classinterests continuing to become more and more clearly defined. The gap between the classes increased: the Eupatridse had no object beyond securing their privileges and
keeping down the commons. In their hands was the administration of all public affairs, of government and justice; and the more they became themselves a party in the
state, the less could they be adapted to provide an impar



CHAP. II]         History of Attica.              331
tial administration of justice.  This was the first evil
which made itself perceptible. For the Attic people from
the first possessed a peculiarly fine sense of the idea of
Right which is to be realized in the state, and were as
sensitive on this point as on any other.  To this other
evils were added connected with material life, which most
dangerously increased the prosperity of the population.
The occupations by which the latter supported itself were, according to the natural Natural ivisions
condition of the soil of Attica, of a threefold description. The mountaineers, the so-called Diacrians, supported themselves most meagerly, The Diacrians,
since their rocky declivities supplied few
fruits of the field or of trees, and the pastures only served
for small cattle.  More abundant means of support
were afforded by the coast, where the " Parali" P
lived by boat-building, ferrying, the manufacture
of salt, and fishing. But all the benefits of the soil fell
to the shares of those whose farms lay in the plains, especially in that of the Cephisus. Here dwelt the "Pediseans," and the Eupatride in particular had
and Pediseans.
their property here. In the immediate vicinity of the principal plain were also the best harbors
and the islands nearest the coast; hence the maritime
trade, with all its gains, was an advantage belonging to
the Pedieans.   The nobility let no delay take place in
appropriating to itself these benefits.  The Eupatridce,
and among them principally the families of the immigrants, built vessels in Phalerus, and themselves went
forth on mercantile voyages. The means of prosperity
increased in their hands, while the small proprietors became poorer and poorer as life became dearer. Every
service claimed by the commonwealth lay
with a double weight upon their shoulders;   densofth
every disturbance of peace, every fine which
had to be paid, every bad harvest, contributed to ruin




332               History of Greece.         [BOOC II.
their domestic affairs. They became the debtors of the
Eupatridse.
According to the ancient law of
The lwof debt, and debt the claim  of the creditor was
transferred from  the property to the
liberty and person of the debtor; and the debt increased
in heaviness as money became rarer in the land; and the
unpaid debt swelled under the high prevailing rate of
interest. Finally the debtors had nothing left them but
to satisfy their creditors by relinquishing their landed
property to them, and had to hail it as a favor of fortune
if they were not expelled, but received their ancient holdings back out of the hands of their creditors to work them
as farms, thus finding the means of a needy existence on
the land of the great proprietors. Thus arose a class of
half-free husbandmen, who bore the name of Hectemorii,
or men possessing a sixth part, probably because they
only retained for themselves one sixth of the income of
the farms. Meanwhile the Eupatridse availed themselves
of every opportunity to bring into their hands larger complexes of landed property. The number of the freeholders, the middle-class of the Geomori, continued to
dwindle to less and less: they became the farm-servants
of the rich, and sank into a condition of complete dependence.
Under these circumstances it was easy for the Eupatridse to maintain their iron dominion. They would have
succeeded in this for a still longer period had not divisions arisen amongst themselves, which had their origin in
the ancient opposition between the families, and had not
among the population of Attica a healthy body of freemen preserved itself, partly on the hills of the Diacria,
partly on the coast, where trade commenced to flourish
and civil independence found a more favorable soil.




CRAP. II.        History of Attica.            333
But that the struggles for liberty which,
* n  4 ~1,~..~  *   ~..   ^ The legislation
coming from  the citizen-communities of of Draco. 0r.
Ionia, pervaded the whole Greek coast-line XL. 1. (B. C.
like a fresh and breezy current, did not
leave Attica untouched is evident from the means which
were employed in the course of the seventh century for
the maintenance of the existing order of things. For the
fact that at this period a member of the body of the
Eupatridse was commissioned to write down the normal
laws of the state is undoubtedly a clear sign of internal
struggles, in which the nobility saw itself at last forced to
give way. The most important privilege of the latter was
the exclusive knowledge of the law, the exercise of the
sacred usages, which passed as an inheritance from generation to generation in the families by means of oral tradition; in other words, the power of the nobility was based
on the unwritten law. Nor would they assuredly have
resigned the latter had not the commons long understood
their own wants, and been united enough to give force to
their demands. But it is a remarkable testimony to the
peculiar tendency of the Attic national mind, that, notwithstanding the general feeling of discomfort and the
manifold evils in existence, no demand was earlier or more
distinctly insisted upon than that of protection under
the law.
The fact that through Draco the law became a public
instead of a private system was a great step in the development of political life. Henceforth the Archons were
bound down to a fixed legal procedure, and to a fixed
measure of punishment. What was said of his laws, that
they were written in blood, and knew no punishment but
death for any crime or misdemeanor, is assuredly not to
be ascribed to personal harshness on the part of the legislator, who was far from desiring to establish a new code
of penal law; but it was rather that the Draconian ordinances, as compared with later legislations, appeared unu



334               History of Greece.         Boos II.
sually severe and simple, because they had originated in
simple and austere conditions of life. In opposition to the
spirit of the times and its hankerings after change, the ancient order of things was to be maintained, and the sword,
as long as it could be used, was to be rather sharpened
than blunted, in order that the terror of punishment might
at the same time preserve their ancient authority to both
the office and the social class of the judges. Finally,
every modification of the traditionary degrees of punishment would have only thrown a proportionately greater
odium on the previous administration of the penal office.
That the popular movement was directed precisely towards
obtaining pledges against arbitrary conduct on the part
of the judges is proved by the contemporary reform of the
law-courts and the establishment of a regular college of
fifty-one judges of life and death, or Ephetce.
Institution of who sat in judgment in various localities
consecrated  to judicial purposes  by ancient and sacred traditions, and decided cases of doubtful
law.
By means of such concessions the Eupa.
Revolution of
Cylon.  01. tride endeavored to support thbppselves, for
xlii. 1. (B. C. they could not remain blind to the dangers of
)   the times. On the side of the land, as well as
of the sea, Attica was surrounded by states in which popular movements had with victorious force broken through
the ancient orders of life. In Megara, originally only a
portion of Attiqa, but now superior in naval power and in
splendor to Athens, in Corinth, in Sicyon, and in Epidaurus there existed dynasties -of princes, set up in opposition
against the nobility by leaders of the popular party; and
attempts were made to provoke similar movements in
Athens. At the same time the condition of Attica differed
totally from that of these other states; in the former no
foreign soldiery had entered the land, no dominion of
strangers had been forced upon the native population, and




CHAP. II.]        HiStory of Attica.           335
accordingly there was no equally pressing occasion for a
violent eruption. However there was, as we have seen,
no lack of combustible materials; and the interests of the
Attic nobility directed them to the conservative power of
Sparta, while the Attic demus accorded a natural sympathy to the liberation and rise of the citizen-class in the
neighboring maritime towns. The administration of the
land too was in a bad state. The clans of the nobility
were at feud with one another, the government was weakened, and the defensive force of the land in decay. The
superintendents of the codes of taxation had acquired a
power which placed itself in opposition to the Archons of
the capital: single districts of the land and the population
separated from the rest; and eminent families of the nobility availed themselves of this state of things to form for
themselves a body of adherents on and near their property,
and to obtain a power which was plainly repugnant to the
constitution of the land.
To one of these families belonged Cylon, a young man
who had been victorious in the stadium at Olympia, and
thought himself thereby called to put forth loftier claims
than the trad:tionary order of things permitted. His wife
was a daughter of Theagenes, and in Megara he had become acquainted with the charms of tyrannical rule; so
that the thought arose in him of overthrowing the government, already exposed to a variety of agitations, in his
native city, and constituting himself the master of city
and country. By promising an alleviation of the condition of debtors and a distribution of land, he succeeded in
surrounding himself with a resolute band of partisans.
Theagenes placed soldiers at his disposal; and thus, according to the example of the Peloponnesian Tyrants, he
thought that the one decisive step would bring him to the
goal of his ambition.
It was a Greek custom to celebrate the return of the
anniversaries of the victories in the games: on these ocea



336                History of Greece.        [BooK II.
sions the victor, accompanied by his associates and relatives, and adorned with the wreath which conferred undying honor upon his house and native city, passed in procession through the different parts of the city to the temples of the gods, thus asserting his position of pre-emilence
before the eyes of all his fellow-citizens. For this reason
Cylon chose this day, on which he could without arousing
suspicion be surrounded by a considerable band of his
friends, for the execution of his design; and the Pythia is
said to have confirmed his choice by pointing out to him
the greater festival of Zeus as the day pregnant of good
fortune.  How could Cylon interpret this to mean any
other festival than that of Zeus at Olympia, which seemed
to him, an Olympian victor, to be the cynosure of the
whole festive calendar of the Greeks. He forgot that in
Attica itself, under the name of the Greatest Festival, or
the Diasia, a primitive and native feast of Zeus was celebrated, which no patriotic Athenian ought to have ranked
beneath the Peloponnesian. During the Diasia the people
were scattered about the rural districts; at the festival of
the Olympian Zeus the whole current of the population
flowed together into Athens.
The citadel was easily surprised and the gate occupied,
but beyond this no success was obtained. Cylon soon discovered the fallaciousness of his calculations. Notwithstanding all the aggrieved and discontented feeling agitating the population, there yet existed too great a harmony
to allow any other sentiment than that of indignation at
this violent disturbance of the religious celebration to prevail. This sentiment turned most decisively and fully
against the citizen who wished to turn the feast to the
account of treasonable designs, and with one accord the
people assembled to repossess themselves of the citadel.
The Acropolis was not only a citadel, but also the centre
of religion: hence the daily intercourse with the guardian
deities of the city and the holiest sacrificial worship had




CHAP. IL)        History of Attica.            337
been at the same time interrupted. As the conspirators
maintained a desperate defence, it became necessary to
leave behind a force sufficient to surround the citadel, and
the Archons were armed by the people with authority to
bring the conflict to a termination according to their own
judgment.
When Cylon saw his hopes disappointed, he fled with
his brother by a secret path; but the rest continued to
hold out for a short time, and were then forced by famine
to surrender. No result of any kind seemed to have
sprung from the occurrence, and the ancient order of
things appeared once more re-established; and yet the
deed of Cylon was to be the first link in a chain of most
momentous events.
After the governing nobility perceived
that they possessed the complete guidance "The Cylonian
of public affairs, they regarded the offence
against the gods as a matter of mere secondary importance, and saw in the attempt of Cylon nothing but an attack against their position and privileges. The conflict
became a party struggle. In their indignation at the
escape of the author of the attempt from their vengeance
the Archons entered the open gate of the citadel, and
found the men, gaunt with famine, sitting at the steps of
the altars. Under the promise of their lives being granted
them they were led away; but scarcely had their trembling hands been removed from the altar, when armed
men rushed upon them and cut them down. Others had
attached their bodies by means of long ropes to the statue
of Athene, in order that under this protection they might
move from altar to altar. At the base of the citadel
they were pitilessly slain before the altars of the Erinyes.
The ropes, it was said, had snapped asunder of their own
accord, because the gods had refused to have any connection with the criminals.
In a brief moment of terrible passion had been wrought
15




338              History of Greece.        [BOOK JL.
an irremediable deed. The name of the god-fearing
Athenians had received an ineradicable stain, the holiest
localities had been desecrated, and the gods would henceforth turn with loathing from their favorite abodes. The
citizen community, only recently united more closely by
common necessity than they had been for a long time,
was distracted anew. After this fashion, then, it was said,
Interes  the Eupatridoe rewarded the confidence of the
Interests.
people: in no instance were they careful of any
interests but their own; and in order to satisfy their
cravings after vengeance they, the wise doctors of the
law, heaped crimes and curses upon the heads of the innocent commons of the city.
Most vehemently of all the general indignation turned
against the house of the Alcmaeonidse. For the Alcmseonide Megacles stood as Archon at the head of the governing party, and his clan and clients had borne the chief
share in the offence committed in the citadel. Therefore,
the people, supported by the adherents of Cylon, demanded the punishment of the Alcmseonidfe, lest their
guilt should rest on the head of the city. Proudly the
Alcmseonidm in a body resisted this demand, and disdainfully rejected the cry of the multitude, appealing to the
authority which had been committed to them.
The situation of the Eupatridce was at its worst: the
guilt of blood resting on the one house had shaken the
position of the entire aristocracy; for the securest foundation of their authority was no other than their leadership
of the people in all matters relating to divine and human
law, and their attendance with pure hands upon the public sanctuaries. They wavered for a long time between
their recognition of the guiltiness of the deed and their
feeling of common class-interests, which was increased in
intensity by the general vehemence of the attacks of the
opposite party and by the violent war made by the revolutionary spirit of the times upon the privileges of the




CHAr. II.]       History of Attica.            339
nobility. To give aid at this crisis a man was needed
who possessed rank and authority among the Eupatridse,
but at the same time a political wisdom extending beyond
the interests of his class, and a patriotism comprehending
the whole state in its range. Such a man, happily for
Athens, had grown up unobserved in the midst of the
party conflicts, with the noblest blood of Athens running
in his veins, that of the house of Neleus and the race of
Codrus.
Solon, the son of Execestides, was born
about the time when Psammetichus as- Solon:his selfsumed the government in Egypt, and
opened new paths to Greek maritime commerce. Practised both on the wrestling-grounds and in the arts of the
Muses, the youthfil Eupatride acquired a rich and harmonious culture, such as even at that time could nowhere
be better obtained than at Athens. An untiring love of
knowledge filled him from his earliest youth
up to the end of his life; for even when at love of knowthe point of death he is said to have raised
his weary head to take part in the conversations of his
friends. This love of knowledge, as well as his domestic
circumstances, early caused him to quit the narrow circle
of home, and to explore the world. He was himself engaged in mercantile business; on his own ship he sought
in foreign ports to exchange Attic goods for others to reimport into Athens. His clear and watchful eye could
not fail to observe the movements of the times, whose
mighty phenomena met him on every shore. The ancient
institutions, dating from the days of his fathers, the patriarchal canton-constitutions, as well as the hereditary
rights of the higher classes, based on the paternally irresponsible government of communities devoid of any will
or importance of their own, could no longer continue to
exist. Wherever a sea abounding in harbors washed the
shore a new class of men was arising, a vigorous middle



340              fiastory of Greece.          Boox II.
class, composed of those engaged in industrial pursuits;
and to this middle-class, as he clearly perceived, the future
belonged. This class would necessarily rise in proportion
as trade spread over all the coasts, and the gains of commerce were reaped, which were flowing forth in rich
abundance out of the colonies in the east and west, out
of the interior of Asia, and above all out of the newlyopened valley of the Nile. These acquisitions would be
accompanied by a universal social transformation; and in
Attica also, notwithstanding that the native nobility
themselves endeavored to profit by the new resources, the
ancient state of things could never more be maintained.
This impossibility was the first fact Solon
publi afist perceived, and it formed the starting-point
from which he developed his farther ideas; for
in the midst of his restless life of travel all his thoughts
and wishes remained devoted to his home. Whatever
met his eye he looked upon with reference to Attic interests; and when he saw the internal affairs of so many
cities of the Hellenes in a state of confusion, and their
peace disturbed, he would often sit wrapped in thought on
the deck of his ship, and consider the possible means of
successfully conducting his native city through the storms
of the times towards the great future which, as he knew
awaited her. Thus as a merchant he educated himself to
be a statesman and legislator. The root of all the prevailing evils he saw in the conflict of Classes: herein he
recognized the soil of demagogy, on which the seed of
illegal tyrannical power must spring up. Hence everything depended on taking precautions for preventing this
rupture, for reconciling the parties, and mediating in the
conflict before it burst out into flames of open enmity;
but this not by means of a mutual bargain and a dishonest readiness for concession on both sides, but by the
establishment of a higher unity of state, to which the dif



CHAPI II.]       Hi8tory of Attica.           841
ferent classes could submit without proving untrue to
themselves.
These sentiments found an expression in the first action
of the youthful Solon, when he intervened between the
parties of Athens. With impressive eloquence he proved
to the members of his own class the dangers of the
moment; he openly declared that the community was
fully justified in denying their confidence and reverence
to a nobility which refused to purify its hands of the
guilt of blood; and that it would be folly on the part of
the Families to sacrifice their entire authority and the
tranquillity of the state for the sake of the guiltiness of a
few of their number. He succeeded in convincing the
members of his order. The Alcmeonid    Banishment of
Banishment of
declared themselves ready to submit to a the Alcmsonitribunal composed of three hundred men of da.
their order; by which they were found guilty of the offence against the gods and outlawed. Avoiding and
avoided by all, they passed in a long procession out of the
city through the gate of Evil Fortune; and even the remains of such members of their family as had died in the
interval were not allowed to rest in Attic ground.
This event none but the many who envied and hated
this ambitious house could look upon as a triumph.
Those whose glance penetrated deeper perceived how unsound was the state of public affairs, and how deeply
public confidence had suffered. This uneasy feeling at
home was increased by misfortunes abroad.
The suppression of the Cylonian rebellion had provoked new hostilities between Athens and Megara. It
may be that Cylon had himself repaired to the court of
Theagenes, and was exciting him against Athens. It is
certain that Megara commanded the Saronic gulf, and
held Salamis occupied. The best docks of Attica, at
Phalerus and at Eleusis, were blockaded by hostile
guard-ships. After a series of unsuccessful attempts, the




342               Hi istory of Greece.       [BoOl IL
Athenians resigned themselves to their fate, and interdicted every new incitement towards a resumption of this
struggle.
In this state of cowardly discouragement
Conquest of the noble impulses of Athens lay imprisoned,
Salamis.
as under a heavy charm. Everything depended on breaking this charm; and this was the mission
of Solon. For he was not only a fine observer of human
affairs, well acquainted with the signs of the times, and
an intelligent and patriotic statesman, but also endowed
with that spiritual power which animates speech with a
higher life, and by means of it exercises sway over human
souls,-with the power of the poet; whom    God had
chosen as the saviour of the state, and armed with rare
qualities. Though political speeches, which excited the
people, were prohibited in these troublous times, the Muse
found a path open to her. Under a holy inspiration,
which none dared to interrupt, he hurried among the
people; and an elegy of a hundred lines, which under
the name of "Salamis" long survived in the mouths of
the youth of Attica, brought before the listening multitude their shameful humiliation. The Athenians proved
themselves worthy of their Solon; and scarcely had they
heard the last verses" Up! and to Salamis on! let us fight for the beautiful island,
Wrathfully down to the dust spurning the yoke of our shame!"when, overcome by shame and enthusiasm, they rushed
from the market-place to the ships, and conquered Salamis.
Such was the first Salaminian victory, a decisive turning-point in the life of the Athenians. They were once
more the masters in their own waters, and could lift up
their eyes free from shame. It was the first fresh breeze
of air which pervaded the murky atmosphere, and (which
was the fact of main importance) the people recognized




CHAP. II.]        History of Attica.           343
in Solon their good genius, to whom they gave themselves up with perfect confidence, so that he was able even
without any official authority to conduct the destinies of
his native city.
In how lofty a spirit Solon conceived his task his next
steps prove. For he contemplated not a few external
successes, but the moral elevation of the whole national
body. A political community, not less than a private
family, is desecrated by disunion: the gods avert their
countenances, and will receive nothing from impure
hands. Therefore Solon had no thought of calming or
lightly dissipating the uneasy feeling which had remained
behind ever since the outbreak of the internal feuds, the
fear of the citizens, which was fostered by sickness and
terrible signs from heaven, and the sense of divine disfavor; but he rather confirmed the citizens in their
perturbed state of mind, and declared a general humiliation before the gods and an expiation of the whole city
necessary. In order to give a thoroughly impressive significance to this solemn rite he ad- EtPienids
vised the invitation of Epimenides from Crete,
a man enjoying a high-priestly authority among all the
Hellenes, and frequently summoned by domestic and national communities to restore, by exhortation, instruction,
and expiatory rites, the disturbed relation with the invisible Powers. Since men like Plato believed in the healing influence of such measures, we should assuredly not
be justified in thinking meanly of the agency of an Epimenides.
He was a prophet, not in the sense that he encouraged
superstition by a soothsayer's tricks, but in this, that he
inquired into the origin of moral and political evils, and
pointed out remedies for them. He was deeply cognizant
of the relations of human life-a physician after the type
of Apollo, whose worship he extended; a spiritual adviser-a man whose gifts of speech and whose whole per



344              History of Greece.        [BOOK II.
sonality exercised a deeply-moving power; and these gifts
he was ready, at the desire of Solon, with whom he stood
in relations of friendship, to devote to the Athenians, as
he had before devoted them to others.
By the combination of various forms of religious worship Athens had become the capital, and Attica one
united whole. But this religious union was as yet incomplete. Apollo still remained a god of the nobility, and
his religion a wall of separation between the different
classes of the population of Attica. According to the
plan of Solon this was to be changed. Epimenides, after
by sacrificial processions round the city their ancient guilt
had been expiated, consecrated the entire city and the
entire state to the god of the Ionic families. To every
free Athenian belonged henceforth the right and the duty
of sacrificing to Apollo. All the houses and homesteads,
all the altars and hearths, received consecration by means
of the sacred laurel-branch. In all the streets statues
were erected of Apollo Agyieus, and the oath holiest to
all the Athenians was now sworn by Zeus, Athene, and
Apollo, such being an express ordinance ever since the
time of Solon. The systems of religious worship were
regulated anew; prayers and hymns, serving to edify the
mind, promulgated; and beneficent forms of divine service established. Before all the altars of the city new
fires glowed: the old times were at an end, the heavy
clouds dissipated, and once more the Athenians, with
wreaths around their brows, serenely passed up to the
temples of their gods.
After the citizen community had been thus,
pTh wal. as it were, regenerated, it became of vital importance to turn their attention from. internal
affairs to the course of daring enterprises, where common
struggles, dangers, and common victories might confirm
and prove the newly-established harmony between the
orders of the state. And what more favorable oppor



CHl. II.]        Hi'tory of Attica.            345
tunity could offer itself for this purpose than the danger
menacing the seat of the Delphic temple? To fight in
this cause was an act of religious service; a deed in
honor of the same Apollo who had once passed from
Crete to Delphi, and had now come among the Athenians
with new gifts and blessings.
Solon was the soul of the whole undertaking. He succeeded, by forming intimate relations with Sicyon, in
calling into life the league by means of which the active
force of the Ionian race first intervened in the common
affairs of the Hellenes; in assembling the federal army,
conducting the war; and when the latter met with a resistance of considerable obstinacy before the walls of
Cirrha, in maintaining the minds of the assailants at a
pitch of enduring vigor till victory at last crowned their
efforts.
The ten years of war were not spent by Solon in the
camp of the allies. He left the execution of the enterprise and the military honor and profit connected with it
to his more ambitious confederates, while he himself was
cherishing loftier thoughts in his mind, and even during
the years of war felt himself called to commence a work
on which the whole future of his native city must depend.
After the conquest of Salamis, Athens had suddenly
issued forth from a petty border feud upon the theatre of
the national history of the Greeks. Without waiting for
Sparta, she had taken the affairs of Delphi into her own
hands, and formed a confederacy reaching from Peloponnesus to Thessaly, and including states in open enmity
with the Spartans. Sparta had to recognize the fact, that
for the first time a power which was her equal had appeared- in the field; nor could she ever overlook or forget
what had happened. Athens, on the other hand, unless
she was humbly to strike back in the abandoned path,
had to be prepared to assert her new position in arms.
But how slightly was she armed for such a contest!
I6*




346              History of Greece.        [Boox II.
The most important means of defence was wantingfirmly-established unity at home. The ancient parties,
which only vanished in moments of patriotic excitement,
reappeared again and again, and in a state of so bitter resentment against one another, that a hostile power would
have little difficulty in finding its allies in the camp of the
Athenians themselves. If then Athens was to continue in
the path on which she had entered, she had to become
strong and confident in herself. The endeavor to attain
to this end Solon recognized as the task of his life.
He could have easiest accomplished it
Solon as a legislator.
by uniting the power of government in
his own hands; and he was strong enough for the purpose.
Many expected no other result, than that in Athens, as
elsewhere, the troubles of party conflicts would end in the
Tyrannis; and among the Tyrants men had appeared undeniably of the same class of mind as Solon. Nor was
there any doubt as to the actual necessity of a heightened
totality of power, placed in the hand of one man, if the
state was to be led into the course of a new constitution;
and accordingly some of his contemporaries, well disposed
towards him, blamed him for rejecting these means, and
thus opening a path for other governments of force.
Solon refused to entertain any notion of this kind with
all the decision of a man careless of satisfying selfish longings and of attaining to a deceptive greatness. He refused to accomplish good results by evil means. His
mind was set on making the great work succeed by legitimate means: his Athens was to earn the glory of being
the one state which in the epoch of revolutions without
violence or crimes established a new polity for herself,
and of issuing forth from the troubles of her social condition into a transformation in accordance with the demands of the times by means of a free resolution of
her own citizens and the peaceful adoption of a legislation
recognized by them as salutary. For. this purpose, in



CHAP. IL3         History of Attica.           847
deed, no mere code of laws, like that of Draco, sufficed;
but with creative power an entire organism, coherent in
itself, had to be formed, which, adapted to the Attic commonwealth, indicated a safe transformation for it, without
forcibly affecting the manifold activity of its life. As in
a bronze foundry the liquid metal is manipulated so as
while the glow passes away-to receive the form designed by
the artist-a new form, full of symmetry and unexpected
beauty; so the popular forces, now in a state of thorough
fermentation, were to be settled and formed anew, in
order that out of the dissolved mass should arise, as it
were, a new and vigorous body of the state.
At the same time he was far from falling into the error
of idealizing political artists, who impatiently and prematurely hurry on towards their ultimate ends; but he
began by securing fixed and broad foundations for the
whole edifice. Accordingly the first object of his attention was the condition of the people. For the purpose of
a new and hopeful future a courageous spirit was, above
all, requisite; but how could such a temper be attained
to by the unfree and groaning people on the farms
burdened with debts?  If this abnormal condition continued, it seemed a mere mockery to offer political rights
in lieu of an alleviation of physical distress. And, in
truth, concessions of this kind would remain wholly insignificant as long as the small farmers remained in complete
dependence on the Eupatridae as the masters of their
land and their creditors.
Accordingly a beginning had to be made Distress of the
with the hardest part of the whole task. Athenian people. Their fiFor where is the legislator met by a more nanoial condidifficult problem than where it is necessary tion.
to stem growing distress and to.remove the heavy curse
pressing harder and harder upon impoverished classes of
the population? In this endeavor Solon was essentially
supported in two ways. In the first place bis fellow-citi



348              History of Greece.        [BooO II.
zens looked upon his attempt with favor, having been convinced by him that nothing but an opportune sacrifice
could save their position in the state; and, again, he was
supported by the advantages of an Attic climate and a
Greek soil. The facility of obtaining the means of life
proper to the south and the extreme moderation in physical wants peculiar to the population of Athens would
always prevent distress from rising to such a height as it
reaches in northern lands, where man needs a multitude
of means in order merely to preserve his existence in the
teeth of rough nature. Popular distress in Attica originated in causes which could be more speedily removed by
means of legislation. The first and chief of these was the
financial pressure.
The first gold and silver coins were brought from Asia
to Hellas as an article of commerce. Gradually they
came into use as money; first among the merchants in the
pursuit of their business bcyond the sea, and afterwards
also in domestic trade for the regulation of mutual obligations. Fixed prices being gradually placed upon all articles of daily necessity, life in its entirety necessarily became more and more costly: every one needed money;
and yet, even after the state had commenced, after the example of Phidon, to coin its own money, there existed for
a long time only a small amount of coined money in the
land. This small supply was chiefly in the hands of the
men of business and merchants: it was in their power to
fix the value of money; and they accordingly raised the
rate of interest to as great a height as; possible. As soon
as money had ceased to be an article of trade like other
articles coming on the market, when even the poorer
classes could not exist without it, there resulted a great
pressure, which weighed all the more heavily on the
poorer classes, inasmuch as the laws of debt prevailing
in the interests of the proprietors were of exceeding severity. Consequently usury, like a poisonous plant, absorbed




CHAP. IL.        History of Attica.            349
and consumed the strength of the land. One free homestead after the other had disappeared; one farm after the
other been mortgaged; and at the boundaries of the fields
were seen erected, in large numbers the pillars of stone
which mentioned the amounts of the debts for which the
fields were mortgaged and the names of the creditors.
The unhappy division of the population into rich and poor
deepened in the most threatening degree. While it was
easy for the rich to multiply their capital, only single individuals among the small proprietors succeeded in working their way up. In the principal plains of the land the
number of small proprietors, and with it the free middleclass in which Solon necessarily recognized the future of
his native city, had greatly dwindled down, while in the
hill-districts and on the coast a population constantly
desirous of change was more and more putting forth its
strength.
Something had to be done to alter this state of things;
and a vigorous statesman could not permit himself to
shrink even from such measures as for the sake of the
common good encroached upon existing TheSeisachtheia.
private rights, and were not to be carried
through without essentially injuring the creditors. The
right of execution was restricted, and might henceforth be
no longer extended to the person of the debtor and his
family. The state honored itself by abolishing the possibility of one citizen owning another as his serf, or selling
him into slavery. Next the rate of interest was officially
regulated, and a limit thus drawn for usury. But the
most effective measure was the alteration of the standard
of the coinage. Solon caused the drachms to be coined
of lighter weight, so that one hundred new drachms were
equal in value of silver to seventy-three old, and then settled that all outstanding debts should be repaid according
to the new standard of coinage. Hence he who owed
1,000 drachms had his debt decreased by 270 drachms.




350              History of Greece.        BtooK IL
The measure was advantageous to all laboring under obligations of money, to the poor as well as to the rich; but
to the former of course in a superlative degree. Probably
the repayment in fixed terms was also farther facilitated by
additional concessions. Such a man as Solon was able to
achieve extraordinary results by means of the mild force
of his personality and the sagacious use of the favorable
feeling with which he was regarded. The state itself
allowed its debtors to go free, and renounced all claims
for outstanding money-fines. Thus many farm-peasants
were enabled to commence an establishment on a new
footing; and, rejoicing in his success, the noble Solon
might in his poems call Mother Earth to witness that she
had been freed by him from the hateful burden of the
mortgage-pillars. But in order to prevent a future recurrence of the evil laws were given which placed a limit on
the purchase of land by the capitalists, and by one stroke
rendered impossible the ruin of the peasant-farms and the
union of many lands in one hand.
This was a series of beneficent ordinances. They conferred advantages upon the people which elsewhere have
only been obtained by means of the most sanguinary disturbances, and have even then been far less firmly secured.
For these changes in the financial system were so far from
exercising a baneful influence on the public credit that in
Athens, notwithstanding all political troubles, the moneymarket continued in a state of great security and steadiness. After the time of Solon the standard of coinage was
never again lowered. The measures indicated above
together formed the so-called Seisachtheia, i. e. the
alleviation of the burdens pressing upon the people. It
had now been made possible to advance with greater freedom and boldness in the course of a new political development.
On this head   again Solon  clearly realSoflhne idea ized to himself the data'on whic  he had to
work.




