History of Greece (Grote)/Volume II

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HISTORY OF GREECE I. Legendary Greece II. Grecian History to the Reign of Peisistratus at Athens. by GEORGE GROTE, Esq. VOL. II. Reprinted from the Second London Edition. NEW YORK: HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS 329 and 331 Pearl Street. 1877.

​ ​iv CONTENTS.

SBCTICN 111 En iyralions from Greece to Aiic. and lite Islands of At 1. JEolic Eirigration. Secession of the mythical races of Greece. _?Eolic migration under tin Pelopids ................................................. 19-81 2. Ionic Emigration. Ionic emigration branches off from the legendary history of Athens. Theseus and Menestheus. Restoration of the sons of Theseus to their father's kingdom. They are displaced by the Neleids. Melanthus and Kodrus. Devotion and death of Kodrus. No more kings at Athens. Quarrel of the sons of Kodrus, and emigration of Neileus. Different races who furnished the emigrants to Ionia 21-25 3. Doric Emigrations. Dorian colonies in Asia. Thera. Legend of the Minyre from Lemnos. Minyse in Triphylia. Migrations of Dorians to Krcte. Story of Andron. AlthaemenCs, founder of Rhodes. Kos, Knidus. and Karpa- thus 25-31 Intervening blank between legend and history. Difficulty of explaining that blank, on the hypothesis of continuous tradition. Such an interval essentially connected with the genesis of legend 31-34 CHAPTER XIX. APPLICATION OF CHRONOLOGY TO GRECIAN LEGEND. The data dcrn chro- Different schemes of chronology proposed for the mythical events. essential to chronological determination arc here wanting. Moc _ nologists take up the same problem as ancient, but with a different canon of belief. Mr. Clinton's opinion on the computations of the date of the Trojan war. Value of the chronological computations depends on the trustworthiness of the genealogies. Mr. Clinton's vindication of the genealogies his proofs. 1. Inscriptions none of proved antiquity. Genealogies numerous, and of unasccrtainable date. 2. Early poets. Mr. Clinton's separation of the genealogical persons into real and fabu- lous: principles on which it is founded. Remarks on his opinion. His concessions are partial and inconsistent, yet sufficient to render the genealogies inapplicable for chronology. Mr. Clinton's positions respect- ing historical evidence. To what extent presumption may stand in ​CONTENTS. T ihtror of the early poets. Plausible fiction satisfies the conditions laid down by Mr. Clinf on not distinguishable from truth without the aid of evidence. Kadmus, Danaus, Hyllus, etc., all eponyms, and falling under Mr. Clinton's definition of fictitious persons. What is real in the geneal- ogies cannot be distinguished from what is fictitious. At what time did the poets begin to produce continuous genealogies, from the mythical to the real world ? Evidence of mental progress when men methodize ths past, even on fictitious principles 34-57 CHAPTER XX. STATE OF SOCIETY AND MANNERS AS EXHIBITED IN GRECIAN LEGEND. Legendary poems of Greece valuable pictures of real manners, though gving no historical facts. They are memorials of the first state of recian society the starting-point of Grecian history. Comparison of legendary with historical Greece government of the latter of the former. The king in legendary Greece. -His overruling per- sonal ascendency. Difficulty which Aristotle found in explaining to himself the voluntary obedience paid to the early kings. The boule the agora: their limited intervention and subordination to the king. The agora a medium for promulgation of the intentions of the king. Agora summoned by Telemachus in Ithaka. Agora in the second book of the Iliad picture of submission which it presents. Conduct of Odysseus to the people and the chiefs. Justice administered in the agora by the king or chiefs. Complaints made by Hesiod of unjust judgment in his own case. The king among men is analogous to Zeus among gods. The Council and Assembly, originally media through which the king acted, become, in historical Greece, the paramount depositaries of power. Spartan kings an exception to the general rule their limited powers. Employment of public speaking as an engine of government coeval with the earliest times. Its effects in stimulating intellectual development. Moral and social feeling in legendary Greece. Omnipo tence of personal feeling towards the gods, the king, or individuals. Effect of special ceremonies. Contrast with the feelings in historical Athens. Force of the family tie. Marriage respect paid to the wife. Brothers, and kinsmen. Hospitality. Reception of the stranger and the suppliant. Personal sympathies the earliest form of sociality. Ferocious and aggressive passions unrestrained. Picture given by Hesiod still darker. Contrast between heroic and historical Greece. Orphans. Mutilation of dead bodies. Mode of dealing with homicide. Appeased by valuable compensation (iroivij) to the kinsman of the murdered man. Punished in historical Greece as a crime against society. Condition, occupations, and professions of the Homeric Greeks. Slaves. Thetes. Limited commerce and navigation of the Homeric Greeks. Kretans, Taphians, Phoenicians. Nature of Phoenician trade as indicated by Homer. Weapons and mode of fighting of the Homeric Greeks. Contrast with the military array of historical Greece. Analo- gous change in military array and in civil society. Fortification of towns. Earliest residences of the Greeks hill-villages lofty and diffi- cult of access. Homeric society recognizes walled towns. individ*aJ ​I CONTENTS. property, and strong local attachments. Means of defence superior ta those of attack. Habitual piracy. Extended geographical knowledge in the Hesiodic poems, as compared with Homer. Astronomy arid physics. Coined money, writing, arts. Epic poetry. Its great and permanent influence on the Greek mind 57-118 CHAPTER XXI. GREC1AX EPIC. HOMERIC 1'OKMS. Two classes of epic poetry Homeric Hesiodic. Didactic and mystic Hexameter poetry later as a genus than the epic. Lost epic poems. Epic poets and their probable dates. Epic cycle. AVhat the epic cycle was an arrangement of the poems according to continuity of nar- rative. Relation of the epic cycle to Homer. What poems were in- cluded in the cycle. The Iliad and Odyssey are the only poems of the cycle preserved. Curiosity which these two poems provoke no data to satisfy it. Different poems ascribed to Homer. Nothing known, and endless diversity of opinion, respecting the person and date of Ho- mer. Poetical gens of the Homerids. Homer, the superhuman epony- mus and father of this gens. What may be the dates of the Iliad and Odyssey. Date assigned by Herodotus "the most probable- Probable date of the Iliad and Odyssey between 850 and 776 B. c. Epic poems recited to assembled companies, not read by individuals apart. Lyric and choric poetry, intended for the ear. Importance of the class of rhapsodes, singers, and reciters. Rhapsodes condemned by the Socratic philosophers undeservedly. Variations in the mode of reciting the ancient epic. At what time the Homeric poems began to be written. Prolegomena of Wolf raised new questions respecting the Homeric text connected unity of authorship with poems written from the be- ginning. The two questions not necessarily connected, though com- monly discussed together. Few traces of writing, long after the Homeric age. Bards or rhapsodes of adequate memory, less inconsistent with the conditions of the age than long MSS. Blind bards. Possibility of preserving the poems by memory, as accurately as in fact they were pre- served. Argument from the lost letter Digamma. When did the Ho- meric poems begin to be written? Reasons for presuming that they were first written about the middle of the seventh century B. c. Con- dition of the Iliad and Odyssey down to the reign of Peisistratus. Theory of Wolf. Authorities quoted in its favor. Objections against it. Other long epic poems besides the Iliad and Odyssey. Catalogue in the Iliad essentially a part of a long poem its early authority. Iliad and Odyssey were entire poems long anterior to Peisistratus, whether they were originally composed as entire or not. No traces in the Ho- meric poems, of ideas or customs belonging to the age of Peisistratus. Homeric poems. 1. W'hether by one author or several. 2. Whether of one date and scheme. Question raised by Wolf Sagen-poesie. New standard applied to the Homeric poems. Homeric unity generally re- jected by German critics in the last generation now again partially revived. Scanty evidence difficulty of forming any conclusive opinion. Method of studying the question of Homeric unity. Odyssey to be studied first, as of more simple and intelligible structure than the Iliad​CONTENTS. V fl Odyssey evidences of one design throughout its structure. Exhibits very few marks of incoherence or contradiction. Chronological reckon- ing in the Odyssey, inaccurate in one case. Inference erroneously drawn from hence, that the parts of the poem were originally separate. Double start and double stream of events, ultimately brought into confluence in the Odyssey. Skill displayed in this point by the poet. Difficulty of imagining the Odyssey broken up into many existing poems or songs. Structure of the Odyssey essentially one cannot have been pieced together out of preexisting epics. Analogy of the Odyssey shows thai long and premeditated epical composition consists with the capacities of the early Greek mind. Iliad much less coherent and uniform than the Odyssey. Incoherence prevails only in parts of the poem mani- fest coherence in other parts. Wolfian theory explains the former, but not the latter. Theory of Wclcker, Lange, and Nitzsch. Age of the Epos preparatory to that of the Epopee. Iliad essentially an organized poem but the original scheme does not comprehend the whole poem. Iliad originally an Achilleis built upon a narrower plan, then enlarged. Parts which constitute the primitive Achilleis exhibit a coherent se- quence of events. Disablement of Agamemnon, Odysseus, and Diome- des, all in the battle of the eleventh book. The first book concentrates attention upon Achilles, and upon the distress which the Greeks are to incur in consequence of the injury done to him. Nothing clone to realize this expectation until the eighth book. Primitive Achilleis includes books i. viii, xi, to xxii. Ninth book an unsuitable addition. Transition from the Achilleis into the Iliad, in the beginning of the second book. Transi- tion from the Iliad back into the Achilleis at the end of the seventh book Fortification of the Grecian camp. Zeus in the fourth book, or Iliad, different from Zeus in the first and eighth, or Achilleis. Continuous Achilleis from the eleventh book onward. Supposition of an enlarged Achilleis is the most consonant to all the parts of the poem as it stands. Question of one or many authors difficult to decide. Odyssey all by one author. Iliad probably not. Difference of style in the last six books may be explained without supposing difference of authorship. Last two books probably not parts of the original Achilleis. Books ii. to vii. inclusive. Book x. Odyssey probably by a different author from the Iliad but perhaps of the same age. Real character of the Ho- meric poems essentially popular. Addressed to unlettered minds, but touching those feelings w'lich all men have in common. No didactic purpose in Homer 1 18-209 ​CONTENTS. PART IL HISTORICAL GREECE. CHAPTER I. GENERAL GEOGRAPHY AND LIMITS OF GREECE. Northern boundary of Greece Olympus. Scardns and Pindus thew extension and dissemination through southern Greece and Peloponnesus. Ossa and Pelion to the Cyclades. Geological features. Irrega larity of the Grecian waters rivers dry in summer. Frequent marshes and lakes. Subterranean course of rivers, out of land-locked basins. Difficulty of land communication and transport in Greece. Indentations in the line of coast universal accessibility by sea. Sea communica- tion essential for the islands and colonies. Views of the ancient philoso- phers on the influence of maritime habits and commerce. Difference between the land-states and the sea-states in Greece. Effects of the con- figuration of Greece upon the political relations of the inhabitants. Effects upon their intellectual development Limits of Greece. Its chief productions. Climate better and more healthy in ancient times than it is now. Great difference between one part of Greece and another. Epirots, Macedonians, etc. Islands in the TEgean. Greeks on the coast of Asia Minor. .. . 211-238 CHAPTER II. THE HELLENIC PEOPLE GENERALLY IN THIS EARLY HISTORICAL TIMES. The Hellens generally. Barbarians the word used as antithesis to Hel- lens. Hellenic aggregate how held together. 1. Fellowship of blood. 2. Common language. Greek language essentially one with a variety of dialects. 3. Common religious sentiments, localities, and sacrifices. Olympic and other sacred games. Habit of common sacrifice an early feature of the Hellenic mind began on a small scale. Amphiktyonies exclusive religious partnerships. Their beneficial influence in creating sympathies. What was called the Amphiktyonic Council. Its twelve constituent members and their mutual position. Antiquity of the Coun- cil simplicity of the old oo.th. Amphiktyonic meeting" originally at Thermopylae. Valuable influence of these Amphiktyonies and festivals in promoting Hellenic union. Amphiktyons had the superintendence of the temple of Delphi. But their interference in Grecian affairs is only rare and occasional. Many Hellenic states had no participation in it. Temple of Delphi. Oracles generally habit of the Greek mind t consult them. General analogy of manners an ong the Greeks. Polit​CONTENTS. ,j ioal sovereignty attached to each separate city essential t > the Hellenic mind. Each city stood to the rest in an international relation. But citj government is essential village residence is looked upon as an inferior scale of living. Village residents numerous in early Greece many of them coalesced into cities. Sparta retained its old village trim even at the height of its power. Hellenic aggregate accepted as a primary fact its preexisting elements untraceable. Ancient Pelasgians no't knowable. Historical Pelasgians spoke a barbarous language. His- torical Leleges barbarians in language also. Statements of good wit- nesses regarding the historical Pelasgians and Leleges are to be admitted, whether they fit the legendary Pelasgians and Leleges or not. Alleged iiiite-Hellenic colonies from Phoenicia and Egypt neither verifiable nor probable. Most ancient Hellas Grseci 23G-2G9 CHAPTER III. UEMBERS OF THE HELLENIC AGGREGATE, SEPARATELY TAKEX. GREEKS NORTH OF PELOPONNESUS. Amphiktyonic races. Non- Amphiktyonic races. First period of Grecian history from 776-560 B.C. Second period from 560-300 B.C. Important differences between the two the first period preparatory and very little known. Extra- Peloponuesian Greeks (north of Attica) not known at all during the first period. General sketch of them. Greeks north of Thermopylae. Thessalians and their dependents. Thessalian character. Condition of the population of Thessaly a villein race the Pencstse. Who the Penestae were doubtful. Quadruple division of Thessaly. Disorderly confederacy of the Thessalian cities. Great power of Thessaly, when in a state of unanimity. Achseans, Perrhsebi, Magnetos, Malians, Dolopes, etc., all tributaries of the Thessalians, but all Amphiktyonic races. Asiatic Magnetos. The Malians. The (Etasi. The ^Enianes. Lokrians, Phocians, Dorians. The Phocians. Do- ris Dryopis. Historical Dryopes. The -<Etolians. The Akarna- jians. "Ozolian Lokrians, JEtolians, and Akarnanians, were the rudest of all Greeks. The Boeotians. Orchomenus. Cities of Bceotia. Confederation of Bceotia. Early legislation of Thebes. Philolaus and Diokles 269-293 CHAPTER IV. EARLIEST HISTORICAL VIEW OF PELOPONNESUS. DORIANS IN AFCO3 AND THE NEIGHBORING CITIES. Distribution of Peloponnesus about 450 B.C. Continuous Dorian states. Western Peloponnesus. Northern Peloponnesus Achaia. Centra! region Arcadia. Difference between this distribution and that of 776 B.C. Portions of the population which were believed to be indigenous Arcadians, Kynurians, Achceans. Emigrant portions Dorians, JEtolo Eleians, Dryopes, Triphylians. Legendary account of the Dorian em '^ration. Alexandrine chronology from the return of the Herakleids to the first Olympiad. Spartan kings. Herakleid kings of Corinth. ​CONTENTS. Argos and the neighboring Dorians greater than Sparta in 776 n. c. Early settlements of the Dorians at Argos and Corinth Temenion Hill of Solygeius. Dorian settlers arrived by sea. Early Dorians ir. Krete. The Dryopians their settlements formed by sea. Dorian set- tlements in Argos quite distinct from those in Sparta and in Messenia, Early position of Argos metropolis of the neighboring Dorian cities. Pheidon the Temcnid king of Argos. His claims and projects as representative of Herakles. He claims the right of presiding at the Olympic games. Relations of Pisa with Pheidon, and of Sparta with Elis. Conflict between Pheidon and the Spartans, at or about the 8th Olympiad, 747 B. c. Pheidon the earliest Greek who coined money and determined a scale of weight. Coincidence of the ^Eginiean scale with the Babylonian. Argos at this time the first state in Peloponnesus. Her subsequent decline, from the relaxation of her confederacy of cities. Dorians in the Argolic peninsula their early commerce with the Dorian islands in the -ZEgean. From hence arose the coinage of money, etc., by Pheidon. Pheidonian coinage and statical scale belong originally to Argos, not to JEgina. 298-325 CHAPTER V. JETOLO-DORIAN EMIGRATION INTO PELOPONNESUS. ELIS, LACOSTIA, AND MESSENIA. JEtolian emigration into Peloponnesus. Dorians of Sparta and Steny klerus accompanying or following them across the Corinthian gulf. Settlement at Sparta made by marching along the valleys of the Alpheiu and Eurotas. Causes which favored the settlement Settlements con- fined at first to Sparta and Stenyklerus. First view of historical Sparta. Mcssenian kings. Analogous representations in regard to the early proceedings both of Spartans and Messenians. The kings of Steny- klerus did not possess all Messenia. Olympic festival the early point of union of Spartans, Messenians, and Elcians. Previous inhabitants of southern Peloponnesus how far different from the Dorians. Doric anr* ./Eolic dialect , . 325-33? CHAPTER VI. LAWS AND DISCIPLINE OP LYKURGL'S AT SI'ARTA. Lykurgus authorities of Plutarch respecting him. Uncertainties about his genealogy. Probable date of Lykurgus. Opinion of 0. Miiller (that Sparta is the perfect type of Dorian character and tendencies) is incorrect. Peculiarity of Sparta. Early date of Lvkurgus. View taken of Lykurgus by Herodotus. Little said about Lykurgus in the earlier authors. Copious details of Plutarch. Regency of Lykurgus his long absence from Sparta. He is sent by the Delphian oracle to reform the state. His institutions ascribed to him senate and popular assembly ephors. Constitution ascribed to Lykurgus agrees with that which we find in Homer. Pair of kings at Sparta their constant dis- sensions a security to the state against despotism. Idea of Kleomenes the Third respecting the first appointment of the ephors. Popular origin of the board of ephors oath interchanged between them and the kings, ​CONTENTS. & Subordination of the kings, and supremacy of the ephors, during the historical times. Position and privileges of the kings. Power of the ephors. Public assembly. The Senate. Spartan constitution a close oligarchy. Long duration of the constitution without formal chango one cause o"f the respect in Greece and pride in the Spartans themselves. Dorians divided into three tribes, Hylleis, Pamphyli, and Dymanes. Local distinctions known among the Spartans. Population of Laco- n i ft i. Spartans. 2. Perioeki. Special meaning of the word Perioeki in Laconia. Statement of Isokrates as to the origin of the Periceki. Statement of Ephorus different from Isokrates, yet not wholly irrecon- cilable. Spartans and Perioeki no distinction of race known between them in historical times. 3. Helots essentially villagers. They were serfs adscript! glebce their condition and treatment. Bravery and energy of the Helots fear and cruelty of the Spartans. Evidence of the character of the Spartan government. The Krypteia. Manumitted Helots. Economical and social regulations ascribed to Lykurgus. Partition of lands. Syssitia, or public mess. Public training or disci- pline. Manners and training of the Spartan women opinion of Aris- totle. Statement of Xenophon and Plutarch. Number of rich women in the time of Aristotle they had probably procured exemption from the general training. Earnest and lofty patriotism of the Spartan women. Lyknrgus is the trainer of a military brotherhood, more than the framer of a political constitution. His end exclusively warlike his means ex- clusively severe. Statements of Plutarch about Lykurgus much ro- mance in them. New partition of lands no such measure ascribed to Lykurgus by earlier authors down to Aristotle. The idea of Lykurgns as an equal partitioner of lands belongs to the century of Agis and Kleo- menes. Circumstances of Sparta down to the reign of Agis. Dimin- ished number of citizens and degradation of Sparta in the reign of Agis. His ardent wish to restore the dignity of the state. Historic fancy of Lykurgns as an equal partitioner of lands grew out of this feeling. Par- tition proposed by Agis. Opinion that Lykurgus proposed some agra- rian interference, but not an entire repartition, gratuitous and improbable. The statement of Plutarch is best explained by supposing it a fiction of the time of Agis. Acknowledged difficulty of understanding by what means the fixed number and integrity of the lots was maintained. Plu- tarch's story about the ephor Epitadeus. Landed property was always unequally divided at Sparta. Nor were there any laws which tended to equalize it. Opinions of Aristotle. Erroneous suppositions with regard to the Spartan law and practice of succession. Lykurgean system originally applied only to Sparta introduced equal severity of discipline, not equality of property. Original Dorian allotment of land in Sparta unknown probably not equal. Gradual conquest of Laconia, the result of the new force imparted by the Lykurgean discipline. Conquest of Arayklse, Pharis, and Geronthrse, by king Te'.eklus. Helus conquered by Alkamenes. Progressive increase of Sparta 337-421 CHAPTER VII. FIRST AND SECOND MESSENIAN AVARS. Authorities for the history of the Messenian wars. Chiefly belong to the time after the foundation of Messen6 by Epameinondas. Absence of real or ancient traditions concerning these wars : contradictions ab(t the Me* ​xu CONTENTS. scnian licro Aristomcnes. Dates of the first wars B.C. 743-724. Causes alleged by the Spartans. Spartan king Tclcklus slain by th Messenians at the temple of Artemis Limnatis. First Mcssenian war. Messenian kings, Euphaes and Aristodemus. Messenians concentrate themselves on Mount Ithome after a long siege they are completely conquered. Harsh treatment and Hclotism of the conquered Messeniam under Sparta, Revolt of the Messenians against Sparta second Me? scnian war Aristomenes. His chivalrous exploits and narrow escapes end of the second war. The Messenians again conquered. Narra- tive of Pausanias, borrowed from the poet Rhianus, is undeserving of credit. The poet Tyrtaius, the ally of Sparta his great efficiency and influence over the Spartan mind. Musical susceptibilities of the Spartans. Powerful ethical effect of the old Grecian music. Sufferings of the Spartans in the second Mcssenian war. Date of the second war, B. c. 648-631. Punishment of the traitor Aristokrates, king of the Arcadian Orchomenus. Spartans acquire the country west of Taygctus. The Messenian Dorians had no considerable fortified places lived in small townships and villages. Relations of Pisa and Elis. Struggles of the Pisatae and Triphylians for autonomy the latter in after times sustained by the political interests of Sparta 421-440 CHAPTER VIII. CONQUESTS OP SPARTA TOWARDS ARCADIA AXD ARGOLI8. State of Arcadia. Tegea and Mantineia the most powerful Arcadian towns, before the building of Megalopolis. Encroachments of Sparta upon the southern boundary of Arcadia. Unsuccessful attempts of the Spartans against Tegea. They are directed by the oracle to bring to Sparta the bones of the hero Orestes. Their operations against Tegea become moro successful ; nevertheless, Tegea maintains her independence. Bounda- ries of Sparta towards Argos conquest of Thyreatis by Sparta. Battle of the three hundred select champions, between Sparta and Argos, to decide the possession of the Thyreatis valor of Othryades. Thryeatis comes into possession of Sparta efforts of the Argeians to recover it. Altera- tion of Grecian opinion, as to the practice of deciding disputes by select champions. Kynurians in Argolis, said to be of Ionic race, but Dorized. Full acquisition of the southern portion of Peloponnesus, from sea to sea, by the Spartans before 540 B.C. Great comparative power of Sparta at that early time. Careful personal training of the Spartans at a time when other states had no training at all. Military institutions of Sparfr. Peculiar and minute military subdivisions, distinct from the civil EiiO- moties, etc. Careful drilling of the Enomotics. In other Grecian cities there were no peculiar military divisions distinct from the civil. Recog- nized superiority of Sparta a part of early Grecian sentiment coinci- dent with the growing tendency to increased communion. Homeric mode of fighting probably belonged to Asia, not to Greece. Argos her struggles to recover the headship of Greece. Her conquest of Mycenae, Tiryns, and Kleonae. Nemean games. Achaia twelve autonomous

towns, perhaps more little known 441-466 ​

In one of the preceding chapters, we have traced the descending series of the two most distinguished mythical families in Peloponnesus, the Perseids and the Pelopids : we have followed the former down to Herakles and his son Hyllus, and the latter down to Orestes son of Agamemnon, who is left in possession of that ascendancy in the peninsula which had procured for his father the chief command in the Trojan war. The Herakleids, or sons of Herakles, on the other hand, are expelled fugitives, dependent upon foreign aid or protection: Hyllus had perished in single combat with Echemus of Tegea, (connected with the Pelopids by marriage with Timandra sister of Klytasmnestra,^[1]) and a solemn compact had been made, as the preliminary condition of this duel, that no similar attempt at an invasion of the peninsula should be undertaken by his family for the space of one hundred years. At the end of the stipulated period the attempt was renewed, and with complete success; but its success was owing, not so much to ​ the valor of the invaders as to a powerful body of new allies. The Herakleids reappear as leaders and companions of the Dorians,—a northerly section of the Greek name, who now first come into importance, poor, indeed, in mythical renown, since they are never noticed in the Iliad, and only once casually mentioned in the Odyssey, as a fraction among the many-tongued inhabitants of Krête,—but destined to form one of the grand and predominant elements throughout all the career of historical Hellas.

The son of Hyllus—Kleodæus—as well as his grandson Aristomachus, were now dead, and the lineage of Heraklês was represented by the three sons of the latter,—Têmenus, Kresphontês, and Aristodêmus, and under their conduct the Dorians penetrated into the peninsula. The mythical account traced back this intimate union between the Herakleids and the Dorians to a prior war, in which Heraklês himself had rendered inestimable aid to the Dorian king Ægimius, when the latter was hard pressed in a contest with the Lapitha. Hêraklês defeated the Lapithæ, and slew their king Korônus; in return for which Ægimius assigned to his deliverer one third part of his whole territory, and adopted Hyllus as his son. Hêraklês desired that the territory thus made over might be held in reserve until a time should come when his descendants might stand in need of it; and that time did come, after the death of Hyllus, (see Chap. V.) Some of the Herakleids then found shelter at Trikorythus in Attica, but the remainder, turning their steps towards Ægimius, solicited from him the allotment of land which had been promised to their valiant progenitor. Ægimius received them according to his engagement, and assigned to them the stipulated third portion of his territory:^[2] and from this moment the Herakleids and Dorians ​ became intimately united together into one social communion. Pamphylus and Dymas, sons of Ægimius, accompanied Têmenus and his two brothers in their invasion of Peloponnêsus.

Such is the mythical incident which professes to explain the origin of those three tribes into which all the Dorian communities were usually divided,—the Hyllêis, the Phamphyli, and the Dymanes,—the first of the three including certain particular families, such as that of the kings of Sparta, who bore the special name of Herakleids. Hyllus, Pamphylus, and Dymas are the eponymous heroes of the three Dorian tribes.

Têmenus and his two brothers resolved to attack Peloponnesus, not by a land-march along the Isthmus, such as that in which Hyllus had been previously slain, but by sea, across the narrow inlet between the promontories of Rhium and Antirrhium, with which the Gulf of Corinth commences. According to one story, indeed,—which, however, does not seem to have been known to Herodotus,—they are said to have selected this line of march by the express direction of the Delphian god, who vouchsafed to expound to them an oracle which had been delivered to Hyllus in the ordinary equivocal phraseology. Both the Ozolian Lokrians, and the Ætolians, inhabitants of the northern coast of the Gulf of Corinth, were favorable to the enterprise, and the former granted to them a port for building their ships, from which memorable circumstance the port ever afterwards bore the name of Naupaktus. Aristodêmus was here struck with lightning and died, leaving twin sons, Eurysthenês and Proklês; but his remaining brothers continued to press the expedition with alacrity.

At this juncture, an Akarnanian prophet named Karnus presented himself in the camp^[3] under the inspiration of Apollo, and ​ uttered various predictions: he was, however, so much suspected of treacherous collusion with the Peloponnesians, that Hippotês. great-grandson of Herakles through Phylas and Antiochus, slew him. His death drew upon the army the wrath of Apollo, who destroyed their vessels and punished them with famine. Têmenus, in his distress, again applying to the Delphian god for succor and counsel, was made acquainted with the cause of so much suffering, and was directed to banish Hippotês for ten years, to offer expiatory sacrifice for the death of Karnus, and to seek as the guide of the army a man with three eyes.^[4] On coming back to Naupaktus, he met the Ætolian Oxylus, son of Andræmôn, returning to his country, after a temporary exile in Elis, incurred for homicide: Oxylus had lost one eye, but as he was seated on a horse, the man and the horse together made up the three eyes required, and he was adopted as the guide prescribed by the oracle.^[5] Conducted by him, they refitted their ships, landed on the opposite coast of Achaia, and marched to attack Tisamenus son of Orestês, then the great potentate of the peninsula. A decisive battle was fought, in which the latter was vanquished and slain, and in which Pamphylus and Dymas also perished. This battle made the Dorians so completely masters of the Peloponnêsus, that they proceeded to distribute the territory among themselves. The fertile land of Elis had been by previous stipulation reserved for Oxylus, as a recompense for his services as conductor: and it was agreed that the three Herakleids,—Têmenus, Kresphontês, and the infant sons of Aristodêmus,—should draw lots for Argos, Sparta, and Messênê. Argos fell to Têmenus, Sparta to the sons of Aristodêmus, and Messênê to Kresphontês; the latter having secured for himself this prize, the most fertile territory of the three, by the fraud of putting into the ​ ressel out of which the lots were drawn, a lump of clay instead of a stone, whereby the lots of his brothers were drawn out while his own remained inside. Solemn sacrifices were offered by each upon this partition: but as they proceeded to the ceremony, a miraculous sign was seen upon the altar of each of the brothers,—a toad corresponding to Argos, a serpent to Sparta, and a fox to Messênê. The prophets, on being consulted, delivered the import of these mysterious indications: the toad, as an animal slow and stationary, was an evidence that the possessor of Argos would not succeed in enterprises beyond the limits of his own city; the serpent denoted the aggressive and formidable future reserved to Sparta; the fox prognosticated a career of wile and deceit to the Messenian.

Such is the brief account given by Apollodorus of the Return of the Herakleids, at which point we pass, as if touched by the wand of a magician, from mythical to historical Greece. The story bears on the face of it the stamp, not of history, but of legend,—abridged from one or more of the genealogical poets,^[6] and presenting such an account as they thought satisfactory, of the first formation of the great Dorian establishments in Peloponnesus, as well as of the semi-Etolian Elis. Its incidents are so conceived as to have an explanatory bearing on Dorian institutions, upon the triple division of tribes, characteristic of the Dorians, upon the origin of the great festival of the Karneia at Sparta, alleged to be celebrated in expiation of the murder of Karnus, upon the different temper and character of the Dorian states among themselves,-upon the early alliance of the Dorians with Elis, which contributed to give ascendency and vogue to the Olympic games,—upon the reverential dependence of Dorians towards the Delphian oracle,—and, lastly, upon the etymology of the name Naupaktus. If we possessed the narrative more in detail, we should probably find many more examples of color​ ing of the legendary past suitable to the circumstances of the historical present.

Above all, this legend makes out in favor of the Dorians and their kings a mythical title to their Peloponnesian establishments; Argos, Sparta, and Messênê are presented as rightfully belonging, and restored by just retribution, to the children of Herakles. It was to them that Zeus had specially given the territory of Sparta; the Dorians came in as their subjects and auxiliaries.^[7] Plato gives a very different version of the legend, but we find that he, too, turns the story in such a manner as to embody a claim of right on the part of the conquerors. According to him, the Achæans, who returned from the capture of Troy, found among their fellow-citizens at home—the race which had grown up during their absence—an aversion to readmit them: after a fruitless endeavor to make good their rights, they were at last expelled, but not without much contest and bloodshed. A leader named Dorieus, collected all these exiles into one body, and from him they received the name of Dorians instead of Achæans; then marching back, under the conduct of the Herakleids into Peloponnêsus, they recovered by force the possessions from which they had been shut out, and constituted the three Dorian establishments under the separate Herakleid brothers, at Argos, Sparta, and Messênê. These three fraternal dynasties were founded upon a scheme of intimate union and sworn alliance one with the other, for the purpose of resisting any attack which might be made upon them from Asia,^[8] either by the remaining Trojans or by their allies. Such is the story as Plato believed it; materially different in ​ the incidents related, yet analogous in mythical feeling, and embodying alike the idea of a rightful reconquest. Moreover, the two accounts agree in representing both the entire conquest and the triple division of Dorian Peloponnêsus as begun and completed in one and the same enterprise,—so as to constitute one single event, which Plato would probably have called the Return of the Achæans, but which was commonly known as the Return of the Herakleids. Though this is both inadmissible and inconsistent with other statements which approach close to the historical times, yet it bears every mark of being the primitive view originally presented by the genealogical poets: the broad way in which the incidents are grouped together, was at once easy for the imagination to follow, and impressive to the feelings.

The existence of one legendary account must never be under stood as excluding the probability of other accounts, current at the same time, but inconsistent with it: and many such there were as to the first establishment of the Peloponnesian Dorians. In the narrative which I have given from Apollodorus, conceived apparently under the influence of Dorian feelings, Tisamenus is stated to have been slain in the invasion. But according to another narrative, which seems to have found favor with the historical Achæans on the north coast of Peloponnêsus, Tisamenus, though expelled by the invaders from his kingdom of Sparta or Argos, was not slain: he was allowed to retire under agreement, together with a certain portion of his subjects, and he directed his steps towards the coast of Peloponnêsus south of the Corinthian Gulf, then occupied by the Ionians. As there were relations, not only of friendship, but of kindred origin, between Ionians and Achæans, (the eponymous heroes Iôn and Achæus pass for brothers, both sons of Xuthus, (Tisamenus solicited from the Ionians admission for himself and his fellow-fugitives into their territory. The leading Ionians declining this request, under the apprehension that Tisamenus might be chosen as sovereign over the whole, the latter accomplished his object by force. After a vehement struggle, the Ionians were vanquished and put to flight, and Tisamenus thus acquired possession of Helikê, as well as of the northern coast of the peninsula, westward from Sikyôn; which coast continued to be occupied by the Achæans, and received its name from them, throughout all the historical times ​ The Ionians retired to Attica, many of them taking part in what is called the Ionic emigration to the coast of Asia Minor, which followed shortly after. Pausanias, indeed, tells us that Tisamenus, having gained a decisive victory over the Ionians, fell in the engagement,^[9] and did not himself live to occupy the country of which his troops remained masters. But this story of the death of Tisamenus seems to arise from a desire, on the part of Pausanias, to blend together into one narrative two discrepant legends; at least the historical Achæans in later times continued to regard Tisamenus himself as having lived and reigned in their territory, and as having left a regal dynasty which lasted down to Ogygês,^[10] after whom it was exchanged for a popular government.^[11]

The conquest of Têmenus, the eldest of the three Herakleids, originally comprehended only Argos and its neighborhood; it was from thence that Troezen, Epidaurus, Ægina, Sikyôn, and Philius were successfully occupied by Dorians, the sons and son-in-law of Têmenus Deiphontês, Phalkês, and Keisus-being the leaders under whom this was accomplished.^[12] At Sparta, the success of the Dorians was furthered by the treason of a man named Philonomus, who received as recompense the neighboring town and territory of Amyklæ.^[13] Messênia is said to have submitted without resistance to the dominion of the Herakleid Kresphontês, who established his residence at Stenyklarus: the Pylian Melanthus, then ruler of the country, and representative of the great mythical lineage of Nêleus and Nestôr, withdrew with ​ his household gods and with a portion of his subjects to Attica.^[14]

The only Dorian establishment in the peninsula not directly connected with the triple partition is Corinth, which is said to have been Dorized somewhat later and under another leader, though still a Herakleid. Hippotês-descendant of Hêraklês in the fourth generation, but not through Hyllus,—had been guilty (as already mentioned) of the murder of Karnus the prophet at the camp of Naupaktus, for which he had been banished and remained in exile for ten years; his son deriving the name of Alêtês from the long wanderings endured by the father At the head of a body of Dorians, Alêtês attacked Corinth: he pitched his camp on the Solygeian eminence near the city, and harassed the inhabitants with constant warfare until he compelled them to surrender. Even in the time of the Peloponnesian war, the Corinthians professed to identify the hill on which the camp of these assailants had been placed. The great mythical dynasty of the Sisyphids was expelled, and Alêtês became ruler and Ekist of the Dorian city; many of the inhabitants, however, Eolic or Ionic, departed.^[15]

The settlement of Oxylus and his Etolians in Elis is said by some to have been accomplished with very little opposition; the leader professing himself to be descended from Etolus, who had been in a previous age banished from Elis into Ætôlia, and the two people, Epeians and Etolians, acknowledging a kindred origin one with the other.^[16] At first, indeed, according to Ephorus, the Epeians appeared in arms, determined to repel the intruders, but at length it was agreed on both sides to abide the issue of a single combat. Degmenus, the champion of the Epeians, confided in the long shot of his bow and arrow; but the Ætolian Pyrachmês came provided with his sling,—a weapon then unknown and recently invented by the Ætolians,—the range of which was yet longer than that of the bow of his enemy: he ​ thus killed Degmenus, and secured the victory to Oxylus and his followers. According to one statement, the Epeians were expelled; according to another, they fraternized amicably with the new-comers: whatever may be the truth as to this matter, it is certain that their name is from this moment lost, and that they never reappear among the historical elements of Greece:^[17] we hear from this time forward only of Eleians, said to be of Ætolian descent.^[18]

One most important privilege was connected with the possession of the Eleian territory by Oxylus, coupled with his claim on the gratitude of the Dorian kings. The Eleians acquired the administration of the temple at Olympia, which the Achæans are said to have possessed before them; and in consideration of this sacred function, which subsequently ripened into the celebration of the great Olympic games, their territory was solemnly pronounced to be inviolable. Such was the statement of Ephorus:^[19] we find, in this case as in so many others, that the Return of the Herakleids is made to supply a legendary basis for the historical state of things in Peloponnêsus.

It was the practice of the great Attic tragedians, with rare exceptions, to select the subjects of their composition from the heroic or legendary world, and Euripidês had composed three dramas, now lost, on the adventures of Têmenus with his daughter Hyrnethô and his son-in-law Deiphontês,—on the family misfortunes of Kresphontês and Meropê,—and on the successful valor of Archelaus the son of Têmenus in Macedonia, where he was alleged to have first begun the dynasty of the Temenid kings. Of these subjects the first and second were eminently tragical, and the third, relating to Archelaus, appears to have been undertaken by Euripidês in compliment to his contemporary sovereign and ​ patron, Archelaus king of Macedonia: we are even told that those exploits which the usual version of the legend ascribed to Têmenus, were reported in the drama of Euripidês to have been performed by Archelaus his son.^[20] Of all the heroes, touched upon by the three Attic tragedians, these Dorian Herakleids stand lowest in the descending genealogical series,—one mark amongst others that we are approaching the ground of genuine history.

Though the name Achæans, as denoting a people, is hence-forward confined to the North-Peloponnesian territory specially called Achaia, and to the inhabitants of Achæa, Phthiôtis, north of Mount Œta,—and though the great Peloponnesian states always seem to have prided themselves on the title of Dorians,—yet we find the kings of Sparta, ever. in the historical age, taking pains to appropriate to themselves the mythical glories of the Achæans, and to set themselves forth as the representatives of Agamemnon and Orestês. The Spartan king Kleomenês even went so far as to disavow formally any Dorian parentage; for when the priestess at Athens refused to permit him to sacrifice in the temple of Athênê, on the plea that it was peremptorily closed to all Dorians, he replied: "I am no Dorian, but an Achæan."^[21] Not only did the Spartan envoy, before Gelôn of Syracuse, connect the indefeasible title of his country to the supreme command of the Grecian military force, with the ancient name and lofty prerogatives of Agamemnôn,^[22]—but, in farther pursuance of the same feeling, the Spartans are said to have carried to Sparta both the bones of Orestês from Tegea, and those of Tisamenus from Helikê,^[23] at the injunction of the Delphian oracle. There is also a story that Oxylus in Elis was directed by the same oracle to invite into his country an Achæan, as Œkist conjointly with him​ self; and that he called in Agorius, the great-grandson of Orestês, from Helikê, with a small number of Achæans who joined him.^[24] The Dorians themselves, being singularly poor in native legends, endeavored, not unnaturally, to decorate themselves with those legendary ornaments which the Achæans possessed in abundance.

As a consequence of the Dorian establishments in Peloponnêsus, several migrations of the preexisting inhabitants are represented as taking place. 1. The Epeians of Elis are either expelled, or merged in the new-comers under Oxylus, and lose their separate name. 2. The Pylians, together with the great heroic family of Nêleus and his son Nestôr, who preside over them, give place to the Dorian establishment of Messênia, and retire to Athens, where their leader, Melanthus, becomes king: a large portion of them take part in the subsequent Ionic emigration. 3. A portion of the Achæans, under Penthilus and other descendants of Orestes, leave Peloponnêsus, and form what is called the Æolic emigration, to Lesbos, the Trôad, and the Gulf of Adramyttium: the name Evlians, unknown to Homer, and seemingly never applied to any separate tribe at all, being introduced to designate a large section of the Hellenic name, partly in Greece Proper, and partly in Asia. 4. Another portion of Achaans expel the Ionians from Achaia, properly so called, in the north of Peloponnêsus; the Ionians retiring to Attica.

The Homeric poems describe Achæans, Pylians, and Epeians, in Peloponnesus, but take no notice of Ionians in the northern district of Achaia: on the contrary, the Catalogue in the Iliad distinctly includes this territory under the dominions of Agamemnôn. Though the Catalogue of Homer is not to be regarded as an historical document, fit to be called as evidence for the actual state of Peloponnesus at any prior time, it certainly seems a better authority than the statements advanced by Herodotus and others respecting the occupation of northern Peloponnêsus by the Ionians, and their expulsion from it by Tisamenus. In so far as the Catalogue is to be trusted, it negatives the idea of Ionians at Helikê, and countenances what seems in itself a more natural ​ (rapposition, that the historical Achoeans in the north part of Peloponnesus are a small undisturbed remnant of the powerful Achaean population once distributed throughout the peninsula, until it was broken up and partially expelled by the Dorians. The Homeric legends, unquestionably the oldest which we possess, are adapted to a population of Achaeans, Danaans, and Argeians, seemingly without any special and recognized names, either aggregate or divisional, other than the name of each separate tribe or kingdom. The post-Homeric legends are adapted to a population classified quite differently,—Hellens, distributed into Dorians, lonians, and Æolians. If we knew more of the time and circumstances in which these different legends grew up, we should probably be able to explain their discrepancy; but in our present ignorance we can only note the fact.

Whatever difficulty modern criticism may find in regard to the event called "The Return of the Herakleids," no doubt is expressed about it even by the best historians of antiquity. Thucydides accepts it as a single and literal event, having its assignable date, and carrying at one blow the acquisition of Peloponnesus. The date of it he fixes as eighty years after the capture of Troy. Whether he was the original determiner of this epoch, or copied it from some previous author, we do not know. It must have been fixed according to some computation of generations, for there were no other means accessible,—probably by means of the lineage of the Herakleids, which, as belonging to the kings of Sparta, constituted the most public and conspicuous thread of connection between the Grecian nal and mythical world, and measured the interval between the Siege of Troy itself and the first recorded Olympiad. Herakles himself represents the generation before the siege, and his son Tlepolemus fights in the besieging army. If we suppose the first generation after Herakles to commence with the beginning of the siege, the fourth generation after him will coincide with the ninetieth year after the same epoch; and therefore, deducting ten years for the duration of the struggle, it will coincide with the eightieth year after the capture of the city;^[25] thirty years being reckoned for a generation. The ​ date assigned by Thucydides will thus agree with the distance in which Têmenus, Kresphontês, and Aristodèmus, stand removed from Heraklês. The interval of eighty years, between the capture of Troy and the Return of the Herakleids, appears to have been admitted by Apollodorus and Eratosthenês, and some other professed chronologists of antiquity: but there were different reckonings which also found more or less of support.

In the same passage in which Thucydidês speaks of the Return of the Herakleids, he also marks out the date of another event a little antecedent, which is alleged to have powerfully affected the condition of Northern Greece. "Sixty years after the capture of Troy (he tells us) the Bœotians were driven by the Thessalians from Arnê, and migrated into the land then called Kadméêïs, but now Boeotia, wherein there had previously dwelt a section of their race, who had contributed the contingent to the Trojan war."

The expulsion here mentioned, of the Boeotians from Arnê "by the Thessalians," has been construed, with probability, to allude to the immigration of the Thessalians, properly so called, from the Thesprôtid in Epirus into Thessaly. That the Thessalians had migrated into Thessaly from the Thesprôtid territory, is stated by Herodotus,^[26] though he says nothing about time or circumstances. Antiphus and Pheidippus appear in the Homeric Catalogue as commanders of the Grecian contingent from the islands of Kôs and Karpathus, on the south-east coast of Asia Minor: they are sons of Thessalus, who is himself the son of Hêraklês. A legend ran that these two chiefs, in the dispersion which ensued after the victory, had been driven by storms into the Ionian Gulf, and cast upon the coast of Epirus, where they landed and settled at Ephyrê in the Thesprôtid.^[27] It was Thes​ salus, grandson of Pheidippus, who was reported to have con- ducted the Thesprotians across the passes of Pindus into Thes- saly, to have conquered the fertile central plain of that country, and to have imposed upon it his own name instead of its previous denomination Æolis.^[28]

Whatever we may think of this legend as it stands, the state of Thessaly during the historical ages renders it highly probable that the Thessalians, properly so called, were a body of immigrant conquerors. They appear always as a rude, warlike, violent, and uncivilized race, distinct from their neighbors the Achæans, the Magnetes, and the Perrhæbians, and holding all the three in tributary dependence: these three tribes stand to them in a relation analogous to that of the Lacedæmonian Perioeki towards Sparta, while the Penestæ, who cultivated their lands, are almost an exact parallel of the Helots. Moreover, the low level of taste and intelligence among the Thessalians, as well as certain points of their costume, assimilates them more to Macedonians or Epirots than to Hellens.^[29] Their position in Thessaly is in many respects analogous to that of the Spartan Dorians in Peloponnesus, and there seems good reason for concluding that the former, as well as the latter, were originally victorious invaders, though we cannot pretend to determine the time at which the invasion took place. The great family of the Aleuads,^[30] and probably other Thessalian families besides, were descendants of Hêraklês, like the kings of Sparta.

There are no similar historical grounds, in the case of the alleged migration of the Boeotians from Thessaly to Boeotia, to justify a belief in the main fact of the legend, nor were the different legendary stories in harmony one with the other. While the Homeric Epic recognizes the Boeotians in Boeotia, but not in ​ Thessaly, Thucydides records a statement which he had found of their migration from the latter into the former; but in order to escape the necessity of flatly contradicting Homer, he inserts the parenthesis that there had been previously an outlying fraction of Bœotians in Boeotia at the time of the Trojan war,^[31] from whom the troops who served with Agamemnon were drawn. .Nevertheless, the discrepancy with the Iliad, though less strikingly obvious, is not removed, inasmuch as the Catalogue is unusually copious in enumerating the contingents from Thessaly, without once mentioning Bœotians. Homer distinguishes Orchomenus from Boeotia, and he does not specially notice Thebes in the Catalogue: in other respects his enumeration of the towns coincides pretty well with the ground historically known afterwards under the name of Bœotia.

Pausanias gives us a short sketch of the events which he supposes to have intervened in this section of Greece between the Siege of Troy and the Return of the Herakleids. Peneleos, the leader of the Bœotians at the siege, having been slain by Eurypylus the son of Telephus, Tisamenus, son of Thersander and grandson of Polynikes, acted as their commander, both during the remainder of the siege and after their return. Autesion, his son and successor, became subject to the wrath of the avenging Erinnyes of Laius and Œdipus: the oracle directed him to expatriate, and he joined the Dorians. In his place, Damasichthon, son of Opheltas and grandson of Peneleos, became king of the Bœotians: he was succeeded by Ptolenueus, who was himself followed by Xanthus. A war having broken out at that time between the Athenians and Bœotians, Xanthus engaged in single combat with Melanthus son of Andropompus, the champion of Attica, and perished by the cunning of his opponent. After the death of Xanthus, the Bœotians passed from kingship to popular government.^[32] As Melanthus was of the lineage of the Neleids, and had migrated from Pylus to Athens in consequence of the successful establishment of the Dorians in Hessenia, the duel with Xanthus must have been of course subsequent to the Return of the Herakleids.

​ Here, then, we have a summary of alleged Boeotian history between the Siege of Troy and the Return of the Herakleids, in which no mention is made of the immigration of the mass of Boeotians from Thessaly, and seemingly no possibility left of fitting in so great and capital an incident. The legends followed by Pausanias are at variance with those adopted by Thucydides, but they harmonize much better with Homer.

So deservedly high is the authority of Thucydidês, that the migration here distinctly announced by him is commonly set down as an ascertained datum, historically as well as chronologically. But on this occasion it can be shown that he only followed one amongst a variety of discrepant legends, none of which there were any means of verifying.

Pausanias recognized a migration of the Bœotians from Thessaly, in early times anterior to the Trojan war;^[33] and the account of Ephorus, as given by Strabo, professed to record a series of changes in the occupants of the country: First, the non-Hellenic Aones and Temmikes, Leleges and Hyantes; next, the Kadmeians, who, after the second siege of Thêbes by the Epigoni, were expelled by the Thracians and Pelasgians, and retired into Thessaly, where they joined in communion with the inhabitants of Arnê,―the whole aggregate being called Boeotians. After the Trojan war, and about the time of the Eolic emigration, these Boeotians returned from Thessaly and reconquered Boeotia, driving out the Thracians and Pelasgians, the former retiring to Parnassus, the latter to Attica. It was on this occasion (he says) that the Minya of Orchomenus were subdued, and forcibly incorporated with the Boeotians. Ephorus seems to have followed, in the main, the same narrative as Thucydidês, about the movement of the Boeotians out of Thessaly; coupling it, however, with several details current as explanatory of proverbs and customs.^[34] ​ The only fact which we make out, independent of these legends, is, that there existed certain homonymies and certain affinities of religious worship, between parts of Bocotia and parts of Thessaly, which appear to indicate a kindred race. A town named Arne,^[35] similar in name to the Thessalian, was enumerated in the Bœotian Catalogue of Homer, and antiquaries identified it sometimes with the historical town Chæroneia,^[36] sometimes with Akræphium. Morcover, there was near the Boeotian Korôneia a river named Kuarius, or Koralius, and a venerable temple dedicated to the Itonian Athênê, in the sacred ground of which the Pamboeotia, or public council of the Boeotian name, was held; there was also a temple and a river of similar denomination in Thessaly, near to a town called Iton, or Itônus.^[37] We may from these circumstances presume a certain ancient kindred between the population of these regions, and such a circumstance is sufficient to explain the generation of legends describing migrations backward and forward, whether true or not in point of fact.

​ What is most important to remark is, that the stories of Thucydides and Ephorus bring us out of the mythical into the historical Boeotia. Orchomenus is Boeotized, and we hear no more of the once-powerful Minyæ: there are no more Kadmeians at Thêbes, nor Boeotians in Thessaly. The Minya and the Kadmeians disappear in the Ionic emigration, which will be presently adverted to. Historical Boeotia is now constituted, apparently in its federative league, under the presidency of Thêbes, just as we find it in the time of the Persian and Peloponnesian wars.

To complete the transition of Greece from its mythical to it historical condition, the secession of the races belonging to the former must follow upon the introduction of those belonging to the latter. This is accomplished by means of the Æolic and Ionic migrations.

The presiding chiefs of the Æolic emigration are the representatives of the heroic lineage of the Pelopids: those of the Ionic emigration belong to the Neleids; and even in what is called the Doric emigration to Thêra, the CEkist Thêras is not a Dorian but a Kadmeian, the legitimate descendant of Edipus and Kadmus.

The Æolic, Ionic, and Doric colonies were planted along the western coast of Asia Minor, from the coasts of the Propontis southward down to Lykia (I shall in a future chapter speak more exactly of their boundaries); the Æolic occupying the northern portion, together with the islands of Lesbos and Tenedos; the Doric occupying the southernmost, together with the neighboring islands of Rhodes and Kôs; and the Ionic being planted between them, comprehending Chios, Samos, and the Cycladês islands.