CHAP. II.]      tHitory of Attica.             351
The free inhabitants of Attica were divided into two
totally distinct classes: citizens in possession of the full
franchise, consisting of all those who belonged to the exclusive body of families; and unenfranchised inhabitants,
whose only rights were liberty and the protection of the
law. This sharp distinction of classes could no longer be
maintained; in the multitude of the people there existed
too powerful a spirit of resistance, and in the more limited
body of citizens too little unity to admit of its being successfully overcome. The character of the political comnunity would have to be conceived in a new sense, in
which these contrasts would be harmonized.
The polity of the Athenians, thus ran the teaching of
Solon, is not an institution in which only a certain number of families possess a full share, as it were by hereditary right; but, as the religion of Apollo has become one
common to all, so the state also which the Ionic families
have founded is to comprehend all free inhabitants born
of Attic parents. All share equally in the advantages it
offers; but all have equally to fulfil the corresponding
obligations. This does not, however, at once entitle all to
the possession of equal rights; for it would be unfair if the
Athenian whose family has for centuries owned land in
the plains of the Cephisus were not to have a greater share
in the state than a laborer who finds a home where he
finds his bread. Solon constituted readiness and capability of doing service to the state the standard according to
which his share of civic rights was assigned to every individual.
" Money makes the man " had for many His systemof dia day become a proverb of uncontested visions of the citruth, however much the admirers of the ve community.
good old times might lament and exclaim against it.
Solon made income the standard of political rights, but
not the amount of coined money (for this would have
placed the merchants, shipowners, manufacturers, and




352               Hi8tory of Greece.       [Boo, II.
money-changers at the top, and in the end the usurers
might have carried off the honors of the state), but the income produced by a man's own lands. Thus landed property became the condition of all political influence. By
this means the value of land rose; and a limit was set
upon the excessive desire of the Ionic race for-immovable
property, and upon the rapid change of wealth. The
ancient famiies of hereditary proprietors retained their
position of authority, and a fair division of the land was
encouraged, because all who wished to have a personal
share in the administration of the state had to endeavor
to retain or acquire a certain measure of landed property
free from debt. The young Eupatridse received a salutary impulse towards a careful economy in the management of their ancestral property, and the rest, who were
anxious to raise themselves socially, were equally encouraged to purchase land, and, as it were, to identify themselves with the soil of the country. As a matter of fact
the change was not so important as it must appear to
those who confine their attention to the new points of view
from which it was accomplished.  For the Eupatrids
were the rich, and formed the preponderating majority of
the landed proprietors. Thus their rights were in a certain sense merely guaranteed to them anew under another
name. But the great difference lay in the fact that these
rights were no longer an untransferable possession, but
could henceforth be lost by the one and acquired by the
other class with the ail of industry, talent and good fortune.
In order to secure the true standard
The lasses of land- for the new division of te community
the sum-total of the national property in
land had to be accurately ascertained. Statistical tables
were drawn up, such as had long been common in the
empires of the East and particularly among the Egyptians, where the travelled Solon may have found his pre



CHAP. II.]       History of Attica.            353
cedent. In Attica every proprietor had himself to state
his annual revenue from his lands, as became the citizen
of a free community. No deceptive under-valuing was to
be apprehended; for if it was attempted, it could scarcely
remain concealed where every part of the little country
was open to the public eye. From time to time the valuation was repeated, in order that it might preserve a due
proportion to the changing state of the value of lands.
The basis of the calculation was not the landed property
itself, but the net income in each case derived from it. It
is not perfectly clear how the amount of this income was
determined. Yet it seems to have stood to the value of
the landed property in the proportion of one to twelve; so
that an income of 500, 300, or 150 measures of corn representea a value of 6,000, 3,600, and 1,800. Now barley
was the most important sort of corn for Attica; and by it
Solon accordingly arranged the various property-classes.
Whoever wished to belong to the first
class had to prove the possession of landed The newoasses.
property which, according to an average calculation, produced a net income of 500 bushels of barley,
or a corresponding measure of wine and oil.  These
were the Pentakosiomedimni, or Five-hundred-bushel-men.
And since, in Solon's times, the market-price of the bushel
amounted to a drachm (6d.), the citizens of the first class
possessed a minimum capital for taxation of 6,000
drachms, or one talent. For the second class, or class of
the Knights, landed property of the value of 3,600; and
for the third, or class of the Zeugitce, of 1,800 bushels or
drachms was requisite. But as it would have been unfair
if the state had made an equal claim upon the revenues
of the richer and poorer citizens, the members of the
second class were only entered with 3,000 (1 talent = 30
mins\, and those of the third with only 1,000 drachms, or
10 mine. In other words, the proportions stood thus:
the whole property of the Pentakosiomedimni, five-sixths




354               History of Greece.       [l3vuui 1L
of that of the Knights, and five-ninths of that of the Zeugitse, were respectively taken as the basis of taxable property. All whose income fell below that of the Zeugitse,
and who, in other words, had no landed property which
secured to them an independent existence as citizens,
formed together the class of hired laborers, or Thetes.
They were entirely free from taxation.
These property-classes are not to be regarded as if it
had been the object of the state to levy regular taxes according to the standard fixed, in order thus to procure the
means of administration. But the possibility now existed
of calling to aid, when necessity should arise, the capabilities of the citizens, and when the state had to make extraordinary demands, every one according to the valuation
of his property had to be ready to satisfy them. The
essential and regular services referred to the national defence, the first three classes having at once the duty,and
the privilege of composing the fully armed military force
of the state and supplying the means of war. In return
they alone were admitted to the offices conferring power
and honor; and they alone could be chosen into the
Council of the Four Hundred which administered the
affairs of state. The first government offices, those of the
nine Archons, were reserved for the first class.
It is true that the number of bushels must appear an
insufficient standard by which to determine qualifications
for civic offices. At the same time it should be
Its basis.
remembered that according to the opinion of the
ancients agriculture was the only occupation which preserved the body and soul of man in a state of manly
health and vigor. A citizen's own land more than anything else indissolubly attached him to the state, and
afforded a guarantee that the possessor would risk property and life for the common hearth of his native country. Those who only founded their prosperity on the




CaOP. IL.]        Hitory of Attica.            355
turning over of money belonged, however rich they might
chance to be, to the class of the Thetes.
As to the gradation among the landed
proprietors, Solon started from the convic- Rhelatons between
tion, that a considerable landed property
was alone adapted to afford the leisure and freedom from
cares requisite for a man desirous of occupying himself
with public affairs.  That more liberal mental culture
again, which is necessary for one who is to take part with
superior intelligence and vigor in the government of the
state, in general only flourishes under the favorable influences of a certain degree of domestic prosperity. And
finally, Solon had to be careful to avoid all sharp and
sudden changes in political society. As up to this time
the Eupatridae had been alone practised and experienced
in the conduct of public affairs, it was both desirable and
advantageous that these should remain chiefly in their
hands. Only on this condition could Solon feel certain
of the good-will of the upper class. As he was himself
wont to say with noble sincerity, far from imagining that
he had given to Athens laws absolutely the best, he believed only that he had given her the best among those
which she would have consented to adopt. On the other
hand, it was no longer a rigid system of privilege, which
secured their position to the nobles, but every one with the
necessary vigor and will could raise himself to a higher
level. Besides, their admission to seats in the council
and various governmental offices gave opportunity to
the lesser proprietors also of familiarizing themselves with
the conduct of affairs. By this means political experience was spread over a constantly increasing area, and
though by far the greatest part of the population continued to have no share in the executive, yet the revival
of an exclusive and vigorous rule of the nobility could
never again take place. For among the free Athenians
no man was excluded from the common political life. All




356               History of Greece.         [BOOK 11.
classes were summoned to take part, with equal rights of
voting, in the assemblies of the citizens, in
Assembiese of which rested the real political supremacy.
In these the officers of the state were elected;
so that only such men conducted the executive as had
been intrusted with the power by the confidence of the
people. In the civic assemblies votes were taken concerning organic laws and questions of war and peace. And
finally, from the same assemblies originated, by means of
free election, the jury-courts, to which the decision belonged in all criminal cases relating to the public welfare,
and to which at the same time an appeal lay for every
citizen from the sentence of the judicial officers.
At first, indeed, the assemblies of the ciThe Areopagus.
tizens were only of rare occurrence, and the
current business of government remained in the hands of
the council and the public officers. But the principle had
been asserted of civic liberty and equality before the law;
to the whole people had been confided the safety of the
state and the supreme exercise of its laws; and no class
of this people was in a situation which might have forced
it to become a slave or a foe of the existing order of
things. Rather were all concerned in the well-being of
the whole. All had at once an obligation and an interest
in unanimously asserting the rights of the state in war
and in peace.
Solon perceived more clearly than any one else what
germs of a future development underlay his constitution;
nor could he, in view of the general current of the
times and the mobile character of his Ionic people,
entertain any doubts as to the direction which it
would principally pursue. Accordingly he deemed it
indispensable to provide the ship of state before it
was launched upon the waters with an anchor, by means
of which it might adhere to firm ground against waves
and current. Besides the senate, the annually changing




ChAP. II.]        History of Attica.           857
committee of the citizens, which in tendencies and sentiments would necessarily be the organ of the popular
assembly, he felt persuaded of the necessity of a conservative counterbalance, an official body consisting of lifemembers, which, independent of the fluctuations of daily
opinion, would be called upon to oppose premature innovations with the authority of high office, to watch over
the sacred usages and traditions of the past, and to exercise a general superintendence over the commonwealth.
For this position he chose the Areopagus, surrounded as
it was with the most sacred reminiscences of the pre-historic age. By restricting admission into it to men who
had blamelessly served their country in the highest offices
he united in this college all the eminent intelligence and
experience existing in Athens. Here the members of the
ancient houses had ample opportunity vigorously to represent the good elements of ancient times, and even in
cases where there was no occasion for a judicial procedure
to oppose with the powers of a strict and irresponsible
police every noxious violation of morality threatening
the health of the commonwealth, every objectionable attempt to offend against public decency or endanger the
public peace.
Solon not only settled the powers conducting public affairs, and those which were to constitute and protect public law, but he also availed himself of the great reform of
the state to renew or propose in person an important series
of legal statutes, in order that they might be called into
life in a living connection with the general constitution of
the state. He took advantage of the enthusiasm of the
people, and of the moral vigor which he had known how
to call forth in it, to establish a new sanction for principles of morality, as to which all civilized Hellenes could
have only one opinion, and to establish them as sacred
fundamental laws of the life of the Attic community,
couched in expressive terms of language. This was the




358               History of Greece.         tVo IAd
third part of his great work, that relating to law and
morality.
In the first instance his endeavors on this
New legal ordi- head also were directed towards freeing the
people from the fetters hindering its free
development. As he had made the Athenians citizens of
the state, so he made the citizens free possessors of their
land and property. Formerly the individual with all his
possessions was so thoroughly held down by the bonds of
family, that even as to the property acquired by himself
he could take no final decision. Money and lands had to
remain in the family, even in the absence of any children.
Liberty of dispo- It was Solon who first made a free disposisition of property tion by will legal in the latter case, so that
by will.
y will    every citizen, unfettered by any consideration whatsoever, could choose his heir, and adopt him as
a child. This favored the maintenance of the existence
of families, encouraged the desire for the acquisition of
property, and, in contradistinction to any necessity from
without, accorded a fuller measure of personal rights.
Restrin of  The domestic power of the father was siRestriction of
the paternal milarly limited. Here again the higher conauthority.  siderations of morality and the state were to
be established in the place of an immutable principle.
The honor due to old age and the duties of filial gratitude
Solon sought in every way to encourage. But even in his
own son the father was to honor the future citizen of a
free community. Hence the right of pledging the liberty
of his child, or selling him, was taken away. The laws
protected even the son under age against being arbitrarily
disinherited or cast off; and they also provided for his
education, by refusing to the father who had neglected it
any claim to be himself taken care of by his children in
his old age. For without love and the performance of its
duties Solon recognized no paternity and no paternal
rights.




CAP. n.]         History of Attica.            369
In liberty and variety of culture he saw the sources of
his native city's growing power; accordingly he regarded
education as one of the most essential interests
Education.
of the state, without subjecting it to a vexatious superintendence. Legislation was merely to provide
guidance and order; in the midst of a harmonious political and social system the youth of the country were to
acquire a spontaneous habit of hating what was evil, and
rejoicing with all their soul in what was noble and beautiful. In the shady wrestling-grounds which spread themselves out in the neighborhood of the city the young
Athenians were to unfold the vigor of their bodies and
minds, and grow to be a part of the state, which demanded men not drilled in Spartan fashion, but fully and
freely developed. Solon believed in the power of good in
man, and wished civic virtue to be based on free morality.
But he did not on that account loosen the bond holding
the state together, but endeavored to attach the citizens to
the latter with all their interests. Every individual was
accordingly both entitled and obliged to appear as prosecutor whenever he saw the welfare of the state and public morality in danger; and Solon required of every citizen that at the time of internal troubles he should unhesitatingly and resolutely choose his side, in order that none
might in cowardly ease wait for the course of things, so
as to be able in the end to join the conquering side.
Nor was Solon afraid of legal enactments limiting the
liberty of the individual; for he perceived the necessity of a legal discipline, exercising a salutary and moral
influence by means of the force of habit. Here it was
of especial importance to oppose the influences which,
favored by community of race and commercial intercourse, asserted themselves from the quarter of Asiatic
Ionia. Accordingly the Attic citizens were forbidden to
engage in such trades as appeared unworthy of free men




360               History of Greec.         [BOOK II.
— e. g. the preparation and sale of unSnmptuary laws.
guents: limits were set upon luxurious indulgence in gorgeous apparel: enactments were made
concerning marriage festivals and deaths, which, without
exercising any intolerable pressure, everywhere reminded
the citizens of the right measure: above all, display
in expensive sepulchral monuments was prohibited;
as also the passionate lamentation for the dead, such as
obtained in Asia Minor, and had thence spread over
Heroic Greece. Thus under the salutary discipline of
law the Attic character was definitely formed in contrast
to Asiatic Ionia, and the boundary-line between the Barbaric and the Hellenic, which was so easily overlooked in
the unrestrained life of the Ionians, was clearly laid
down.
The grand system  of this legislation also included the life and relations of trade and industry.
Among all occupations agriculture was specially favored,
and once more confirmed in its position as the basis of a
healthy civic life. The existence of a peasant-class, which
amongst the Ionians easily run the danger of losing its
honor, was saved arid most successfully restored by Solon;
and the equal distribution of landed property, encouraged
by wise laws, long preserved itself in Attica. By this means
Solon endeavored to deprive the spirit of commerce, the
moving spirit of the times, of its hurtful influence upon
public life, and to prevent a one-sided tendency in this
direction. On the other hand, he left no means untried
of facilitating in this line also the full development of
prosperity and easy intercourse. For this purpose, above
all, a fixed system of measures, weights, and coinage was
established. The ancient talent, which had first attained
to a recognized position among European Hellenes
at Chalcis, and which stood to the jEginetan in the
proportion of five to six was retained in use for pur



CHAP. II.]       History of Attica.            361
poses of trade and daily life, notwith-...~, ~.~.i.~ Monetary changes.
standing the change in the coinage carried out by Solon; so that the mina used in trade was
worth not one hundred, but one hundred and thirty-eight
of the drachms of lighter coinage. Hence there now existed an old and a new talent; and the latter, which
stood to the AEginetan in the proportion of three to five,
seems also to have had an equivalent in Asia according
to which it was fixed; so that on this head too the main
desire was to attain to a system in matters of money and
weights in accordance with that prevailing in the trading
cities beyond the sea.
On the other hand, Solon in this matter
i.'ew coinage.
also endeavored to give validity to what was
peculiarly Attic, as against the stranger. The stamp previously employed, and deriving its origin from Euboea, was
the figure of an ox. It was discontinued, and in its place
the head of Athene, the protectress of the city, substituted; and instead of the piece of two drachms, that of
four became the most important current coin, the dollarpiece proper of the Athenians. In proportion as trade
ceased to be an exchange of wares, a good national
coinage became of increasing importance for its encouragement. Accordingly Solon established a law among
the Athenians, that extreme attention should be had
to purity of metal and accuracy of standard; and
death was fixed as the penalty of forgery. The consequence of his enactments was that the fine silver-money of
the Athenians was everywhere taken with confidence: it
did honor to the state even beyond its limits, and contributed to cause a wide spread of the Attic standard of
coinage, to the great advantage of the trading community
at home.
Lastly, in order that a new and fixed
The Attio calendar.
system might on all points be established
in the life of the Athenians, the Attic year also was regu16




362             History of Greece.          [Boor II.
lated. The ancient Hellenic fashion was retained of
commencing the individual months with the visible appearance of the new moon; but at the same time an
attempt was made to make use of the results of astronomical science, in order to equalize the lunar and the solar
years lest the months should fall out of the season of the
year to which they appertained according to the festivals
of the gods and the occupations of men. For this purpose
the alternation of the so-called full and hollow months
had been long ago introduced, and attempts had even
been made to reconcile the constantly recurring contradictions by means of larger cycles of years. The most
important cycle of this kind was that of eight years, in
which three months of thirty days were inserted, so that
it consisted of five years of 354 and three of 384 days.
This intercalary cycle was of primitive antiquity, and was
especially taken as the basis of the system of festivals connected with the worship of Apollo. After the Attic state
had entered into relations of such multiplicity and intimacy with Delphi; after the religion of Apollo had come
generally to prevail in Attica, and to constitute the bond
of union among the whole population; the Delphic or
Pythian measurement of time was also taken as the basis
of the Attic calendar, which was introduced simultaneously with the publication of the legislation of Solon, and
at the same time marked the critical epoch in Attic history and the beginning of a new order of things. Athens,
by the clearness of her atmosphere and the lines of mountain dividing off the horizon for observations of the
heavens, became the home of astronomical studies, which
endeavored with untiring zeal to solve the problem of a
correct division of the year. The knowledge of the calendar was at the same time liberated from priestly influences, and the order of years inscribed on public monuments, and brought home to every individual.
As Theseus was said to have formerly accomplished his




CHAP. II.]       History of Attica.            363
great work of the political union of Attica by the help
of the goddess of Persuasion, so the new edifice of the
Attic state also rested on the mild force of convincing
speech. Solon was enabled to exercise such a power by
his personal capacities for reconciling difficulties and
differences, by his poetic gifts, and by the unassailable authority of a patriotism of the purest kind. For years he
worked upon and prepared his fellow-citizens in the different classes of society, by means of frequent conversations came to recognize how much was practicable, and
after many hours of bitterness occasioned by infamous
violations of his confidence, by prejudice and selfish obstinacy, he thought at last to have arrived at the time
in which he might carry out the work of his life.
For this final step it was necessary that the Publication
Publication
ancient civic body should exceptionally confer of the laws
upon him a peculiar and heightened official of Solon.
authority. For it was his ardent wish that the new
system of the state should never be exposed to the objection that it had been called into life by means of a violation of the constitution, or in any point lacked perfect
legality. Accordingly he was elected Archon,
and at the same time pacificator and legisla-  c. cxl'vi. 
tor, by the clans of the Eupatridse, which in
that year still retained the supreme power of state. In
this capacity he, by virtue of the authority entrusted to
him, ordained that the new laws, after they had been arranged systematically, should one and all be put into
writing, and exhibited for the inspection of every one,
under the care of the divinity protecting the city, on the
citadel. They stood on pillars of wood of the height of
a man and pyramid-shaped; and there was this distinction among them, that of some three, and of the rest
four, sides were covered with writing. Nor, we may be
assured, was this distinction casual or arbitrary. The
number three, it will be remembered, was in the life of




364               History of Greece.       [BooK IIL
the Greeks, who attached so much importance to fixed
numerical proportions, above all the religious number;
hence it was also the number of the gods to be invoked
in solemn oaths, established by Solon. The number four,
on the other hand, was the standard in all matters regulating public life. Accordingly on the wooden pillars
with three sides was written the sacred, the immutable
law, and with it those fundamental principles of public
life which, as well as the sacred law, with its inviolable
sacrificial rites, had been confirmed by the Delphic god
and constituted the firm foundations of the new polity.
On the pillars with four sides was inscribed the civil law,
which having its root in actual life would necessarily
have to advance with the latter; a fact patent to none
more than to Solon, who in this division once more
pointed to the two principal conditions of all political
and social prosperity-viz. a faithful adherence to the
fixed foundations of public life and a free progress in the
development of society and law.
As the entire work was introduced by meaG(eneral amnesty.    sures which by relieving the poor were to appease the evil conflict between classes, and establish a lasting condition of internal concord and peace,
which seemed to the ancients the necessary basis of every
political system, so the legislation of Solon terminated
with the announcement of a general peace, which, as it
were, placed a seal upon the great work of reconciliation.
The penalties involving a loss or diminution of honor
inflicted during the party-struggles were revoked; those
who had been banished from the land called back; the
whole past was forgotten, and no reminiscence of previous
bitterness was to be allowed to accompany the citizens
over the threshold of the new era. It was doubtless at
this time that the Alcmseonide were permitted to return;
whose highly-gifted house the patriotic legislator grieved
to see excluded from the state. An extraordinarily.




CHAP. II.]       History of Attica.            365
favorable turn of fortune enabled a member of this house
to find an immediate occasion of performing important
services for the state.  An Alcmseon was the Attic
general in the camp before Cirrha, and essentially contributed to end the sacred war in a manner honorable to
Athens. In the fourth year after Solon had at Athens
achieved the harder victory, and estallished the internal
well-being of the state, the victory abroad was won on
the fields of Cirrha. The honor gained by Athens on
her first appearance on the theatre of the national history
necessarily contributed largely to weld into a united body
the Athenians who at home also had been once more
made one in a religion and a civil polity common to them
all.
The work of Solon is the most perfect Character and reproduct of legislation developed into an suits of the legislation of Solon.
art. Hence, like every other work of art tion of Solon
created after mature reflection, it must in the first place
be considered according to the ideas inherent in it. But
it was not a work intended merely to satisfy the spectator,
like a marble group which is placed in the peaceful calm
of the court of a temple; nor was it a system of human
wisdom based on itself; but a work for active life, a work
destined to be realized among the storms of a troubled
time and in a society distracted by party conflicts, and by
its realization to educate, ennoble, and make happy the
members of this society. Such a work can only be appreciated at its true value from the history of the state,
as a vessel is not proved till it has been launched into the
open sea.
Meanwhile it would be unfair to found our opinion as
to the vital force and utility of the Solonian legislation
on the events of the period immediately following upon
it. For had the object of the great statesman been to
suppress the movements of party by means of summary
operations, he ought to have adopted the advice of those




366              History of Greece.        [BooK II.
who expected him to establish a political system by the
violent methods at the command of a Tyrant, by bands
of foreign mercenaries, banishments, and measures of
martial law. But the wisdom of Solon, superior to that
of his friends, perceived that results obtained by such
means carry with them few or no pledges of permanency.
Contemporary history showed him clearly enough how
what force had established was again overthrown by
force.
One who, like Solon, desired not to bind, but to free,
the powers of men; who, like him, wished to educate the
citizen of the state, so that he might not merely, like the
citizen of Lycurgus, be fitted for a particular place in his
own state, but develop in himself every human virtue,
and pay the homage of free obedience to the justice from
which the state derives its coherence: such a one may no
more than the teacher who aims at the highest ends of
education look forward to a speedy result corresponding
to his efforts. But Solon was justified in hoping that, in
proportion as the Athenians identified themselves with his
work, the whole people would recognize in it the expression of their better self and higher consciousness, and
that in quiet times they would ever and ever again return
to the same. In this hope he was not deceived; rather
was it fulfilled.beyond expectation. For amidst all
oscillations to and fro his work remained the fixed legal
basis on which the state rested: it was the good conscience of the Athenians, the gentle force of which again
and again led the changeable people back into the better
course.
Slon's travels.  Solon was well aware that the present
times were little favorable to an undisturbed growth of the habit of living under his laws.
What he was able to do, he did. After his laws had been
adopted by constitutional means, in the first place the ten
years' term of grace (which had enjoyed an important




CHAP. II.]        History of Attica.             367
place in Attic political law from an early period) was employed to secure for the laws a recognition, limited in the
first instance, but for that reason, as Solon hoped, all the
more likely to prove permanent. Before the expiration
of this term nothing was to be changed, every one was to
reserve his opinion, and abstain from proposing any
alterations to senate or people. These ten years of -grace
would have been an intolerable time for Solon, had he
remained in Athens. Accordingly the story that he went
abroad, in order to watch the progress of affairs in his
native city from a distance, has in it all the elements of
credibility. After the expiration of his year of office,
during which he had ruled over Athens, he could find no
better means of demonstrating the unselfishness of his designs. To these journeys into Egypt and Asia manifold
tales were attached, the origin of which mostly lies in the
fact, that in Solon the Greeks themselves first recognized
the type of a perfect Hellene, and in his person became
conscious of the aims of their national culture. But, in
order to represent this consciousness with the clearness
which was requisite for the Greek mind, to the man of
Hellas was opposed the king of the Lydians, Croesus, all
whose treasures and all the splendor of whose court could
extract no wonderment and no acknowledgment of his
happiness from the simple citizen, and who afterwards,
amidst the ruins of all his glory, had to confess that the
wise Athenian had been right in declaring that there was
only one truly great and eternal kind of human happiness,
viz. a blameless life and a conscience pure in the sight
of the gods. The coasts of the Mediterranean were at
that time united by so constant an intercourse, that the
name of Solon was everywhere mentioned, and that there
was no personage whose acquaintance was a matter of
greater importance to the foreign princes anxious to become familiar with Greek culture and to participate in. it,
such as Crcesus of Lydia and Amasis of Egypt. Mean



368               History of Greece.        [BOOK II.
while his own untiring mind was constantly collecting
information as to the present and the past. IHe attentively observed the condition of the Oriental empires,
whose relations with the Greek world were becoming more
and more intimate; and listened with consequent eagernesss to the priests, Sonchis of Sais and Psenophis of
Heliopolis, deeply learned in historical lore, who had to
tell of the primitive intercourse of Greek tribes with
Egypt, and of the early connection between Sais and
Athens.
While Solon's fame was spreading over all
R:es at AtehWes  the coasts of the Greek sea the most trying
experiences were awaiting him at home. Ie
had to come to the conviction, that his work of peace had
been nothing more than a truce, that his labors had exercised no other effect than does the oil which the fisherman pours out to calm the waters: for the moment they
assume the smoothness and transparency of glass; but
soon the troublous agitation recommences, the depths are
stirred, and the waves beat against one another with
greater violence than ever.
In Attica the elements of opposition were more complicated than in the Dorian states, where the foreign and native elements stood out in clear contrast. Accordingly
the uneasy oscillation lasted for a much longer period; the
number of parties was larger than elsewhere; and these
parties were less accurately defined in themselves. They
constantly varied in strength, influence, and direction;
and the talent and personality of the leaders decided the
measure of the relative influence of the parties headed by
them.
It is remarkable that all the more conspileiat   par-s CUOUs party leaders were Eupatridse. On
the one hand, the people was still so much
in the habit of seeing itself represented and led by the
nobles; and on the other, the nobility was so divided in




CHAP. II.]       History of Attica.            369
itself, that there was no question of any common action
on the part of the latter, or of a restoration of the ancient
polity of the Eupatridre. Among the clans it was of
course the wealthiest who had the means and the ambition of forming parties. These were the same families
which had attained to an eminent position by the breeding
of horses, and by gaining victories with their four-horse
chariots, and who at the same time shared the cravings for
supreme power which at that time grew up as by an
atmospheric contagion wherever party spirit had unsettled the ground. The members of these families were the
grandees of the land; they were men whose consciousness
of their own dignity was too overpowering to allow them
to submit to a spirit of justice which placed all the citizens upon a footing of equality; and this tendency to rebellion was strengthened by connections with reigning
houses abroad. Thus Cylon had risen with his party; thus
the Alcmieonidse and the Attic Cypselidse, one of whom
was Hippoclides, asserted their pre-eminence amongst
the people; thus, again, the houses of Lycurgus and
of Pisistratus. The locality of their habitations and the
origin of their descent contributed to heighten these contrasts.
Lycurgus belonged to a family of the ancient countrynobility of the land, which had from the earliest
times been settled in the principal plain, and
was called upon by its large landed possessions and ancient usage to represent the interests of the landed proprietors and peasantry. The institution of the naucraries
had strengthened the connection between the families of
proprietors and the neighboring population. To the families of the later immigrants settlements had been assigned
nearer to the extreme boundaries of the land of. Attica,
where landed property did not in an equal degree constitute the basis of prosperity; to the Pisistratidse in the
mountains of the Diacria, and to the Alcmseonidse on the
16*




870               Eistory of Greece.        [BOOK Ir.
coast. This circumstance of itself brought the latter into
a closer connection with the classes of the population less
fixed in their habitations.
In proportion as affairs became more and more unsettled and changed, and as the constitution discouraged the
claims of the Eupatridse, the several families had to endeavor to strengthen the organization of their parties and
to increase the ranks of their adherents. They learnt
more and more to attach the lower classes to them by
various kinds of obligations, by affording them legal protection, aiding them by word and deed, managing their
affairs in the city, and trying to prove themselves true
friends of the people by means of advances of money and
gifts, and by keeping open house. In such efforts as these
the different families rivalled one another, and forced
themselves more and more into a sharp mutual opposition
as parties: every one of the families in the interest of its
adherents raised its own particular party standard, and
every tendency existing in the people found a representative. The work of concord alone found none; and Solon,
who had based his influence on the harmonious agreement
of the citizens, stood powerless between the conflicting parties, and saw the work of his life falling into ruin before
his eyes. Once more he beheld the fate of his native country dependent on the decision of a conflict of arms, and the
state like a ship driven back from the entrance of the port
upon the wild waves of the sea.
Under these circumstances it was exceedingly fortunate
that the country was by its early common settlement so
firmly united in and about Athens, that it was by this
means protected from falling to pieces. An Attica without Athens was inconceivable. Otherwise the different
houses possessing the means for the establishment of a
Tyrannis would have severally established different territorial dominions, as in the case of Argolis, which had been
thus broken up into fragments. As it was, the only ques



CHAP. II.]        History of Attica.           371
tion was which of the party-leaders would contrive to
maintain his position with the greatest skill and the
least consideration for any other interests; for he it
was who must inevitably become master of Athens and
Attica.
In a conflict of parties a great advantage
always belongs to that which is ready to go  iritY of the
the farthest length, and which is supported
by that part of the population where the strongest discontent has accumulated. In Attica this was among the poor
folk, the herdsmen, in the mountains.  They fancied
themselves deceived in their expectations by Solon; for
they had counted on advantages of a more material kind,
on a distribution of land, and an equal division of landed
property. Their passions were most susceptible of agitation; they were all men who had little to lose and everything to win; and in them the exciting power of speech
produced the most rapid effects.
But nowhere was speech a greater power than among
the Athenians, ever ready and excitable listeners. Hence
the education of the Attic Eupatridse had long principally
taken the direction of the art of eloquence; and the same
power which Solon had employed for the benefit of his
country was now forced to serve the selfish ends of the
party leaders.
Homer sings the praise of the Gerenian Nestor, and
places the honeyed words of wisdom flowing from his lips
by the side of the heroic deeds of an Achilles and an Agamemnon.   From the race of Nestor the The Pisistraid
The Pisistratids.
house of the Pisistratide derived their descent, and, in order to confirm this ancestral title to fame,
they could point to the gift of eloquence as an heirloom in
their family. Theirs was a noble house, with far-reaching connections; which possessed considerable landed
property, and bred its horses by the mountains of Mara



372              History of Greece.         [BooK It.
thon, in order to obtain wreaths on the banks of the
Alpheus.
The head of the family was Hippocrates, who is said to
have made inquiries at the altar of the Iamidse, in Olympia, concerning his posterity, and to have been answered
by the promise of a great son. This son received the
Pisistratus. name of Pisistratus (a family-name among the
Neleidae), and early justified by his brilliant
qualities the great expectations of his father. The fiery
youth took part in the first deeds with which the Athenians entered upon the new course of their history; he was
the first man on the turrets of the harbor-fort of Megara;
and as long as there was an opportunity for distinction and
brilliant action, he went hand in hand with his older relative, Solon. But as soon as the latter passed to his work
of peace, and claimed a self-denying patriotism from the
great men of the land, Pisistratus went his own way; he
had been too much spoilt by fortune and brought up in
plans of ambition, to be able to consent to be nothing but
a citizen among citizens.
He redoubled his efforts to form a party of faithful
adherents among the population of Mount Parnes and
Brilessus. He scattered money; he threw open his houses,
and left his gardens unwatched; he never wearied of representing to the people their pitiable position and the disappointment of their hopes, and dazzling them by the promise of a brilliant future. He knew how to change all his
pride of nobility into amiable condescension, and to appear
in the character of the utterly unselfish friend of the oppressed; the charm of his person and speech was irresistible for the crowd; and in him we for the first time meet
with the type of a perfect Attic demagogue.
Compared with his opponents, he had everything in his
favor. He was personally the most gifted leader, recklessly resolved to venture upon extremities; and his adherents were the best organized party, a rude and vigo



CHAP. II.]        History of Attica.            373
rous body of mountaineers. The Parali, the adherents
of the Alcmseonide Megacles, were prevented by the scattered positions of their habitations from attaining to the
united organization of a party; moreover their life, with
its daily occupations on or by the sea, was too tranquil
and contented to make them willing to risk much for the
sake of producing a change in public affairs. True, in
the matter of money the Alcmmonidse were superior to all
their rivals, but there was in their bearing something unbending and aristocratic, which hindered them from becoming men after the pecple's own heart. Lastly, the
party of the Pediseans, led by Lycurgus, were rather reactionary than progressive, and had before them no aim
to inspire them to a common effort. The ancient families,
representing the claims of large landed property, were
only loosely united with one another; and the small farmers, the clients and petty peasants, could have no wish to
risk their property and lives in a cause which was not
really their own.
Thus Pisistratus became the most powerful of the party
leaders, the most popular and the most hated man in
Athens. When he saw everything ready, he began the
game which had helped many a usurper before him to
the accomplishment of his desires. On a certain day he
hurried into the crowded market, himself wounded and his
horses and chariot covered with blood, and related to the
multitude, which eagerly surrounded him, how he had
narrowly escaped the murderous attempts of his foes, who
would have no rest till they had destroyed him, and with
him all his plans for the welfare of the people. As soon
as the passions of the multitude are aroused by this
strange spectacle and speech, Aristo springs up among the
adherents of Pisistratus to make the most of the favorable
moment, and proposes to the assembled people to provide
Pisistratus, the martyr of the people's cause, with a guard,




374               History of Greece.        [BooK II.
in order to protect his person against the murderous craft
of the adverse party.
The acceptance of this proposal formed the decisive
step. No man of sense could deceive himself as to the
fact; but half of the citizens were blind, and the other
half refused to use their eyes; while the number of true
patriots was small and powerless. The blow had fallen
heaviest on Solon himself. He passed to and fro among
the people, endeavoring to open the eyes of the deluded,
to bring back those who had been misled to the proper
path, and to animate the faint-hearted; he uttered warnings and reproofs:
"Fools! you listen intent on the words of the crafty deceiver.
Ah! can none of ye see what are the fruits of his speech?
Singly ye are as keen of scent and as crafty as foxes;
But in a body ye trust any and every pretence!"
Meanwhile Pisistratus, at that time about fifty years of
age, with a firm step advanced on the path to tyrannical
power. The numbers of his body-guard were increased
from 50 to 300, to 400; in the end it consisted of a band
of mercenaries, increased at his will, who were at his disposition, and gave him a position which annihilated the
fundamental principle of a republican  constitutionequality before the law. The immediate consequence was
that the other great nobles in the land in their turn
armed and strengthened their forces, in order either themselves to obtain the supreme power, or at all events to
maintain a position of independence.
A mighty lord in Attica and an obstinate
ypselide he opponent of the Pisistratidse was Miltiades,
the son of Cypselus. Nursing his wrath at
the course of events which drove him from the path of
fame, he was one day sitting before his house, and gazing
out through the court-gate upon the road. There he beheld a band of men, in strange Thracian apparel, passing




CHAP. II.]       History of Attica.            375
by and glancing around with shy curiosity upon the houses.
Obviously what they seek is a friendly greeting and an
open door. Miltiades causes them to be invited to enter,
and according to the ancient custom of his house, offers
the strangers rest and hospitable entertainment. Never
has hospitality met with a speedier reward. For scarcely
have they crossed the threshold, when they salute Miltiades as their master, and do homage to him in Thracian
fashion as their king.
They were ambassadors of the Dolonci, who dwelt on
the Thracian tongue of land on the Hellespont. Hard
pressed by tribes from the North, they felt the want of a
head under whom they might concentrate their forces.
This head would have to be a man who, like the ancient
kings of the Heroic time, would know how to establish
his authority through his possession of a higher culture,
and therefore they begged the Pythia to name to them a
Greek to whom they could entrust their fortunes. They
were bidden to pass along the Sacred Road towards
Athens, and to offer the princely dignity in the name of
their tribe to him who should first offer them the hospitality of his house.
Thus by the intervention of the Delphic priesthood,
which after this fashion showed its gratitude for the great
services of Athens, this extraordinary call came to the
Athenian of the house of Cypselus, to a man who had
long felt the limits of the Solonian republic too narrow
for him, and who now found it utterly intolerable to have
to bow down before a hated member of his own class.
Pisistratus could only hail with delight the removal of
one of his most dangerous opponents; and Solon is said to
have favored the undertaking of Miltiades, doubtless with
a view to the advance of the naval power of Athens, for
which purpose it was of immeasurable importance to take
up a firm position on the Dardanelles, so as to prevent
Megara from remaining in power there. The ancient




375               History of Greece.         [BOOK II.
feud between the neighbors was thus, as it were, continued
in the colonies. Doubtless other Athenians, who were
among the adherents of the Cypselidse, or now joined
them, accompanied Miltiades. Probably the whole affair
was regarded and conducted under the influence of
Delphi, as an undertaking on the part of the entire state,
although Miltiades from the first had no intention of allowing himself to be bound by any other authority, and
merely sought a new and wider arena of action for himself and his house.
Relations between  Solon's share in this transaction is the
Solon and Pisis- last trace of his public activity. While
tratu.     Pisistratus endeavored to rid himself of
his other opponents by force and craft, he allowed Solon
to go his own way, honoring him as much as was in his
power, and content not to find him in the way of his ambition. For as the popular indignation against him increased, and his rule became more and more one of force,
the voice of moderation died away of itself. As Solon continued to repeat the same warnings without any result, the
noble old man was at last met by derision. Men shrugged
their shoulders at this prophet of evil fortune, this goodnatured idealist. At last he retired into the tranquil calm
of his own house, and of a narrower circle of older and
younger friends who understood his grief, and whose minds
were eager to receive the legacy of his wisdom. The seed
which fell into their hearts was not to remain without its
fruits. There were Athenians who, notwithstanding the
increase of troubles on every side, held fast by the belief
that the laws of Solon must remain the sheet-anchor of
Athens, and that his far-seeing ideas must be realized.
One of this circle was Mnesiphilus, who in his turn
brought up his pupil Themistocles in the political ideas
of Solon.
Solon had accustomed himself to regard his personal
happiness as independent of external circumstances; he




CHAP. II.]        History of Attica.              377
could not envy his adversaries their triumph, nor could
even the ingratitude of the people rob him of that serenity of soul which remained true to him, and was mirrored
in perfect clearness in his poems:
"Often the bad are in luck, and the good in want and in trouble;
Yet with the bad no gain ever shall tempt me to change,
Virtue to barter for riches: the one a possession eternal,
For what is mine for to-day, and on the morrow is thine."
The man who thought and sang thus with the joyousness of a pure conscience could remain without envy or
fear in the city of Pisistratus. When the Tyrant disarmed the people and occupied the citadel, Solon placed
his sword and shield before the door of his house in the
street. The Tyrant's myrmidons might come and fetch
them away; as for himself, he had served his native city
to the best of his power in war and in peace.
While Solon, without risking in the least First tyranny of
his dignity or independence, remained at Pisistratus. 01.
Iv. i (B. c. 560.)
Athens,the party leaders and open oppo-     1(B.  560
nents of Pisistratus had to quit the scene, in order to
await in a suitable retreat the advent of more favorable
times.  Thus the Alcmaeonidea went into exile for the
second time; and Lycurgus also retired. Their parties
were overthrown, and for the moment the mercenaries
of the Tyrant met with no resistance in their march
through the streets of the cowed city.
Meanwhile the new despot was unable by his first victory
to introduce a permanent state of affairs; it was merely
the beginning of new civil strife. For the position of parties in Attica was such that the one in power generally
found both the others opposed to it, and was menaced by
their combined forces. Particularly the middle party of
the Parali, according to circumstances, attached itself now
to the one and now to the other side. Thus in this case
also Lycurgus and Megacles together succeeded in driving




378                History of Greece.       [BooK II.
out Pisistratus before he could firmly estabPisiesedtus is lish himself in the possession of his power.
He had to quit Athens; but instead of
leaving the country, he maintained himself in the mountains of the Diacria as an independent chief. During the
next years open feud prevailed in Athens; the roads were
insecure, and public confidence was destroyed; none knew
who was master in the land.
Pisistratus had not erred in calculating on the impossibility of a lasting concord between his opponents. He
soon observed how, in consequence of the more united organization of the Pediveans, the Alcmmeonide with their
adherents were being set aside, and he immediately entered
into secret negotiations with the latter. Megacles resolved
to resign to him the prize of tyrannical power; he even
betrothed his daughter to him in order to give a lasting
character to the connection; and for the purpose of bringing back the banished chieftain a device was employed
which must have originated in the head of Pisistratus,
who was inexhaustible in strange conceits.
A festival of Athene was at hand, duand returns. nis ring which a solemn procession passed
from the country into the city, in which
it was customary to display in the eyes of the people the
bodily presence of the goddess herself, represented by a
virgin distinguished by loftiness of stature and dignity of
person. In this procession, which none dared to disturb,
Pisistratus, conducted as it were by the goddess at his
side, returned into the city where he established his sway
anew with the support of his own adherents and those of
the Alcmseonidoe.
This connection again was an unnatural one. The
daughter of Megacles found herself wronged in the house
of her own husband; who was loth to have any children
from this wedlock. Her father saw himself once more
only used as a tool for the crafty designs of his old ad



CHAP. II.]       History of Attica.            879
versaries; he had to see the ancient curse resting on his
family renewed for the purpose of covering him with
shame, and all the plans he had formed for his house
overthrown. Before Pisistratus was strong enough to be
able to spare the money and the men of the Alcmseonide
Megacles tore himself away from  him, attacked him
with open force, and was soon able to provoke so complete a change in the state of affairs that the Tyrant and
his adherents had to quit not only the citadel and the
city, but even the land of the Athenians. He was outlawed, and his landed property put up to
auction by the state. Uncertainty as to the Second expulfuture prevented any one from making a bid
for it with the exception of Callias, the son of Phrenippus,
who had now for the second time sufficient audacity to
bring into his hands the property of the exiled Tyrant, to
whom he grudged the glory of filling the Athenians with
fear and terror even in his absence.
This time greater caution was observed. All who hated
the Tyrant entered into a closer alliance, and a strong
party of Republicans, true to the constitution, formed itself, to which Callias belonged, the first member known
to fame of a family influential by its dignity and wealth.
The Alcmseonidwe, as well as the majority of the houses
who had been most injured by the rise of the Tyrant,
joined this alliance; and thus it became possible to restore a more lasting order of things at Athens; till even
Pisistratus was at a loss for an opportunity of commencing new intrigues. He is even said to have been so
thoroughly taken by surprise by the firm attitude of the
Athenian citizens as to have been upon the point of renouncing all ideas of return.
It is however a hard task for a house
which has tasted the charm of irresponsi- The exiled family
at Eretria.
ble rule, to re-adapt itself to the ways of
life of ordinary citizens. Least of all were the sons of




380               History of Greece.         tBoox It.
Pisistratus, men in the prime and vigor of life, willing to
renounce the hopes in which they had grown up. Hence
in the family council the voice of IHippias was especially
heard to reject any idea of throwing up the game. The
last failure, he averred, was only attributable to want of
caution. The divine word which guaranteed greatness to
their house could not deceive. They ought to follow no
policy but that of possessing themselves of the prize of
dominion, which they had twice before obtained, for the
third time, after arming themselves with ampler means
for ensuring success.
The eloquence of Hippias met with no serious resistance.
The very locality of their retreat shows that the Pisistratide only went in order to return. In the first instance
indeed it may have been only family connections which
attracted them to Eretria; which city was moreover connected from primitive ages by the worship of Artemis
with Philaidse, the native rural district of the Pisistratidse,
and with Brauron, its chief place. But political considerations really determined the decision; for which they
could choose no more favorable locality outside Attica
than that of Eretria. For here they were near to their
Diacrians; from this point they could observe all movements in the most unquiet part of the Attic territory, and
when the right moment should seem to have arrived, be
at hand both by land and by water. Moreover they
were here in a centre of far-reaching commercial relations, and had an opportunity of establishing a connection
with similar undertakings and designs on the islands and
the other shore of the sea, and of thus opening up for
themselves new resources for the establishment of their
power.
For their life at Eretria was not that of private persons, but of princes, who, though driven out from land
and throne, yet zealously pursue the policy of their dynasty. Money flowed in for them from the silver mines




CHAP. II.]        History of Attica.            881
on the Strymon, the proprietorship of which they probably
owed to their family connections at Eretria. This money,
as well as their personal authority, enabled them to assert
themselves even in exile as a political power, with which
princes and states were not loth to negotiate. Men put
faith in the future of the dynasty, and supported them
with money in the hope of receiving it back with ample
interest. Thus the Thebans in particular showed themselves ready to be of manifold use. They looked with
anxious eyes upon the development of the neighboring
land into a free community of citizens, and they supported
the pretender in whom they saw a hard task-master of the
Demus, and from whom they could now obtain important
concessions in return for the money advanced by them.
In the same way combinations were entered into with
Thessaly and Macedonia, and even with the towns of
Lower Italy; and as their resources grew adventurous
volunteers appeared in increasing numbers, enterprising
men who had been forced to quit their homes in consequence of similar party movements, and who hoped to
find the quickest means of returning by uniting their fortunes to those of Pisistratus.  Among these partisans
Lygdamis of Naxos was the most important and welcome.
Of course Pisistratus' object in collecting troops was not
to hold a meaningless review at his head-quarters, or to
feed these soldiers during a purposeless service of several
years; he treated Athens like a hostile camp, and maintained a blockade over the coasts where the hostile parties
dwelt, and over the straits of the Euripus. Thus the
petty war which had already preceded his second period
of rule was renewed on a larger scale. Sailors and ships
he was in any case obliged to keep, for the purpose of
making full use of his possessions on the Strymon.
And yet years passed before the cautious Pisistratidm
proceeded to any serious undertaking. Not till the tenth
year they resolved, trusting the declaration of their sooth



382               History of Greece.         [BooK II.
sayers, among whom Amphilytus of Acharnae enjoyed
their especial confidence, to give way to the impatience of
Returnofpisistra- the fiery Lygdamis. A band of mercetus. 01. lviii. 4. naries had arrived from Argos, public
(B. C. 45.)   feeling at Athens seemed favorable, and
thus they crossed the Eubcean Sound with infantry
and cavalry, and established a fortified camp at Marathon. From this point they slowly advanced, their
forces constantly. increasing on the march, round the
southern base of Mount Brilessus, through the districts
best known and most friendly to them, upon Athens.
At Pallene the decisive collision took place, near the
height of a sacred temple of Athene. Probably Pisistratus again made use of a festival of the same goddess who
had once before brought him home. He surprised the
Athenians as they were unsuspectingly reclining at their
meal: there was no question of resistance, the victory was
his, and he could take what vengeance he pleased upon
his opponents. However he was above all anxious that
his victory should not be accompanied by any effusion of
blood, and that no dark reminiscences should attach
themselves to the day of his new elevation to power. On
swift steeds his sons hurried after the groups flying
towards the city, and courteously bade them return without fear to their ordinary avocations as citizens.
Thus Pisistratus for the third time made his entrance
into Athens with a numerous suite and much foreign
soldiery, which he distributed through the town and citadel.  The Eupatride families, which formed the main
body of the party opposed to him, escaped from Attica:
those remaining behind he forced, like a conqueror in war,
to give up to him their sons near the verge of manhood
as hostages, and sent these to Naxos to be guarded by
Lygdamis, as soon as he had re-estabLygdamis of Naxos. lished the latter on his island.
This restoration of Lygdamis was one of Pisistratus'




CHAP. II.]        History of Attica.             383
first undertakings. Above all he had to prove himself a
trustworthy ally of those who had given him their active
aid; and no opportunity could better tally with his desire
to mark the beginning of his government as a new epoch
for the fame of the Attic state, which the long period of
internal divisions had deprived of much of the authority
which Solon had given it among the Greek states.
Pisistratus' clear insight recognized Third tyranny of Pithat the real power and future of sistratus. Hisforeign
Athens were not to be sought for on and domestic policy.
the mainland, but in the jEgean, and above all on the
Cyclades, which seemed neither singly nor in their several
groups destined to form independent powers. After successfully accomplishing the expedition to Naxos with the
help of the resources of war and knowledge of naval
affairs obtained at Eretria, he availed himself of this
opportunity for strengthening anew the Attic power in
the Archipelago, by causing the authorities at Delphi to
entrust him with the commission of restoring in all its
ancient dignity the worship of the gods in Delos.
As Delos was the ancient national sanctuary of the Ionian race dwelling on either side Purification
of Delos.
of the sea, but the Asiatic towns had retired
from any participation in it, the ancient rites had during
the naval wars fallen into decay, and particularly the immediate vicinity of the temple had been desecrated by
burials. Pisistratus now appeared as envoy of the god
and representative of the religious city of Athens, and,
while the roads were full of his ships, caused the vicinity
to be so far purified under his own eyes that the priests
and festive guests of the god were no longer disturbed
and desecrated by the sight of graves. With this act was
connected the brilliant revival of the ancient relations
between Athens and Delos. As the protecting power of
the Amphictyonic sanctuary Athens occupied the position
of a federal capital in the island-sea. The increase of




384               History of Greece.         [Booc II
her fleet was aided by the revenues of the mines on the
Strymon, and the spread of her trade by amicable relations with the princes of Thessaly and Macedonia, who
afforded privileges of all kinds in their ports on the
Pagassean and Thermsean gulf to the Attic vessels. But
by force of arms also Pisistratus endeavored to obtain
fortified and well-situated stations for the naval power of
Athens, particularly on the Hellespont. Here a long
struggle took place against the Mitylensans; and in
Sigeum Pisistratus was able to establish a dominion for
his son Hegesistratus, just as Periander had settled a
branch of his house in Ambracia. With Argos and
Thebes the ancient relations were revived, and an interchange of hospitality established with Sparta. It was
marvellous to see how Pisistratus unfolded a policy of
vigorous action in all directions, and how soon Athens,
after the troublous years of internal party conflicts, again
assumed with the third rise of the Tyrant a prominent
position among the Greek states. Evidently a born
prince and general stood at the helm.
Of incomparably greater importance was the Tyrant's
conduct of the internal affairs of the state. He was far
from attempting to overthrow the constitution of Athens;
the laws of Solon remained in force, and Pisistratus
honored the memory of his relative and ancient friend,
with whose ideas he was well acquainted through early
personal association, by cherishing and encouraging the
Solonian institutions as far as they were not opposed to
the existence of his own government. He placed himself
under the laws, and appeared before the Areopagus in
order to receive judgment in the matter of a charge
against him; so that upon the whole his government
greatly contributed to accustom the Athenians to the
laws. The money, indeed, which he required for the support of his troops, as well as for edifices and the public
festivals, he levied after the fashion of Tyrants, by sub



CHAP. II.]       History of Attica.            385
jecting the landed property of the citizens to the payment of tithes.
The new laws proposed by him are all dictated by a
sense of mild wisdom. Thus he demanded from the
community, as a duty, that it should provide for those
wounded in war, and for the families of those fallen in
the field. He was particularly anxious as to the encouragement of good discipline, and of the morality
which consists in the reverence of youth to age and in
respect for holy places and things. He promulgated a
law against loitering in the streets, and although he had
himself become great on the market-place and by means
of the populace drawn into the city out of the rural districts, he yet saw much danger in the increase of the
urban population. After the example of Periander he
limited the right of settlement in the city, and induced a
number of families to leave it, encouraging them  by
furnishing small peasant-farms supplied with beasts of
burden, by presents of seeds and plants, and by relief
from taxation in the first unproductive years of business;
he promoted the institution of justices of the peace, who
made circuits through the country districts to dispense
justice; and by a series of wise measures he called forth
an extraordinarily flourishing state of agriculture, especially of the cultivation of the olive, in Attica, while at
the same time he prevented the dangers of discontent in
the city and the consequences of idling and want of bread.
The city itself had meanwhile experienced an The new
essential change. Originally town and citadel Athenian
had been one, and everything which helped to suburbs
give coherence to the city had been united on the rock of
the Acropolis. When from the days of Theseus the
families of the land settled together in the immediate
vicinity of the citadel of Cecrops, they built their houses
on its southern side. Here they enjoyed the fresh sea-air
and the view over the gulf and its ships; here they were
17




386              Hitory of Greece.         [soox tI.
nearest to the Phalerian bay. Accordingly on the south
side lay also the most ancient holy places of the lower
town, those of the Olympian Zeus, of the Pythian
Apollo, of the Earth-Mother, and of Dionysus. Below
the Olympieum flowed the ancient city-spring of Callirhoe, whose waters debouch directly into the Ilyssus.
Here the daughters and serving-women of the Eupatridw
were of old wont to fetch the water for drinking; here
were the washing-grounds in the broad, and generally
dry, bed of the river; and this was consequently the seat
of the ancient myths telling of the rape of Attic maidens.
The market of this old town, or "city," of Athens
could obviously be only situated where the ascent led up
from the town to the citadel. Here on a broad incline
the roads meet which lead from the sea and from the
land. Hither the peasants on market-days brought their
wares for sale; here the Old-Citizens assembled, and on a
terrace hard by (the Pnyx) held their public councils.
But in proportion as Athens became the heart of the
whole country, and as the sources of gain increased, a
more numerous influx of population took place from the
country districts. These rural districts became suburbs,
and these suburbs necessarily formed a contrast to ancient
Athens, of which a part, on account of the noble families, was called Cydathenseum, or the Atheni of Honors.
The most important of these suburban districts was the
Ceramicus, the name of which was derived from the potters. It stretched from the olive-wood up to the northwestern side of the citadel. In this region particularly
those tendencies of popular life had unfolded themselves
which disputed the right of the Eupatridse to regard
themselves in an exclusive sense as the civic community
of Athens; here the men lived who owed their prosperity to industrial activity; here had taken place the
beginnings of the popular movements, and accordingly
also the origin of the tyrannical power.




CasP. II.]       Hitory of Attica.             887
This district, notwithstanding the limits fixed by the
Tyrant, remained the part of the city which most
abounded in life and constantly increased, while the south
side became more and more the back part of the town,
since emigration, banishments, and the whole revolution
of society gradually desolated this quarter, and forced
active intercourse towards the north side. It is probable.that about the time of Pisistratus the market of the
ancient suburb called the Ceramicus (for every Attic district possessed its own market) was constituted the central
market of the city, a change clearly showing on which
part of the population the future of the city depended.
With this is connected a series of other institutions, all
of which have reference to a new arrangement of the
city.
On their return the Pisistratidse found the city after
its rapid growth in a condition of utter disorder: there
existed a number of different quarters of the ther innovcity by the side of, but without any inner tions. Roads
connection with, one another. The aristo- and aqueducts.
cratic states everywhere endeavored to maintain a separation between town and country, while it was the interest
of the Tyrants to abolish every boundary of the kind,
in order in this respect also to destroy the traces pf
ancient traditions, and to amalgamate the upper and
lower classes, the Old- and New-Citizens, the townimen
and the peasants, into a new united body. Accordingly
they connected Athens in all directions by roadways with
the country districts: these roads were accurately measured, and all met on the Ceramicus, in the centre of
which an altar was erected to the Twelve Gods. From
this centre of town and country were calculated the distances to the different country districts, to the ports, and
to the most important sanctuaries of the common fatherland. Along the country roads stones were set up; but
these, instead of a monotonous repetition of milestones,




388              History of Greece.         [OK II.
were monuments of art, marble Hermae, erected at suitable places in the road, where shady seats invited the
wanderer to rest. On the right shoulder of the Hermes
pillar a hexameter named the places connected by the
road, and on the left side was inscribed a pentameter containing a short proverb, a word of wisdom  for the
wanderer to take with him on his journey. Thus the
whole land, after suffering from protracted feuds, acquired not only rest and security, but also an orderly,
kindly, and hospitable aspect; and every traveller had to
acknowledge on the frontiers of Attica that he had
entered upon a territory where the whole civil life was
pervaded by a higher culture.
With these grand institutions, the soul of which was
Hipparchus, who rendered important services to the general culture of the land, are farther connected the great
aqueducts, which brought the drinking-water in subterraneous rocky channels from the mountains to the capital.
In order that these canals might everywhere admit of
supervision and purification, shafts were dug at fixed intervals through the rock, which admitted light and air
into the dark passages. At the entrance to the city the
streams of mountain water were united in rocky basins of
larger size, where it was purified before being distributed
through the city to feed the public wells. That these
admirable works, which have remained in uninterrupted
use up to the present day, for the most part owe their
origin to the period of the Tyrants, is farther attested by
the fact that it was Pisistratus who adorned the Callirhoe
with a hall of columns and a ninefold debouchure. It
was as it were a debt of gratitude which he paid in the
name of the people to the ancient city-spring for its faithful services. But at the same time, as it had become
superfluous for daily wants, it was marked out as a holy
spring, and the use of its waters henceforth restricted to
plirposes connected with religious rites.




CH.P. II.]        Histry of Atic.              889
Pisistratus governed Athens, but he bore Charaterof the
no title of sovereignty, by virtue of which government of
he might have claimed unconditioned rights Pisistratus.
of supremacy. True, he had founded his dominion on
force, and retained in his service a hired army, which, dependent only on himself, and independent of the sentiments
of the citizens, could all the more efficiently resist every
attempt at a rising, inasmuch as the majority of the citizens were disarmed, the city population diminished in
numbers, while the interest of the public had been sagaciously diverted from political affairs partly to agriculture
and partly to the public works. The system of public
offices remained unchanged, except that one of them was
always in the hands of a member of his family, in which
he very wisely contrived to suppress all disunion, so that
to the people the ruling dynasty appeared united in itself
and animated by one spirit. In this sense men spoke of
the government of the Pisistratide, and could not refuse
their tribute of praise to the manifold gifts distinguishing
the family.
It was a wise counsel which ancient political philosophers gave to the Tyrants, that they were to clothe their
rule as much as possible with the character of that of the
ancient kings. Hence Pisistratus was unwilling to consent, like the Cypselidas and Orthagoridse, to a rupture
with the entire past history of the state; but he was on the
contrary anxious to establish a connection between his
rule and the ancient glorious history of the land, in order
that after all the suffering which had been brought upon
Attica by the party rule of the nobility he might restore
to it the blessings of a single ruling power standing over
all the parties. For this he thought himself qualified by
his kinsmanship with the ancient royal family. Accordingly he took up his abode in the ancient citadel whence
Codrus had last exercised his gentle and paternal sway
over the land, uear the altar of Zeus EpxCtoc, the family




390               History of Greece.         [BOOK II.
hearth of the ancient national kings, and there watched
over the unquiet citizens from the rocky height, incomparably less accessible then than after the building of the
Propylea.   The mere circumstance of this locality of
his dwelling brought him into relations of greater intimacy with the goddess of the citadel and with her priesthood.
Ne festis.  Ever since the offence of Cylon Athene had
New festivals.
herself as it were chosen her side in the civil
conflict; and the ancient Attic families, connected by
hereditary priestly offices with the sanctuaries of the gods,
could not but stand on the side of those who were the
opponents of the Alcmseonidse. Hence it had twice been
a festival of Athene on which the Pisistratidse had returned to Athens. For the same reason the Tyrant, when
he was at last firmly and undisturbedly established on the
citadel, devoted especial attention to the worship of
Athene. He revived the ancient summer fesRevival ofthe tival of the Panathenea, like a second ThePanathenwea.
seus, in whose footsteps he had also trodden
by the restoration of the Delian solemnity. He arranged
a quadrennial cycle of the festivals of Athene, in order to
occasion a peculiar festive splendor in every fifth year, and
extended the means of participation in them. For as long
as the competitive games were of an exclusively chivalrous
character none but the rich could take part in them. As
early as 01. liii. 3 (B. c. 566) gymnastic games had been
introduced; now the recitations of the
The Rhapsodes.
Rhapsodes were added to the popular festival, and thus not only freer access given for the display
of talent, but also a new and meaning ornament obtained
for the religious celebration itself. And at the same time
Pisistratus achieved this result, that the praises of his own
ancestors of Homeric memory were sung before the
people, and that the reminiscences of heroic royalty, the




CHAP. I.]         History of Attica.             391
encouragement of which he had so greatly at heart, were
revived.
Moreover the newly-distributed quarters of the city, with
their industrial population, were brought into the circle
of these festivities, and the broad street which united the
outer and inner Ceramicus became the scene of a torchrace, which as long as ancient Athens continued to exist
was an especially favorite amusement of the people.
Finally, with the revival of the Panathensea is probably
connected the erection of a new festive hall, the Hecatompedon, as it was called on account of its
width of one hundred feet. This was no edi- The dHaton -
fice for divine worship, and accordingly not,
like the temple of Athene Polias, built in the Ionic style,
but in the Doric. Probably it served from the first to
preserve the treasures of the goddess of the city, for which
purpose a new locality was greatly needed, inasmuch as
the Pisistratidse were using their endeavors to increase the
revenues of the goddess. We may rest assured that they
with no sparing hand bestowed precious dedicatory gifts
out of the tithes of the spoils of their victories; and tp
Hippias the ordinance is expressly ascribed, that in all
cases of births and deaths in Attica a measure of barley, a
measure of oats, and an obol should be offered to the
priestess of Athene. The Pisistratidsa were themselves the
administrators of the sacred moneys, and placed their own
treasures, including their family archives and collection
of oracles, under the protection of the goddess of the citadel. Farthermore, they particularly exerted themselves
for the spread of the olive-tree; and thus a series of facts
confirms the intimate and important relation in which the
Pisistratidae, as the royal lords of the citadel, as the guardians of the sanctuary, as the institutors of a new order of
festivals, and as the keepers and augmentors of the sacred
treasures, stood to Athene Polias.




392               History of Greece.         [BooK II.
Thoworshipof Di-  Another religious worship which the
onysus and the Tyrants raised to a new importance was
drama.         that of Dionysus.  This god of the peasantry is everywhere opposed to the gods of the knightly
houses, and was therefore favored by all rulers who endeavored to break the power of the aristocracy. The
choral songs in honor of the god of wine were the origin
of tragedy. Since, then, under the rule of Pisistratus the
first tragedies were acted in Athens, since Thespis, the
founder of tragedy, came from Icaria, a district of the
Diacria, the inhabitants of which had from of old been
especially devoted to the house of the Tyrants, we may
safely assume that Pisistratus was the author and encourager of this innovation, as well as of the rest. He seemed
himself so nearly allied to the god, that men thought they
discovered in the features of a statue of Dionysus those
of the Tyrant.
To Apollo, the paternal deity of the ancient
The woship Ionic families, the Pisistratide had performed
of Apollo.
a grand act of homage by the lustration of Delos. In the south-eastern quarter of Athens they adorned
and extended the domain of the Pythian god; there Pisistratus, the grandson, in memory of his archonship,
consecrated the altar, of which Thucydides copied the
weather-beaten inscription, in which he has preserved
to us one of the most ancient documents of Attic history.
Assuredly, this consecration was connected with the establishment of the festive processions of Apollo, which
preserved an intimate relation between Athens and the
two principal points of his worship. In the same quarter of the city Pisistratus. began the restoration of the
temple of Zeus, of which the locality was one of the
holiest on Athenian soil; for here was to be seen the
aperture in the earth, through which the waters were said
to have disappeared after the flood of Deucalion. Here a
temple was erected for the most ancient religious worship




C8AP. II.]        History of Attica.            393
of the Athenians which united all classes of the people, a
temple intended to become a gorgeous monument of the
glories of the Tyrant's rule, comparable to the Artemisium
at Ephesus, and the Herseum at Samos.
In the north-east quarter of the city the
The Lyceum.
Lyceum was instituted in honor of Apollo,
with large open spaces for the exercises of the youthful
part of the population. Lastly, on the west side the
double Ceramicus with the neighboring suburbs was arranged and adorned anew; most especially the Academy,
whose shady, low-lying grounds, sanctified by the worship
of Eros, became more and more the favorite place of recreation of the Athenians.
Thus the public life of the Athenians
received new impulses and transformations  itetnuragement of
in every direction. Athens became, internally and externally, a new city. By means of her
new high-roads and streets, her temples and festivals, she
attained to a splendid pre-eminence among the great
multitude of Greek towns, and the Pisistratidee neglected
no opportunity of investing her with a new importance by
the establishment of close relations with the islands and
coasts of the JEgean. For this purpose it was necessary
that the city should possess herself of the mental treasures
also of the coasts on the other side of the sea, where serious study, as well as the joyous art of song, had found so
felicitous a development. Accordingly, Pisistratus followed up the endeavors of Solon, to domesticate the Ionic
Homer at Athens for the education of youth and the
adornment of public festivals. But in this matter again a
stricter order was to be introduced: and to Athens was to
belong the glory of having first appreciated The Homerthe importance of these poems as a whole, and io poems and
their editors.
arranged them so as to be handed down unchanged. Accordingly, Pisistratus assembled at his court
a number of learned men, whose duty it was to collect
17*




394               History of Greece.         [BooK. II
copies, compare the texts, decide upon the true readings,
exclude improper interpolations, and fix the Epos as a
great whole, as a national Hellenic document, in a form
which might be generally accepted as valid. These labors were carried on under his presidency by Zopyrus of
Heraclea, Orpheus of Croton, and others; they formed a
learned commission, with an extensive field for its labors,
which included, besides Homer, the later epos, IHesiod
and religious poetry. Pisistratus took a personal part in
these efforts, and here again the character of Tyrannical
rule was perceptible in the circumstance that his personal
taste or political considerations determined the exclusion
of verses to which he objected, and the alteration or introduction of others. His main object was fully realized.
His city acquired a legislative authority in the domain of
national poetry; he first called into life a Homer and
Hesiod, who were read in the same form in all parts of
the Greek world, and whoever desired to obtain a comprehensive view of all that Hellenic poets had produced, had
to journey to Athens, where, on the citadel of Pisistratus,
he might behold, stored in noble halls, all the treasures
of that literature which was the common
The ibrares of property of the nation, the works of all its
wise men and poets, preserved in carefully
copied manuscripts. A separate collection was that of
the oracles, which were an object of interest to the Pisistratidse, and had been entrusted to the care of Onomacritus.
But their wish was not only to garner up the creations
of the past, but also to encourage contemporary art and
assemble its masters around them. Therefore they sent
their vessels of state to Teos to fetch Anacreon; and Simonides of Ceos, and Lasus of Hermione, lived at the
learned court of the Pisistratidse.  The foremost men
formed the acquaintance, and learned to recognize the
worth, of one another; nor was there any lack of the usual




CHAP. II.]       History of Attica.            395
rivalries; and Lasus was not afraid publicly to accuse
Onomacritus, who wished to oblige his master by suppositious oracles, of abusing the royal confidence.
Pisistratus, as his years increased, might look with satisfaction upon his city, which was more and more coming
to be recognized as the splendid centre of Hellenic culture, and upon his government, which was from year to
year more firmly establishing itself. He might hope that
his sons and grandsons, who were endowed with royal
qualities, and had been admitted by himself to a share in
the government, would, in faithful adherence to his policy,
preserve the dynasty to which Athens
owed so much. In this hope he died at Oleath ii 8.sctr.5278.
an advanced age in the bosom of his
family, 01. LXIII. 2. According to his father's wish, Hippias succeeded him as Tyrant, and the
brothers, as they had promised their fa-  lppia s and Hipther, held faithfully together. The gentler
and more refined Hipparchus deemed it no hardship to
take the second place, and employed his position for the
peaceful departments of the administration.
And yet it was obvious that a change had taken place
in the state of public affairs. For while the father, whose
personal craft and sagacity had raised him from among
the citizens, had to the last preserved his apparent pliability, to the sons the condition of simple citizens was
totally strange. They had always felt their position as
princes, and their temporary fall had only left behind
sentiments of bitterness in the breast of Hippias. Soon
signs of an arbitrary tendency to illegality and kingly
arrogance made their appearance. Their mercenaries had
to be ready for any deed, when the Tyrants' suspicions
demanded a victim. When Cimon, the brother of the
Cypselide Miltiades, whose return Pisistratus had permitted, came to Athens for the third time a3 an Olympic




396             History of Greece.          [BooK IL
Death of Hippar- victor, he was murdered at the bidding of
chus. (Harmodius the Pisistratide. And though the principal
and Aristogiton.) share of the guilt of such deeds of violence
rested with the elder, yet even Hipparchus was not free
from the taints of voluptuous luxury and lust. Thus, as
conductor of the Panathensean festival, he refused to an
Attic maiden the honor of bearing the basket, from no
other motive, it was said, than because her brother Harmodius had rejected his impure favors.   Harmodius
was the less ready to forgive the insult to his house, since
among the Gephyrseans, to whom he belonged, family
honors passed every other consideration. With Aristogiton and other associates he founded a conspiracy to overthrow the Tyrants, which was to take effect at the procession on the great Panathensea; after the deed had been
done, the applause of the people might safely be counted
on.  At first everything happened according to desire.
The people harmlessly streamed towards the main road,
and among them the two brothers, Hippias outside in the
Ceramicus arranging the order of the procession, and Hipparchus on the market. Decorated with branches of
myrtle, the symbol of Aphrodite the uniter of the people,
the ranks of citizens were forming themselves, when the
conspirators, who fancied their design discovered, fell upon
Hipparchus in premature fury. A sanguinary hand-tohand struggle interrupted the peaceful festival of the
foundation of the city, without the real purpose being accomplished. For the surviving brother acted with energy
and resolution.  Before the rear of the procession was
aware of what had taken place, he caused all who were
secretly armed with swords to be arrested. The guilty and
innocent were indiscriminately put to the torture and to
death; and the threatened government was secured anew.
The effusion of citizens' blood brought a harvest of
nought but evil; for Hippias thought himself both justified in adopting a different system of government, and




CRAP. II.]       Hitory of Attica.             397
obliged to adopt it. He took the opportunity of ridding
himself of citizens odious to him, and confiscating the
property of the exiles. In gloomy mistrust he retired to
the citadel, opened a more intimate intercourse with
Asiatic Tyrants, and endeavored to obtain money by
every method of oppression. He exercised so overbearing a system of police in the streets, that he judicially
confiscated and put up to sale the projecting parts of the
houses, and thus forced the proprietors to buy portions of
their own houses at a high price; he deprived the current coin of all value, and then re-issued at a higher
value the silver he had called in; and he permitted single
citizens to buy themselves off from public burdens, particularly the expenses of the festive chorus, so that the
rest were oppressed by all the heavier weight of taxation.
Thus the popular rule of the Pisistratidse was converted into an intolerable despotism; the whole system of
government became more and more contemptible, since
none but unworthy persons were willing to serve the
state, while in the same degree the hopes rose with which
the enemies of the tyrannical dynasty regarded Athens.
The enemies of the Tyrants had their
The Alcmveonidw
head-quarters at Delphi, and at their head in exile. Their
stood the Alcmseonidse, long intimately Dconections with
connected with the Pythian Sanctuary,
and now headed by Clisthenes, the grandson of the Tyrant of Sicyon, who inherited a spirit of lofty enterprise
from both his father's and his mother's side. His adherents were men of the highest nobility, such as the elder
Alcibiades, Leogoras, Charias, and others. The members
of this party advanced their cause in two ways; in the
first place by military undertakings. They succeeded by
a bold attempt in occupying a fortified position on Mount
Parnes, Lipsydrium, where they were joined by the
malcontents. The memory of the sanguinary and unfortunate struggles carried on by the garrison against the




398               History of Greece.        [Boow II.
Tyrant's troops long survived among the Athenians, who
sang at their banquets, " Woe, woe to thee, Lipsydrium,
thou betrayer of thy friends! Lordly were the men thou
didst destroy, bold in war, noble of descent, who in those
days bore proof of the blood in their veins!"
Soon the wary Alcmoeonidoe discovered another road
towards the attainment of their end. In 01. LVIII. 1,
51.) (B. C. 548) the Delphic temple had been burnt
to the ground. The priesthood used every exertion to bring about its restoration in a style of due
splendor, and instituted collections wherever Greeks
dwelt, as for a common national cause. When a capital
of three hundred Talents had been brought together, and
a contractor was sought to execute the restoration according to a fixed plan, the Alcmaeonidve offered their services, and, after the Amphictyons had entrusted them
with the erection of the edifice, in every way largely exDelphiinlnc eeded the obligations of their contract.
Delphi influences
Sparta in their Particularly they employed Parian marble
favor.    instead of the ordinary lime-stone for the
east side of the temple. By this means they conferred a
high obligation on the Delphic authorities, and induced
them by a continued flow of liberal contributions, to
engage in active manceuvres in the interest of the Alcmaeonidae, and to take part openly against the Pisistratidse. Ever afterwards the Greek states, and especially
Sparta, were influenced in this sense by the voice of the
Pythia. As often as single citizens or the state of Sparta
sent to Delphi, every response of the oracle was accompanied by the command, to free Athens from the rule of
force oppressing her; and when the Spartans, among a
variety of other evasions, insisted upon their relations of
hospitality with the house of Pisistratus, they were bidden to remember, that regard for the gods outweighed all
considerations for men.