The Æolic emigration was conducted by the Pelopids: the original story seems to have been, that Orestês himself was at the head of the first batch of colonists, and this version of the event ​ is still preserved by Pindar and by Hellanikus.^[38] But the more current narratives represented the descendants of Orestês as chiefs of the expeditions to Æolis,—his illegitimate son Penthilus, by Erigonê daughter of Ægisthus,^[39] together with Echelatus and Gras, the son and grandson of Penthilus, together with Kleuês and Malaus, descendants of Agamemnôn through another lineage. According to the account given by Strabo, Orestês began the emigration, but died on his route in Arcadia; his son Penthilus, taking the guidance of the emigrants, conducted them by the long land-journey through Bocotia and Thessaly to Thrace;^[40] from whence Archelaus, son of Penthilus, led them across the Hellespont, and settled at Daskylium on the Propontis. Gras, son of Archelaus, crossed over to Lesbos and possessed himself of the island. Kleuês and Malaus, conducting another body of Achæans, were longer on their journey, and lingered a considerable time near Mount Phrikium, in the territory of Lokris; ultimately, however, they passed over by sea to Asia and took possession of Kymê, south of the Gulf of Adramyttium, the most considerable of all the Æolic cities on the . continent.^[41] From Lesbos and Kymê, the other less considerable Æolic towns, spreading over the region of Ida as well as the Troad, and comprehending the island of Tenedos, are said to have derived their origin.

Though there are many differences in the details, the accounts agree in representing these Æolic settlements as formed by the ​ Achæans expatriated from Lacônia under the guidance of the dispossessed Pelopids.^[42] We are told that in their journey through Boeotia they received considerable reinforcements, and Strabo adds that the emigrants started from Aulis, the port from whence Agamemnôn departed in the expedition against Troy.^[43] He also informs us that they missed their course and experienced many losses from nautical ignorance, but we do not know to what particular incidents he alludes.^[44]

The Ionic emigration is described as emanating from and directed by the Athenians, and connects itself with the previous legendary history of Athens, which must therefore be here briefly recapitulated.

The great mythical hero Thêseus, of whose military prowess and errant exploits we have spoken in a previous chapter, was still more memorable in the eyes of the Athenians as an internal political reformer. He was supposed to have performed for them the inestimable service of transforming Attica out of many states into one. Each dême, or at least a great many out of the whole number, had before his time enjoyed political independence under its own magistrates and assemblies, acknowledging only a federal union with the rest under the presidency of Athens: by a mixture of conciliation and force, Thêseus succeeded in putting down all these separate governments, and bringing them to unite in one political system, centralized at Athens. He is said to have established a constitutional government, retaining for himself a defined power as king, or president, and distributing the people into three classes: Eupatrida, a sort of sacerdotal noblesse; Geômori and Demiurgi, husbandmen and artisans.^[45] Having brought these important changes into efficient working, he commemorated them for his posterity by introducing solemn and appropriate festivals. In confirmation of the dominion of Athens over the Megarid territory, he is said farther to have erected a pillar at the extremity of the latter towards the Isthmus, marking the boundary between Peloponnesus and Iônia.

​ But a revolution so extensive was not consummated without creating much discontent; and Menestheus, the rival of Theseus, the first specimen, as we are told, of an artful demagogue,—took advantage of this feeling to assail and undermine him. Thêseus had quitted Attica, to accompany and assist his friend Peirithöus, in his journey down to the under-world, in order to carry off the goddess Persephonê,- or (as those who were critical in legendary story preferred recounting) in a journey to the residence of Aidôneus, king of the Molossians in Epirus, to carry off his daughter. In this enterprise, Peirithöus perished, while Thêseus was cast into prison, from whence he was only liberated by the intercession of Heraklês. It was during his temporary absence, that the Tyndarids Castor and Pollux invaded Attica for the purpose of recovering their sister Helen, whom Thêseus had at a former period taken away from Sparta and deposited at Aphidnæ; and the partisans of Menestheus took advantage both of the absence of Thêscus and of the calamity which his licentiousness had brought upon the country, to ruin his popularity with the people. When he returned, he found them no longer disposed to endure his dominion, or to continue to him the honors which their previous foelings of gratitude had conferred. Having, therefore, placed his sons under the protection of Elephenôr, in Euboea, he sought an asylum with Lykomêdês, prince of Scyros, from whom, however, he received nothing but an insidious welcome and a traitorous death.^[46]

Menestheus, succeeding to the honors of the expatriated hero, commanded the Athenian troops at the Siege of Troy. But though he survived the capture, he never returned to Athens,—different stories being related of the place where he and his companions settled. During this interval, the feelings of the Athenians having changed, they restored the sons of Thêseus, who had served at Troy under Elephenôr, and had returned unhurt, to the station and functions of their father. The Theseids Demophoôn, Oxyntas, Apheidas, and Thymoetês had successively filled this post for the space of about sixty years,^[47] when the Dorian invaders of Peloponnêsus (as has been before related) compelled Melanthus and the Neleid family to abandon their kingdom of ​ Pylus. The refugees found shelter at Athens, where a fortunate adventure soon raised Melanthus to the throne. A war breaking out between the Athenians and Boeotians, respecting the boundary tract of Œnoê, the Boeotian king Xanthus challenged Thymotes to single combat: the latter declining to accept it, Melanthus not only stood forward in his place, but practised a cunning stratagem with such success as to kill his adversary. He was forthwith chosen king, Thymoetês being constrained to resign.^[48]

Melanthus and his son Kodrus reigned for nearly sixty years, during which time large bodies of fugitives, escaping from the recent invaders throughout Greece, were harbored by the Athenians: so that Attica became populous enough to excite the alarm and jealousy of the Peloponnesian Dorians. A powerful Dorian force, under the command of Alêtês from Corinth and Althæmenês from Argos, were accordingly despatched to invade the Athenian territory, in which the Delphian oracle promised them success, provided they abstained from injuring the person of Kodrus. Strict orders were given to the Dorian army that Kodrus should be preserved unhurt; but the oracle had become known among the Athenians,^[49] and the generous prince determined to bring death upon himself as a means of salvation to his country. Assuming the disguise of a peasant, he intentionally provoked a quarrel with some of the Dorian troops, who slew him without suspecting his real character. No sooner was this event known, than the Dorian leaders, despairing of success, abandoned their ​ enterprise and evacuated the country.^[50] In retiring, however, they retained possession of Megara, where they established permanent settlers, and which became from this moment Dorian,—seemingly at first a dependency of Corinth, though it afterwards acquired its freedom and became an autonomous community.^[51] This memorable act of devoted patriotism, analogous to that of the daughters of Erechtheus at Athens, and of Mencekeus at Thêbes, entitled Kodrus to be ranked among the most splendid characters in Grecian legend.

Kodrus is numbered as the last king of Athens: his descendants were styled Archons, but they held that dignity for life,—a practice which prevailed during a long course of years afterwards. Medon and Neileus, his two sons, having quarrelled about the succession, the Delphian oracle decided in favor of the former; upon which the latter, affronted at the preference, resolved upon seeking a new home.^[52] There were at this moment many dispossessed sections of Greeks, and an adventitious population accumulated in Attica, who were anxious for settlements beyond sea. The expeditions which now set forth to cross the Ægean, chiefly under the conduct of members of the Kodrid family, composed collectively the memorable Ionic Emigration, of which the Ionians, recently expelled from Peloponnesus, formed a part, but, as it would seem, only a small part; for we hear of many quite distinct races, some renowned in legend, who withdraw from Greece amidst this assemblage of colonists. The Kadmeians, the Minyæ of Orchomenus, the Abantês of Euboea, the Dryopes; the Molossi, the Phokians, the Boeotians, the Arcadian Pelasgians, and even the Dorians of Epidaurus,—are represented as furnishing each a proportion of the crews of these emigrant vessels.^[53] Nor were the results unworthy of so mighty ​ a confluence of different races. Not only the Cyclades islands in the Ægean, but the great islands of Samos and Chios, near the Asiatic coast, and ten different cities on the coast of Asia Minor, from Milêtus in the south to Phokæa in the north, were founded, and all adopted the Ionic name. Athens was the metropolis or mother city of all of them: Androklus and Neileus, the Œkists of Ephesus and Milêtus, and probably other Œkists also, started from the Prytaneium at Athens,^[54] with those solemnities, religious and political, which usually marked the departure of a swarm of Grecian colonists.

Other mythical families, besides the heroic lineage of Nêleus and Nestôr, as represented by the sons of Kodrus, took a leading part in the expedition. Herodotus mentions Lykian chiefs, descendants from Glaukus son of Hippolochus, and Pausanias tells us of Philôtas descendant of Peneleôs, who went at the head of a body of Thebans: both Glaukus and Peneleôs are commemorated in the Iliad.^[55] And it is a remarkable fact mentioned by Pausanias (though we do not know on what authority), that the inhabitants of Phokæa,—which was the northernmost city of Iônia on the borders of Æolis, and one of the last founded, consisting mostly of Phokian colonists under the conduct of the Athenians Philogenês and Dæmôn, were not admitted into the Pan-Ionic Amphiktyony until they consented to choose for themselves chiefs of the Kodrid family.^[56] Proklês, the chief who conducted the Ionic emigrants from Epidaurus to Samos, was said to be of the lineage of Iôn, son of Xuthus.^[57]

Of the twelve Ionic states constituting the Pan-Ionic Amphiktyony some of them among the greatest cities in Hellas—I shall say no more at present, as I have to treat of them again when I come upon historical ground.

The Æolic and Ionic emigrations are thus both presented to us as direct consequences of the event called the Return of the ​ Herakieids: and in like manner the formation of the Dorian Hexapolis in the south-western corner of Asia Minor: Kôs, Knidus, Halikarnassus, and Rhodes, with its three separate cities, as well as the Dorian establishments in Krête, Melos, and Thêra, are all traced more or less directly to the same great revolution.

Thêra, more especially, has its root in the legendary world. Its Œkist was Thêras, a descendant of the heroic lineage of Œdipus and Kadmus, and maternal uncle of the young kings of Sparta, Eurysthenês and Proklês, during whose minority he had exercised the regency. On their coming of age, his functions were at an end: but being unable to endure a private station, he determined to put himself at the head of a body of emigrants: many came forward to join him, and the expedition was farther reinforced by a body of interlopers, belonging to the Minyæ, of whom the Lacedæmonians were anxious to get rid. These Minya had arrived in Laconia, not long before, from the island of Lemnos, out of which they had been expelled by the Pelasgian fugitives from Attica. They landed without asking permission, took up their abode and began to "light their fires" on Mount Taygetus. When the Lacedæmonians sent to ask who they were, and wherefore they had come, the Minyæ replied that they were sons of the Argonauts who had landed at Lemnos, and that, being expelled from their own homes, they thought themselves entitled to solicit an asylum in the territory of their fathers: they asked, withal, to be admitted to share both the lands and the honors of the state. The Lacedæmonians granted the request, chiefly on the ground of a common ancestry, their own great heroes, the Tyndarids, having been enrolled in the crew of the Argô: the Minya were then introduced as citizens into the tribes, received lots of land, and began to intermarry with the preëxisting families. It was not long, however, before they became insolent: they demanded a share in the kingdom (which was the venerated privilege of the Herakleids), and so grossly misconducted themselves in other ways, that the Lacedæmonians resolved to put them to death, and began by casting them into prison. While the Minya were thus confined, their wives, Spartans by birth, and many of them daughters of the principal men, solicited permission to go in and see them: leave being granted, they made use of the interview to ​ change clothes with their husbands, who thus escaped and fled again to Mount Taygetus. The greater number of them quitted Laconia, and marched to Triphylia, in the western regions of Peloponnesus, from whence they expelled the Paroreatæ and the Kaukones, and founded six towns of their own, of which Lepreum was the chief. A certain proportion, however, by permission of the Lacedæmonians, joined Thêras, and departed with him to the island of Kallistê, then possessed by Phoenician inhabitants, who were descended from the kinsmen and companions of Kadmus, and who had been left there by that prince, when he came forth in search of Europa, eight generations preceding. Arriving thus among men of kindred lineage with himself, Thêras met with a fraternal reception, and the island derived from him the name, under which it is historically known, of Thêra.1

Such is the foundation-legend of Thêra, believed both by the Lacedæmonians and by the Theræans, and interesting as it brings before us, characteristically as well as vividly, the persons and feelings of the mythical world, the Argonauts, with the Tynda- rids as their companions and Minyæ as their children. In Le- preum, as in the other towns of Triphylia, the descent from the Minyæ of old seems to have been believed in the historical times, and the mention of the river Minyëius in those regions by Homer tended to confirm it. But people were not unanimous as to the legend by which that descent should be made out; while some adopted the story just cited from Herodotus, others imagined that Chloris, who had come from the Minyeian town of Orchomenus as the wife of Nêleus to Pylus, had brought with her a body of her countrymen.³

¹ Herodot. iv. 145-149; Valer. Maxim. iv. c. 6; Polyæn. vii. 49, who, however, gives the narrative differently by mentioning " Tyrrhenians from Lemnos aiding Sparta during the Helotic war:" another narrative in his collection (viii. 71), though imperfectly preserved, seems to approach more closely to Herodotns.

Homer, Iliad, xi. 721.

• Strabo, viii. p. 347. M. Raonl Rochette, who treats the legends for the

most part as if they were so much authentic history, is much displeased with Strabo for admitting this diversity of stories (Histoire des Colonies Grecques, t. iii. ch. 7, p. 54): "Après des détails si clairs et si positifs, comment est-il possible que ce même Strabon, bouleverant toute la chronologie, fisse ​ These Minyæ from Lemnos and Imbros appear again as portions of another narrative respecting the settlement of the colony of Mêlos. It has already been mentioned, that when the Herakleids and the Dorians invaded Lacônia, Philonomus, an Achæan, treacherously betrayed to them the country, for which he received as his recompense the territory of Amyklæ. He is said to have peopled this territory by introducing detachments of Minyæ from Lemnos and Imbros, who, in the third generation after the return of the Herakleids, became so discontented and mutinous, that the Lacedæmonians resolved to send them out of the country as emigrants, under their chiefs Polis and Delphus. Taking the direction of Krête, they stopped in their way to land a portion of their colonists on the island of Mêlos, which remained throughout the historical times a faithful and attached colony of Lacedæmôn.^[58] On arriving in Krête, they are said to have settled at the town of Gortyn. We find, moreover, that other Dorian establishments, either from Lacedæmôn or Argos, were formed in Krête; and Lyktos in particular, is noticed, not only as a colony of Sparta, but as distinguished for the analogy of its laws and customs.^[59] It is even said that Krête, immediately after the Trojan war, had been visited by the wrath of the gods, and depopulated by famine and pestilence; and that, in the third generation afterwards, so great was the influx of emigrants, the entire population of the island was renewed, with the exception of the Eteokrêtes at Polichna and Præsus.^[60] ​ There were Dorians in Krête in the time of the Odyssey: Homer mentions different languages and different races of men, Eteokrêtes, Kydônes, Dorians, Achæans, and Pelasgians, as all coexisting in the island, which he describes to be populous, and to contain ninety cities. A legend given by Andrôn, based seemingly upon the statement of Herodotus, that Dôrus the son of Hellen had settled in Histiæôtis, ascribed the first introduction of the three last races to Tektaphus son of Dôrus,—who had led forth from that country a colony of Dorians, Achæans, and Pelasgians, and had landed in Krête during the reign of the indigenous king Krês.^[61] This story of Andrôn so exactly fits on to the Homeric Catalogue of Kretan inhabitants, that we may reasonably presume it to have been designedly arranged with reference to that Catalogue, so as to afford some plausible account, consistently with the received legendary chronology, how there came to be Dorians in Krête before the Trojan war,—the Dorian colonies after the return of the Herakleids being of course long posterior in supposed order of time. To find a leader sufficiently early for his hypothesis, Andrôn ascends to the primitive Eponymus Dôrus, to whose son Tektaphus he ascribes the introduction of a mixed colony of Dorians, Acliæans, and Pelasgians into Krête: these are the exact three races enumerated in the Odyssey, and the king Krês, whom Andron affirms to have been then reigning in the island, represents the Eteokrêtes and Kydônes in the list of Homer. The story seems to have found favor among native Kretan historians, as it doubtless serves to obviate what ​ would otherwise be a contradiction in the legendary chronology.^[62]

Another Dorian emigration from Peloponnesus to Krête, which extended also to Rhodes and Kôs, is farther said to have been conducted by Althæmenês, who had been one of the chiefs in the expedition against Attica, in which Krodus perished. This prince, a Herakleid, and third in descent from Têmenus, was induced to expatriate by a family quarrel, and conducted a body of Dorian colonists from Argos first to Krête, where some of them remained; but the greater number accompanied him to Rhodes, in which island, after expelling the Karian possessors, he founded the three cities of Lindus, Ialysus, and Kameirus.^[63]

It is proper here to add, that the legend of the Rhodian archæologists respecting their cekist Althæmenês, who was worshipped in the island with heroic honors, was something totally different from the preceding. Althæmenês was a Kretan, son of the king Katreus, and grandson of Minos. An oracle predicted to him that he would one day kill his father: eager to escape so terrible a destiny, he quitted Krête, and conducted a colony to Rhodes, where the famous temple of the Atabyrian Zeus, on the lofty summit of Mount Atabyrum, was ascribed to his foundation, built so as to command a view of Krête. He had been settled on the island for some time, when his father Katreus, anxious again to embrace his only son, followed him from Krête: he landed in Rhodes during the night without being known, and a casual collision took place between his attendants and the islanders. Althæmenês hastened to the shore to assist in repelling the supposed enemies, and in the fray had the misfortune to kill his aged father.^[64]

Either the emigrants who accompanied Althæmenês, or some ​ other Dorian colonists afterwards, are reported to have settled at Kôs, Knidus, Karpathus, and Halikarnassus. To the last mentioned city, however, Anthês of Trezên is assigned as the oekist: the emigrants who accompanied him were said to have belonged to the Dymanian tribe, one of the three tribes always found in a Doric state and the city seems to have been characterized as a colony sometimes of Trozen, sometimes of Argos.1

We thus have the Æolic, the Ionic, and the Doric colonial establishments in Asia, all springing out of the legendary age, and all set forth as consequences, direct or indirect, of what is called the Return of the Herakleids, or the Dorian conquest of Peloponnêsus. According to the received chronology, they are succeeded by a period, supposed to comprise nearly three centuries, which is almost an entire blank, before we reach authentic chronology and the first recorded Olympiad, and they thus form the concluding events of the mythical world, out of which we now pass into historical Greece, such as it stands at the last- mentioned epoch. It is by these migrations that the parts of the Hellenic aggregate are distributed into the places which they occupy at the dawn of historical daylight,—Dorians, Arcadians, Ætolo-Eleians, and Achæans, sharing Peloponnêsus unequally among them,—Æolians, Ionians, and Dorians, settled both in the islands of the Ægean and the coast of Asia Minor. The Return of the Herakleids, as well as the three emigrations, Eolic, Ionic, and Doric, present the legendary explanation, suitable to the feelings and belief of the people, showing how this, Diodorus had made express reference to native Rhodian mythologists, to one in particular, named Zeno (c. 57). - Wesseling supposes two different settlers in Rhodes, both named Althæ- menês: this is certainly necessary, if we are to treat the two narratives as bistorical.

'Strabo, xiv, p. 653; Pausan. ii. 39, 3; Kallimachas apud Stephan. Byz. ν. 'Αλικαρνασσος.

Herodotus (vii. 99) calls Halikarnassus a colony of Træezên; Pomponius Mela (i 16,) of Argos. Vitruvius names both Argos and Trozên (ii. 8, 12); but the two ckists whom he mentions, Melas and Arevanius, were not so well known as Anthês; the inhabitants of Halikarnassus being called Antheade (see Stephan. Byz. v. 'Adñvat; and a curious inscription in Beeckh's Corpus Inscriptionum, No. 2655). ​ Greece passed from the heroic races who besieged Toy and Thêbes, piloted the adventurous Argo, and slew the monstrous boar of Kalydon, to the historical races, differently named and classified, who furnished victors to the Olympic and Pythian games.

A patient and learned French writer, M. Raoul Rochette,—who construes all the events of the heroic age, generally speaking, as so much real history, only making allowance for the mistakes and exaggerations of poets,—is greatly perplexed by the blank and interruption which this supposed continuous series of history presents, from the Return of the Herakleids down to the beginning of the Olympiads. He cannot explain to himself so long a period of absolute quiescence, after the important incidents and striking adventures of the heroic age; and if there happened nothing worthy of record during this long period,—as he presumes, from the fact that nothing has been transmitted, he concludes that this must have arisen from the state of suffering and exhaustion in which previous wars and revolution had left the Greeks: a long interval of complete inaction being required to heal such wounds.^[65]

​ Assuming M. Rochette's view of the heroic ages to be correct, and reasoning upon the supposition that the adventures ascribed to the Grecian heroes are matters of historical reality, transmitted by tradition from a period of time four centuries before the recorded Olympiads, and only embellished by describing poets,—the blank which he here dwells upon is, to say the least of it, embarrassing and unaccountable. It is strange that the stream of tradition, if it had once begun to flow, should (like several of the rivers in Greece) be submerged for two or three centuries and then reappear. But when we make what appears to me the proper distinction between legend and history, it will be seen that a period of blank time between the two is perfectly conformable to the conditions under which the former is generated. It is not the immediate past, but a supposed remote past, which forms the suitable atmosphere of mythical narrative,—a past originally quite undetermined in respect to distance from the present, as we see in the Iliad and Odyssey. And even when we come down to the genealogical poets, who affect to give a certain measure of bygone time, and a succession of persons as well as of events, still, the names whom they most delight to honor and upon whose exploits they chiefly expatiate, are those of the ancestral gods and heroes of the tribe and their supposed contemporaries; ancestors separated by a long lineage from the present hearer. The gods and heroes were conceived as removed from him by several generations, and the legendary matter which was grouped around them appeared only the more imposing when exhibited at a respectful distance, beyond the days of father and grandfather, and of all known predecessors. The Odes of Pindar strikingly illustrate this tendency. We thus see how it happened that, between the times assigned to heroic adventure and those of historical record, there existed an intermediate blank, filled with inglorious names; and how, amongst the same society which cared not to remember proceedings of fathers and grandfathers, there circulated much popular and accredited narrative respecting real or supposed ancestors long past and gone ​ The obscure and barren centuries which immediately precede the first recorded Olympiad, form the natural separation between the legendary return of the Heraklcids and the historical wars of Sparta against Messênê,- between the province of legend, wherein matter of fact (if any there be) is so intimately combined with its accompaniments of fiction, as to be undistinguishable without the aid of extrinsic evidence,--and that of history where some matters of fact can be ascertained, and where a sagacious criticism may be usefully employed in trying to add to their number.

---

I need not repeat, what has already been sufficiently set forth in the preceding pages, that the mass of Grecian incident anterior to 776 B. C. appears to me not reducible either to history or to chronology, and that any chronological system which may be applied to it must be essentially uncertified and illusory. It was, however, chronologized in ancient times, and has continued to be so in modern; and the various schemes employed for this purpose may be found stated and compared in the first volume (the last published) of Mr. Fynes Clinton's Fasti Hellenici. There were among the Greeks, and there still are among modern scholars, important differences as to the dates of the principal events:^[66] Eratosthenês dissented both from Herodotus and from Phanias and Kallimachus, while Larcher and Raoul Rochette ​ (who follow Herodotus, stand opposed to O. Müller and to Mr. Clinton. That the reader may have a general conception of the order in which these legendary events were disposed, I transcribe from the Fasti Hellenica a double chronological table, contained in p. 139, in which the dates are placed in series, from Phorôneus to the Olympiad of Corœbus in B. C. 776,—in the first column according to the system of Eratosthenês, in the second according to that of Kallimachus.

"The following Table (says Mr. Clinton) offers a summary view of the leading periods from Phorôneus to the Olympiad of Corobus, and exhibits a double series of dates; the one proceeding from the date of Eratosthenês, the other from a date founded on the reduced calculations of Phanias and Kallimachus, which strike out fifty-six years from the amount of Eratosthenês. Phanias, as we have seen, omitted fifty-five years between the Return and the registered Olympiads; for so we may understand the account: Kallimachus, fifty-six years between the Olympiad of Iphitus and the Olympiad in which Coroebus won.^[67]

​ "The first column of this Table exhibits the current years before and after the fall of Troy: in the second cc.umn of dates the complete intervals are expressed."

Years before the Fall Years in- tervening between the differ- entevents B. C. Era- B. C. Kalli- tosth. mach. of Troy. (570) Phoroneus, p. 19... 287 (1753) (1697) (283) { Duneus, p. 73.... 33 Pelasqus V. p. 13, 88 (1466) (1410) (250) Deukalion, p. 42. 50 (1433) (1377) | { Erechtheus (150) 130 (100) 78 (42) 30 26 (200) Durdunus, p. 88 Azan, Aphida, Elatus Kadmus, p. 85 Pelops • Birth of Hercules Argonauts. First Theban war, p. 51, h. Death of Hercules.. 50 (1383) (1327) 88 ... 36 20202 (1333) (1277) 1313 1257 (1283) (1227) 1261 1205 12 (1225) (1169) 24 Death of Eurystheus, p. 106, x.. 424 4 1213 1157 1209 1153 1207 1151 20 Death of Hyllus 2y 9m 1203 1147 18 Accession of Agamemnon 20 1200 1144 16 Second Theban war, p. 87, 1 6 1198 1142 10 Trojan expedition (9y 1m). 9 1192 1136 Years after the Fall of Troy. Troy taken... 7 1183 1127 8 Orestes reigns at Argos in the 8th year.. The Thessali occupy Thessaly.. 52 1176 1120 60 The Booti return to Boeotia in the 60th yr. Æolic migration under Penthilus. 20 1124 1068 80 109 110 Return of the Heraclide in the 80th Aletes reigns at Corinth, p. 130, m..... Migration of Theras... year 29 1104 1048 1 1075 1019 21 1074 1018 131 Lesbos occupied 130 years after the æra. 8 1053 997 139 Death of Codrus 1 1045 989 140 151 169 Sm Ionic migration 60 years after the Return Cymê founded 150 years after the æra.. Smyrna, 168 years after the æra, p. 105, t. 11 1044 988 18 1033 977 131 1015 959 299 108 300 Olympiad of Iphitus. 884 828 52 408 852 } Olympiad of Corabus... 776 776 These dates, distinguished from the rest by braces, are proposed as mer conjectures, founded upon the probable length of generations. Univ Calif - Digitized by Microsoft® ​ Wherever chronology is possible, researches such as those of Mr. Clinton, which have conduced so much to the better understanding of the later times of Greece, deserve respectful attention. But the ablest chronologist can accomplish nothing, unless he is supplied with a certain basis of matters of fact, pure and distinguishable from fiction, and authenticated by witnesses both knowing the truth and willing to declare it. Possessing this preliminary stock, he may reason from it to refute distinct falsehoods and to correct partial mistakes: but if all the original statements submitted to him contain truth (at least wherever there is truth) in a sort of chemical combination with fiction, which he has no means of decomposing,—he is in the condition of one who tries to solve a problem without data: he is first obliged to construct his own data, and from them to extract his conclusions. The statements of the epic poets, our only original witnesses in this case, correspond to the description here given. Whether the proportion of truth contained in them be smaller or greater, it is at all events unassignable,—and the constant and intimate admixture of fiction is both indisputable in itself, and, indeed, essential to the purpose and profession of those from whom the tales proceed. Of such a character are all the deposing witnesses, even where their tales agree; and it is out of a heap of such tales, not agreeing, but discrepant in a thousand ways, and without a morsel of pure authenticated truth,—that the critic is called upon to draw out a methodical series of historical events adorned with chronological dates.

If we could imagine a modern critical scholar transported into Greece at the time of the Persian war,—endued with his present habits of appreciating historical evidence, without sharing in the religious or patriotic feelings of the country,—and invited to prepare, out of the great body of Grecian epic which then existed, a History and Chronology of Greece anterior to 776 B. C., assigning reasons as well for what he admitted as for what he rejected,—I feel persuaded that he would have judged the undertaking to be little better than a process of guesswork. But the modern critic finds that not only Pherekydês and Hellanikus, but also Herodotus and Thucydidês, have either attempted the task or sanctioned the belief that it was practicable,—a matter not at all surprising, when we consider both their narrow ex​ perience of historical evidence and the powerful ascendency of religion and patriotism in predisposing them to antiquarian belief, and he therefore accepts the problem as they have bequeathed it, adding his own efforts to bring it to a satisfactory solution. Nevertheless, he not only follows them with some degree of reserve and uneasiness, but even admits important distinctions quite foreign to their habits of thought. Thucydides talks of the deeds of Hellên and his sons with as much confidence as we now speak of William the Conqueror: Mr. Clinton recognizes Hellên, with his sons Dôrus, Æolus, and Xuthus,.as fictitious persons. Herodotus recites the great heroic genealogies down from Kadmus and Danaus, with a belief not less complete in the higher members of the series than in the lower: but Mr. Clinton admits a radical distinction in the evidence of events before and after the first recorded Olympiad, or 776 B. C.,—"the first date in Grecian chronology (he remarks, p. 123,) which can be fixed upon authentic evidence,"—the highest point to which Grecian chronology, reckoning upward, can be carried. Of this important epoch in Grecian development, the commencement of authentic chronological life,—Herodotus and Thucydidês had no knowledge or took no account: the later chronologists, from Timæus downwards, noted it, and made it serve as the basis of their chronological comparisons, so far as it went: but neither Eratosthenes nor Apollodorus seem to have recognized (though Varro and Africanus did recognize) a marked difference in respect of certainty or authenticity between the period before and the period after.

In farther illustration of Mr. Clinton's opinion that the first recorded Olympiad is the earliest date which can be fixed upon authentic evidence, we have, in p. 138, the following just remarks in reference to the dissentient views of Eratosthenês, Phanias, and Kallimachus, about the date of the Trojan war: "The chronology of Eratosthenês (he says), founded on a careful comparison of circumstances, and approved by those to whom the same stores of information were open, is entitled to our respect. But we must remember that a conjectural date can never rise to the authority of evidence; that what is accepted as a substitute for testimony is not an equivalent: witnesses only can prove a date, and in the want of these, the knowledge of it is plainly beyond our reach ​ If in the absence of a better light we seek for what is probable, we are not to forget the distinction between conjecture and proof between what is probable and what is certain. The computation, then, of Eratosthenês for the war of Troy is open to inquiry; and if we find it adverse to the opinions of many preceding writers, who fixed a lower date, and adverse to the acknowledged length of generation in the most authentic dynasties, we are allowed to follow other guides, who give us a lower epoch."

Here Mr. Clinton again plainly acknowledges the want of evidence, and the irremediable uncertainty of Grecian chronology before the Olympiads; and the reasonable conclusion from his argument is, not simply, that "the computation of Eratosthenês was open to inquiry," (which few would be found to deny,) but that both Eratosthenês and Phanias had delivered positive opinions upon a point on which no sufficient evidence was accessible, and therefore that neither the one nor the other was a guide to be followed.^[68] Mr. Clinton does, indeed, speak of authentic dynasties prior to the first recorded Olympiad, but if there be any such, reaching up from that period to a supposed point coeval with or anterior to the war of Troy, I see no good reason for the marked distinction which he draws between chronology before and chronology after the Olympiad of Korœbus, or for the necessity which he feels of suspending his upward reckoning at the last-mentioned epoch, and beginning a different process, called "a downward reckoning," from the higher epoch (supposed to be somehow ascertained without any upward reckoning) of the first patriarch from whom such authentic dynasty emanates.^[69] Herodotus and Thucydides might well, upon this supposition, ask of ​ Mr. Clinton, why he called upon them to alter their method of proceeding at the year 776 B. C., and why they might not be allowed to pursue their "upward chronological reckoning," without interruption, from Leonidas up to Danaus, or from Peisistratus up to Hellên and Deukalion, without any alteration in the point of view. Authentic dynasties from the Olympiads, up to an epoch above the Trojan war, would enable us to obtain chronological proof for the latter date, instead of being reduced (as Mr. Clinton affirms that we are) to " conjecture" instead of proof.

The whole question, as to the value of the reckoning from the ​ Olympiads up to Phorôneus, docs in truth turn upon this point: Are those genealogies, which profess to cover the space between the two, authentic and trustworthy, or not? Mr. Clinton appears to feel that they are not so, when he admits the essential difference in the character of the evidence and the necessity of altering the method of computation, before and after the first recorded Olympiad; yet, in his Preface, he labors to prove that they possess historical worth and are in the main correctly set forth: moreover, that the fictitious persons, wherever any such are intermingled, may be detected and eliminated. The evidences upon which he relies, are: 1. Inscriptions; 2. The early poets.

1. An inscription, being nothing but a piece of writing on marble, carries evidentiary value under the same conditions as a published writing on paper. If the inscriber reports a contemporary fact which he had the means of knowing, and if there be no reason to suspect misrepresentation, we believe his assertion: if, on the other hand, he records facts belonging to a long period before his own time, his authority counts for little, except in so far as we can verify and appreciate his means of knowledge.

In estimating, therefore, the probative force of any inscription, the first and most indispensable point is to assure ourselves of its date. Amongst all the public registers and inscriptions alluded to by Mr. Clinton, there is not one which can be positively referred to a date anterior to 776 B. C. The quoit of Iphitus, the public registers at Sparta, Corinth, and Elis, the list of the priestesses of Juno at Argos, are all of a date completely uncertified. O. Müller does, indeed, agree with Mr. Clinton (though in my opinion without any sufficient proof) in assigning the quoit of Iphitus to the age ascribed to that prince: and if we even grant thus much, we shall have an inscription as old (adopting Mr. Clinton's determination of the age of Iphitus) as 828 B. C. But when Mr. Clinton quotes O. Müller as admitting the registers of Sparta, Corinth, and Elis, it is right to add that the latter does not profess to guarantee the authenticity of these documents, or the age at which such registers began to be kept. It is not to be doubted that there were registers of the kings of Sparta carrying them up to Herakles, and of the kings of Elis from Oxylus to Iphitus; but the question is, at what time did these lists begin to be kept continuously? This is a point which ​ we have no means of deciding, nor can we accept Mr. Clinton's unsupported conjecture, when he tells us: "Perhaps these were begun to be written as early as B. C. 1048, the probable time of the Dorian conquest." Again, he tells us: "At Argos, a register was preserved of the priestesses of Juno, which might be more ancient than the catalogues of the kings of Sparta or Corinth. That register, from which Hellanikus composed his work, contained the priestesses from the earliest times down to the age of Hellanikus himself. . . . . But this catalogue might have been commenced as early as the Trojan war itself, and even at a still earlier date." (pp. x. xi.) Again, respecting the inscriptions quoted by Herodotus from the temple of the Ismenian Apollo at Thêbes, in which Amphitryo and Laodamas are named, Mr. Clinton says, "They were ancient in the time of Herodotus, which may perhaps carry them back 400 years before his time: and in that case they might approach within 300 years of Laodamas and within 400 years of the probable time of Kadmus himself."—"It is granted (he adds, in a note,) that these inscriptions were not genuine, that is, not of the date to which they were assigned by Herodotus himself. But that they were ancient, cannot be doubted," &c.

The time when Herodotus saw the temple of the Ismenian Apollo at Thêbes can hardly have been earlier than 450 B. C. reckoning upwards from hence to 776 B. C., we have an interval of 326 years: the inscriptions which Herodotus saw may well therefore have been ancient, without being earlier than the first recorded Olympiad. Mr. Clinton does, indeed, tell us that ancient "may perhaps " be construed as 400 years earlier than Herodotus. But no careful reader can permit himself to convert such bare possibility into a ground of inference, and to make it available, in conjunction with other similar possibilities before enumerated, for the purpose of showing that there really existed inscriptions in Greece of a date anterior to 776 B. C. Unless Mr. Clinton can make out this, he can derive no benefit from inscriptions, in his attempt to substantiate the reality of the mythical persons or of the mythical events.

The truth is, that the Herakleid pedigree of the Spartan kings (as has been observed in a former chapter) is only one out of the numerous divine and heroic genealogies with which the Hel​ lenic world abounded,^[70]—a class of documents which become historical evidence only so high in the ascending series as the ​ names composing them are authenticated by contemporary, or nearly contemporary, enrolment. At what period this practice of enrolment began, we have no information. Two remarks, however, may be made, in reference to any approximative guess as to the time when actual registration commenced: First, that the number of names in the pedigree, or the length of past time which it professes to embrace, affords no presumption of any superior antiquity in the time of registration: Secondly, that, looking to the acknowledged paucity and rudeness of Grecian writing, even down to the 60th Olympiad (540 B. C.), and to the absence of the habit of writing, as well as the low estimate of its value, which such a state of things argues, the presumption is, that written enrolment of family genealogies, did not commence until a long time after 776 B. C., and the obligation of proof falls upon him who maintains that it commenced earlier. And this second remark is farther borne out, when we observe that there is no registered list, except that of the Olympic victors, which goes up even so high as 776 B. C. The next list which O. Müller and Mr. Clinton produce, is that of the Karneonicæ, or victors at the Karneian festival, which reaches only up to 676 B. C.

If Mr. Clinton then makes little out of inscriptions to sustain his view of Grecian history and chronology anterior to the re- corded Olympiads, let us examine the inferences which he draws from his other source of evidence,—the early poets. And here it will be found, First, that in order to maintain the credibility of these witnesses, he lays down positions respecting historical evidence both indefensible in themselves, and especially inapplicable to the early times of Greece: Secondly, that his reasoning is at the same time inconsistent,—inasmuch as it includes admissions, which, if properly understood and followed out, exhibit these very witnesses as habitually, indiscriminately, and unconsciously mingling truth and fiction, and therefore little fit to be believed upon their solitary and unsupported testimony.

To take the second point first, he says, Introduction, p. ii-iii: "The authority even of the genealogies has been called in ques- ​ tion by many able and learned persons, who reject Danaus, Kadmus, Hercules, Thêseus, and many others, as fictitious persons. It is evident that any fact would come from the hands of the poets embellished with many fabulous additions: and fictitious genealogies were undoubtedly composed. Because, however, some genealogies were fictitious, we are not justified in concluding that all were fabulous. . . . . . . . In estimating, then, the historical value of the genealogies transmitted by the early poets, we nay take a middle course; not rejecting them as wholly false, or yet implicitly receiving all as true. The genealogies contain many real persons, but these are incorporated with many fictitious names. The fictions, however, will have a basis of truth: the genealogical expression may be false, but the connection which it describes is real. Even to those who reject the whole as fabulous, the exhibition of the early times which is presented in this volume may still be not unacceptable: because it is necessary to the right understanding of antiquity that the opinions of the Greeks concerning their own origin should be set before us, even if these are erroneous opinions, and that their story should be told as they have told it themselves. The names preserved by the ancient genealogies may be considered of three kinds; either they were the name of a race or clan converted into the name of an individual, or they were altogether fictitious, or lastly, they were real historical names. An attempt is made, in the four genealogical tables inserted below, to distinguish these three classes of names. . . . . Of those who are left in the third class (i. e. the real) all are not entitled to remain there. But I have only placed in the third class those names concerning which there seemed to be little doubt. The rest are left to the judgment of the reader."

Pursuant to this principle of division, Mr. Clinton furnishes four genealogical tables,^[71] in which the names of persons representing races are printed in capital letters, and those of purely fictitious persons in italics. And these tables exhibit a curious sample of the intimate commixture of fiction with that which he calls truth: real son and mythical father, real husband and mythical wife, or vice versa.

​ Upon Mr. Clinton's tables we may remark:—

1. The names singled out as fictitious are distinguished by no common character, nor any mark either assignable or defensible, from those which are left as real. To take an example (p. 40), why is Itônus the first pointed out as a fiction, while Itônus the second, together with Physcus, Cynus, Salmôneus, Ormenus, etc., in the same page, are preserved as real, all of them being eponyms of towns just as much as Itônus?

2. If we are to discard Hellên, Dôrus, Æolus, Iôn, etc., as not being real individual persons, but expressions for personified races, why are we to retain Kadmus, Danaus, Hyllus, and several others, who are just as much eponyms of races and tribes as the four above mentioned? Hyllus, Pamphylus, and Dymas are the eponyms of the three Dorian tribes,^[72] just as Hoplês and the other three sons of Iôn were of the four Attic tribes: Kadmus and Danaus stand in the same relation to the Kadmeians and Danaans, as Argus and Achæus to the Argeians and Achæans. Besides, there are many other names really eponymous, which we cannot now recognize to be so, in consequence of our imperfect acquaintance with the subdivisions of the Hellenic population, each of which, speaking generally, had its god or hero, to whom the original of the name was referred. If, then, eponymous names are to be excluded from the category of reality, we shall find that the ranks of the real men will be thinned to a far greater extent than is indicated by Mr. Clinton's tables.

3. Though Mr. Clinton does not carry out consistently either of his disfranchising qualifications among the names and persons of the old mythes, he nevertheless presses them far enough to strike out a sensible proportion of the whole. By conceding thus much to modern scepticism, he has departed from the point of view of Hellanikus and Herodotus, and the ancient historians generally; and it is singular that the names, which he has been the most forward to sacrifice, are exactly those to which they were most attached, and which it would have been most painful to their faith to part with,—I mean the eponymous heroes. Neither Herodotus, nor Hellanikus, nor Eratosthenês, nor any ​ one of the chronological reckoners of antiquity, would have admitted the distinction which Mr. Clinton draws between persons real and persons fictitious in the old mythical world, though they might perhaps occasionally, on special grounds, call in question the existence of some individual characters amongst the mythical ancestry of Greece; but they never dreamed of that general severance into real and fictitious persons, which forms the principle of Mr. Clinton's "middle course." Their chronological computations for Grecian antiquity assumed that the mythical characters, in their full and entire sequence, were all real persons. Setting up the entire list as real, they calculated so many generations to a century, and thus determined the number of centuries which separated themselves from the gods, the heroes, or the autochthonous men who formed in their view the historical starting point. But as soon as it is admitted that the personages in the mythical world are divisible into two classes, partly real and partly fictitious, the integrity of the series is broken up, and it can be no longer employed as a basis for chronological calculation. In the estimate of the ancient chronologers, three succeeding persons of the same lineage—grandfather, father, and son,—counted for a century; and this may pass in a rough way, so long as you are thoroughly satisfied that they are all real persons: but if, in the succession of persons A, B, C, you strike out B as a fiction, the continuity of data necessary for chronological computation disappears. Now Mr. Clinton is inconsistent with himself in this,—that, while he abandons the unsuspecting historical faith of the Grecian chronologers, he nevertheless continues his chronological computations upon the data of that ancient faith,—upon the assumed reality of all the persons constituting his antehistorical generations. "What becomes, for example, of the Herakleid genealogy of the Spartan kings, when it is admitted that eponymous persons are to be cancelled as fictions; seeing that Hyllus, through whom those kings traced their origin to Herakles comes in the most distinct manner under that category, as much so as Hoples the son of Ion ? It will be found that, when we once cease to believe in the mythical world as an uninterrupted and unalloyed succession of real individuals, it becomes unfit to serve as a basis for chronological computations, and that Mr. Clinton, when he mutilated the data of the ancient chronolo​ giste, ought at the same time to have abandoned their problems as insoluble. Genealogies of real persons, such as Herodotus and Eratosthenês believed in, afford a tolerable basis for calculations of time, within certain limits of error: "genealogies containing many real persons, but incorporated with many fictitious names," (to use the language just cited from Mr. Clinton,) are essentially unavailable for such a purpose.

It is right here to add, that I agree in Mr. Clinton's view of these eponymous persons: I admit, with him, that "the genealogical expression may often be false, when the connection which it describes is real." Thus, for example, the adoption of Hyllus by Ægimius, the father of Pamphylus and Dymas, to the privileges of a son and to a third fraction of his territories, may reasonably be construed as a mythical expression of the fraternal union of the three Dorian tribes, Hyllêis, Pamphyli, and Dymanes: so about the relationship of Ion and Achæus, of Dôrus and Eolus. But if we put this construction on the name of Hyllus, or Iôn, or Achæus, we cannot at the same time employ either of these persons as units in chronological reckoning: nor is it consistent to recognize them in the lump as members of a distinct class, and yet to enlist them as real individuals in measuring the duration of past time.

4. Mr. Clinton, while professing a wish to tell the story of the Greeks as they have told it themselves, seems unconscious how capitally his point of view differs from theirs. The distinction which he draws between real and fictitious persons would have appeared unreasonable, not to say offensive, to Herodotus or Eratosthenês. It is undoubtedly right that the early history (if so it is to be called) of the Greeks should be told as they have told it themselves, and with that view I have endeavored in the previous narrative, as far as I could, to present the primitive legends in their original color and character,—pointing out at the same time the manner in which they were transformed and distilled into history by passing through the retort of later annalists. It is the legend, as thus transformed, which Mr. Clinton seems to understand as the story told by the Greeks themselves,—which cannot be admitted to be true, unless the meaning of the expression be specially explained. In his general distinction, however, between the real and fictitious persons of the ​ mythical world, he departs essentially from the point of view even of the later Greeks. And if he had consistently followed out that distinction in his particular criticisms, he would have found the ground slipping under his feet in his upward march even to Troy, not to mention the series of eighteen generations farther up, to Phorôneus; but he does not consistently follow it out, and therefore, in practice, he deviates little from the footsteps of the ancients.

Enough has been said to show that the witnesses upon whom Mr. Clinton relies, blend truth and fiction habitually, indiscriminately, and unconsciously, even upon his own admission. Let us now consider the positions which he lays down respecting historical evidence. He says (Introduct. pp. vi-vii):—

"We may acknowledge as real persons all those whom there is no reason for rejecting. The presumption is in favor of the early tradition, if no argument can be brought to overthrow it. The persons may be considered real, when the description of them is consonant with the state of the country at that time: when no national prejudice or vanity could be concerned in inventing them: when the tradition is consistent and general: when rival or hostile tribes concur in the leading facts: when the acts ascribed to the person (divested of their poetical ornament) enter into the political system of the age, or form the basis of other transactions which fall within known historical times. Kadmus and Danaus appear to be real persons: for it is conformable to the state of mankind, and perfectly credible, that Phoenician and Egyptian adventurers, in the ages to which these persons are ascribed, should have found their way to the coasts of Greece: and the Greeks (as already observed) had no motive from any national vanity to feign these settlements. Hercules was a real person. His acts were recorded by those who were not friendly to the Dorians; by Achæans and Eolians, and Ionians, who had no vanity to gratify in celebrating the hero of a hostile and rival people. His descendants in many branches remained in many states down to the historical times. His son Tlepolemus, and his grandson and great-grandson Cleodæus and Aristomachus, are acknowledged (i. e. by O. Müller) to be real persons: and there is no reason that can be assigned for receiving these, which will not be equally valid for establishing the reality both of Her​ cules and Hyllus. Above all, Hercules is authenticated by the testimonies both of the Iliad and Odyssey."

These positions appear to me inconsistent with any sound views of the conditions of historical testimony. According to what is here laid down, we are bound to accept as real all the persons mentioned by Homer, Arktinus, Leschês, the Hesiodic poets, Eumêlus, Asius, etc., unless we can adduce some positive ground in each particular case to prove the contrary. If this position be a true one, the greater part of the history of England, from Brute the Trojan down to Julius Cæsar, ought at once to be admitted as valid and worthy of credence. What Mr. Clinton here calls the early tradition, is in point of fact, the narrative of these early poets. The word tradition is an equivocal word, and begs the whole question; for while in its obvious and literal meaning it implies only something handed down, whether truth or fiction,—it is tacitly understood to imply a tale descriptive of some real matter of fact, taking its rise at the time when that fact happened, and originally accurate, but corrupted by subsequent oral transmission. Understanding, therefore, by Mr. Clinton's words early tradition, the tales of the old poets, we shall find his position totally inadmissible,—that we are bound to admit the persons or statements of Homer and Hesiod as real unless where we can produce reasons to the contrary. To allow this, would be to put them upon a par with good contemporary witnesses; for no greater privilege can be claimed in favor even of Thucydides, than the title of his testimony to be believed unless where it can be contradicted on special grounds. The presumption in favor of an asserting witness is either strong or weak, or positively nothing, according to the compound ratio of his means of knowledge, his moral and intellectual habits, and his motive to speak the truth. Thus, for instance, when Hesiod tells us that his father quitted the Eolic Kymê, and came to Askra in Boeôtia, we may fully believe him; but when he describes to us the battles between the Olympic gods and the Titans, or between Heraklês and Cycnus,—or when Homer depicts the efforts of Hectôr, aided by Apollo, for the defence of Troy, and the struggles of Achilles and Odysseus, with the assistance of Hêrê and Poseidon, for the destruction of that city, events professedly long past and gone,—we cannot presume either of them ​ to be in any way worthy of belief. It cannot be shown that they possessed any means of knowledge, while it is certain that they could have no motive to consider historical truth: their object was to satisfy an uncritical appetite for narrative, and to interest the emotions of their hearers. Mr. Clinton says, that "the persons may be considered real when the description of them is consistent with the state of the country at that time." But he has forgotten, first, that we know nothing of the state of the country except what these very poets tell us; next, that fictitious persons may be just as consonant to the state of the country as real persons. While, therefore, on the one hand, we have no independent evidence either to affirm or to deny that Achilles or Agamemnôn are consistent with the state of Greece or Asia Minor, at a certain supposed date 1183 B. C., so, on the other hand, even assuming such consistency to be made out, this of itself would not prove them to be real persons.

Mr. Clinton's reasoning altogether overlooks the existence of plausible fiction,—fictitious stories which harmonize perfectly well with the general course of facts, and which are distinguish ed from matters of fact not by any internal character, but by the circumstance that matter of fact has some competent and well- informed witness to authenticate it, either directly or through legitimate inference. Fiction may be, and often is, extravagant and incredible; but it may also be plausible and specious, and in that case there is nothing but the want of an attesting certificate to distinguish it from truth. Now all the tests, which Mr. Clinton proposes as guarantees of the reality of the Homeric persons, will be just as well satisfied by plausible fiction as by actual matter of fact: the plausibility of the fiction consists in its satisfying those and other similar conditions. In most cases, the tales of the poets did fall in with the existing current of feelings in their audience: "prejudice and vanity" are not the only feelings, but doubtless prejudice and vanity were often appealed to, and it was from such harmony of sentiment that they acquired their hold on men's belief. Without any doubt, the Iliad appealed most powerfully to the reverence for ancestral gods and heroes among the Asiatic colonists who first heard it: the temptation of putting forth an interesting tale is quite a sufficient stimulus to the invention of the poet, and the plausibility of the tale a suffi​ cient passport to the belief of the hearers. Mr. Clinton talks of "consistent and general tradition." But that the tale of a poet, when once told with effect and beauty, acquired general belief,—is no proof that it was founded on fact: otherwise, what are we to say to the divine legends, and to the large portion of the Homeric narrative which Mr. Clinton himself sets aside as untrue, under the designation of "poetical ornament?" When a mythical incident is recorded as "forming the basis" of some known historical fact or institution,—as, for instance, the successful stratagem by which Melanthus killed Xanthus, in the battle on the boundary, as recounted in my last chapter, we may adopt one of two views; we may either treat the incident as real, and as having actually given occasion to what is described as its effect, or we may treat the incident as a legend imagined in order to assign some plausible origin of the reality,—"Aut ex re nomen, aut ex vocabulo fabula."^[73] In cases where the legendary incident is referred to a time long anterior to any records,—as it commonly is,—the second mode of proceeding appears to me far more consonant to reason and probability than the first. It is to be recollected that all the persons and facts, here defended as matter of real history, by Mr. Clinton, are referred to an age long preceding the first beginning of records.