CHAP. II.]       History of Attica.           399
Finally, the Spartans, being never left March and defeat
at peace, determined on action, and, not- of a partan army.
withstanding their inborn dislike to intervene in the affairs of the mainland, they sent an army
under Anchimolius by water to the Phalerus. They
hoped by this means to find an opportunity for reviving
their ancient relations to Delphi, which Athens had interrupted and disturbed. This undertaking met with
little success. For the Pisistratidae called out their Thessalian auxiliary cavalry, fell upon the Spartan army in
its unfavorable position in the wide plain, and slew the
commander, together with a great part of his troops.
After this Sparta had to apply herself
seriously to the matter, in order to save her Cleofienestakes
honor. At first, in consideration of her
relations of hospitality with the Pisistratidse, she had
hesitated to send a royal army; now she placed her king
Cleomenes at the head of the levy, and commenced an
invasion of Attica by land.
The member of the house of Agis, who at that time
occupied the royal throne, was no ordinary man. In him
the ancient kingly vigor of the Heraclidse had powerfully revived. Animated by an indomitable consciousness of his strength, he refused to play at royalty under
the odious superintendence of the Ephors. At the root
of his actions lay undeniably a craving for tyrannical
power, and he welcomed every bold undertaking outside
the cramping limits of Sparta. Accordingly, he had conducted the war against Argos with great energy; he had
landed on the coast, routed the Argive troops, slain and
burnt the fugitives in the sacred grove of Argos, and had
then audaciously claimed the government of Argos at the
hands of the goddess Here. The conquest of Argos and
the destruction of the state formed no part of his plans,
which differed greatly from those of the Ephors. But
the power of the Argives had been broken, while that of




400               History of Greece.        [BooK II.
Sparta stood higher than ever; and now Cleomenes, as a
proved lord of war, marched with audacious designs upon
Athens. He had provided himself with a sufficient body
of cavalry, and was joined by the Alcmseonidse and all
the enemies of the Tyrants. He conquered the forces of
the latter near the very spot where they had once established their power, the sanctuary of Pallene, and shut
them up in their citadel. A lengthy siege seemed at
hand. But it chanced luckily for Cleomenes, one of the
spoilt children of fortune, that the children of the Tyrant,
whom he had intended to send secretly out of the country,
fell into the hands of the Spartan foragers. In order to
save his children, Hippias quitted the country with his
treasures, after a government of fourteen years in conjunction with his brother, and of three and a half by
himself.
Overthrow of  The immediate consequence of the fall of
the Tyrants the Tyrants was merely a renewal of the anat Athens.
cient party-feuds. After one of the three parties had relinquished the field, the two remaining immediately stood opposed to one another in open conflict; nothing
but the struggle against a common adversary had for the
moment united them in one camp. On the one side was the
party of the nobles, with Isagoras at their head, the son of
Tisander, in whose ancient house the Carian Zeus was adored,
and on the other the Alcmveonidse. The latter had only
State of parties at used Sparta as an instrument for the
Athens. Isagoras overthrow of the dynasty of the Tyrants;
and Clisthenes.                          - 
and had no intention of conceding to the
foreign power the slightest influence in the changes which
became necessary in their city. - On the other hand the
opposite party thought they ought to avail themselves of
the opportunity of abolishing the odious innovations which
had prevailed ever since the time of Solon: the equality
of classes, the.privileges accorded to property, and the admission of all men of more considerable wealth to the pub



CHAP. II.]       Hisory of Attica.             401
lic offices of honor. At first this party had the advantage, for it had quietly continued to exist under the
Tyrants, and now was ready for action, and possessed a
strong reserve and a firm support in Sparta. The
Alcmpeonidae on the other hand found no definite and
compact party ready to aid them; they had been too long
abroad, and the body of their ancient adherents in the
land had disappeared: the party of the Parali had ceased
to exist.
But it was not so easy to put aside Clisthenes. He was
a man of passionate ambition, excited to action by a wandering life and by the memo- of Clithenes.
ries of his house, who had grown up in the
life of party-conflict, and was from his childhood full of
political designs. He knew many lands and men, and
was himself both pliable and resolved to assert his influence at any cost. Thus he quickly proceeded to decisive
measures against the superior power of Isagoras. He
united the remnant of his ancient adherents with the
orphaned party of the Diacrii; he entered upon the policy
with which Pisistratus had commenced, employed the resources of his service for assembling the multitude around
him, and excited the latter by directing attention to the
unconstitutional proceedings of his opponents. In a short
time he had become the head of the whole popular party,
and was more powerful than any Alcmseonide had been
before him.
Ambition was the real motive of his actions. But at
the same time he represented a higher cause than personal
interest and the glory of his house. In opposition to the
other party which, supported by Sparta, desired to abolish
the constitutional rights of the people, he represented the
national honor and independence of Athens; he was the
champion of their menaced rights, of the civil liberty
which had been gained after heavy struggles, of the solemnly confirmed constitution which even the Tyrants had




402                   History of Greece.               [BOK If.
respected, in fine, of the future of Athens which depended
on her free and independent development on the basis of
the legislation of Solon. By this means he achieved a
very different position from that of a selfish party-leader,
and obtained power and authority among the best part of
the people. It was the reactionary movement of the aristocrats which made Clisthenes great, and marked out a
definite course for his policy. *
For the purpose of saving the constitution of Solon,
Clisthenes could not content himself with propping up existing institutions but it was necessary to strengthen the
constitution by new means, and to keep together and
create enthusiasm in the party of movement, by an endeavor to attain to a definite end and accomplish a farther
* In this passage I have, in reference to the chronological sequence of
the acts of Cleomenes, followed Pausanias, iii. 3, 4, because he is the
only writer who treats them connectedly, and because it is evident that he
carefully availed himself of the annals of the two royal houses, documents
to be found at Sparta. The correctness of this tradition has lately been
objected to on the ground that the oracle as to the troubles of war awaiting their cities was given at the same time to the Argives and the Milesians (Herod. vi. 19 and 77), and that the Milesians would assuredly not
have sought a divine declaration as to the fate of their city before the
latter was actually menaced.  Thus Duncker, Alte Geschichte, iv. 647.
But it should be remembered that the Milesians had not sent any messengers to tho oracles, as Herodotus vi. 19 expressly says. The Pythia
merely added to the prophecy destined for Argos the threat of a similar
and yet heavier catastrophe of the city of Miletus. Such menacing declarations, sent in general terms, might be repeated on frequent occasions
in anticipation of the inevitable, and accordingly the circumstance of the
oracles fails to justify the conclusion that the misfortune of Argos and
the fall of Miletus must necessarily be dated in the same year. Thus
much on the other hand is certain, that Herodotus regards the rout of the
Argives as subsequent to the commencement of Cleomenes' reign; for according to that author it is in 01. lxxiv. 4 (B. c. 481), a recent event (vii.
148). Hence it is possible that Pausanias' inaccuracy connects an earlier
and a later expedition of Cleomenes against the Argives, and that the
date of the great battle near the grove of Argos ought to be placed in the
last years of the reign of the King (OL lxxh 4, or 493, B. C. cire ). This
date has also been on consideration  assigned by Clinton. (Fasti Hel.
lenici, ed. KrUger, p. 432, x.).




CHAP. II.]        History of Attica.           403
advance. Solon had thrown open for all members of the
state everything indispensable for a free enjoyment of civic
rights, participation in government legislation, and the
administration of the laws; noble descent had ceased to be
the condition of full citizenship. For the rest he had
spared the institutions of the nobility, and, satisfied with
having accomplished his essential purpose, allowed the remains of the ancient times, on which its adherents set so
great a value, particularly the division of the Eupatrides
into the tribes of Geleontes, Hopletes, Ergades, and JEgicores, to continue to exist, as being in themselves neither
important nor dangerous.
This concession had left a living contradiction in existence among the community. According to the written
law, as exhibited on the citadel, there existed a free and
equal civic community; but in reality nobility and Demus
still stood opposed to one another like two nations, and
though there were no longer any political franchises depending on membership of the clans, yet these family combinations gave constant occasion and opportunities for
holding common councils and forming exclusive parties.
The people could not rid itself of the habit of regarding
the members of the clans as a separate class of men, and
of entertaining towards them either a feeling of reverential
submissiveness, which stood in opposition to the civil
equality established by Solon, or sentiments of hatred
and enmity, which destroyed the peace of the commonwealth.
These evils and internal contradictions Clisthenes was
unwilling, as Solon had hoped might be possible, to leave
to the softening influence of a gradually equalizing development; and he thought the adoption of this line of conduct the less permissible, inasmuch as at this very period
the clans of the nobility asserted new claims as a power in
the state. He thought it necessary to venture upon a
more decided rupture with the past, to abolish the ancient




404               History of Greece.         [BooK II.
clanships, in which the aristocratic traditions survived and
the reactionary tendency found a seat and support, to deprive the great system of the families of its strength, to
eradicate out of the heart of the people their instinct-like
sentiments of attachment to the ways of their ancestors,
and thus for the first time to make the people fully and
completely free.
For this purpose violent changes were necessary, from
which any other statesman would have anxiously shrunk.
That Clisthenes undertook them finds its explanation in
his individuality and descent; that he succeeded in them
in the perverseness of his opponents and the support accorded to him by the Delphic oracle.
The house of the Alcmaeonidse was already, through its
family connection with the race of the Attic kings, animated by an inborn impulse towards dominion, to which
it never proved false.
Under the influences of the eighth and
Personal designs seventh century this impulse was natuof Clisthenes.
rally led to assume a direction towards
Tyrannical power, because this was the only form in
which it could be satisfied. The passionate ferocity of
Megacles in his conflict with Cylon is to be explained by
the wrath which filled his house, when, while itself aspiring to dominion, it saw the desired prize seized by
other hands. Alcmweon, the son of Megacles, by his intimate relations with Crcesus, took a step yet farther beyond
the sphere of a citizen's life. He had rapidly multiplied
his large fortune. As the wealthiest of the Athenians,
he raised his claims higher and higher; and we may be
sure that when his son Megacles was a suitor for the hand
of the daughter of the great Tyrant of Sicyon, it was not
with the intention of living with her as a simple citizen
among citizens. As the party-leader of the Parali, he
played for the same stake as Pisistratus. Every failure,
and the unhappy curse of the guilt of blood, which arose




CHA,. n.]        History of Attica.          405
again and again like an evil demon from his sleep, only
contributed to heighten the passionate ambition of the
family, till at last, after many disappointments, all their
hopes centered in the son of Agariste, who was from the
day of his birth destined for great things. Clisthenes introduced into the house of Alcmaeon the name of his
maternal grandfather, and, together with the name of the
latter, the grandson also possessed his ancestor's bold resolution, clear intelligence, and indomitable energy, reckless
of opposition in the pursuit of political aims; and between their aims there existed a striking resemblance.
Like the grandfather, the grandson wished to liberate the
state from the bonds of obsolete institutions, in order to
lead it on to a new development; and both had interests
beyond the satisfaction of a personal ambition. Both
employed the same means for the same ends, and both
supported themselves by the authority of the Pythian oracle. Thus closely was the example of the grandfather
followed by the grandson, except that the reforms of the
younger Clisthenes were incomparably more fully elaborated, and more effective and productive of results.
During the years of his exile he had long
0    J.,,.    -      ~ His reforms.
ago prepared his plans, and thus they were
now produced mature and complete. His endeavor was
of a double kind. On the one hand he wished to
strengthen and supplement the Solonian constitution; for
as a patriot he knew its value, and as an Alcmseonide owed
a debt of gratitude to the memory of the great legislator,
who had taken off the ban of outlawry from his house.
On the other hand, he desired by removing all preventive
fetters to renovate the state from its very foundations. It
is rare that in one statesman the opposite tendencies of a
conservative and a radical policy have pervaded one
another in so remarkable a degree.
The blessings of the Solonian constitution had not been
able to take root on account of the power of the nobility,




406                History of Greece.         [BooK rI.
whose ambition and discord had prevented any peaceful
development: Solon's idea of a united state had not been
understood or realized on account of the continuance of
the noble clans, whose institutions Solon had not ventured
to touch. He had in essentials made all the citizens equal;
but in the Ionic tribes, guilds, and clans a kind of municipal exclusiveness had maintained itself, which prevented
the perfect amalgamation of all the citizens. Of course
Clisthenes, as little as Solon, thought of dissolving the
ancient clans with their sanctuaries and sacrificial rites:
all family and religious institutions continued quietly to
co-exist, with all solemn usages and ancient civic customs
attaching to them. But the communal unions, to which
the Phratries and clans were subordinated, were no longer
to form the political system of the people; for as long as
such was the case, these subdivisions themselves seemed to
participate in a. kind of political importance. It was a
fault of the Solonian constitution that the new civic community was. to find a place among these ancient tribes.
Accordingly, the ancient tribes were now not merely, as at
Sicyon, changed as to their name and class-rank, but the
entire division was abolished, together with the number
four, which forms the basis of all Ionic political systems.
Division of the  In its plan a decimal system was intropeople into Phy- duced, connected with no traditionary inand Demes.  stitution. The new divisions were, indeed,
called Phyce, i. e. tribes like the old; but in them there
was no question as to birth and descent. They were
merely the units of which certain groups of ruial ditricts
(Demes) were subordinate parts. These local districts or
parishes had long existed; they were partly the same as
certain of the ancient twelve towns of Attica, such as
Eleusis, Cephisia, and Thoricus, or they derived their
name from the principal families of landed proprietors in
them, as a. g. Butads, JEthalidae, Paonidas  They had




CHAP. I.]        History of Attica.            407
been already at a much earlier date, perhaps as subdivisions of the Naucraries, used for the purposes of police
and taxation, by the state, as plain divisions of the population. Now they became the real administrative departments of the land. In every deme the holders of
land were catalogued, and registration in these parish-lists
henceforth served as evidence that an individual belonged
to the country in general, and was entitled to the enjoyment of civic rights. Though he might change hishabituation as often as he liked, he still continued to belong to
the deme in which he had once been registered. Every
deme had its parish officers and parish purse, out of
which the costs of administration and sacrifices were provided.
A hundred of these local parishes were newly established, and subordinated in tens to each of the new tribes.
But this was not done in the most obvious way, by comprehending ten neighboring districts in one tribe; for in
that case in the one tribe, the Diacrians, in the second the
Parali, and in the third the Pedieans, would have predominated; and this administrative system would have
merely supplied a new basis for the ancient parties. Apparently, from the beginning for this reason, districts remote from one another were united in one tribe.
Hence these tribes were also without any local centre,
such as each of the Demes possessed in its particular
market-place. Accordingly, when the members of a
tribe were to assemble, they met on the city-market of
Athens, so that by this means the capital became in a
yet higher degree the centre and the heart of the land.
Each of the ten tribes had its hero whose name it bore,
and through whom it connected itself with the pre-historic
times of the country. Statues of the ten tribal heroes
were located on the city-market, and represented the entire body of Attic citizens. Each of the tribes possessed
its leading officers, its common sanctuaries, and its tribal




408               History of Greece.       [BoOK IL
festivals, which served to promote friendly intercourse
among the individual citizens. But the corporate acts of
the tribes lacked any political significance; their meetings
were merely held for the purpose of electing officers, distributing civic burdens, and naming men of repute to
conduct the business pf the public works. The members
of a tribe never met except on their election-days and festivals. Hence the new tribes only served as organs of the
civic community for the performance of the military and
peaceful services demanded by the state. Thus they comprehended the duties of the naucraries (p. 330) which had
been subordinate divisions of the four Ionic tribes. These
naucraries continued to exist for the purpose of facilitating a statistical view of the total national property;
but they were increased in number from forty-eight to
fifty, so that each tribe included five of these dock-circles
or taxing districts, and accordingly had to provide five ships
and ten horsemen for the national defence. The sagacious
arrangement of the new tribes having on the one hand removed the naucraries from the influence of the families
of the nobility, and on the other from that of the local
parties of Attica, the tribes now served to make the
strength of the people available for the public service,
without any intervention of the state authorities, and to
call forth in the development of this strength the widest
emulation possible, the patriotism of which was not
cramped by any secondary considerations.
In reference to the executive also, the tribes of Clisthenes were merely the intermediate links supplying an
organic connection between the districts of the land, in
which the life of the community freely advanced its local
interests, and the entire body of the state.
The Senate of Solon had already instituted the Senate as an
Five Hundred.
administrative committee elected out of the
citizens, and Clisthenes developed this institution by providing for the annual election of fifty members of each




CHAP. II.]        Iistory of Attica.               409
tribe, at the same time retaining the restrictions imposed
by Solon. Thus the Council was not only increased
numerically by one hundred members, but became more
than before a popular representation, since according to
the standard of the new ordinal number the Council's
year of administration was divided into ten parts, in each
of which one tribe of the people, according to a rotation
determined by lot, had the right of presidency or Prytany. Thus the Prytany became an administrative term
of thirty-five or thirty-six days. Finally, the Th j
The juries.
tribes also served to form the jury-courts, to
which six thousand citizens were annually appointed.
Council and courts of law guarded the rights of the
people, in the sense in which Solon had already established them, and protected it against the arbitrary decisions of official authority. But the chief dif-  ntro
Introduction
ficulty of all lay in filling the offices of state of electionby
themselves in a manner corresponding to the lot.
spirit of the times, and to the welfare of the community.
They were the principal objects of the ambition of the
powerful; and at the elective assemblies the ancient
divisions again and again made their appearance.   On
these occasions the old party-leaders mustered all their
adherents, in order to gain the offices invested with the
attributes of the sovereignty of the state, the heritage of
the ancient royal dignity, and to employ the short period
of their term of office to the best of their power for their
ambitious ends. To put an end to this unfortunate state
of things, Clisthenes took a decisive step, which attests
the bold assurance with which he acted. He abolished
the use of election in the filling up of administrative
offices, and introduced choice by lot. Not that he
thought that henceforth every man was equally adapted
for every office, but he was able to assume that out of the
limited number of those qualified by their landed property, none but those would dare to offer themselves as
18




410               History of Greece.         [Boos II.
candidates for the supreme posts of government whose
own ability was a farther qualification, for it was only
among the candidates that the lot decided. And though
among these the chance of the lot failed to bring the best
qualified in each case into office, yet such a result had
been formerly no better insured by a popular election.
On the other hand, an advantage of far superior value had
been obtained by the principal officers of state ceasing
to be the organs of the party momentarily in power.
Henceforth men of different parties had to govern as
official colleagues, and to seek to harmonize their views
from higher considerations. The election-contests and
intrigues were at an end, and the citizens grew out of the
habit of party-plots, the influence of which had poisoned
the whole life of the city. In special cases, where all
recognized the right man in one particular individual, all
other candidates might retire from competition with him,
and thus allow a popular election in the best sense of the
term to take place. For the agitated times of Clisthenes,
no institution could have been productive of greater
blessings than that of election by lot. Its influence was
at once calming and conciliatory. It was an institution
agreeable to the Greek gods; for by means of the lot it
was left to those gods to announce their decisions who
watched over the welfare of the city.
Lastly, a number of people who had
edmissionsof hitherto formed no part of the civic body,
were admitted into the new tribes; artisans
and handicraftsmen, who had already lived for some time
as clients or as freedmen in Attica. They were now to
be incorporated in the state as real members of it; their
industry was to become its property; they were henceforth to participate as Athenians, and as the equals of
the rest, in the festive processions at the Panathensea,
and, together with the citizens, swore the oath of military
fealty to their new fatherland. This was undoubtedly




CHAP. II.]        History of Attica.            411
the most important change undergone by the political
system; it was an introduction into the midst of the civic
community of foreign elements, of men who had no connection with ancient Athens and were not even attached
to the state by the possession of landed property. By
this means much new blood was introduced, many new
impulses were given, and the defensive power of the
country strengthened; patriarchal usages were abolished,
and the free development of life advanced in all directions; though, on the other hand, the honor of Attic
citizenship had to suffer, and the primitive traits of the
Attic character lost their original distinctness.
Such were the great and bold innovations of the Alcmseonide Clisthenes. They pervaded the whole life of the
state, and affected all its organs; for even those institutions which remained unaltered in themselves, as e. g., the
Areopagus, received a fresh accession of vitality, because
a new spirit manifested itself in the public officers admitted into it, after the introduction of election by ballot.
Reforms like these could be carried
through neither without resistance nor at Struggles beteen
once. Probably Clisthenes brought forward his plans immediately after the expulsion of the
Tyrants. For at that period a new political system had
become necessary, as well as a restoration of the commonwealth which had so long been in the hands of despotic
masters. The people demanded new guarantees of its
liberty, and as long as the general rejoicing at the liberation of the country from the yoke of Hippias endured, it
was the most appropriate season for unanimous and
thorough reforms. Clisthenes could not allow his opponents to gain an advance on him. Part of the measures of constitutional reform, especially tLe institution
of the new tribes and the division into demes, were accordingly in all probability passed in the popular assembly as early as the first year of liberty, under the pre



412                History of Greece.        [BooK II.
ponderating influence of Clisthenes, and carried out immediately. His opponents redoubled their exertions, in
order to prevent the accomplishment of the great constitutional work. But they soon perceived, that with no
support but that of their adherents at home, they would
be utterly unable to resist the vigorous advance of the
Combition be- enthusiastic party of progress.  Isagoras
tween Isagoras felt no hesitation in seeking for aid abroad.
and Cleomenes. He was on a footing of personal intimacy
with Cleomenes; a story even went as to a sinful connection between his wife and the Spartan king. Cleomenes, impelled by ambition, was not satisfied with
having helped to expel the Pisistratidae; and was loth to
allow Athens to free herself from the influence of Sparta.
In short, these two men united in a secret alliance, in
which, under the pretence of public interests, they guaranteed to one another the accomplishment of the objects
of their personal ambition. They found no difficulty in
explaining to the Spartans the dangers of Clisthenes' revolutionary efforts.  These, they averred, merely concealed a design for attaining to the Tyrannical power;
it was nothing short of a new edition of the revolution
of Sicyon; and the influence of Sparta beyond the
Isthmus was, they declared, at stake for all time.
Intervention  The Spartans resolved to intervene. As
of the Spar- was their wont in their dealings with cities
ans.  under tyrannical government, they despatched
their city-herald to Athens. The object of his message
was clothed in the form of a demand for the banishment
of the Alcmoeonidme, as a race polluted, since the day of
Cylon, with the guilt of blood. Clisthenes left the
country. He refused to allow the troubles of war to
come over Athens on his account, and to find the state in
internal discord and in weakness; he wished the traitorous
conspiracy of Isagoras and Cleomenes to ripen, in order
that he might then return as the saviour of liberty.




CHAP. l.]        History of Attica.            413
He had not miscalculated the character of his opponents. Notwithstanding the flight of Clisthenes, Cleomenes arrived with troops; he intended to accomplish nothing less than to break the independence of Athens for
ever, to make Isagoras master over her as his creature, and
then to found for himself a dominion which should include
every Greek land. Under the terrorism of foreign arms,
Isagoras was elected Archon in the second year of liberty,
whereupon the reaction by force was openly commenced.
Cleomenes acted towards Athens as towards a
conquered city. Seven hundred families were (. c. 50.)
expelled, which Isagoras had indicated to him
as democratic. The Council, which was already composed
according to the new division, was dissolved by force, and,
as a clear sign that the intention was not merely to return
to the institutions of Solon, a council of three hundred
was established according to the example of Sparta, according to the standard of the Doric number three; and
into this council only those were admitted who indiscriminately favored the anti-popular ideas.
But the Athenian people had already
too thoroughly identified itself with the ictory of the party
of progress.
liberty established by Solon, to bow down
before such measures of force; and Cleomenes had rashly
brought with him too small a number of troops to be able
to carry out these measures. The old Council, summoned
to protect the laws, resisted the violation of the constitution; they were supported by the people; town and country rose, and for the conspirators there remained nothing
but to throw themselves with the adherents of their party,
into the citadel. Cleomenes endeavored in vain to gain
over the priestess of the city-goddess; she rejected him
with loathing, though he endeavored to prove his royal
claims to dominion as an "Achsean."  For the space of
two days the new Tyrants were besieged on the citadel,
on the third the Lacedaemonians were allowed to depart




414              History of Greece.         [BOOK II.
unharmed. Isagoras escaped; the rest of the party were
arrested and by the popular court of justice condemned
to death as traitors:
The next step of the Council, whose fidelity to the constitution had saved the state of Solon was the recall of the
Alcmseonidse and the other exiles. The crime and disgrace, with which the reactionary party had covered itself,
fell out to the advantage of Clisthenes, who was now the
more easily able to carry through the completion of his reforms. Perhaps it was not until this date that the election
by ballot was introduced, in order to prevent such an
election of party-men as that of Isagoras had most recently been; and perhaps it was at the same time that the
new body of citizens were admitted.
Athens was for the second time freed from a despotic
rule, which threatened to be one far more shameful than
that of the Pisistratidse, because it intended at the same
time to sacrifice the independence of the city established
by Solon. But the danger had not yet passed away.
For Cleomenes, whose hot blood filled him with increased
ardor after every failure, assembled a Peloponnesian
army. Open war had broken out between Athens and
Sparta. Moreover, the Pisistratidse were not idle, but drew
new hopes from every new agitation against the peace of
Athens. All the neighbors on the borders?f Attica were
in motion, who looked with eyes of disfavor upon the
rising power of the Athenians. The JEginetans and the
Chalcidians, moved by commercial jealousy, thought themselves bound to seize the opportunity of this season of
troubles, in order to destroy the power of the Attic navy.
ee  But above all the Thebans were showing
Quarrel with Thebes.
signs of hostility. They had already, at
a former period, been engaged in a dispute with the Pisistratidse, their ancient friends, on account of their supremacy in the land of Bceotia.
In Southern Boeotia, a decided reluctance prevailed




CHAP. II.]       History of Attica.            415
against submitting to the supremacy of Thebes, a reluctance which had its natural origin in the Ionic population
of the valley of the Asopus. Plataea was the centre of this
resistance against Thebes. Too weak of themselves to be
able permanently to resist the claims of the Bceotian capital, her citizens had turned to king Cleomenes, and declared their readiness to join the Peloponnesian confederacy. In 01. lxv. 2, (B. C. 519), the emissaries of the Platseans had appeared with this offer in Sparta. Instead of
either courageously and resolutely accepting this offer,
which opened up a new advance for the Spartan power, or
honestly and openly declining it, the Spartans, following
a policy as dishonest as it was short-sighted, had taken a
middle path. They were themselves, they answered, too
distant to be able to afford a vigorous protection to the
Platseans; if, accordingly, the latter were absolutely unwilling to join the Thebans, they had best apply to their
neighbor Athens.
No answer could have better fallen in with the wishes
of the Platreans. They had only waited for the authorization of the first state in Hellas to follow their own political sympathies. When one day the Athenians were offering up their festive sacrifice to the Twelve Gods on the
market-place, the men of Platsea placed themselves as suppliants on the steps of the altar, and raised their olivebranches, wound round with fillets, in the eyes of the
assembled people. The Pisistratidse had no hesitation as
to accepting or declining. In the briefest time possible an
Attic army stood opposed to the Thebans in the territory
of Plataea. Before the beginning of the battle, it was
determined to entrust the decision of the dispute to the
Corinthians. They decided that the Platseans had the
right of joining any alliance according to their own choice.
The Athenians were on their return home suddenly fallen
upon by the indignant Thebans; but the victory remained
with the former, who now advanced the boundaries




416               History of Greece.        [BooK Ir.
of the Platseans as far as the Asopus. This river was
henceforth the limit of the territory allied to the Athenians.
These limits the Pisistratidse had been able to maintain.
The Thebans thought that now a favorable opportunity
had arisen for them to recover their ancient territory.
They could not suffer a focus of democratic popular movement to be established in closest vicinity to themselves,
inasmuch as it constituted a constant source of danger
and menace to their oligarchical rule in Boeotia. Thus
Athens was on all sides surrounded by jealous and bitter foes, herself without allies, and at home full of agitation.
Foreign aid had to be sought; and the deto Sardes.  spatch of Attic envoys to Sardes immediately
after the return of Clisthenes, in order to contract an armed alliance with the Persian governor there,
was doubtless a step occasioned by none other than Clisthenes himself. Sardes was the original source of the
wealth of the Alcmseonidse, who kept up intimate relations with the capital of Asia Minor, and were sufficiently
well acquainted with foreign lands to employ even
the most distant resources under the pressure of present
need.
Tyrannical de-  The grandson of the Tyrant of Sicyon had
Tyrannical designs of Clis- not yet relinquished his plans of personal
felles  His sovereign power. Under the present circumstances the Attic state seemed more than
ever to stand in need of guidance by one hand; and his
personal power had risen higher than ever by the admission of a multitude of clients and freedmen, who owed
their civil rights to him. In order to obtain a reserve of
strength, it was necessary to form a combination with a
foreign power; and accordingly the envoys were commissioned to conclude the alliance at any price. But Artaphernes, the son of Hystaspes, and governor of Lydia,




CHAP. II.]       History of Attica.            417
was, according to the political law of Persia, acquainted
with no other form of alliance than that which included a
recognition of the Persian supremacy. The envoys concluded the treaty on this condition; and, however strongly
on their return they might insist upon representing
the latter as a mere formality, yet Athens had officially recognized the supreme sovereignty of the Achoemenidse.
A universal outburst of indignation was the consequence
of this step. The envoys were called to account: it could
not remain concealed who had originated these measures,
and what designs lay at the bottom of them. The shameful treaty was annulled, and the power of Clisthenes was
at an end. If we take a combined view of the single
events which succeeded upon one another, the return of
Clisthenes, the embassy to Sardes, the indignation at
Athens, and the sudden disappearance of Clisthenes, whose
banishment by a popular judgment was known to the ancients, the connection between them can scarcely have
been any other than that just indicated. Clisthenes himself was the last who followed in the wake of the Attic
Tyrants; he had endeavored to make possible the free
development of the citizen-state of Solon, and at the same
time to satisfy his personal ambition; but only in the first
of these endeavors had he met with success. The Attic
people had learnt too clear a lesson from the protracted
constitutional struggles to allow of their being deceived;
they had too firmly and definitely realized their political
aims; and the selfish designs of the Alcmseonidse had'only
served permanently to establish civil liberty. After the
failure of his personal designs, no place was left for Clisthenes in the state of the Athenians.
Meanwhile the dangers of war closed upon
Athens with an aspect more menacing than Cleomenes.
ever.- The whole military force of Peloponnesus was called out by the emissaries of Cleomenes, who
18*




418              History of Greece.        [BOOK II.
allowed nothing as to the object of his great armament to
be made public, but whose design was no other than to
take vengeance for the disgrace done to him at Athens,
and to establish Isagoras as despot. He led the great
army as far as the fields of Eleusis, while, in pursuance of
a common strategical plan, the Bceotians occupied the
places on their northern frontiers, and the Chalcidians
poured in from the East.
Their ispersal. Fortunately for the Athenians, Cleomenes
was not really in possession of the power
which he believed to be in his hands. The injustice and
dishonesty of his designs, his arrogance and secret longings
after tyrannical power, had called forth enmity and suspicion among the Spartans. At the head of his opponents stood Demaratus, who in the very camp openly
opposed his plans. Among the allies the Corinthians renounced obedience and refused to do military service, as
being free from any obligation to establish Tyrants at
Athens in order to gratify the whim of king Cleomenes.
Their reluctance against taking part in the war was
heightened by the fact that their most dangerous opponents in maritime power, the XEginetans, were involved in
hostilities with Athens; and the Corinthians had no
wish to aid them by joining in a war against the latter
city.
Thus the army of the vain-glorious king ingloriously
dispersed; and Sparta suffered a heavier discomfiture by
the event than if she had been conquered in open battle.
For her authority amongst the Hellenes had been damaged
by the arbitrary policy of her king, and the existence of
her federation was endangered. On the other hand, the
Athenian soldiers marched straight from the Eleusinian
battle-field, where the threatening force of their foes had
dissolved before their eyes, and with heightened courage against their other enemies. They invaded Boeotia,




CHP. II.]        History of Attica.            419
and succeeded in meeting and routing the Thebans, before the latter had united with the TRo^tnfthe
Chalcidians on the Euripus. Seven hundred
Thebans accompanied the Athenians in fetters, when they
on the same day crossed the sound of Euboea and defeated
the army of the Chalcidians, whose entire and Chalidians.
city fell into their hands.
The day of this double-victory heralded a new development of the Attic power. For the Athenians were not
content with the humiliation of their enemies, but drove
the city-nobility settled in Chalcis, the Hippobotse, out
of their lands; caused the country to be measured out
anew, and distributed it in equal lots among four thousand Athenians, who established themselves at Chalcis.
A new Athens, so to speak, was founded, which guarded
the important straits of the Euripus. Laden with rich
booty, the victorious army returned in triumph to Athens,
and from the tithes of the ransom-money received in exchange for the prisoners they erected the bronze four-horse
chariot at the entrance of the Acropolis, which in the days
of the party-conflicts, and in the hands of a tyrannical
military power had so long been a castle of oppression and
an enemy of their liberties. But now it lay in the midst
of the free city and the free citizens; it was restored to
the people as the public seat of their common sanctuaries,
as the centre of the civic festivals, where glorious monuments were erected of the new victories of the people
united in concord. Harmodius and Aristogiton, whose
deed was regarded as the first step towards liberty, were
celebrated as heroes of the city, and honored by statues on
the ascent to the citadel; and on the citadel itself every
reminiscence of the fallen dynasty was destroyed, and in
their place a column erected, which enumerated the
heavy oppressions of the Tyrants, laid a ban and curse for
all times upon them and theirs, and promised impunity
and public honors to him who would slay Hippias.




420               History of Greece.         [Book II.
No happier fortune could have befallen Athens than
that immediately after the fall of the Tyrants and the removal of the dangers occasioned by the treason of Isagoras and the ambitious designs of Cleomenes, the city was
kept in an uninterrupted state of tension by attacks from
without.  This was the most effective way to drag the
citizens out of the chaos of internal conflicts. Their civil
liberty and the independence of their state being simultaneously attacked, they learnt to recognize both possessions
as inseparably united, and to defend them as such. Accordingly, no event could have more effectively encouraged the advance of the greatness of the Athenians, than
the proceeding of the Spartans, when in violent displeasure at the course of events they undertook a new military
expedition.
This displeasure on their part was very
epartiondAthwen. natural. For in the first place they had
come to perceive clearly that they had
been deceived by the Pythia, and that it was the money
of the Alcmseonidse which had mixed them up in this
whole series of unprofitable disputes. Again, they were
unable to acquiesce in the humiliation which they had
suffered in the last campaigns, since all their undertakings
had met with a result totally opposed to their intentions.
Above all, the surprising rise of the city of Athens left
them no peace. Instead of the gratitude which they had
expected for liberating her from the Pisistratidse, their king
had been driven out in shame and disgrace. Their allies,
the Boeotians and Chalcidians, had remained unsupported
and been defeated, and the power of the Athenian state
had not only been confirmed and strengthened within, but
had even advanced beyond the limits of the country.
Even this the Spartans had against their will themselves occasioned. For in advising the Platcans to ally
themselves with Athens, they had no other intention but
that of provoking hostilities between the two most im



CHAP. II.].istory of Attica.            421
portant states on the other side of the Isthmus, of weakening the power of the latter, and thus finding an opportunity of extending their own influence. Instead of these
results, Athens had been benefited and advanced in power
and glory; she now had the position of a federal capital in
the valley of the Asopus; the first stone had been laid of
an Attic hegemony; and finally, Athens had even established a firm footing on Eubcea, and, according to the example of Sparta, assigned to her citizens land confiscated
beyond her own boundaries. All Hellas gazed with astonishment upon the good fortune of the Athenians, who, in
the consciousness of the victories achieved by them at
home and abroad, had no intention of standing still on
the path of fame. The oracles which Cleomenes had
brought to Sparta, with their prophecies of the increase
of Attic power, were now more than ever present to the
superstitious minds of the Spartans.
As they had succeeded so ill in their
-Hippias at Sparta.
previous undertakings, they now pursued
the contrary course. They remembered their ancient relations with the house of Pisistratus, which they bitterly
repented having ever broken through. They hastened to
send their herald to the Hellespont, where the exiled Hippias held court with his adherents. Soon afterwards the
Tyrant made his appearance at Sparta, where he was received as one under the protection of the state. No concealment was attempted of the intention to carry through
the return of the Pisistratidpe, as the only means of keeping down the dangerous advance of the Attic people. A
great Peloponnesian war was at hand.
M eanwhile Sparta, under the guidance of her passionate king Cleomenes, had forgotten that she was the head
of a free confederacy, and that her position as a federal
capital was based on the authority acquired by the state
of Lycurgus. But how could this authority continue, if
the Spartans persevered in their arbitrary conduct,




422              History of Greece.        [BooK II.
changing according to the dictates of passion? How
could trust be put in a state which had achieved greatness
as a declared foe of Tyrants, and was now desirous of
restoring a Tyrant polluted with the blood of his fellowcitizens, and expelled by Sparta herself?
It was a stormy assembly of the confederacy which
met (01. LXVIII. 4) at Sparta to decide upon
(. c. 505.) the restoration of the Pisistratidoe. The Spartans used all their endeavors to justify their
policy. They openly confessed their error, the burden of
which they shifted to the account of the deceitful Pythia,
and pointed to the disgrace which they had suffered as a
penalty of injured hospitality. This disgrace, they declared, rested simultaneously upon the whole confederacy.
Moreover, all were in equal danger, if Athens continued
her growth in unhindered arrogance. Hippias would
guarantee the humiliation of Athens, and her subordination under the leading city of the Peloponnesian confederacy.
The envoys listened in silence to the speech of the Spartans. None were convinced by its contents, but the Corinthian Sosicles alone ventured upon open contradiction.
He shamed the Spartans by proving the contrast between
their present plans and their whole previous history, and
recalled the memory of all the deeds of violence committed by the despots in his own native city. Though
Hippias himself spoke in the assembly, in order to point
out the dangers with which Attic democracy threatened
all the rest of Greece, it was all in vain. The truth of
what Sosicles had expressed was too palpable; the Peloponnesian states were unwilling to sacrifice themselves
forthe injured honor of Cleomenes. The assembly was
dissolved after an open refusal to join in any military enterprise; the disappointed Hippias returned to Sigeum,
and Sparta, after this fresh discomfiture, retired in deep




CHAP. II.]       History of Attica.            423
wrath from all participation in the common affairs of the
confederacy.
The danger of a Peloponnesian war was averted, but
even now Athens could not give herself up to the feeling
of a calm security. Not only were her ancient foes,
Thebes and iEgina, lying in wait to fall upon her both by
land and sea, but a new attack was threatened from the
farther shore. The power of Hippias was not yet at an
end. IHe had only declined the hospitable reception offered to him in Macedonia and Thessaly, because he had
a better prospect in Asia Minor of causing a new attack
upon Athens. Artaphernes already felt himself to have
been offended by the Athenians, because they had annulled
the treaty after it had been concluded with him, and
proudly refused to acknowledge the Persian supremacy.
Hippias busily fostered this sentiment of ill-will, and
when the Athenians, who had been informed of his intrigues, endeavored to counteract them by a new embassy,
the latter brought home nothing but the command of the
Satrap to receive back Hippias. In spite of all threats,
the citizens remained firm, and were not afraid to add
the Persian empire to the list of their acknowledged adversaries.
These were the events of the five impor- The inner strength
tant years which followed upon the fall and regeneration of
of the Tyrannical power and decided the Athens
whole history of Athens. While she was liberated under
the influence of foreign arms, and afterwards cast from
one revolution into another, she ripened into an independent citizen-state;  deserted by all, hard pressed by
troubles of war which endangered her very existence, she
advanced in a rapidly progressing internal development to
a clear consciousness of'her historic mission, and with a
firm step took up her new position, in which she firmly
confronted the powers of both Greek and foreign lands.
This admirable bearing of the Athenians is only to be




424               History of Greece.         [Boox II.
accounted for by the laws of Solon, which through all the
troubles of the times had with invisible force educated
the Athenians to a free citizenship, resting on the foundations of morality. Under the intelligent rule of Pisistratus these laws had been the defence of the state; the
reverence paid to them by the Tyrant had increased their
authority; in the happy years of peace the people had
grown accustomed to them, though all the better-educated
assuredly felt that they could not be fully realized as long
as a despot, surrounded by foreign troops, dwelt on the citadel and governed the state in the interests of a dynastic
policy, wise and temperate indeed, but still selfish in its
aims.
But after the assassination of Hipparchus the tyrannical rule had rested with all its weight upon the Athenians. Liberty of speech was taken from them, and the
public exercise of the laws abolished; women's honor,
men's property and life, were in the hands of a despot's
arbitrary will, who founded his dominion on the worst
class of society, and suspiciously watched over the life of
the community by means of his spies. Then arose a deep
longing after the constitution of Solon, the full blessings
of which only became apparent to the citizens in this
school of suffering. When, accordingly the ban was
broken which had bound them, they of one accord struggled towards the attainment of the one end, that of entirely and permanently securing to themselves those blessings. The base treason of Isagoras heightened the indignation against every tyrannical design, and as at that time
in all states a deep unwillingness to permit the restoration
of tyrannical rule manifested itself, so above all did it
prevail among the Athenians, who had drunk the bitter
cup of party-rule to the dregs. But the good fortune of
the Athenians consisted in this, that instead of their pursuing an uncertain and formless idea of liberty, the liberty
they desired was contained in their ancient and legally




CHAP. II.]        History of Attica.            425
established constitution. Therefore Clisthenes could have
taken no more effective steps for promoting the future
welfare of the state, than by fully realizing this constitution, though by thus acting he deprived his personal ambition of every chance of success.
With the spirit and objects of this constitution the
Athenians had long been familiar; and thus the phases
of its development quietly succeeded one another. On the
other hand, the perfect realization of the constitution was
so new a thing, that with it a new epoch commenced, a
new advance and regeneration of the entire state.
Now at length the Athenians were in pos- The realization
session of that which Solon had intended of the ideal of
Solon.
them to possess. The state was a community of citizens, among whom no single family or class
could assert particular rights and powers. All the citizens were equal before the law; each The positions, rights,
possessed together with his civic fran- and obligations of an..  1.,  > > 1. 1,.  1  1 1 Athenian citizen.
chise the right of freely holding landed 
property, while every non-citizen, however long he and
his family might have dwelt in Attica, remained nothing
but a tenant; every one had the right of free speech before the law-courts, and in the assembled council of the
people. Public law-courts protected every citizen against
arbitrary acts on the part of official persons; his personal
liberty was guaranteed by his being able by means of bail
to avoid imprisonment while an inquiry was pending. All
shared in the property and the rights of sovereignty belonging to the state; the revenues of the state-domains,
as, e. g. the mines, were distributed among the citizens;
arbitrary taxation was impossible. A fundamental safeguard of the constitution lay in the rule, that no law
might ever be promulgated relating to a single individual
without being equally valid for all citizens; for such
private laws had secured to single families those privileges
by which the Tyrants had been able to support their




426               History of Greece.        [Boos II.
power. Accordingly, the sole exception to this fundamental law was made to serve as a protection against tyrannical power. For the state required means of legally
removing persons, who by an excess of influence and adherents virtually put an end to the equality among the
citizens established by law, and thus threatened the state
with a revival of party-rule.
Ostracism. For this purpose, in the days of Clisthenes,
and probably under his influence, the institution
of Ostracism, or judgment by potsherds, was established.
By virtue of it the people were themselves to protect civic
equality, and by a public vote remove from among them
whoever seemed dangerous to them.    For such a sentence, however, besides a public preliminary discussion,
the unanimous vote of six thousand citizens was required.
The honor and property of the exile remained untouched,
and the banishment itself was only pronounced for
a term  of ten years. It was endeavored to carry out
as gently as possible a measure which seemed unavoidable
as a protection against revolution and party-rule.
But though the equality of the citizens was a fundamental law, yet this equality was anything but indiscriminate.
Solon, it must be remembered, had made justice the basis
of the state,-justice, whose essence consists in a distribution of rights according to an equable proportion. Each
citizen had so ample a share of rights, that his nearest and
highest interests attached him to the state, but an immediate participation in the government was reserved to those
whose larger amount of landed property enabled them to
acquire a higher culture, and to have free leisure to serve
the state, and, when it was necessary, to bring the greatest
sacrifices to bear in favor of the fatherland.
Noble descent brought with it no civic rights, and since
Clisthenes the corporations and clans of the nobility stood
in no connection with the political divisions of the state.
But they remained undisturbed in their existing relations




CHAP. II.]       History of Attica.            427
of religion and family law. Their members continued to
assemble for their family sacrifices; they might supplement
their numbers by means of adoption, and the peculiar
authority enjoyed by those belonging to ancient families
(provided that by their personal merits they did honor to
their ancestors) long continued to exist at Athens. The
Archons, generals, and ambassadors were by preference
chosen out of their number; and we find few traces of a
hatred of the commons against the nobility.
Altogether the people, notwithstanding all innovations,
retained a loyal devotion to what was ancient. This
loyalty was nourished by religion, which supported the
authority of the priestly families, in whose hands remained
the exercise of the most sacred usages. As heretofore, it
was a lady of the race of the Butadse who administered
the priestly office of the city-goddess; to the ancient family
of the Praxiergidve was left the cleansing of the sacred
figure, as a privilege of honor, on the festival of the Plynteria; and once in every month the serpent of the citadel
received the honey-cake, in order that the personal presence
of the city-goddess and her foster-son Erichthonius might
be safely ascertained. Thus religion united the younger
generations with the past and the new citizens with the
ancient body; preserved the reminiscences of the pre-historic age green, and guarded the foundations of the welfare of Attica-husbandry and the culture of trees. For
this reason the sacred plough of Athene was preserved on
the citadel as a palladium of the city under the guardianship of the Buzygoe; and no Panathensean festival was
without the presence of the Thallophori, ancient worthy
farmers of Attica, who, in honor of the national goddess,
bore olive branches in her festive procession.
Birth, rank, and wealth the Athenians knew how to
honor; but authority in the state was solely dependent on
personal qualifications; and since the common patriotism
of the people had removed the dangers threatening their




428               History of Greece.         [BOOK II.
liberty, the idea of Solon, that all the members of the
state had equally a share in it, at first became a fact.
The sagacity of Pisistratus had aimed at making the people contented, spreading a comfortable state of prosperity
and increasing the sources of commercial and industrial
gain. He could not desire that all should too eagerly
occupy themselves with public affairs. Accordingly, as
was generally the case in oligarchies, he had diminished
Character of the the population of the city. In proportionAthenian state ately greater. numbers after the liberation
and its citizens.
the people streamed back into the city, the
market was full of new life, every one felt it his duty to
be personally near to the fatherland in the season of danger; every one was animated by the feeling that it was
incumbent on himself personally to advance the welfare
of the whole, and that by his conduct he was either conferring honor or bringing disgrace upon the state. Good
conduct became a point of honor in proportion as the enemies lay jealously in wait, and desired nothing more
eagerly than to see an outbreak of wild disorder in Athens.
Thus the whole people grew to be one with the state and
its constitution, and the more this constitution was pervaded by a moral purpose, claiming the exertion of all a
man's powers and demanding from him fidelity, justice,
love of truth, and readiness for self-sacrifice, the more the
popular devotion to the state elevated and ennobled the
people itself.
Herein lay the electric force which in the year of the
Liberation ran through the Attic people and called forth
in it so heightened a vitality and so active an energy that
all Greece marvelled at the progress of this people of citizens. That the great victories of the Athenians were not
the consequences of a half-conscious agitation, but the
results of a healthy development which, after a long
period of suppression, had at last found its natural course,
is proved by the lasting endurance of the national pro



CHAP. II.]        History of Attica.            429
gress. Assuredly, among the Athenians also there would
have ensued a time of relaxed vigor and exhaustion, and
perhaps also of fresh party-feuds, had an apparently
favorable fortune permitted them tranquilly and securely
to enjoy the advantages they had gained. Instead of this
they had constantly to maintain an anxious watch, and to
stand on guard with sword and lance to defend their
acquisitions. And the knowledge of the justice of their
cause which they upheld against the preposterous claims
of the barbarians, the faithless policy of Sparta, and the
envious jealousy of their neighbors, gave them their firm
courage and moral force, and heightened their joyous
appreciation of the rights they had honorably won.
They had given brilliant proofs of the fact that the
power of their state lay in popular liberty, and though the
opposite party had not disappeared from the state, though
it continued to regard Athenian democracy as an evil,
though the bitterness of its opposition had only been increased by the violent innovations of Clisthenes; yet from
henceforth the cause of popular liberty was to such a
degree identified with the greatness of the state that its
adversaries were obliged to attack the latter when they
attacked the former, and for the sake of their own party
to attempt to bring Athens back to a condition of weakness and dependence.
Such was the state of Athens at the end of the sixth
century. A thoroughly new and peculiar character had
developed itself out of that belonging to the Ionic race.
The main features indeed had remained the same; above
all, a lively receptivity of mind for everything beautiful
and useful, a delight in suggestive intercourse, a manysidedness of life and culture, a flexibility and presence of
mind under the most various circumstances. Outwardly,
too, the Athenians resembled the brethren of their race
in Asia Minor. From the days of Theseus they wore the
long linen robes of many folds; they were fond of purple




430               History of Greece.        [BooK IL
garments and an artificial fashion of wearing the hair,
which they plaited on the forehead and fastened with a
golden brooch. But from the excesses of a thoughtless
and wanton love of luxury the national manners of
Attica succeeded in keeping themselves free; in Attica
sturdier and healthier habits of life maintained themselves, founded on husbandry and honest domesticity.
Just as the language of the Athenians was more vigorous
and terse than the lax dialect of the New-Ionians, so
their whole mental character evidenced a stronger tension, due to the state which gathered the manifold and
discursive tendencies of the Ionic race round a fixed
centre, and gave a higher significance to its rich natural
gifts. The discipline of the state converted Ionians into
Athenians; and since in no country inhabited by Ionians
a similar political life had been realized, Athens was also
the only state equally matched against Dorian Sparta, to
whom the whole nature of Athens forbade her subordinating herself.
Retrogression of  Meanwhile, in the same years during
the influence of which Athens had so rapidly and happily
Sparta.      established her civil liberty, her independence, and her power, Sparta had decidedly gone back.
She had fought against Athens without either success or
honor, had become untrue to herself, and by a fatal
oscillation forfeited the authority which she could only
maintain among the members of her own confederacy as
long as she pursued a definite and consistent policy.
War between Athens and Sparta was an acknowledged
fact. Sparta refused to suffer any independent state to
exist by her side; but for the moment she was enfeebled,
and sullenly awaited a favorable opportunity, while the
Athenians, conscious of desiring nothing beyond the preservation of what they had honorably won, in serene
courage and tranquil confidence in the gods, went onward
to meet their future.




CHAP. II.]         History of Attica.             431
By the side of these two states, Corinth and Attitude of
Thebes occupied a position of secondary promi- Thebes and
nence. Thebes was anxious for nothing but the  Corinth
confirmation of her territorial supremacy, and remained
without any influence on general affairs. Corinth, on the
other hand, endowed with ample worldly wisdom, was
able, in accordance with her local situation, to acquire an
important position between the northern and southern
states. Driven by commercial jealousy against Egina to
the side of Athens, C9rinth essentially contributed to
prevent Sparta's hostile intentions, and to found the greatness of the Athenians. She represented with clear consciousness, against Sparta and Thebes, the policy of the
second-rate states, which, by the side of the three capitals
of Greece, standing forth with superior claims of political
power, demanded for themselves and their fellows undisturbed freedom of action.




CHAPTER III.
THE HELLENES BEYOND THE ARCHIPELAGO.
IN consequence of the great migrations the Archipelago had been completely converted into a Greek
inland sea, and the Hellas on either side combined anew
to co-operate in a common history, the progress of which
only becomes intelligible if we take a survey of both the
coasts.
The Archipelago is a sea to which naCharacter of the
Archipelago.  ture has given boundaries, and whose
climate and vegetation make it a united
whole. It is defined with equal clearness by the Thracian
lands to the north and by the Cretan group of islands to
the south. The outlets out of this watery domain have
moreover been rendered difficult on either side by nature,
on the one hand by the violent current which opposes the
entrance of vessels into the Hellespont, and on the other
by the storms which blow round the southern promontories of the Morea, and frighten the iEgean mariner off
the Western Sea, where there are no islands to afford him
a refuge. "After thou hast sailed round Malea, forget
what thou hast left at home," was an ancient saying in
sailors' mouths, which proves how uneasy the Hellene felt
beyond the limits of his island-sea.
Yet the history of the Hellenes was not confined
within these natural boundaries. Their spirit of enterprise was rather excited than satisfied by the changes of
settlement and foundations of cities, and the impulse to
draw the remoter shores also with their unknown inhabitants into the circle of Hellenic intercourse,refused to be
432




CHAP. III.]  The Hellenes beyond the Archipelago.  433
kept back by any dangers from essaying the paths opening out of the native waters of Hellas to the north and
to the south.
Especially in Asia Minor this impulse
strongly manifested itself. Here, it will of Asia Mtinor
be remembered, Hellenic navigation had
made its first advances; here sea-going tribes from every
shore had subsequently met, and one had communicated
to the other its peculiar knowledge of strange seas and
nations, and its nautical experiences and inventions.
Ships' crews had founded the cities, and the extraordinary success of this colonization necessarily tempted to
more extensive operations.  Generally speaking, it is
colonies which are principally induced to found new
colonies. In them the citizens have less firmly taken root
than in the ancient home; and in them the desire for
migration descends from father to son. Lastly, the population had most rapidly increased on the Ionian coast;
and since there was no space left, over which to spread
either on the coast within the dense succession of towns,
or inland, this very condition of things impelled the inhabitants, as it had once impelled the Phoenicians, to go
out on ship-board in search of new places of settlement.
But these relations were not the same in the case of all
the towns of the coast of Asia Minor. For the AEolians,
who together with the Achseans had colonized the Trojan
peninsula, and settled on the shores and islands round the
Adramytic gulf, remained for the most part husbandmen;
the islanders also founded their towns on the neighboring
mainland. The eyes of the JEolians were chiefly directed
inland, where Dardanian families had remained established on the Ida range. Here a kind of epilogue to the
Trojan war was played for centuries; and not merely in
order to protect their cities lying beneath, but also in
order to acquire new territory, they advanced their settlements farther and farther into the woods and pastures of
19




434              History of Greece.        [BOOK Ir.
the Ida mountains. Moreover, the extraordinary fertility
of the Mysian lands attracted the inhabitants of the coast
also to devote less care to navigation, similarly to what
was the case in Elis. Thus it came to pass that it could
be said of the,Eolians at Cyme, that they had dwelt for
centuries in their city, without ever finding out that it lay
on the sea.
Thus the JEolians were here, as in Boeotia, ridiculed by their Ionian neighbors on account of
their rustic simplicity. But not even all the Ionian
twelve-cities were in an equal measure devoted to navigation. Ephesus, e. g., the most ancient of the whole number, like the AEolians, directed its attention inland. This
tendency in Ephesus had, in the first instance, been occasioned by its foundation, inasmuch as a large quantity of
Arcadian population had immigrated here, who brought
with them a preference for agricultural pursuits; and
furthermore the citizens were attracted by the delightful
valley of the Cayster, of which they boldly managed to
appropriate a large portion at the expense of the Lydians.
They acquired an extensive and rich territory in the rear
of their city, and accordingly, although they did not become utter strangers to the sea, they were yet contented
with the profits of trade in goods and of the large influx
of strangers, for which their town was so admirably situated. There was no occasion for emigration out of their
fair land.
Colophon.  Colophon, too, where the descendants of chivalrous Nestor had founded the state, became
no mere maritime town; but the breeding of horses, and
an aristocracy established on the basis of landed property,
maintained themselves in authority, and balanced the
population of mariners. On the other hand it was in the
remaining towns, the dense succession of places on the peninsula of the Mimas-range, and above all in the two
border-towns of New-Ionia, on the extreme south and at




CHAP. III]  The Hellenes beyond the Archipelago.  435
the extreme north, in Miletus and Phocsea, that commerce
and navigation led to a grand system of colonization.
Miletus, with her four harbors, had been the Miletu.
earliest anchorage on the entire coast. Phoenicians, Cretans, and Carians, had inaugurated her worldwide importance, and Attic families, endowed with eminent energy, had founded the city anew. True, Miletus
also had a rich territory of her own in her rear, viz., the
broad valley of the Mseander, where among other rural
pursuits particularly the breeding of sheep flourished.
Miletus became the principal market for the finer sorts of
wool; and the manufacture of this article into variegated
tapestry and colored stuffs for clothing, employed a large
multitude of human beings. But this industry also continued in an increasing measure to demand importation
from without, of all kinds of materials of art, articles of
food, and slaves. In no city was agriculture made a consideration so secondary to industry and trade as here. At
Miletus, the maritime trade even came to form a particular party among the citizens, theso-called Aeinautce, the
"men never off the water;" these were composed of the
capitalists or shipowners, whose ships were their homes to
such an extent, that they even held their meetings and
party-councils on board their ships in the offing.
The new epoch in the Ionic coloniza- I.
Ionio colonization.
tion of remoter shores of the sea is most
intimately connected with the internal system of the states.
Originally the inhabitants of the Asiatic coasts had, in
part willingly and in part unwillingly, accompanied the
Phoenicians on their maritime expeditions, and been taken
by them into remote regions. Afterwards, the Carians
had on their own account swarmed hither and thither as
unrestrained freebooters, until they became the subjects of
the Cretans, and joined the migratory expeditions of the
latter. Henceforth, the Greek coast-towns became the
centres of navigation; colonization was systematically




436               History of Greece.        [BOOK II.
carried on as a state concern of each city, and thus definite and lasting results were achieved. The various cities
according to their situation chose their particular commercial routes; the various parts of the sea, as well as the
many different populations which were to be traded with,
demanded a special school of experience and practice;
and moreover, after the example of the maritime policy
of the Phoenicians, the single trading cities endeavored
to keep their particular routes free from any foreign interference. Thus, as it were, particular grooves of navigation were formed in the sea, leading across from one commercial place to the other. It was as if one could start
from no port besides Miletus in order to proceed to Sinope, and from Phocsea alone in order to reach Massilia.
At first, temporary fairs on the coast were held; then
places on the opposite shore were purchased by treaty
from the inhabitants; fixed market-places with storehouses were erected, and agents of the mercantile houses
established in them, who superintended the landing and
sale of the goods, and remained out even during the pauses
of navigation. Some of these stations were subsequently
relinquished.  Others, the situation of which proved
favorable on account of mercantile advantages, or the excellence of climate or water, were kept up and enlarged;
finally, a depot of wares grew into an independent tradingplace, a Hellenic community, and an antitype of the
mother-city.
These interests became more and more the leading interests of the towns. They cannot but have been discussed at the common diets of the Ionians, on which occasions disturbing grounds of discord were as much as possible removed, and common undertakings resolved upon.
The lesser towns united their fortunes with those of the
greater; occasionally the colonies of one maritime city
acknowledged the protection of another; and cities like
Miletus became the starting-points of important under



CuAP. III.]  The HIellenes beyond the Archipelago.  437
takings, not only for their own citizens, but also for the
neighboring towns.
As to the direction of colonization, the merThe Pontus.
cantile populations enter upon new paths; they
seek to open a commercial intercourse with countries still
in a primitive condition and possessing their native products in virgin abundance, with countries the inhabitants
of which have no notion of the commercial value of their
own treasures. For with such the most important articles
may be exchanged and purchased at the cheapest rate,
and the mercantile cities can turn the products of their
own industry to the most advantageous account. Accordingly the Ionians deserted the narrow territory of the
coasts of the Archipelago, and sailed out into the world
of the Barbarians, stretching in an endless vista to the
north.
It is true that even here the Hellenes were in no instance the first pioneers, and only sailed in the wake of
earlier maritime nations. For the south-eastern border
of the Black Sea is that shore on which the empires of the
East earliest advanced into the passages of European
waters, where Assyrian and Indian wares were brought
down from Armenia in caravans to the shore, while at the
same time in the neighboring mountains the treasures of
precious metals lay concealed, which the Phasis washed
down and which covered with a layer of glittering gold
the fleeces laid into the water of the river. Of all navigators, the Phoenicians were the first to reap a harvest of
these treasures; the Phoenician Phineus pointed the way
into the gold-fields of the north. Astyra, the Astra.
city of Astor or Astarte, Lampsacus (Lampsak), the town "at the ford," are the Phoeni- Lamp8aOu
cian stations on the straits of the Dardanelles; in Pronectus, on the Sea of Marmora, and along the whole southern
coast of the Black Sea, traces are discoverable of PhcenicoAssyrian forms of religious worship, which attest the close




438              History of Greece.        [BooK II.
connection between the maritime and inland nations of. Asia. Sinope was a foundation of the Assyrians.
From the Phoenicians their inseparable companions by the sea, the Carians, had acquired the knowledge
of these routes; and the ancients were acquainted with
Carian settlements which had advanced as far as the sea
of Asow. But in the midst of the Carian population the
Milesians had built their city, and acquired the experience
of the sea and industry characteristic of the earlier inhabitants. After the Phoenicians had been driven out of the
Archipelago, they were at the same time cut off from the
northern waters connected with it. Thus a wide and large
domain was here opened to the Greeks, which had simultaneously with the Archipelago, as it were, fallen to them
as an inheritance. As soon then as the new cities had
firmly established themselves, and the younger settlers
had blended with the earlier inhabitants of the coasts, the
ancient expeditions to the north were re-commenced, no
longer after the uncertain manner of the Carians, but
conducted by Hellenic intelligence and energy. As soon
as the sea was tranquillized, a new intercourse was opened
with the mercantile families of Phoenician and Carian descent, which had remained behind in the northern places
of trade; and in consequence of this intercourse the Milesians, during the eighth century, made their first attempts
to draw the coast land of the Pontus, by means of permanent settlements, into the circle of Greek civilization.
The Helespont.  On the Hellespont they secured the
Phoenician ports, whose safe bays were proportionately important to them, as within the current of
the Dardanelles not even a double anchor was strong
Abyd. enough to secure a vessel. Abydus became the
Abydus.
staple-place of the southern and northern waters;
here the vessels could be re-loaded, especially when during
stormy weather the corn had become wet in the hold.
Beyond the narrow straits they adhered to the east side,




CHAP. III.]  The Hellenes beyond the Archipelago.  439
and on the isthmus of the projecting peninsula founded
Cyzicus, incomparably well situated for the com- 
Cyzicus.
mand of the sea, which now takes its name from
its glittering marble islands (Marmora). The ancients regarded it as a mere outer court of the Pontus, which opens
like an ocean beyond the narrow cleft between the rocks
of the Bosporus.
This watery desert, relieved by no islands,
terrified the Greek mariner, and none ventured ThPe ontio
in without having at the entrance offered up
prayers and sacrifices to Zeus O'pwoc. Here the mariner
seemed to bid farewell to his home, in order to enter into
a new and strange world. For compared with the skies
of the Archipelago, those of the Pontus are heavy and
dull, and the atmosphere dense and oppressive; wind and
current are subject to different laws. The shores are for
the most part devoid of harbors, low, and abounding in
morasses. Hence arise the strong exhalations, which, in
the shape of heavy masses of mist, cast themselves now on
the one and now on the other coast. To these were added
the phenomena of wintry scenery, the impressions created
by countries lying unprotected and exposed to all the
northerly storms of the Russian Steppes, where broad
rivers and large portions of the surface of the sea are
frozen under solid coverings of ice, and the inhabitants
cover themselves up to the face with skins and thick
woollen stuffs, where flourish none of the plants inseparably associated with the culture and religion of the Hellenes, where, in fine, life in the open air and under the
sun, on city wrestling-grounds and open market-places,
was impossible. We may understand how ill at ease even
the most adventurous Ionian must have felt in countries
and among human beings of this description.
On the other hand, both land and water, as soon as the
first terrors had been overcome, could not but exercise a
great attraction. For here men gradually found a com



440              History of Greece.         [BOOK IL
bination of all things which the mother-country lacked.
Instead of the narrow corn-field between the mountains at
home, here endless plains stretched from the coast deep
into the interior, and through them flowed mighty streams,
which break through the granite ridges of the interior, and
then with moderated force debouch in deep beds as broad
and navigable rivers. And the wide and open tracts by
the coast presented a view of corn-fields such as had never
before been vouchsafed to Hellenic eyes. From the interior to the shore came the flocks and herds, whose inexhaustible numbers enabled the nomads to supply wool and
skins in as large a quantity as the foreign merchants required. Vast primitive forests covered an extensive part
of the shores of the Pontus, and furnished oaks, elms, and
ash trees for ship-building.
But no advantage offered itself to the Ionians at an
earlier date, than the profits of fisheries. It is highly
probable that the dense swarms of tunny-fish which arrive
in the Bosporus in spring on their way from the Pontus,
gave the chief impulse towards the exploration of the
source of this abundant blessing, by means of longer expeditions by sea. It was for this reason also, that the
voyages of discovery of the Phoenicians and Greeks first
took an eastward direction. For the swarms proved to
come down from the sea of Asow, consisting at first of
quite small fish, which, afterwards, drifting along the east
and south coast, gradually increase in size, and towards
the centre of the south coast are already well worth catching. In order to make sure of these swarms, stations and
towers for watchers were established along the coast; the
fish were dried on the shore in boats used for this special
purpose, then packed up, and so brought on the markets
of the towns of Syria and Asia Minor, where the common
people lived chiefly on the fish of the Pontus. As fishermen, the Ionians became acquainted with the Northern
Sea, and then extended their trade to other objects. The




CHAP. III.]  The Hellenes beyond the Archipelago.  441
warlike tribes of the Caucasus brought captives to the
shore to sell them to the men on the ships. The latter
were also laden with corn, which, as was found, could be
more easily preserved sound in the cold north than in the
south. Farther favorite productions of the Pontus were
leather, pitch, wax, honey, and flax; and trade acquired
a new and unexpected charm when the first golden ornaments were found among the natives, and farther inquiries
incontestably confirmed the fact, that in the mountains to
the North of the Pontus, far greater treasures of gold
were to be discovered than at Colchis.
The tribes which dwelt around this wide sea, the extent
of which is so great, that Hellas from Olympus to Cape
Tsenarum could find room within the circumference of its
shores, were of very different kinds. On the east side, where
the Caucasus stretches as far as the sea, the Greeks came
into contact with peoples who were all the more dangerous
in that they practised navigation themselves, and who in
their light barks hastened out from their lairs to kidnap
men and women and plunder merchant-vessels. A yet
more evilly-disposed nation was that of the The Taurian.
Taurians, dwelling in the south of the
Crimea, who, forced by the pressure of surrounding tribes
to huddle together in a narrow mountain-land, endeavored
here with embittered obstinacy to defend their independence, and to ward off suspiciously every overture of intercourse from without. The craggy and precipitous
promontories of the Taurian land, the frequent occurrence
of shipwrecks there, and the wretched fate of mariners
who had been wrecked, contributed to attach to this country an especially evil notoriety.
But the greatest nation of all those The Scythians
dwelling on the Black Sea was that of the
Scythians, as the Greeks called them, or, according to
their native appellation, the Scolotes, and according to
that given them by the Persians, the Sacse. They con19*




442               History of Greece.         [Boor II.
sisted of countless masses of population, which, like a
dark background, bounded the known world in the north
from the Danube to the Don, divided into many tribes,
and yet forming one vast body, the individual members
of which could scarcely be distinguished from one another.
They were fleshy, smooth-haired, beardless men, whose
home was on the Steppes, who were inseparable from their
horses, which enabled them to support life, who fought on
horseback as bowmen, and in dense swarms appeared
and vanished with equal suddenness. At the time of
their immigration out of the interior of Asia they had
partly driven the earlier dwellers near the Pontus into
the mountains, as e. g. the Taurians, partly made them
their subjects and tributaries, as in the case of the agricultural tribes, which probably belong to the Slavonic
family of peoples. Thus they were the ruling people on
the entire table-land of Eastern Europe, as far as the
commercial communications of the Greeks reached. But
at this period they were not an enterprising, pushing, and
warlike nation, but good-humored and contented. Wandering about as nomads, from place to place, with their
felt tents and flocks and herds, they had proportionately
little care for the possession of the soil, especially on the
coast, and offered no lasting resistance to the settlements
there. They showed themselves inclined for peaceful intercourse, and readily supplied the desired products for
the market on the coast. They even showed some degree
of receptivity for Greek culture; they became under
Greek influence settlers and cultivators of corn, and were
supplied with all kinds of produce from the Greek manufactories, particularly with stuffs and cloths, which were
there fabricated according to the necessities of the people
and the climate.
The colonizing  Several cities of Ionia were engaged in
activity of Mi- trade with the Pontus. The Clazomenians
letus.      established, tunny-fisheries on the Sea of




CHAP. III.  The Hellenes beyond the Archipelago.  443
Asow; citizens of Teos dwelt on the Cimmerian Bosporus; and bold mariners of Phocsea settled on the Hellespont, as well as on the south coast of the Pontus. But it
was the Milesians, who, if they were not the first among
the Hellenes to undertake expeditions into the Pontus, at
all events first conceived the thought of a colonization of
its shores in a connected and comprehensive sense; they
contrived to make their city the centre of all undertakings in that direction, and bestowed a real importance
upon all the previous settlements there, by including
them in the vast circle of coast-towns which according to
a steadily progressive design they founded along the coast
of the Black Sea.
The enterprises of the Milesians to a large extent followed in the track of the earlier history of the Pontus.
Thus Sinope, the ancient Assyrian port situate in the middle of the south coast, not far from the mouth of the
Halys, was the first point at which Milesians founded a
permanent settlement on the Black Sea. The date of this
settlement was circ., 785 B. c., and it doubtless
originated in a treaty with the Assyrian power, Si78np 
which deemed it necessary for its own ends to
favor the foreign merchants. Nor could the latter have
found any shore more advantageous for their purposes.
Here they had tunny-fisheries at first hand; here they
found a mild climate peculiarly adapted for the cultivation of the olive, and a well-wooded mountain-country
which at the same time abounded in metals, and had long
been familiar with the working of iron and steel. The
trade with the Chalcidians, Cappadocians, Paphlagonians,
and Phrygians accordingly offered copious sources of
wealth; and from here came a large number of slaves,
who were sold into the Greek towns. Finally, a prominent article of commerce was the ruddle, or red-lead,
which only occurred in a few localities, and yet was an
indispensable necessary for the Hellenic world, being




444              History of Greece.        [BOOK II.
everywhere used as a coloring-matter for drawing, writing,
and painting walls, and at the same time popular as a
medicine.
Sinope and Cyzicus are the most ancient among the colonies of Miletus; their establishment secured to the Milesians the supremacy in both the northern seas at once;
and they were at the same time the cities which above all
others attained to an importance and developed a history
of their own. For as early as 700 B. c. circ. the marbleisland of Proconnesus was occupied from Cyzicus, and at
the same time the entrance to the Dardanelles secured to
Milesian commerce by fortified places, such as Abydus,
Lampsacus, and Parium. And Sinope became the starting-point for the colonization of the whole south coast of
the Pontus, and attained so rapidly to prosperity, that
as early as the middle of the eighth century she
could found Trapezus on the route to the shores
of Colchis.
After Greek commerce had suffered a violent interruption by the violent agitations among the Cimmerian peoples, Sinope was, about 150 years after its first foundation,
founded anew by Miletus, and at the same time the western and northern shores were provided with permanent
settlements. In the west the broad mouths of the rivers
had always exercised an especial attraction on Ionian industry. Their broad passages facilitated intercourse with
the inland districts, the alluvial soil offered the most
abundant harvests, and the long stretches of low country
by the sea were full of vast and tranquil inland lakes, preeminently adapted for fisheries. For, since the boats could
be transported across the narrow strips of sand, this particular coast-formation harmonized far better with ancient
navigation than with that of our own days.
Istrus.  Thus there arose to the north of the Thracian
coast Istrus in the delta of the Danube; Tyras in
yras. the rich liman of the Dniester, near the modern