I have already remarked that Mr. Clinton shrinks from his own rule in treating Kadmus and Danaus as real persons, since they are as much eponyms of tribes or races as Dôrus and Hellên. And if he can admit Heraklês to be a real man, I cannot see upon what reason he can consistently disallow any one of the mythical personages, for there is not one whose exploits are more strikingly at variance with the standard of historical probability. Mr. Clinton reasons upon the supposition that "Herculês was a Dorian hero:" but he was Achæan and Kadmeian as well as Dorian, though the legends respecting him are different in all the three characters. Whether his son Tlepolemus and his grandson Cleodæus belong to the category of historical men, I will not take upon me to say, though O. Müller (in my opinion without any warranty) appears to admit it; but Hyllus certainly is not a real man, if the canon of Mr. Clinton himself respecting the ​ epony.as is to be trusted. "The descendants of Hercules (observes Mr. Clinton) remained in many states down to the historical times." So did those of Zeus and Apollo, and of that god whom the historian Hekatæus recognized as his progenitor in the sixteenth generation; the titular kings of Ephesus, in the historical times, as well as Peisistratus, the despot of Athens, traced their origin up to Æolus and Hellên, yet Mr. Clinton does not hesitate to reject Æolus and Hellên as fictitious persons. I dispute the propriety of quoting the Iliad and Odyssey (as Mr. Clinton does) in evidence of the historic personality of Hercules. For, even with regard to the ordinary men who figure in those poems, we have no means of discriminating the real from the fictitious; while the Homeric Hêraklês is unquestionably more than an ordinary man,—he is the favorite son of Zeus, from his birth predestined to a life of labor and servitude, as preparation for a glorious immortality. Without doubt, the poet himself believed in the reality of Hereulês, but it was a reality clothed with superhuman attributes.

Mr. Clinton observes (Introd. p. ii.), that "because some genealogies were fictitious, we are not justified in concluding that all were fabulous." It is no way necessary that we should maintain so extensive a position: it is sufficient that all are fabulous so far as concerns gods and heroes,—some fabulous throughout,—and none ascertainably true, for the period anterior to the recorded Olympiads. How much, or what particular portions, may be true, no one can pronounce. The gods and heroes are, from our point of view, essentially fictitious; but from the Grecian point of view they were the most real (if the expression may be permitted, i. e. clung to with the strongest faith) of all the members of the series. They not only formed parts of the genealogy as originally conceived, but were in themselves the grand reason why it was conceived,—as a golden chain to connect the living man with a divine ancestor. The genealogy, therefore, taken as a whole, (and its value consists in its being taken as a whole,) was from the beginning a fiction; but the names of the father and grandfather of the living man, in whose day it first came forth, were doubtless those of real men. Wherever, therefore, we can verify the date of a genealogy, as applied to some living person, we may reasonably presume the two lowest members of ​ it to be also those of real persons: but this has no application ta the time anterior to the Olympiads,—still less to the pretended times of the Trojan war, the Kalydônian boar-hunt, or the deluge of Deukalion. To reason (as Mr. Clinton does, Introd. p. vi.),—"Because Aristomachus was a real man, therefore his father Cleodæus, his grandfather Hyllus, and so farther upwards, etc., must have been real men," is an inadmissible conclusion. The historian Hekatæus was a real man, and doubtless his father Hegesander, also,—but it would be unsafe to march up his genealogical ladder fifteen steps, to the presence of the ancestorial god of whom he boasted: the upper steps of the ladder will be found broken and unreal. Not to mention that the inference, from real son to real father, is inconsistent with the admissions in Mr. Clinton's own genealogical tables; for he there inserts the names of several mythical fathers as having begotten real historical sons.

The general authority of Mr. Clinton's book, and the sincere respect which I entertain for his elucidations of the later chronology, have imposed upon me the duty of assigning those grounds on which I dissent from his conclusions prior to the first recorded Olympiad. The reader who desires to see the numerous and contradictory guesses (they deserve no better name) of the Greeks themselves in the attempt to chronologize their mythical narratives, will find them in the copious notes annexed to the first half of his first volume. As I consider all such researches not merely as fruitless, in regard to any trustworthy result, but as serving to divert attention from the genuine form and really illustrative character of Grecian legend, I have not thought it right to go over the same ground in the present work. Differing as I do, however, from Mr. Clinton's views on this subject, I concur with him in deprecating the application of etymology (Intr. pp. xi-xii.) as a general scheme of explanation to the characters and events of Greek legend. Amongst the many causes which operated as suggestives and stimulants to Greek fancy in the creation of these interesting tales, doubtless etymology has had its share; but it cannot be applied (as Hermann, above all others, has sought to apply it) for the purpose of imparting supposed sense and system to the general body of mythical narrative. I have already re- marked on this topic in a former chapter.

​ It would be curious to ascertain at what time, or by whom, the earliest continuous genealogies, connecting existing persons with the supposed antecedent age of legend, were formed and preserved. Neither Homer nor Hesiod mentioned any verifiable present persons or circumstances: had they done so, the age of one or other of them could have been determined upon good evidence, which we may fairly presume to have been impossible, from the endless controversies upon this topic among ancient writers. In the Hesiodic Works and Days, the heroes of Troy and Thêbes are even presented as an extinct race, radically different from the poet's own contemporaries, who are a new race,^[74] far too depraved to be conceived as sprung from the loins of the heroes; so that we can hardly suppose Hesiod (though his father was a native of the Æolic Kymê) to have admitted the pedigree of the Eolic chiefs, as reputed descendants of Agamemnôn. Certain it is, that the earliest poets did not attempt to measure or bridge over the supposed interval, between their own age and the war of Troy, by any definite series of fathers and sons: whether Eumêlus or Asius made any such attempt, we cannot tell, but the earliest continuous backward genealogies which we find mentioned are those of Pherekydês, Hellanikus, and Herodotus. It is well known that Herodotus, in his manner of computing the upward genealogy of the Spartan kings, assigns the date of the Trojan war to a period 800 years earlier than himself, equivalent about to B. C. 1270-1250; while the subsequent Alexandrine chronologists, Eratosthenês and Apollodorus, place that event in 1184 and 1183 B. C.; and the Parian marble refers it to an in termediate date, different from either,—1209 B. C. Ephorus, Phanias, Timæus, Kleitarchus, and Duris, had each his own conjectural date; but the computations of the Alexandrine chronologists was the most generally followed by those who succeeded them, and seems to have passed to modern times as the received date of this great legendary event,—though some distinguished inquirers have adopted the epoch of Herodotus, which Larcher has attempted to vindicate in an elaborate but feeble dissertation.^[75] It is unnecessary to state that, in my view, the inquiry ​ has no other value except to illustrate the ideas which guided the Greek mind, and to exhibit its progress from the days of Homer to those of Herodotus. For it argues a considerable mental progress when men begin to methodize the past, even though they do so on fictitious principles, being as yet unprovided with those records which alone could put them on a better course. The Homeric man was satisfied with feeling, imagining, and ​ believing particular incidents of a supposed past, without any attempt to graduate the line of connection between them and himself: to introduce fictitious hypotheses and media of connection is the business of a succeeding age, when the stimulus of rational curiosity is first felt, without any authentic materials to supply it. We have, then, the form of history operating upon the matter of legend, the transition-state between legend and history; less interesting, indeed, than either separately, yet necessary as a step between the two.

---

Through the particular persons and events, chronicled in the legendary poems of Greece, are not to be regarded as belonging to the province of real history, those poems are, nevertheless, full of instruction as pictures of life and manners; and the very same circumstances, which divest their composers of all credibility as historians, render them so much the more valuable as unconscious expositors of their own contemporary society. While professedly describing an uncertified past, their combinations are involuntarily borrowed from the surrounding present: for among communities, such as those of the primitive Greeks, without books, without means of extended travel, without acquaintance with foreign languages and habits, the imagination, even of highly gifted men, was naturally enslaved by the circumstances around them to a far greater degree than in the later days of Solon or Herodotus; insomuch that the characters which they conceived and the scenes which they described would for that reason bear a stronger generic resemblance to the realities of their own time and locality. Nor was the poetry of that age addressed to lettered and critical authors, watchful to detect plagiarism, sated with ​ simple imagery, and requiring something of novelty or peculiarity in every fresh production. To captivate their emotions, it was sufficient to depict, with genius and fervor, the more obvious manifestations of human adventure or suffering, and to idealize that type of society, both private and public, with which the hearers around were familiar. Even in describing the gods, where a great degree of latitude and deviation might have been expected,^[76] we see that Homer introduces into Olympus the passions, the caprices, the love of power and patronage, the alternation of dignity and weakness, which animated the bosom of an ordinary Grecian chief; and this tendency, to reproduce in substance the social relations to which he had been accustomed, would operate still more powerfully when he had to describe simply human characters, the chief and his people, the warrior and his comrades, the husband, wife, father, and son,- or the imperfect rudiments of judicial and administrative proceeding. That his narrative on all these points, even with fictitious characters and events, presents a close approximation to general reality, there can be no reason to doubt.^[77] The necessity under which he lay of drawing from a store, then happily unexhausted, of personal experience and observation, is one of the causes of that freshness and vivacity of description for which he stands unrivalled, and which constituted the imperishable charm of the Iliad and Odyssey from the beginning to the end of Grecian literature.

While, therefore, we renounce the idea of chronologizing or historicizing the events of Grecian legend, we may turn them to profit as valuable memorials of that state of society, feeling, and intelligence, which must be to us the starting-point of the history of the people. Of course, the legendary age, like all those which succeeded it, had its antecedent causes and determining conditions; but of these we know nothing, and we are compelled to ​ assume it as a primary fact, for the purpose of following out its subsequent changes. To conceive absolute beginning or origin (as Niebuhr has justly remarked) is beyond the reach of our faculties: we can neither apprehend nor verify anything beyond progress, or development, or decay,^[78]—change from one set of circumstances to another, operated by some definite combination of physical or moral laws. In the case of the Greeks, the legendary age, as the earliest in any way known to us, must be taken as the initial state from which this series of changes commences. We must depict its prominent characteristics as well as we can, and show,—partly how it serves to prepare, partly how it forms a contrast to set off,—the subsequent ages of Solôn, of Perikles, and of Demosthenês.

1. The political condition, which Grecian legend everywhere presents to us, is in its principal features strikingly different from that which had become universally prevalent among the Greeks in the time of the Peloponnêsian war. Historical oligarchy, as well as democracy, agreed in requiring a certain established system of government, comprising the three elements of specialized functions, temporary functionaries, and ultimate responsibility ​ (under some forms or other) to the mass of qualified citizens.—either a Senate or an Ecclesia, or both. There were, of course, many and capital distinctions between one government and another, in respect to the qualification of the citizen, the attributes and efficiency of the general assembly, the admissibility to power, etc.; and men might often be dissatisfied with the way in which these questions were determined in their own city. But in the mind of every man, some determining rule or system—something like what in modern times is called a constitution—was indispensable to any government entitled to be called legitimate, or capable of creating in the mind of a Greek a feeling of moral obligation to obey it. The functionaries who exercised authority under it might be more or less competent or popular; but his personal feelings towards them were commonly lost in his attachment or aversion to the general system. If any energetic man could by audacity or craft break down the constitution, and render himself permanent ruler according to his own will and pleasure,—even though he might govern well, he could never inspire the people with any sentiment of duty towards him. His sceptre was illegitimate from the beginning, and even the taking of his life, far from being interdicted by that moral feeling which condemned the shedding of blood in other cases, was considered meritorious. Nor could he be mentioned in the language except by a name^[79] (τύραννος, despot,) which branded him as an object of mingled fear and dislike.

If we carry our eyes back from historical to legendary Greece, we find a picture the reverse of what has been here sketched. We discern a government in which there is little or no scheme or system,—still less any idea of responsibility to the governed,—but in which the mainspring of obedience on the part of the people consists in their personal feeling and reverence towards the ​ chief. We remark, first and foremost, the king: next, a limited number of subordinate kings or chiefs; afterwards, the mass of armed freemen, husbandmen, artisans, freebooters, etc.; lowest of all, the free laborers for hire, and the bought slaves. The king is not distinguished by any broad or impassable boundary from the other chiefs, to each of whom the title basileus is applicable as well as to himself: his supremacy has been inherited from his ancestors, and passes by descent, as a general rule, to his eldest son, having been conferred upon the family as a privilege by the favor of Zeus.Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; refs with no name must have content In war, he is the leader, foremost in personal prowess, and directing all military movements; in peace, he is the general protector of the injured and oppressed; he farther offers up those public prayers and sacrifices which are intended to obtain for the whole people the favor of the gods. An ample domain is assigned to him as an appurtenance of his lofty position, while the produce of his fields and his cattle is consecrated in part to an abundant, though rude hospitality. Moreover, he receives frequent presents, to avert his enmity, to conciliate his favor,2 or to buy off his exactions; and when plunder is taken

'The Phæakian king Alkinous (Odyss. vii. 55-65): there are twelve other Phæakian Baotλnes, he is himself the thirteenth (viii. 391).
The chief men in the Iliad, and the suitors of Penelopê in the Odyssey, are called usually and indiscriminately both Baoiλñeç and "Avaкrεç; the latter word, however, designates them as men of property and masters of slaves, (analogous to the subsequent word deonórns, which word does not occur in Homer, though déorotva is found in the Odyssey,) while the former word marks them as persons of conspicuous station in the tribe (see Odyss. i. 393-401; xiv. 68). A chief could only be Baotheds of freemen; but he might be "Avaš either of freemen or of slaves.
Agamemnôn and Menelaus belong to the most kingly race (yévos ẞaoihev Tepov: compare Tyrtæus, Fragm. ix. v. 8, p. 9, ed. Schneidewin) of the Pelo- pids, to whom the sceptre originally made for Zeus has been given by Hermês (Iliad, ii. 101; ix. 160; x. 239); compare Odyss. xv. 539. The race ot Dardanus are the favorite offspring of Zeus, Baoiλevrarov among the Tro- jans (Iliad, xx. 304). These races are the parallels of the kingly prosapius called Amali, Asdingi, Gungingi, and Lithingi, among the Goths, Vandals, and Lombards (Jornandes, De Rebus Geticis, c. 14-22; Paul Warnefrid. Gest. Langob. c. 14-21); and the ȧpxikov yéves among the Chaonian Epirota (Thucyd. ii. 80).

Odyss. i. 392; xi. 184; xiii. 14; xix. 109. -- Οὐ μὲν γάρ τι κακὸν βασιλεύεμεν· αἶψά τε οἱ δῶ Αφνειον πέλεται, καὶ τιμηέστερος αὐτός. ​ from the enemy, a large previous share, comprising probably the most alluring female captive, is reserved for him, apart from the general distribution.'

Iliad, ix. 154-297 (when Agamemnôn is promising seven townships to Achilles, as a means of appeasing his wrath): - Εν δ' άνδρες ναίουσι πολυῤῥῆνες, πολυβονται, Οι κέ σε δωτίνησι, θεὸν ὡς, τιμήσουσι, Καί σοι ὑπὸ σκήπτρῳ λιπαρὰς τελέουσι θέμιστας. See Iliad, xii. 312; and the reproaches of Thersitês (ii. 226)-Bains dwpopuyovs (Hesiod, Opp. Di. 38–264). The Roman kings had a large réuevos assigned to them,-"agri, arva, et arbusta et pascui læti atque uberes" (Cicero, De Republ. v. 2): the German kings received presents: "Mos est civitatibus (observes Tacitus, respecting the Germans whom he describes, M. G. 15) ultro ac viritim conferre princip- ibus, vel armentorum vel frugum, quod pro honore acceptum etiam necessi- tatibus subvenit." The revenue of the Persian kings before Darius consisted only of what were called dupa, or presents (Herod. iii. 89): Darius first introduced both the name of tribute and the determinate assessment. King Polydektês, in Seriphos, invites his friends to a festival, the condition of which is that each guest shall contribute to an Epavoç for his benefit (Pherekydês, Fragm. 26, ed. Didot); a case to which the Thracian banquet prepared by Seuthês affords an exact parallel (Xenophôn, Anab. vii. 3, 16-32: compare Thucyd. ii. 97, and Welcker, Eschyl. Trilogie, p. 381). Such Aids, or Benevolences, even if originally voluntary, became in the end compulsory. In the Euro- pean monarchies of the Middle Ages, what were called free gifts were more ancient than public taxes: "The feudal Aids (observes Mr. Hallam) are the beginning of taxation, of which they for a long time answered the purpose." (Middle Ages, ch. ii. part i. p. 189.) So about the Aides in the old French Monarchy, "La Cour des Aides avoit été instituée, et sa jurisdiction s'étoit formée, lorsque le domaine des Rois suffisoit à toutes les dépenses de l'Etat, les droits d'Aides étoient alors des supplémens peu considérables et toujours temporaires. Depuis, le domaine des Rois avoit été anéanti: les Aides, au contraire, étoient devenues permanentes et formoient presque la totalité des ressources du trésor." (Histoire de la Fronde, par M. de St. Aulaire, ch. iii. p. 124.) 1 Ἐπὶ ῥητοῖς γέρασι πατρικαὶ βασιλεῖαι, is the description which Thucy didês gives of these heroic governments (i. 13). - - The language of Aristotle (Polit. iii. 10, 1) is much the same: 'II Baoiλeía · ἡ περὶ τοὺς ἡρωικοὺς χρόνους — αὐτὴ δ' ἦν ἑκόντων μὲν, ἐπί τισι δ' ώρισμέ νοις· στρατηγὸς δ' ἂν καὶ δικαστὴς ὁ βασιλεὺς, καὶ τῶν πρὸς τοὺς θεοὺς κύριος. It can hardly be said correctly, however, that the king's authority was defined: nothing can well be more indefinite. Agamemnon enjoyed or assumed the power of putting to death a disobe or power of chosen ​ Such is the position of the king, in the heroic times of Greece,—the only person (if we except the heralds and priests, each both special and subordinate,) who is then presented to us as clothed with any individual authority,—the person by whom all the executive functions, then few in number, which the society requires, are either performed or directed. His personal ascendency-derived from divine countenance, bestowed both upon himself individually and upon his race, and probably from accredited divine descent is the salient feature in the picture. The people hearken to his voice, embrace his propositions, and obey his orders: not merely resistance, but even criticism upon his acts, is generally exhibited in an odious point of view, and is, indeed, never heard of except from some one or more of the subordinate princes. To keep alive and justify such feelings in the public mind, however, the king must himself possess various accomplishments, bodily and mental, and that too in a superior degree.^[80] He must be brave in the field, wise in the council, and eloquent in the agora; he must be endued with bodily strength and activity above other men, and must be an adept, not only in the use of his arms, but also in those athletic exercises which the crowd delight to witness. Even the more homely varieties of manual acquirements are an addition to his character,—such as the craft of the carpenter or shipwright, the straight furrowing of the ploughman, or the indefatigable persistence of the mower without repose or refreshment throughout the longest day.^[81] The ​ conditions of voluntary obedience, during the Grecian heroic times, are family descent with personal force and superiority mental as well as bodily, in the chief, coupled with the favor of the gods: an old chief, such as Pêleus and Laërtes, cannot retain his position.^[82] But, on the other hand, where these elements of force are present, a good deal of violence, caprice, and rapacity is tolerated: the ethical judgment is not exact in scrutinizing the conduct of individuals so preeminently endowed. As in the case of the gods, the general epithets of good, just, etc., are applied to them as euphemisms arising from submission and fear, being not only not suggested, but often pointedly belied, by their particular acts. These words signify^[83] the man of birth, wealth, influence, and daring, whose arm is strong to destroy or to protect, whatever may be the turn of his moral sentiments; while the opposite epithet, bad, designates the poor, lowly, and weak; from whose dispositions, be they ever so virtuous, society has little either to hope or to fear.

Aristotle, in his general theory of government,^[84] lays down the ​ position, that the earliest sources of obedience and authority among mankind are personal, exhibiting themselves most perfectly in the type of paternal supremacy; and that therefore the kingly government, as most conformable to this stage of social sentiment, became probably the first established everywhere. And in fact it still continued in his time to be generally prevalent among the non-Hellenic nations, immediately around; though the Phoenician cities and Carthage, the most civilized of all non-Hellenic states, were republics. Nevertheless, so completely were the feelings about kingship reversed among his contemporary Greeks, that he finds it difficult to enter into the voluntary obedience paid by his ancestors to their early heroic chiefs. He cannot explain to his own satisfaction how any one man should have been so much superior to the companions around him as to maintain such immense personal ascendency: he suspects that in such small communities great merit was very rare, so that the chief had few competitors.^[85] Such remarks illustrate strongly the revolution which the Greek mind had undergone during the preceding centuries, in regard to the internal grounds of political submission But the connecting link, between the Homeric and the republican schemes of government, is to be found in two adjuncts of the Homeric royalty, which are now to be mentioned,―the boulê, or council of chiefs, and the agora, or general assembly of freemen.

These two meetings, more or less frequently convoked, and interwoven with the earliest habits of the primitive Grecian communities, are exhibited in the monuments of the legendary age ​ as opportunities for advising the king, and media for promulgating his intentions to the people, rather than as restraints upon his authority. Unquestionably, they must have conduced in practice to the latter result as well as to the former; but this is not the light in which the Homeric poems describe them. The chiefs, kings, princes, or gerontes-for the same word in Greek designates both an old man and a man of conspicuous rank and position-compose the council,' in which, according to the representations in the Iliad, the resolutions of Agamemnon on the one side, and of Hectôr on the other, appear uniformly to prevail. The harshness and even contempt with which Hector treats respectful opposition from his ancient companion Polydamas,—the desponding tone and conscious inferiority of the latter, and the unanimous assent which the former obtains, even when quite in the wrong all this is clearly set forth in the poem while in the Grecian camp we see Nestor tendering his advice in the most submissive and delicate manner to Agamemnôn, to be adopted or rejected, as "the king of men" might determine.3 The council is a purely consultative body, assembled, not with any power of peremptorily arresting mischievous resolves of the king, but solely for his information and guidance. He himself is the presiding (boulephorus, or) member of council; the rest, collectively as well as individually, are his subordinates.

We proceed from the council to the agora: according to what seems the received custom, the king, after having talked over his intentions with the former, proceeds to announce them to the people. The heralds make the crowd sit down in order,5 and

1 Βουλὴν δὲ πρῶτον μεγαθύμων ίζε γερόντων (Iliad, ii. 53): compare z. 195 415. Ίλου, παλαιοῦ δημογέροντος (xi. 371).

Iliad, xviii. 313.- Εκτορι μὲν γὰρ ἐπήνησαν κακὰ μητιόωντι, Πουλυδάμαντι δ' ἄρ' οὔτις, ὃς ἐσθλὴν φράζετο βουλήν Also, xii. 213, where Polydamas says to Hector,- . . ἐπεὶ οὐδὲ μὲν οὐδὲ ἔοικε Δῆμον ἐόντα παρὲς ἀγορεύεμεν, οὔτ᾽ ἐνὶ βουλῇ, Ούτε ποτ' ἐν πολέμῳ, σὸν δὲ κράτος αἰὲν ἀέξειν.

Iliad, ix. 95-101.

Iliad, vii. 126, Πηλευς — Εσθλὸς Μυρμιδόνων Βουλήφορος ἡδ' ἀγορη της.

Considerable stress seems to be laid on the necessity that the people in ​AGORA IN ITHAKA. 57 enforce silence: any one of the chiefs or councillors but as il seems, no one ^Ise 1 is allowed to address them : the king first promulgates his intentions, which are then open to be comment- ed upon by others. But in the Homeric agora, no division of affirmative or negative voices ever takes place, nor is any formaa resolution ever adopted. The nullity of positive function strikes us even more in the agora than in the council. It is an assem- bly for talk, communication, and discussion, to a certain extent, by the chiefs, in presence of the people as listeners and sympath- izers, often for eloquence, and sometimes for quarrel, but here its ostensible purposes end. The agora in Ithaka, in the second book of the Odyssey, is convened by the youthful Telemachus, at the instigation of Athene, not for the purpose of submitting any proposition, but in order to give formal and public notice to the suitors to desist from their iniquitous intrusion and pillage of his substance, and to absolve himself farther, before gods^and men, from all obligations towards them, if they refuse to comply. For the slaughter of the suitors, in all the security of the festive hall and banquet (which forms the catastrophe of the Odyssey), was a proceeding involving much that was shocking to Grecian feeling, 2 and therefore re- quired to be preceded by such ample formalities, as would leave both the delinquents themselves without the shadow of excuse, and their surviving relatives without any claim to the customary satisfaction. For this special purpose, Telemachus directs the heralds to summon an agora : but what seems most of all sur- the agora should sit down (Iliad, ii. 96) : a standing agora is a symptom of tumult or terror (Iliad, xviii, 24G); an evening agora, to which men como elevated by wine, is also the forerunner of mischief (Odyss. iii. 138). Such evidences of regular formalities observed in the agora are not with- out interest. 1 Iliad, ii. 100. ' U.VTTJG 6e dioTpeQe Nitzsch (ad Odyss ii. 14) controverts this restriction of individual manifes- tation to the chiefs : the view of O. Mailer (Hist. Dorians, b. iii. c. 3) appears to me more correct : such was also the opinion of Aristotle fojai -nivvv ' ApiaTOT&jjc OTL o /iev dfjfiof (JLOVOV TOV uKovaat Kvpioe T/V, oi 6e q-ys/j.6vef kal rovirpal-ai (Schol. Iliad, ix. 17): compare the same statement in his Nike- machean Ethics, iii. 5. 2 See Iliad, ix. 635 ; Odysr . xi. 4*9. ​68 HISTORY OF prising is, that none had ever been summoned or held since the departure of Odysseus himself, an interval of twenty years. " No agora or session has taken place amongst us (says the gray -headed ^Egyptius, who opens the proceedings) since Odys- seua went on shipboard : and now, who is he that has called us together ? what man, young or old, has felt such a strong neces- sity ? Has he received intelligence from our absent warriors, or has he other public news to communicate? He is our good friend for doing this : whatever his projects may be, I pray Zeus to grant him success." l Telemachus, answering the appeal forth- with, proceeds to tell the assembled Ithakans that he has no public news to communicate, but that he has convoked them upon his own private necessities. Next, he sets forth, pathetic- ally, the wickedness of the suitors, calls upon them personally tc desist, and upon the people to restrain them, and concludes by solemnly warning them, that, being henceforward free from all obligation towards them, he will invoke the avenging aid of Zeus, so " that they may be slain in the interior of his own house, with- out bringing upon him any subsequent penalty." 2 We are not of course to construe the Homeric description as anything more than an ideal, approximating to actual reality. But, allowing all that can be required for such a limitation, it exhibits the agora more as a special medium of publicity and intercommunication, 3 from the king to the body of the people, than as including any idea of responsibility on the part of the 1 Odyss. ii. 25-40. Odyss. ii. 43, 77, 145.- 'N^iTOivoi Kev exeira 66/Ltuv IvToa&ev o?.oia$E. 3 A similar character is given of the public assemblies of the early Franks and Lombards (Pfeffel, Histoire du Droit Public en Allemagne, t. i. p. 18; Sismondi, Histoire des Republiques Italiennes, t. i. c. 2, p. 71). Dionysius of Halikarnassus (ii. 12) pays rather too high a compliment to the moderation of the Grecian heroic kings. The ktngs at Rome, like the Grecian heroic kings, began with an up^J) avnrfb&wof. the words of Pomponius (De Origine Juris, i. 2,) would bo perhaps more exac.tly applicable to the latter than to the former: " Initio civitatis nostrae Populus sine cert lege, sine jure certo, primum agere insti- tuit: omniaque manu a Regibus gubernabantur." Tacitus says (Ann. iii. 26), " Nobis Romulus, ut libitum, impcritaverat : dein Numa religionibus ci uivino jure populum devinxit, rcpertaque quaylaro a Tullo et Anco : sad ​ former or restraining force on the part of the latter, however such consequences may indirectly grow out of it. The primitive Grecian government is essentially monarchical, reposing on personal feeling and divine right: the memorable dictum in the Iliad is borne out by all that we hear of the actual practice: "The ruler of many is not a good thing: let us have one ruler only,—one king,—him to whom Zeus has given the sceptre and the tutelary sanctions."^[86]

The second book of the Iliad, full as it is of beauty and vivacity, not only confirms our idea of the passive, recipient, and listening character of the agora, but even presents a repulsive picture of the degradation of the mass of the people before the chiefs. Agamemnôn convokes the agora for the purpose of immediately arming the Grecian host, under a full impression that the gods have at last determined forthwith to crown his arms with complete victory. Such impression has been created by a special visit of Oneirus (the Dream-god), sent by Zeus during his sleep,-being, indeed, an intentional fraud on the part of Zeus, though Agamemnon does not suspect its deceitful character. At this precise moment, when he may be conceived to be more than usually anxious to get his army into the field and snatch the prize, an unaccountable fancy seizes him, that, instead of inviting the troops to do what he really wishes, and encouraging their spirits for this one last effort, he will adopt a course directly contrary: he will try their courage by professing ​ to believe that the siege had become desperate, and that there was no choice except to go on shipboard and flee. Announcing to Nestor and Odysseus, in preliminary council, his intention to hold this strange language, he at the same time tells them that he relies upon them to oppose it and counterwork its effect upon the multitude.^[87] The agora is presently assembled, and the king of men pours forth a speech full of dismay and despair, concluding by a distinct exhortation to all present to go aboard and return home at once. Immediately the whole army, chiefs as well as people, break up and proceed to execute his orders: every one rushes off to get his ship afloat, except Odysseus, who looks on in mournful silence and astonishment. The army would have been quickly on its voyage home, had not the goddesses Hêrê and Athênê stimulated Odysseus to an instantaneous interference. He hastens among the dispersing crowd and diverts them from their purpose of retreat: to the chiefs he addresses flattering words, trying to shame them by gentle expostulation: but the people he visits with harsh reprimand and blows from his sceptre,^[88] thus driving them back to their seats in the agora.

Amidst the dissatisfied crowd thus unwillingly brought back, the voice of Thersitês is heard the longest and the loudest,—a man ugly, deformed, and unwarlike, but fluent in speech, and especially severe and unsparing in his censure of the chiefs, Agamemnôn, Achilles, and Odysseus. Upon this occasion, he addresses to the people a speech denouncing Agamemnôn for selfish and greedy exaction generally, but particularly for his recent ill-treatment of Achilles, and he endeavors, moreover, to induce them to persist in their scheme of departure. In reply, Odysseus not only rebukes Thersites sharply for his impudence in abusing the commander-in-chief, but threatens that, if ever such behavior is repeated, he will strip him naked, and thrash him out of the assembly with disgraceful blows; as an earnest of which, he administers to him at once a smart stroke with the ​ studded sceptre, imprinting its painful mark in a bloody weal across his back. Thersitês, terrified and subdued, sits down weeping; while the surrounding crowd deride him, and express the warmest approbation of Odysseus for having thus by force put the reviler to silence.^[89]

Both Odysseus and Nestor then address the agora, sympathizing with Agamemnôn for the shame which the retreat of the Greeks is about to inflict upon him, and urging emphatically upon every one present the obligation of persevering until the siege shall be successfully consummated. Neither of them animadverts at all upon Agamemnôn, either for his conduct towards Achilles, or for his childish freak of trying the temper of the army.^[90]

There cannot be a clearer indication than this description—so graphic in the original poem—of the true character of the Homeric agora. The multitude who compose it are listening and acquiescent, not often hesitating, and never refractory^[91] to the chief. The fate which awaits a presumptuous critic, even where his virulent reproaches are substantially well-founded, is plainly set forth in the treatment of Thersitês; while the unpopularity of such a character is attested even more by the excessive pains which Homer takes to heap upon him repulsive personal deformities, than by the chastisement of Odysseus;—he is lame, bald, crook-backed, of misshapen head, and squinting vision.

But we cease to wonder at the submissive character of the agora, when we read the proceedings of Odysseus towards the people themselves;—his fine words and flattery addressed to the chiefs, and his contemptuous reproof and manual violence towards the common men, at a moment when both were doing exactly the ​ same thing, fulfilling the express bidding of Agamemnôn, upon whom Odysseus does not offer a single comment. This scene, which excited a sentiment of strong displeasure among the democrats of historica Athens,^[92] affords a proof that the feeling of personal dignity, of which philosophic observers in Greece—Herodotus, Xenophôn, Hippocratês, and Aristotle—boasted, as distinguishing the free Greek citizen from the slavish Asiatic, was yet undeveloped in the time of Homer.^[93] The ancient epic is commonly so filled with the personal adventures of the chiefs, and the people are so constantly depicted as simple appendages attached to them, that we rarely obtain a glimpse of the treatment of the one apart from the other, such as this memorable Homeric agora affords.

There remains one other point of view in which we are to regard the agora of primitive Greece, as the scene in which justice was administered. The king is spoken of as constituted by Zeus the great judge of society: he has received from Zeus the sceptre, and along with it the powers of command and sanction: the people obey these commands and enforce these sanctions, under him, enriching him at the same time with lucrative presents and payments.^[94] Sometimes the king separately, sometimes the kings or chiefs or gerontes in the plural number, are named as deciding disputes and awarding satisfaction to complainants; always, however, in public, in the midst of the assembled agora.^[95] ​ In one of the compartments of the shield of Achilles, the details of a judicial scene are described. While the agora is full of an eager and excited crowd, two men are disputing about the fine of satisfaction for the death of a murdered man,—one averring, the other denying, that the fine had already been paid, and both demanding an inquest The gerontes are ranged on stone seats,^[96] in the holy circle, with two talents of gold lying before them, to be awarded to such of the litigants as shall make out his case to their satisfaction. The heralds with their sceptres, repressing the warm sympathies of the crowd in favor of one or other of the parties, secure an alternate hearing to both.^[97] This interesting picture completely harmonizes with the brief allusion of Hesiod to the judicial trial—doubtless a real trial—between himself and his brother Persês. The two brothers disputed about their paternal inheritance, and the cause was carried to be tried by the chiefs in agora; but Persês bribed them, and obtained an unjust verdict for the whole.^[98] So at least Hesiod affirms, in the bitterness of his heart; earnestly exhorting his brother not to waste a precious time, required for necessary labors, in the unprofitable occupation of witnessing and abetting litigants in the agora, for which (he adds) no man has proper leisure, unless his subsistence for the year beforehand be safely treasured up in his garners.^[99] He repeats, more than once, his complaints of the crooked and corrupt judgments of which the kings were habitually guilty; dwelling upon abuse of justice as ​ the crying evil of his day, and predicting as well as invoking the vengeance of Zeus to repress it. And Homer ascribes the tremendous violence of the autumnal storms to the wrath of Zeus against those judges who disgrace the agora with their wicked verdicts.^[100]

Though it is certain that, in every state of society, the feelings of men when assembled in multitude will command a certain measure of attention, yet we thus find the agora, in judicial matters still more than in political, serving merely the purpose of publicity. It is the king who is the grand personal mover of Grecian heroic society.^[101] He is on earth, the equivalent of Zeus in the agora of the gods: the supreme god of Olympus is in the habit of carrying on his government with frequent publicity, of hearing some dissentient opinions, and of allowing himself occasionally to be wheedled by Aphrodite, or worried into compliance by Hêrê: but his determination is at last conclusive, subject only to the overruling interference of the Moræ, or Fates.^[102] Both the society of gods, and the various societies of men, are, according to the conceptions of Grecian legend, carried on by the personal rule of a legitimate sovereign, who does not derive his title from the special appointment of his subjects, though he governs with their full consent. In fact, Grecian legend presents to us hardly anything else, except these great individual personalities. The race, or nation, is as it were absorbed into the prince: eponymous persons, especially, are not merely princes, but fathers and representative unities, each the equivalent of that greater or less aggregate to which he gives name.

But though, in the primitive Grecian governinent, the king is the legitimate as well as the real sovereign, he is always conceived as acting through the council and agora. Both the one and the other are established and essential media through which his ascendency is brought to bear upon the society: the absence of such assemblies is the test and mark of savage men, as in the ​ease of the Cyclôpes.^[103] Accordingly, he must possess qualities fit to act with effect upon these two assemblies: wise reason for the council, unctuous eloquence for the agora.^[104] Such is the idéal of the heroic government: a king, not merely full of valor and resource as a soldier, but also sufficiently superior to those around him to insure both the deliberate concurrence of the chiefs, and the hearty adhesion of the masses.^[105] That this picture is not, in all individual cases, realized, is unquestionable; but the endowments so often predicated of good kings show it to have been the type present to the mind of the describer.^[106] Xenophôn, in his Cyropædia, depicts Cyrus as an improved edition of the Homeric Agamemnon,—"a good king and a powerful soldier," thus idealizing the perfection of personal government.

It is important to point out these fundamental conceptions of government, discernible even before the dawn of Grecian history, and identified with the social life of the people. It shows us that the Greeks, in their subsequent revolutions, and in the political experiments which their countless autonomous commit ​ nities presented, worked upon preëxisting materials,—developing and exalting elements which had been at first subordinate, and suppressing, or remodelling on a totally new principle, that which had been originally predominant. When we approach historical Greece, we find that (with the exception of Sparta) the primitive hereditary, unresponsible monarch, uniting in himself all the functions of government, has ceased to reign,―while the feeling of legitimacy, which originally induced his people to obey him willingly, has been exchanged for one of aversion towards the character and title generally. The multifarious functions which he once exercised, have been parcelled out among temporary nominees. On the other hand, the council, or senate, and the agora, originally simple media through which the king acted, are elevated into standing and independent sources of authority, controlling and holding in responsibility the various special officers to whom executive duties of one kind or another are confided. The general principle here indicated is common both to the oligarchies and the democracies which grew up in historical Greece: much as these two governments differed from each other, and many as were the varieties even between one oligarchy or democracy and another, they all stood in equal contrast with the principle of the heroic government. Even in Sparta, where the hereditary kingship lasted, it was preserved with lustre and influence exceedingly diminished,^[107] and such timely diminution of its power seems to have been one of the essential conditions of its preservation.^[108] Though the Spartan kings had the hereditary command of the military forces, yet, ​ even in all foreign expeditions, they habitually acted in obedience to orders from home; while in affairs of the interior, the superior power of the ephors sensibly overshadowed them. So that, unless possessed of more than ordinary force of character, they seem to have exercised their chief influence as presiding members of the senate.

There is yet another point of view in which it behoves us to take notice of the council and the agora as integral portions of the legendary government of the Grecian communities. We are thus enabled to trace the employment of public speaking, as the standing engine of government and the proximate cause of obedience, to the social infancy of the nation. The power of speech in the direction of public affairs becomes more and more obvious, developed, and irresistible, as we advance towards the culminating period of Grecian history, the century preceding the battle of Chæroneia. That its development was greatest among the most enlightened sections of the Grecian name, and smallest among the more obtuse and stationary, is matter of notorious fact; nor is it less true, that the prevalence of this habit was one of the chief causes of the intellectual eminence of the nation generally. At a time when all the countries around were plunged comparatively in mental torpor, there was no motive sufficiently present and powerful to multiply so wonderfully the productive minds of Greece, except such as arose from the rewards of public speaking. The susceptibility of the multitude to this sort of guidance, their habit of requiring and enjoying the stimulus which it supplied, and the open discussion, combining regular forms with free opposition, of practical matters, political as well as judicial,—are the creative causes which formed such conspicuous adepts in the art of persuasion. Nor was it only professed orators who were thus produced; didactic aptitude was formed in the background, and the speculative tendencies were supplied with interesting phenomena for observation and combination, at a time when the truths of physical science were almost inaccessible. If the primary effect was to quicken the powers of expression, the secondary, but not less certain result, was to develop the habits of scientific thought. Not only the oratory of Demosthenes and Periklês, and the colloquial magic of Socrates, but also the philosophical speculations of Plato, and the syste​ matic politics, rhetoric, and logic of Aristotle, are traceable to the same general tendencies in the minds of the Grecian people: and we find the germ of these expansive forces in the senate and agora of their legendary government. The poets, first epic and then lyric, were the precursors of the orators, in their power of moving the feelings of an assembled crowd; whilst the Homeric poems—the general training-book of educated Greeks—constituted a treasury of direct and animated expression, full of concrete forms, and rare in the use of abstractions, and thence better suited to the workings of oratory. The subsequent critics had no difficulty in selecting from the Iliad and Odyssey, samples of eloquence in all its phases and varieties.

On the whole, then, the society depicted in the old Greek poems is loose and unsettled, presenting very little of legal restraint, and still less of legal protection,—but concentrating such political power as does exist in the hands of a legitimate hereditary king, whose ascendency over the other chiefs is more or less complete according to his personal force and character. Whether that ascendency be greater or less, however, the mass of the people is in either case politically passive and of little account. Though the Grecian freeman of the heroic age is above the degraded level of the Gallic plebs, as described by Cæsar,^[109] he is far from rivalling the fierce independence and sense of dignity, combined with individual force, which characterize the Germanic tribes before their establishment in the Roman empire. Still less does his condition, or the society in which he moves, correspond to those pleasing dreams of spontaneous rectitude and innocence, in which Tacitus and Seneca indulge with regard to primitive man.^[110]

​ 2. The state of moral and social feeling, prevalent in legendary Greece, exhibits a scene in harmony with the rudimentary political fabrics just described. Throughout the long stream of legendary narrative on which the Greeks looked back as their past history, the larger social motives hardly ever come into play: either individual valor and cruelty, or the personal attachments and quarrels of relatives and war-companions, or the feuds of private enemies, are ever before us. There is no sense of obligation then existing, between man and man as such,—and very little between each man and the entire community of which he is a member; such sentiments are neither operative in the real world, nor present to the imaginations of the poets. Personal feelings, either towards the gods, the king, or some near and known individual, fill the whole of a man's bosom: out of them arise all the motives to beneficence, and all the internal restraints upon violence, antipathy, or rapacity: and special communion, as well as special solemnities, are essential to their existence. The ceremony of an oath, so imposing, so paramount, and so indispensable in those days, illustrates strikingly this principle. And even in the case of the stranger suppliant,-in which an apparently spontaneous sympathy manifests itself, the succor and kindness shown to him arise mainly from his having gone through the consecrated formalities of supplication, such as that of sitting down in the ashes by the sacred hearth, thus obtaining a sort of privilege of sanctuary.^[111] That ceremony exalts him ​ into something more than a mere suffering man,—it places him in express fellowship with the master of the house, under the tutelary sanctions of Zeus Hiketêsios. There is great difference between one form of supplication and another; the suppliant, however, in any form, becomes more or less the object of a particular sympathy.

The sense of obligation towards the gods manifests itself separately in habitual acts of worship, sacrifice, and libations, or ​ by votive presents, such as that of the hair of Achilles, which he has pledged to the river-god Spercheius,' and such as the constant dedicated offerings which men who stand in urgent need of the divine aid first promise and afterwards fulfil. But the feeling towards the gods also appears, and that not less frequently, as mingling itself with and enforcing obligations towards some particular human person. The tie which binds a man to his father, his kinsman, his guest, or any special promisee towards whom he has taken the engagement of an oath, is conceived in conjunction with the idea of Zeus, as witness and guarantee; and the intimacy of the association is attested by some surname or special appellation of the god.2 Such personal feelings composed all the moral influences of which a Greek of that day was susceptible, - a state of mind which we can best appreciate by contrasting it with that of the subsequent citizen of historical Athens. In the view of the latter, the great impersonal authority, called "The Laws," stood out separately, both as guide and sanction, distinct from religious duty or private sympathies: but of this discriminated conception of positive law and positive morality,3 the germ only can be detected in the Homeric poems. The appropriate Greek word for human laws never occurs. Amidst a very wavering phraseology, we can detect a gradual transition

1 Iliad, xxiii. 142. Odyss. xiv. 389.— Οὐ γὰρ τούνεκ' ἐγώ σ' αἰδέσσομαι, οὐδὲ φιλήσω, ᾿Αλλὰ Δία ξένιον δείσας, αὐτὸν δ' ἐλεαίρων.

Nagelsbach (Homerische Theologie, Abschn. v. s. 23) gives a just and well-sustained view of the Homeric ethics: "Es ist der charakteristische Standpunkt der Homerischen Ethik, dass die Sphären des Rechts, der Sitt- lichkeit, und Religiosität, bey dem Dichter, durchaus noch nicht auseinander fallen, so dass der Mensch z. B. dikatos seyn konnte ohne covons zu seyn - sondern in unentwickelter Einheit beysammen sind."

• Nóuot, laws, is not an Homeric word; vóuoc, law, in the singular, occurs

twice in the Hesiodic Works and Days (276, 388).
The employment of the words δίκη, δίκαι, θέμις, θέμιστες, in Homer, is curious as illustrating the early moral associations, but would require far more space than can be given to it in a note; we see that the sense of each of these words was essentially fluctuating. Themis, in Homer, is sometimes decidedly a person, who exercises the important function of opening and closing the agora, both of gods and men (Iliad, xx. 4: Odyss. ii. 68), and ​82 HISTORY OF GREECE. from the primitive idea of a personal goddess Themis, attached to Zeus, first to his sentences or orders called Themistes, and next by a still farther remove to various established customs, which those sentences were believed to sanctify, the authority of religion and that of custom coalescing into one indivisible obligation. The family relations, as we might expect, are set forth in our pictures of the legendary world as the grand sources of lasting union and devoted attachment. The paternal authority is highly reverenced : the son who lives to years of maturity, repays by affection to his parents the charge of his maintenance in infancy, which the language notes by a special word ; whilst on the other hand, the Erinnys, whose avenging hand is put in motion by the curse of a father or mother, is an object of deep dread. 1 who, besides that, acts and speaks (Iliad, xiv. 87-93} ; always the associate and companion of Zeus, the highest god. In Hesiod, (Theog. 901,) she is the wife of Zeus : in .^Eschylus, (Prometh. 209,) she is the same as Tata: even in Plato, (Legg. xi. p. 936,) witnesses swear (to want of knowledge of matters under inquest) by Zeus, Apollo, and Themis. Themis as a person is probably the oldest sense of the Avord : then we have the plural tf^iuarfc (connected with the verb Tidrjfti, like tfEcr/zdc and retf/zof ), which are (not persons, but) special appurtenances or emanations of the supreme god, or of a king acting under him, analogous to and joined with the sceptre. The sceptre, and the tfe/uorfc or the 6iKai constantly go together (Iliad, ii. 209; ix. 99): Zeus or the king is a judge, not a law-maker; he issues decrees or special orders to settle particular disputes, or to restrain particular men ; and, agreeable to the concrete forms of ancient language, the decrees are treatci as if they were a collection of ready-made substantive things, actually in his possession, like the sceptre, and prepared for being delivered out when the proper occasion arose : diKuaxohot., oirs frefiictTac ITpdc Atdc elpvarai (II. i. 138), compared with the two passages last cited: "$pova TOVTOV uvcvras, of ovriva olSe -&efj.iaTa (II. v. 761), "Ayptov, ovre &'/cac ev eldora OVTE tfe/ztcrrac (Odyss. ix. 215). The plural number diKai is more commonly used in Homer than the singular : d'ucri is rarely used to denote Justice, an an abstract conception ; it more often denotes a special claim of right on the part of some given man (II. xviii. 508). It sometimes also denotes, simply, established custom, or the known lot, e* iuuv SLKTI, yepovruv, deiuv $acikr]uv, -dsuv ("see Damm's Lexicon, ad voc.) defj.if is used in the sains manner. See, upon this matter, Platner, De Notion' Juris ap. Homerum, p. 81 , and O. Muller, Prolegg. Mythol. p. 121. 1 Ovde Tonevvi Qprnrpa (jtihoic ansduKE (II. iv. 477) : dpEirrpa or frpeTrrrtpic (compare II. ix. 454 ; Odyss. ii. 134 ; Hesiod, Opp. D:. 186> ​ In regard to marriage, we find the wife occupying a station of great dignity and influence, though it was the practice for the husband to purchase her by valuable presents to her parents,—a practice extensively prevalent among early communities, and treated by Aristotle as an evidence of barbarism. She even seems to live less secluded and to enjoy a wider sphere of action than was allotted to her in historical Greece.^[112] Concubines are frequent with the chiefs, and occasionally the jealousy of the wife breaks out in reckless excess against her husband, as may be seen in the tragical history of Phoenix. The continence of Laërtês, from fear of displeasing his wife Antikleia, is especially noticed.^[113] A large portion of the romantic interest which Grecian legend inspires is derived from the women: Penelopê, Androma​ chê, Helen, Klytæmnêstra, Eriphylê, Iokasta, Iekabe, etc, all stand in the foreground of the picture, either from their virtues their beauty, their crimes, or their sufferings.

Not only brothers, but also cousins, and the more distant blood- relations and clansmen, appear connected together by a strong feeling of attachment, sharing among them universally the obligation of mutual self-defence and revenge, in the event of injury to any individual of the race. The legitimate brothers divide between them by lot the paternal inheritance,—a bastard brother receiving only a small share; he is, however, commonly very well treated, though the murder of Phokus, by Telamon and Pêleus, constitutes a flagrant exception. The furtive pregnancy of young women, often by a god, is one of the most frequently recurring incidents in the legendary narratives; and the severity with which such a fact, when discovered, is visited by the father, is generally extreme. As an extension of the family connection, we read of larger unions, called the phratry and the tribe, which are respectfully, but not frequently, mentioned.2

The generous readiness with which hospitality is afforded to the stranger who asks for it,3 the facility with which he is allowed to contract the peculiar connection of guest with his host, and the

'Odyss. xiv. 202-215: compare Iliad, xi. 102. The primitive German law of succession divided the paternal inheritance among the sons of a deceased father, under the implied obligation to maintain and portion out their sisters (Eichhorn, Deutsches Privat-Recht. sect. 330.

• Iliad, ii. 362. —

Αφρήτωρ, ἀθέμιστος, ἀνέστιος ἐστιν ἔκεινος, Ὃς πολέμου ἔραται, etc. (Il. ix. 63.) These three epithets include the three different classes of personal sym pathy and obligation: 1. The Phratry, in which a man is connected with father, mother, brothers, cousins, brothers-in-law, clansmen, etc.; 2. The DéμLores, whereby he is connected with his fellow-men who visit the same agora; 3. His Hestia, or Hearth, whereby he becomes accessible to the ξεῖνος and the Σκέτης : - Τῷ δ' Οδυσεὺς ξίφος ὀξὺ καὶ ἄλκιμον ἔγχος ἔδωκεν, Αρχὴν ξεινοσύνης προσκηδέος· οὐδὲ τραπέζη Γνώτην ἀλλήλοιν. (Οdyss. xx. 34.) It must be mentioned, however, that when a chief received a stranger and made presents to him, he reimbursed to himself the valne of the presents by collections among the people (Odyss. xiii. 14; xix. 197): upyaλéov yap заув Iva mpoleds xapícaoval, says Alkinoused by Microsoft® ​ permanence with which that connection, when created by partaking of the same food and exchanging presents, is maintained even through a long period of separation, and even transmitted from father to son - these are among the most captivating features of the heroic society. The Homeric chief welcomes the stranger who comes to ask shelter in his house, first gives him refreshment, and then inquires his name and the purpose of his voyage.1 Though not inclined to invite strangers to his house, he cannot repel them when they spontaneously enter it craving a lodging.2 The suppliant is also commonly a stranger, but a stranger under peculiar circumstances; who proclaims his own calamitous and abject condition, and seeks to place himself in a relation to the chief whom he solicits, something like that in which men stand to the gods. Onerous as such special tie may become to him, the chief cannot decline it, if solicited in the proper form: the ceremony of supplication has a binding effect, and the Erinnys punish the hardhearted person who disallows it. A conquered enemy may sometimes throw himself at the feet of his conqueror, and solicit mercy, but he cannot by doing so acquire the character and claims of a suppliant properly so called: the conqueror has free discretion either to kill him, or to spare him and accept a ransom.3

There are in the legendary narratives abundant examples of individuals who transgress in particular acts even the holiest of

'Odyss. i 123; iii. 70, etc. Odyss. xvii. 383.- Τίς γὰρ δὴ ξεῖνον καλεῖ ἄλλοθεν αὐτὸς ἐπελθὼν 'Αλλον γ' εἰ μὴ τῶνδ', οἳ δημιουργοι έασιν, etc. ; which breathes the plain-spoken shrewdness of the Hesiodic Works and Days, v. 355. 3 See the illustrative case of Lykaon, in vain craving mercy from Achilles. (Iliad, xxi. 64-97. 'Αντί τοι εἶμ' ικέταο, etc.) Menelaus is about to spare the life of the Trojan Adrastus, who clasps his knees and craves mercy, offering a large ransom, - when Agamemnôn repels the idea of quarter, and kills Adrastus with his own hand: his speech to Menelaus displays the extreme of violent enmity, yet the poet says, — Ως εἰπὼν, παρέπεισεν ἀδελφείου φρένας ήρως, Αίσιμα παρειπών, etc.