CRAP. III.]  The Hellenes beyond the Archipelago.  445
Akkerman; Odessus, or Ordessus, in the liman of the
Teligul (it is significant that it is precisely for these large
bays of the Pontus that the Greek term At/ipv, i. e,
harbor, has preserved itself in the barbarous tongues of
the country); and, lastly, Olbia in the northern
corner of the Western Pontus, where the Bug
(Hypanis) and the Dnieper (Borysthenes) debouch into
the sea near one another. Next to the Nile, the ancients
held the Borysthenes to be the most productive of rivers;
his corn-fields and pastures to be the most luxuriant, his
waters the purest, and his fish the most excellent for the
table. Higher up the river dwelt agricultural tribes,
under the supreme sovereignty of the Scythians; and
these tribes sought the protection of the Hellenes, and
were more than any others inclined to conclude advantageous treaties with them. Hence Olbia, "the city of
wealth," attained to a secure condition of prosperity
before all the other towns of the coast.
Next advances were made with increasing boldness into
the districts to the north. After conquering their fear of
the cliffs along the Taurian coasts, Hellenes sought the
east coast of the Crimea; and after severe conflicts and
many struggles, at last, in the seventh century, were able
to found the Greek towns which attained to real prosperity in the course of the seventh. Where the Crimea
projects as a broad tongue ot land towards the mainland
on the east arose Theodosia, and close by Theodosia.
the sound of the northernmost straits Panticapseum (Kertsch), with its strong citadel, Panticaprum.
surrounded by a wide extent of the most fertile corn-land,
under the favor of the Milesian Apollo and Demeter the
lawgiver, as the Hellenic capital of the whole country of
the Bosporus.
From here the Hellenes penetrated farther through the
portals of the most remote of the northern seas, which
the Milesians regarded as the original source of the whole




446               History of Greece.         [BOOK II.
masses of water flowing out to the south, and named after
the Scythian tribe of the Maeots. Here the entire host
of terrors and difficulties culminated. Incomparably
more savage tribes lived on the north side of the sea,
devoid of harbors, and on the opposite side hordes of
Sarmatic horsemen, whose increasing love of feuds involved them in constant war with their neighbors. And
the Milesians, notwithstanding, advanced into the shallow
northern waters, the extent of which they at first thought
to equal that of the Pontus, and established themselves
in the delta of the Tanais (Don), whose debouchure at that time separated itself into two arms.
The town of Tanais in its turn built Nauaris and Exopolis, as inland trading-stations among the Cossacks of
the Don.
Opposite Panticapseum stretches the peninsula of
Taman, entirely composed of the deposits of the Cuban
(Hypanis), a country manifoldly intersected by arms of
rivers, lakes, and bays. Here, at the front border of the
peninsula, close by the Bosporus, was built, in a position
inaccessible to the steppe-tribes in the rear,
Phanagoria.
Phanagoria, a sea and lagune-town which, together with the sister-city opposite, converted the Cimmerian Bosporus into Greek straits.
Lastly, the civilization of the Pontus, conducted from
Miletus, had to solve problems of vast importance and
difficulty on the mountainous eastern shore, the regions
of the Caucasus. These mountain-districts have always
been inhabited by tribes which have defended their
liberty with savage exasperation against all attacks, and
known how to employ the iron of their mountains for the
purpose of military ornaments and weapons. In order
to make the sea secure, the Hellenes had to drive the
Caucasians back from the coast; and their colonies there
could not be better situated than in the territory near the
river-shed of the Phasis, the Armenian river, whose mis



CHAP. IIn.]  The Hellenes beyond the Archipelago.  447
sion it has been from primitive times to connect the
waters of the Mediterranean with the interior of Asia.
Phasis and Dioscurias here became the new
markets of the world, on which Asia ex- Phasis and
changed the superfluity of her treasures with
the sagacious traders of the West.
The extreme stations of Hellenic navigation were at
the same time the starting-points of far-reaching routes
of caravans. While Olbia conducted the caravans out
of Central Russia and from the eastern shores of the sea,
and Tanais procured the products of the Ural and of
Siberia, Dioscurias supplied the ships of the Hellenes
with the treasures of precious metals in which Armenia
abounded, and with the precious stones and pearls, the
silks and the ivory, of India. An extremely brisk trade
also sprang up between the colonies themselves. Sinope
in particular attained to the height of her prosperity when
called upon to supply the cities on the north coast with
the products of the south, with which no Hellenic city
could dispense. In proportion as Greek culture spread,
the personal wants of the population increased, especially
the demand for oil. Of a yet earlier date and wider extension was the importation of wine, which, as soon as the
barbarians had once tasted its charm (for in these wet
and cold regions it had far greater strength than in the
climate of Hellas), was imported in innumerable earthen jars. To this day Southern Russia is the real market
for Greek wines.
Centuries were occupied in exploring, one after the
other, these northermost of the maritime territories accessible to the Hellenes, in settling and securing the
routes of commerce, and founding that circle of cities,
the principal among which were already in existence
when the foundations ct the Palatine city were laid on
the Tiber. Often the s tcess of the great work seemed
doubtful.  Who knows -he names of the many mariners




448               History of Greece.         [BOO II
who, like Ambron, the first Milesian founder of Sinope,
paid for their ardor of enterprise with their lives? Who
those of all the places which, like the elder Sinope, were
once more destroyed by hostile tribes? Meanwhile Miletus
with inflexible energy and indomitable vigor carried
through the task, the success of which is one of the
greatest deeds of the Hellenic people, and one of the
most splendid results of their history. Although most
disturbing and dangerous events, such as, particularly,
the migrations of the Cimmerians, interrupted the great
work, yet every gap in the circle of the cities was quickly
filled up again; and in the middle of the sixth century
Miletus, as the mother of about eighty colonies, occupied
a position of greater pride and power than any one other
city of the Hellenes.
It was this same city who sent forth her
he Mesians sons to open the course of Hellenic navigation to Egypt. Here of course totally different conditions prevailed; here the Greeks were regarded
as barbarians; and a permanent influence and free commercial intercourse could not be attained to till the native constitution of the empire had been shaken to its base.
Here also primitive connections had subsisted by sea,
which the Ionian cities merely revived; hence men's
knowledge of the rich country through which the Nile
flows is coeval with the first reminiscences of Greek navigation. The main portion of the waters of the Nile at
that time flowed through the Pelusian and Canobian debouchures. It was to the latter in particular that the
Ionian voyages were directed, as well as to the Bolbitinian side-arm, which at the present day derives its name
from the town of Rosetta, and offers the most easily navigable waters on this side since the Canobian arm has
filled with mud.
The River of Egypt, with his nine mouths, opens up
the treasures of his land to foreign countries. But in a




CHAP. III.]  The Hellenes beyond the Archipelago.  449
period in which it was endeavored to connect all the
shores of the Mediterranean with one another the Pharaohs persisted in a strict system of territorial isolation,
and the Ionians, despite all their efforts, were confined to
a kind of smuggling-trade and secret operations on the
coast, in which the bold mariners risked life and liberty.
The Milesians seem to have been the first who in the
middle of the eighth century succeeded in obtaining certain concessions: apparently it was under the twentythird dynasty that the first attempt was made to open the
country to trade, and to commence an intercourse with
the Greek maritime tribes. From this period dates the
mention of a Greek factory, established at the
Canobian outlet of the Nile contemporane- Chefactoryat
ously with the foundation of Cyzicus and Sinope. But it was no colony such as these, but merely a
harbor assigned to the foreign mariners by the Pharaohs,
with the right of stapling their goods there. A strong
penalty prohibited any attempt at landing elsewhere, and
mariners found in any other locality.were obliged to
make an affirmation on oath that storms had beaten them
thither out of their track. Subsequently either the vessels
themselves were transported along the coast, or their cargoes in boats on the canals, to the Canobian mouth of the
river. Such was the state of affairs under the dynasty of
the,Ethiopians; trade was only carried on under the
oppressive regulations of the native police, somewhat as
foreign trade has recently been managed in cities like
Canton and Nangasaki; and nothing but the large profits
obtained could have induced the Milesians to hold fast to
it with inflexible persistency, and patiently to wait for a
favorable change in its conditions.
For such a change an unexpected oppor- Rise of the
tunity offered itself when, in the beginning Egyptian
of the seventh century, the AEthiopian dynas- trade
ty retired to Upper Egypt, and the empire of the Pha



450             History of Greece.          [Boos IT.
raohs, shaken by the most violent agitations, was dissolved into a number of separate dominions. The Milesians were quick to avail themselves of this season of
anarchy. With thirty vessels of war they entered the
Bolbitinian mouth of the river, and there erected an entrenched camp: they next routed the Egyptian commander Inarus on the Nile, and entered into negotiations
with Psemetek, one of the rulers of the new divisions.
Revolution in  Psemetek, or Psammetichus, as the Greeks
Egypt. (B. c. called him, was descended not from an
0 circ.)   Egyptian, but from  a Libyan race. The
Libyan tribes had long been to a certain degree connected with the Carians and Ionians, as is best proved
by the domestication of the religions of Posidon and
Athene in Libya. On the western frontiers of Lower
Egypt the population contained a strong intermixture of
Libyan settlers; and it was accordingly at Sais, on the
westernmost of the arms of the Nile (at that time navigable even by larger sea-going vessels), in the city of
Neith-Athene, the bearer of the bow, that the ambitious
Psammetichus established his head-quarters, in order to
raise himself to the throne of the broken-up empire of the
Pharaohs.' In this undertaking he necessarily welcomed
the support of the foreign maritime population, and the
latter in the interests of their commercial policy were of
course equally ready to support the pretender who befriended the Greeks with all possible energy. In the
neighborhood of Sais the Greeks erected a camp named
Naucratis, in memory of their naval victory;
TheNIelltnison and the success of Psammetichus produced
a complete revulsion in the condition of the
Greeks. Instead of despised and persecuted aliens, they
had now become the props of the throne, and a power
which the young dynasty could not spare. IHence Psammetichus not only opened the western arm of the Nile to
Greek commerce, but also occasioned a series of Greek




CHAP. III.] The Hellenes beyond the Archipelago.  451
settlements on the Pelusian Nile, for the purpose of securing the eastern frontier of the empire, by assigning lands
to the Carians on the one, and the Ionians on the other
bank of the river. The Pelusian arm of the river became
a Greek high-road, by which trade with the inland districts was carried on; and at the same time the Arabian
and Indian trade was included in the sphere of Greek
speculation. Thus both the principal outlets of the Nile
were occupied by Greeks, whose numbers visibly increased; and during the reign of Psammetichus, which
lasted for more than half a century, there resulted from
the mixture of Greeks and natives a totally new class of
men, the important class of the interpreters or dragomans,
who devoted themselves entirely to the object, now so important, of facilitating the intercourse between Hellas and
Egypt.
The Old-Egyptians were unable to adapt themselves
to these innovations. Two hundred thousand members
of the warrior-caste emigrated when they saw the throne
of the Pharaohs supporting itself by foreign mercenaries,
and to this day may be read on the leg of the Ramses
Colossus of Abu Limbel, in Nubia, the remarkable lines
inscribed by the Greek warriors in the service of Psammetichus, in memory of the expedition undertaken by
them, under him, in pursuit of the rebel Egyptian warriors.
Never in history has free trade more clearly proved its
magic effects. The landed property and all the products
of the country rose in value, and it was soon discovered
how the in- and ef-flux of wealth and its rapid exchange
from hand to hand fell out to the gain of all. Gorgeous
public and private edifices arose; and together with prosperity population increased to a height as yet unknown, so
that soon 20,000 flourishing cities might be counted
in the land. All these benefits Egypt owed to the Hel



452               History of Greece.        [BOOK II.
lenes, and the power and prosperity of her rulers depended on the republics of Hellenic merchants.
Nekos continued the system of Psammetichus. The
laborious deepening of the canal, which by means of the
salt lakes was to connect the Red Sea with the Mediterranean, mainly served the interest of the Greeks at Pelusium, in the neighborhood of which the canal was to flow
into the Nile. Under Amasis the state of affairs changed.
He had no idea of restoring the ancient system; it was
impossible for the aging empire to free itself from foreign
influences. But he endeavored to limit and moderate
these influences, and to make himself more independent
by abolishing the monopoly of single cities. The east side
had always been the weak side of Egypt, and here the
Greeks seemed to him to be an insufficient protection for
the frontier. Accordingly he put an end to the Greek
camps there, and transplanted their inhabitants to Memphis. This proceeding necessarily broke up violently a
number of commercial relations. In Naucratis again he
deprived the Milesians of their privileges, which had long
provoked the jealous envy of the other trading cities.
Every Greek was henceforth to be permitted to dwell and
trade here. This was the third epoch in the history of
Greco-Egyptian commerce, which dates from the middle
of the sixth century.
In Naucratis was now formed a mercantile colony, for
the foundation of which nine towns united: four IonianChios, Teos, Phocsea, and Clazomense; four DorianRhodes, Halicarnassus, Cnidus, and Phaselis; and the.Egolian Mitylene. They founded in the midst of the
great factory a common sanctuary, where a regular worship of the Greek divinities and at the same time a common administration of the entire community were established. It was a trading-company, an amphictyony on a
small scale; hence also the name Hellenion. The several
quarters of the place had their separate officers and judi



CHAP. 111.] The Hellenes beyond the Archipelago.  453
cial authorities, and the whole establishment may be compared to that of the Hanseatic ports in the states of
Northern Europe. The administration of these different
quarters was in the hands of the elders of the mercantile
body, an appeal lying in cases of doubt to the decision of
the mother-city. In addition, the jealous city of Miletus
retained her own temple of Apollo; and the Samaians
and.Eginetans, who had already at a previous period
contrived to obtain trading privileges for themselves, also
had their separate sanctuaries and offices. The prosperity
of Naucratis rapidly rose: even under Amasis it was an
Egyptian Corinth, a seat of luxury, a place where wealth
and comforts accumulated. It was, as Alexandria became afterwards, the place of export for the inexhaustible treasures of Egypt and Arabia, but at the same time
an excellent market for Greek products, particularly for
wine and oil. For although native plantations of the
vine are mentioned in very ancient monuments, yet the
demand for wine was very great in Egypt, and the Egyptians never accustomed themselves to its consumption before the time of Psammetichus.
This entire, important development of trade Extent of the
with Egypt proceeded in the.first instance trade of Milefrom Miletus, whose bold mariners simultane- tu
ously founded for themselves a home in the Cimmerian
ice and under the palm-trees of the Nile, opening trade
in the midst of many labors and struggles with the
Scythians and Sarmatae, and at the same time with Ethiopians and Libyans. Yet even farther than their colonization extended their trade and the spread of articles of
their manufacturing industry; for in Italy also, above all
in luxurious Sybaris, the rich burghers disdained to wear
other garments than such as had been woven out of Milesian wool.
So great a height of mercantile success as that to which
the Milesians had gradually attained could of course not




454               History of Greece.        [Boor II.
be reached otherwise than among manifold hostile encounters with other states on the coast. The routes used
by the different trading-places necessarily crossed one
another at points of importance; and the cities felt no
questions so keenly and with so steady a resolution to
fight for them, as those which involved the maintenance
of existing or the acquisition of new commercial advantages.
Colonial acti- The most dangerous rivals of Ionia were
vity of the the towns of Euboea, among which, in the
Chalcidians.
haidian.  first instance, Cyme, situated in an excellent
bay of the east coast, in a district abounding in wine, and
afterwards the two sister-towns on the Euripus, Chalcis
and Eretria, distinguished themselves by larger measures
of colonization.  While Eretria, the "city of rowers,"
rose to prosperity especially by means of purple-fisheries
and a ferry-navigation conducted on a constantly increasing scale, Chalcis, the "bronze-city," on the double-sea of
the Boeotian sound, contrived to raise and employ for herself the most important of the many treasures of the
island-its copper. As the Phoenicians had once been
driven by the exhaustion of the copper-mines in the Lebanon to search for new mines beyond the sea, and had
thus come to discover the copper of Cyprus, so, after
them, the Chalcidians acted. Chalcis became the Greek
centre of this branch of industry; it became the Greek
Sidon. Next to Cyprus, there were no richer stores of
copper in the Greek world than on Euboea, and in Chalcis were the first copper-works and smithies known in
European Greece. On the Euripus was the home of the
Cadmeans, the inventors of calamin (brass ore); from
here was exported, by land and water, the metal indispensable for the manufacture of arms, of architectonic ornaments, and especially of utensils for religious worship,
both in a natural and a manufactured state; and manu



CHAP. III.]  The Hellenes beyond the Archipelago.  455
factories in metals were established, from here at Corinth,
Sparta and elsewhere.
Thus the city built on a narrow shore near the source
of Arethusa, had become a populous and industrial seaport, which, in view of the narrowness both of land and
water, had early to think of obtaining a free sphere of
motion by means of its ships, and to import from abroad
what was not to be procured in sufficient quantities at
home-above all timber and bronze. The neighboring
cities on the island, as well as the population of Boeotia
opposite, took part in these expeditions; and thus Chalcis
became the starting-point of widely-extending voyages of
discovery and of numerous settlements; in the first instance in the north, in the Thracian sea.
In Thrace the native population related by Their settledescent to the Phrygians, had already by an ments on the
accession of immigrants from the coast of coast of
Thrace.
Asia Minor attained at an early period to an
important degree of culture, as is proved by the early fame
of Thracian music art, as well as by the influence exercised by it, particularly in the vicinity of the Thessalian
Olympus, in Pieria, on the national culture of the Hellenes. Meanwhile ruder tribes had advanced from the
northern mountains towards the coast, who despised agriculture and all peaceable trades, lived in polygamy, and
were immoderately addicted to wine. These barbarous
Thracians commanded the north coast of the Archipelago;
their vast multitude and savage love of war had prevented
the places founded by the JEolians at the time of the great
migration of the tribes from attaining to any degree of
prosperity, and kept this shore longest among all the
shores of the 2Egean in a barbarous state, although nature
had made it to run out to meet the Greeks in peninsulas
abounding in harbors. Here was the next and most important field for the operations of Hellenic colonization.
To perform this task was so much the more the mission




456               History of Greece.        [BOOK II.
of the Chalcidians, inasmuch as it was particularly by an
abundant supply of metals that the Thracian coasts were
distinguished. The rude condition of the people and their
division into conflicting parties facilitated success. First
the Thermrean gulf was secured, where the city of Methone
was founded, opposite the coast of Thrace. Then a direct
venture was made upon the peninsula, which lies like a
large block of rock in front of Thrace, a broad highland
district between the Thermrean gulf and that of the Strymon, separating into three mountain-tongues of land towards the south. It is a mountain-land peculiarly constituted by nature, and accordingly qualified for a history of
its own. The western decline contains more arable land;
the eastern side a greater abundance of metals. The
settlement of the Chalcidians doubtless commenced on the
middle, or Sithonian, peninsula, where Torone lay most
conveniently situated for them. From here they extended
their settlements, and built two-and-thirty towns in sucChacidice. cession, all of which acknowledged Chalcis
as their mother-city, and accordingly were comprehended under the collective name of Chalcidice.
The broad highlands of Chalcidice abound in ancient
mountain-shafts, before which the heaps of dross lie piled
up to this day, in manifest testimony of the zeal and success with which the Greek settlers in these regions sought
for silver and bronze. This explains the large number of
the small coast-towns, which served as harbors of safety in
the stormy Thracian sea, and carried on the exportation
of the mining products, as well as of the other articles of
trade, particularly of timber for building and pitch. In
the course of the eighth century the Chalcidians took this
Thracian foreland out of the hands of the barbarians, and
occupied it with their settlements.
Under the leadership of Chalcis the other towns of
Euboea also participated in these undertakings, particularly Eretria, which, e. g., had founded the city of




CHAP. III.] The IHellenes beyond the Archipelago.  457
Methone principally from among its own citiMethone.
zens; afterwards, one by one, the other seatowns with which Chalcis kept up commercial relations,
especially Corinth and Megara. Thus the Eubcean colonization extended with increasing force to the entrance to
the waters of the Pontus, where they reached the domain
of the trade of Miletus. In 01. xvii. 3 the Megareans
founded Astacus in the sea of Marmora, on Astacus. 01.
the Bithynian coast. Here a hostile contact xvii. 3. (B. c.
was unavoidable. The outbreak of the feud 710.)
was provoked by the discord prevailing between the two
Eubcean states, which could not be prevented by the common worship of Artemis or by ancient trea- War between
ties-nominally a border-feud concerning the Eretria and
Lelantian territory (p. 269), but in reality a Challis.
war between neighbors and rivals, in which the rising city
of Eretria gave battle to the superior naval power of the
Chalcidians.
During this period of war the colonization carried on
from Eubcea necessarily came to a stand-still, which we
observe occurring at the close of the eighth century, at
the very time when the Milesians were eagerly occupied
in securing to themselves the Hellespont and the Propontis by means of the foundation of Abydus, Lampsacus,
and Proconnesus. About this period (01.
xix. circ.) dates the mission of Aminocles to (C. xiOc700.
Samos (p. 293), and the establishment of a
Samian navy, intended to oppose the Milesians in the interests of the Chalcidians and Corinthians. For the former had eagerly seized upon the opportunity of the Lelantian feud in order to take up the cause of Eretria
against the Chalcidians and their powerful allies.
This war, instead of exhausting the forces
of the states, only helped farther to develop Megiaren cothem. On the European side, Ml[egara in
the first half of the seventh century energetically con20




458               History of Greece.         [Boo II.
tinued the colonization of the Pontus, and at the portal of
Chalcedon.  the Bosporus founded Chalcedon (01. xxiv.
01. xxiv. 3.  3). The settlers here were called the Blind
(B. C. 682.)  by the oracle, for having failed to recognize
the fact, that to the opposite shore belonged all the advantages of situation. The Megareans made good their
omission, and twenty-five years later built
Byza.    Byzantium  on the Golden Horn, the deep
arm of the sea in which the swarms of fish
from the Pontus were easily caught as they were driven
in by the current of the sound, while, at the same time,
the Milesians occupied the inner waters of the Pontus
with their establishments.
It is impossible to discover how far this competitive
activity after the termination of the great war was based
on mutual agreement, and on a limitation by treaty of the
respective domains of colonization and trade.  Chalcis
issued forth from  the war with unbroken power. The
colonization of the Chalcidians was suppleAcanthus and
Stagira 01.  mented (01. xxxi. circ.) by the foundation of
xxxi. )iro. (B. Acanthus and Stagira, in which the Cyclades,
particularly the island of Andros, participated; and about the same period the Chalcidians were also
engaged in Sicily in maintaining the influence
ilmera in Si- which they had long exercised upon the lands
in the West, by taking part in the foundation
of Himera.
Hesperia, the land of the West, was a land
of Itlyton  by itself, far and remote from the habitations
of the Greek tribes connected by the Archipelago. The sea which washes the western coasts was not
a Greek sea; it was called the Sicilian, as belonging to the
land on the other side, and is broad, devoid of islands,
and, in comparison with the lEgean, resembles an ocean.
The current was adverse to the Greek vessels, as it passed




CHAP. III.]  The Hellenes beyond the Archipelago.  459
from west to east, from the Tyrrhenian sea across to the
Sicilian; contrary currents endangered navigation; and
the winds prevailing here differed entirely from those to
which the Hellenes were accustomed. The skies appeared
to them dark and insecure; it was the side they feared, the
night-side, where the Phseaces, the mariners of the dead,
"densely shrouded in clouds and mists," passed along
their gloomy paths. Accordingly navigation for a long
time halted at the southern points of the Morea, and then,
after circumnavigation had been ventured upon, timidly
clung to the Hellenic coasts on its way to the Corinthian
sea. This was the ancient route of the Cretans, by which
they had formerly brought the worship of Apollo to
Delphi. But for crossing to the west the Sicilian sea was
ill adapted.
The intercourse with the western mainland rather proceeded from the islands lying in front of the outer gulf of
Corinth: from the coast-islands, such as the Echinades,
surrounding the mouth of the Achelous; and from the
larger and more distinct islands farther in the sea,
Zacynthus, Same, Ithaca, and Leucas, which stretch from
north to south in a crescent-line in front of the gulf, and
whose joint length is about equal to that of Euboea.
These are the islands called, according to an ancient tradition, the Ionian up to this day.
To the north, apart from the main group, lies the great
coast-island of Corcyra, which, like Euboea, bore the
name of Macris, and was by ancient myths as well as by
recurring names connected in many ways with the latter
island. As one of the earliest points of ancient navigation, Chalcis is already mentioned in the
Connection beOdyssey as maintaining a maritime trade tween the Chalwith the island of the Phaeaces. Chalcidi- cidiansandCorans, following in the track of the Cretan 
voyagers, kept up a lively intercourse with the west coast
of Peloponnesus, as is proved by the existence of the




460               History of Greece.         [BOOK JI.
Chalcis in Elis, near the mouth of the Alpheus. They
also constituted Corcyra the starting-point of a wider extension, branching out in several directions, of Hellenic
colonization.
Colonial acti-  From Corcyra the movement, on the one
vityof Corey- hand, ascended along the west coast of the
ra.        Greek mainland, which had remained excluded from the advance of Greek civilization, and was
now colonized like a barbarian territory. Inhabitants of
the coast of Elis, migrated to Epirus under the leadership
of Chalcidians, and founded Pandosia, Buchetia, and
Elsea. Afterwards the Corcyrseans and Corinthians pursued the tracks opened up by Chalcis, and continued colonization as far up as Illyria. Apollonia on
Apollonia in the Aous and Epidamnus became the Illyrian
1llyria.
sea-ports, in which mercantile business soon
attained to a very considerable height. Here the mountaineers, of whom those dwelling more to the south were
less accessible to Greek civilization, were supplied with
wine and oil and all kinds of artificial products for which
they exchanged timber, metals, and bitumen. Illyrian
mountain-herbs were used in the manufacture of ointments at Corinth, cattle for slaughter were exported in
large numbers to the Greek ports, and slaves were purchased, so that the trading-places in this district were soon
numbered among the busiest markets of the ancient world.
In proportion as the Adriatic was feared by the Greek
mariners, the Corcyrseans appropriated to themselves the
advantages of trade, and were thus by their large profits
enabled to meet their mother-city Corinth at so early a
date with an independent power of their own. Their secession was one of the causes which provoked the fall of
the Bacchiadie (p. 293), and all subsequent attempts of
Corinth to reduce her colony to its former condition of
dependence met with no permanent success.
On the other hand, Corcyra was the threshold of Italy;




CHAP. I III]  he Hellenes beyond the Archipelago.  461
for to the north of the island a mere sound separates the
two mainlands, narrower than the breadth of the waters
between Cythera and Crete, and the Apennines are visible
from the Chaonian shore. Here an intercourse 9f nations
took place, which preceded by a long period the times of
Chalcidian colonization.
The division of the mainland on the other
Early connecside which is nearest opposite to the Acroce- tions between
raunian mountains, is a narrow tongue of land Greeks  and
Italicans.
projecting far to the east between the Tarentine and Ionian seas as if Italy desired at this point to
extend a hand to the Greek mainland: this is the land of
the Iapygians, or Messapia. This peninsular land by its
nature and situation was destined to be occupied by the
gradual spread of the maritime populations of Crete, Lycia, and Ionia, as well as by the coast-tribes of Western
Greece.
The Messapians were held to be descendants of the Cretans; and the Peucetians, settled in the same region, and
the CEnotrians, "the wine-planters," were derived from
the sea-going Arcadians, by whom we must
understand Cretan tribes so-called.  Such The Mesapians and other
names and groups of names as Hyria and Italican deMessapium recur unaltered at other points of s"cretansof
Cretan colonization. Between Brentesium and
Hydrus, the most convenient landing-places on the Italian
side, lay a little inland, the place Lupice or Lycise, whose
name testifies to the participation of the Lycians in these
undertakings. Finally, the remains of Messapian writing
and language point to a certain agreement with ancient
Greek dialects. Hence we are probably justified in assuming that the sister-nations of the Grseci and Italicans,
which had long ago separated in the Illyrian highlands,
here in the peninsular land of Southern Italy again came
into contact with one another by sea. Here the cultivation of the vine and olive, here the plane-tree, cypress,




462                History of Greece.         [BooK IT.
and other Hellenic plants, were introduced; here, together
with a varied culture which the Italicans received at the
hands of the Greeks, many Greek words were also first
admitted, and became the national property of Italyparticularly such as belong to the domain of a higher civilization; as, e. g. to technical matters of architecture
(calx, machina, thesaurus), or of navigation (gubernare,
ancora, prora, aplustre, faselus, &c.).
These important influences, exercised on Italy by Greek
tribes in the pre-historic age, in the period of the maritime dominion of Crete, particularly affected the eastern
side, which Plinius rightly calls the front of Italy,
because, just like the east coast of European Greece, it
first and pre-eminently experienced the creative impulses
of immigrants from the other side of the sea. But the
western side was also to some extent affected, and, equally
with the eastern or Ionian sea, the western or Tyrrhenian
is named after Greek tribes of Asia Minor, the Ionic
Tyrrhenians, who discovered the Sicilian   straits, and
brought from their Lydian home the first impulse of
Greek civilization to the west coast of Italy, where they
settled in large numbers.
Trade be-     The intercourse opened by maritime tribes
tween Greece from Asia was most actively continued by the
nd Italy.  islanders of Western Greece. These were the
Lelegian peoples of the Cephallenians, Taphians, and Teleboans. From the mines on the Terinsean gulf, copper,
a metal much sought in the Heroic age, was first brought
to the eastern shore; afterwards the mariners sailed round
the southernmost peninsula which juts out towards the
Sicilian sound, and, according to the ordinary usage of
the Greek language, constituted Italy proper, and fetched
copper even from Temesa, to exchange it for iron and
steel wares. Thus Mentes, king of the Taphians, is engaged in the Grseco-Italican trade; the vessels pursue
their voyages undisturbed through the straits and back,




CHAP. III.] The Hellenes beyond the Archipelago.  463
and Greek prisoners-of-war are sold for a high price to
the Siceli; and the earliest information preserved to us
as to the life on this sea in the songs of Odysseus and
Telemachus presents us with a picture of the intimate
connection existing between the shores on either side.
These are the earliest occasions of contact between the
coasts of Greece and Italy, attested by indubitable facts
and by a widely-branching tradition; and when Greek
tribes took part in the copper trade opened by the Phoenicians, they merely continued a primitive connection.
But in this intercourse between countries and nations
also a new epoch necessarily supervened, when it remained no longer given up to swarming tribes, but was
conducted from towns as centres and according to definite
principles. In this instance, again, the sturdy Voyages of
men on the Euripus began the work, whose the Chalcidiincomparable energy procured them the high- ans to the
West.
est acknowledgment in the ancient world, so
that the Pythia could declare those to be the best among
all the Hellenes who drank the waters of holy Arethusa.
The demand for copper among the Chalcidians impelled
their mariners to resume with thorough energy the ancient voyages to the West. In all probability they gave
to the Corinthian isthmus, where the Tyrians may have
already established means for the transport of wares and
vessels, its importance as a route of commerce.  The
names Chalcis and Arethusa recur on the west coast of
Peloponnesus; and another Chalcis was founded by the
same city near the " copper-mountain " in JEtolia. The
shores of the Crissean gulf, particularly the north shore,
are by nature entirely confined to trade by sea. In the
rocky bay of Bulis, into which the Heracleus, so named
after the Tyrian Heracles, empties his waters, was an excellent place for the supply of purple-fish, which accordingly attracted the Eubcean navigators. On the farther
side of the gulf the Chalcidian Arethusa recurs on




464              History of Greece.         [SOOK II
Ithaca, and again in Elis and Sicily; and the myth of
the wanderings of the nymph of the fountain through the
sea is merely a charming way of expressing the connection between remote localities, at the springs on whose
shores the Chalcidian mariners were wont to offer up sacrifice and to take in their supplies of water.
After the Chalcidians had taken into their
Settlements in hands the ancient trade in ores of the Taphians, and circumnavigated the Italian peninsula, they everywhere came upon the traces of Greek
landings and settlements of an earlier date, which contributed essentially to facilitate their own mercantile connections and settlements. But nowhere did they discover
a coast better adapted for their commercial purposes than
that of Campania, where the most luxuriant, productive
powers of the soil are united to the most felicitous coastformation.  At the southern entrance to the bay of
Naples Teleboans had occupied the island of Capri; on
the Pithecusse, abounding in metals, the Eubcean emigrants themselves founded their first Cyme. These craggy islands are creations of the same volcanic power
which, on the north side of the bay, has lifted two mountain ranges out of the depths of the sea,of which the
summits have sunk in, partly into open bays, partly into
inland lakes replete with fish. Where the rims of the
northern crater, opposite the Pithecusse, meet high above
the sea, the Eubcean settlers selected the second point at
which to found a city. This locality, difficult of access
from the land, commanded the beautiful bays of Misenum
and Puteoli, together with the islands in the vicinity, and
was admirably situated for becoming the centre of the
copper trade on the Tyrrhenian coast. Here a large
multitude of scattered maritime population collected,
which had not been able to attain to the
Foundatitalof permanent establishment of towns on Sardinia and elsewhere; and thus arose the




CHAP. III.] The Hellenes beyond the Archipelago.  465
Greek city of Cyme, the most ancient on the soil of Italy
known to the memory of the Iellenes.
This foundation belongs to a period when Cyme on
Euboea still retained a position of prominent importance
among the towns of the island, i. 6., to nearly the same
time in which emigration took place from Cyme to AEolis.
In those days the mother-city of Cyme must have exhausted herself by emigration: she was in course of time
completely passed in the race by the towns on the Euripus, and accordingly her colony in Italy afterwards came
to be regarded as the daughter of Chalcis and Eretria,
although the name which testifies to the original event
never underwent any change. For centuries Cyme lay
solitary on her rock by the shore, an outpost of Hellenic
civilization in the far West, maintaining a courageous
resistance against the surrounding barbarians, till, after
the seas had been pacified, new immigrants streamed in
from Eubcea, Samos, and other districts, and made the
double bay of Naples a flourishing Greece.
From the Phlegroean fields, the luxuriant fertility of
which compensated the Chalcidians in Campania for
their Lelantian land, according to Greek mythology, a
fettered giant lies stretched out under the earth, who
breathes forth his wrath from the smoking gorge of.Etna. The inhabitants of the shores of the Euripus had
an undeniable preference for volcanic country, with the
dangers of which they were familiar, while they knew
how to appreciate and employ its advantages. Accordingly the crest of AEtna irresistibly attracted them on
their voyages. But, in the first place, they required for
the passage to the Tyrrhenian sea a fixed settlement and
a harbor of refuge on the Sicilian sound: here again, as
in the progress of the colonization of Miletus, the intermediate stations preceded in date the points at the
farther end. Accordingly they built a fortified city on
this Sicilian Euripus, where they found the same pheno20*




466                History of Greece.        [BOOK II.
mena of currents and re-currents as in their native sound;
and in reference to the rupture of the land by the sea,
which seemed to have torn island and peninRhegium.  sula, called this city Rhegium (Breakage).
The close connection between this foundation and the
trade of Cyme is manifest from the fact, that previously
to it bands of Greeks from Cyme had already established
themselves on the Sicilian harbor of the straits, which, on
account of its crescent-formed tongue of land, was called
Zancle; and that they then induced their mother-city,
Chalcis, to convert this settlement into a fixed colony,
which was to secure their connection with their original
home. Thus there arose here two Bosporus-cities to command the sound, similar to Panticapoeum  and Phanagoria high in the north. These foundations belong to the
period of the first Messenian war; and the Chalcidians
availed themselves of the troubles in Peloponnesus to conduct on their vessels to their colonies fugitive families
of Messenia. Rhegium by its whole history belonged
rather to Sicily than to Italy, and even in later times it
remained customary for vessels to put in at Rhegium on
their voyage to Sicily.
This was no point at which to stand still. At nearly
the same time Greek colonization steadily advanced in a
northward as well as in a southward direction; in the
first instance in the latter.
Although the Chalcidians had long been
tioe of Sicily.  acquainted with the north-east part of Sicily
and its dangerous waters, they were to a
corresponding degree unfamiliar with the other sides of
the great island. Here the Phoenicians, after being driven
out of the iEgaean and the adjoining parts of the sea, had
established themselves all the more firmly and in all the
denser numbers. They were terrified to.see the Greeks
establishing themselves on the straits, and in the foundation of Rhegium could not but recognize the prelude to




CHAP. III.] The Hellenes beyond the Archipelago.  467
the conquest of Sicily, and the commencement of protracted struggles for the possession of the much-desired
island.
In the first instance the desires of the N s in iGreeks were confined to the east coast, to oily. 01. xi.
the declivities of JEtna, whose summits had 1' (B. c..736)
so long been a standard-point of their navigation. At its
north-eastern base they founded (01. xi. 1), in the little
bay by the mouth of the Acesines, the town of Naxos,
in the foundation of which, as the name shows, a large body
of people from the Cyclades took part, in the same way
as in Chalcidice, the Andrians, under the leadership of
Chalcidians, built Acanthus. Athenians also participated.
Theocles of Athens is- even said to have been the discoverer
of the place. It was not, however, at home, but only in
Chalcis, that he met with support for his plans. Thus enterprising spirits were constantly attracted to the main
points of colonization, which, as it were, possessed a monopoly in these transactions. The altar of Apollo on the
shore of the Naxians indicated the point where a Greek
power had first securely planted its foot on Sicilian soil.
This was an event of far-reaching consequences; for it
was soon discovered that no more remunerative locality
existed for an advantageous settlement. Scenery, shore,
and climate resembled those of Hellas, while the soil was
infinitely more productive. The native Siceli belonged to
the same race as the South-Italicans; hence land and
people were designated by the same name, a designation
which has maintained itself up to our day in that of the
kingdom of the Two Sicilies. The inhabitants of the
coast had long been habituated by the Phoenicians to the
exchange of goods with foreign merchants, and readily
opened their ports to the Greeks, to whom they felt themselves to be related by blood.
Not more than a year had passed after the foundation
of Naxos when Ortygia, the isle of springs, with its ex



4G8               History of Greece.         [BooK II.
cellent harbors, also fell into Greek hands (p. 292). The
Phoenician merchants who were settled on the island remained there, and quietly continued the exercise of their
business; and the conflux of different nations merely contributed to advance the rapid rise of Syra(ycus35 )  cuse. Before the city had existed three generations, it already founded, farther inland,
Acrse and Casmenme. These were attempts to penetrate
by land towards the south side, since the circumnavigation of the south-eastern promontory and the superior
power of the Phoenician fleet in the southern sea were
dreaded.
While the Corinthians were thus successfully establishing themselves in the south-east of the island, the Chalcidians next included the fertile neighborhood of Mount
JEtna in the circle of their settlements. Catana and
Leontini were founded in the most favoraeataniaand  ble situations. In these operations the MeLeontini.
gareans continued to take part in common
with the Chalcidians; but in the end the former again
separated from the latter, and on a soil obtained through
the treason of a native prince, between Leontini and Syracuse, founded a Megara of their own. It
Megara in  is accordingly easy to understand how, as
the Sicilian towns rapidly attained to prosperity, the maritime states, which had originally acted in
unison, jealously fell away from one another. Together
with the Greek language and Greek civilization the discord between cities and tribes was transplanted to the soil
of the new Greece, and thus was sown the first seed of the
feuds which afterwards divided Greek Sicily into two
camps.
Settlements  Contemporaneously the Greek spirit of enSettlements  e     Gr    e        i of eon the gulf of terprise had thrown itself upon' the mainTarentum. land of Italy, particularly upon the shores
of the gulf of Tarentum, which by its land and sea



CHAP. III.]  The Hellenes beyond the Archipelago.  469
products-above all by its purple-fish-had already attracted the Phoenician navigators.
The movement of Greek settlers directed to this point
proceeded principally from the Corinthian sea, from the
coasts of which the Chalcidians on their voyages to the
east had frequently taken folk desirous of emigrating
with them on their ships, thus laying the foundation of an
intercourse between these regions and the lands of the
West. Thus, e. g., Tritoea, the mountain-city of Achaia,
kept up an ancient connection with Cyme in Italy. The
Delphic oracle energetically exerted itself to confirm, in
JEgon and the neighboring places on the coast, public
confidence in the Chalcidians, the most loyal servants and
emissaries of the Pythian Apollo. When the influence
of the Chalcidians began to disappear, the Corinthiana
undertook the conduct of colonization, as can be proved
on as early an occasion as that of the foundation of
Croton. But nowhere was over-population a better reason
for emigration than in the narrow coast-district of the
ancient AEgialea, where Ionians and Achseans lived close
to one another in a dense succession of towns.
The peculiar interests of their trade directed the Chalcidians especially towards the passage into the Tyrrhenian
sea. Accordingly they had neglected the shores of the
gulf of Tarentum, past which they sailed, although the
eastern declivities of the Apennine were upon the whole
far superior in charms of climate and in natural fertility
to the western side. Natural harbors, indeed, there were
none; but within these protected seas the more open anchorages and roads sufficed. The plains by the shore,
possessing a greater abundance of water, could not be excelled for the purpose of growing corn, nor the heights for
the cultivation of wine and oil, as well as for pasture;
the forests on the loftier mountains provided inexhaustible
supplies of timber and pitch; so that nowhere could more
favorable conditions be found for a general civil prosper



470               History of Greece.        [EooK II.
ity. Among the inhabitants were the CEnotrians, whose
habitations extended from the mountains down to the sea;
and the Chaonians, or Chonians, were distinguished by an
advanced degree of culture. They could point to the
Trojan worship of Athene as a testimony to their comSiris.     munity of descent with the tribes of Asia
Minor; Siris was founded in the place of an
earlier city, Chone; everywhere traces are apparent of an
earlier Greek civilization, brought across from the coast
of Epirus; and the Philhellenic natives were glad to attach themselves to the new centres of Greek culture, and
by immigrating into them helped to raise the cities in a
brief space of time to a condition of power and prosperity.
Under these circumstances two neighboring cities were
contemporaneously founded opposite the Iapygian proSybaris. 01. montory, at points of the coast situate on the
xiv. 4. (B. c. sea-route of the Chalcidians. These were Sy721.)      baris (01. xiv. 4), in a luxuriant lowland district, where the rivulets Crathis and Sybaris unite into a
Croton.    small river, and soon afterwards Croton, on a
loftier and freer brink of the shore. The settlers chiefly belonged to the Old-Ionian population of the
north coast of Peloponnesus: in the foundation of Sybaris
large numbers of people from Troezene also took part.
But as in the mother-country, after long conflicts, the
Achseans had obtained the mastership over the Ionian
Twelve-towns, the colonization was again conducted by
Achsean families. Myscelus, the founder of Croton, was a
Heraclide from iEgse; the founder of Sybaris a native of
Helice. The ancient conflicts of race here broke out
afresh, and polluted the history of Sybaris with the guilt
of blood. While in this city it was rather the Ionic character which developed itself, Croton remained to a greater
degree Achsean. But in both cities it was undeniably the
energy of Achaean families which gave a superior grandeur to the progress of their history. In them prevailed




CHAP. III.]  The Hellenes beyond the Archipelago.  471
a more ardent spirit of enterprise and desire of conquest
than among the Chalcidian traders, who, like the Phoenicians, were satisfied as long as they accomplished their
mercantile and industrial objects.
Both cities established a power by land. The Sybarites
ascended along the rivers of the coast, crossed the lofty
chalk-ridges of the Calabrian Apennine, and forced their
way through the dense forests of Sila towards the opposite
shore, where they founded a series of towns.
The city of Posidon (Poestum) was the north- (Postum).
ernmost of five and twenty colonies of the citiof Sybaris. And the same course was adopted by the
Crotoniates, who subdued the yet broader extent of land
above their coast, and on the bay of Terine appropriated
the ancient copper mines. Thus the Achsean places became the capitals of small empires, in which the ZEnotrian
and Oscan tribes dwelt under the supreme sovereignty of
Greek republics.
These Peloponnesian emigrations were folLocri in Italy.
lowed from the other side of the Corinthian
gulf by the Locrians, who, in order to eliminate disturbing elements from their state, founded a new Locri on the
Zephyrsean promontory, in the immediate vicinity of the
Rhegians, with whom they divided the possession of the
southernmost point of Italy.
Lastly, the innermost part of the gulf, the loveliest corner of the earth known to the Apulian poet, the shore
of what is now called the mare piccolo, was also occupied
by Hellenes. Though here the coast is everywhere perfectly flat, yet the land rises gently from the sea, and,
being well watered, is pre-eminently adapted for pasture
and wheat. Above all, no waters in Europe were so rich
in shell-fish as this-an advantage which doubtless the
Phoenician mariners had not failed to recognize. On this
account the shore of Tarentum was connected from an
early date with the Laconian gulf, which among Greek




472              HIistory of Greece.        [BooK II.
waters was the most productive of purple; and here Laconian settlers, when grave discord at home endangered
the state (p. 232), founded the city of Taras,
Tarentum.
the foundation of which the native silver
coins so charmingly represent by the symbol of a youth
who, riding on a dolphin across the sea, bears the tripod
of Apollo to the distant shores. This is the same Apollo
Delphinius who had conducted the Cretans to Delphi, and
farther to the shores of Italy (for Taras was not without
reason called the grandson of Minos), and who now from
Delphi led the Laconians also to become the founders of
the new city.
After Ionians from Colophon had newly founded the
ancient Chaonian city on the rivers Aciris and Siris,
under the latter name-a city whose beauteous site the
songs of Archilochus famed abroad as early as the middle
of the seventh century,-and after, to the east of it,
Achaean families led by a Crisaean had established Metapontium, the entire semicircle of the fair bay
Meapontim. of the sea was now surrounded by Hellenic
cities. They lie distributed with so evident a purpose
and in such measured distances from one another, that it
is impossible to conceive their origin to have resulted
from anything but a mutual understanding or the influence of an expert superintendence. As everywhere
the beginnings of Hellenic history attach themselves to
Amphictyonic institutions, so in this case also the cities
must have been united by means of treaties, which, occasioned by common dangers and founded on a harmony of
usages and religious worship, made possible so prosperous
a rise of this close succession of colonies. Under the
protection of such treaties each of these cities could avail
itself to the full of the advantages of its particular locality; the one devoting itself rather to trade beyond the
seas, the other to pasture, agriculture or manufacturing
industry. The golden corn-fields of Metapontium spread




CHAP. III.]  The Hellenes beyond the Archipelago.  473
out their wealth unendangered by the close vicinity of
their neighbors; nor did Tarentines, nor did the spectacle
of the more luxurious prosperity of the Sybarites, prevent
Croton from rejoicing in its healthier situation and bringing up a hardier race of Hellenic men within its walls.
They felt that together they formed a The cities of
Greece which, on account of its wide extent Magna Grmeand the number and size of its cities, deserved c
to be called by its inhabitants in proud self-consciousness
Great Greece (Magna Gracia). But how rarely will history permit us an insight into the peaceful advance of
well-ordered political and social relations. Her traditions
in general only begin with the times when these relations
have been violently interrupted, and when, in consequence, the destructive feuds between the cities commence.
Thus there are none but scattered traces preserved of the
memory of Amphictyonic associations in Magna Grsecia.
Zeus'Oadptow or'Olayrupios was adored, as in Achaia, so
also among the Achaean towns of Italy, as the guardian lord of a system of associated states; his altar was
the common hearth of the Achseo-Ionian colonies. On
a larger scale was the temple of Here, on the promontory of Lacinium, to the south of Croton, an important
guiding-point and landing-place for navigation, and a
centre of festive assemblies for the Italian Greeks. It,
was connected by sacred roads with the towns of the
Italiotes, who sent their embassies thither, took counsel
there on affairs of common interest, and exhibited the
fairest products of their art and industry.
Meanwhile in Sicily also the Hellenization of the coast
had made progress. The Syracusans were indeed afraid
to advance round the feared Cape Pachynus into the
southern sea, which during the whole of the eighth
century remained in the hands of the bar- The south
barians. On the other hand, bold mariners coast of Sicicame from Rhodes, who had been accus- y*




474               History of Greece.       [BOOK II.
tomed to follow in the tracks of Pheenician navigation
from their home, and had learnt to take a more and more
independent part in Phoenician commerce. They had at
an early period preferred the direction to the West when
starting from their native waters, and had settled here
and there on the coasts of Lycia, Pamphylia, and Cilicia.
This they had done ever since the Chalcidians also from
their archipelago had led emigration in this direction.
Half a century had passed since the first Chalcidico-Corinthian establishments on the east coast of Sicily, when
Antiphemus of Rhodes and Entimus of Crete founded a
settlement on the river Gela, and gave to it
the name of Lindii, derived from the most
important original settlement of the colony and the main
body of its citizens. It was afterwards joined by other
settlers, particularly from Telus and the other Carian
islands, and in consequence Gela, the Carian name of the
river, became equally the usual appellation of the city.
This bold and fortunate operation of the Rhodians constituted an epoch in Greek history; the timid dread of
the southern sea had been overcome, and the path opened
for new enterprises. This dread was not without its
causes, for, in the first place, the south side is far less
hospitable by nature than the east. The long mountainranges here stretch their arms close up to the sea, and
form precipitous rocky shores, with dangerous currents
and banks, so that a very accurate local knowledge is
necessary for navigation. The harbors are bad, and accordingly no naval powers of importance have ever
arisen here. The mountains of the coast are broken
through by torrents which rush down a very steep incline,
and in winter occasion devastating inundations. Both
nature and the inhabitants here displayed a greater ferocity and power of resistance; for the ancients very
markedly distinguished the Sicani as a race more foreign
to them than the Siceli, and it was even thought necessary




CHAP. IrT.]  The Hellenes beyond the Archipelago.  475
to regard the former as a nation which had immigrated
from Celtic homes. Moreover the Greek settlers here
met with a more vigorous opposition on the part of the
Phoenicians, who obstinately held fast to their acquisitions, and were loth to relinquish the important landing
places on the voyage to their western possessions. Lastly,
the threatening power of Carthage here confronted them,
which supported the Phoenician settlements, and maintained an attitude of insidious hostility against the Hellenes.
Meanwhile all these evils, as well as the African heat
of the southern side, failed to terrify the Hellenes. The
example of the Rhodians gave courage and provoked
emulation. The Megareans, who up to that time had
remained in a habitual state of dependence close to the
Corinthian head-quarters in Sicily, founded at the opposite end of the island, where Phoenicians and Cretans had
b3en settled together, an independent city of their own.
Thus arose on the south coast Selinus, " the
Selinus.
parsley city," a century after the foundation
of the Sicilian Megara, at the time when in the mothercity the splendid rule of Theagenes was preparing, or
had just begun. Well experienced in water engineering,
the Megareans drained the unhealthy low districts of the
Hypsas, and contrived rapidly to raise their new city to
prosperity.
Similarly Gela had existed for scarcely as many as
three generations when, re-invigorated by a fresh influx
of energetic families from the mother-city, it founded in
the centre of the south coast, on a precipitous rocky
front, the city of Acragas, by whose splendor
and power the mother city was soon sur- Arigentm) 
passed. The trade in oil to Carthage here
became the mainspring   of wealth; the rich pastures
along the banks of the streams of the coast fed an excellent breed of horses, and the stone quarries supplied




476               History of Greece.        [BooK I.
abundant materials for the artistic industry and luxury of
the townsmen. Finally, Syracuse also, by the foundation
of Camarina, took part in the colonization of the south
coast: so that about the period of the legislation of
Solon an uninterrupted series of Hellenic cities with their
territories extended from Pachynus to Lilyboeum.
And herewith the Hellenes had arrived at
The limits of
Hellenic set- the limits of the spread of their power. In
tlements in vain the dauntless Rhodians and Cnidians
endeavored to advance still farther; to the
north-west corner of the island, where the mountains from
Resistance of Lilybseum to Eryx jut out into the sea, and
the Phoeni-  in fragments of banks of rock and island
cians.
crags surround the shore, the Phoenicians
obstinately clung. This was the shore opposite Carthage,
the Persea: and Carthage exerted all her strength to
maintain herself here, in order to keep up from Motye
the intercourse with Carthage, from Soloeis and Panormus
the connection with Sardinia, as well as her own naval
supremacy in the Tyrrhenian sea. This is the single point
at which the Phoenicians maintained themselves with indomitable pertinacity against the advances of Hellenic
power; and here the barbarians remained the lords and
masters.
However, even these regions had not remained free from
the contact of Greek influence. Round the summit of the
Eryx dwelt the people of the Elymi, who, according to the
common consent of tradition, were connected by descent
with the maritime tribes of Asia Minor, and, above all,
with the Dardani. They derived their origin from colonists whom the Phoenicians had once dragged away from
their homes, or induced to submit to their lead. Accordingly, the Tyrian Heracles was regarded as the mythic
national king of the Elymi; and the ancient condition of
dependence in which they stood to Tyre was expressed as
a duty of vassalage due from them to Heracles. Their




CHAP. III.]  The Itellenes beyond the Archipelago.  477
principal place was Egesta; their national
sanctuary the chapel of Aphrodite on the seagirt rock of Mount Eryx. At this point, then, a population had formed itself, composed of a mixture of Phoenicians and Greeks, which in consequence of relations of ancient origin supported the Phoenician power. Hence the
Hellenic settlers regarded the Elymi as a barbarous people, because among them Greek habits of life had failed
to penetrate and no revival had here taken place by
means of a second Hellenic settlement. Nowhere in the
ancient world was there so vast an accumulation of materials of discord as in this fatal western corner of Sicily,
where Tyrians, Carthaginians, semi-Hellenes, and Hellenes dwelt together within narrow limits.
As on the south side, so on the north side Myl1. 01.
also, the Hellenes had advanced from the xvi. 1. (. c.
Sicilian sound towards the west corner. The 760.)
Zanclseans had, as early as 01. xvi. 1, founded Mylse on
the promontory projecting over against the Liparian
islands as their port in the Tyrrhenian sea, and seventeen
Olympiads later Himera at the mouth of the river of the
same name, Chalcidian population participating in large
numbers in the latter settlement. But not on this side
either did the Greeks penetrate any farther; for the best
anchorage of the whole island, the bay of Palermo, guarded
by two promontories, was never taken from its Punic possessors.
Here the Hellenes adopted the same course
Panormus rewhich the Phoenicians frequently followed in mains in the
Greek seaports. They dwelt among the other hands of the
inhabitants, and freely participated in the
trade and industrial activity flourishing at Panormus.
On the coins of the city Hellenic figures-e. g. the head
of Demeter, the symbol of the fertile island of corn-occur
by the side of the Phoenician legend which designates
Panormus as the "place of the weavers in colors;" and in




478               History of Greece.        [BOOK II.
the same way, in matters of language, usages, and laws,
Phoenician and Greek characteristics both asserted themselves, by the side of one another, in the same civil community.
The close connection between Greek and Pheenician manufacturing industry may also be demonstrated with high
probability from the Greek settlement on the
Liparian islands. Here, where the volcanic
force was unceasingly at work, a quantity of alum was
produced, a substance which was used by the ancients for
purposes of tanning, and could not be spared in their dyeing works. The Greek settlers (among whom Cnidians
are particularly mentioned, who had joined in the movement of commerce opened from the Carian coast to Sicily) obtained this important product in the greatest possible quantities, supplied the dyeing works of Panormus
with it, and fixed the price of the rare article according
to their liking. Thus they were able on their miserable
rock to attain to so great a height of prosperity, that they
could maintain themselves on the sea with a navy of their
own, and send splendid works of art to Delphi as memorials of their victories over the Tyrrhenians.
By means of the foundation of Selinus and Acragas the
Hellenes had boldly penetrated as far as the vicinity of
the passage of the sea separating the western from the
eastern Mediterranean, under the very eyes of Carthage,
where the Phoenician power, which had grown out of the
united strength of Tyre and Sidon, kept a jealous watch,
firmly resolved to preserve the dominion of the western
seas in Punic hands, after their sway in the east had
passed to the Hellenic cities. But even here the Hellenes
would not allow them a quiet and undivided dominion.
They not only, as the Rhodians and Cnidians actually
dared to do, undertook repeated attacks upon the western
corner of Sicily, which in the midst of its rocky cliffs




CHAP. III.]  The Hellenes beyond the Archipelago.  479
stood unmoved like a great Punic citadel, but also cruised
across the routes of the Punic vessels in the Tyrrhenian,
Sardinian, and Iberian waters.
Here far different conditions of life prevailed from those
of the eastern regions. Here a constant war was raging,
in contrast to the tranquil enjoyment and peaceful prosperity of the eastern colonies; here was a scene of conflict,
on which only the most enterprising of the maritime people ventured to encroach.
Corsica and Sardinia form the boundary The seas of
between the Iberian and Italian halves of the Corsica and
western sea, situate at the central point, where Sardinia.
the various routes of trade cross one another, and of great
importance to all nations which had possessions in Etruria
and Campania, in Gaul, Iberia, and Africa. Sardinia, as
well as Western Sicily, had been peopled by Greeks in the
period when Greek colonization was dependent on the
Phoenicians, a period which mythology represented in the
relations of the Tyrian Heracles to his companion Iolaus.
The Old-Ionic people, which venerated " father Iolaus " as
the primitive king of their race, had dwelt in prosperous
habitations on the rich island of the Sards, but had been
subsequently enslaved by the Carthaginians. Their political development had been rudely destroyed, and as it was
not revived by subsequent colonization, the people of the
Iolseans became a savage tribe, and those among them who
had escaped slavery led the life of robbers on the mountains and the sea.
The Phoenicians and Carthaginians anxiously guarded
the coasts of Sardinia and Corsica, in order in this case
also, where they were not the lords of the land, to prevent
settlements on the part of other nations. In this endeavor
they were particularly opposed by the Rhodians, whose
adventurous crews cruised through the western sea,
attempted wherever it was possible to damage the Phoenician power, and advanced over the half-way station




480               History of Greece.        [BOOK II.
of the Baleares as far as the Iberian coast, where on the
promontory of the Pyrenees they established a Rhodian
city.
But in a greater degree successful and productive of
important results than the efforts of any of the other cities
in this direction were those of Phocsea.
The citizens of Phocsea had been the last on the coastline of lonia to settle down to a condition of tranquillity.
Voyages of They had no building-ground but a rocky
the Phoca3-  peninsula, where they found so little space
ans.
over which to spread at their ease that this
very circumstance made them a thorough people of sailors.
In accordance with their local situation they had turned
to the waters of the Pontus, established settlements on the
Dardanelles and the Black Sea, and taken part in the
trade with Egypt. Here however they were unable to
hold their own by the side of the Milesians. Lampsacus
and Amisus passed into the hands of Miletus, the capital
of the north, and the Phocseans accordingly saw themselves obliged to look westward, and to follow the direction
of Chalcidian navigation.
Nor were they left without a special impulse in this
direction. They had, we must remember, received their
habitations from the Cymseans, who, after relinquishing
their line of coast, retired farther and farther inland and
to the pursuits of agriculture. But those among them
who adhered to their former maritime life, such as they
had pursued in their Eubcean home, joined the Phocaeans,
communicated to them the knowledge they had gained in
Euboea of the Hesperian countries, and directed their
attention thither, where Phoceans of the mother-country
(a fact of which Thucydides was aware) had already settled together with the Elymi.
It was thus that the Ionian Phoceans came into the
western sea. Being forced from the first to accustom
themselves to long and distant voyages, instead of the easy




CHAP. III.]  The HIellenes beyond the Archipelago.  481
summer-trips of the other maritime cities, they became
notably bold and heroic sailors. They began where the
rest left off; they made voyages of discovery into regions
avoided by others; they remained at sea even when the
skies already showed signs of approaching winter and the
observation of the stars became difficult. They built their
ships long and slim, in order to increase their agility; their
merchant vessels were at the same time men-of-war, with
twenty-five well-practised oarsmen on either side; their
sailors were soldiers armed for battle. Thus they cruised
through the waters, seizing upon every chance of gain
which offered itself to them, and, on account of the small
number of their civic community, rather moving about
after the fashion of freebooters than establishing by colonization fixed lines of trade. They entered those parts of
the Adriatic which most abound in rocks, and circumnavigated the islands of the Tyrrhenian sea in spite of the Carthaginian guard-ships; they sought out the bays of Campania and the mouths of the Tiber and Arnus; they proceeded farther, past the Alpine ranges, along the coast as
far as the mouth of the Rhodanus, and finally reached
Iberia, with whose rich treasures of precious metals they
had first become acquainted on the coast of Italy. The
Samians had already as early as 01. xxx. cire. come to
know the extraordinary advantages of the Iberian trade;
but in reaping a full harvest of them they, as well as the
Rhodians, were left behind by the Phocseans.
During the period when Ionia began to be
hard pressed by the Lydians the Phocseans, Ts inP Gaul
who had hitherto contented themselves with
small commercial settlements, in their turn proceeded to
the foundation of cities in Gaul and Iberia. The mouth
of the Rhodanus was of especial importance to them for
the purposes of land and sea trade, and with Ionic pliability they contrived to fix themselves here also, in order
at their ease to establish connections of a lasting charac21




482              History of Greece.         [BooK I.
ter. The myth of Euxenus, who when a guest at the
wedding of the Gaulish chieftain is chosen by the bride
instead of the native suitor, describes the favor which the
Massaia. 01. strangers contrived to obtain from the chilxlv. (B. c. dren of the land. Massalia from the forty600).      fifth Olympiad became a fixed seat of Hellenic culture in the land of the Celts, despite the hostility
of the piratical tribes of Liguria and the Punic fleet.
Large fisheries were established on the shore; and the
stony soil in the immediate vicinity of the city itself was
converted into vine and olive plantations. The roads
leading inland were made level, which brought the products of the country to the mouth of the Rhone; and in
the Celtic towns were set up mercantile establishments,
which collected at Massalia the loads of British tin, of inestimable value for the manufacture of copper, while wine
and oil, as well as works of art, particularly copper utensils, were supplied to the interior. A totally new horizon
opened for Hellenic inquiry; adventurous voyages of discovery led to the Western and Northern Ocean, where the
phenomenon of ebb and tide for the first time engaged
the intelligent consideration of the Greeks. The original
home of amber and tin was sought out, and attempts
were made to deal scientifically with the large body of
new geographical knowledge.
Meanwhile on the side of the sea Massalia
Colonies of
MasaliB    added security to her commerce by the founamongtheLi- dation of various places on the coast.
gyans,        On the east side the Ligyans were her
neighbors, a warlike tribe related by descent to the Italian
Siculi, and apparently to a certain extent affected by
Phenico-Greek influences; at all events they were at an
early period as familiar with the sea as with the mountains, and in the habit of using weapons of bronze.
Here the Massaliotes at the base of the Maritime Alps established, as far down as the gulf of Genoa, as outposts a




car. III.]  The Hellenes beyond the Archipelago.  483
series of fortified towns, the islands in front of which, particularly the Stcechades (the Hyerian islands), they planted
with corn and protected by standing garrisons. In their
contests with the Ligyans they acquired a part of the Alpine coast, where they founded Olbia, Antipolis (Antibes),
Nicsea (Nice), and Monsecus (Monaco). The excellent
timber of the Ligurian Alps, cattle fed on the Alpine
pastures, skins, honey, and fish, constituted the chief articles of export from their ports on this coast.
On the other side, where the Ligyans dwelt intermingled with the Iberians, they advanced from the river
Rhone towards the Pyrenees, and founded ad Iberians.
here Agathe (Agde). Where the Pyrenees Agathe. Emjut out towards the sea, their principal place porin.
was Emporiae, at first situated on a small island off the
coast, and then transplanted to the mainland, where the
traffic with the natives was carried on. The quarters inhabited by the traders, and lying opposite to one another,
became fixed settlements; the Greek quarter on the side
of the sea, and the Iberian on that of the land. The common domain of trade was surrounded by a protecting
wall, and thus arose the double city of two civic communities, which were separated by an intermediate wall and
together guarded the common gate towards the land side
against the more savage of the tribes. Thus even in their
distant colonies the Phocseans remained constantly under
arms, and the barbarians dwelling in the vicinity of Massalia accordingly called the foreign merchants Sigyni, a
term which among the peoples trading in bronze, particularly among the Cyprians, signified a lance. The ancient
Rhodian settlement of Rhode (Rhodez), be- Rhode.
tween Emporihe and the Pyrenees, passed into
the hands of the Phocseans, just as their own towns on the
Pontus had passed into the power of Miletus.
The important trade on the east coast of
Spain, which supplied salt, metals, and dye- The Phoaistuffs, the Phoceeans and Massaliotes had un



484               Hi[tory of Grecc.         [BooK II.
der perpetual conflicts to share with the Phoenicians and
Carthaginians. But although they failed in Hellenizing
a connected border of the coast, yet they built opposite
the Baleares, on a height commanding a wide extent of
the sea, the fortified Hemeroscopeum, where
HemeroSco-  iron-works and fisheries flourished, and where
the Ephesian Artemis owned a famous sanctuary. They followed in the tracks of the Phoenicians as
far as the Straits of Gibraltar, in the vicinity of which
they founded the city of Menace; and even
beyond the gates of Hercules they settled in
the land at the mouth of the Bstis (Gaudalquivir), the
ancient commercial domain of the Tyrians, who traded
with it on their vessels, the Tarsis ships, and transported
large numbers of adventurous population into the distant
land. On a Tarsis ship the prophet Jonas in the eighth
century attempted to escape from the hands of the Lord:
thus was this colonial country thought to lie at the end of
the world. The Greeks gave it the name of Tartessus.
After the fall of the power of Tyre, the Samians about
the middle of the seventh century here commenced Greek
commerce with surprising results: this trade also the Phocseans afterwards secured for themselves; they established
relations of the most intimate friendship with the princes
of Tartessus, so that Agarthonius built a wall at his own
expense for the Phocaeans, in order to protect them against
the conquering Median kings.
Thus the Phocieans extended their marvelActivity of lous activity from the Black Sea as far as the
the Phoeoans.
shores of the Atlantic; they brought into
connection with one another the mouths of the Nile, the
Tiber, the Rhodanus, and the Bsetis; adopting the Chalcidian trade in metals, they finally advanced to its extreme sources, and their ships spread the traffic in copper
of Tartessus, which enjoyed a distinguished reputation
through the whole Mediterranean, the whole of Hellas.




CHAP. III.]  The Hellenes beyond the Archipelago.  485
The south coast of the Mediterranean pre- The coast of
sented the fewest attractions, since, with the Libya.
exception of Egypt, it offered no mouths of
rivers, such as Greek mariners loved for their landingplaces. At the same time the vast and extensive colonization of the north coast of Africa by the Phoenicians
doubtless also carried across Carian and Ionian elements
of population. Of these traces are to be
found in the worship of Iolaus, who occurs as tion between
the national Hero of a division of the Libyo- Greece and
Libya, and bePhoenician population; so that we may as- ginnings of
sume a mixture of nationalities to have exist- Greek colonization.
ed here similar to that prevailing in Sardinia.
An equally clear vestige occurs in the religious worship
of Posidon and Athene, which was domesticated in Libya
from pre-historic ages, particularly on the Lesser Syrte,
the deepest bay of the whole coast, where the Triton flows
into the sea. Hence the myths of the Argonauts already
included the Tritonian shore in their cycle. We also find
Old-Ionian seats of population mentioned, such as Cybus,
Maschala, between Utica and Hippo, and Icosium in
Mauretania. In short, the relations between Greece and
Libya are so ancient and manifold, that it is impossible to
derive or explain them from a single municipal settlement
like that of the Therseans. Even the power and civilization of Carthage are only to be accounted for by taking
into consideration the Greek elements to which she gave
admission.
Crete was pre-eminently qualified by her
situation for continuing these ancient rela- CAgeny of
tions between Greece and Libya. Cretan
purple-fishers from Itanus kept up in the Archipelago
the knowledge of the fertile coast-districts of Libya.
With Itanus Thera was connected, the wondrous isle,
where on the steep declivities of a volcano which had
risen from the sea, dwelt an intelligent and industrious




486               History of Greece.        (BoKo II.
Thera.  people, who from primitive times had been
occupied with purple-dyeing and the weav'ng
of variegated stuffs, while at the same time, as the nature
of the country made necessary, engaged in navigation; for
the fallen crater with its precipitous sides forms a harbor
of incomparable excellence. The history of this island
entered upon a new and grand era by the immigration of
the families from the Taygetus (p. 197). These immigrants were 2Egidse, Cadmean families, returning to the
East whence they had come: they performed their journeys as priests of the Carnean Apollo, whose worship they
spread wherever they landed. The date of this LaconicoMinyan settlement on Thera was usually placed a generation previous to the foundation of the Ionic cities. This
immigration introduced into the island of dyers and
weavers a warlike population: the narrow soil, covered
with a lava of pumice-stone, could not long suffice, and
hence large numbers were joyously attracted by the report
which had reached them from Itanus concerning the fortunate shores of Libya.
The Minyans commenced new Argo-voyThe iThferi   ages from Thera; and to the descendant of
one of their noblest houses, the Euphemide
Battus, it was permitted to found on the Libyan shore a
dominion, the fame of which was far to surpass that of
the mother-island. At first, in this instance again after
the fashion of the Phoenicians, nothing but an island was
occupied, which rises opposite the mouth of the Paliurus,
out of the waters of a well-protected bay (the bay of
Bomba). This island, called Platea, and the shore were
the earliest scene of Hellenic life in Libya. But here it
remained a mere struggle for existence. The waters were
easily navigable, but the island was small, and the shore
full of morasses. It seemed preferable to relinquish the
bay and to pass farther to the west by land, where,
instead of a solitary oasis, a large site for a city well




CHAP. III.]  The Hellenes beyond the Archipelago.  487
adapted for dominion was discovered. The site indeed
was of an unusual nature, especially for islanders, and
lay several miles away from the sea, the shores of which
were devoid of natural bays for anchorage. But, with
this exception, every advantage was at hand: instead of
the narrow stony soil of their native land, they found the
most fertile corn-fields, a broad table-land with a healthy
atmosphere and watered by fresh springs; a well-wooded
coast-land, unusually well adapted for all the natural
products which the Hellenes deemed essential; while in
the background mysteriously spread the desert, a world
passing the comprehension of the Hellenes, out of which
the Libyan tribes came to the shore with horses and
camels, with black slaves, with apes, parrots, and other
wonderful animals, with dates and rare fruits. These
tribes, moreover, were of a peaceable and courteous character, and inclined to enter into commercial intercourse.
An abundant spring of water above the
shore was the natural point at which the 
brown men of the desert and the mariners assembled.
Here regular meetings became customary. The bazaar
became a permanent market, and the market a city
which arose on a grand scale, broad and lofty, on two
rocky heights, which jut out towards the sea from the
plateau of the desert. This city was called Cyrene.
Between these two rocky heights descended on a gentle
incline the great high-road of trade, which conducted the
caravans past the spring to the sea. The chief consideration in the foundation had been the pasture of cattle; but
how vast was the number of other treasures to which a
closer examination introduced the inhabitants! The most
important of all the products of the country was the
silphium, the sap of which was sought after in the whole
Greek world for purposes of seasoning and medicine, and
which here grew wild in native abundance. After being
dried and pressed into lumps, the precious sap was packed




488               History of Greece.        [BooK II.
in sacks; and on the reliefs of vases the kings of Cyrene
are to be seen superintending in person the weighing, sale,
and packing of this important royal monopoly.
For a long time it was a small band of Therseans who,
in the midst of the Libyans, formed the central body of
the Hellenic settlement, and endeavored to strengthen
themselves by attracting the natives to take up their
abode in the colony. The large proportion of Libyans
who introduced themselves into the colony is proved by
Battus. 01. li the circumstance that the name of the king,
cire. (B. c.  Battus, was itself a Libyan  royal title.
576.)      When the third of the house of the Euphemidse came to the throne, about the fifty-first Olympiad,
the colony opened new relations with the Delphic oracle,
because it saw itself in danger of gradually entirely
losing its Hellenic character.  The Pythia issued an
appeal strongly urging participation in the settlement at
Cyrene, and large numbers of population immigrated
from  Crete, the islands, and Peloponnesus. A  large
amount of new land was parcelled out, the Libyans were
driven back, the landing-place became the port of Apollonia, and the territory occupied by the city itself was
largely extended.  Cyrene became, like Massalia, the
starting-point of a group of settlements, the centre of a
small Greece: Barca and Hesperides were her daughters.
Gradually a nation grew up, which extended itself and
its agriculture, and contrived to cover a large division of
African land with Hellenic culture. This was the new
era which commenced for Cyrene with the region of the
third king, the Battus who, on account of the marvellously rapid rise of his kingdom, was celebrated as "the
Fortunate" in all Hellas. The Battiade were soon regarded as a great power, and the kings of Egypt were
not ashamed to sue for their friendship.