Adrastus is not called an Iкérns, nor is the expression used in respect to Dolon (Il. x. 456), nor in the equally striking case of Odyssens (Odyss. xiv. 279), when begging for his life. ​ these personal ties, but the savage Cyclops is the only person described as professedly indifferent to them, and careless of that sanction of the gods which in Grecian belief accompanied them. all.^[114] In fact, the tragical horror which pervades the lineage of Athamas or Kadmus, and which attaches to many of the acts of Hêraklês, of Pêleus and Telamon, of Jasôn and Mêdea, of Atreus and Thyestés, etc., is founded upon a deep feeling and sympathy with those special obligations, which conspicuous individuals, under the temporary stimulus of the maddening Atê, are driven to violate. In such conflict of sentiments, between the obligation generally reverenced and the exceptional deviation in an individual otherwise admired, consists the pathos of the story.

These feelings—of mutual devotion between kinsmen and companions in arms—of generous hospitality to the stranger, and of helping protection to the suppliant,—constitute the bright spots in a dark age. We find them very generally prevalent amongst communities essentially rude and barbarous,—amongst the ancient Germans as described by Tacitus, the Druses in Lebanon,^[115] the Arabian tribes in the desert, and even the North American Indians.

​ They are the instinctive manifestations of human sociality, standing at first alone, and for that reason appearing to possess a ​ greater tutelary force than really belongs to them,—beneficent, indeed, in a high degree, with reference to their own appropriate period, but serving as a very imperfect compensation for the impotence of the magistrate, and for the absence of any all-pervading sympathy or sense of obligation between man and man. We best appreciate their importance when we compare the Homeric society with that of barbarians like the Thracians, who tattooed their bodies, as the mark of a generous lineage, sold their children for export as slaves,—considered robbery, not merely as one admissible occupation among others, but as the only honorable mode of life; agriculture being held contemptible,—and above all, delighted in the shedding of blood as a luxury. Such were the Thracians in the days of Herodotus and Thucydidês: and the Homeric society forms a mean term between that which these two historians yet saw in Thrace, and that which they witnessed among their own civilized countrymen.^[116] ​ When, however, among the Homeric men we pass beyond the influence of the private ties above enumerated, we find scarcely any other moralizing forces in operation. The acts and adventures commemorated imply a community wherein neither the protection nor the restraints of law are practically felt, and where in ferocity, rapine, and the aggressive propensities generally, seem restrained by no internal counterbalancing scruples. Homicide, especially, is of frequent occurrence, sometimes by open violence, sometimes by fraud: expatriation for homicide is among the most constantly recurring acts of the Homeric poems: and savage brutalities are often ascribed, even to admired heroes, with apparent indifference. Achilles sacrifices twelve Trojan prisoners on the tomb of Patroklus, while his son Neoptolemus not only slaughters the aged Priam, but also seizes by the leg the child Astyanax (son of the slain Hector) and hurls him from one of the lofty towers of Troy.^[117] Moreover, the celebrity of Autolykus, the maternal grandfather of Odysseus, in the career of wholesale robbery and perjury, and the wealth which it enabled him to acquire, are described with the same unaffected admiration as the wisdom ​ of Nestor or the strength of Ajax.^[118] Achilles, Menelaus, Odysseus, pillage in person, wherever they can find an opportunity, employing both force and stratagem to surmount resistance. The vocation of a pirate is recognized and honorable, so that a host, when he asks his guest what is the purpose of his voyage, enumerates enrichment by indiscriminate maritime plunder as among those projects which may naturally enter into his contemplation.^[119] Abduction of cattle, and expeditions for unprovoked ravage as well as for retaliation, between neighboring tribes, appear ordinary phenomena;^[120] and the established inviolability of heralds seems the only evidence of any settled feeling of obligation between one community and another. While the house and property of Odysseus, during his long absence, enjoys no public ​ protection,^[121] those unprincipled chiefs, who consume his substance, find sympathy rather than disapprobation among the people of Ithaka. As a general rule, he who cannot protect himself finds no protection from society: his own kinsmen and immediate companions are the only parties to whom he can look with confidence for support. And in this respect, the representation given by Hesiod makes the picture even worse. In his emphatic denunciation of the fifth age, that poet deplores not only the absence of all social justice and sense of obligation among his contemporaries, but also the relaxation of the ties of family and hospitality.^[122] There are marks of querulous exaggeration in the poem of the Works and Days; yet the author professes to describe the real state of things around him, and the features of his picture, soften them as we may, will still appear dark and calamitous. It is, however, to be remarked, that he contemplates a state of peace,—thus forming a contrast with the Homeric poems. His copious catalogue of social evils scarcely mentions liability to plunder by a foreign enemy, nor does he compute the chances of predatory aggression as a source of profit.

There are two special veins of estimable sentiment, on which it may be interesting to contrast heroic and historical Greece, and which exhibit the latter as an improvement on the former, not less in the affections than in the intellect.

The law of Athens was peculiarly watchful and provident with respect both to the persons and the property of orphan minors; but the description given in the Iliad of the utter and hopeless destitution of the orphan boy, despoiled of his paternal inheritance, and abandoned by all the friends of his father, whom he urgently supplicates, and who all harshly cast him off, is one of the most pathetic morsels in the whole poem.^[123] In reference ​ again to the treatment of the dead body of an enemy we find all the Greek chiefs who come near (not to mention the conduct of Achilles himself) piercing with their spears the corpse of the slain Hector, while some of them even pass disgusting taunts upon it. We may add, from the lost epics, the mutilation of the dead bodies of Paris and Deiphobus by the hand of Menelaus.^[124] But at the time of the Persian invasion, it was regarded as unworthy of a right-minded Greek to maltreat in any way the dead body of an enemy, even where such a deed might seem to be justified on the plea of retaliation. After the battle of Platæa, a proposition was made to the Spartan king Pausanias, to retaliate upon the dead body of Mardonius the indignities which Xerxês had heaped upon that of Leonidas at Thermopylæ. He indignantly spurned the suggestion, not without a severe rebuke, or rather a half-suppressed menace, towards the proposer: and the feeling of Herodotus himself goes heartily along with him.^[125]

The different manner of dealing with homicide presents a third test, perhaps more striking yet, of the change in Grecian feelings and manners during the three centuries preceding the Persian invasion. That which the murderer in the Homeric times had to dread, was, not public prosecution and punishment, but the personal vengeance of the kinsmen and friends of the deceased, who were stimulated by the keenest impulses of honor and obligation to avenge the deed, and were considered by the public as specially privileged to do so.^[126] To escape from this danger, he ​ is obliged to flee the country, unless he can prevail upon the incensed kinsmen to accept of a valuable payment (we must not speak of coined money, in the days of Homer) as satisfaction for their slain comrade. They may, if they please, decline the offer, and persist in their right of revenge; but if they accept, they are bound to leave the offender unmolested, and he accordingly remains at home without farther consequences. The chiefs in agora do not seem to interfere, except to insure payment of the stipulated sum. - Here we recognize once more the characteristic attribute of the Grecian heroic age, the omnipotence of private force, tempered and guided by family sympathies, and the practical nullity of that collective sovereign afterwards called The City,—who in historical Greece becomes the central and paramount source of obligation, but who appears yet only in the background, as a germ of promise for the future. And the manner in which, in the case of homicide, that germ was developed into a powerful reality, presents an interesting field of comparison with other nations.

For the practice, here designated, of leaving the party guilty of homicide to compromise by valuable payment with the relatives of the deceased, and also of allowing to the latter a free choice whether they would accept such compromise or enforce their right of personal revenge, has been remarked in many rude communities, but is particularly memorable among the early German tribes.^[127] Among the many separate Teutonic establish- ​ ments which rose upon the ruins of the Western Empire or Roma, the right as well as duty of private revenge, for personal injury or insult offered to any member of a family, and the endeavor to avert its effects by means of a pecuniary composition levied upon the offender, chiefly as satisfaction to the party injured, but partly also as perquisite to the king, was adopted as the basis of their legislation. This fundamental idea was worked out in elaborate detail as to the valuation of the injury inflicted, wherein one main circumstance was the rank, condition, and power of the sufferer. The object of the legislator was to preserve the society from standing feuds, but at the same time to accord such full satisfaction as would induce the injured person to waive his acknowledged right of personal revenge, the full luxury of which, as it presented itself to the mind of an Homeric Greek, may be read in more than one passage of the Iliad.^[128] The Ger- ​ man codes begin by trying to bring about the acceptance of a fixed pecuniary composition as a constant voluntary custom, and proceed ultimately to enforce it as a peremptory necessity: the idea of society is at first altogether subordinate, and its influence passes only by slow degrees from amicable arbitration into imperative control.

The Homeric society, in regard to this capital point in human progression, is on a level with that of the German tribes as described by Tacitus. But the subsequent course of Grecian legislation takes a direction completely different from that of the German codes: the primitive and acknowledged right of private revenge (unless where bought off by pecuniary payment), instead of being developed into practical working, is superseded by more comprehensive views of a public wrong requiring public intervention, or by religious fears respecting the posthumous wrath of the murdered person. In historical Athens, this right of private revenge was discountenanced and put out of sight, even so early as the Drakonian legislation, and at last restricted to a few ex-

The Towǹ is, in its primitive sense, a genuine payment in valuable commodities serving as compensation (Iliad, iii. 290; v. 266; xiii. 659): but it comes by a natural metaphor to signify the death of one or more Trojans, as a satisfaction for that of a Greek warrior who had just fallen (or vice versa, Iliad, xiv. 483; xvi. 398); sometimes even the notion of compensation generally (xvii. 207). In the representation on the shield of Achilles, the genuine proceeding about Tovǹ clearly appears: the question there tried is, whether the payment stipulated as satisfaction for a person slain, has really been made or not, - δύο δ' ἄνδρες ἐνείκεον εἵνεκα ποινῆς ᾿Ανδρὸς ἀποφθιμέ vov, etc. (xviii. 498.)

The danger of an act of homicide is proportioned to the number and power of the surviving relatives of the slain; but even a small number is sufficient to necessitate flight (Odyss. xxiii. 120): on the other hand, a large body of relatives was the grand source of enconragement to an insolent criminal (Odyss. xviii. 141).
An old law of Tralles in Lydia, enjoining a nominal Town of a medimnns of beans to the relatives of a murdered person belonging to a contemptible class of citizens, is noticed by Plutarch, Quæst. Græc. c. 46, p. 302. Even in the century preceding Herodotus, too, the Delphians gave & Tolv as satisfaction for the murder of the fabulist Æsop; which Town was claimed and received by the grandson of Esop's master (Herodot. ii. 134. Plutarch. Ser. Num. Vind. p. 556).

'See Lysias, De Cæde Eratosthen. Orat. i. p. 94; Plutarch. Solon. z 23; Demosthen. cont. Aristokrat. pp. 632–637. ​ treme and special cases; while the murderer came to be considered, first as having sinned against the gods, next as having deeply injured the society, and thus at once as requiring absolution and deserving punishment. On the first of these two grounds, he is interdicted from the agora and from all holy places, as well as from public functions, even while yet untried and simply a suspected person; for if this were not done, the wrath of the gods would manifest itself in bad crops and other national calamities. On the second ground, he is tried before the council of Areiopagus, and if found guilty, is condemned to death, or perhaps to disfranchisement and banishment.' The idea of a propitiatory payment to the relatives of the deceased has ceased

Plato (De Legg. ix. pp. 871-874), in his copious penal suggestions to deal with homicide, both intentional and accidental, concurs in general with the old Attic law (see Matthiæ, Miscellanea Philologica, vol. i. p. 151): and as he states with sufficient distinctness the grounds of his propositions, we see how completely the idea of a right to private or family revenge is absent from his mind. In one particular case, he confers upon kinsmen the privilege of avenging their murdered relative (p. 871); but generally, he rather seeks to enforce upon them strictly the duty of bringing the suspected murderer to trial before the court. By the Attic law, it was only the kinsmen of the deceased who had the right of prosecuting for murder, or the master, if the deceased was an olкérns (Demosthen. cont. Euerg. et Mnesibul. c. 18); they might by forgiveness shorten the term of banishment for the unintentional murderer (Demosth. cont. Makart. p. 1069). They seem to have been regarded, generally speaking, as religiously obliged, but not legally com. pellable, to undertake this duty; compare Plato, Enthyphro, capp. 4 and 5. 'Lysias, cont. Aporat. Or. xiii. p. 137. Antiphon. Tetralog. i. 1, p. 629. Ασύμφορον δ' ὑμῖν ἐστὶ τόνδε, μιαρὸν καὶ ἀναγνον ὄντα, εἰς τὰ τεμένη τῶν θεῶν εἰσιόντα μιαίνειν τὴν ἄγνειαν αὐτῶν, ἐπὶ δὲ τὰς αὐτὰς τραπέζας ιόντα συγκαταπιμπλάναι τοὺς ἀναιτίους· ἐκ γὰρ τούτων αἱ τε ἀφόριαι γίνονται, δυστυχεῖς θ' αἱ πράξεις καθίστανται.

The three Tetralogies of Antipho are all very instructive respecting tho legal procedure in cases of alleged homicide: as also the Oration De Cade Herodis (see capp. 1 and 2) - τοῦ νόμου κειμένου, τὸν ἀποκτείναντα άντα ποθανεῖν, etc.

The case of the Spartan Drakontius, one of the Ten Thousand Greeks who served with Cyrus the younger, and permanently exiled from his country in consequence of an involuntary murder committed during his boyhood, presents a pretty exact parallel to the fatal quarrel of Patroklus at dice, when a boy, with the son of Amphidamas, in consequence of which he was forced to seek shelter nnder the roof of Pêlcus (compare Iliad, xxiii. 85, with Xenoph. Anabas. iv. 8, 25) ​ altogether to be admitted: it is the protection of society which dictates, and the force of society which inflicts, a measure of punishment calculated to deter for the future.

3. The society of legendary Greece includes, besides the chiefs, the general mass of freemen (λαοί), among whom stand out by special names certain professional men, such as the carpenter, the smith, the leather-dresser, the leech, the prophet, the bard, and the fisherman.^[129] We have no means of appreciating their condition. Though lots of arable land were assigned in special property to individuals, with boundaries both carefully marked and jealously watched,^[130] yet the larger proportion of surface was devoted to pasture. Cattle formed both the chief item in the substance of a wealthy man, the chief means of making payments, and the common ground of quarrels,—bread and meat, in large quantities, being the constant food of every one.^[131] The estates of the owners were tilled, and their cattle tended, mostly by bought slaves, but to a certain degree also by poor freemen called Thêtes, working for hire and for stated periods. The principal slaves, who were intrusted with the care of large herds of oxen, swine, or goats, were of necessity men worthy of confidence, their duties placing them away from their master's immediate ​ eye.^[132] They had other slaves subordinate to them, and appear to have been well-treated: the deep and unshaken attachment of Eumæus the swineherd and Philoetius the neatherd to the family and affairs of the absent Odysseus, is among the most interesting points in the ancient epic. Slavery was a calamity, which in that period of insecurity might befall any one: the chief who conducted a freebooting expedition, if he succeeded, brought back with him a numerous troop of slaves, as many as he could seize,^[133]—if he failed, became very likely a slave himself: so that the slave was often by birth of equal dignity with his master: Eumæus was himself the son of a chief, conveyed away when a child by his nurse, and sold by Phoenician kidnappers to Laërtês. A slave of this character, if he conducted himself well, might often expect to be enfranchised by his master and placed in an independent holding.^[134]

On the whole, the slavery of legendary Greece does not present itself as existing under a peculiarly harsh form, especially if we consider that all the classes of society were then very much upon a level in point of taste, sentiment, and instruction.^[135] In the absence of legal security or an effective social sanction, it is probable that the condition of a slave under an average master, may have been as good as that of the free Thête. The class of slaves whose lot appears to have been the most pitiable were the ​ females, more numerous than the males, and performing the principal work in the interior of the house. Not only do they seem to have been more harshly treated than the males, but they were charged with the hardest and most exhausting labor which the establishment of a Greek chief required: they brought in water from the spring, and turned by hand the house-mills, which ground the large quantity of flour consumed in his family. This oppressive task was performed generally by female slaves, in historical as well as legendary Greece.2 Spinning and weaving was the constant occupation of women, whether free or slave, of every rank and station: all the garments worn both by men and women were fashioned at home, and Helen as well as Penelopê is expert and assiduous at the occupation.3 The daughters of Keleos at Eleusis go to the well with their basins for water, and Nausikaa, daughter of Alkinous, joins her female slaves in the business of washing her garments in the river. If we are obliged to point out the fierceness and insecurity of an early society, we may at the same time note with pleasure its characteristic simplicity of

'Odyss. vii. 104; xx. 116; Iliad vi. 457; compare the Book of Genesis, ch. xi. 5. The expression of Telemachns, when he is proceeding to hang the female slaves who had misbehaved, is bitterly contemptuous: Μὴ μὲν δὴ καθαρῷ θανάτῳ ἀπὸ θυμὸν ἐλοίμην Túwv, etc. (Odyss. xxii. 464.) 119

The humble establishment of Hesiod's farmer does not possess a mill; he has nothing better than a wooden pestle and mortar for grinding or bruising the corn; both are constructed, and the wood cut from the trees, by his own hand (Opp. Di. 423), thongh it seems that a professional carpenter ("the servant of Athênê,") is required to put together the plough (v. 430). The Virgilian poem Moretum, (v. 24,) assigns a hand-mill even to the humblest rural establishment. The instructive article "Corn Mills," in Beckmann's Hist. of Inventions (vol. i. p. 227, Eng. transl.), collects all the information available, abont this subject.

See Lysias, Or. 1, p. 93 (De Cæde Eratosthenis). Plutarch (Non posse suaviter vivi secundum Epicurum, c. 21, p. 1101),-Ilax vokεhàs áλerpiç pòs púλv кvovuévn,- and Kallimachus, (Hymn. ad Delum, 242,)—und όθι δειλαὶ Δυστοκέες μογέουσιν ἀλετρίδες, — notice the overworked condition of these women.

The "grinding slaves" (üherpides) are expressly named in one of the Laws of Ethelbert, king of Kent, and constitute the second class in point of value among the female slaves (Law xi. Thorpe's Ancient Laws and Insti- tutes of England, vol. i. p. 7).

'Odyss. iv. 131 xix. 235.

Odyss. vi. 96; Hymn. ad Dêmêtr. 105 ​ manners: Rebecca, Rachel, and the daughters of Jethro, in the early Mosaic narrative, as well as the wife of the native Macedonian chief (with whom the Temenid Perdiccas, ancestor of Philip and Alexander, first took service on retiring from Argos), baking her own cakes on the hearth,^[136] exhibit a parallel in this respect to the Homeric pictures.

We obtain no particulars respecting either the common freemen generally, or the particular class of them called Thêtes. These latter, engaged for special jobs, or at the harvest and other busy seasons of field labor, seem to have given their labor in exchange for board and clothing: they are mentioned in the same line with the slaves,^[137] and were (as has been just observed) probably on the whole little better off. The condition of a poor freeman in those days, without a lot of land of his own, going about from one temporary job to another, and having no powerful family and no social authority to look up to for protection, must have been sufficiently miserable. When Eumæus indulged his expectation of being manumitted by his masters, he thought at the same time that they would give him a wife, a house, and a lot of land near to themselves;^[138] without which collateral advantages, simple manumission might perhaps have been no improvement in his condition. To be Thête in the service of a very poor farmer is selected by Achilles as the maximum of human hardship: such a person could not give to his Thête the same ample food, and good shoes and clothing, as the wealthy chief Eurymachus, while he would exact more severe labor.^[139] It was probably among such smaller occupants, who could not advance the price necessary to purchase slaves, and were glad to save the cost of keep when they did not need service, that the Thêtes found employment: though we may conclude that the brave and strong amongst these poor freemen found it preferable to accompany some freebooting chief and to live by the plunder acquired.^[140] The exact Hesiod ​ advises his farmer, whose work is chiefly performed by slaves, to employ and maintain the Thête during summer-time, but to dis- miss him as soon as the harvest is completely got in, and then to take into his house for the winter a woman "without any child;" who would of course be more useful than the Thête for the indoor occupations of that season."

In a state of soci ty such as that which we have been describing, Grecian commerce was necessarily trifling and restricted. The Homeric poems mark either total ignorance or great vagueness of apprehension respecting all that lies beyond the coasts of Greece and Asia Minor, and the islands between or adjoining them. Libya and Egypt are supposed so distant as to be known only by name and hearsay: indeed, when the city of Kyrene was founded, a century and a half after the first Olympiad, it was difficult to find anywhere a Greek navigator who had ever visited the coast of Libya, or was fit to serve as guide to the colonists.2 The mention of the Sikels in the Odyssey,³ leads us to · 1 Hesiod, Opp. Di. 459 - ἐφορμηθῆναι, ὁμῶς ὁμῶές τε καὶ αὐτός — and 603:― .. Αὐτὰρ ἐπὴν δὴ Πάντα βίον κατάθηαι ἐπήρμενον ἔνδοθι οἴκου, θῆτά τ' ἄοικον ποιεῖσθαι, καὶ ἄτεκνον ἔριθον Δίζεσθαι κέλομαι· χαλεπὴ δ' ὑπόπορτες ἔριθος.

The two words dotkov Toleiodat seem hear to be taken together in the sense of "dismiss the Thête," or "make him houseless;" for when put out of his employer's house, he had no residence of his own. Göttling (ad loc.), Nitzsch (ad Odyss. iv. 643), and Lehrs (Quæst. Epic. p. 205) all construe ůotkov with dyra, and represent Hesiod as advising that the houseless Thête should be at that moment taken on, just at the time when the summer's work was finished. Lehrs (and seemingly Göttling also), sensible that this can never have been the real meaning of the poet, would throw out the two lines as spurious. I may remark farther that the translation of one given by Göttling —villicus-villicus - is inappropriate: it includes the idea of superintendence over other laborers, which does not seem to have belonged to the Thête in any case.

There were a class of poor free women who made their living by taking in wool to spin and perhaps to weave: the exactness of their dealing, as well as the poor profit which they made, are attested by a touching Homeric simile (Iliad, xiii. 434). See Iliad, vi. 289; xxiii. 742. Odyss. xv. 414.

• Herodot. iv. 151. Compare Ukert, Geographie der Griechen und Römer,

part i. pp. 16-19. xiv.

Odyss. xx. 383; Die identity of the Homeric Scheria with ​ conclude that Korkyra, Italy, and Sicily were not wholly unknown to the poet: among seafaring Greeks, the knowledge of the latter implied the knowledge of the two former, - since the habitual track, even of a well-equipped Athenian trireme during the Peloponnesian war, from Peloponnêsus to Sicily, was by Korkyra and the Gulf of Tarentum. The Phokæans, long afterwards, were the first Greeks who explored either the Adriatic or Tyrrhenian sea. Of the Euxine sea no knowledge is manifested in Homer, who, as a general rule, presents to us the names of distant regions only in connection with romantic or monstrous accompaniments. The Kretans, and still more the Taphians (who are supposed to have occupied the western islands off the coast of Acarnania), are mentioned as skilful mariners, and the Taphian Mentês professes to be conveying iron to Temesa to be there exchanged for copper; but both Taphians and Kretans are more corsairs than traders.3 The strong sense of the dangers of the sea, expressed by the poet Hesiod, and the imperfect structure of the early Grecian ship, attested by Thucydidês (who points out the more recent date of that improved ship-building which prevailed in his time), concur to demonstrate the then narrow range of nautical enterprise.4

Such was the state of the Greeks, as traders, at a time when Babylon combined a crowded and industrious population with extensive commerce, and when the Phoenician merchant-ships visited in one direction the southern coast of Arabia, perhaps even the island of Ceylon,-in another direction, the British islands.

The Phoenician, the kinsman of the ancient Jew, exhibits the type of character belonging to the latter, with greater enterprise

Korkyra, and that of the Homeric Thrinakia with Sicily, appear to me not at all made out. Both Welcker and Klausen treat the Phæakians as purely mythical persons (see W. C. Müller, De Corcyræorum Republicâ, Götting. 1835, p. 9).

'Herodot. i. 163.

• Nitzsch. ad Odyss. i. 181; Strabo, i. p. 6. The situation of Temesa,

whether it is to be placed in Italy or in Cyprus, has been a disputed point among critics, both ancient and modern.

Odyss. xv. 426. Tápio, Antoropeç avopes; and xvi. 426. Hymn to Dêmêtêr, v. 123.

• Hesiod. Opp. Di. 615-684; Thucyd. i. 13. ​THE PHOENICIANS.- INTERCHANGE. 103 and ingenuity, and less of religious exclusiveness, yet still differ* ent from, and even antipathetic to, the character of the Greeks. In the Homeric poems, he appears somewhat like the Jew of the Middle Ages, a crafty trader, turning to profit the violence and rapacity of others, bringing them ornaments, decorations, the finest and brightest products of the loom, gold, silver, electruro, ivory, tin, etc., in exchange for which he received landed produce, gkins, wool, and slaves, the only commodities which even a wealthy Greek chief of those early times had to offer, prepared at the same time for dishonest gain, in any manner which chance might throw in his way. 1 He is, however, really a trader, not undertaking expeditions with the deliberate purpose of surprise and plunder, and standing distinguished in this respect from the Tyrrhenian, Kretan, or Taphian pirate. Tin, ivory, and electrum, all of which are acknowledged in the Homeric poems, were the fruit of Phoenician trade with the West as well as with the East. 3 1 O'lyss. xiv. 290 ; xv. 416. 4>otvts fy.&ev uvr/p, inra-r/Xia ctJoJf, Tp(jK7?f, of 6fj 7ro/U.d KUK' uvdpunotaiv Lupyet. The interesting narrative given by Eumseus, of the manner in which ha fell into slavery, is a vivid picture of Phoenician dealing (compare Herodot. i. 2-4. Iliad, vi. 290 ; xxiii. 743). Paris is reported to have visited Sidon, and brought from thence women eminent for skill at the loom. The Cyprian Verses (see the Argument, ap. Dtlntzer, p. 17) affirmed that Paris had landed at Sidon ; and attacked and captured the city. Taphian corsairs kidnapped slaves at Sidon (Odyss. xv. 424). The ornaments or trinkets ((i^vpfiara) which the Phoenician merchant carries with him, seem to be the same as the daidaha TroAAci, Hopnaf re yvafnrTuf #' e/.iKaf, etc. which Hephaestus was employed in fabricating (Iliad, xviii. 400) under the protection of Thetis. "Fallacissimum csse genus Phoenician omnia monnmenta vetustatis atquc omnes historic nobis prodiderunt." (Cicero, Orat. Trium. partes ineditse, ed. Maii, 1815, p. 13.)

• Ivory is frequently mentioned in Homer, who uses the word eXe^ac ex-

clusively to mean that substance, not to signify the animal. The art of dyeing, especially with the various shades of purple, was in after-ages one of the special excellences of the Phoenicians : yet Homer, where he alludes in a simile to dyeing or staining, introduces a Mseonian of Karian woman as the performer of the process, not a Phoenician (Iliad, iv.

• 41).

What the electrum named in the Homeric poems really is cannot be posi- tively determined. The worl in antiquity meant two different things: 1, ​104 HISTORY OF GREECE. Thucydides tells us that the Phoenicians and Karians, in very early periods, occupied many of the islands of the JEgean, and we know, from the striking remnant of their mining works which Herodotus himself saw in Thasus, off the coast of Thrace, thai they had once extracted gold from the mountains of that island, at a period indeed very far back, since their occupation must have been abandoned prior to the settlement of the poet Archilo- chus. 1 Yet few of the islands in the JEgean were rich in such valuable products, nor was it in the usual course of Phoenician proceeding to occupy islands, except where there was an adjoining mainland with which trade could be carried on. The traffic of these active mariners required no permanent settlement, but as occasional visitors they were convenient, in enabling a Greek chief to turn his captives to account, to get rid of slaves or friendless Thetes who were troublesome, and to supply himself with the metals, precious as well as useful. 2 The halls of Alki- amber ; 2, an im-pure gold, containing as much as one-fifth or more of silver (Pliny, H. N. xxxiii. 4). The passages in which we read the word in the Odyssey do not positively exclude either of these meanings ; but they present to us electrum so much in juxtaposition with gold and silver each separately, that perhaps the second meaning is more probable than the first. Herodotus understands it to mean amber (iii. 115) : Sophokles, on the contrary, employs it to designate a metal akin to gold (Antigone, 1033). See the dissertation of Buttmann, appended to his collection of essays called Mythologies, vol. ii. p. 337 ; also, Beckmann, History of Inventions, voL iv. p. 12, Engl. Transl. " The ancients (observes the latter) used as a pecu- liar metal a mixture of gold and silver, because they were not acquainted with the art of separating them, and gave it the name of electrum." l)r Thirlwall (Hist, of Greece, vol. i. p. 241) thinks that the Homeric electiiim ia amber ; on the contrary, Hiillmann thinks that it was a metallic substance (Handels, Gcschichte der Griechen, pp. 63-81). Beckmann doubts whether the oldest naaairepoc of the Greeks was really tin: he rather thinks that it was "the stannum of the Eomans, the werk of our smelting-houses, that is, a mixture of lead, silver, and other accidental metals." (Ibid. p. 20). The Greeks of Massalia procured tin from Britain, through Gaul, by the Seine, the Saone, and the Rhone (Diodor. v. 22). 1 Herodot. ii. 44 ; vi. 47. Archiloch. Fragm. 21-22, ed. Gaisf. (Enomauf. op: Euseb. Praep. Ev. vi. 7. Thucyd. i. 12. The Greeks connected this Phoenician settlement in Thasns with tho legend of Kadmus and his sister Europa: Thasus, the cponymus of the island, was brother of Kadmus. (Herod, ib.)

• The angry Laomcdon threatens when Poseidon and Apollo ask fro ​NATURE OF PHOENICIAN TRADK. l[j

nous and Menelaus glitter with gold, copper, and electrum ; while large stocks of yet unemployed metal gold, copper, and iron are stored up in the treasure-chamber of Odysseus and other chiefs. 1 Coined money is unknown to the Homeric age, the trade carried on being one of barter. In reference also to the metals, it deserves to be remarked that the Homeric description* universally suppose copper, and not iron, to be employed for arms, both offensive and defensive. By what process the copper was tempered and hardened, so as to serve the purposes of the warrior, we do not know; 2 but the use of iron for these objects belongs to a later age, though the Works and Days of Hesiod suppose this change to have been already introduced. 3 him (at the expiration of their term of servitude) the stipulated wages of their labor, to cut off their ears and send them off to some distant islands (Iliad, xxi. 454). Compare xxiv. 752. Odyss. xx. 383 ; xviii. 83. 1 Odyss. iv. 73 ; vii. 85 ; xxi. 61. Iliad, ii. 226 ; vi. 47.

• See Millin, Mine'ralogie Homerique, p. 74. That there are, however,

modes of tempering copper, so as to impart to it the hardness of steel, ha3 been proved by the experiments of the Comte de Cay] us. The Massagetse employed only copper no iron for their weapons (Herodot. i. 215). 3 Hesiod, Opp. Di. 150-420. The examination of the various matters of antiquity discoverable throughout the north of Europe, as published by the Antiquarian Society of Copenhagen, recognizes a distinction of three suc- cessive ages: 1. Implements and arms of stone, bone, wood, etc. : little or no use of metals at all ; clothing made of skins. 2. Implements and nrms of copper and gold, or rather bronze and gold ;' little or no silver or iron. Articles of gold and electrum are found belonging to this age, but none of silver, nor any evidences of writing. 3. The age which follows this has be- longing to it arms of iron, articles of silver, and some Runic inscriptions : it is the last age of northern paganism, immediately preceding the introduc- tion of Christianity (Leitfaden zur Nordischen Alterthumskunde, pp. 31, 57, 63, Copenhagen, 1837). The Homeric age coincides with the second of these two periods. Silver 5s comparatively little mentioned in Homer, while both bronze and gold ara familiar metals. Iron also is rare, and seems employed only for agricultural purposes Xpvoov re, -^akubv TE ui '* kadJiTa #' v^avr'rjv (Iliad, vi. 48; Odyss. ii. 338 ; xiii. 136). The ^pCffojowf and the a/Uet)f are both men- tioned in Homer, but workers in silver and iron are not known by any special name COdyss. iii. 425-436). "The hatchet, wimble, plane, and level, are the tools mentioned by Homer, who appears to have been unacquainted with the saw, the square, and th* compass." (Gillies, Hist, of Greece, chap. ii. p. 61.) 5* ​IOC HISTORY OF GREECE. The mode of fighting among the Homeric heroes is not less different iron* *he historical times, than the material of which their arms were composed. The Hoplites, or heavy-armed in- fantry of historical Greece, maintained a close order and well- dressed line, charging the enemy with their speai-s protended at even distance, and coming thus to close conflict without breaking their rank: there were special troops, bowmen, slingers, etc. armed with missiles, but the hoplite had no weapon to employ in this manner. The heroes of the Iliad and Odyssey, on the contrary, habitually employ the spear as a missile, which they launch with tremendous force : each of them is mounted in his war-chariot, drawn by two horses, and calculated to contain .the warrior and his charioteer ; in which latter capacity a friend or comrade will sometimes consent to serve. Advancing in his chariot at *ull speed, in front of his own soldiers, he hurls his spear against the enemy : sometimes, indeed, he will fight on foot, and hand to hand, but the chariot is usually near to receive him ,f he chooses, or to insure his retreat. The mass of the Greeks and Trojans, coming forward to the charge, without any regular step or evenly-maintained line, make their attack in the same way by hurling their spears. Each chief wears habitually a long sword and a short dagger, besides his two spears to be launched forward, the spear being also used, if occasion serves, as a weapon for thrust. Every man is protected by shield, helmet, breastplate, and greaves : but the armor of the chiefs is greatly superior to that of the common men, while they themselves are both stronger and more expert in the use of their weapons. There are a few bowmen, as rare exceptions, but the general equipment and proceeding is as here described. Such loose array, immortalized as it is in the Iliad, is familiar to every one ; and the contrast which it presents, with those inflexible ranks, and that irresistible simultaneous charge which bore down the Persian throng at Platsea and Kunaxa, 1 is such The Gauls, known to Polybius, seemingly the Cisalpine Gauls only, pos- sessed all their property in cattle and gold, i?pe/j//ara Kat ^pvadf, on account of the easy transportability of both (Polyb. ii. 17). 1 Tyrtseus, in his military expressions, seems to conceive the Homeric mode of barling the spear as still prevalent, 66pv 6' ciroA/iWf ft aXhovref (Fragm. ix. Gaisford). Either he had his mind prepossessed with the H> ​MILITARY AND CIVIL RETROSPECT. 107 as to illustrate forcibly the general difference between heroic and historical Greece. While in the former, a few splendid figures stand forward, in prominent relief, the remainder being a mere unorganized and ineffective mass, in the latter, these units have been combined into a system, in which every man, officer and soldier, has his assigned place and duty, and the victory, when gained, is the joint work of all. Preeminent individual prowess is indeed materially abridged, if not wholly excluded, no man can do more than maintain his station in the line : l but on the other hand, the grand purposes, aggressive or defensive, for which alone arms are taken up, become more assured and easy, and long-sighted combinations of the general are rendered for the first time practicable, when he has a disciplined body of men to obey him. In tracing the picture of civil society, we have to remark a similar transition we pass from Herakle?, Theseus, Jason, Achilles, to Solon, Pythagoras, and Perikles from "the shepherd of his people," (to use the phrase in which Homer depicts the good side of the heroic king,) to the legislator who introduces, and the statesman who maintains, a preconcerted system by which willing citizens consent to bind themselves. If commanding individual talent is not always to be found, the whole community is so trained as to be able to maintain its course under inferior leaders ; the rights as well as the duties of each citizen being predetermined in the social order, according to principles more or less wisely laid down. The contrast is similar, and the transition equally remarkable, in the civil as in the military picture. In fact, the military organization of the Grecian repub- lics is an element of the greatest importance in respect to the conspicuous part which they have played in human affairs, meric array, or else the close order and conjunct spears of the hoplites had not yet been introduced duriag the second Messenian war. Thiersch and Schneidewin would substitute jra/l/loirec in place of /3uA- Aoj'ref. Euripides (Androm. 695) has a similar expression, yet it does not apply well to hoplites ; for one of the virtues of the hoplite consisted in car- rying his spear steadily : Sopdruv Kivrjou; betokens a disorderly march, and the want of steady courage and self-possession. See the remarks of Bra- fidas upon the ranks of the Athenians under Kleon at Amphipolis (Thucyd. v. C). 1 Euripid. Andromach. 696. ​108 HISTORY OF GREECE. their superiority over other contemporary nations in this resped being hardly less striking than it is in many others, as we shall have occasion to see in a subsequent stage of this history. Even at the most advanced point of their tactics, the Greeks could effect little against a walled city, whilst the heroic weapons and array were still less available for such an undertaking as a siege. Fortifications are a feature of the age deserving conside- rable notice. There was a time, we are told, in which the prim- itive Greek towns or villages derived a precarious security, not from their walls, but merely from sites lofty and difficult of ac- cess. They were not built immediately upon the shore, or close upon any convenient landing-place, but at some distance inland, on a rock or elevation which could not be approached without notice or scaled without difficulty. It was thought sufficient at that time to guard against piratical or marauding surprise : but as the state of society became assured, as the chance of sudden assault comparatively diminished and industry increased, these uninviting abodes were exchanged for more convenient sites on the plain or declivity beneath ; or a portion of the latter was in- closed within larger boundaries and joined on to the original foundation, which thus became the Acropolis of the new town. Thebes, Athens, Argos, etc., belonged to the latter class of cities ; but there were in many parts of Greece deserted sites on hill- tops, still retaining, even in historical times, the traces of former habitation, and some of them still bearing the name of the old towns. Among the mountainous parts of Krete, in JEgina and Rhodes, in portions of Mount Ida and Parnassus, similar rem- nants might be perceived. 1 1 'H na^aiH noTiif in JEgino. (Herodot. vi. 88) ; 'Acrn,'7ru/.a<a in Saraus (Polyaen. i. 23. 2; Etymol. Magn. v. ' AarvmiZata) : it became seemingly the acropolis of the subsequent city. About the deserted sites in the lofty regions of KrOte, see Theophrastus, De Ventis, v. 13, ed. Schneider, p. 762. The site of Ha^aiaicrj^if in Mount Ida, kiravu Ke^prjvof KorH rb fiereu- porarov rf/f "Idrjf (Strabo, xiii. p. 607); iiarspov <5e Karurepu aradiotf %- KOVTa elf TTJV vvv Ztcfjipiv fj.eruKia-&tjaav. Paphos in Cyprus was the same distance below the ancient Palae-Paphos (Strabo, xiv. p. 683). Near Mantineia in Arcadia was situated opoc iv T> ;r(5i<j, TO, IpziTria In TAavriveiaf e%ov TJ?C dp^mac Kafalrai 6e ret ^wpiov kty rifiuv HroXtf (Pausan. riii 12, 4). See a sivkr statement about the lofty sites of the aiw'*^ ​SITES OF TOWNS. 109 Probably, in such primitive hill villages, a continuous circle of wall -would hardly be required as an additional means of defence, and would often be rendered very difficult by the rugged nature of the ground. But Thucydides represents the earliest Greeks those whom he conceives anterior to the Trojan war as liv- ing thus universally in unfortified villages, chietiy on account of their poverty, rudeness, and thorough carelessness for the mor- row. Oppressed, and held apart from each other by perpetual fear, they had not yet contracted the sentiment of fixed abodes : they were unwilling even to plant fruit-trees because of the un- certainty of gathering the produce, and were always ready to dislodge, because there was nothing to gain by staying, and a bare subsistence might be had any where. He compares them to the mountaineers of JEtolia and of the Ozolian Lokris in his own time, who dwelt in their unfortified hill villages with little or no intercommunication, always armed and fighting, and subsisting on the produce of their cattle and their woods, 1 clothed in un- dressed hides, and eating raw meat. The picture given by Thucydides, of these very early and un- town of Orchomenus (in Arcadia) (Pans. viii. 13, 2), of Nonakris (viii. 17, 5,) of Lusi (viii. 18, 3), Lykoreia on Parnassus (Pans. x. 6, 2; Strabo, ix. I. 418). Compare also Plato, Legg. iii. 2, pp. 678-679, who traces these lofty and craggy dwellings, general among the earliest Grecian townships, to the com- mencement of human society after an extensive deluge, which had covered all the lower grounds and left only a few survivors. 1 Tnucyd. i. 2. Qaiverai -yap TJ vvv 'E/l/laf Kahovficvt}, ov ndl.ai pepaiuf oiKov/Mfvri, uM.d fteravaaruaetf re ovaai ru. irpoTepa, KOI padiug eKaaroi TJ/V tavrijv uiroAeiiTOVTef , ^ta^ofievoi i'Trb TIVUV uel nvWfOVW TTJ$ "yup OVK ovaris, ov6' em/J.iyvvvTef adetic d/./try/lotf, ovre Kara yfjv vepoftevoi <5e ra avrtiv etfaaroi oaov uKo^yv, ical ireptovaiav xprj/taTuv OVK IXOVTES ovde yijv 0vret;ovrcf, udi]3.ov ov OTTOTE ri( iTre'h&uv, Kal uTsi%iaTuv ufia OVTUV, aAAof (Hpaipriaerat, T^f re /cai?' rjfj.epav uvayKdiov Tpo^f Travra- %ov uv f/yovfiEvoi eTUKparetv, ov xaheirtif inraviaTavro, not 6C avro oiirt Hfyi&ei TTohfuv ia%vov, OVTE ry u/.hj napaaKevy. About the distant and unfortified villages and rude habits of the ^Etolians and Lokrians, see Thucyd. iii. 94; Paus;m. x. 38,3: also of the Cisalpine Gauls, Polyb. ii. 1 7. Both Thucydides and Aristotle seem to have conceived the Homeric period as mainly analogous to the f3up[3apoi of their own day A.vei i' 'A^orore- A?7f heyuvj UTI rotavra uel notel *O/zj?pof ola fyv Tore' ijv 6e Toiavra ra '.ca?.o<u olunep nai vvv h Totf 3ao3upotf (Scl ol. Iliad, x. 151 i. ​IK, HISTORY OF GREKCE. recorded times, can only be taken as conjectural, the conjectures, indeed, of a statesman and a philosopher, generalized. too, in part, from the many particular instances of contention and expul- sion of chiefs which he found in the old legendary poems. The Homeric poems, however, present to us a different picture. They recognize walled towns, fixed abodes, strong local attachments, hereditary individual property in land, vineyards planted and carefully cultivated, established temples of the gods, and splendid palaces of the chiefs. 1 The description of Thucydides belongs to a lower form of society, and bears more analogy to that which the poet himself conceives as antiquated and barbarous, to the savage Cyclopes, who dwell on the tops of mountains, in hollow caves, without the plough, without vine or fruit culture, without arts or instruments, or to the primitive settlement of Dardanus son of Zeus, on the higher ground of Ida, while it was reserved for his descendants and successors to found the holy Ilium on the plain. 2 Ilium or Troy represents the perfection of Homeric soci- ety. It is a consecrated spot, containing temples of the gods as well as the palace of Priam, and surrounded by walls which are the fabric of the gods ; while the antecedent form of ruder society, which the poet briefly glances at, is the parallel of that which the theory of Thucydides ascribes to his own early semi-barbarous ancestors. Walled towns serve thus as one of the evidences, that a large part of the population of Greece had, even in the Homeric times, reached a level higher than that of the ^Etolians and Lok- rians of the days of Thucydides. The remains of Mykenae and Tiryns demonstrate the massy and Cyclopian style of architecture employed in those early days : but we may remark that, while modern observers seem inclined to treat the remains of the former as very imposing, and significant of a great princely family, Thu- fydides, on the contrary, speaks of it as a small place, and labors 1 Odyss. vi. 10; respecting Nausithous, past king of the Phaeakians : 'A/<0( 61 Tfi^of iTiaaae TroAet, c2 idei^iro ol/covf, K(C vqoilf iroifjos fieuv, Kol edacaaT' upovpaf. The vineyard, olive-ground, and garden cf Laertes, is a model of careful niltivation (Odyss. xxiv. 245 ); see also the shiell of AchLMrs (11'uul, x.ii, 441-580), and the Kalydonian plain (Iliad, ix. 575). Odvss. x. 106-115; Iliad, xx. 216. ​DEFENCE AGAINST AGGRESSION. m to elude tlie inference, which might be deduced from its insignifi- cant size, in disproof of the grandeur of Agamemnon. 1 SucL fortifications supplied a means of defence incomparably superior to those of attack. Indeed, even in historical Greece, and after the invention of battering engines, no city could be taken except by surprise or blockade, or by ruining the country around, and thus depriving the inhabitants of their means of subsistence. And in the two great sieges of the legendary time, Troy and Thebes, the former is captured by the stratagem of the wooden horse, while the latter is evacuated by its citizens, under the warning of the gods, after their defeat in the field. This decided superiority of the means of defence over those of attack, in rude ages, has been one of the grand promotive causes both of the growth of civic life and of the general march of hu- man improvement. It has enabled the progressive portions of mankind not only to maintain their acquisitions against the pre- datory instincts of the ruder and poorer, and to surmount the difficulties of incipient organization, but ultimately, when their organization has been matured, both to acquire predominance, and to uphold it until their own disciplined habits have in part passed to their enemies. The important truth here stated is illustrated not less by the history of ancient Greece, than by that of modern Europe during the Middle Ages. The Homeric chief, combining superior rank with superior force, and ready to rob at every con- venient opportunity, greatly resembles the feudal baron of the Middle Ages, but circumstances absorb him more easily into a city life, and convert the independent potentate into the member of a governing aristocracy. 2 Traffic by sea continued to be beset with 1 Thucyd. i. 10. Kal OTI [iiv Mwcjyvat fj.iK.pbv 7/v, jy el n ~tJv TOTE uij u^io^peuv doKet elvat, etc. 2 Nagelsbach, Homerische Theologie, Abschn. v. sect. 54. Hesiod strongly condemns robbery, Awe uyatf^, upTraf de Kant/, davuroio fioreipa (Opp. Di. 356, comp. 320) ; but the sentiment of the Grecian heroic poetry seems not to go against it, it is looked upon as a natural employment of superior force, AvTo/naroi 6' ayadol deiAuv ixi dalra? iaaiv (Athenae. v. p. 178; comp. Pindar, Fragm. 48, ed. Dissen.) : the long spear, sword, an I breast- plate, of the Kretan Hybreas, constitute his wealth (Skolion 27, p. 877 ; Poet Lyric, ed. Bergk), wherewith he ploughs and reaps, while the n (warlike, who dare not or cannot wield these weapons, fall at his feet, and call him The Great King. The feeling is different in the later age of Demetrius ​112 HISTORY OF GREECE. danger from pirates, long after it had become tolerably assured by land : the " wet ways " have always been the last resort, of lawlessness and violence, and the JEgean, in particular, has in all times suffered more than other waters under this calamity. Aggressions of the sort here described were of course most numerous iii those earliest times when the JEgean was not yet an Hellenic sea, and when many of the Cyclades were occupied, not by Greeks, but by Karians, perhaps by Phoenicians : the number of Karian sepulchres discovered in the sacred island of Poliorketes (about 310 B. c.) : in the Itliyphallic die, addressed to him at hh entrance into Athens, robbery is treated as worthy only of JEtolians : -yap upTruffai ru TUV 7rUzf, 6e, Kal TO. irofrpu. ("Poet. Lyr. xxv. p. 453, ed. Schncid.) The robberies of powerful men, and even highway robbery generally found considerable approving sentiment in the Middle Ages. " All Europe ("observes Mr. Hallam, Hist. Mid. Ag. ch. viii. part 3, p. 247) was a scene of intestine anarchy during the Middle Ages : and though England was far less exposed to the scourge of private war than most nations on the continent, we should find, could we recover the local annals of every country, such an accumulation of petty rapine and tumult, as would almost alienate us from the liberty which served to engender it Highway robbery was from the earliest times a sort of national crime We know how long the out- laws of Shenvood lived in tradition ; men who, like some of their betters, have been permitted to redeem, by a few acts of generosity, the just ignomiuy of extensive crimes. These, indeed, were the heroes of vulgar applause ; but - when such a judge as Sir John Fortescue could exult, that more Englishmen were hanged for robbery in one year than French in seven, and that, if an Englishman be poor, and see another having riches, which may be talxnfrom him by might, he will not spare to do so, it may be perceived how thoroughly these sentiments had pervaded the public mind." The robberies habitually committed by the noblesse of France and Ger- many during the Middle Ages, so much worse than anything in England, and those of the highland chiefs even in later times, are too well known to need any references : as to France, an ample catalogue is set forth in Dulaure's Histoire de la Noblesse (Paris, 1792). The confederations of the German cities chiefly originated in the necessity of keeping the roads and rivers open for the transit of men and goods against the nobles who infesteu the high roads. Scaliger might have found a parallel to the "h)(fral of th heroic ayes in the noblesse of la Rouergue, as it stood even in the 16th century, which he thus describes: "In Comitatu Rodez pessimi sun* nobilitas ibi latrocinatur : nee possunt reprimi." (ap. Dulaure, c. 9.) ​PIRACY 113 Delus seems to attest such occupation as an historical fact. 1 Ae cordin<* to the legendary account, espoused both by Herodotus and by Thucydides, it was the Kretan Minos who subdued these islands and established his sons as rulers in them ; either expel- ling the Karians, or reducing them to servitude and tribute. 2 Thucydides presumes that he must of course have put down piracy, in order to enable his tribute to be remitted in safety., like the Athenians during the time of their hegemony. 3 Upon the legendary thalassocraty of Minos, I have already remarked in another place: 4 it is sufficient here to repeat, that, in the Homeric poems (long subsequent to Minos in the current chro- nology), we find piracy both frequent and held in honorable esti- mation, as Thucydides himself emphatically tells us, remarking, moreover, that the vessels of those early days were only half- decked, built and equipped after the piratical fashion, 5 in a man- ner upon which the nautical men of his time looked back with disdain. Improved and enlarged shipbuilding, and the trireme, or ship with three banks of oars, common for warlike purposes during the Persian invasion, began only with the growing skill, activity, and importance of the Corinthians, three quarters of a century after the first Olympiad. 6 Corinth, even in the Homeric poems, is distinguished by the epithet of wealthy, which it ac- quired principally from its remarkable situation on the Isthmus, and from its two harbors of Lechaeum and Kenchreae, the one on the Corinthian, the other on the Saronic gulf. It thus supplied a convenient connection between Epirus and Italy on the on* side, and the JEgean -sea on the other, without imposing upon the unskilful and timid navigator of those days the necessity of circumnavigating Peloponnesus. The extension of Grecian traffic and shipping is manifested 1 Thucyd. i. 4-8. rf/f vvv 8 Herodot. i. 1 7 1 ; Thucyd. i. 4-8. Isokrates (Panathenaic. p. 241) takes credit to Athens for having finally expelled the Karians oat of these islands at the time of the Ionic emigration. 3 Thucyd. i. 4. TO re tyaTinbv uf etxdf, Kadgpei. IK. rye &akdaar)f if laov r/6vva,To, TOV Tuf Trpoaodovg <uuP.Xov ievai O.VTU, 4 Sec the preceding volume of this History, Chap. xii. p. 227. 5 Thucyd. i. 10. rci Tra/laiui rpoTw /.yarpftij-repov TrapeoufvaauEva. 6 Thucyd. i. 13. vol. ii. 8oc. ​114 HISTORY OF GREECE. by a comparison of the Homeric with the Hesiodic poems ; in respect to knowledge of places and countries, the latter being probably referable to dates between B. c. 740 and B. c. 640. In Homer, acquaintance is shown (the accuracy of such acquaint- ance, however, being exaggerated by Strabo and other friendly critics) with continental Greece and its neighboring islands, with Krete and the principal islands of the ^Egean, and with Thrace, the Troad, the Hellespont, and Asia Minor between Paphlagonia northward and Lykia southward. The Sikels are mentioned in the Odyssey, and Sikania in the last book of that poem, but no- thing is said to evince a knowlege of Italy or the realities of the western world. Libya, Egypt, and Phoenike, are known by name and by vague hearsay, but the Nile is only mentioned as " the river Egypt :" while the Euxine sea is not mentioned at all. 1 In the Hesiodic poems, on the other hand, the Nile, the Ister, the Phasis, and the Eridanus, are all specified by name ; a Mount ^iEtna, and the island of Ortygia near to Syracuse, the Tyrrhenians and Ligurians in the west, and the Scythians in the north, were also noticed. 3 Indeed, within forty years after the first Olympiad, the cities of Korkyra and Syracuse were founded from Corinth, the first of a numerous and powerful series of colonies, destined to impart a new character both to the south of Italy and to Sicily. In reference to the astronomy and physics of the Homeric Greek, it has already been remarked that he connected together the sensible phenomena which form the subject matter of these sciences by threads of religious and personifying fancy, to which the real analogies among them were made subordinate ; and that these analogies did not begin to be studied by themselves, apart 1 See Voelcker, Homerische Geographic, ch. iii. sect. 55-63. He has brought to bear much learning and ingenuity to identify the places visited by Odysseus with real lands, but the attempt is not successful. Compare also Ukert, Horn. Geog. vol. i. p. 14, and the valuable treatises of J. H Voss, Alte Weltkunde, annexed to the second volume of his Kritische Blat- ter (Stuttgart, 1828), pp. 245-413. Voss is the father of just viers respect- ing Homeric geography.