CHAP. IIL] The Hellenes beyond the Archipelago.  489
The historian must follow tradition, which General surpreserves single prominent events out of the vey of Greek
life of nations, but has no memory for the colonization.
gradual process of generation. Accordingly, single days
of battle are placed in the brightest halo of fame, while
the quiet and apparently insignificant travail of a nation,
in which for several generations it expends its best
powers, remains in darkness. Thus the colonial activity
of the Hellenes is hidden from the eye of the inquirer
whose special desire it would be to follow it step by step.
The notices which tradition here and there vouchsafes
are merely sparse and meagre reminiscences attaching to
the foundation of great cities. But it should be remembered that these foundations themselves are in no case
the beginnings, but always the final results, of endeavors
in which is contained the grandest and most truly glorious
activity of the Greek nation.
First, the Greeks accompanied the Phoenicians on the
vessels of the latter, before they independently settled and
spread by their side. Next, the Hellenic trading cities,
following in the track of the voyages of the Phoenicians,
required centuries in order in continually widening circles
to become acquainted with the various products of land
and sea, to find out the localities best adapted for trade,
to gain over by sagacious treatment or to tame by force
the tribes of the barbarians, and to select suitable places
in which to place their wares in dock: it was not until
preparations of this kind had been completed that the
foundation of a colony could take place. The colonies
themselves gradually grew into an innumerable multitude. All the nations in any way connected with the
Mediterranean were enduringly affected by Greek culture; and the original habitations of the Hellenes, the
XEgsean, with its islands and coasts, however small and
insignificant a division it may constitute of the wide
21*




490              History of Greece.        [Boox II.
waters of the Mediterranean, yet became the Archipelago,
i. e., the ruling sea, among them all.
The Greeks united, in a far higher degree than any
other nation, an insatiable desire of penetrating into
distant regions with the most faithful love of home.
Wherever they went they took their home with them.
The fire kindled on the city-hearth, sculptured representations of the native deities, priests and seers of the ancient
families, accompanied the citizens in their emigration.
The guardian gods of the mother-city were invited to
take part in the new settlement, which the emigrants
loved to form after the model at home, with its rivulets
and springs, with citadel and temple, streets and open
places of the town. It was not the soil and the wood and
stones upon it which, according to the Greek idea, constituted the city; but the citizens themselves.  Hence,
wherever Milesians dwelt, there existed a Miletus. Accordingly the name of the mother-city or that of a particular division or district of its territory, from which a
larger number of settlers happened to have come, was
transferred to the new settlement. Abydus, e. g., which
recurs on the Hellespont, in Egypt, and in Italy, was the
name of a district of Miletus.
All the tribes of the Greek nation took part in the great
work of colonization; though the chief part was accomplished by the Ionians, who were the real migratory or
wandering Greeks, and who from their two centres, Chalcis and Miletus, carried on colonization on the grandest
scale. They developed their native talent for accommodating themselves to every locality with masterly brilliancy, and proved it by achieving extraordinary results.
It was they again who as a rule formed the central body
of the population in the colonies conducted by Achaean
and Dorian families-a fact which explains the undeniable harmony in matters of constitution and social life prevailing among the Achaean, Dorian, and Ionian colonies;




CHAP. III.]  The Hellenes beyond the Archipelago.  491
for these names merely designate the origin of the families at the head of the settlement, and not that of the
main body of the settlers. The combination of different
tribes for the purposes of one foundation, moreover, essentially contributed to the prosperity of the latter; and the
history of Sybaris and Croton, of Syracuse and Acragas,
proves the results of a union between Achmean heroism
and Doric energy, on the one side, and the mobile character of an Ionian multitude on the other. True, the territorial circumstances of the colonies particularly favored
the advance of Ionic Hellenism, and it is accordingly not
wonderful that the latter came more and more to decide
the character of each city.
The colonies saved Greece when suffering from overpopulation; for the extraordinary productivity displayed
by the Greek nation, particularly from the eighth to the
sixth century, would have, as it were, suffocated the states
with the multitude of their inhabitants, and caused their
ruin by means of internal disturbances -and mutual feuds,
had not colonization carried off the surplus forces and
beneficently expended them, at the same time procuring
for the mother-city an increase of power and commercial
connections. Hence the colonists were not unfrequently
consciously designed to be political remedies, in order to
serve, as it were, to let blood in times of feverish excitement (pp. 292, 303.)
The spread of the Hellenes over the coasts of the Mediterranean was a struggle against the barbarians; in the
first instance against the Phoenicians, who had taught them
navigation. For, in great things as in small, this is the
regular course of events, that a people or state learns the
art of navigation from another, and then, when in possession of it, asserts itself alone, and immediately tests its
now independent power on its instructor.
Thus the colonization of the Greeks drove the Phoenicians farther and farther to the west; and in the western




492               History of Greece,        [BooK II.
sea the struggle which in the east had at so early a period
been decided in favor of the Hellenes, was carried on without interruption. Moreover, even in the regions of the sea
which the Phoenicians had relinquished at an earlier date,
in the Pontus, and particularly among the Taurian and
Caucasian tribes, a fixed settlement was not to be effected
and maintained without a conflict.
But, in general, mercantile nations desire none but
peaceable conditions of life. In this spirit the Ionian
Greeks also came among the barbarians; they endeavored
to be of service and use to the latter, and consented to
enter into the most intimate relations with them. The
Ionians were careless as to purity of blood; they found
wives wherever they settled, among Celts, Scythians, and
Libyans. The Massaliotes designated a wedding-feast as
having been the commencement of their dominion in
Gaul, and mythology has good reason for its habit of
representing the acquisition of a colonial territory by the
symbolic event of a marriage between the immigrant and
the daughter of the native prince. In other myths the
Gods and Heroes are the champions of the strangers
standing under their protection.
Thus Heracles wanders through the countries of the
Pontus, and finds in the primitive forest a woman with
serpent's feet, who, according to Greek symbolism, signifies the race of the autochthones. The issue of his union
with her is Scythes, i. e. the people of the Scythians. This
myth only becomes untrue when it is extended to the
whole Scythian nation; in point of fact it only relates to
the Scythians who sprang from the union of Greeks and
natives. Thus in all the lands of the barbarians where
the Greeks established a firm footing there arose a mixed
race, which was of the greatest importance for the progress
of intercourse. They were the born mediators, the interpreters and agents of the Greek mercantile houses; and
as their numbers increased they spread Greek usages and




CacP. III.]  The Hellenes beyond the Archipelago.  493
the Greek language among their people. Hated and
treated as enemies by their own countrymen who dwelt
farther inland and adhered to their ancient traditions,
their own interests led them to attach themselves closely
to the Hellenes. Thus the Iberian Emporitse sought the
protection of the Greeks, who now built their city walls
on foreign soil, not only for their own sake, but also for
that of the Hellenized natives. The Celts on the Rhodanus showed themselves peculiarly accessible to Greek
culture; and it is known how lasting and productive these
influences proved. Thus was formed in Egypt the class
of the interpreters speaking two languages, and on the
Libyan sea a Grseco-Libyan people, particularly at
Barca; and even tribes of the interior, such as the
Cabalii and Asbytme, entirely adopted the manners and
customs of the citizens of Cyrene. Thus finally grew up
the great people of the Helleno-Scythians, as the noblest
representative of whom the ancients celebrated Anacharsis, whose love of knowledge was said to have prompted
him to travel to Athens, where he gained the friendship
of Solon, and whence he returned home to fall there as a
martyr to his Philhellenic efforts. Of course, according
to the favor or disfavor of circumstances, the work of
Hellenization succeeded in very different degrees. There
existed Hellenes who, being expelled from their mercantile settlements, drifted inland and settled among barbarians, till they gradually fell away from civilization. So
Herodotus speaks of the Geloni, who dwelt amidst the
Budini in the interior of Russia. They had municipal
institutions, as well as Hellenic temples, statues, and
altars; but all the latter, as well as their city walls, were
of wood. They celebrated Greek festivals in honor of
Dionysus, but their language had already degenerated
into a mixed dialect, half Greek and half Scythian.
The beneficent epoch which commenced among the barbarians with the landing of the Ionians is represented by




494              History of Greece.        [BooK II.
those sons of Heroes who, wherever they appear, abolish
barbarous sacrificial rites and establish milder forms of
religious worship, kindlier manners, and happier conditions of life. Thus Euthymus comes to Temesa, Orestes
to Tauria, Euxenus to Massalia, and the Antenoridwe to
Cyrene. The blessings of a revolution which changed all
the conditions of life were most perceptible in the soil.
The tracts of morass were drained; the lands measured
out and divided for the purpose of regular cultivation; at
the mouths of the rivers harbors were established; and
the heights levelled for the temples of the gods and towndwellings. Thus Sardinia was a wilderness until the arrival of Iolaus, who with his companions transformed the
country into the most fertile of soils. Thus cultivated
tracts were called lolaia, and it was their productive condition which tempted the Carthaginians to their conquest.
Thus in the hands of the Greeks everything was
changed and made new. The cities were never at first
laid out on too large a scale; the circumference of the
walls was generally limited to 40-50 stadia. When this
circumference no longer sufficed for the growing population, new towns were founded. Thus the bay of Naples
and the Crimea were filled, group after group, by Hellenic republics; and such a distribution of the population
tended completely and thoroughly to infuse the moral and
mental, as well as the political, influence of Hellenism
into the land.
A different process from that through which the barbarous countries proper passed took place in regions into
which Greek population had been already introduced by
means of the foundation of cities before the period of
colonization.  It is impossible not to perceive in how
many instances this population had already spread in single bodies as early as the era of the maritime dominion of
the Phoenicians. Thelatter commenced this intermixture




CnAP. III.] The I ellenes beyond the Archipelago.  495
of peoples, which renders the ethnography of the coasts of
the Mediterranean so difficult; they carried tribes subjected by them from one shore to the other by means of
a forcible transplantation; they had Carians and Old-Ionians among their followers, as it is narrated of the Tyrian
Heracles, that he led men of all nations into the lands of
the West; so that the Greek mercantile cities even in
barbarous countries found popular elements akin to them
by descent, to which they could attach themselves.
There prevailed, however, a yet more widely different
state of things in the countries which had from the first
possessed an original body of population related to the
Greeks, and to which subsequently large masses of immigrants from Greece had been added before the foundation
of the new cities. Such countries were Lower Italy and
Sicily. Here the Siculi, connected by descent with the
Pelasgi, had been prepared for the reception of Hellenic
culture by the immigration from Crete, Asia Minor, and
Western Greece, so that now by means of the establishments of the Ionians, Achseans, and Dorians a Greek nationality could grow up, which, though new and peculiar,
was yet in every respect the equal of that of the mothercountry.  The Siceliotes, as the Hellenized inhabitants
were called by way of distinction from the Siculi, were
even by the Greeks regarded as particularly intelligent
men, and the cities of Magna Grsecia were not only able to
keep pace with the mother-country, but even surpassed it
in independent development of Greek culture. In these
regions, then, colonization accomplished for the inhabitants, though at a later date, what the change from the
Pelasgian to the Hellenic age had effected for the mothercountry; and thus was called into life a homogeneous
Greek world comprehending the coasts of the ]Egean and
the Ionian Sea, so that European Hellas now lay in the
midst of Greece.




496               History of Greece.        [BooK II.
To this central Hellas at the same time
Relations be- belonged the glory of having sent out from
tween the mother country its shores the entire colonization, by means of
nid the csolo new cities, and the right of either directly or
indirectly calling all the colonies on the farther shore its daughters. Nor was this merely an empty
boast; but according to Greek ideas a very intimate and
important relation existed between mother-city and colony. The colonies felt a desire to remain immutably
faithful to the habits of life and religious rites of their old
home; they endeavored to obtain as priests and leaders
of the commonwealth men of the same families which had
filled these offices at home. All the citizens of the mother-city might claim a reverential reception in her colonies. The latter felt themselves to be dependent and, as
it were, under age, so that they claimed the advice and
aid of the maternal city in order to attain to a fixed political and social order. Nay, the bonds of pious attachment
were so strong, that the cities which had long outgrown a
condition of nonage, frequently after long times of
estrangement, returned to the mother-cities, in order with
their help to raise themselves out of the confusion which
had supervened in their public affairs. Thus the Italian
cities, after the fall of the Pythagoreans, turned to their
mother-country Achaia.
When the colonies were about to proceed to a new foundation, they regarded the latter as the continuation of a
work begun by the mother-city, and requested from her a
leader for the new settlement. Nor, indeed, is it possible
to conceive a relation more salutary in either direction,
than the union between mother-city and colony. The
former appropriated all the fresh vital forces of the
younger city, while the latter again compensated herself
for her lack of local tradition and history by faithfully
attaching herself to the mother-city. In all matters of
sacred law and religious statutes, the colonies loyally ad



CHAP. III.] The Hellenes beyond the Archipelago.  497
hered to the ancient traditions. Occasionally it was in
them that antique customs were preserved with especial vigor; so, e. g., in Cyzicus the original form of the
Ionian festive calendar and the names of the Ionian
tribes. In civil affairs, on the other hand, the grievous
condition of dependence could not as a rule permanently
endure; the distances were too great, and the interests too
diverse: moreover, every Hellenic community was too
much accustomed to regard itself, and be regarded, as
based on itself. Generally, then, the mother-cities were
content to reap the commercial advantages, without claiming dominion. The colonies, for their part, in proportion
to the rapidity of their growth, were eager to assert their
complete independence. Under these circumstances no
colonial dominions were established; and wherever claims
to such a dominion were set up, as they were especially by
Corinth, who first among Hellenic states possessed a navy
of war, they led to colonial wars, which, like that
between Corinth and Corcyra, only contributed utterly to
sunder the ancient bonds of filial piety.
Many other causes tended to loosen the connection between the cities. Nowhere, we must remember, were the
citizens of the mother-city, who formed the heart of the
new community, left to themselves. Even before the departure men of the most various descent collected; for
Chalcis and Miletus were merely the ports which conducted emigration in certain directions. How could they out
of the body of their own citizens have each within a few
generations founded from seventy to eighty towns? The
same was the case with Corinth, Megara, and Phocsea.
Meanwhile the colonies themselves, having an abundance
of land, but a scarcity of citizens, were naturally less
sparing in the bestowal of the civic franchise than the
mother-cities; and the more rapid their growth, the more
the original character of the community lost itself.
In the colonies history began again at the beginning;




498               History of Greece.         [BOOK II.
the periods which had been already passed through in the
mother-country were here not unfrequently resumed anew.
Thus, about the time of the Persian wars, there arose in
Panticapseum a Heroic family, who called themselves, after
*heir ancestor, the Archseanactides, the founders of a hereditary princely power, which as towards the Hellenic
colonists assumed the milder form of a republican office,
but as towards the barbarians amounted to a full sovereignty equal to that of the early kings. Like the Pelopidse of old, they had, coming from afar, attained to power
by their culture and wealth; and here, in honor of this
dynasty and that of the Spartocidse, which succeeded it,
sepulchral monuments were erected as late as the fourth
century B. c., which correspond to the Heroic sepulchres
in Mycenae.
But, as a rule, the colonies speedily overtook the mother-cities, and passed through a far more rapid development than the latter. Miletus had gone through the
whole course of constitutional phases while Athens was
still struggling on through a slow progress. In proportion
as strange elements penetrated in greater numbers into
the civic population, the influences mutually exercised
upon one another by the different elements increased in
vividness of contact. A large quantity of fermenting
matter accumulated, and the members of ancient houses,
who were accustomed to rule in the mother-city, were
necessarily less successful in asserting their claims in the
colonies. Here the composite civic community grew too
rapidly in numbers, prosperity, and consciousness ofpower; class-distinctions were equalized, and there was
more activity and excitement in life; such ancient traditions as had been brought over from the mother-cities
were less considerately set aside, if no grounds were found
for them in the new conditions of existence, while everything new and suitable to the present times was more
vigorously encouraged.




CHaP. III.]  The Hellenes beyond the Archipelago.  499
The boldness requisite for the enterprise, and the pleasure resulting from its successful accomplishment, the
impulse given by the newness of the locality and life, and
the intercourse between men of the most various descent,
all contributed to give to the emigrant citizens a peculiar
ardor and heightened energy, and to their settlements a
splendor which outvied the cities of the mother-country.
The colonies, it must be remembered, were all planted in
localities specially selected; accordingly their products
were in every case distinguished by their excellence.
Thus it happened that, after a time, whatsoever was the
best of its kind was to be found beyond the limits of
Hellas proper, the best corn and cattle, the best fish, the
best cheese, &c. Moreover, the abundance of space at
the command of the settlers from the first enabled the
cities to be built on a larger scale and according to a fixed
plan; and what in the mother-cities had been left to
chance was here developed into a work of art. In the
handsome new towns a more brilliant life developed itself
than that known to the mother-country. Men wished to
enjoy the wealth they had rapidly acquired, and laughed
at the patriarchal statutes, with which the burghers of the
old towns of the mother-country made their lives miserable; and the guest from Sybaris who had once sat at the
citizen-table of Sparta remarked, that he had ever since
been unable to make so much account of the Spartans'
courage in facing death.
In the calendar of the Tarentines was to be found a
greater number of feast and banqueting, than of working,
days; and of the Agrigentines it was said, that they built
as if they were to live forever, and dined as if they were
anxious to make the most of the last day of their existence. The feeling of a subordinate relation towards the
mother-country changed to the direct contrary. The Sybarites sought to throw Olympia into the shade by their
festive games; and when the mother-country was hard




500               History of Greece.        [Boox II.
pressed by the Persians, all the colonies remained unsympathetic and unmoved.
So distinct, then, were the paths which mother-country
and colonies now pursued, and so widely were the Hellenes dispersed over all the shores of the Mediterranean,
that a doubt would arise as to whether there can be any
farther question of a Hellenic history, if we failed to keep
in view the common features which still continued to unite
all the Hellenes.




APPENDIX.
Page 55.-I have here endeavored, with the necessary
brevity, to justify the view as to the appearance of the Ionians
on ancient Egyptian monuments previously expressed in my
publication on "The Ionians before the Ionic Migration"
(Die lonier vor der ionischen Wanderung), in opposition to
Bunsen's view, as put forward in his "Egypt," vol. v. p. 411.
Bunsen is completely of my opinion as to the earliest habitations of the Ionic race, but considers, as Roug6 did before
him, that the hieroglyphic term which, following Lepsius,
I have interpreted as applying to the Ionians, did not acquire
this signification until the time of the Ptolemies. This would
necessitate the opinion that the Egyptians during their earlier
period had no collective name for the Greeks among them,
that the group of hieroglyphics originally did not signify
"Uinim," or "Ionians," and that it was in the Macedonian
period that its signification was first, by a change of interpretation, applied to the Greeks. The improbability of these
assumptions has been referred to in the text But as the
decision of this point is in the main a matter of Egyptian
philology, all who take an interest in the question as to the
earliest mention of the Ionians in contemporary documentsa question of the highest importance for ancient ethnologywill be glad to learn the view of Lepsius on the point in dispute, as he communicated it to me by way of supplement to
his essay printed in the Monthly Reports of the Royal Academy of Sciences (Mlonatsberichte der K. Akademie der Wissenschaften, July, 1855), "On the name of the Ionians on the
Egyptian Monuments" ( Ueber den Namen der lonien auf den




502                    Appendix.
ajyptischen Denkmialern)  I accordingly here append it in his
own words:"Bunsen has lately, in the last part of his work on'Egypt,'
denied that the hieroglyphic name which I am persuaded
ought to be read in the same way on the ancient Egyptian
monuments as on those of the Greek and Roman period, viz.
Uinim, i. e. lonians, was actually pronounced in the same way
and signified the same thing from the earliest times. In this
matter he goes back to the assertion of De Rouge, published
by the latter a few years previously to my essay on the subject, to the effect that the name in question on the earlier
monuments had the general signification of'les peuples du
nord,' literally'les septentrionaux tous,' but that at a later
period, after the Greek rule in Egypt, it was applied to the
Greeks, and interpreted as'les septentrionaux seigneurs.' In
favor of this view Bunsen adds no new argument, and the
proofs previously advanced by me against it appear to me not
to have been hitherto in any point confuted. The state of the
case is as follows:
"The first symbol of the group forming the name cannot by
itself mean'the Northerners.' In this case a determinative
would be unavoidably requisite to mark the plural, particularly wherever the group occurs outside the cartouche, and there
could accordingly be no want of space for writing it in full.
But on the ancient monuments not even a different reading
occurs, either in the number or position of the symbols. This
decisive absence of any determinative even prevents us from
taking the symbols to mean the'North' at all, since the latter
would, as a rule, have necessarily required its determinative;
and, even neglecting this, the plural of the symbol for "all"
would again be an error in hieroglyphic writing. Still less is
this interpretation admissible,'the Northern Lords;' for in
this case the fixed grammatical sequence would require the
symbol of the North to stand last. This applies to the Greek
as well as to the more ancient period.
"Moreover, it is a novelty in the study of hieroglyphics that
a group of symbols belonging together, which had been once
introduced for a certain term, should ever at a later period
have essentially changed its pronunciation or signification.
The possibility of such an inroad upon the laws for making




Appendix.                  503
the writing intelligible (an irregularity in itself almost incredible, and which in this case could not be ascribed to the whim
of an individual, but could only have obtained universal
validity by means of a priestly decree) would, in any case,
have to be accounted for by farther striking proofs before we
could consent to adopt it; not to mention the consideration
that no expert in hieroglyphic writing would have understood
the allusion to the Lords of the North, because the position of
the symbols would not admit of this interpretation.
"Finally, even if the usage in hieroglyphics were not
opposed to this interpretation, it would have to be weighed,
how vast an exaggeration would lie in the mention of'all
Northerners,' if by this was meant that all the nations of the
North were subjects of the king of Egypt. But if it was
merely a general phrase intended to express Pharaoh's dominion over the whole world, the Egyptian love of symmetry
would have doubtless required that he should not only be
called the ruler of all the lands of the North, but also of all
the lands of the South, nay, even of the East and the West. But
nowhere do we meet with a parallel of the kind. Rather besides the cartouche in question, without exception, none but
perfectly definite names of nations are mentioned, which we
are indeed as yet unable to explain from first to last, but as to
the individuality of which no doubt can be entertained.
"Accordingly the name before us is that of a perfectly
definite nation, which must have originally been the same as
in the Greek period, viz. HSuinim, Uinim, or Uinin, a fact
which may be demonstrated even independently from the
later way of reading of it. For even in early times the vowels au or ui occur in connection with the first symbol of the
papyrus-plant, just as in the period of the Ptolemies we find
them occasionally added in the name of the Ionians for the
sake of greater clearness. The word for omnes in Coptic was
nibi, niben, or in the Theban dialect nim; and there is no
objection against assuming these sounds to be also those of the
hieroglyphic group for omnes. Accordingly the name of the
Ionians, like many others, was expressed in writing by symbols originally ideographic, but in this case only to be understood in their phonetic signification. The choice of these
symbols was in the first instance decided by the sound; but




504                   Appendix.
where there were several to be selected from, those were generally preferred which seemed, at all events distantly, to contain a symbolical allusion. It is accordingly not impossible
that for the first syllable the flower was chosen which, when
qualified by certain determinatives, signified the North, because the nation lived in the north; and for the second the
symbol for all, in order to point to the great extent and manifold subdivision into tribes of the nation; without, however,
the view ever being entertained of placing the two ideas in
an actual.grammatical conjunction.
"Hence the question now reduces itself to this, What may
perchance be concluded from the way in which the Uinim,
i. e. the Ionians, are mentioned on the monuments as to the
historical idea at that time implied? The Uinim are mentioned among the nine nations which were permanently subject
to the Pharaohs, or were at all events regarded as so subjected. Among these nations they frequently occupy the
first place. But they are not named among the nations upon
whom war was individually made, and with whom we become
acquainted by means of the representations or inscriptions on
the monuments. From this I am fain to conclude that a
part, though only a small part, of the Uinim had settled
in Egypt or the neighboring tracts of coast, and was subject
to the Pharaohs. Only by this means could they find a
place among the nine subject nations. But the name itself
necessarily possessed a far more comprehensive signification.
It was the ethnographical designation for all Greek tribes belonging to one another by descent, manners, and language,
who filled the islands and coasts of the Mediterranean. In
the eyes of the Egyptians these necessarily stood foremost
among the barbarous nations of the North in power and estimation. Accordingly in the enumeration of the nine nations
they frequently received the first place, or followed immediately after the name of Lower Egypt, just as in the other
lists the Kusch preceded all the rest, or followed immediately
after the name of Upper Egypt as the second cartouche. The
Kusch, or zEthiopians, were also a great and wide-spread
nation, over only a small part of which the Pharaohs permanently ruled. As individual and, geographically, clearly
defined tribes, on the other hand, the Ionic, i. e. Greek, tribes




Appendix.                   505
possessed names of their own. Only the latter, and not the
name of the whole scattered nation, we naturally find mentioned in connection with the military expeditions of the
Pharaohs. I have already elsewhere pointed out that the
name Javan, which in the table of nations designates the
Greek nation, is completely in harmony with our view of
the Uinim. As belonging to the grandson of Noah and
the ancestors of four distinct nations, this name necessarily in
this case also designated a higher ethnographical unity. The
same wider signification of the lonians as Hellenes or Greeks
in our sense was retained among the Egyptians, Hebrews,
Arabs, and other Eastern nations down to a late period.
Only the Greeks themselves restricted the use of the name to
a particular tribe."
Page 326.-This passage, which treats of the earliest divisions of the Attic people, must be guarded againstbeing misunderstood in either of two ways.
In the first place, I do not mean to imply that all who in
Attica belonged to the order of the Eupatridre lived on the
citadel or in its immediate vicinity. The ancients related of
Theseus that he passed through the districts of the country,
in order to gain over the different families to his scheme of
union (Plut. Thes. c. 24); and thus, even after Theseus, the
families remained on their property in various parts of the
country, although, in consequence of the avvotLKteL6, the city
of Athens became the principal and central habitation of the
Attic nobility.
As we farther possess the tradition that each of the 360
families contained thirty men (cf. Etym.. 226, 13: yevog
va7/riua EK rpiaKovra avJp>l, avvear6g; Eustath.: ad Il. P p. 239,
44: EXEl rab evo a&vdpar rptaiovra; and the other passages in
Meier, De Gentilitate Attica, p. 21), we are accordingly warranted in stating "the clans of the Eupatridse to have formed
10.800 households;" for they are the main trunk of the whole
system, and the basis on which the whole state was regulated.
Meanwhile this must not be understood to imply that all
families included in this system were equals in birth and
rank. For this the number of households is too large. We
must presume that the latter included, besides the members
of the noble clans, who recognized one another as equals by
22




506                   Appendix.
birth, families of the other classes, the Geomori and Demiurgi
(p. 325 ff.); so that we have to distinguish between two kinds
of clansmen, original and adscript, Eupatride and non-Eupatride. There is no reason to doubt that the traditional number of 10,800 was at one time the actual average number of
the sum total of those who, standing in a closer or more
distant relation to them, participated in the sanctuaries of
the state which were administered by the clans. But the
question is, to which period of Attic history this number
applies.
My reason for ascribing it to the pre-historic period is this,
that in the historic times no mention is made of any division
of the kind. It seems, however, to belong, notwithstanding, to
a period in which the Attic constitution experienced a fundamental change, and in which a new division of the community
was instituted for a very definite object. And this object can
have been no other than that of according to the families not
the equals by birth of the nobility a participation in the public
sanctuaries. And it was precisely this point of view from
which Solon acted. He wished to blend all members of the
state into one religious community by means of participation
in the worship of Apollo, the ancestral deity of the Ionic clans
(p. 366): it was he who first propounded the idea of Attic citizenship, in which former class-distinctions were to be equalized
(p. 372), very much as in Rome the idea of civitas abolished in
a political sense the difference between members of the families
and clients. Hence it is no unfounded conjecture to ascribe
this division of the clans into households, or rather the introduction of the latter into the organism of the clans, to Solon;
so that the number 10,800 would express the sum total of the
Attic citizens and patresfamiliarum at his time.
As a matter of course, this extension and the widening of the
bond of union between the clans was far from involving the
abolition of the ancient class-distinctions.  "Gennetze," or
members of the union of families, now existed in a double
sense. According to the wider statistical meaning of the term
it might be held to include all the citizens of Athens, in so far
as they had a share in the worship of Apollo rarp(voo and the
privileges depending on it; but the Gennetse in a more restricted sense consisted only of those Athenians who belonged




Appendix.                    507
to one of the 360 ancient families. Gentilitas in its wider sense
was a condition of full citizenship; in its narrower sense it
remained a privilege of those who claimed to be connected by
descent with the ancestors of the clans, and were alone entitled
to administrate the priestly offices (riv Opaxrpiwv -EKaar7 d6Lfprro
et yevv'/, E fSv at lepwoavvat' a ci dKarof TrvpoaUKovaat Ebci7pobvro,
Harpocr. s. v. yevvTrat). Thus then the Eteobutadae, as natural
descendants of the Hero Butes, were distinguished from the
families co-ordinated with their own, who had the right of sacrificing at their altars. And if we assume that in each of the
thirty clans belonging to a phratria one of the ancient houses
administrated its sacred offices and places, and that to this
house, as the main trunk of the whole clan, the households coordinated with it were attached, it becomes possible, as far as
the want of more accurate information of a more ancient date
permits, to form a conception of the organization of the Attic
civic community, and of the relations between the families and
houses. The members of the noble main or original families
(ol hp axpe elf ra KaXovyieva y'vm Karave#/7Oevrec, Harpocr. ubi supra) appear indeed to have been distinguished as actual members.of the same clan by the name of the Homogalactes, or
foster-brothers, from the clansmen added.at a later period.
By widening the ancient bond uniting the clans to a system
comprehending the whole civic community, religious and statistical, a breaking-up of the Attic civic body into two halves,
such as took place at Rome, was prevented. The same institution also explains the long continuance of the authority and
influence of the Eupatridse (cf. p. 368), who were accustomed
to act as the representatives of the clansmen who were their
equals in religious, and originally also in civil, matters. This
habitual relation of dependence gradually transforming itself,
political equality between all the citizens of Attica could be
achieved without a conflict of classes. Finally, the relations
we have discussed explain how it was possible to receive the
new citizens into the political community, without, a solemn
adoption into one of the ancient clans being necessary. Such
an adoption was, however, totally impossible when a multitude
of new citizens were enfranclised, as was done by Clisthenes.
Page 408.-I have here ascribed the introduction of the lot
to Clisthenes. To the opinion that at all events it belongs to




508                    Appendix.
his period, and is connected with his reforms, I firmly adhere,
though many voices have been raised in favor of the view of
Grote, according to which the election of public officers by lot
was not introduced until the time of Pericles. For after calmly
considering all the arguments pro and contra, I am obliged to
declare that in all main points I agree with Schcemann, Die
Verfassungsgeschichte Athens, p. 68 f. I attach incomparably
more weight to the testimony of Herodotus (vi. 109) as to the
polemarch chosen by lot at the battle of Marathon than to all
the objections which have been used from a historico-political
point of view against so early an introduction of the lot. In
general it appears to me to be a dangerous proceeding, while
endeavoring to form a judgment as to the constitutional history of Attica, to start, like Grote and his followers, with a
fixed vied as to the gradually advancing development of the
democratic principle, and to make this the standard by which
to judge the events handed down to us, while putting aside as
incredible those which refuse to fit into the view presumed.
It is evident that a very different significance attached at different periods to the use of the lot. Originally, as we are entitled to assume, none but men of eminence came forward for
election by lot; those who had no claim advanced none, and
the poorer classes of the people were excluded. Thus it is
easily explicable how during the first decennia after the introduction of the lot the most eminent statesmen on several occasions occur as Archons, and, generally speaking, only a small
field was left to chance in filling up the leading offices of state.
It might also happen that among those who came forward by
election by lot was a personage of such eminence that none
dared to oppose himself against such an one. Such a case appeais to have occurred in the year after the battle of Marathon
with Aristides. Plutarch, as Schcemann observes (p. 73),
points to an unusual mode of procedure on this occasion; and
if in point of fact election by lot was put out of the question in
favor of Aristides, Idomeneus also was correct in maintaining
that Aristides became Archon ob Kva/lev6rb a'A' 1EoyEvov r-v'AOYvatov. For the difficulty on which Plutarch touches in the
first chapter of his Arist. evidently turns, not upon the question as to how, in general offices, were filled up at that time in
Athens, but upon the precise nature of the case with regard to




Appendix.                    509
the archonship of Aristides, If election by lot was originally
nothing but a palliative against the party-conflicts, (Saarzaiaarov
yap rorTO is the observation, with regard to the distribution of
the offices by lot, of Anaximenes, Bhet. p. 13, 15, Spengel), if
according to the existing circumstances it was originally a far
less dangerous and more innocent institution than it must appear to be from the theoretical point of view, we can also account for the silence of the ancients as to the introduction of
the lot, which remains inexplicable if this institution was introduced at the time when the opposition between the principles of the conservative and democratic parties had developed
itself into the fullest consciousness-if it was introduced, e. g.,
as has been conjectured, by Ephialtes; for in this case it would
necessarily have provoked the most violent change in the conduct of affairs, and would have thrown all other constitutional
innovations into the shade.
END OF VOL. I.








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I.                                  VI.
GENESIS.-Translated and edited by    THE EPISTLE OF PAUL TO THE
layler Lewis, LL.D., and A. Gosman,  ROMANS.-By J. P. Lange, D.D.,
D.LD.                                and F. R. Fay. Translated by J. F.
II,                    Hurst, D.D., with additions by P. Schaff,
PROVERBS.-Translated and edited by     D.D., and Rev. M. B. Riddle.
President Charles A. Aiken, of Union
College. ECCLESIASTES.-Trans-                      VII
lated bv Prof. William Wells, and edited
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Translated and edited by W. H. Green,  Wing.
D.D., of Princeton.                               VIII.
IIL                   THESSALONIANS, TIMOTHY, TIMATTHEW.-Translated and edited by      TUS, PHILEMON, AND HEPhilip Schaff, D.D.                  BREWS. Translated and edited by
Drs. Harwood and Washburne, ProIV.                    fessors Kendrick, Hackett, and Day, and
MARK AND LUKE.-Translated and          the late Dr. John Lillie.
edited by Prof. W. G. T. Shedd, D.D.,
Philip Schaff, D.D., and Rev. C. C.                I
Starbuck.                          THE    EPISTLES    GENERAL     OF
V.                    JAMES, PETER, JOHN, AND
ACTS.-Translated and edited by Chas.   JUDE.-Translated and edited by J.
F. Schaffer, D.D.                    Isidor Mombert.
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