• Hesiod. Theog. 338-340.
• Hesiod. Theogon. 1016; Hesiod. Fragm. 190-194, ed. Gottling; Strabo,

i. p. 16; vii. p. 300. Compare Ukert, Geographic der Griechcn und Homer, 1 t>. 37. ​HOMERIC ASTRONOMY. HJ from the religious element by which they had been at first over- laid, until the age of Thales, coinciding as that period did with the increased opportunities for visiting Egypt and the inte- rior of Asia. The Greeks obtained access in both of these coun- tries to an enlarged stock of astronomical observations, to the use of the gnomon, or sundial, 1 and to a more exact determination of the length of the solar year, 2 than that which served as the 1 The Greeks learned from the Babylonians, TTO^OV nal yvufiova KOI r<J 6i'uKai6eaa pipea rr/f Jjueprjf (Herodot. ii. 109). In my first edition, I had interpreted the word xitf.ov in Herodotus erroneously. I now believe it to mean the same as horologium, the circular plate upon which the vertical gnomon projected its shadow, marked so as to indicate the hour of the day, twelve hours between sunrise and sunset: see Ideler, Handbuch der Chro- nologic, vol. i. p. 233. Respecting the opinions of Thales, see the same work, part ii. pp. 18-57 ; Plutarch, de Placit. Philosopher, ii. c. 12; Aristot. de Coelo, ii. 13. Costard, Rise and Progress of Astronomy among the Ancients, p. 99. 2 We have very little information respecting the early Grecian mode of computing time, and we know that though all the different states computed by lunar periods, yet most, if not all, of them had different names of months as well as different days of beginning and ending the!/ months. All their immediate computations, however, were made by months : the lunar period was their immediate standard of reference for determining their festivals, and for other purposes, the solar period being resorted to only as a correc- tive, to bring the same months constantly into the same seasons of the year. Their original month had thirty days, and was divided into three decades, as it continued to be during the times of historical Athens (Hesiod. Opp. Di. 766). In order to bring this lunar period more nearly into harmony with the sun, they intercalated every year an additional month : so that their years included alternately twelve months and thirteen months, each month of thirty days. This period. was called a Dietcris, sometimes a Trieteris. Solon is said to have first introduced the fashion of months differing in length, varying alternately from thirty to twenty-nine days. It appears, how- ever, that Herodotus had present to his mind the Dieteric cycle, or years alternating between thirteen months and twelve months (each month of thirty days), and no other (Herodot. i. 32; compare ii. 104). As astrono- mical knowledge improved, longer and more elaborate periods were calcu- lated, exhibiting a nearer correspondence between an integral number of lunations and an integral number of solar years. First, we find a period of four years ; next, the Octaeteris. or period of eight years, or seventy -nine lunar months; lastly, the Metonic period of nineteen years, or 235 lunar months. How far any of these larger periods were ever legally authorized, or brought into civil usage, even at Athens, is matter of much doubt. See Ideler, Uber die Astronomischen Beobachtungen der Alten, pp. 1 75-195 j Macrobius, Saturnal. i. 13. ​116 HISTORY OF GREECE. basis of their various lunar periods. It is pretended that Thali?* was the first who predicted an eclipse of the sun, not, indeed, accurately, but with large limits of error as to the time of its occurrence, and that he also possessed so profound an acquaint- ance with meteorological phenomena and probabilities, as to be able to foretell an abundant crop of olives for the coming year, and to realize a large sum of money by an olive speculation. 1 From Thales downward we trace a succession of astronomical and physical theories, more or less successful, into which I do not intend here to enter : it is sufficient at present to contrast the father of the Ionic philosophy with the times preceding him, and to mark the first.commencement of scientific prediction among the Greeks, however imperfect at the outset, as distinguished from the inspired dicta of prophets or oracles, and from those special signs of the purposes of the gods, which formed the habit- ual reliance of the Homeric man. 9 We shall see these two modes of anticipating the future, one based upon the philosophical, the other upon the religious appreciation of nature, running simultaneously on throughout Grecian history, and sharing be- tween them in unequal portions the empire of the Greek mind ; the former acquiring both greater predominance and wider appli- cation among the intellectual men, and partially restricting, but never abolishing, the spontaneous employment of the latter among the vulgar. Neither coined money, nor the art of writing, 3 nor painting, nor sculpture, nor imaginative architecture, belong to the Ho- meric and Hesiodic times. Such rudiments of arts, destined ultimately to acquire so great a development in Greece, as may have existed in these early days, served only as a sort of nucleus to the fancy of the poet, to shape out for himself the fabulous 1 Herodot. i. 74 ; Aristot. Polit. i. 4, 5.

• Odyss. iii. 173.

'H reoficv 6e &ebv <j>aivetv Tepctf aiirup 6y' ijulv Aetff, Kal j/vu-yci Tre/iayof jiiaov ttf TZvfioiav Tepveiv, etc. Compare Odysfc. xx. 100; Iliad, i. 62; Enrip. Suppl. 216-230. 3 The af/fiara Zvypti mentioned in the Iliad, v:. 168, if they prove any- thing, are rather an evidence against, than for, the sxistence of alphabetical writing at the times when the Iliad was composed ​EPIC P02TRY. 117 f creations ascribed to Hephaestus or Daedalus. No statues of the god?, not even of wood, are mentioned in the Homeric poems. All the many varieties, in Grecian music, poetry, and dancing, the former chiefly borrowed from Lydia and Phrygia, date from a period considerably later than the first Olympiad : Ter- pander, the earliest musician whose date is assigned, and the in- ventor of the harp with seven strings instead of that with four strings, does not come until the 26th Olympiad, or 676 B. c. : the poet Archilochus is nearly of the same date. The iambic and elegiac metres the first deviations from the primitive epic strain and subject do not reach up to the year 700 B. c. It is this epic poetry which forms at once both the undoubted prerogative and the solitary jewel of the earliest era of Greece. Of the many epic poems which existed in Greece during the eight century before the Christian era, none have been preserved except the Iliad and Odyssey : the -ZEthiopis of Arktinus, the Ilias Minor of Lesches, the Cyprian Verses, the Capture of CEchalia, the Returns of the Heroes from Troy, the Thebai's and the Epigoni, several of them passing in antiquity under the name of Homer, have all been lost. But the two which re- main are quite sufficient to demonstrate in the primitive Greeks, a mental organization unparalleled in any other people, and pow- ers of invention and expression which prepared, as well as fore- boded, the future eminence of the nation in all the various de- partments to which thought and language can be applied. Great as the power of thought afterwards became among the Greeks, their power of expression was still greater : in the former, other nations have built upon their foundations and surpassed them, in the latter, they still remained unrivalled. It is not too much to say that this flexible, emphatic, and transparent character of the language as an instrument of communication, its perfect aptitude for narrative and discussion, as well as for stirring all the veins of human emotion without ever forfeiting that character of simplicity which adapts it to all men and all times, may be traced mainly to the existence and the wide-spread influence of the Iliad and Odyssey. To us, these compositions are interesting as beautiful poems, depicting life and manners, and unfolding cer- tain types of character with the utmost vivacity and artlessness : to their original hearer, they possessed all these sources of attrac ​ HISTORY OF GREECE. I tion, together with others more powerful still, to which we are now strangers. Upon him, they bore with the full weight and solemnity of history and religion combined, while the charm of the poetry was only secondary and instrumental. The poet was i',hen the teacher and preacher of the community, not simply the amuser of their leisure hours : they looked to him for revelations

f the unknown past and for expositions of the attributes and

dispensations of the gods, just as they consulted the prophet for his privileged insight into the future. The ancient epic com- prised many different poets and poetical compositions, which ful- filled this purpose with more or less completeness : but it is the exclusive prerogative of the Iliad and Odyssey, that, after the minds of men had ceased to be in full harmony with their original design, they yet retained their empire by the mere force of secon- dary excellences : while the remaining epics though serving as food for the curious, and as storehouses for logographers, tragedians, and artists never seem to have acquired veiy wide popularity even among intellectual Greeks. I shall, in the succeeding chapter, give some account of the epic cycle, of its relation to the Homeric poems, and of the general evidences respecting tho lst*-er, both as to antiquity and authorshin. CHAPTER GRECIAN EPIC. -HOMERIC POF-AfS. AT the head of the once abundant epical compositions of Greece, most of them unfortunately lost, stand the Iliad and Odyssey, with the immortal name of Homer attAched to each of them, embracing separate portions of the comprehensive legend of Troy. They form the type of what may be called the heroic epic of the Greeks, as distinguished from the gene- alogical, in which latter species some of the Hesiodic poems the Catalogue of AY omen, the Eoiai, and the ​DIDACTIC HEXAMETER POETRY. il9 stood conspicuous. Poems of the Homeric character (if so it may be called, though the expresssion is very indefinite,) being confined to one of the great events, or great personages of Gre- cian legendary antiquity, and comprising a limited number of characters, all contemporaneous, made some approach, more or less successful, to acertain poetical unity ; while the Hesiodic poems, tamer in their spirit, and unconfined both as to time and as to persons, strung together distinct events without any obvious view to concentration of interest, without legitimate beginning or end. 1 Between these two extremes there were many gradations : biographical poems, such as the Herakleia, or Thesei's, recounting all the principal exploits performed by one single hero, present a character intermediate between the two, but bordering more closely on the Hesiodic, Even the hymns to the gods, which pass under the name of Homer, are epical fragments, narrating particular exploits or adventures of the god commemorated. Both the didactic and the mystico-religious poetry of Greece began in Hexameter verse, the characteristic and consecrated measure of the epic :' 2 but they belong to a different species, and burst out from a different vein in the Grecian mind. It seems to have been the more common belief among the historical Greeks, that such mystic effusions were more ancient than their narrative poems, and that Orpheus, MUSJBUS, Linus, Olen, Pamphus, and even Hesiod, etc., etc., the reputed composers of the former, were of earlier date than Homer. But there is no evidence to sustain this opinion, and the presumptions are all against it. Those com- positions, which in the sixth century before the Christian era passed under the name of Orpheus and Musa3us, seem to have been unquestionably post-Homeric, nor can we even admit the modified conclusion of Hermann, Ulrici, and others, that the mystic poetry as a genus (putting aside the particular composi- tions falsely ascribed to Orpheus and others) preceded in order of time the narrative. 3 1 Aristot. Poet. c. 17-37. He points out and explains the superior stnic ture of the Iliad and Odyssey, as compared with the semi Homeric and bio graphical poems : but he takes no notice of the Hesiodic, or genealogical. 'Aristot. Poetic, c. 41. He considers the Hexameter to be the natural measure of narrative poetry : any other would be unseemly. 3 Ulrici, Geschichte dcs Griechischen Epos, 5te Vorlesung, pp. 96-1^ G. Hermann, Ueber Homer und Sappho, in his Opuscula, torn, vi ~ e . 8'. ​120 HlLr^'liY OF GREECE. Besides: the Iliad and Odyssey, we make out the titles of about thirty lost epic poems, sometimes with a brief hint of their contents. Concerning the legen 1 of Troy there were five : the Cyprian Verses, the ./Ethiopia, and the Capture of Troy, both ascribed to Arktinus ; the lesser Iliad, ascribed to Lesches ; the Returns (of the Heroes from Troy), to which the name of Hagias of Troezen is attached ; and the Telegonia, by Eugammon, a continuation of the Odyssey. Two poems, the Thebai's and the Epigoni (per- haps two parts of one and the same poem) were devoted to the legend of Thebes, the two sieges of that city by the Argeians. Another poem, called OEdipodia, had for its subject the tragical destiny of CEdipus and his family ; and perhaps that which is cited as Europia, or verses on Europa, may have comprehended the tale of her brother Kadmus, the mythical founder of Thebes. 1 The exploits of Herakles were celebrated in two compositions, ?ach called Herakleia, by Kinaethon and Pisander, probably also in many others, of which the memory has not been preserved. The capture of QEchalia, by Herakles, formed the subject of a separate epic. Two other poems, the JEgimius and the Minyas, are supposed to have been founded on other achievements of this hero, the effective aid which he lent to the Dorian king JEgl- mius against the Lapithas, his descent to the under-world for the purpose of rescuing the imprisoned Theseus, and his conquest of the city of the Minyae, the powerful Orchomenus. 2 Other epic poems the Phoronis, the Danai's, the Alkmaeonis, the Atthis, the Amazonia we know only by name, and can just guess obscurely at their contents so far as the name indicates. 3 The superior antiquity of Orpheus as compared with Homer passed as a received position to the classical Romans (Horat. Art. Poet. 392). 1 Respecting these lost epics, see Diintzer, Collection of the Fragmenta Epicor. Grsecorum ; Wiillner, De Cyclo Epico, pp. 43-66 ; and Mr. Pynes Clinton's Chronology, vol. iii. pp. 349-359. 1 Welcker, Der Epische Kyklus, pp. 256-266 ; Apollodor. ii. 7, 7 ; Diodoi iv. 37 ; O. Mailer, Dorians, i. 28. 3 Welcker (Der Epische Kyklus, p. 209) considers the Alkmseonis as the same with the Epigoni, and the Atthis of Hegesinous the same with the Amazonia: in Suidas (v. 'Opqpof) the latter is among the poems ascribed to Homer. Leutsch (Thehaidos Cyclic Reliquiae, pp. 12-14) views the Thebats and the Epigoni as different parts of the same poem. ​GKECIAN EPIC. 121 The Titanomachia, the Gigantomachia, and the Corinthiaca, three compositions all ascribed to Eumelus, afford by means of their titles an idea somewhat clearer of the matter which they comprised. The Theogony ascribed to Hesiod still exists, though partially corrupt and mutilated : but there seem to have been other poems, now lost, of the like import and title. Of the poems composed in the Hesiodic style, diffusive and full of genealogical detail, the principal were, the Catalogue of Women and the Great Eoiai ; the latter of which, indeed, seems to have been a continuation of the former. A large number of the celebrated women of heroic Greece were commemorated in these poems, one after the other, without any other than an arbi- trary bond of connection. The Marriage of Keys, the Me- lanipodia, and a string of fables called Astronomia, are farther ascribed to Hesiod : and the poem above mentioned, called JEgi- mius, is also sometimes connected with his name, sometimes with that of Kerkops. The Naupaktian Verses (so called, probably, from the birthplace of their author), and the genealogies of Kinaethon and Asius, were compositions of the same rambling character, as far as we can judge from the scanty fragments re- maining. 1 The Orchomenian epic poet Chersias, of whom two lines only are preserved to us by Pausanias, may reasonably be referred to the same category. 2 The oldest of the epic poets, to whom any date, carrying with it the semblance of authority, is assigned, is Arktinus of Miletus, who is placed by Eusebius in the first Olympiad, and by Suidas in the ninth. Eugammon, the author of the Telegonia, and the latest of the catalogue, is placed in the fifty-third Olympiad, B. c. 566. Between these two we find Asius and Lesches, about the thirtieth Olympiad, a time when the vein of the ancient epic was drying up, and when other forms of poetry elegiac, iambic, lyric, and choric had either already arisen, or were on the point of arising, to compete with it. 3 J See the Fragments of Hesiod, Eumelus, Kinsethon, and Asius, in the collections of Marktscheffel, Diintzer, Gottling, and Gaisford. I have already, in going over the ground of Grecian legend, referred to all these lost poems, in their proper places.

• Pausan. ix. 38, 6 ; Plutarch, Sept. Sap. Conv. p. 156.

3 See Mr. Clinton's Fasti Hellenici, about the date of Arktinus, vcl i. p. S50 VOL. II. 6 ​122 HISTORY OF GREECE. It has already been stated in a former chapter, that in the early commencements of prose-writing, Hekatseus, Pherekydes, and ether logographers, made it their business to extract from tho ancient fables something like a continuous narrative, chronolog- ically arranged. It was upon a principle somewhat analogous that the Alexandrine literati, about the second century before the Christian era, 1 arranged the multitude of old epic poets into a series founded on the supposed order of time in the events nar- rated, beginning with the intermarriage of Uranus and Gse, and the Theogony, and concluding with the death of Odysseus by the hands of his son Telegonus. This collection passed by the name of the Epic Cycle, and the poets, whose compositions were embodied in it, were termed Cyclic poets. Doubtless, the epical treasures of the Alexandrine library were larger than had ever before been brought together and submitted to men both of learning and leisure : so that multiplication of such compositions in the same museum rendered it advisable to establish some fixed order of perusal, and to copy them in one corrected and uniform edition. 2 It pleased the critics to determine precedence, neither 1 Perhaps Zcnodotus, the superintendent of the Alexandrine library under Ptolemy Philadelphia, in the third century u. c. : there is a Scholion on Plautus, published not many years ago by Osann, and since more fully by Kitschl, " Caecius in commento Comcediarum Aristophanis in Pluto, Alexander ./Etolus, et Lycophron Chalcidensis, et Zenodotus Ephesius, im- pulsu regis Ptolemsei, Philadelphi cognomento, artis poetices libros in unum collegerunt et in ordinem redegerunt. Alexander tragcedias, Lycophrou comoedias, Zenodotus vero Homeri poemata et rcliquorum illustrium poet- arum." See Lange. Ueber die Kyklischen Dichtcr, p. 56 (Mainz. 1837); Wclcker, Der Epische Kyklas, p. 8 ; Ritschl, Die Alexandrinischen Biblio- thcken, p. 3 (Breslau, 1838). Lange disputes the sufficiency of this passage as proof that Zcnodotus was the framer of the Epic Cycle : his grounds are, however, unsatisfactory to me.

• That there existed a cyclic copy or edition of the Odyssey (ff KVK%,IKTI) is

proved by two passages in the Scholia (xvi. 195; xvii. 25), with Boeckh's remark in Buttmann's edition : this was the Odyssey copied or edited along with the other poems of the cycle. Our word to edit or edition suggests ideas not exactly suited to tho proceedings of the Alexandrine library, in which we cannot expect to find anything like what is now called pvUication. That magnificent establish- ment, possessing a large collection of epical manuscripts, and ample means of every kind at command, would naturally desire to have these compos! ​EPIC CYCLE. 12J5 by antiquity nor by excellence of the compositions themselves, but by the supposed sequence of narrative/ so that the whole taken together constituted a readable aggregate of epical an- tiquity. Much obscurity 1 exists, and many different opinions have been expressed, respecting this Epic Cycle : I view it, not as an ex- clusive canon, but simply as an all-comprehensive classification, with a new edition founded thereupon. It would include all the epic poems in the library older than the Telegonia, and apt for continuous narrative ; it would exclude only two classes, first, the recent epic poets, such as Panyasis and Antimachus ; next, the genealogical and desultory poems, such as the Catalogue of Women, the Eoiai, and others, which could not be made to fit in to any chronological sequence of events. 2 Both the Iliad and tions put in order and corrected by skilful hands, and then carefully copied for the use of the library. Such copy constitutes the cyclic edition : they might perhaps cause or permit duplicates to be made, but the endoaii; or edition was complete without them. 1 Respecting the great confusion in which the Epic Cycle is involved, sec the striking declaration of Buttmann, Addenda ad Scholia in Odysseum, p 575 : compare the opinions of the different critics, as enumerated at the end of Welcker's treatise, Episch. Kyk. pp. 420-453. 2 Our information respecting the Epic Cycle is derived from Eutychius Proclus. a literary man of Sicca during the second century of the Christian era, and tutor of Marcus Antoninus (Jul. Capitolin. Vit. Marc. c. 2), not from Proclus, called Diadochus, the new- Platonic philosopher of the fifth century, as Heyne, Mr. Clinton, and others have imagined. The fragments from his work called Chrestomathia, give arguments of several of the lost cyclic poems connected with the Siege of Troy, communicating the import ant fact that the Iliad and Odyssey were included in the cycle, and giving the following description of the principle upon which it was arranged : Aiahafipuvfi 6e irepi TOV fa-yo/ievov ITUK.OV KVK^OV, df up^e^at fj.lv IK rjyj Oijdvov Kai Tf/f 6/j.o^.oyovfj.evrif /ufeuc KOI TreparovTai 6 Kt'/c/lof, IK diaQopuv ITOIIJTUV ffv/jtir/iTipovftEvof, fJ.%P l T W uirofluaeuc 'Qd Aeyei 6e (if TOV F.IUKOV KVK^OV TO. xoif]fj.aTa dtaau&Tai KOI &7ai rotf 7ro^.Ao?f oi>x OVTU dtii TTJV apeTjjv, wf dia TTJV aKO/,ov9iav T ui- iv aiiTij Trpayndruv (ap. Photium, cod. 239). This much-commented passage, while it clearly marks out the cardinal principle of the Epic Cycle (uKoXovdia Trpaypdruv), neither affirms nor de- nies anything respecting the excellence of the constituent poems. Proclus speaks of the taste common in his own time (anovdu&-at rol<; 7ro/U.oZf): there was not much relish in his time for these poems as such, hnt people ​124 HISTORY OF GREECE. the Odyssey were comprised in the Cycle, so that the denomin.v tion of cyclic poet did not originally or designedly carry with it any association of contempt But as the great and capital poems were chiefly spoken of by themselves, or by the title of their own separate authors, so the general name of poets of the Cycle came gradually to be applied only to the worst, and thus to imply vulgarity or common-place ; the more so, as many of the inferior compositions included in the collection seem to have been anony- mous, and their authors in consequence describable only under some such common designation as that of the cyclic poets. It is in this manner that we are to explain the disparaging sentiment connected by Horace and others with the idea of a cyclic writer, though no such sentiment was implied in the original meaning of the Epic Cycle. The poems of the Cycle were thus mentioned in contrast and antithesis with Homer, 1 though originally the Iliad and Odyssey were much interested in the sequence of epical events. The abstracts which he himself drew up in the form of arguments of several poems, show that he adapted himself to this taste. We cannot collect from his words tha<; he intended to express any opinion of his own respecting the goodness or bad- ness of the cyclic poems. 1 The gradual growth of a contemptuous feeling towards the scn'ptor cyclicus (Horat. Ars. Poetic. 136), which was not originally implied in the name, is well set forth by Lange (Ueber die Kyklisch. Dicht. pp. 53-56). Both Lange (pp. 36-41 ), however, and Ulrici (Geschichte des Griech. Epos, 9te Vorles. p. 418) adopt another opinion with respect to the cycle, which I think unsupported and inadmissible, that the several constituent poems were not received into it entire (i. e. with only such changes as were requi- site for a corrected text), but cut down and abridged in such manner as to produce an exact continuity of narrative. Lange even imagines that the cyclic Odyssey was thus dealt with. But there seems no evidence to coun- tenance this theory, which would convert the Alexandrine literati from critics into logographers. That the cyclic Iliad and Odyssey were the same in the main (allowing for corrections of text) as the common Iliad and Odyssey, is shown by the fact, that Proclus merely names them in the series without giving any abstract of their contents : they were too well known to render such a process necessary. Nor does either the language of Proclus, or that of Caecins as applied to Zenodotus, indicate any transformation applied to the poets whose works are described to have been brought together and put into a certain order. The hypothesis of Lange is founded upon the idea that the (aiu%ov&ia irpayu'iTur) continuity of narrated events must necessarily have been exact ​WHAT THE EPIC CYCLE. 125 had both been included among them : and this alteration of the meaning of the word has given birth to a mistake as to the pri- mary purpose of the classification, as if it had been designed espe- cially to part off the inferior epic productions from Homer. But while some critics are disposed to distinguish the cyclic poets too pointedly from Homer, I conceive that Welcker goes too much into the other extreme, and identifies the Cycle too closely with that poet. He construes it as a classification deliberately framed to comprise all the various productions of the Homeric epic, with its unity of action and comparative paucity, both of persons and adventures, as opposed to the Hesiodic epic, crowded with separate persons and pedigrees, and destitute of central action as well as of closing catastrophe. This opinion does, indeed, coincide to a great degree with the fact, inasmuch as few of the Hesiodic epics appear to have been included in the Cycle : to say that none were included, would be too much, for we cannot venture to set aside either the Theogony or the JEgimius ; but we may account for their absence perfectly well without supposing any design to exclude them, for it is obvious that their rambling character (like that of the Metamorphoses of Ovid) forbade the -possibility of interweaving them in any continuous series. Con- tinuity in the series of narrated events, coupled with a certain degree of antiquity in the poems, being the principle on which the arrangement called the Epic Cycle was based, the Hesiodic poems generally were excluded, not from any preconceived in- tention, but because they could not be brought into harmony with such orderly reading. What were the particular poems which it comprised, we can- not now determine with exactness. Wclcker arranges them as and without break, as if the whole Constituted one work. But this would not be possible, let the framers do what they might : moreover, in the attempt, the individuality of all the constituent poets must have been sacrificed, in each manner that it would be absurd to discuss their separate merits. The continuity of narrative in the Epic Cycle could not have been more than approximate, as complete as the poems composing it would admit: nevertheless, it would be correct to say that the poems were arranged in series upon this principle and upon no other. The librarians might have arranged in like manner the vast mass of tragedies in their possession (if they had chosen to do so) upon the principle of sequence in the subjects had they done so, the series would have formed a Ti-ugic C ; jik. ​126 HISTORY OF GREECE. follows : Titanomuchia, DanaVs, Amazonia (or Atthis), OEdipo- dia, Thebai's (or Expedition of Amphiaraus), Epigoni (or Alk- maeonis), Minyas (or Phokai's), Capture of CEchalia, Cyprian Verses, Iliad, .^Ethiopis, Lesser Iliad, Iliupersis or the Taking of Troy, Returns of the Heroes, Odyssey, and Telegonia. Wuell- ner, Lange, and Mr. Fynes Clinton enlarge the list of cyclic poems still farther. 1 But all such reconstructions of the Cycle are conjectural and destitute of authority : the only poems which we can affirm on positive grounds to have been comprehended in it, are, first, the series respecting the heroes of Troy, from the Cypria to the Telegonia, of which Proclus has preserved the arguments, and which includes the Iliad and Odyssey, next, the old Thebai's, which is expressly termed cyclic, 2 in order to dis- tinguish it from the poem of the same name composed by Anti- machus. In regard to other particular compositions, we have no evidence to guide us, either for admission or exclusion, except our general views as to the scheme upon which the Cycle was framed. If my idea of that scheme be correct, the Alexandrine critics arranged therein all their old epical treasures, down to the Telegonia, the good as well as the bad ; gold, silver, and iron, provided only they could be pieced in with the narrative^ series. But I cannot venture to include, as Mr. Clinton does, the Europia, the Phoronis, and other poems of which we know only the names, because it is uncertain whether their contents were such as to fulfil their primary condition : nor can I concur with him in thinking that, where there were two or more poems of the same title and subject, one of them must necessarily have been adopted into the Cycle to the exclusion of the others. There may have been two Theogonies, or two Herakleias, both compre- hended in the Cycle ; the purpose being (as I before remarked), not to sift the better from the. worse, but to determine some fixed order, convenient for reading and reference, amidst a multiplicity of scattered compositions, as the basis of a new, entire, and cor- rected edition. 1 Welckcr, Der Epische Kyklus, pp. 37-41 ; Wuellncr, De Cjclo Epico, p. 43, seq. ; Lange, Ucber die Kyklischcn Dichter, p. 47 ; Clinton, Fasti Hel- lenici, vol. i. p. 349.

• Schol Pindar. Olymp. vi. 26 ; Athenic. xi. p. 405. ​HOMER. 127

Whatever may have been the principle on which the cyclic poems were originally strung together, they are all now lost, except those two unrivalled diamonds, whose brightness, dim- ming all the rest, has alone sufficed to confer imperishable glory even upon the earliest phase of Grecian life. It has been the natural privilege of the Iliad and Odyssey, from the rise of Grecian philology down to the present day, to provoke an in- tense curiosity, which, even in the historical and literary days of Greece, there were no assured facts to satisfy. These composi- tions are the monuments of an age essentially religious and poet- ical, but essentially also unphilosophical, unreflecting, and unre- cording : the nature of the case forbids our having any authentic transmitted knowledge respecting such a period ; and the lesson must be learned, hard and painful though it be, that no imaginable reach of critical acumen will of itself enable us to discriminate fancy from reality, in the absence of a tolerable stock of evidence. After the numberless comments and acrimonious controversies l to which the Homeric poems have given rise, it can hardly be said that any of the points originally doubtful have obtained a solution such as to command universal acquiescence. To glance at all these controversies, however briefly, would far transcend the limits of the present work ; but the most abridged Grecian history would be incomplete without some inquiry respecting the Poet (so the Greek critics in their veneration denominated Homer), and the productions which pass now, or have heretofore passed, under his name. Who or what was Homer? What date is to be assigned. to him ? What were his compositions ? A person, putting these questions to Greeks of different towns and ages, would have obtained answers widely discrepant and contradictory. Since the invaluable labors of Aristarchus and 1 It is a memorable illustration of t?iat bitterness which has so much dis- graced the controversies of literary men in all ages (I fear, we can make no exception), when we find Pausanias saying that he had examined into the ages of Hesiod and Homer with the most laborious scrutiny, but that he knew too well the calumnious dispositions of contemporary critics and poets, to declare what conclusion he had come to (Pans. ix. 30,2) : Hepl 6e 'HaiodoM re jj^iKiaf Kal 'O/n^pov, n-oTi.viTpa.yfj.ovqaavTi ff rd uKpifieaTarov ov fioi ypdfyetv ij6i) fyv, ixiaTanevu rb ^ikainov uAAwi> re Kal oi>% rjKiara oaai /car' /ie sirl rtitv ETTUV Ka&iaTJ]KGav. ​128 HISTORY OF GREECE. the other Alexandrine critics on the text of the Iliad and Odya- sey, it has, indeed, been customary to regard those two (putting aside the Hymns, and a few other minor poems) as being the only genuine Homeric compositions : and the literary men called Chorizontes, or the Separators, at the head of whom were Xenon and Hellanikus, endeavored still farther to reduce the number by disconnecting the Iliad and Odyssey, and pointing out that both could not be the work of the same author. Throughout the whole course of Grecian antiquity, the Iliad and the Odys- sey, and the Hymns, have been received as Homeric : but if we go back to the time of Herod 5tus, or still earlier, we find that several other epics also were ascribed to Homer, and there were not wanting ' critics, earlier than the Alexandrine age, who regarded the whole Epic Cycle, together with the satirical poem called Margites, the Batrachomyomachia, and other smaller pieces, as Homeric works. The cyclic Theba'is and the Epigoni (whether they be two separate poems, or the latter a second part of the former) were in early days currently ascribed to Homer: the same was the case with the Cyprian Verses : some even attri- buted to him several other poems, 2 the Capture of CEchalia, the Lesser Iliad, the PhokaVs, and the Amazonia. The title of the poem called Theba'is to be styled Homeric, depends upon evi- dence more ancient than any which can be produced to authenti- cate the Iliad and Odyssey : for Kallinus, the ancient elegiac poet (B. c. 640), mentioned Homer as the author of it, and his opinion was shared by many other competent judges. 3 From the 1 See the extract of Proclus, in Photius Cod. 239.

• Suidas, v. "Ofiypof, Eustath. ad Iliad, ii. p. 330.

3 Pausan. ix. 9, 3. The name of Kallinus in that passage seems certainly correct: T& 61 tiry ravra (the ThebaYs) Ka/l/ltvof, u(f>iKOfievof O.VTUV if uvr/ftriv, <j>rjaev 'Ofiripav Tdv troiijaavTa elvai KaA/Uvu 6e TroA/lot re nal ul-ioi ?i6yov Kara TOVTU lyvuoav. 'Eyu 6e rr/v TTOiTjffiv TO.VTTJV /J.ETU ye 'I/Uu- 5a Kal 'Qdvaoeiav kiraivu ivikiara. To the same purpose the author of the Certamen of Hesiod and Homer, and the pseudo- Herodotus (Vit. Homer, c. 9). The ' /Lt<j>iapeu tfcAaaia, alluded to in Suidas as the production of Homer, may be reasonably identi- fied with the ThebaVs (Suidas, v. "O/^pof). The cyclographer Dionysius, who affirmed that Homer had lircd both in the Theban and the Trojan wars, must have recognized that poet as author of the ThebaTs ns well as of the Iliad (ap. Procl. ad Hesiod. p. 3). ​HOMER. remarkal ,le description given by Herodotus, of the expulsion of the rhapsodes from Sikyon, by the despot Kleisthenes, in the time of Solon (about B. c. 580), we may form a probable judgment that the Thebai's and the Epigoni were then rhapsodized at Sik- yon as Homeric productions. 1 And it is clear from the language Ilerodot. v. 67. Kheia&cvrjs yap 'Apyeioiai jrofafiyaaf TOVTO per, f>a- jiufiovf ETravae ev SIKVUVI uyuvifeafiai, TUV 'Ofiijpeiuv iireuv ELVSKO, OTI 'Apyeloi re /cat "Apyof TU jroA/lei iravra iifj.ve.araL TOVTO 6e, rjp&ov yap rjv Kai eari kv avTtj Ty uyopa TUV SCKVUV'MV 'AdpijOTOv TOV Ta/Utov, TOVTOV iTre&vpijGS 6 Kfatatievrjc, eovTa 'Apyelov, en(3a?ilv }K r^f x<jpi]f. Herodotus then goes on to relate how Kleisthenes carried into effect his purpose of banishing the hero Adrastus : first, he applied to the Delphian Apollo, for permission to do so directly, and avowedly ; next, on that permission being refused, he made application to the Thebans, to allow him to introduce into Sikyon their hero Mclanippus, the bitter enemy of Adrastus in the old Theban legend ; by their consent, he consecrated a chapel to Melanippus in Jie most commanding part of the Sikyonian agora, and then trani-ferred to the newly-imported hero the rites and festivals which had before been given to Adrastus. Taking in conjunction all the points of this very curious tale, I venture to think that the rhapsodes incurred the displeasure of Kleisthenes by reciting, not the Homeric Iliad, but the Homeric Thebals and Epigoni. The former does not answer the conditions of the narrative : the latter fulfils then? accurately. 1. It cannot be said, even by the utmost latitude of speech, that, in the Iliad, " Little else is sung except Argos and the Argeians," ("in illis ubique fere nonnisi Argos et Argivi cclebrantur, ") is the translation of Schweigh- hauserj : Argos is rarely mentioned in it, and never exalted into any primary importance : the Argeiwis, as inhabitants of Argos separately, are never ia ticed at all: that name is applied in the Iliad, in common with the Achceans and Danaans, only to the general body of Greeks, and even applied to them much less frequently than the name of Achceans. 2. Adrastus is twice, and only twice, mentioned in the Iliad, as master of the wonderful horse Areion, and as father-in-law of Tydens ; but lie makes no figure in the poem, and attracts no interest. Wherefore, though Kleisthenes might have been ever so much incensed against Argos and Adrastus. there seems no reason why he should have interdicted the rhapsodes from reciting the Iliad. On the other hand, the ThebaTs and Epigoni could not fail to provoke him especially. For, 1. Argos and its inhabitants were the grand subject of the poem, and the proclaimed assailants in the expedition against Thebes. Though the poem itself is lost, the first line of it has been preserved (Leutsch, Theb. Cycl Reliq. p. 5; compare Sophocles, CEd. Col. 380 with Scholia), "Apyof uetde, tieu. TTO^.V^L^IJIOV, !v$ev uv<zrff, etc. VOL. ii 6* 9oc. ​130 ins TORY OF GREECK. of Herodotus, that in his time the general opinion ascribed tc Homer both the Cyprian Verses and the Epigoni, though lie himself dissents. 1 In spite of such dissent, however, that his- torian must have conceived the names of Homer and Hesiod to be nearly coextensive with the whole of the ancient epic ; other- wise, he would hardly have delivered his memorable judgment, that they two were the framers of Grecian theogony. The many different cities which laid claim to the birth of Homer (seven is rather below the truth, and Smyrna and Chios are the most prominent among them,) is well known, and most of them had legends to tell respecting his romantic parentage, his alleged blindness, and his life of an itinerant bard, acquainted with poverty and sorrow. 2 The discrepancies of statement re- 2. Adrastus was king of Argos, and the chief of the expedition. It is therefore literally true, that Argos and tho Argeians were " the burden of the song" in these two poems. To this we may add 1. The rhapsodes would have the strongest motive to recite the Thebals nnd Epigoni at Sikyon, where Adrastus was worshipped and enjoyed so vast n popularity, and where he even attracted to himself the choric solemnities which in other towns were given to Dionysus. 2. The fleans which Kleisthenes took to get rid of Adrastus indicates a special reference to the Thebats : he invited from Thebes the hero Melanip pus, the Hector of Thebes, in that very poem. For these reasons, I think we may conclude that the 'O/w/pem i-Kij, alluded to in this very illustrative story of Herodotus, are the Thebals and the Epi- goni, not the Iliad. 1 Herodot. ii. 117 ; iv. 32. The words in which Herodotus intimates hi? own dissent from the reigning opinion, are treated as spurious by F. A. Wolf, and vindicated by Schweighhanser : whether they be admitted or not, the general currency of the opinion adverted to is equally evident. 2 The Life of Homer, which passes falsely under the name of Herodotus, contains a collection of these different stories : it is supposed to have been written about the second century after the Christian era, but the statements which it furnishes are probably several of them as old as Ephorus (compare also Proclus ap. Photium, c. 239). The belief in the blindness of Homer is doubtless of far more ancient date, since the circumstance appears mentioned in the Homeric Hymn to the Delian Apollo where the bard of Chios, in some very touching lines, recommends himself and his strains to the favor of the Delian maidens employed in the worship of Apollo. This hymn is cited by Thucydides as unquestionably authentic, and he doubtless accepted the lines as a descrip- tion of the personal condition and relations of the author of tho Iliad and ​TALES ABOUT HOMER. 131 the date of his reputed existence ai-e no less worthy of remark ; for out of the eight different epochs assigned to him, the oldest differs from the most recent by a period of four hundred and sixty years. Thus conflicting would have been the answers returned in dif- ferent portions of the Grecian world to any questions respecting the person of Homer. But there were a poetical gens (fraternity or guild) in the Ionic island of Chios, who, if the question had been put to them, wculd have answered in another manner. To them, Homer was not a mere antecedent man, of kindred nature with themselves, but a divine or semi-divine eponymus and pro- genitor, whom they worshipped in their gentile sacrifices, and in whose ascendent name and glory the individuality of every mem- ber of the gens was merged. The compositions of each separate Homerid, or the combined efforts of many of them in conjunc- tion, were the works of Homer : the name of the individual bard perishes and his authorship is forgotten, but the common gentile Odyssey (Thucyd. iii. 104) : Simonides of Keos also calls Homer a. Chian (Frag. 69, Schneidewin). There were also talcs which represented Homer as the contemporary, the cousin, and the rival in recited composition, of Hesiod, who (it was pretend- Ed) had vanquished him. See the Certamen Homeri et Hesiodi, annexed lo the works of the latter (p. 314, ed. Gottling ; and Plutarch, Conviv. Sept. Sapient, c. 10), in which also various stories respecting the Life of Homer are scattered. The emperor Hadrian consulted the Delphian oracle to know who Homer was : the answer of the priestess reported him to be a native of Ithaca, the son of Telemachus and Epikaste, daughter of Nestor (Certamen Horn, et Hes. p. 314). The author of this Certamen tells us that the author- ity of the Delphian oracle deserves implicit confluence. Hellanikus, Damastes, and Pherekydes traced both Homer and Hesiod up to Orpheus, through a pedigree of ten generations (see Sturz, Fragment. Hellanic. fr. 75-144; compare also Lobeck's remarks Aglaophamus, p. 322 on the subject of these genealogies). The computations of these authors sarlier than Herodotus are of value, because they illustrate the habits of Kind in which Grecian chronology began: the genealogy might be easily continued backward to any length in the past. To trace Homer np to Orpheus, however, would not have been consonar t to the belief of the Homerids. The contentions of the different cities which disputed for the birth of Homer, and, indeed, all the legendary anecdotes circulated in antiquity re ipecting the poet, are copiously discussed in Welcker, Der Epische Kyklos (pp. 194-199). ​132 HISTORY OF GREECE. father lives and grows in renown, from generation to genera tion, by the genius of his self-renewing sons. Such was the conception entertained of Homer by the poetical gens called Homeridae, or Homerids ; and in the general ob- ecurity of the whole case, 1 lean towards it as the most plausible conception. Homer is not only the reputed author of the various compositions emanating from the gentile members, but also the recipient of the many different legends and of the divine gene- alogy, which it pleases their imagination to confer upon him. Such manufacture of fictitious personality, and such perfect incorporation of the entities of religion and fancy with the real world, is a process familiar, and even habitual, in the retrospec- tive vision of the Greeks. 1 It is to be remarked, that the poetical gens here brought to view, the Homerids, are of indisputable authenticity. Their ex- istence and their considerations were maintained down to the historical times in the island of Chios. 2 If the Homerids were still conspicuous, even in the days of Akusilaus, Pindar, Hellani- kus, and Plato, when their productive invention had ceased, and when they had become only guardians and distributors, in com- mon with others, of the treasures bequeathed by their predeces- sors, far more exalted must their position have been three centuries before, while they were still the inspired creators of epic novelty, and when the absence of writing assured to them the undisputed monopoly of their own compositions. 3 1 Even Aristotle ascribed to Homer a divine parentage : a damsel of the isle of los, pregnant by some god, was carried off by pirates to Smyrna, at the time qf the Ionic emigration, and there gave birth to the poet (Aristotel. ap. Plutarch. Vit Homer, p. 1059). Plato seems to have considered Homer as having been an itinerant rhap- sode, poor and almost friendless (Kepubl. p. 600).

• Pindar, Nem. ii. 1, and Scholia; Akusilaus, Fragm. 31,Didot; Harpo-

kration, v. 'O^pidai ; Hellanic. Fr. 55, Didot ; Strabo, xiv. p. 645. It seems by a passage of Plato (Phsedrus, p. 252), that tho Honieridja professed to possess unpublished verses of their ancestral poet ex?} uTrodsTa. Compare Plato, Republic, p. 599, and Isocrat. Helen, p. 218.

• Nitzsch (De Historia Homeri, Fascic. 1, p. 128, Fascic. 2, p. 71), and

Ulrici (Geschichte dcr Episch. Poesie, vol. i. pp. 240-381) question the anti- quity of the Homerid gens, and limit their functions to simple reciters, deny- ing that they ever composed songi or poems of their own. Yet these <jente* ​PERSONALITY OF HOMER. 133 Homer, then, is no individual man, but the divine or heroic father (the ideas of worship and ancestry coalescing, as they constantly did in the Grecian mind) of the gentile Homerids, and he is the author of the Thebais, the Epigoni, the Cyprian Verses, the Procems, or Hymns, and other poems, in the same sense in which he is the author of the Iliad and Odyssey, as- suming that these various compositions emanate, as perhaps they may, from different individuals numbered among the Homerids. But this disallowance of the historical personality of Homer is quite distinct from the question, with which it has been often confounded, whether the Iliad and Odyssey are originally entire poems, and whether by one author or otherwise. To us, the name of Homer means these two poems, and little else : we desire to know as much as can be learned respecting their date, their original composition, their preservation, and their mode of com- munication to the public. All these questions are more or less complicated one with the other. Concerning the date of the poems, we have no other informa- tion except the various affirmations respecting the age of Homer, such as the Euneitlae, the Lykomida;, the Butadte, the Talthybiadae, the descendants of Cheiron at Pelion, etc., the Hesychidaj (Schol. Sophocl. CEdip. Col. 489), (the acknowledged parallels of the Homendae), may be surely all considered as belonging to the earliest known elements of Grecian history : rarely, at least, if ever, can such gens, with its tripartite character of civil, religious, and professional, be shown to have commenced at any recent period. And in the early times, composer and singer were one person: often at least, though probably not always, the bard combined both functions. The Homeric (loifibe sings his own compositions ; and it is reasonable to imagine that many of the early Homerids did the same. See Niebuhr. Romisch. Gesch. vol. i. p. 324 ; and the treatise, Ueber die Sikeler in der Odyssee, in the Rheinisches Museum, 1828, p. 257; and Boeckh, in the Index of Contents to his Lectures of 1834. " The sage Vyasa (observes Professor Wilson, System of Hindu Mythology, Int. p. Ixii.) is represented, not as the author, but as the arranger and com- piler of the Vedus and the Purunas. His name denotes his character, mean- ing the arranger or distributor ( Welcker gives the same meaning to the name Homer); and the recurrence of many Vyasas, many individuals who new- modelled the Hindu scriptures, has nothing in it that is improbable, except the fabulous intervals by which their labors are separated." Individual authorship and the thirst of personal distinction, are in this case also buried under one great and common name, as in tie case of Homer ​134 HISTORY OF GREECE. which differ among themselves (as I have before observed) by an interval of four hundred and sixty years, and which for the most part determine the date of Homer by reference to some other event, itself fabulous and unauthenticated, such as the Trojan w&r, the Return of the Herakleids, or the Ionic migra- tion. Krates placed Homer earlier than the Return of the Herakleids, and less than eighty years after the Trojan war: Eratosthenes put him one hundred years after the Trojan war : Aristotle, Aristarchus, and Castor made his birth contemporary with the Ionic migration, while Apollodorus brings him down to one hundred years after that event, or two hundred and forty years after the taking of Troy. Thucydides assigns to him a date much subsequent to the Trojan war. 1 On the other hand, Theopompus and Euphorion refer his age to the far more recent period of the Lydian king, Gyges, (01. 18-23, B. c. 708-688,) and put him five hundred years after the Trojan epoch. 2 What were the grounds of these various conjectures, we do not know ; though in the statements of Krates and Eratosthenes, we may pretty well divine. But the oldest dictum preserved to us re- specting the date of Homer, meaning thereby the date of the Iliad and Odyssey, appears to me at the same time the most credible, and the most consistent with the general history of the ancient epic. Herodotus places Homer four hundred years be- fore himself; taking his departure, not from any fabulous event, but from a point of real and authentic time. 3 Four centuries 1 Thucyd. i. 3.

• See the statements and citations respecting the age of Homer, collected

in Mr. Clinton's Chronology, vol. i. p. 146. He prefers the view of Aristotle, and places the Iliad and Odyssey a century earlier than I am inclined to do, 940-927 B. c. Krates, probably placed the poet anterior to the Return of the Herakleids, because the Iliad makes no mention of Dorians in Peloponnesus : lirastos- thenes may be supposed to have grounded his date on the passage of the Iliad, which mentions the three generations descended from ./Eneas. We should have been glad to know the grounds of the very low date assigned by Theopompus and Enphorion. The pseudo-Herodotus, in his life of Homer, puts the birth of the poet one hundred and sixty-eight years after the Trojan war. 1 Herodot. ii. 53. Herakleides Ponticus affirmed that Lykurgus had brought into Peloponnesus the Homeric poems, which had before been ​HOMERIC POEMS INTENDED FOR HEARERS. 135 anteiior to Herodotus would be a period commencing with 880 3. c. so that the composition of the Homeric poems would thus fall in a space between 850 and 800 B. c. We may gather from the language of Herodotus that this was his own judgment, opposed to a current opinion, which assigned the poet to an earlier epoch. To place the Iliad and Odyssey at some periods between 850 B. c. and 776 B. c., appears to me more probable than any other date, anterior or posterior, more probable than the latter, be- cause we are justified in believing these two poems to be older than Arktinus, who comes shortly after the first Olympiad ; more probable than the former, because, the farther we push the poems back, the more do we enhance the wonder of their pre- servation, already sufficiently great, down from such an age and society to the historical times. The mode in which these poems, and indeed all poems, epic as well as lyric, down to the age (probably) of Peisistratus, were circulated and brought to bear upon the public, deserves particu- lar attention. They were not read by individuals alone and apart, but sung or recited at festivals or to assembled companies. This seems to be one of the few undisputed facts with regard to the great poet : for even those who maintain that the Iliad and Odyssey were preserved by means of writing, seldom contend that they were read. In appreciating the effect of the poems, we must always take account of this great difference between early Greece and our own times, between the congregation mustered at a solemn festival, stimulated by community of sympathy, listening to a measured and musical recital from the lips of trained bards or rhapsodes, whose matter was supposed to have been inspired by the Muse, and the solitary reader, with a manuscript before him ; such manuscript being, down to a very late period in Greek literature, indifferently written, without division into parts, and without marks of punctuation. As in the case of dramatic per- unknown out of Ionia. The supposed .epoch of Lykurgus has sometimes been emplDyed to sustain the date here f ssigned to the Homeric poems ; but everything respect; ng Lykurgus is too c tubtful to serve as evidence in other Inquiries. ​13G HISTORY OF GREECE. ibrmai.ccs, in ullages, so in that of the early Grecian epic, a very large proportion of its impressive effect was derived from the talent of the reciter and the force of the general accompani ments, and would have disappeared altogether in solitary reading. Originally, the bard sung his own epical narrative, commencing with a prooemium or hymn to one of the gods : l his profession was separate and special, like that of the carpenter, the leech, or the prophet : his manner and enunciation must have required par- ticular training no less than his imaginative faculty. His charac- ter presents itself in the Odyssey as one highly esteemed ; and in the Iliad, even Achilles does not disdain to touch the lyre with his own hands, and to sing heroic deeds. 2 Not only did the Iliad and Odyssey, and the poems embodied in the Epic Cycle, produce all their impression and gain all their renown by this process of oral delivery, but even the lyric and choric poets who succeeded them were known and felt in the same way by the general public, even after the full establishment of habits of reading among lettered men. While in the case of the epic, the recitation or singing had been extremely simple, and the measure comparatively little diversified, with no other accompan- iment than that of the four-stringed harp, all the variations superinduced upon the original hexameter, beginning with the pentameter and iambus, and proceeding step by step to the com- 1 The Homeric hymns are procems of this sort, some very short, consisting only of a few lines, others of considerable length. The Hymn (or, rather, one of the two hymns) to Apollo is cited by Thueydides as the Prooem of Apollo. The Hymns to Aphrodite, Apollo, Hermes, Demeter, and Dionysus, are genuine epical narratives. Hermann (Praef. ad Hymn. p. Ixxxix.) pro- nounces the Hymn to Aphrodite to be the oldest and most genuine : portions of .the Hymn to Apollo (Herm. p. xx.) are also very old, but both that hymn and the others are largely interpolated. His opinion respecting these inter- polations, however, is disputed by Franke (Praefat. ad Hymn. Homeric, p. ix-xix.) ; and the distinction between what is genuine and what is spurious, depends upon criteria not very distinctly assignable. Compare Ulrici, Gesch, der Ep. Poes. pp. 385-391.

• Phemius, Demodokus, and the nameless bard who guarded the fidelity

of Klytaemnestra, bear out this position (Odyss. i. 155; iii. 267; viii. 490; xxi. 330; Achilles in Iliad, ix. 190). A degree of inviolability seems attached to the person of the bf rd as well M to that of the herali (Odyss. xxii. 355-357). ​SINGERS AXD RHAPSODES. 137 plicated strophes of Pindar and the tragic writers, still left the general effect of the poetry greatly dependent upon voice and accompaniments, and pointedly distinguished from mere solitary reading of the words. And in the dramatic poetry, the last in order of time, the declamation and gesture of the speaking actor alternated with the song and dance of the chorus, and with the instruments of musicians, the whole being set off by imposing visible decorations. Now both dramatic effect and song are familiar in modern times, so that every man knows the difference between reading the words and hearing them under the appro- priate circumstances : but poetry, as such, is, and has now long been, so exclusively enjoyed by reading, that it requires an espe- cial memento to bring us back to the time when the Iliad and Odyssey were addressed only to the ear and feelings of a pro- miscuous and sympathizing multitude. Readers there were none, at least until the century preceding Solon and Peisistratus : from that time forward, they gradually increased both in number and influence; though doubtless small, even in the most literary period of Greece, as compared with modern European society. So far as the production of beautiful epic poetry was concerned, however, the select body of instructed readers, furnished a less potent stimulus than the unlettered and listening crowd of the earlier periods. The poems of Chcerilus and Antimachus, towards the close of the Peloponnesian war, though admired b} erudite men, never acquired popularity ; and the emperor Ha- drian failed in his attempt to bring the latter poet into fashion at the expense of Homer. 1

Spartian. Vit. Hadrian, p. 8 : Dio Cass. Ixix. 4 : Plut. Tim. c. 36.

There are some good observations on this point in Nake's comments on Choerilus, ch. viii. p. 59 : " Habet hoc epica poesis, vera ilia, cujus perfectissimam normam agnosci- mus Homericam habet hoc proprium, ut non in possessione virorum eruditorum, sed quasi viva sit et corara populo recitanda : nt cum populo crescat, ct si populus Deorum et antiquorum heroum facinora, quod prae- cipium est epicae poeseos argumentum, audire et secum repetere dedidicerit, obmutescat. Id vero turn i'actum est in Grajcia, quum populus ea astate, quam pueritiam dicere possis, peracta, partim ad res serias tristesque, politi- cas inaxime easque multo, quam antea, impeditiores abstrahebatur : partim epicte poeseos pertaesus, ex aliis poeseos generibus, quae turn nasce- bantur, novum et diversum oblectamenti genus primo pnesagirc, sibi, deind haurire, ccepit." ​138 HISTORY OF GREECE. It will be seen by what has been here stated, that that class of men, who formed the medium of communication between the verse and the ear, were of the highest importance in the ancient world, and especially in the earlier periods of its career, the bards and rhapsodes for the epic, the singers for the lyric, the actors and singers jointly with the dancers for the chorus and drama. The lyric and dramatic poets taught with their own lips the delivery of their compositions, and so prominently did this business of teaching present itself to the view of the public, that the name Didaskalia, by which the dramatic exhibition was com monly designated, derived from thence its origin. Among the number of rhapsodes who frequented the festivals at a time when Grecian cities were multiplied and easy of access, for the recitation of the ancient epic, there must have been of course great differences of excellence ; but that the more consid- erable individuals of the class were elaborately trained and highly accomplished in the exercise of their profession, we may assume as certain. But it happens that Socrates, with his two pupils Plato and Xenophon, speak contemptuously of their merits ; and many persons have been disposed, somewhat too readily, to admit this sentence of condemnation as conclusive, without taking account of the point of view from which it was delivered. 1 These Nake remarks, too, that the " splendidissima et propria Homericse poeseos oetas, ea qua; sponte quasi sua inter populum et quasi cum populo viveret," did not reach below Peisistratus. It did not, I think, reach even so low as that period. 1 Xenoph. Memorab. iv. 2, 10 ; and Sympos. iii. 6. Oladu n ovv tdvof rfit&iurepov {laijjijduv j A^Aov yap OTI rue inrovoiai; ovr l^iaravrat. 2i) Je 2r)y(T(/</?p6ro re Kal 'Ava^tfjuvSpu KOI upyvptov, uare ovdev ae TUV TTO^OV uiuv These VTTOVOICII are the hidden meanings, or allegories, which a certain set of philosophers undertook to discover in Homer, and whi ;h the rhapsodes were no way called upon to study. The Platonic dialogue, called Ion, ascribes to Ion the double function of a rhapsode, or impressive reciter, and a critical expositor of the poet (Isokrates also indicates the same double character, in the rhapsodes of his time, Panathenaic, p. 240) ; but it conveys no solid grounds for a mean estimate of the class of rhapsodes, while it attests remarkably the striking effect produced by their recitation (c. f , p. 535). That this class of men came to combine the habit of expositor) comment on the poet with their original profession of reciting, proves the tendencies of the age ; probably, it also brought them Into rivalry with the philosophers. ​UNDESERVED CONDEMNATION OF RHAPSODLS. 139 philosophers considered Homer and other poets with a view to instruction, ethical doctrine, and virtuous practice : they analyzed the characters whom the poet described, sifted the value of the lessons conveyed, and often struggled to discover a hidden mean- ing, where they disapproved that which was apparent. When they found a man like the rhapsode, who professed to impress the Homeric narrative upon an audience, and yet either never med- dled at all, or meddled unsuccessfully, with the business of expo- sition, they treated him with contempt ; indeed, Socrates depre- ciates the poets themselves, much upon the same principle, as dealing with matters of which they could render no rational account. 1 It was also the habit of Plato and Xenophon to dis- parage generally professional exertion of talent for the purpose of gaining a livelihood, contrasting it often in an indelicate man- ner with the gratuitous teaching and ostentatious poverty of their master. But we are not warranted in judging the rhapsodes by such a standard. Though they were not philosophers or moral- ists, it was their province and it had been so, long before the philosophical point of view was opened to bring their poet home to the bosoms and emotions of an assembled crowd, and to penetrate themselves with his meaning so far as was suitable for that purpose, adapting to it the appropriate graces of action and intonation. In this their genuine task they were valuable mem- bers of the Grecian community, and seem to have possessed all the qualities necessary for success. These rhapsodes, the successors of the primitive aoedi, or bards, seem to have been distinguished from them by the discon- tinuance of all musical accompaniment. Originally, the bard sung, enlivening the song with occasional touches of the simple four-stringed harp : his successor, the rhapsode, recited, holding The grounds taken by Aristotle (Problem, xxx. 10 ; compare Aul. xx. 14) against the actors, singers, musicians, etc. of his time, are more serious, and have more the air of truth. If it be correct in Lehrs (dc Studiis Aristarchi, Diss. ii. p. 46) to identify those early glossographers of Homer, whose explanations the Alexandrine critics so severely condemned, with the rhapsodes, this only proves ths,t the rhapsodes had come to undertake a douHe duty, of which their predeoec*cr before Solon would never have dreamed. 1 riato, Apolog. Socrat. p. 22. c. 7. ​140 HISTORY OF GREECE. in his hand nothing but a branch of laurel and depending for effect upon voice and manner, a species of musical and rhythmical declamation, 1 which gradually increased in vehement 1 Aristotel. Poetic, c. 47 ; Welcker, Der Episch. Kyklos ; Ueber den Vor- trag cler Homerischen Gedichte, pp. 340-406, which collects all the facts respecting the acwli and the rhapsodes. Unfortunately, the ascertained points are very few. The laurel branch in the hand of the singer or reciter (for the two expres- sions are often confounded) seems to 1m vc been peculiar to the recitation of Homer and Hesiod (Hesiod, Thcog. 30 : Schol. ad Aristophan. Nub. 1367. Puusan. x. 7, 2). "Poemata omnc genus (says Apuleius, Florid, p. 122, Bipont.) apta virgce, lyrse, socco, cothurno." Not only Homer and Hesiod, but also Archilochus, were recited by rhap sodcs ("Athenai. xii. 620; also Plato, Legg. ii. p. 658). Consult, besides, Nitzsch. De HistorvA Homeri, Fascic. 2, p. 114, s&], respecting the rhapsodes ; and 0. MUller, History of the Literature of Ancient Greece, ch. iv. s. 3. The ideas of singing and speech are, however, often confounded, in refer ence to any verse solemnly and emphatically delivered (Thucydid. ii. 53) QuGKOvref ol irpeafivTepoi TTU/MI p <J e a & a i , "Hj EL Acjpta/cof TroAe^of nal %oi/j.o ufi 1 avrif). And the rhapsodes are said to sing Homer (Plato, Eryxias, c. 13; Hesych. v. Bpavpuvioif) ; Strabo (i. p. 18) has a good passage upon song and speech. William Grimm (Deutsche Heldensage, p. 373) supposes the ancient Ger- man heroic romances to have been recited or declaimed in a similar manner with a simple accompaniment of the harp, as the Servian heroic lays arc even at this time delivered. Fauriel also tells us, respecting the French Carlovingian Epic (Romans de Chevalerie, Revue des Deux Mondes, xiii. p. 559) : " The romances of the 12th and 13th centuries were really sung : the jongleur invited his audi encc to hear a belle chanson (fhistoire, 'lemot chanter ne manque jamais dans la formule initiale,' and it is to be understood literally: the music was simple and intermittent, more like a recitative ; the jongleur carried a rebek, or violin with three strings, an Arabic instrument ; when he wished to rest his voice, he played an air or ritournelle upon this ; he went thus about from place to place, and the romances had no existence among the people, except through the aid and recitation of these jongleurs." It appears that there had once been rhapsodic exhibitions at the festivals of Dionysus, but they were discontinued (Klearchus ap. Athenae. vii. p. 275) probabiy superseded by the dithyramb and the tragedy. The etymology of pa-fyydbs is a disputed point : Welcker traces it to pufidoi , most critics derive it from panreiv /wtdf/v, which O. Miiller explains " to denote the coupling together of verses without any considerable divisions ot pauses, the even, unbroken, continuous flow of the epic poem," as con- trasted with the Btrophic or choric periods (I c,). ​VARIATIONS IN RECITATION. 141 emphasis and gesticulation until it approached to that of the dramatic actor. At what time this change look place, or whether the two different modes of enunciating the ancient epic may for a certain period have gone on simultaneously, we have no means of determining. Hesiod receives from the Muse a branch of laurel, as a token of his ordination into their service, which marks him for a rhapsode ; while the ancient bard with his harp is still recognized in the Homeric Hymn to the Delian Apollo, as efficient and popular at the Panionic festivals in the island of Delos. 1 Perhaps the improvements made in the harp, to which three strings, in addition to the original four, were attached by Terpander (B. c. 660), and the growing complication of instru- mental music generally, may have contributed to discredit the primitive accompaniment, and thus to promote the practice of recital : the story, that Terpander himself composed music, not only for hexameter poems of his own, but also for those of Homer, seems to indicate that the music which preceded him was ceasing to find favor. 2 By whatever steps the change from the bard to the rhapsode took place, certain it is that before the time of Solon, the latter was the recognized and exclusive organ of 1 Homer, Hymn to Apoll. 1 70. The /'#a/Mc, dot<5#, op^ifyior, are con- stantly put together in that hymn : evidently, the instrumental accompani- ment was essential to the hymns at the Ionic festival. Compare also the Hymn to Hermes (430), where the function ascribed to the Muses can hardly be understood to include non-musical recitation. The Hymn to Hermes ia more recent than Terpander, inasmuch as it mentions the seven strings of the lyre, v. 50. 2 Terpandcr, see Plutarch, de Musica, c. 3-4 ; the facts respecting him are collected in Plchn's Lesbiaca, pp. 140-160; but very little can be authen ticated. Stesander at the Pythian festivals sang the Homeric battles, with a harp accompaniment of his own composition (Athense. xiv. p. 638). The principal testimonies respecting the raphsodizing of the Homeric poems at Athens, chiefly at the Panathenaic festival, are Isokrates, Pane- gyric. p. 74; Lycurgus contra Leocrat. p. 161; Plato, Hipparch. p. 228; T)iogen. Laert. Vit. Solon, i. 57. Inscriptions attest that rhapsodizing continued in great esteem, down to a late period of the historical age, both at Chios and Teos, especially the former : it was the subject of competition by trained youth, and of prizes for the victor, at periodical religious solemnities: sec Corp. Tnscript. Boeckh, No 2214-3088. ​142 HISTORY OF GREECE. the old Epic ; sometimes in short fragments before private companies, by single rhapsodes, sometimes several rhapsode* in continuous succession at a public festival. Respecting the mode in which the Homeric poems were pre- served, during the two centuries (or as some think, longer interval) between their original composition and the period shortly preceding Solon, and respecting their original composition and subsequent changes, there are wide differences of opinion among able critics. Were they preserved with or without being written ? Was the Iliad originally composed as one poem, and the Odyssey in like manner, or is each of them an aggregation of parts originally self-existent and unconnected ? Was the authorship of each poem single-headed or many-headed ? Either tacitly or explicitly, these questions have been generally coupled together and discussed with reference to each other, by inquiries into the Homeric poems ; though Mr. Payne Knight's Prolegomena have the merit of keeping them distinct. Half a century ago, the acute and valuable Prolegomena of F. A. Wolf, turning to account the Venetian Scholia which had then been recently published, first opened philosophical discussion as to the history of the Homeric text. A considerable part of that disser- tation (though by no means the whole) is employed in vindi eating the position, previously announced by Bentley, among others, that the separate constituent portions of the Iliad and Odyssey had not been cemented together into any compact body and unchangeable order until the days of Peisistratus, in the sixth century before Christ. As a step towards that conclusion, Wolf maintained that no written copies of either poem could be shown to have existed during the earlier times to which their composition is referred, and that without writing, neither the perfect symmetry of so complicated a work could have been originally conceived by any poet, nor, if realized by him, trans- mitted with assurance to posterity. The absence of easy and convenient writing, such as must be indispensably supposed for long manuscripts, among the early Greeks, was thus one of the points in Wolf's case against the primitive integrity of the Iliad and Odyssey. By Nitzsch and other leading opponents of Wolf, the connection of the one with the other seems to have been accepted as he originally put it ; and it has been considered ​HOMERIC POEMS. -WRITTEN OR UNWRITTEN. 143 incumbent on those, who defended the ancient aggregate char- acter of the Iliad and Odyssey, to maintain that they were written poems from the beginning. To me it appears that the architectonic functions ascribed by Wolf to Peisistratus and his associates, in reference to the Homeric poems, are nowise admissible. But much would undoubtedly be gained towards that view of the question, if it could be shown that, in order to controvert it, we were driven to the necessity of admitting long written poems in the ninth century before the Christian era. Few things, in my opinion, can be -aore improbable : and Mr. Payne Knight, opposed as he is to the Wolfian hypothesis, admits this no less than Wolf himself. 1 The traces of writing in Greece, even in the seventh century before the Christian era, are exceedingly trifling. We have no remain- ing inscription earlier than the 40th Olympiad, and the early inscriptions are rude and unskilfully executed : nor can we even assure ourselves whether Archilochus, Simonides of Amorgus, Kallinus, Tyrtaeus, Xanthus, and the other early elegiac and lyric 1 Knight, Prolegom. Horn. c. xxxviii-xl. "Haud tamen ullum Homeri- corum carminum exemplar Pisistrati seculo antiquius extitissc, aut sexcen- tcsimo priits anno ante C. N. scriptum fuisse, facile credam : rara enim ct pcrdifficilis crat iis temporibus scriptura ob penuriam material scribendo idonese, quum literas aut lapidibus exarare, aut tabulis ligneis aut laminis metalli alicujus insculpere oporteret Atque ideo memoriter retenta sunt, ct hajc et alia vcterum poetarum carmina, et per urbes et vicos et in principum virorum sedibus, decantata a rhapsodis. Neque mirandura est, ca per tot ssecula sic integra conservata esse, quoniam per eos tradita erant, qui ab omnibus Grsecias et coloniarum regibus et civitatibus mercede satis ampla conduct!, omnia sua studia in iis ediscendis, retinendis, et rite recitandis, conferebant." Compare Wolf, Prolegom. xxiv-xxv. The evidences of early writing among the Greeks, and of written poems even anterior to Homer, may be seen collected in Kreuser (Vorfragen ueber Homeros, pp. 127-1 59, Frankfort, 1828J. His proofs appear to me altogether inconclusive. Nitzsch maintains the same opinion (Histor. Homeri, Fasc. L sect. xi. xvii.xviii.), in my opinion, not more successfully: nor does Franz (Epigraphies Grsec. Introd. s. iv.) produce any new arguments. I do not quite subscribe to Mr. Knight's language, when he says that there is nothing wonderful in the long preservation of the Homeric poems umvritten. It is enough to maintain that the existence, and p:-actical use of Jong manuscripts, by all the rhapsodes, under the condition and circum- stances of the 8th and 9th centuries among the Greeks, would be a greatei wouder ​144 HISTORY OF GREECE. poets, committed their compositions to writing, or at what time the practice of doing so became familiar. The first positive ground, which authorizes us to presume the existence of a manu- script of Homer, is in tin; famous ordinance of Solon with regard to the rhapsodes at the Panathenaea ; but for what length of time, previously, manuscripts had existed, we are unable to say. Those who maintain the Homeric poems to have been written from the beginning, rest their case, not upon positive proofs, nor yet upon the existing habits of society with regard to poetry, for they admit generally that the Iliad and Odyssey were not read, but recited and heard, but upon the supposed necessity that there must have been manuscripts, 1 to insure the preserva- tion of the poems, the unassisted memory of reciters being neither sufficient nor trustworthy. But here we only escape a smaller difficulty by running into a greater ; for the existence of trained bards, gifted with extraordinary memory, is far less astonishing than that of long manuscripts in an age essentially non-reading and non-writing, and when even suitable instruments and materials for the process are not obvious. Moreover, there is a strong positive reason for believing that the bard was under no necessity for refreshing his memory by consulting a manu- script. For if such had been the fact, blindness would have been a disqualification for the profession, which we know that it was not ; as well from the example of Demodokus in the Odyssey, as from that of the blind bard of Chios, in the hymn to the Delian Apollo, whom Thucydides, as well as the general tenor of Grecian legend, identifies with Homer himself. 2 The author of that Hymn, be he who he may, could never have described a 1 See this argument strongly put by Nitzsch, in the prefatory remarks at the beginning of his second volume of Commentaries on the Odyssey (pp. x-xxix). He takes great pains ro discard all idea that the poems were written in order to be read. To the same purpose, Franz (Epigraphies Grjec. Introd. p. 32), who adopts Nitzsch's positions, " Audituris enim, non lecturis, carmina parabant."

• Odyss. viii. 65; Hymn, ad Apoll. 172 ; Pscudo-Herodot. Vit. Homer, c.

3 ; Thucyd. iii. 104. Various commentators on Homer imagined that, under the misfortune of Demodokus, the poet in reality described his own (Schol ad Odyss. 1.1 j Maxim. Tyr. xxxviii. 1 ). ​MEMORY OF PROFESSIONAL RECITERS. 143 man as attaining the utmost perfection in his art, if he had been conscious that the memory of the bard was only maintained by constant reference to the manuscript in his chest. Nor will it be found, after all, that the effort of memory required, either from bards or rhapsodes, even for the longest of these old Epic poems, though doubtless great, was at all super- human. Taking the case with reference to the entire Iliad and Odyssey, we know that there were educated gentlemen at Athens who could repeat both poems by heart : l but in the professional 1 Xenoph. Sympos. iii. 5. Compare, respecting the laborious discipline of the Gallic Druids, and the number of unwritten verses which they retained in^their memories, Caesar, E.G. vi. 14; Mela. iii. 2; also Wolf, Prolcgg. s. xxiv. and Herod, ii. 77. about the prodigious memory of the Egyptian priests at Hcliopolis. I transcribe, from the interesting Discours of M. Fauriel (prefixed to his Chants Populaircs de la Grece Moderne, Paris 1824), a few particulars re- specting the number, the mnemonic power, and the popularity of those itinerant singers or rhapsodes who frequent the festivals or paneghyris of modern Greece : it is curious to learn that this profession is habitually exer cised by blind men (p. xc. seq.). " Lcs aveugles cxcrccnt en Grece unc profession qui les rend non settle- ment agre'ables, mais necessaires ; le caractere. 1'imagination, et la condition du peuple, e'tant ce qu'ils sont: c'est la profession de chanteurs ambulans. Us sont dans Fusage, tant sur le continent que dans les iles, de la Grece, d'apprendre par cceur le plus grand nombre qu'ils peuvent de chan- sons populaires de tout genre et de toute epoque. Quelques uns finissent par en saroir unc quantite prodigieuse, et tous en savent beaucoup. Avec ce tre'sor dans leur me'moire, ils sont toujours en marche, traversent la Grece en tout sens ; ils s'en vont de ville en ville, de village en village, chantant a 1'auditoire qui se forme aussitot autour d'eux, partout ou ils se montrent, celles de leurs chansons qu'ils jugent convenir le mieux, soit a la localite, soil a la circonstance, et rc9oivent une petite retribution qui fait tout leur revenu. Ils ont Fair de chcrcher de preference, en tout lieu, la partie la plus inculte de la population, qui en est toujours la plus curieuse, la plus avido d'impressions, et la moins difficile dans le choix de ceux qui leur sont offertes. Les Turcs seuls ne les ecoutent pas. C'est aux reunions nombreuses, aux fetes de village connues sous le nom de Paneghyris, que ces chanteurs am- bulans accourent le plus volontiers. Ils chantent en s'accompagnant d'un instrument a cordes que 1'on touche avec un archet, et qui est exactement I'aucienne lyre des Grecs, dont il a conserve le nom comme la forme. ' Cette lyre, pour etre entiere, doit avoir cinq cordes : mais souvent elle n'en a que deux ou tr:is, dont les sons, comme il est aise de presumer, n'ont rien de bien harmonicux. Les chanteurs aveugles vont ordinairement isol&, TOL. II. 7 IGoC. ​146 IIIS10KY OF GREECE. recitations, we are not tc imagine that the same person did go through the whole : the recitation was essentially a joint under- taking, and the rhapsodes who visited a festival would naturally understand among themselves which part of the poem should devolve upon each particular individual. Under such circum- stances, and with such means of preparation beforehand, the quantity of verse which a rhapsode could deliver would be measured, not so much by the exhaustion of his memory, as by the physical sufficiency of his voice, having reference to the sonorous, emphatic, and rhythmical pronunciation required from him. 1 But what guarantee have we for the exact transmission of the text for a space of two centuries by simply oral means ? It ct chacun d'eux chante a part <lef Autres : mais quclquefois aussi ils so re'unissent par groupes dc deux ou <'e trois, pour dire ensemble les memcs chansons < Ces moderncs rhapsodes doiventetre divise's en deux classes. Lcs uns (et ce sont, selon toute apparent, les plus nombreux) se bornent a la function de rccueillir, d'apprendre par toeur, et dc mcttre en circulation, dcs pieces qu'ils n'ont point composecs. L<JS autres (ct ce sont ceux qui forment 1'ordre le plus distingue' de leur corps), a cette fonction de repeti teurs et de colporteurs des poesies d'autrui, jofgEent celle de po(ites, et ajout- ent la masse des chansons apprises d'autres chants de leur fa<;on Ces rhapsodes aveugles sont les nouvcllistcs et leff historiens, en meme temps que les poe'tes du peuplc, en cela parfaitemcnt scnrblables aux rhapsodes anciens de la Grece." To pass to another country Persia, once the gr?ai rival of Greece: " The Kurroglian rhapsodes are called Kurroglou-Khans, from khaunden, to sing. Their duty is, to know by heart all the mejjlisscs (mcet ; igs) of Kurro- glou, narrate them, or sing them with the accompaniment of the favorite instrument of Kurroglou, the chungur, or sitar, a three-stringed g*itar. Fcr- dausi has also his Skah-nama-Khans, and the prophet Mohamme4 his Koran Khans. The memory of those singers is truly astonishing. At ever^ request, they recite in one breath for some hours, without stammering, beginning tho tale at the passage or verse pointed out by the hearers." ( Specimens f tho Popular Poetry of Persia, as found in the Adventures and Improvi-utions of Kurroglou, the Bandit Minstrel of Northern Persia, by Alexander Ch-dz- ko : London 1842, Introd. p. 13.) " One of the songs of the Calmuck national bards sometimes lasts a whr'e day." (Ibid. p. 372.) 1 There are just remarks of Mr. Mitford on the possibility that the Homer/*! poems might have been preserved without writing ( History of Greece, roL L pp. 135-137). ​THE LETTER DIGAMMA. 147 may be replied, that oral transmission would hand down the text as exactly as in point of fact it was handed down. The great lines of each poem, the order of parts, the vein of Homeric feeling, and the general style of locution, and, for the most part, the true words, would be maintained: for the professional training of the rhapsode, over and above the precision of his actual memory, would tend to Homerize his mind (if the ex- pression may be permitted), and to restrain him within this magic circle. On the other hand, in respect to the details of the text, we should expect that there would be wide differences and numerous inaccuracies : and so there really were, as the records contained in the Scholia, together with the passages cited in ancient authors, but not found in our Homeric text, abundantly testify. '- Moreover, the state of the Iliad and Odyssey, in respect to the letter called the Digarnma, affords a proof that they were recited for a considerable period before they were committed to writing, insomuch that the oral pronunciation underwent during the in- terval a sensible change. 2 At the time when these poems were composed, the Digamma was an effective consonant, and figured as such in the structure of the verse : at the time when they were 1 Villoison, Prolegomen. pp. xxxiv-lvi ; Wolf, Prolcgomcn. p. 37. Diint- zcr, in the Epicor. Graec. Fragm. pp. 27-29, gives a considerable list of the Homeric passages cited by ancient authors, but not found either in the Iliad or Odyssey. It is hardly to be doubted, however, that many of these pas- sages belonged to other epic poems which passed under the name of Homer. Welcker (Der Episch. Kyklus, pp. 20-133) enforces this opinion very justly, and it harmonizes with his view of the name of Homer as coextensive with the whole Epic cycle. 2 See this argument strongly maintained in Giese (Ueber den jEolischen Dialckt, sect. 14. p. 160, seqq.). He notices several other particulars in the Homeric language, the plenitude and variety of interchangeable grammat- ical forms, the numerous metrical licenses, set right by appropriate oral intonations, which indicate a language as yet not constrained by the fixity of written authority. The same line of argument is taken by O. Miillcr (History of the Litera- ture of Ancient Greece, eh. iv. s. 5). Giese has shown also, in the same chapter, that all the manuscricts of Homer mentioned in the Scholia, were written in the Ionic alphabet (with H and 12 as marks for the long vowels, and no special mark for the rough breathing), in so far as the special citations out of them enable us to rerify ​148 HISTORY OF committed to writing, it had ceased to be pronounced, and there- fore never found a place in any of the manuscripts, insomuch that the Alexandrine critics, though they knew of its existence in the much later poems of Alkaeus and Sappho, never recognized it in Homer. The hiatus, and the various perplexities of metre, occasioned by the loss of the Digamma, were corrected by differ- ent grammatical stratagems. But the whole history of this lost letter is very curious, and is rendered intelligible only by the supposition that the Iliad and Odyssey belonged for a wide space of time to the memory, the voice, and the ear, exclusively. At what period these poems, or, indeed, any other Greek poems, first began to be written, must be matter of conjecture, though there is ground for assurance that it was before the time of Solon. If, in the absence of evidence, we may venture upon naming any more determinate period, the question at once suggests itself, what were the purposes which, in that stage of society, a manuscript at its first commencement must have been intended to answer ? For whom was a writen Iliad necessary ? Not for the rhapsodes ; for with them it was not only planted in the memory, but also interwoven with the feelings, and conceived in conjunction with all those flexions and intonations of voice, pauses, and other oral artifices, which were required for emphatic delivery, and which the naked manuscript could never reproduce. Not for the general public, they were accustomed to receive it with its rhapsodic delivery, and with its accompaniments of a solemn and crowded festival. The only persons for whom the written Iliad would be suitable, would be a select few ; studious and curious men, a class of readers, capable of analyzing the complicated emotions which they had experienced as hearers in the crowd, and who would, on perusing the Avritten words, realize in their imaginations a sensible portion of the impression com municated by the reciter. 1 1 Nitzsch and Welcker argue, that because the Homeric poems were heard with great delight and interest, therefore the first rudiments of the art of writing, even while beset by a thousand mechanical difficulties, would be employed to record them. I cannot adopt this opinion, which appears to me to derive all its plausibility from our present familiarity with reading and writing. The first step from the recited to the written poem is really one of great violence, as well as useless for any want then actually felt. 1 ​COMMENCEMENT 0* WKimo. 149 Incredible as the statement may seem in an age like the pres- ent, there is in all early societies, and there was in early Greece, a time when no such reading class existed. If we could discover at what time such a class first began to be formed, we should be able to make a guess at the time when the old Epic poems were first committed to writing. Now the period which may with the greatest probability be fixed upon as having first witnessed the formation even of the narrowest reading class in Greece, is the middle of the seventh century before the Christian era (B. c. 660 to B. c. 630), the age of Terpander, Kallinus, Archilochus, Simonides of Amorgus, etc. I ground this supposition on tho change then operated in the character and tendencies of Grecian poetry and music, the elegiac and iambic measures having been introduced as rivals to the primitive hexameter, and poetical compositions having been transferred from the epical past to the affairs of present and real life. Such a change was impor- tant at a time when poetry was the only known mode of publica- tion (to use a modern phrase not altogether suitable, yet the nearest approaching to the sense). It argued a new way of looking at the old epical treasures of the people, as well as a much more agree with Wolf when he says: " Diu enim illorum hominum vita ct simplicitas nihil admodum habu.it, quod scriptura dignum videretur : in aliis omnibus occupati agunt illi, qua? poster! scribunt. vel (ut de quibus- dam populis accepimus) etiam monstratam operam hanc spernunt tanquam indecori otii : carmina autem qua? pangunt, longo usu sic ore fundere et excipere consueverunt, ut cantu et recitationc cum maxime vigentia deducere ad mutas notas, ex illius atatis sensu nihil aliud esset, quam perimere ca e>; vitali vi ac spiritu privare." (Prolegom. s. xv. p. 59.) Some good remarks on this subject are to be found in William Humboldt's Introduction to his elaborate treatise Ueber die Kawi-Sprache, in reference to the oral tales current among the Basques. He, too, observes how great and repulsive a proceeding it is, to pass at first from verse sung, or recited, to verse written; implying that the words are conceived detached from the Vorlrag, the accompanying music, and the surrounding and sympathizing assembly. The Basque tales have no charm for the people themselves, when put in Spanish words and read (Introduction, sect. xx. p. 258-259). Unwritten prose tales, preserved in the memory, and said to be repeated nearly in the same words from age to age, are mentioned by Mariner, in the Tonga Islands (Mariner's Account, vol. ii. p. 377). The Druidical poems were kept unwritten by design, after writing was a established use for other purposes (Csesar, B. G. vi. 13). ​150 HISTORY OF GRKHCE. thirst for new poetical effect ; and the men who stood forward in it may well be considered as desirous to study, and competent to criticize, from their own individual point of view, the written words of the Homeric rhapsodes, just as we are told that Kallinug both noticed and eulogized the Thebai's as the production of Ho- mer. There seems, therefore, ground for conjecturing, that (for the use of this newly-formed and important, but very narrow class) manuscripts of the Homeric poems and other old epics the Thebai's and the Cypria as well as the Iliad and the Odyssey began to be compiled towards the middle of the seventh cen- tury B. c. :' and the opening of Egypt to Grecian commerce, which took place about the same period, would furnish increased facilities for obtaining the requisite papyrus to write upon. A reading class, when once formed, would doubtless slowly increase, and the number of manuscripts along with it ; so that before the time of Solon, fifty years afterwards, both readers and manu- scripts, though still comparatively few, might have attained a certain recognized authority, and formed a tribunal of reference, against the carelessness of individual rhapsodes. We may, I think, consider the Iliad and Odyssey to have been preserved without the aid of writing, for a period near upon two centuries. 2 But is it true, as Wolf imagined, and as other able 1 Mr. Fynes Clinton (Fasti Hellenic!, vol. i. pp. 368-37.3) treats it as a matter of certainty that Archilochus and Alkman wrote their poems. I am not aware of any evidence for announcing this as positively known, ex- cept, indeed, an admission of Wolf, which is, doubtless, good as an argumen- tum ad hominem, but is not to be received as proof ( Wolf, Prolog, p. 50). The evidences mentioned by Mr. Clinton (p. 368) certainly cannot bi regarded as proving anything to the point. Giese (Ueber den JEolischen Dialekt, p. 172) places the first writing of the separate rhapsodies composing the Iliad in the seventh century B. c. 2 The songs of the Icelandic Skalds were preserved orally for a period longer than two centuries, P. A. Mailer thinks very much longer, before they were collected, or embodied in written story by Snorro and Siemund (Lange, Untersuchungen Ober die Gesch. der Nordischen Helden- sagc, p. 98 ; also, Introduct. pp. xx-xxviii). He confounds, however, often, the preservation of the songs from old time, with the question, whether they have or have not an historical basis. And there were, doubtless, many old bards and rhapsodes in ancient Greece, of wham the same might be said which Saxo Grammaticus affirm* of an Englishman named Lucas, that lie was " literis quidem tcnuitcr in ​HOMERIC POEMS PRESERVED UNWRITTEN. 15] eritics .have imagined, also, that the separate portions of which these two poems are composed were originally distinct epica' ballads, each constituting a separate whole and intended foi separate recitation ? Is it true, that they had not only no com- mon author, but originally, neither common purpose nor fixed order, and that their first permanent arrangement and integration was delayed for three centuries, and accomplished at last only by the taste of Peisistratus conjoined with various lettered friends? 1 This hypothesis to which the genius of Wolf first gave celebrity, but which has been since enforced more in detail by others, especially by William Miiller and Lachmann appears to me not only unsupported by any sufficient testimony, but also opposed to other testimony as well as to a strong force of inter- nal probability. The authorities quoted by Wolf are Josephus, Cicero, and Pausanias : 2 Josephus mentions nothing about Pei- structus, scd historiarum scientii apprime eruditus." (Dahlmann, Historische Forschungen, vol. ii. p. 176.) 1 ' Homer wrote a sequel of songs and rhapsodies, to be sung by himself for small earnings and good cheer, at festivals and other days of merriment ; the Iliad he made for the men, the Odysseus for the other sex. These loose songs were not collected together into the form of an epic poem until 500 /ears after." Such is the naked language in which Wolf's main hypothesis had been previously set forth by Bentley, in his " Remarks on a late Discourse of Freethinking, by Philelcutherus Lipsiensis," published in 1713: the passage remained unaltered in the seventh edition of that treatise published in 1737. See Wolf's Prolog, xxvii. p. 115. The same hypothesis may be seen more amply developed, partly in the work of Wolfs pupil and admirer, William Mailer, Homerische Vorschtile (the second edition of which was published at Leipsic, 1836, with an excel- lent introduction and notes by Baumgarten-Crusius, adding greatly to the value of the original work by its dispassionate review of the whole contro- versy), partly in two valuable Dissertations of Lachmann, published in the Philological Transactions of the Berlin Academy for 1837 and 1841. 2 Joseph, cont. Apion. i. 2 ; Cicero de Orator, iii. 34; Pausan. vii. 26, 6: compare the Scholion on Plautus in Kitschl, Die Alexandrin. Bibliothek, p. 4. yElian (V. H. xiii. 14), who mentions both the introduction of the Homeric poems into Peloponnesus by Lykurgus, and the compilation by Peisistratus, can hardly be considered as adding to the value of the testi- mony : still less, Libanius and Suidas. What we learn is, that some literwj ind critical men of the Alexandrine age (more or fewer, as tho case P)*J ​152 HISTORY OF GREECE. sistratus, but merely states (what we may accept as the probable fact) that the Homeric poems were originally unwritten, and preserved only in songs or recitations, from which they were at a subsequent period put into writing: hence many of the discrepan- cies in the text. On the other hand, Cicero and Pausanias go farther, and affirm that Peisistratus both collected, and arranged in the existing order, the rhapsodies of the Iliad and Odyssey, (implied as poems originally entire, and subsequently broken into pieces,) which, he found partly confused and partly isolated from each other, each part being then remembered only in its own portion of the Grecian world. Respecting Hipparchus the son of Peisistratus, too, we are told in the Pseudo-Platonic dialogue which bears his name, that he was the first to introduce into Attica, the poetry of Homer, and that he prescribed to the rhap- sodes to recite the parts of the Panathenaic festival in regular sequence. 1 Wolf and William Muller occasionally speak as if they admit- ted something like an Iliad and Odyssey as established aggregates prior to Peisistratus ; but for the most part they represent him or his associates as having been the first to put together Homeric poems which were before distinct and self-existent compositions. And Lachmann, the recent expositor of the same theory, ascribes to Peisistratus still more unequivocally this original integration of parts in reference to the Iliad, distributing the first twenty- two books of the poem into sixteen separate songs, and treating it as ridiculous to imagine that the fusion of these songs, into an order such as we now read, belongs to any date earlier than Peisistratus. 2 be; but Wolf exaggerates when he talks of an unanimous conviction) spoke of Peisistratus as having first put together the fractional parts of the Iliad and Odyssey into entire poems. 1 Plato, Hipparch. p. 228.

• <! Doch ich komme mir bald lacherlich vor, wenn ich noch immcr die

Mciglichkeit geltcn lasse, dass unsere Ilias in dem gegenwUrtigen Zusam- memhange der bedeutenden Theile, und nicht bios der wenigen bedeutend- stcn, jemals vor der Arbeit des Pisistratus gedacht worden sey." (Lachmann, Fernere Betrachtungen (Iber die Ilias, sect, xxviii. p. 32 ; Abhandlungen Ber- lin. Academ. 1841.) How far this admission that for the few most impor- (aiit portions of the Iliad, there did exist an established order of succession prior to Pcisistratua is intended to reach, I do not know; but the language ​REGULATIONS OF SOL'JN. 153 Upon this theory we may remark, first, that it stands opposed to the testimony existing respecting the regulations of Solon; who, before the time of Peisistratus, had enforced a fixed order of recitalion on the rhapsodes of the Iliad at the Panathenaic festival ; not only directing that they should go through the rhapsodies seriatim, and without omission or corruption, but also establishing a prompter or censorial authority to insure obedience, 1 of Lachmann goes farther than either Wolf or "William Miiller. (See Wolf, Prolegomen. pp. cxli-cxlii, and W. Miiller, Homerische Vorschule, Absch nitt. vii. pp. 96, 98, 100, 102.) The latter admits that neither Peisistratus nor the Diaskeuasts could have made any considerable changes in the Iliaa and Odyssey, either in the way of addition or of transposition ; the poems as aggregates being too well known, and the Homeric vein of invention too completely extinct, to admit of such novelties. I confess, I do not see how these last-mentioned admissions can be recon- ciled with the main doctrine of Wolf, in so far as regards Peisistratus. 1 Diogen. Laert. i. 57. Tti 6e 'O/*#/iov f vTto[3o?t,r/e ysypa pafyudela-dai, olov OTTOV 6 Trpwrof i^^ev, EKei&ev ap^fcri9at rbv aif <j>7]cr(. Aievxidaf iv roif MeyapiKoif. Respecting Hipparchus, son of Peisistratus, the Pseudo-Plato tells us (in the dialogue so called, p. 228), KOI TU 'Ofiijpov CTTJ? Trowrof sKo/uaev elf rfjv yrjv ravTtjvl, Kal ^iiyKaae rovf paiffudDvi: U.ava^rivaioig ef turoA^y EU C i<ps^?if avTu fii'isvai, uairep vvv ITI oWe iroiovat.. These words have provoked multiplied criticisms from all the learned men who have touched upon the theory of the Homeric poems, to deter- mine what was the practice which Solon found existing, and what was the change which he introduced. Our information is too scanty to pretend *o certainty, but I think the explanation of Hermann the most satisfactory (" Quid sit vrto^o^r) et virof}%7]dr]v." Opuscula, torn. v. p. 300, torn, vii. p. 162). 'TTro/JoAei'c is the technical term for the prompter at a theatrical represen- tation (Plutarch, Prsecept. gcrend. Reip. p. 813) ; vTro(3ohq and VKofluhfaiv have corresponding meanings, of aiding the memory of a speaker and kcep- inf him in accordance with a certain standard, in possession of the prompter : see the words It; tin-o/3oA^c, Xenophon. Cyropsed. iii. 3, 37. 'Y7ro/3o/.#, there- fore, has no necessary connection with a series of rhapsodes, but would apply just as much to one alone ; although it happens in this case to be brought to bear upon several in succession. 'Tfl-oA^f, again, means " the taking up in succession of one rhapsode by another :" though the two words, there- fore, have not the same meaning, yet the proceeding described in the two passages, in reference both to Solon and Hipparchus, appears to be in substance the same, i.e. to insure, by compulsory supervision, a cone' 1 ! 7* ​154 HISTORY OF GREECE. which implies the existence (at the same time that it proclaims the occasional infringement) of an orderly aggregate, as well as ol manuscripts professedly complete. Next, the theory ascribes to Peisistratus a character not only materially different from what is indicated by Cicero and Pausanias, who represent him, not as having put together atoms originally distinct, but as the renovator of an ancient order subsequently lost, but also in itself unintelligible, and inconsistent with Grecian habit and feeling. That Peisistratus should take pains to repress the license, or make up for the unfaithful memory, of individual rhapsodes, and to ennoble the Panathenaic festival by the most correct recital of a great and venerable poem, according to the and orderly recitation by the successive rhapsodes who went through the different parts of the poem. There is good reason to conclude from this passage that the rhapsodes before Solon were guilty both of negligence and of omission in their recital of Homer, but no reason to imagine either that they transposed the books, or that the legitimate order was not previously recognized. The appointment of a systematic t>7ro/3o/Ui)f , or prompter, plainly indicates the existence of complete manuscripts. The direction of Solon, that Homer should be rhapsodized under tha security of a prompter with his manuscript, appears just the same as that of the orator Lykurgus in reference to -ffischylus, SophoklGs, and Euripides (Pseudo-Plutarch. Vit. x. Rhetor. Lycurgi Vit.) eiafivF.yK 6e Kal vopovf (if Xa^Kas finovat; uvatielvai TUV Trotq-iJv Ala^v/.ov, 2o0o/i^,eoi'f, ~Evpt- iridov, Kal raf Tpay<f)8i.ac avruv EV KOLVU ypcnjja/ievovc tyvhuTTeiv, Kal rtiv ri/f JTo/Uuf -ypauftaTea irapava-yiyvuoKEiv rolf VTroKpivofiEvotf ov yap E^r/v avruf (u/lAuf ) vTfOKpivca'&ai. The word d/l/Ujf, which occurs last but one, is intro- duced by the conjecture of Grysar, who has cited and explained the above passage of the Pseudo-Plutarch in a valuable dissertation De Grcecorum Traycedid, qualis fuit circa tempora Demosthenis (Cologne, 1830). All the critics admit the text as it now stands to be unintelligible, and various cor- rections have been proposed, among which that of Grysar seems the best From his Dissertation, I transcribe the following passage, which illustrates the rhapsodizing of Homer f vnopo%f/c : " Quum histriones fabulis interpolandis aegre abstinerent, Lycurgus legem supra indicatam eo tulit consilio, ut recitationes histrionum cum publico illo exemplo oiniuuo congruas redderet. Quod ut assequeretur, constituit, ut dum fabulae in scena recitarentur, scriba put licus simul exemplum civitatis inspiceret, juxta sive in theatro sive in postscenio sedens. HJBC enim verbi napavayivdianEiv est significatio, posita praecipue in prapositione ^ap<i, ut idem sit, quod contra sive juxta legere ; id quod faciunt ii. qui Iccta ab alters vet reritata cum raw conferre cupiunt." (Grysar, p. 7.) ​REGULATIONS OF PEISISTEATUS. 155 standard received among the best judges in Greece, this is a task both suitable to his position, and requii'ing nothing more than an improved recension, together with exact adherence to it on the part of the rhapsodes. But what motive had he to string together several poems, previously known only as separate, into one new whole ? What feeling could he gratify by introducing the extensive changes and transpositions surmised by Lachmann, for the purpose of binding together sixteen songs, which the rhapsodes are assumed to have been accustomed to recite, and the people to hear, each by itself apart ? Peisistratus was not a poet, seeking to interest the public mind by new creations and combinations, but a ruler, desirous to impart solemnity to a great religious festival in his native city. Now such a purpose would be answered by selecting, amidst the divergences of rhapsodes in different parts of Greece, that order of text which intelligent men could approve as a return to the pure and pristine Iliad; but it would be defeated if he attempted large innovations of his own, and brought out for the first time a new Iliad by blending together, altering, and transposing, many old and well-known songs. A novelty so bold would have been more likely to offend than to please both the critics and the multitude. And if it were even enforced, by authority, at Athens, no probable reason can be given why all the other towns, and all the rhapsodes throughout Greece, should abnegate their previous habits in favor of it, since Athens at that time enjoyed no political ascen- dency such as she acquired during the following century. On the whole, it will appear that the character and position of Peisistratus himself go far to negative the function which Wolf and Lachmann put upon him. His interference presupposes a certain foreknown and ancient aggregate, the main lineaments of which were familiar to the Grecian public, although many of the rhapsodes in their practice may have deviated from it both by omission and interpolation. In correcting the Athenian recitations conformably with such understood general type, he might hope both to procure respect for Athens, and to constitute a fashion for the rest of Greece. But this step of " collecting the torn body of sacred Homer," is something generically differ- ent from the composition of a new Iliad out of preexisting songs ​156 HISTORY OF GREECE. the former is as easy, suitable, and promising, as the latter it violent and gratuitous. 1 To sustain the inference, that Peisistratus was the first arch- itect of the Iliad and Odyssey, it ought at least to be shown that no other long and continuous poems existed during the earlier centuries. But the contrary of this is known to be the fact. The ^Ethiopia of Arktinus, which contained nine thousand one hundred verses, dates from a period more than two centuries earlier than Peisistratus : several other of the lost cyclic epics, some among them of considerable length, appear during the century succeeding Arktinus ; and it is important to notice that three or four at least of these poems passed currently under tho name of Homer. 2 There is no greater intrinsic difficulty in 1 That the Iliad or Odyssey were ever recited with all the parts entire, at any time anterior to Solon, is a point which Ritschl denies (Die Alcxandrin. Bibliothek. pp. 67-70). He thinks that before Solon, they were always recited in parts, and without any fixed order among the parts. Nor did Solon determine (as he thinks) the order of the parts : he only checked the license of the rhapsodes as to the recitation of the separate books : it was Pesistra- tus, who, with the help of Onomakritus and others, first settled the order of the parts and hound each poem into a whole, with some corrections and interpolations. Nevertheless, he admits that the parts were originally com- posed by the same poet, and adapted to form a whole amongst each other : but this primitive cntireness (he asserts) was only maintained as a sort of traditional belief, never realized in recitation, and never reduced to an obvi- ous, unequivocal, and permanent fact, until the time of Peisistratus. There is no sufficient ground, I think, for denying all entire recitation previous to Solon, and we only interpose a new difficulty, both grave an I gratuitous, by doing so. 2 The jEthiopis of Arktinus contained nine thousand one hundred verses, as we learn from the Tabula Iliaca: yet Proklus assigns to it only four books. The Ilias Minor had four books, the Cyprian Verses eleven, though we do not know the number of lines in either. Nitzsch states it as a certain matter of fact, that Arktinus recited his own poem alone, though it was too long to admit of his doing so without interrup- tion. (See his Vorrede to the second vol. of the Odyssey, p. xxiv.) There is no evidence for this assertion, and it appears to me highly improbable. In reference to the Romances of the Middle Ages, belonging to the Cycle of the Round Table, M. Fauriel tells us that the German Perceval has nearly twenty-five thousand verses (more than half as long again as the Iliad) ; the Perceval of Christian of Troyes, probably, more ; the German Tristan, of Godfrey cf Strasburff. has more than twenty -three thousand ; sometimes., tbt ​AGGREGATE ILIAD AND ODYSSEY. 157 supposing long epics to have begun with the Iliad and Odyssey than with the ./Ethiopia : the ascendency of the name of Homer and the subordinate position of Arktinus, in the history of early Grecian poetry, tend to prove the former in preference to the latter. Moreover, we find particular portions of the Iliad, which expressly pronounce themselves, by the : r own internal evidence, as belonging to a large whole, and not as separate integers. We can hardly conceive the Catalogue in the second book, except as a fractional composition, and with reference to a series of ap- proaching exploits ; for, taken apart by itself, such a barren enu- meration of names could have stimulated neither the fancy of the poet, nor the attention of the listeners. But the Homeric Cata- logue had acquired a sort of canonical authority even in the time of Solon, insomuch that he interpolated a line into it, or was accused of doing so, for the purpose of gaining a disputed point against the Megarians, who, on their side, set forth another version. 1 No such established reverence could have been felt for this document, unless there had existed for a long time prior to Peisistratus, the habit of regarding and listening to the Iliad as a continuous poem. And jwhen the philosopher Xenophanes, contemporary with Peisistratus, noticed Homer as the universal teacher, and denounced him as an unworthy describer of the gods, he must have connected this great mental sway, not with a number of unconnected rhapsodies, but with an aggregate Iliad and Odyssey ; probably with other poems, also, ascribed to the same author, such as the Cypria, Epigoni, and Thebai's. We find, it is true, references in various authors to portions of the Iliad, each by its own separate name, such as the Teichom- achy, the Aristeia (preeminent exploits) of Diomedes, or Aga- memnon, the Doloneia, or Night-expedition (of Dolon as well poem is begun by one author, and continued by another. (Fauricl, Romans de Chevalerie, Ilevue des Deux Mondes, t. xiii. pp. 695-697.) The ancient unwritten poems of the Icelandic Skalds are as much lyric es epic : the longest of them does not exceed eight hundred lines, and they are for the most part much shorter, (Untersuchungen iiber die Geschichte der Nordischen Heldensage, ans P. A. Miiller's Sagabibliothek von G. Lange, Frankf. 1832, Introduct. j xlii.) 1 Plutarch, Solon, 10. ​158 HISTORY OF GREECE. as of Odysseus and Diomedes), etc., and hence, it has bce concluded, that these portions originally existed as separate poems, beft re they were cemented together into an Iliad. But such references prove nothing to the point ; for until the Iliad was divided by Aristarchus and his colleagues into a given number of books, or rhapsodies, designated by the series of letters in the alphabet, there was no method of calling attention to any particular portion of the poem except by special indication of its subject-matter. 1 Authors subsequent to Peisistratus, such as Herodotus and Plato, who unquestionably conceived the Iliad as a whole, cite the separate fractions of it by designations of this sort. The foregoing remarks on the Woman hypothesis respecting the text of the Iliad, tend to separate two points which are by no means necessarily connected, though that hypothesis, as set forth by Wolf himself, by W. Muller, and by Lachmann, presents the two in conjunction. First, was the Iliad originally projected and composed by one author, and as one poem, or were the different parts composed separately and by unconnected authors, and subsequently strung together into an aggregate? Secondly, assuming that the internal evidence^ of the poem negative the former supposition, and drive us upon the latter, was the con- struction of the whole poem deferred, and did the parts exist only in their separate state, until a period so late as the reign of Peisistratus ? It is obvious that these two questions are essen- tially separate, and that a man may believe the Iliad to have been put together out of preexisting songs, without recognizing the age of Peisistratus as the period of its first compilation. Now, whatever may be the steps through which the poem passed to its ultimate integrity, there is sufficient reason for believing that they had been accomplished long before that period: the friends of Peisistratus found an Iliad already existing and already ancient in their time, even granting that the poem had not been originally born in a state of unity. Moreover, the Alexandrine critics, whose remarks are preserved in the Scholia, do not even notice the Peisistratic recension among the many manuscripts 1 The Homeric Scholiast refers to Quintus Calaber ev T>) 'Apa Which was only one portion ~>f his long poem (Schol. ad Iliad, ii. 220). ​AGGREGATE ILIAD AND ODYSSEY. 159 nhich they had before them: and Mr. Payne Knight justly infers from their silence that either they did not possess it, or it was in their eyes of no great authority ;' which could never have been the case if it had been the prime originator of Homeric unity. The line of argument, by which the advocates of "Wolf's hypothesis negative the primitive unity of the poem, consists in exposing gaps, incongruities, contradictions, etc, between the separate parts. Now, if in spite of all these incoherences, standing mementos of an antecedent state of separation, the component poems were made to coalesce so intimately as to appear as if they had been one from the beginning, we can better understand the complete success of the proceeding and the uni- versal prevalence of the illusion, by supposing such coalescence to have taken place at a very early period, during the productive days of epical genius, and before the growth of reading and criti- cism. The longer the aggregation of the separate poems was deferred, the harder it would be to obliterate in men's minds the previous state of separation, and to make them accept the new aggregate as an original unity. The bards or rhapsodes might have found comparatively little difficulty in thus piecing together distinct songs, during the ninth or eighth century before Christ ; 1 Knight, Prolegg. Homer, xxxii. xxxvi. xxxvii. That Pcisistratu3 caused a corrected MS. of the Iliad to be prepared, there seems good reason to believe, and the Scholion on Plautus edited by Ritschl CSCG Die Alexan- drinische Bibliothek, p. 4) specifies the four persons (Onomakritus was one) employed on the task, llitschl fancies that it served as a sort of Vulgate for the text of the Alexandrine critics, who named specially other MSS. (of Chios, Sinopu, Massalia, etc.) only when they diverged from this Vul- gate : he thinks, also, that it formed the original from whence those other MSS. were first drawn, which are called in the Homeric Scholia at Koival, noivo-fpai (pp. 59-60). Welcker supposes the Pcisistratic MS. to have been either lost or carried away when Xerxes took Athens (Der Epische Kyklus, pp. 382-388). Compare Nitzsch, Histor. Homer. Ease. i. pp. 165-167 ; also his commen- tary on Odygs. xi. 604, the alleged interpolation of Onomakritus; and Ulrici, Geschichte der Ilellen. Poes. Part i. s. vii. pp. 252-255. The main facts respecting the Peisistratic recension are collected and discussed by Griifenhan, Geschichte der Philologie, sect. 54-64, voi i. pp. 266-311. Unfortunately, we cannot get beyond mere conjecture and possibility. ​160 HISTORY OF GREECE. but it we suppose the process to be deferred until t.Lfe lattci half >f the sixth century, if we imagine that Solon, with all hia contemporaries and predecessors, knew nothing about any aggre- gate Iliad, but was accustomed to read and hear only those six- teen distinct epical pieces into which Lachmann would dissect the Iliad, each of the sixteen bearing a separate name of its own, no compilation then for the first time made by the friends of Peisistratus could have effaced the established habit, and planted itself in the general convictions of Greece as the primi- tive Homeric production. Had the sixteen pieces remained dis- united and individualized down to the time of Peisistratus, they would in all probability have continued so ever afterwards ; nor could the extensive changes and transpositions which (ac- cording to Lachmann's theory) were required to melt them down into our present Iliad, have obtained at that late period universal acceptance. Assuming it to be true that such changes and trans- positions did really take place, they must at least be referred to a period greatly earlier than Peisistratus or Solon. The whole tenor of the poems themselves confirms what is here remarked. There is nothing either in the Iliad or Odyssey which savors of modernism, applying that term to the age of Peisistratus ; nothing which brings to our view the alterations, brought about by two centuries, in the Greek language, the coined money, the habits of writing and reading, the despotisms and republican governments, the close military array, the im- proved construction of ships, the Amphiktyonic convocations, the mutual frequentation of religious festivals, the Oriental and Egyptian veins of religion, etc., familiar to the latter epoch. These alterations Onomakritus and the other literary friends of Peisistratus, could hardly have failed to notice even without design, had they then for the first time undertaken the task of piecing together many self-existent epics into one large aggre- gate. 1 Everything in the two great Homeric poems, both in ' V-lf allows both the uniformity of coloring, and the antiquity of color ing, which pervade the Homeric poems ; also, the strong line by which they stand distinguished from the other Greek poets : " Immo congruunt in iis omnia ferme in idem ingenium, in eosdem mores, in eandem formam sentiendi et loqacndi." (Prolegom. p. cclxv; compare p. cxxxviii.; He thinks, indeed, that this harmonr was lestorcd by the ability and care ​LATER INTEGRATION IMPOSSIBLE. 161 substance and in language, belongs to an age two or three cen- turies earlier than Peisistratus. Indeed, even the interpolations (or those passages which on the best grounds are pronounced to be such) betray no trace of the sixth century before Christ, and may well have been heard by Archilochus and Kallinus, in some cases even by Arktinus and Ilesiod, as genuine Homeric matter. As far as the evidences on the case, as well internal as external, enable us to judge, we seem warranted in believing that the Iliad and Odyssey were recited substantially as they now stand, (always allowing for partial divergences of text, and inter- polations,) in 776 B. c., our first trustworthy mark of Gre- cian time. And this ancient date, let it be added, as it is the best-authenticated fact, so it is also the most important attri- bute of the Homeric poems, considered in reference to Grecian history. For they thus afford us an insight into the ante-histor- ical character of the Greeks, enabling us to trace the sub- sequent forward march of the nation, and to seize instructive, contrasts between their former and their later condition. Rejecting, therefore, the idea of compilation by Peisistratus, and referring the present state of the Iliad and Odyssey to a period more than two centuries earlier, the question still remains, by what process, or through whose agency, they reached that state ? Is each poem the work of one author, or of several ? If the latter, do all the parts belong to the same age ? What ground is there for believing, that any or all of these parts existed before, as separate poems, and have been accommodated to the place in which they now appear, by more or less systematic alteration ? The acute and valuable Prolegomena of Wolf, half a century ago, powerfully turned the attention of scholars to the necessity of considering the Iliad and Odyssey with reference to the ago and society in which they arose, and to the material differences in this respect between Homer and more recent epic poets. 1 of Aristarchu., (' ; mirificum ilium concentum revocatum Aristarcho impri- mis dcbemus.") This is a very exaggerated estimate of the interference of Aristarchus : but at any rate the concentus itself was ancient and original, and Aristarchus only restored it, when it had been spoiled by intervening accidents ; at least, if we are to construe revocatum strictly, which, perhaps, is hardly consistent with Wolf's main theory. 1 See Wolf, Prolegg. c. xii. p. xliii. "Nondum enim pvordiis ejecta el VOL. II. HOC. ​162 HISTORY OF GREECE. Since that time, an elaborate study has been bestowed upon tin early manifestations of poetry (Sagen-poesie) among other na- tions; and the German critics especially, among whom this description of literature has been most cultivated, have selected it as the only appropriate analogy for the Homeric poems. Such poetry, consisting for the most part of short, artless effusions, with little of deliberate or far-sighted combination, has been assumed by many critics as a fit standard to apply for measuring i he capacities of the Homeric age; an age exclusively of speak- ers, singers, and hearers, not of readers or writers. In place of the unbounded admiration which was felt for Homer, not merely as a poet of detail, but as constructor of a long epic, at the time when Wolf wrote his Prolegomena, the tone of criticism passed to the opposite extreme, and attention was fixed entirely upon the defects in the arrangement of the Iliad and Odyssey. What- ever was to be found in them of symmetry or pervading system, was pronounced to be decidedly post-Homeric. Under such pre- conceived anticipations, Homer seems to have been generally studied in Germany, during the generation succeeding Wolf, the negative portion of whose theory was usually admitted, though as to the positive substitute, what explanation was to be given of the history and present constitution of the Homeric poems, there was by no means the like agreement. During* the last ten years, however, a contrary tendency has manifested itself; the Wolfian theory has been reexamined and shaken by Nitzsch, who, as well as 0. Miiller, Welcker, and other scholars, have revived the idea of original Homeric unity, under certain modifi- cations. The change in Gothe's opinion, coincident with this new direction, is recorded in one of his latest works. 1 On the cxplosa est eorum ratio, qui Homerum et Callimachum et Virgilium ct Nonnura ct Miltonum eodem animo legunt, nee quid uniuscujusque aetas fcrat, expendcre legendo ct computare laborant," etc. A similar and earlier attempt to construe the Homeric poems with refer- ence to their age, is to be seen in the treatise called 11 Vero Omero of Vico, marked with a good deal' of original thought, but not strong in erudition (Opere di Vico, ed. Milan, vol. v. pp. 437-497). ' In the forty-sixth volume of his collected works, in the little treatist " Homer, noch cinmal:" compare G. Lange, Ueber die Kvklischen Dichter (Mainz 1837), Preface, p. vi. ​DIFFICULTIES INVOLVING THE SUBJECT. 163 other hand, tlie original opinion of Wolf has also been repro- duced within the last five years, and fortified with several new observations on the text o the Iliad, by Lachmann. The point is thus still under controversy among able scholars, and is probably destined to remain so. For, in truth, our means of knowledge are so limited, that no man can produce arguments sufficiently cogent to contend against opposing preconceptions; and it creates a painful sentiment of diffidence when we read the expressions of equal and absolute persuasion with which the two opposite conclusions have both been advanced. 1 We have noth- ing to teach us the history of these poems except the poems themselves. JSbt only do we possess no collateral information 1 ' Xon esse totam Tliadem aut Odysseam unius poctae opus, ita extra dubitationem positam puto, ut qui secus sentiat, cum non satis lectitasse ilia cermina contendam." (Godf. Hermann, Prsefat. ad Odysseam, Lips. 1825, p. iv.) See the language of the same eminent critic in his treatise "Ueber Homer und Sappho," Opuscula, vol. v. p. 74. Lachmann, after having dissected the two thousand two hundred lines in the Iliad, between the beginning of the eleventh book, and line five hundred and ninety of the fifteenth, into four songs, " in the highest degree different in their spirit," (" ihrem Geiste nach hochst verschiedene Lieder,"^ tells us that whosoever thinks this difference of spirit inconsiderable, whosoever dees not feel it at once when pointed out, whosoever can believe that the parts as they stand now belong to one artistically constructed Epos, " will do well not to trouble himself any more either with my criticisms or with epic poetry, because he is too weak to understand anything about it," (" weil er zu schwach ist ctwas darin zu verstehen : "_) Fcrnere Betrachtungen Ucber die Ilias : Abhandl. Berlin. Acad. 1841, p. 18, xxiii. On the contrary, Ulrici, after having shown (or tried to show) that the composition of Homer satisfies perfectly, in the main, all the exigencies of an artistic epic, adds, that this will make itself at once evident to all those who have any sense of artistical symmetry ; but that, for those to whom that sense is wanting, no conclusive demonstration can be given. He warns the latter, however, that they are not to deny the existence of that which their shortsighted vision cannot distinguish, for everything cannot be made clear to children, which the mature man sees through at a glance (TTlrici, Geschichte dcs Griechischen Epos, Part i. ch. vii. pp. 260-261 ). Read also Payne Knight, Prolog, c. xxvii, about the insanity of the Wolfian school, obvious even to (.he " homunculus e trivio." I hatfe the misfortune to dissent from both Lachmann and Ulrici ; for it appears to me a mistake to put the Iliad and Odyssey on the same footing, as Ulrici does, and as is too frequently done by others. ​164 HISTORY OF GREECT. respecting them or their authors, but we have no one to describe to us the people or the age in which they originated ; our knowl- edge respecting contemporary Homeric society, is collected exclu- sively from the Homeric compositions themselves. We are ignorant whether any other, or what other, poems preceded them, or divided with them the public favor ; nor have we anything better than conjecture to determine either the circumstances under which they were brought before the hearers, or the condi- tions which a bard of that day was required to satisfy. On all these points, moreover, the age of Thucydides 1 and Plato seems to have been no better informed than we are, except in so far as they could profit by the analogies of the cyclic and other epic poems, which would doubtless in many cases have afforded valu- able aid. Nevertheless, no classical scholar can be easy without some opinion respecting the authorship of these immortal poems. An'd the more defective the evidence we possess, the more essential is it that all that evidence should be marshalled in the clearest order, and its bearing upon the points in controversy distinctly understood beforehand. Both these conditions seem to have been often neglected, throughout the long-continued Homeric discussion. To illustrate the first point : Since two poems are compre- hended in the problem to be solved, the natural process would be, first, to study the easier of the two, and then to apply the conclu- sions thence deduced as a means of explaining the other. Now, the Odyssey, looking at its aggregate character, is incomparably more easy to comprehend than the Iliad. Yet most Homeric critics apply the microscope at once, and in the first instance, to the Iliad. To illustrate the second point : What evidence is sufficient to negative the supposition that the Iliad or the Odyssey is a poem originally and intentionally one ? Not simply particular gaps and 1 Plato, Aristotle, and their contemporaries generally, read the most sus picious portions of the Homeric poems as genuine (Nitzsch, Plan und Gang der Odyssee, in the Preface to his second vol. of Comments on the Odyssey, pp. Ix-lxiv). Thucydides accepts the Hymn to Apollo as a composition by tl e autHoi of the Iliad. ​HOMERIC UNITY. 165 contradictions, though they be even gross and numerous ; but the preponderance of these proofs of mere unpiepared coalescence over the other proofs of designed adaptation scattered throughout the whole poem. For the poet (or the cooperating poets, if more than one) may have intended to compose an harmonious whole, but may have realized their intention incompletely, and left partial faults ; or, perhaps, the contradictory lines may have crept in through a corrupt text. A survey of the whole poem is necessary to determine the question ; and this necessity, too, has not always been attended to. If it had happened that the Odyssey had been preserved to us alone, without the Iliad, I think the dispute respecting Homeric unity would never have been raised. For the former is, in my judgment, pervaded almost from beginning to end by marks of designed adaptation ; and the special faults which Wolf, W. Miiller, and B. Thiersch, 1 have singled out for the purpose of disproving such unity of intention, are so few, and of so little importance, that they would have been universally regarded as mere instances of haste or unskilfulness on the part of the poet, had they not been seconded by the far more powerful battery opened against the Iliad. These critics, having laid down their general presumptions against the antiquity of the long epopee, illustrate their principles by exposing the many flaws and fissures in the Iliad, and then think it sufficient if they can show a few similar defects in the Odyssey, as if the breaking up of Homeric unity in the former naturally entailed a similar necessity with regard to the latter ; and their method of proceeding, contrary to the rule above laid down, puts the more difficult problem in the foreground, as a means of solution for the easier. We can hardly wonder, however, that they have applied their observa tions in the first instance to the Iliad, because it is in every man's* esteem the more marked, striking, and impressive poem of the two, and the character of Homer is more intimately identified with it than with the Odyssey. This may serve as an explana- tion of the course pursued; but be the case as it may in respect to comparative poetical merit, it is not the less true, that, as an 1 Bcrnhard Thiersch, Ucber das' Zeitelter und ViUerland des Homei (Halberstadt, 1832), Einleitung, pp. 4-18. ​1G6 HISTORY OF GREECE. aggregate, the Odyssey is more simple and easily understood, and, therefore, ought to come first in the order of analysis. Now, looking at the Odyssey by itself, the proofs of an unity of design seem unequivocal and everywhere to be found. A premeditated structure, and a concentration of interest upon one prime hero, under well-defined circumstances, may be traced from the first book to the twenty-third. Odysseus is always either directly or indirectly kept before the reader, as a warrior return- ing from the fulness of glory at Troy, exposed to manifold and protracted calamities during his return home, on which his whole soul is so bent that he refuses even the immortality offered by Calypso ; a victim, moreover, even after his return, to mingled injury and insult from the suitors, who have long been plundering his property, and dishonoring his house ; but at length obtaining, by valor and cunning united, a signal revenge, which restores him to all that he had lost. All the persons and all the events in the poem are subsidiary to this main plot : and the divine agency, necessary to satisfy the feeling of the Homeric man, is put forth by Poseidon and Athene, in both cases from dispositions directly bearing upon Odysseus. To appreciate the unity of the Odyssey, we have only to read the objections taken against that of the Iliad, especially in regard to the long withdrawal of Achilles, not only from the scene, but from the memory, together with the independent prominence of Ajax, Diomedes, and other heroes. How far we are entitled from hence to infer the want of premed- itated unity in the Iliad, will be presently considered; but it is certain that the constitution of the Odyssey, in this respect, everywhere demonstrates the presence of such unity. Whatever may be the interest attached to Penelope, Telemachus, or Eumaeus, we never disconnect them from their association with Odysseus. The present is not the place for collecting the many marks of artistical structure dispersed throughout this poem ; but it may be worth while to remark, that the final catastrophe realized in the twenty-second book, the slaughter of the suitors in the very house which they were profaning, is distinctly and promi- nently marked out in the first and second books, promised by Teiresias in the eleventh, by Athene in the thirteenth, and by Helen in the fifteenth, and gradually matured by a series of ​ERRONEOUS INFERENCE. 167 suitable preliminaries, throughout the eight Looks preceding its occurrence. 1 Indeed, what is principally evident, and what has been often noticed, in the Odyssey, is, the equable flow both of the nar- rative and the events ; the absence of that rise and fall of interest which is sufficiently conspicuous in the Iliad. To set against these evidences of unity, there ought, at least, to be some strong cases produced of occasional incoherence or contradiction. But it is remarkable how little of such counter- evidence is to be found, although the arguments of Wolf, "W. Muller, and B. Thiersch stand so much in need of it. They have discovered only one instance of undeniable inconsistency in the parts, the number of days occupied by the absence of Tele- machus at Pylus and Sparta. That young prince, though repre- sented as in great haste to depart, and refusing pressing invita- tions to prolong his stay, must, nevertheless, be supposed to have continued for thirty days the guest of Menelaus, in order to bring his proceedings into chronological harmony with those of Odysseus, and to explain the first meeting of father and son in the swine- fold of Eurarcus. Here is undoubtedly an inaccuracy, (so Nitzsch? treats it, and I think justly) on the part of the poet, who did not anticipate, and did not experience in ancient times, so strict a scrutiny ; an inaccuracy certainly not at all wonderful ; the. matter of real wonder is, that it stands almost alone, and that there are no others in the poem. Now, this is one of the main points on which W. Muller and 1 Compare i, 295; ii. 145 (vqiroivoi KEV e-eira 66/nuv EVTOcrdev o xi. 118; xiii. 395; xv. 178; also xiv. 162. 2 Nitzsch, Plan und Gang cler Odyssce, p. xliii, prefixed to the second vol. of his Commentary on the Odysseis. " At carminum primi auditores non adeo curiosi erant (observes Mr. Payne Knight, Proleg. c. xxiii.), ut cjusmodi rcnim rationes aut exquirereni aut expendercnt ; neque eorum fides e subtilioribus congruentiis omnino pendebat. Monendi enim sunt etiam atque etiam Homericorum studios!, veteres illos uoidoi'e non lingu professoria inter viros criticos et grammati- cos, aut alios quoscunque argutiarum captatores, carmina cantitasse, sed inter eos qui sensibus animorum liberc, incautc, et effuse indulgerent," etc Chap, xxii-xxvii. of Mr. Knight's Prolegomena, are valuable to the sam purpose, showing the " homines f udes et agrestes," of that day, as excellent judges of what fell under their senses and observation, but careless, credo lous, and unobservant of contradiction, in matters which came only under the mind's eye. ​168 HISTORY OF GREECE. B. Thierseh rest their theory, explaining the chronological confusion by supposing that the journey of Telemachus to Pylus and Sparta, constituted the subject of an epic originally separate (comprising the first four books and a portion of the fifteenth), and incorporated at second-hand with the remaining poem. And they conceive this view to be farther confirmed by the double assembly of the gods, (at the beginning of the first book as well as of the fifth,) which they treat as an awkward repetition, such as could not have formed part of the primary scheme of any epie poet. But here they only escape a small difficulty by running into another and a greater. For it is impossible to comprehend how the first four books and part of the fifteenth can ever have constituted a distinct epic; since the adventures of Telemachus have no satisfactory termination, except at the point of confluence with those of his father, when the unexpected meeting and recog- nition takes place under the roof of Eunueus, nor can any epic poem ever have described that meeting and recognition without giving some account how Odysseus came thither. Moreover, the first two books of the Odyssey distinctly lay the ground, and carry expectation forward, to the final catastrophe of the poem, treating Telemachus as a subordinate person, and his expedi- tion as merely provisional towards an ulterior result. Nor can I agree with W. Muller, that the real Odyssey might well be sup- posed to begin with the fifth book. On the contrary, the exhibi- tion of the suitors and the Ithakesian agora, presented to us in the second book, is absolutely essential to the full comprehension of the books subsequent to the thirteenth. The suitors are far too important personages in the poem to allow of their being first introduced in so informal a manner as we read in the sixteenth book: indeed, the passing allusions of Athene (xiii. 310, 375) and Eumseus (xiv. 41, 81) to the suitors, presuppose cognizance of them on the part of the hearer. Lastly, the twofold discussion of the gods, at the beginning of the first and fifth books, and the double interference of Athene, far from being a needless repetition, may be shown to suit per- fectly both the genuine epical conditions and the unity of the poem. 1 For although the final consummation, and the organiza- 1 W. Miiller is not cornx t in saying that, in the first assembly of the gods, Zeus promises something v hich he does not perform : Zeus docs not promitt ​fXTTY OF THE ODYSSEY. 169 tion of measures against the suitors, was to be accomplished by Odysseus and Telemachus jointly, yet the march and adventures of the two, until the moment of their meeting in the dwelling of Eumreus, were essentially distinct. But, according to the reli- gious ideas of the old epic, the presiding direction of Athene was necessary for the safety and success of both of them. Her first interference arouses and inspires the son, her second produces the liberation of the father, constituting a point of union and common origination for two lines of adventures, in both of which she takes earnest interest, but which aie necessarily for a time kept apart in order to coincide at the proper moment. It will thus appear that the twice-repeated agora of the gods in Ihe Odyssey, bringing home, as it does to one and the same divine agent, that double start which is essential to the scheme of the poem, consists better with the supposition of premeditated unity than with that of distinct self-existent parts. And, assuredly, the manner in which Telemachus and Odysseus, both by different roads, are brought into meeting and conjunction at the dwelling of Eunueus, is something not only contrived, but very skilfully contrived. It is needless to advert to the highly interesting character of Eumaeus, rendered available as a rally ing-point, though in different ways, both to the father and the son, over and above the sympathy which he himself inspires. If the Odyssey be not an original unity, of what self-existent parts can we imagine it to have consisted ? To this question it is difficult to imagine a satisfactory reply : for the supposition that Telemachus and his adventures may once have formed the subject of a separate epos, apart from Odysseus, appears inconsistent with the whole character of that youth as it stands in the poem, and with the events in which he is made to take part. We could better imagine the distribution of the adventures of Odysseus himself into two parts, one containing his wanderings and return, the other handling his ill-treatment by the suitors, and his to send Hermes as messenger to Kalypso, in the first book, though Athene urges him to do so. Zeus, indeed, requires to be urged twice before he dic- tates to Kalypso the release of Odysseus, but he had already intimated, in the first book, that he felt great difficulty in protecting the hero, because of the wrath manifested against him by Poseidon. VOL. II. 8 ​170 HISTORY OF GREECE. final triumph. But though either of these two subjects might have been adequate to furnish out a separate poem, it is never- theless certain that, as they are presented in the Odyssey, the former cannot be divorced from the latter. The simple return of Odysseus, as it now stands in the poem, could satisfy no one as a final close, so long as the suitoi's remain in possession of his house, and forbid his reunion with his wife. Any poem which treated his wanderings and return separately, must have repre- sented his reunion with Penelope and restoration to his house, as following naturally upon his arrival in Ithaka, thus taking little or no notice of the suitors. But this would be a capital mutilation of the actual epical narrative, which considers the suitors at home as an essential portion of the destiny of the much-suffering hero, not less than his shipwrecks and trials at sea. His return (sepa- rately taken) is foredoomed, according to the curse of Polyphe- mus, executed by Poseidon, to be long deferred, miserable, solitary, and ending with destruction in his house to greet him j 1 and the ground is thus laid, in the very recital of his wanderings, for a new series of events which are to happen to him after his arrival in Ithaka. There is no tenable halting-place between the depar- ture of Odysseus from Troy, and the final restoration to his house and his wife. The distance between these two events may, indeed, be widened, by accumulating new distresses and impedi- ments, but any separate portion of it cannot be otherwise treated than as a fraction of the whole. The beginning and the end are here the data in respect to epical genesis, though the intermediate events admit of being conceived as variables, more or less numerous : so that the conception of the whole may be said without impropriety both to precede and to govern that of the constituent parts. The general result of a study of the Odyssey may be set down as follows: 1. The poem, as it now stands, exhibits unequivocally adaptation of parts and continuity of structure, whether by one or by several consentient hands : it may, perhaps, 1 Odyss, ix. 534. 'O^ KOKUf eh&Ol, WcffOf UTTO TTUVTOf iTUlpOVf, firjdf TT' <l?.Aorp7f, evpoi J' tv rc^fiara olau 'Of ^ar' d'xofievof (the Cjclops to Poseidon) rov 6' e ​STRUCTURE OF THE ODYSSEY. I/] be a secondary formation, out of a preexisting Odyssey of smaller dimensions ; but, if so, the parts of the smaller whole must have been so far recast as to make them suitable members of the larger, and are noway recognizable by us. 2. The subject- matter of the poem not only does not favor, but goes far to ex- clude, the possibility of the Wolfian hypothesis. Its events cannot be so arranged as to have composed several antecedent substantive epics, afterwards put together into the present ag- gregate. Its authors cannot have been mere compilers of pre- existing materials, such as Peisistratus and his friends : they must have been poets, competent to work such matter as they found, into a new and enlarged design of their own. Nor can the age in which this long poem, of so many thousand lines, M r as turned out as a continuous aggregate, be separated from the ancient, productive, inspired age of Grecian epic. Arriving at such conclusions from the internal evidence of the Odyssey, 1 we can apply them by analogy to the Iliad. We learn something respecting the character and capacities of that early age which has left no other mementos except these two poems. Long continuous epics (it is observed by those who support the news of "Volf), with an artistical structure, are inconsistent with the capacities of a rude and non- writing age. Such epics (we may reply) are not inconsistent with the early age of the Greeks, and the Odyssey is a proof of it ; for in that poem the integration of the whole, and the composition of the parts, must have been simultaneous. The analogy of the Odyssey enables us to rebut that preconception under which many ingenious critics sit down to the study of the Iliad, and which induces them to explain all the incoherences of the latter by breaking it up into smaller unities, as if short epics were the only manifestation of poetical 1 Wolf admits, in most unequivocal language, the compact and' artful structure of the Odyssey. Against this positive internal evidence, he sets the general presumption, that no such constructive art can possibly have belonged to a poet of the age of Homer: " De Odyssea maxime, cujas admirabilis summa et compages pro praeclarissimo monumento Grseci ingenii habenda est Unde fit ut Odysseam nemo, cui omnino priscus vatea placeat, nisi perlectam e manu deponere queat. At ilia ars id ipsum est, qnod vix ac ne vix quidem cadere videtur in vatem, singulas tantum rhapsodise decantantem," etc. (Prolegomen. pp. cxviii-cxx ; compare cxii.) ​172 fflSTORY OF GREECE. power which the age admitted. There ought to be no reluctance in admitting a presiding scheme and premeditated unity of parts, in so far as the parts themselves point to such a conclusion. That the Iliad is not so essentially one piece as the Odyssey, every man agrees. It includes a much greater multiplicity of events, and what is yet more important, a greater multiplicity of prominent personages : the very indefinite title which it bears, as contrasted with the speciality of the name, Odyssey, marks the difference at once. The parts stand out more conspicuously from the whole, and admit more readily of being felt and appre- ciated in detached recitation. We may also add, that it is of more unequal execution than the Odyssey, often rising to a far higher pitch of grandeur, but also, occasionally, tamer : the story does not move on continuously ; incidents occur without plausible motive, nor can we shut our eyes to evidences of incoherence and contradiction. To a certain extent, the Iliad is open to all these remarks, though Wolf and William Miiller, and above all Lachmann, ex- aggerate the case in degree. And from hence has been deduced the hypothesis which treats the parts in their original state as separate integers, independent of, and unconnected with, each other, and forced into unity only by the afterthought of a subse- quent age ; or sometimes, not even themselves as integers, but as aggregates grouped together out of fragments still smaller,^ short epics formed by the coalescence of still shorter songs. Now there is some plausibility in these reasonings, so long as the discrepancies are looked upon as the whole of the case. But in point of fact they are not the whole of the case : for it is not less true, that there are large portions of the Iliad which present positive and undeniable evidences of coherence as antecedent and consequent, though we are occasionally perplexed by incon- sistencies of detail. To deal with these latter, is a portion of the duties of the critic. But he is not to treat the Iliad as if inconsistency prevailed everywhere throughout its parts-; for coherence of parts symmetrical antecedence and consequence is discernible throughout the larger half of the poem. Now the Wolfian theory explains the gaps and contradictions throughout the narrative, but it explains nothing else. If (as Lacbmann thinks) the Iliad originally consisted of sixteen songs/ ​STRUCTURE OF THE ILIAD. 173 or little substantive epics, (Lachmann's sixteen songo cover the space only as far as the 22d book, or the death of Hector, and two more songs would have to be admitted for the 23d and 24th books), not only composed by different authors, but by each 1 without any view to conjunction with the rest, we have then no right to expect any intrinsic continuity between them ; and all that continuity which we now find must be of extraneous origin. Where are we to look for the origin ? Lachmann follows Wolf, in ascribing the whole constructive process to Peisistratus and his associates, at a period when the creative epical faculty is admitted to have died out. But upon this supposition, Peisistra- tus (or his associates) must have done much more than omit, transpose, and interpolate, here and there ; he must have gone far to rewrite the whole poem. A great poet might have recast preexisting separate songs into one comprehensive whole, but no mere arrangers or compilers would be competent to do so : and we are thus left without any means of accounting for that degree of continuity and consistence which runs through so large a portion of the Iliad, though not through the whole. The idea that the poem, as we read it, grew out of atoms not originally designed for the places which they now occupy, involves us in new and inex- tricable difficulties, when we seek to elucidate either the mode of coalescence or the degree of existing unity. 2 1 Lachmann seems to admit one case in which the composer of one song manifests cognizance of another song, and a disposition to give what will form a sequel to it. His fifteenth song (the Patrokleia) lasts from xv. 592 down to the end of the 17th book: the sixteenth song (including the four next books, from eighteen to twenty- two inclusive) is a continuation of the fifteenth, but by a different poet. (Fernerc Betrachtungen iiber die Ilias, Abhandl. Berlin. Acad. 1841, sect. xxvi. xxviii. xxix. pp. 24, 34, 42.) This admission of premeditated adaptation to a certain extent breaks up the integrity of the Wolfian hypothesis.

• The advocates of the Wolfian theory, appear to feel the difficulties which

beset it ; for their language is wavering in respect to these supposed primary constituent atoms. Sometimes Lachmann tells us, that the original pieces were much finer poetry than the Iliad as we now read it; at another time, that it cannot be now discovered what they originally were : nay, he farther admits, (as remarked in the preceding note,) that the poet of the sixteenth song had cognizance of the fifteenth. But if it be granted that the original constituent songs were so composed, though by different poets, as th.V- the more recent were udupted ;o the earlier ​174 HISTORY OF GREECE. Admitting then premeditated adaptation of parts to a certain extent as essontial to the Iliad, we may yet inquire, whether it was produced all at once, or gradually enlarged, whether by one author, or by several ; and, if the parts be of different age, which is the primitive kernel, and which are the additions. Welcker, Lange, and Nitzsch 1 treat the Homeric poems as representing a second step in advance, in the progress of popular poetry. First, comes the age of short narrative songs ; next, when these have become numerous, there arise constructive minds, who recast and blend together many of them into a larger aggre- gate, conceived upon some scheme of their own. The age of the epos is followed by that of the epopee, short, spontaneous effu- sions preparing the way, and furnishing materials, for the archi- tectonic genius of the poet. It is farther presumed by the above- mentioned authors, that the pre-Homeric epic included a great abundance of such smaller songs, a fact which admits of no proof, but which seems countenanced by some passages in Homer, and is in itself no way improbable. But the transition from such songs, assuming them to be ever so numerous, to a combined and continuous poem, forms an epoch in the intellectual history of the nation, implying mental qualities of a higher order than those upon which the songs themselves depend. Nor is it to be imag- ined that the materials pass unaltered from their first state of isolation into their second state of combination. They must of necessity be recast, and undergo an adapting process, in which with more or less dexterity and success, this brings us into totally different conditions of the problem. It is a virtual surrender of the Wolfian hypoth- esis, which, however, Lachmann both means to defend, and does defend with ability ; though his vindication of it has, to my mind, only the effect of exposing its inherent weakness by carrying it out into something detailed and positive. I will add, in respect to his Dissertations, so instructive as a microscopic examination of the poem, 1. That I find myself constantly dissenting from that critical feeling, on the strength of which he cuts out parts as interpolations, and discovers traces of the hand of distinct poets ; 2 That his objections against the continuity of the narrative are often founded upon lines which the ancient scholiasts and Mr. Payne Knight had already pronounced to be interpolations ; 3. That such of his objections as are founded upon lines undisputed, admit in many cases of a complete and satisfactory reply. 1 Lange, in his Letter to Goethe, Ueber die Einhcit der Iliade, p. 33 (1826) Nitzsch, Historia Homeri, Fasciculus 2, Praefat. p. x. ​STRUCTURE OF THE ILIAD. 175 the genius of the organizing poet consists ; nor can we hope, by simply knowing them as they exist in the second stage, ever to divine how they stood in the first. Such, in my judgment, is the right conception of the Homeric epoch, an organizing poetical mind, still preserving that freshness of observation and vivacity of details which constitutes the charm of the ballad. Nothing is gained by studying the Iliad as a congeries of frag- ments once independent of each other : no portion of the poem can be shown to have ever been so, and the supposition introduces difficulties greater than those which it removes. But it is not necessary to affirm that the whole poem as we now read it, belonged to the original and preconceived plan. 1 In this respect, the Iliad produces, upon my mind, an impression totally different from the Odyssey. In the latter poem, the characters and inci- dents are fewer, and the whole plot appears of one projection, from the beginning down to the death of the suitors : none of the parts look as if they had been composed separately, and inserted by way of addition into a preexisting smaller poem. But the Iliad, on the contrary, presents the appearance of a house built upon a plan comparatively narrow, and subsequently enlarged by succes- sive additions. The first book, together with the eighth, and the books from the eleventh to the twenty-second, inclusive, seem to form the primary organization of the poem, then properly an Achilleis : the twenty-third and twenty-fourth books are, perhaps, additions at the tail of this primitive poem, which still leave it nothing more than an enlarged Achilleis. But the books from the second to the seventh, inclusive, together with the tenth, are of a wider and more comprehensive character, and convert the poem 1 Even Aristotle, the great builder- up of the celebrity of Homer as to epical aggregation, found some occasions (it appears) on which he was obliged to be content with simply excusing, without admiring, the poet (Poet. 44 rotf uAAoff aya&olf 6 iroiijT})f f/6vvuv u<jtavisi rb UTOTTOV. ) And Hermann observes justly, in his acute treatise De Interpolationibus Homeri (Opuscula, torn. v. p. 53), "Nisi admirabilis ilia Homericorurn carminum suavitas lectorum animos quasi incantationibus quibusdam captoa tcneret, non tarn facile delitescerent, quse accuratins considerata, et multo minus apte quam quis jure postulet composita esse apparere necesse est." This treatise contains many criticisms on the structure of the Iliad, soma of them very well founded, though there arc many from which I dissent ​176 HISTORY OF GREECE. from an Achilleis into an Iliad. 1 The primitive frontispiece, inscribed with the anger of Achilles, and its direct consequences, yet remains, after it has ceased to be coextensive with the poem. The parts added, however, are not necessarily inferior in merit to the original poem : so far is this from being the case, that amongst them are comprehended some of the noblest efforts of the Grecian epic. Nor are they more recent in date than the original ; strictly speaking, they must be a little more recent, but they belong to the same generation and state of society as the primitive Achilleis. These qualifications are necessary to keep apart different ques- tions, which, in discussions of Homeric criticism, are but too often confounded. If we take those portions of the poem which I imagine to have constituted the original Achilleis, it will be found that the sequence of events contained in them is more rapid, more unbroken, and more intimately knit together in the way of cause and effect, than in the other books. Heyne and Lachmann, indeed, with other objecting critics, complains of the action in them as being too much crowded and hurried, since one day lasts from the beginning of the eleventh book to the middle of the eighteenth, without any sensible halt in the march throughout so large a portion of the journey. Lachmann, likewise, admits that those separate songs, into which he imagines that the whole Iliad may be dissected, cannot be severed with the same sharpness, in the books subse- quent to the eleventh, as in those before it. 2 There is only one 1 In reference to the books from the second to the seventh, inclusive, I agree with the observations of William Miiller, Homerische Vorschulc, Ab- sclmit. viii. pp. 116-118.

• Lachmann, Fernere Betrachtungen iiber die Ilias, Abhandlungen Berlin.

Acad. 1841, p. 4. After having pointed out certain discrepancies which he maintains to prove different composing hands, he adds : " Nevertheless, we must be careful not tc regard the single constituent songs in this part of the poem as being distinct and separable in a degree equal to those in the first half; for they all with one accord harmonize in one particular circumstance, which, with reference to the story of the Iliad, is not less important even than the anger of Achilles, viz. that the three most distinguished heroes, Agamemnon, Odys- seus, and Diomedes, all becc Be disabled throughout the whole duration of the battles." Important for the story of the Atiilltis, I should sny, not for that of th* ​SUBJECT OF THE 1L1AU. 177 real halting-place from the eleventh book to Ihe twenty-second. the death of Patroclus ; and this can never be conceived as the end of a separate poem, 1 though it is a capital step in the devel- opment of the Achilleis, and brings about that entire revolution in the temper of Achilles which was essential for the purpose of the poet. It would be a mistake to imagine that there ever could have existed a separate poem called Patrocleia, though a part of the Iliad was designated by that name. For Patroclus has no substantive position : he is the attached friend and second of Achilles, but nothing else, standing to the latter in a relation of dependence resembling that of Telemachus to Odysseus. And the way in which Patroclus is dealt with in the Iliad, is, (in my judgment,) the most dexterous and artistical contrivance in tho poem, that which approaches nearest to the neat tissue of the Odyssey. 3 Iliad. This remark of Lachmann is highly illustrative for the distinction between the original and the enlarged poem. 1 1 confess my astonishment that a man of so much genius and power of thought as SI. Benjamin Constant, should have imagined the original Iliad to have concluded with the death of Patroclus, on the ground that Achilles then becomes reconciled with Agamemnon. See the review of B. Constant's work, De la Religion, etc., by O. Miiller, in the Kleine Schriften of the latter, vol. ii. p. "4. 2 He appears as the mediator between the insulted Achilles and the Greeks, manifesting kindly sympathies for the latter without renouncing his fidelity to the former. The wounded Slachaon, an object of interest to the whole camp, being carried off. the field by Nestor, Achilles, looking on from his distant ship, sends Patroclus to inquire whether it be really Machaon ; which enables Nestor to lay before Patroclus the deplorable state of the Grecian host, as a motive to induce him and Achilles again to take arms. The compassionate feelings of Patroclus being powerfully touched, he is hasten- ing to enforce upon Achilles the urgent necessity of giving help, when he meets Eurypylus crawling out of the field, helpless with a severe wound, and imploring his succor. He supports the wounded warrior to his tent, and ministers to his suffering; but before this operation is fully completed, the Grecian host has been totally driven back, and the Trojans are on tha point of setting fire to the ships : Patroclus then hurries to Achilles to pro- claim the desperate peril which hangs over them all, and succeeds in obtain- ing his permission to take the field at the head of the Myrmidons. Tho way in which Patroclus is kept present to the hearer, as a prelude to his brilliant but short-lived display, when he comes forth in arms, the con- trast between his characteristic gentleness and the ferocity of Achilles, VOL. IT. 8* 120C. ​(78 HISTORY OF GREECiv The great and capital misfortune which prostrates the strengln of the Greeks, and renders them incapable of defending them- selves without Achilles, is the disablement, by wounds, of Aga- memnon, Diomedes, and Odysseus ; so that the defence of the wall and of the ships is left only to heroes of the second magni- tude (Ajax alone excepted), such as Idomeneus, Leonteus, Poly- pa? tes, Meriones, Menelaus, etc. Now, it is remarkable that all these three first-rate chiefs are in full force at the beginning of the eleventh book: all three are wounded in the battle which that book describes, and at the commencement of which Agamemnon is full of spirits and courage. Nothing can be more striking than the manner in which Homer concentrates our attention in the first book upon Achilles as the hero, his quarrel with Agamemnon, and the calamities to the Greeks which are held out as about to ensue from it, through the intercession of Thetis with Zeus. But the incidents dwelt upon from the beginning of the second book down to the combat between Hector and Ajax in the seventh, animated and interesting us they are, do nothing to realize this promise. They are a splendid picture of the Trojan war generally, and eminently suitable to that larger title under which the poem has been immortalized, but the consequences of the anger of Achilles do not appear until the eighth book. The tenth book, or Doloneia, is also a portion of the Iliad, but not of the Achilleis : while the ninth book appears to me a subsequent addition, nowise harmo- nizing with that main stream of the Achilleis which flows from the eleventh book to the twenty-second. The eighth book ought to be read in immediate connection with the eleventh, in order to see the structure of what seems the primitive Achilleis ; for there are several passages in the eleventh and the following book?, which prove that the poet who composed them could not have had present to his mind the main event of the ninth book, the outpouring of profound humiliation by the Greeks, and from Agamemnon, especially, before Achilles, coupled with formal and the natural train of circumstances whereby he is made the vehicle of reconciliation on the part of his offended friend, and rescue to his imperiled countrymen, nil these exhibit a degree of epical skill, in the author of the primitive Achilluis, tc which nothing is found parallel in the added books of the Iliad. ​EXTENT OF THE ACHILLEIS. 179 offers to restore Briseis, and pay the amplest compensation for past wrong. 1 The words of Achilles (not less than those of 1 Observe, for example, the following passages : 1. Achilles, standing on the prow of his ship, sees the general army of Greeks undergoing defeat by the Trojans, and also sees Nestor conveying in his chariot a wounded warrior from the field. He sends Patroclus to find out who the wounded man is: in calling forth Patroclus, he says (xi. 607), A2e Mei'omu<5>;, rcj '(Uo) Kexeptoftfve i9iy/<p, Kvv olu irepl yovvar' ipu aTTjaeadai 'A^euoiif Ataffo/isvovf xP ' iu yup iKuverat OVKET' uveKTOf. Ileyne, in his comment, asks the question, not unnaturally, " Poenituerat igitur asperitatis erga priorem legationem, an homo arrogans expectaverat ulteram ad se missam iri 1 " I answer, neither one nor the other : the words imply that he had received no embassy at all. He is still the same Achilles who in the first book paced alone by the seashore, devouring his own soul under a sense of bitter affront, and praying to Thetis to aid his revenge: this revenge is now about to be realized, and he hails its approach with delight. But if we admit the embassy of the ninth book to intervene, the passage becomes a glaring inconsistency for that which Achilles anticipates as future, and even yet as contingent, had actually occurred on the previous even- ing ; the Greeks had supplicated at his feet, they had proclaimed their intol- erable need, and he had spurned them. The Scholiast, iu his explanation of these lines, after giving the plain meaning, that " Achilles shows what he has long been desiring, to see the Greeks in a state of supplication to him," seems to recollect that this is in contradiction to the ninth book, and tries to remove the contradiction, by saying " that he had been previously molli- fied by conversation with Phoenix," rjSri 6s irpo/j.a'kax'&eii: ijv in TUV <koivi- KOf /toywv, a supposition neither countenanced by anything in the poet, nor sufficient to remove the difficulty. 2. The speech of Poseidon (xiii. 115) to encourage the dispirited Grecian heroes, in which, after having admitted the injury done to Achilles by Aga- memnon, he recommends an effort to heal the sore, and intimates " that the minds of good men admit of this healing process," ('AAA' uKeufieda du.aaov uKearai re (jtpevec or?Awv,) is certainly not very consistent with the supposi- tion that this attempt to heal had been made in the best possible way, and that Achilles had manifested a mind implacable in the extreme on the evening before, while the mind of Agamemnon was already brought to proclaimed humiliation, and needed no farther healing. 3. And what shall we say to the language of Achilles and Patroclus, at the beginning of the sixteenth book, just at the moment when the danger has reached its maximum, and when Achilles is about to send forth his friend 1 Neither Nestor, when he invokes and instructs Patroclus as interccssoi with Achilles (xi. 654-790). nor Patroclus himself, though in the extreme ​180 HISTORY OF GREECE. Patroclus and Nestor) in the eleventh and in the following books, plainly imply that the humiliation of the Greeks before him, for of anxiety to work upon the mind of Achilles, and reproaching him with hardness of heart, ever bring to remembrance the ample atonement which hud been tendered to him ; while Achilles himself repeats the original ground of quarrel, the wrong offered to him in taking away Briseis, continuing the language of the first book ; then, without the least allusion to the atonement and restitution since tendered, he yields to his friend's proposition, just like a man whose wrong remained unredressed, but who was, nevertheless, forced to take arms by necessity (xvi. 60-63) : 'A-^Aii TU HEV irpOTer(>Y9ai eu.cTOfj.ev, ovS 1 upa mjf T/V 'Ao/rep^ef Ke%o%.aff&ai evi Qpeaiv fjTot Ifyrjv ye (Jii Ttplv nrjvL'&fj.bv KO.Tairavaefj.ev, d/lA' OTtorav dr) N7/af ifiuf uQiKijTai UVTTJ TE Trrofapof re. I agree with the Scholiast and Heyne in interpreting ttyrjv ye as equivalent to dievoqiSjjv, not as referring to any express antecedent declaration. Again, farther on in the same speech, " The Trojans (Achilles says) now press boldly forward upon the ships, for they no longer see the blaze of my helmet: but if Agamemnon were favorably disposed towards me, they would presently run away and fill the ditches with their dead bodies" (71) : Tu . Kev ^evyovrcf ivavtovf HMjaetav VEK.VUV, el fioi tcpeiuv 'Aya^f/zvuv

• H;na tldeii)' vvv 6e GTOUTOV ufj.<j>t[idxovTai.

Now here again, if we take our start from the first book, omitting the ninth, the sentiment is perfectly just. But assume the ninth book, and it becomes false and misplaced ; for Agamemnon is then a prostrate and repentant man, not merely" favorably disposed" towards Achilles, but offering to pay any price for the purpose of appeasing him. 4. Again, a few lines farther, in the same speech, Achilles permits Patro- clus to go forth, in consideration of the extreme peril of the fleet, but restricts him simply to avert this peril and do nothing more : " Obey my words, so that you may procure for me honor and glory from the body of Greeks, and that they may send back to me the damsel, giving me ample presents besides : when you have driven the Trojans from the ships, come back again " - 'Qf uv ftoi rifj^v jUe; akrjv KOI ttiidof apoto Upbc TCU.VTUV Aavaoif urup ol nepiKa^ea Kovprjv "A^ anovuaaum, Trporl 6' ayAaa Stipa -xopuaiv 'E/c vquv ihi'iaaf, levai 7ru/Uv (84-87). How are we to reconcile this with the ninth book, where Achilles declares that he does not care for being honored by the Greeks, is. 604? In the mouth of the affronted Achilles, of the first book, such words are apt enough : lie will grant succor, but only to the extent necessary for the emergency, and in such a way as to insure redress for his own wrong, which redresi ​NINTH BOOK OF THE ILIAD. 1JH which he thirsts, is as yet future and contingent ; that no plenary apology has yet been tendered, nor any offer made of restoring he has no reason as yet to conclude that Agamemnon is willing to grant. But the ninth book has actually tendered to him everything which he here demands, and even more (the daughter of Agamemnon in marriage, without the price usually paid for a bride, etc.) : Briseis, whom now he is so anxious to repossess, was then offered in restitution, and he disdained the offer. Mr. Knight, in fact, strikes out these lines as spurious ; partly, because they con- tradict the ninth book, where Achilles has actually rejected what he hero thirsts for (" Dona cum puella jam antea oblata aspernatus erat,") partly because he thinks that they express a sentiment unworthy of Achilles ; in which latter criticism I do not concur. 5. We proceed a little farther to the address of Patroclus to the Myrmi- dons, as he is conducting them forth to the battle : " Fight bravely, Myrmi- dons, that we may bring honor to Achilles ; and that the wide-ruling Aga- memnon may know the mad folly which he committed, when he dishonored the bravest of the Greeks." To impress this knowledge upon Agamemnon was no longer necessary. The ninth book records his humiliating confession of it, accompanied by atonement and reparation. To teach him the lesson a second time, is to break the bruised reed, to slay the slain. But leave out the ninth book, and the motive is the natural one, both for Patroclus to offer, and for the Myrmidons to obey : Achilles still remains a dishonored man, and to hum- ble the rival who has dishonored him is the first of all objects, as well with bis friends as with himself. 6. Lastly, the time comes when Achilles, in deep anguish for the death of Patroclus, looks back with aversion and repentance to the past. To what point should we expect that his repentance would naturally turn ? Not to his primary quarrel with Agamemnon, in which he had been undeniably wronged, but to the scene in the ninth book, where the maximum of atone- ment for the previous wrong is tendered to him and scornfully rejected. Yet when we turn to xviii. 108. and xix. 55, 68. 270, we find him reverting to tho primitive quarrel in ihe first book, just as if it had been the last incident in his relations with Agamemnon: moreover, Agamemnon (xix. 86), in his speech of reconciliation, treats the past just in the same way, deplores his original insanity in wronging Achilles. 7. When we look to the prayers of Achilles and Thetis, addressed to Zeus in the first book, we find that the consummation prayed for is, honor to Achilles, redress for the wrong offered to him, victory to the Trojans until Agamemnon and the Greeks shall be made bitterly sensible of the wrong which they have done to their bravest wavrior (i. 409-509). Now thi consummation is brought about in the ninth book. Achilles can get no more, nor cioes he ultimately get more, either in the way of redress to himself or remorseful humiliation of Agamemnon, than what is here tendered. The defeat which the Greeks suffer in the battle of the eighth book (KoAor Nf'xy) ​132 HISTORY OF GREECE. Briseis; while both Nestor and Patroclus, with all tluir wish to induce him to take arms, never take notice of the offered atone- ment ard restitution, but view him as one whose ground for bas brought about the consummation. The subsequent and much more destructive defeats which they undergo are thus causeless : yet Zeus is repre- sented as inflicting them reluctantly, and only because they are necessary to honor Achilles (xiii. 350 ; xv. 75, 235, 598 ; compare also viii. 372 and 475). If we reflect upon the constitution of the poem, we shall see that the fun- damental sequence of ideas in it is, a series of misfortunes to the Greeks, brought on by Zeus for the special purpose of procuring atonement to Achilles and bringing humiliation on Agamemnon : the introduction of Pa- troclus superadds new motives of the utmost interest, but it is most harmo- niously worked into the fundamental sequence. Now the intrusion of the ninth book breaks up the scheme of the poem by disuniting the sequence : Agamemnon is on his knees before Achilles, entreating pardon and proffering reparation, yet the calamities of the Greeks become more and more dreadful. The atonement of the ninth book comes at the wrong time and in the wrong manner. There are four passages (and only four, so far as I am aware) in which the embassy of the ninth book is alluded to in the subsequent books : one in xviii. 444-456, which was expunged as spurious by Aristarchus (see the Scholia and Knight's commentary, ad loc.) ; and three others in the following book, wherein the gifts previously tendered by Odysseus as the envoy of Agamemnon are noticed as identical with the gifts actually given in the nineteenth book. I feel persuaded that these passages (vv. 140-141, 192- 195, and 243) are specially inserted for the purpose of establishing a connec- tion between the ninth book and the nineteenth. The four lines (192-195) are decidedly better away: the first two lines (140-141) are noway neces- sary; while the word x& l &t (which occurs in both passages) is only rendered admissible by being stretched to mean nudius tertius (Heyne, ad loc.). I will only farther remark with respect to the ninth book, that the speech of Agamemnon ("17-28), the theme for the rebuke of Diomedes and the ob- scure commonplace of Nestor, is taken verbatim from his speech in the second book, in which place the proposition, of leaving the place and flying, is made, not seriously, but as a stratagem (ii. 110, 118, 140). The length of this note can only be excused by its direct bearing upon the structure of the Iliud. To show that the books from the eleventh downwards are composed by a poet who has no knowledge of the ninth book, is, in my judgment, a very important point of evidence in aiding us to understand what the original Achilleis was. The books from the second to the seventh inclusive are insertions into the Achilleis, and lie apart from its plot, but do not violently contradict it, except in regard to the agora of the gods at the beginning of the fourth book, and the almost mortal wounci of Sarpedon in his battle with Tlepolemus. But the ninth book overthrows to* fundamental scheme of the poem. ​NINTH BOOK OF THE ILIAD. 183 quarrel stands still llie same as it did at the beginning. More- over, if ve look at the first book, the opening of the Achilleis, we shall see that this prostration of Agamemnon and the chief Grecian heroes before Achilles, would really be the termination of the whole poem ; for Achilles asks nothing more from Thetis, nor Thetis anything more from Zeus, than that Agamemnon and the Greeks may be brought to know the wrong they have done to their capital warrior, and humbled in the dust in expiation of it. We may add, that the abject terror in which Agamemnon appears in the ninth book, when he sends the supplicatory message to Achilles, as it is not adequately accounted for by the degree of calamity which the Greeks have experienced in the preceding (eighth) book, so it is inconsistent with the gallantry and high spirit with which he shines at the beginning of the eleventh. 1 The situation of the Greeks only becomes desperate when the three great chiefs, Agamemnon, Odysseus, and Diomedes, are disabled by wounds ; 2 this is the irreparable calamity which works upon Patroclus, and through him upon Achilles. The ninth book, as it now stands, seems to me an addition, by a different hand, to the original Achilleis, framed so as both to forestall and to spoil the nineteenth book, which is the real recon- ciliation of the two inimical heroes : I will venture to add, that it carries the pride and egotism of Achilles beyond even the largest exigences of insulted honor, and is shocking to that sentiment of Nemesis which was so deeply seated in the Grecian mind. "We forgive any excess of fury against the Trojans and Hector, after the death cf Patroclus ; but that he should remain unmoved by restitution, by abject supplications, and by the richest atoning 1 Ilclbig (Sittl. Zustiinde des Hcldcnalters, p. 30} says, " The conscious- ness in the bosom of Agamemnon that he has offered atonement to Achilles strengthens his confidence and valor," &c. This is the idea of the critic, not of the poet. It does not occur in the Iliad, though the critic not unnaturally imagines that it must occur. Agamemnon never says, " I was wrong in provoking Achilles, but you see I have done everything which man could do to beg his pardon." Assuming the ninth book to be a part of the original conception, this feeling is so natural, that we could hardly fail to find it, a) the beginning of the eleventh book, numbered among the motives of Aga memnon.

• Iliad, xi. 6.VJ ; xiv. 128: xvi. 25. ​184 HISTORY OF GREECE.

presents, tendered from the Greeks, indicates an implacability such as neither the first book, nor the books between the eleventh and seventeenth, convey. It is with the Grecian agora, in the beginning of the second book, that the Iliad (as distinguished from the Achilleis) com- mences, continued througi the Catalogue, the muster of the two armies, the single combat between Menelaus and Paris, the renewed promiscuous battle caused by the arrow of Pandarus, the (Epipolesis, or) personal circuit of Agamemnon round the army, the Aristeia, or brilliant exploits of Diomedes, the visit of Hector to Troy for the purposes of sacrifice, his interview with Andromache, and his combat with Aj;ix, down to the seventh book. All these are beautiful poetry, presenting to us the general Trojan war, and its conspicuous individuals under different points of view, but leaving no room in the reader's mind for the thought of Achilles. Now, the difficulty for an enlarging poet, was, to pass from the Achilleis in the first book, to the Iliad in the second, and it will accordingly be found that here is an awkward- ness in the structure of the poem, which counsel on the poet's behalf (ancient or modern) do not satisfactorily explain. In the first book, Zeus has promised Thetis, that he will pun- ish the Greeks for the wrong done to Achilles : in the beginning of the second book, he deliberates how he shall fulfil the promise, and sends down for that purpose " mischievous Oneirus " (the Dream-god) to visit Agamemnon in his sleep, to assure him that the gods have now with one accord consented to put Troy into his hands, and to exhort him forthwith to the assembling of his army for the attack. The ancient commentators were here per- plexed by the circumstance that Zeus puts a falsehood into the mouth of Oneirus. But there seems no more difficulty in explain- ing this, than in the narrative of the book of 1 Kings (chap. xxii. 20), where Jehovah is mentioned to have put a lying spirit into the mouth of Ahab's prophets, the rtal awkwardness is, that Oneirus and his falsehood produce no effect. For in the first place, Agamemnon takes a step very different from that which his dream recommends, and in the next place, when the Gre- cian army is at length armed and goes forth to battle, it does not experience defeat, (which would be the case if the exhoitation of Onsirus really proved mischievous,) but carries on a successful ​ENLARGEMENT OF ACHILLEIS LTfO ILIAD. 186 day's battle, chiefly through the heroism of Diomedes. Instead of arming the Greeks forthwith, Agamemnon convokes first a council of chiefs, and next an agora of the host. And though himself in a temper of mind highly elate with the deceitful as. surances of Oneirus, he deliberately assumes the language of despair in addressing the troops, having previously prepared Nes- tor and Odysseus for his doing so, merely in order to try the courage of the men, and with formal instructions, given to these two other chiefs, that they are to speak in opposition to him. Now this intervention of Zeus and Oneirus, eminently unsatisfac- tory when coupled with tha incidents which now follow it, and making Zeus appear, but only appear, to realize his promise of honoring Achilles as well as of hurting the Greeks, forms ex- actly the point of junction between the Achilleis and the Iliad. 1 The freak which Agamemnon plays off upon the temper of his army, though in itself childish, serves a sufficient purpose, not only because it provides a special matter of interest to be sub- mitted to the Greeks, but also because it calls forth the splendid description, so teeming with vivacious detail, of the sudden breaking up of the assembly after Agamemnon's harangue, and of the decisive interference of Odysseus to bring the men back, as well as to put down Thersites. This picture of the Greeks in agora, bringing out the two chief speaking and counselling heroes, was so important a part of the general Trojan war, that the poet has permitted himself to introduce it by assuming an inexplicable folly on the part of Agamemnon ; just as he has ushered in another fine scene in the third book, the Teicho- skopy, or conversation, between Priam and Helen on the walls of Troy, by admitting the supposition that the old king, in the tenth year of the war, did not know the persons of Aga- memnon and the other Grecian chiefs. This may serve as an explanation of the delusion practised by Agamemnon towards his assembled host ; but it does not at all explain the tame and empty intervention of Oneirus. 2 1 The intervention of Oneirus ought rather to come as an immediate pre- liminary to book viii. than to book iL The first forty-seven lines of book ii would fit on and read consistently &t the beginning of book viii, the events of which book form a proper sequel to the mission of Oneirus. 3 0. MQller, (History of Greek Literature, ch. v. 8,) doubts whether the ​186 HISTORY OF GREECE. If the initial incident of the second book, whereby we pass out of the Achilleis into the Iliad, is awkward, so also the final inci- dent of the seventh book, immediately before we come back into the Achilleis, is not less unsatisfactory, I mean, the construc- tion of the wall and ditch round the Greek camp. As the poem now stands, no plausible reason is assigned why this should be done. Nestor proposes it without any constraining necessity : for the Greeks are in a career of victory, and the Trojans are making offers of compromise which imply conscious weakness, while Diomedes is so confident of the approaching ruin of Troy, that he dissuades his comrades from receiving even Helen her- self, if the surrender should be tendered. " Many Greeks have been slain," it is true, 1 as Nestor observes ; but an equal or greater number of Trojans have been slain, and all the Grecian heroes are yet in full force : the absence of Achilles is not even adverted to. Now this account of the building of the fortification seems to beginning of the second book was written " by the ancient Homer, or by one of the later Homerids :" he thinks the speech of Agamemnon, wherein he plays off the deceit upon his army, is l; a copious parody (of the same words used in the ninth book) composed by a later Homerid, and inserted in the room of an originally shorter account of the arming of the Greeks." He treats the scene in the Grecian agora as " an entire mythical comedy, full of fine irony and with an amusing plot, in which the deceiving and deceived Agamemnon is the chief character." The comic or ironical character which is here ascribed to the second book appears to me fanciful and incorrect ; but Mailer evidently felt the awkward- ness of the opening incident, though his way of accounting for it is aot successful. The second book seems to my judgment just as serious as any part of the poem. I think also that the words alluded to by 0. Miiller in the ninth book are a transcript of those in the second, instead of the reverse, as he believes, because it seems probable that the ninth book is an addition made to tho poem after the books between the first and the eighth had been already in- serted, it is certainly introduced after the account of the fortification, contained in the seventh book, had become a part of the poem : see ix. 349. The author of the Embassy to Achilles fancied that that hero had been too long out of sight, and out of mind, a supposition for which there was no room in the original Achilleis, when the eighth and eleventh books followed in immediate succession to the first, but which offers itself naturally to anj one on reading our pn sent Iliad. 1 Ili id, vii. 327. ​FORTIFICATION OF THE GRECIAN CAMP. 1Q7 be an after-thought, arising out of the enlargement of the poem beyond its original scheme. The original Achilleis, passing at once from the first to the eighth,i and from thence to the eleventh book, might well assume the fortification, and talk of it as a thing existing, without adducing any special reason why it was erected. The hearer would naturally comprehend and follow the existence of a ditch and wall round the ships, as a matter of course, provided there was nothing in the previous narrative to make him believe that the Greeks had originally been without these bulwarks. And since the Achilleis, immediately after the promise of Zeus to Thetis, at the close of the first book, went on to describe the fulfilment of that promise and the ensuing dis- asters of the Greeks, there was nothing to surprise any one in hearing that their camp was fortified. But the case was altered when the first and the eighth books were parted asunder, in order to make room for descriptions of temporary success and glory on the part of the besieging army. The brilliant scenes sketched in the books, from the second to the seventh, mention no fortifica- tion, and even imply its nonexistence ; yet, since notice of it occurs amidst the first description of Grecian disasters in the eighth book, the hearer, who had the earlier books present to his memory, might be surprised to find a fortification mentioned im- mediately afterwards, unless the construction of it were specially announced to have intervened. But it will at once appear, that there was some difficulty in finding a good reason why the 1 Heyne treats the eighth book as decidedly a separate song, or epic ; a supposition which the language of Zeus and the agora of the gods at the beginning are alone sufficient to refute, in my judgment (Excursus 1, ad lib. xi. vol. vi. p. 269). This Excursus, in describing the sequence of events in the Iliad, passes at once and naturally from book eighth to book eleventh. And Mr. Payne Knight, whea he defends book eleventh against Heyne, says, " Quae in undecimS. rhapsodia Iliadis narrata sunt, haud minus ex ante narratis pendent: neque rationem pugnae commissae, neque rerum in ea ges- tarum nexum atque ordinem, quisquam intelligere posset, nisi iram A secessum Achillis, et victoriam quam Trojani inde consecuti erant, antea cog- nosset." (Prolegom. c. xxix.) Perfectly true : to understand the eleventh book, we must have before us the first and the eighth (which are those that describe the anger and with- drawal of Achilles, and the defeat which the Greeks experience in onse ^uence of it) ; we may dispense with the rest ​188 HISTORY OF GREECE. Greeks should begin to fortify at this juncture, and that the pot who discovered the gap might not be enabled to fill it up with success. As the Greeks have got on, up to this moment, without the wall, and as we have heard nothing but tales of their success, why should they now think farther laborious precautions for security necessary ? We will not ask, why the Trojans should sfcind quietly by and permit a wall to be built, since the truce was concluded expressly for bury ing the dead. 1 1 0. Miiller (Hist. Greek Literat. ch. v. 6) says, about this wall : "Nor is it until the Greeks are taught by the experience of the first day's fighting, that the Trojans can resist them in open battle, that the Greeks build the wall round their ships This appeared to Thucydides so little conformable to historical probability, that, without regard to the authority of Homer, lie placed the building of these walls immediately after the landing." It is to be lamented, I think, that Thucydides took upon him to determine the point at all as a matter of history ; but when he once undertook this, the account in the Iliad was not of a nature to give him much satisfaction, nor does the reason assigned by Miiller make it better. It is implied in Miiller's i-eason that, before the first day's battle, the Greeks did not believe that the Trojans could resist them in open battle: the Trojans (according to him) never had maintained the field, so long as Achilles was up and fighting on the Grecian side, and therefore the Greeks were quite astonished to find now, for the first time, that they could do so. Now nothing can be more at variance with the tenor of the second and following books than this supposition. The Trojans come forth readily and fight gallantly; neither Agamemnon, nor Nestor, nor Odysseus consider them as enemies who cannot hold front; and the circuit of exhortation by Agamemnon (Epipolesis), so strikingly described in the fourth book, proves that he does not anticipate a very easy victory. Nor does Nestor, in pro- posing the construction of the wall, give the smallest hint that the power of the Trojans to resist in the open field was to the Greeks an unexpected discovery. The reason assigned by Muller, then, is a fancy of his own, proceeding from the same source of mistake as others among his remarks ; because ho tries to find, in the books between the first and eighth, a governing reference to Achilles (the point of view of the Achilleis), which those books distinctly refuse. The Achilleis was a poem of Grecian disasters up to the time when Achilles sent forth Patroclus ; and during those disasters, it might suit tho poet to refer by contrast to the past time when Achilles was active, and to say that then the Trojans did not dare even to present themselves in battle- array in the field, whereas now they were assailing the ships. But the author of books ii. to vii. has no wish to glorify Achilles : he gives us a picture of the Trojan war generally, and describes the Trojans, not only as brave and equal enemies, but well known by the Greeks themselves to bj so. ​THE DOLONEIA. jgj The tenth book, or Doloneia, was considered by soms of the ancient scholiasts, 1 and has been confidently set forth by the modern Wolfian critics, as originally a separate poem, inserted by Peisistratus into the Iliad. How it can ever have been a separate poem, I do not understand. It is framed with great specialty for the antecedent circumstances under which it occurs, and would suit for no other place ; though capable of being separately recited, inasmuch as it has a definite beginning and end, like the story of Nisus and Euryalus in the JEneid. But while distinctly presupposing and resting upon the incidents in the eighth book, and in line 88 of the ninth, (probably, the appointment of senti- nels on the part of the Greeks, as well of the Trojans, formed the close of the battle described in the eighth book,) it has not the slightest bearing upon the events of the eleventh or the follow- ing books : it goes to make up the general picture of the Trojan war, but lies quite apart from the Achilleis. And this is one mark of a portion subsequently inserted, that, though fitted on lo the parts which precede, it has- no influence on those which follow. If the proceedings of the combatants on the plain of Troy, between the first and the eighth book, have no reference either to Achilles, or to an Achilleis, we find Zeus in Olympus still more completely putting that hero out of the question, at the beginning of the fourth book. He is in this last-mentioned pas- sage the Zeus of the Iliad, not of the Achilleis. Forgetful of his promise to Thetis, in the first book, he discusses nothing but the question of continuance or termination of the war, and manifests anxiety only for the salvation of Troy, in opposition to the miso- Trojan goddesses, who prevent him from giving effect to the victory of Menelaus over Paris, and the stipulated restitution of Helen, in which case, of course, the wrong offered to Achilles would remain unexpiated. An attentive comparison will render it evident that the poet who composed the discussion among tho gods, at the beginning of the fourth book, has not been careful to put himself in harmony either with the Zeus of the first book, or with the Zeus of the eighth. The building of the Grecian wall, as it now stands described, is an unex- plained proceeding, which Miiller'j ingenuity does not render consistent. 1 Schol. ad Iliad x. 1. ​190 HISTORY OF GREECE. So soon as we enter upon the eleventh book, the march of lL* poem becomes quite different. We are then in a series of events, each paving the way for that which follows, and all conducing to the result promised in the first book, the reappearance of Achilles, as the only means of saving the Greeks from ruin, preceded by ample atonement, 1 and followed by the maximum both of glory and revenge. The intermediate career of Patro- clus introduces new elements, which, however, are admirably woven into the scheme of the poem, as disclosed in the first book. I shall not deny that there are perplexities in the detail of events, as described in the battles at the Grecian wall, and before the ships, from the eleventh to the sixteenth books, but they appear only cases of partial confusion, such as may be reasonably ascribed to imperfections of text : the main sequence remains coherent and intelligible. We find no considerable events which could be left out without breaking the thread, nor any incon- gruity between one considerable event and another. There is nothing between the eleventh and twenty-second books, which is at all comparable to the incongruity between the Zeus of the fourth book and the Zeus of the first and eighth. It may, perhaps, be true, that the shield of Achilles is a super- added amplification of that which was originally announced in general terms, because the poet, from the eleventh to tho twenty-second books, has observed such good economy of his materials, that he is hardly likely to have introduced one par- ticular description of such disproportionate length, and having so little connection with the series of events. But I see no reason for believing that it is an addition materially later than the rest of the poem. It must be confessed, that the supposition here advanced, in reference to tho structure of the Iliad, is not altogether free from difficulties, because the parts constituting the original Achillas 2 1 Agamemnon, after deploring the misguiding influence of Ate, which induced him to do the original wrong to Achilles, says (six. 88-137), 'AXX' Ixei uaadfirjv /cat ftcv <j>pevaf ejsXero Zri>f, "At^; i&e'Xu upcaai, 66/j.Evai T' titrepEiai' uiroiva, etc.

• The supposition of a smaller original Iliad, enlarged by successive addi

tions to the present dimensions, and more or less interpolated (we musf ​BOOKS XI-XXII OF THE ILIAD. 191 have been more or less altered or interpolated, to suit the addi* tions made to it, particularly in the eighth book. But it presents fewer difficulties than any other supposition, and it is the only means, so far as I know, of explaining the difference between one part of the Iliad and another ; both the continuity of struc- ture, and the conformity to the opening promise, -which are manifest when we read the books in the order i. viii. xi. to xxii, as contrasted with the absence of these two qualities in books ii. to vii. ix. and x. An entire organization, preconceived from the beginning, would not be likely to produce any such disparity, nor is any such visible in the Odyssey ;' still less would the result distinguish enlargement from interpolation, the insertion of a new rhapsody from that of a new line,), seems to be a sort of intermediate compromise, towards which the opposing views of Wolf, J. H. Voss, Nitzsch, Hermann, and Boeckh, all converge. Baumgarten-Crusius calls this smaller poem an Achilleis. Wolf, Preface to the Goschcn edit, of the Iliad, pp. xii-xxiii ; Voss, Anti- Symbolik, part ii. p. 234; Nitzsch, Histor. Homeri, Fasciculus i. p. 112 ; and Vorrede to the second volume of his Comments on the Odyssey, p. xxvi : "In the Iliad (he there says) many single portions may very easily be imagined as parts of another whole, or as having been once separately sung." (See Baumgarten-Crusius, Preface to his edition of W. Miiller's Homer ische Vorschulc, pp. xlv-xlix.) Nitzsch distinguishes the Odyssey from the Iliad, and I think justly, in respect to this supposed enlargement. The reasons which warrant us in applying this theory to the Iliad have no bearing upon the Odyssey. If there- ever was an Ur-Odyssee, we have no means of determining what it con- tained. 1 The remarks of 0. Miiller on the Iliad (in his History of Greek Litera- ture) are highly deserving of perusal : with much of them I agree, but there is also much which seems to me unfounded. The range of combination, and the far-fetched narrative stratagem which he ascribes to the primitive author, arc in my view inadmissible (chap. v. 5-11 : <: The internal connection of the Iliad (he observes, 6) rests upon the union of certain parts; and neither the interesting introduction, describing the defeat of the Greeks up to the burning of the ship of Protesilaus, nor the turn of affairs brought about by the death of Patroclus, nor the final pacifi- cation of the anger of Achilles, could be spared from the Iliad, when tha fruitful seed of such a poem had once been sown in the soul of Homer, and had begun to develop its growth. But the plan of the Iliad is certainly very much extended beyond what was actually necessary : and in particular, the preparatory part, consisting of the attempts on the part of the other heroes to ite for the absence of Achilles, has, it must be owned, been drawn out ​192 HISTORY OF GREECE. be explained by supposing integers originally separate, and brought together without any designed organization. And it u to a disproportionate length, so that the suspicion that there were later inser- tions of importance applies with greater probability to the first than to the last books A design manifested itself at an early period to make this poem complete in itself, so that .all the subjects, descriptions, and actions, which could alone give interest to a poem on the entire war, might find a place within the limits of its composition. For this purpose, it is not im- probable that many lays of earlier bards, who had sung single adventures of the Trojan war, were laid under contribution, and the finest parts of them incorporated in the new poem." These remarks of O. Mailer intimate what is (in my judgment) the right view, inasmuch as they recognize an extension of the plan of the poem beyond its original limit, manifested by insertions in the first half; and it is to be observed that, in his enumeration of 'those parts, the union of which is necessary to the internal connection of the Iliad, nothing is mentioned ex- cept what is comprised in books i. viii. xi. to xxii. or xxiv. But his descrip- tion of " the preparatory part" as " the attempts of the other heroes to compensate for the absence of Achilles" is noway borne out by the poet himself. From the second to the seventh book, Achilles is scarcely alluded to ; moreover, the Greeks do perfectly well without him. This portion of the poem displays, not " the insufficiency of all the other heroes without Achilles," as Miiller had observed in the preceding section, but the perfect sufficiency of the Greeks under Diomedes, Agamemnon, etc. to make head against Troy ; it is only in the eighth book that their insufficiency begins to be manifested, and only in the eleventh book that it is consummated by the wounds of the three great heroes. Diomedes is, in fact, exalted to a pitch of glory in regard to contests with the gods, which even Achilles himself never obtains after- wards, and Helenus the Trojan puts him above Achilles (vi. 99) in terrific prowess. Achilles is mentioned two or three times as absent, and Agamem- non, in his speech to the Gwcian agora, regrets the quarrel (ii. 377), but we never hear any such exhortation as, " Let us do our best to make up for the absence of Achilles," not even in the Epipolesis of Agamemnon, where it would most naturally be found. " Attempts to compensate for the absence of Achilles," must, therefore, be treated as the idea of the critic, not of tho poet Though O. Miiller has glanced at the distinction between the two parts of the poem (an original part, having chief reference to Achilles and the Greeks; and a superinduced part, having reference to the entire war), he has not conceived it clearly, nor carried it out consistently. If we are to distin- guish these two points of view at all, we ought to draw the lines at the end of the first book and at the beginning of the eighth, thus regarding the inter- mediate six books as belonging to the picture of the entire tear (or the Iliad us distinguished from the Achilleis) : the point of view of the Achilleis, dropped at the end of the first book, is resumed at the beginning of the eighth ​VARIOUS POSSIBLE HYPOTHESES. 193 between these three suppositions that our choice has to be made. A scheme, and a large scheme too, must unquestionably be admitted as the basis of any sufficient hypothesis. But the The natural fitting together of these two parts is noticed in the comment of Hcyne, ad viii. 1 : " Cseterum nunc Jupiter aperte solvit Thetidi promisa*, dum reddit causam Trojanorum bello superiorem, ut Achillis desiderium Achivos, ct prcnitentia injuriae ei illatae Agamemnonem incessat (cf. i. 5) Nam que ad/mc narrata sunt, partim continebantur in fortuni belli utrinquo tcntata partim valebant ad narrationem variandam," etc. The first and the eighth books belong to one and the same point of view, while ail the intermediate books belong to the other. But 0- Miiller seeks to prove that a portion of these intermediate books belongs to one common point of view with the first and eighth, though he admits that they have been en- larged by insertions. Here I think he is mistaken. Strike out anything which can be reasonably allowed for enlargement in the books between the first and eighth, and the same difficulty will still remain in respect to the remainder ; for all the incidents between those two points are brought out in a spirit altogether indifferent to Achilles or his anger. The Zeus of the fourth book, as contrasted with Zeus in the first or eighth, marks the differ- ence ; and this description of Zeus is absolutely indispensable as the con- necting link between book iii. on the one side and books iv. and v. on the other. Moreover, the attempt of 0. Miiller, to force upon the larger portion of what is between the first and eighth books the point of view of the Achilleis, is never successful: the poet does not exhibit in those books " insufficient efforts of other heroes to compensate for the absence of Achilles," but a general and highly interesting picture of the Trojan war, with promi- nent reference to the original ground of quarrel. In this picture, the duel between Paris and Menclaus forms naturally the foremost item, but how far-fetched is the reasoning whereby O. Muller brings that striking recital within the scheme of the Achilleis ! " The Greeks and Trojans are for the first time struck by an idea, which might have occurred in the previous nine years, if the Greeks, ichen assisted by Achilles, had not, from confidence in their superior strength, considered every compromise as unworthy of them, namely, to decide the war by a single combat between the authors of it." Here the causality of Achilles is dragged in by main force, and unsupported either by any actual statement in the poem or by any reasonable presumption ; for it is the Trojans who propose the single combat, and we are not told that they had ever proposed it before, though they would have had stronger reasons for proposing it during the presence of Achilles than during his absence. O. Muller himself remarks (6 7), " that from the second to the seventh book Zeus appears as it were to have forgotten his resolution and his prom- ise to Thetis." In other words, the poet, during this part of the poem, drops the point of view of the Achilleis to take up that of the more comprehensive Iliad : the Achilleis reappears in book viii, again disappears in book x, and is resumed from book xi. to the end of the poem. vot. ii. 9 I3oc. ​

94 HISTORY OF GREECE.

Achill&is would have been a long poem, half the length of the present Iliad, and probably not less compact in its structure than the Odyssey. Moreover, being parted off only by an imaginary line from the boundless range of the Trojan Avar, it would admit of enlargement more easily, and with greater relish to hearers, than the adventures of one single hero ; while the expansion would naturally take place by adding new Grecian victory, since the original poem arrived at the exaltation of Achilles only through a painful series of Grecian disasters. That the poem under these circumstances should have received additions, is no very violent hypothesis : in fact, when we recollect that the integrity both of the Achilleis and of the Odyssey was neither guarded by printing nor writing, we shall perhaps think it less wonderful that the former was enlarged, 1 than that the latter was not. Any relaxation of the laws of epical unity is a small price to pay for that splendid poetry, of which we find so much between the first and the eighth books of our Iliad. The question respecting unity of authorship is different, and more difficult to determine, than that respecting consistency of parts, and sequence in the narrative. A poem conceived on a comparatively narrow scale may be enlarged afterwards by its original author, with greater or less coherence and success : the 1 Tliis tendency to insert new homogeneous matter by new poets into poems already existing, is noticed by M. Fauriel, in reference to the Romans of the Middle Ages : " C'est tm phenomene remarquable dans Thistoire de la poe'sie epique, que cettc disposition, cette tendance constante du gout populaire a amalgamer, a Her en une seule et meme composition le plus possible des compositions diverses, cette disposition persiste chez un peuple, tant que la poe'sie con- serve un reste de vie ; tant qu'elle s'y transmct par la tradition et qu'elle y circule a 1'aide du chant ou des recitations publiques. Elle cesse partout ou la poe'sie est nne fois fixe'e dans les livrcs, et n'agit plus que par la lecture, cette dcrniere e'poque est pour ainsi dire, celle de la propriete poetique celle ou chaque podte pretend a une existence, a une gloire, personnelles ; et oti la pc&ie ccsse d'etre une espece de tre'sor commun dont le peuple jouit et dispose a sa maniere, sans s'inqnie'ter des individus qui le lui ont fait." (Fauriel, Sur les Romans Chevaleresques, leqon Dmo, Rcvuc des Deux Mondes, vol. xiii. p. 707.) M. Fauriel thinks that the Shah Kameh of Ferdusi was an amalgamation of epic poems originally separate, and that probably tho Mahabharat was w LiO (ib. 708). ​UXITY OF AUTHORSHIP. 195 Faust of Goethe affords an exarnple even in our own generation. On the ether hand, a systematic poem may well have been con- ceived and executed by prearranged concert between several poets ; among whom probably one will be the governing mind, though the rest may be effective, and perhaps equally effective, in respect to execution of the parts. And the age of the early Grecian epic was favorable to such fraternization of poets, of which the Gens called Homerids probably exhibited many speci- mens. In the recital or singing of a long unwritten poem, many bards must have conspired together, and in the earliest times the composer and the singer were one and the same person. 1 Now the individuals comprised in the Homerid Gens, though doubtless very different among themselves in respect of mental capacity, were yet homogeneous in respect of training, means of observa- tion and instruction, social experience, religious feelings and theories, etc., to a degree much greater than individuals in modern times. Fallible as our inferences are on this point, where we have only internal evidence to guide us, without any contemporary points of comparison, or any species of collateral information respecting the age, the society, the poets, the hearers, or the language, we must nevertheless, in the present case, take coherence of structure, together with consistency in the tone of thought, feeling, language, customs, etc., as presumptions of one author ; and the contrary as presumptions of severally ; allowing, as well as we can, for that inequality of excellence which the same author may at different times present. 1 The remarks of Boeckh, upon the possibility of such cooperation of poeta towards one and the same scheme are perfectly just : " Atqui quomodo componi a variis auctoribus succcssu tcmporum rhapso- dise potuerint, qua: post prima initia directae jam ad idem consilium et quam vocant unitatem carminis sint missis istorum declamationibus qui pepuli universi opus Homerum esse jactant turn potissimum intellige- lur, ubi gentis civilis Homeridarum propriam et peculiarem Homericam poesin fuisse, veteribus ipsis si non testibus, at certe ducibus, concedetur. Quoe quum ita sint, non erit adeo difficile ad intelligendum, quomodo, post prima initia ab egregio vate facta, in gente sacrorum et artis commu- niorie sociata, multoe rhapsodise ad unum potuerint consilium dirigi " (Index Lection. 1834, p. 12.) I transcribe this passage from Giese (Ueber den jEolischen Diakkt, j 157), not having been able to see the essay of which it forms a part ​196 HISTORY OF GREECE. Now, the case made out against single-headed authorship of the Odyssey, appears to me very weak ; and those who dispute it, are guided more by their d priori rejection of ancient epical unity, than by any positive evidence which the poem itself affords. It is otherwise with regard to the Iliad. Whatever presumptions a disjointed structure, several apparent inconsistencies of parts, and large excrescence of actual matter beyond the opening promise, can sanction, may reasonably be indulged against the supposition that this poem all proceeds from a single author.' There is a difference of opinion on the subject among the best critics, which is, probably, not destined to be adjusted, since so much depends partly upon critical feeling, partly upon the general reasonings, in respect to ancient epical unity, with which a man sits down to the study. For the champions of unity, such as Mr, Payne Knight, are very ready to strike out numerous and often considerable passages as interpolations, thus meeting the objec- tions raised against unity of authorship, on the ground of special inconsistencies. Hermann and Boeckh, though not going the length of Lachmann in maintaining the original theory of Wolf, agree with the latter in recognizing diversity of authors in the poem, to an extent overpassing the limit of what can fairly be called interpolation. Payne Knight and Nitzsch are equally per- suaded of the contrary. Here, then, is a decided contradiction among critics, all of whom have minutely studied the poems since the Wolfian question was raised. And it is such critics alone who can be said to constitute authority ; for the cursory reader, who dwells upon the parts simply long enough to relish their poetical beauty, is struck only by that general sameness of coloring which Wolf himself admits to pervade the poem. 1 Having already intimated that, in my judgment, no theory of the structure of the poem is admissible which does not admit an original and preconcerted Achilleis, a stream which begins at the first book and ends with the death of Hector, in the twenty- second, although the higher parts of it now remain only in the condition of two detached lakes, the first book and the eighth, I reason upon the same basis with respect to the authorship. 1 Wolf, Prolegdm. p. cxxxviii. " Quippe in universum idem sonns csl omnibus libris ; idem habitus sententiarum, orationis, nnmerorum," etc. ​UNITY OF AUTHORSHIP. 191 Assuming continuity of structure as a presumptive proof, the whole of this Achilleis must be treated as composed by one author. Wolf, indeed, affirmed, that he never read the poem continuously through without being painfully impressed with the inferiority 1 and altered style of the last six books, and Lach- rnann carries this feeling farther back, so as to commence with the seventeenth book. If I could enter fully into this sentiment, I should then be compelled, not to deny the existence of a precon ceived scheme, but to imagine that the books from the eighteenth to the twenty-second, though forming part of that scheme, or Achilleis, had yet been executed by another and an inferior poet. But it is to be remarked, first, that inferiority of poetical merit, to a certain extent, is quite reconcilable with unity of authorship ; and, secondly, that the very circumstances upon which Wolf's unfavorable judgment is built, seem to arise out of increased difficulty in the poet's task, when he came to the crowning cantos of his designed Achilleis. For that which chiefly distinguishes these books, is, the direct, incessant, and manual intervention of the gods and goddesses, formerly permitted by Zeus, = and the repetition of vast and fantastic conceptions to which such super- human agency gives occasion ; not omitting the battle of Achilles against Skamander and Simois, and the burning up of these rivers by Hephaestus. Now, looking at this vein of ideas with the eyes of a modern reader, or even with those of a Grecian critic of the literary ages, it is certain that the effect is unpleasing : the gods, sublime elements of poetry when kept in due proportion, are here somewhat vulgarized. But though the poet here has not suc- ceeded, and probably success was impossible, in the task which he has prescribed to himself, yet the mere fact of his under- taking it, and the manifest distinction between his employment of divine agency in these latter cantos as compared with the 1 Wolf, Prolegomen. p. cxxxvii. " Equidem certe quoties in continent! lectione ad istas partes (i. e. the last six books) deveni, nunquam non in iis talia quaedam sensi, quce nisi ilia tarn mature cum ceteris coaluissent, quovis pignore contendam, dudmn ab eruditis detecta et animadversa fuisse, immo multa cjus generis, ut cum nunc 'O/MipiKUTara habeantur, si tantum- modo in Hymnis legerentur, ipsa sola eos suspicionibus votidas adsperstra essent." Compare the sequel, p. cxxxviii, " nbi nervi deficiant et spiritni Homericns, jejunum et frigidum in locis mnltis," etc ​198 HISTORY OF GREECE preceding, seems explicable only on the supposition that they are the latter cantos, and come in designed sequence, as the contin- uance of a previous plan. The poet wishes to surround the coming forth of Achilles with the maximum of glorious and terrific circumstance ; no Trojan enemy can for a moment hold out against him : l the gods must descend to the plain of Troy and light in person, while Zeus, who at the beginning of the eighth book, had forbidden them to take part, expressly encourages them to do so at the beginning of the twentieth. If, then, the nine- teenth book (which contains the reconciliation between Achilles and Agamemnon, a subject naturally somewhat tame) and the three following books (where we have before us only the gods, Achilles, and the Trojans, without hope or courage) are inferior in execution and interest to the seven preceding books (which describe the long-disputed and often doubtful death-struggle between the Greeks and Trojans without Achilles), as "Wolf and other critics affirm, we may explain the difference without sup- posing a new poet as composer ; for the conditions of the poem had become essentially more difficult, and the subject more unpromising. The necessity of keeping Achilles above the level, even of heroic prowess, restricted the poet's means of acting upon the sympathy of his hearers. 2 ' Iliad, xx. 25. Zeus addresses die agora of the gods, 'A/i^orepotut 6' upy-yer', 5ii~>j voof tarlv iKaarov Et yap 'At/Qei>f oio ini Tpusaat fiaxelrac, Ovde fiiwv&' Covert irodunea Hijfaiuva. Kat 6s fiiv Kol irpoodev iiroTpOfieeffKov opuvref Ni)v <P ore 6r) nal -&vfj,bv iraipov <jrai aivuf, Addu /IT) Kal Tft^of vxsp [iopov kZaX(nrd!-T). The formal restriction put upon the gods by Zeus at the beginning of the eighth book, and the removal of that restriction at the beginning of the twentieth, are evidently parts of one preconceived scheme. It is difficult to determine whether the battle of the gods and goddesses in book xxi. (385-520) is to be expunged as spurious, or only to be blamed as of inferior merit ("improbanda tantum, non resecanda hoc enim est illnd, quo plerumque summa criseos Homericse red~tt," as Heyne observes in another place, Obss. Iliad, xviii. 444). The objections on the score of non- Homeric locution are not forcible (see P. Knight, ad foe.), and the scene belongs to that vein of conception which animates the poet in the closing act of his Achilleis. f While admitting that these last books of the Iliad Are not equal in ​BOOKS II-VII OF THE ILIAD. 199 The last two books of the Iliad may have formed pai t of the original Achilleis. But the probability rather is, that they are additions ; for the death of Hector satisfies the exigencies of a coherent scheme, and we are not entitled to extend the oldest poem beyond the limit which such necessity prescribes. It has been argued on one side by Nitzsch and O. Miiller, that the mind could not leave off with satisfaction at the moment in which Achilles sates his revenge, and while the bodies of Patroelua and Hector are lying unburied, also, that the more merciful temper which he exhibits in the twenty-fourth book, must always have been an indispensable sequel, in order to create proper sym- pathy with his triumph. Other critics, on the contrary, have taken special grounds of exception against the last book, and have endeavored to set it aside as different from the other books, both interest with those between the eleventh and eighteenth, we may add that they exhibit many striking beauties, both of plan and execution, and one in particular may be noticed as an example of happy epical adaptation. The Trojans are on the point of ravishing from the Greeks the dead body of Patroclns, when Achilles (by the inspiration of Here and Iris) shows himself unarmed on the Grecian monnd, and by his mere figure and voice strikes such terror into the Trojans that they relinquish the dead body. As soon as night arrives, Polydamas proposes, in the Trojan agora, that the Trojans shall retire without farther delay from the ships to the town, and shelter themselves within the walls, without awaiting the assault of Achilles armed on the next morning. Hector repels this counsel of Polydamas with ex- pressions, not merely of overweening confidence in his own force, even against Achilles, but also of extreme contempt and harshness towards the giver ; whose wisdom, however, is proved by the utter discomfiture of the Trojans the next day. Now this angry deportment and mistake on the part of Hector is made to tell strikingly in the twenty-second book, just before his death. There yet remains a moment for him to retire within the walls, and thus obtain shelter against the near approach of his irresistible enemy, but he is struck with the recollection of that fatal moment when he repelled the counsel which would have saved his countrymen : " If I enter the town, Polydamas will be the first to reproach me, as having brought destruction upon Troy on that fatal night when Achilles came forth, and when I resisted his better counsel." (Compare xviii. 250-315; xxii. 100-110; and Aristot. Ethic, iii. 8. ) In a discussion respecting the structure of the Iliad, and in reference to arguments which deny all designed concatenation of parts, it is not out of place to notice this affecting touch of poetry, belonging to those books which are reproached as the feeblest. ​200 HISTORY OF GREECE. in tone and language. To a certain extent, the peculiarities of the last book appear to me undeniable, though it K plainly a designed continuance, and not a substantive poem. Some weight also is due to the remark about the twenty-third book, that Odysseus and Diomedes, who have been wounded and disabled during the fight, now reappear in perfect force, and contend in the games : here is no case of miraculous healing, and the incon- sistency is more likely to have been admitted by a separate enlarging poet, than by the schemer of the Achilleis. The splendid books from the second to v. 322 of the seventh, 1 are equal, in most parts, to any portion of the Achilleis, and are pointedly distinguished from the latter by the broad view which they exhibit of the general Trojan war, with all its principal personages, localities, and causes, yet without advancing the result promised in the first book, or, indeed, any final purpose whatever. Even the desperate wound inflicted by Tlepolemus on Sarpedon, is forgotten, when the latter hero is called forth in the subsequent Achilleis. 2 The arguments of Lachmann, who dissects these six books into three or four separate songs, 3 carry no conviction to my mind ; and I see no reason why we should not consider all of them to be by the same author, bound together by the common purpose of giving a great collective picture which may properly be termed an Iliad. The tenth book, or Doloneia, though adapted specially to the place in which it stands, agrees with the books between the first and eighth in belonging only to the general picture of the war, without helping forward the march of the Achilleis ; yet it seems conceived in a lower vein, in so far as we can trust our modern ethical sentiment. One is 1 The latter portion of the seventh book is spoiled by the very unsatisfac- tory addition introduced to explain the construction of the wall and ditch : all the other incidents (the agora and embassy of the Trojans, the truce for burial, the arrival of wine-ships from Lemnos, etc.) suit perfectly with the scheme of the poet of these books, to depict the Trojan war generally.

• Unless, indeed, we are to imagine the combat between Tlepolemus and

Sarpedon, and that between Glaukus and Diomedes, to be separate songs ; and they are among the very few passages in the Iliad which are completely separable, implying no special antecedents. 3 Compare also Heyne, Excursus ii. sect. ii. ad Iliad, xxiv. vol. viii p. 783. ​UNITY OF AUTHORSHIP 201 unwilling to believe that the author of the fifth book, or Aristeia of Diomedes, would condescend to employ the hero whom he there so brightly glorifies, the victor even over Ares himself, in slaughtering newly-arrived Thracian sleepers, without any large purpose or necessity. 1 The ninth book, of which I have already spoken at length, belongs to a different vein of conception, and seems to me more likely to have emanated from a separate composer. While intimating these views respecting the authorship of the Iliad, as being in my judgment the most probable, I must repeat that, though the study of the poem carries to my mind a sufficient conviction respecting its structure, the question between unity and plurality of authors is essentially less determinable. The poem consists of a part original, and other parts superadded ; yet it is certainly not impossible that the author of the former may 1 Subsequent poets, seemingly thinking that the naked story, (of Diomedes slaughtering Rhesus and his companions in their sleep,) as it now stands in the Iliad, was too displeasing, adopted different ways of dressing it up. Thus, according to Pindar (ap. Schol. Iliad, x. 435), Rhesus fought one day as the ally of Troy, and did such terrific damage, that the Greeks had no other means of averting total destruction from his hand on the next day, except by killing him during the night. And the Euripidean drama, called Widsus, though representing the latter as a new-comer, yet puts into the mouth of Athene the like overwhelming predictions of what he would do on the coming day, if suffered to live ; so that to kill him in the night is the only way of saving the Greeks (Eurip. Rhes. 602) : moreover, Rhesus him- self is there brought forward as talking with such overweening insolence, that the sympathies of man, and the envy of the gods, are turned against him (ib. 458). But the story is best known in the form and with the addition (equally unknown to the Iliad) which Virgil has adopted. It was decreed by fate that, if the splendid horses of Rhesus were permitted once either to taste the Trojan provender, or to drink of the river Xanthus, nothing could preserve the Greeks from ruin ( JEneid, i. 468, with Servius, ad loc.): " Nee procul hinc Rhesi niveis tentoria velis Agnoscit lacrymans : primo quse prodita somno Tydides multa vastabat caede crucntus : Ardentesque avertit equos in castra, priusquam Pabula gustassent Trojae, Xanthumque bibissent" All these versions arc certainly improvements upon the story as it stands in the Iliad. 9* ​202 HISTORY OF GREECE. himself have composed the latter; and such would be my belief if I regarded plurality of composers as an inadmissible idea. On this supposition, we must conclude that the poet, while anxious for the addition of new, and for the most part, highly interesting matter, has not thought fit to recast the parts and events in such manner as to impart to the whole a pervading thread of consensus and organization, such as we see in the Odyssey. That the Odyssey is of later date than the Iliad, and by a different author, seems to be now the opinion of most critics, especially of Payne Knight 1 and Nitzsch ; though O. Miiller leans to a contrary conclusion, at the same time adding that he thinks the arguments either way not very decisive. There are consid- erable differences of statement in the two poems in regard to some of the gods : Iris is messenger of the gods in the Iliad, and Hermes in the Odyssey : JEolus, the dispenser of the winds iu the Odyssey, is not noticed in the twenty-third book of the Iliad, but, on the contrary, Iris invites the winds, as independent gods, to come and kindle the funeral pile of Patroclus ; and, unless we ore to expunge the song of Demodokus in the eighth book of tho Odyssey, as spurious, Aphrodite there appears as the wife of Hephaestus, a relationship not known to the Iliad. There are also some other points of difference enumerated by Mr. Knight and others, which tend to justify the presumption that the author of the Odyssey is not identical either with the author of the Achilleis or his enlargers, which G. Hermann considers to be a point unquestionable. 2 Indeed, the difficulty of supposing a long coherent poem to have been conceived, composed, and retained, without any aid of writing, appears to many critics even now, insurmountable, though the evidences on the other side, are, in my view, sufficient to outweigh any negative presumption thus suggested. But it is improbable that the same person should have powers of memorial combination sufficient for composing two such poems, nor is there any proof to force upon us such a suppo- sition. Presuming a difference of authorship between the two poems, 1 Mr. Knight places the Iliad about two centuries, and the Odyssey one century, anterior to Hesiod: a century between the two poems (Prolegg. c Ixi.)

• Hermann, Prsefat ad Odyss. p. vii. ​A'JL OF ILIAD AMU ODYSSLf. 208

I feel less convinced about the supposed juniority of the Odyssey. The discrepancies in manners and language in the one and the other, are so little important, that two different persons, in the same age and society, might well be imagined to exhibit as great or even greater. It is to be recollected that the subjects of the two are heterogeneous, so as to conduct the poet, even were he the same man, into totally different veins of imagination and illustration. The pictures of the Odyssey seem to delineate the eame heroic life as the Iliad, though looked at from a distinct point of view : and the circumstances surrounding the residence of Odysseus, in Ithaka, are just such as we may suppose him to have left in order to attack Troy. If the scenes presented to us are for the most part pacific, as contrasted with the incessant fighting of the Iliad, this is not to be ascribed to any greater sociality or civilization in the real hearers of the Odyssey, but to the circumstances of the hero whom the poet undertakes to adorn : nor can we doubt that the poems of Arktinus and Lesches, of a later date than the Odyssey, would have given us as much combat and bloodshed as the Iliad. I am not struck by those proofs of improved civilization which some critics affirm the Odyssey to present : Mr. Knight, who is of this opinion, never- theless admits that the mutilation of Melanthius, and the hanging up of the female slaves by Odysseus, in that poem, indicate greater barbarity than any incidents in the fights before Troy. 1 The more skilful and compact structure of the Odyssey, has been often considered as a proof of its juniority in age : and in the case of two poems by the same author, we might plausibly contend that practice would bring with it improvement in the combining faculty. But in reference to the poems before us, we must rec- ollect, first, that in all probability the Iliad (with which the comparison is taken) is not a primitive but an enlarged poem, and that the primitive Achilleis might well have been quite as coherent as the Odyssey ; secondly, that between different authors, superiority in structure is not a proof of subsequent composition, inasmuch as, on that hypothesis, we should be com- pelled to admit that the later poem of Arktinus would be an improvement upon the Odyssey ; thirdly, that, even if it were so, 1 Knight, Prolegg. 1, c. Odyss. xxii. 465-478. ​204 HISTORY OF GREECE. we could only infer that the author of the OJy$i.vy .h<K heard the Achilleis or the Iliad ; we could not infer that Ivj lived one or two generations afterwards. 1 On the whole, the balance of probabilities ctmiu ia favor of distinct authorship for the two poems, but the same age, and that age a very early one, anterior to the first Olympiad. And they may thus be used as evidences, and contemporary evidences, lor the phenomena of primitive Greek civilization ; while they also show that the power of constructing long premeditated epics, without the aid of writing, is to be taken as a characteristic of the earliest known Greek mind. This was the point controverted by Wolf, which a full review of the case (in my judgment) decides against him : it is, moreover, a valuable result for the historian of the Greeks, inasmuch as it marks out to him the ground from which he is to start in appreciating their ulterior progress.' 2 1 The arguments, upon the faith of which Payne Knight and other critics have maintained the Odyssey to be younger than the Iliad, are well stated and examined in Bernard Thiersch, Quaestio de DiversA Iliadis et Odys seaa JEtate, in the Anhang (p. 306) to his work Ueber das Zeitalter und Vaterland des Homer. He shows all such arguments to be very inconclusive ; though the grounds upon which he himself maintains identity of age between the two appear to me not at all more satisfactory (p. 327) : we can infer nothing to the point from the mention of Telemachus in the Iliad. Welcker thinks that there is a great difference of age, and an evident difference of authorship, between the two poems (Der Episch. Kykirs, p. 295). O. Miiller admits the more recent date of the Odyssey, but considers it " difficult and hazardous to raise upon this foundation any definite conclu- sions as to the person and age of the poet." (History of the Literature of Ancient Greece, ch. v. s. 13.) 2 Dr. Thirlwall has added to the second edition of his History of Greece a valuable Appendix, on the early history of the Homeric poems (vol. i. pp. 500-516); which contains copious information respecting the discrepant opinions of German critics, with a brief comparative examination of their reasons. I could have wished that so excellent a judge had superadded, to his enumeration of the views of others, an ampler exposition of his own. Dr. Thirlwall seems decidedly convinced upon that which appears to me tho most important point in the Homeric controversy : " That before the appear- ance of the earliest of the poems of the Epic Cycle, the Iliad and Odyssey, even if they did not exist precisely in their present form, had at least reached ​POPULAR CHARACTER OF THE POEMS. 205 Whatever there may be of truth in the different conjectures of critics respecting the authorship and structure of these unrivalled poems, we are not to imagine that it is the perfection of theit epical symmetry which has given them their indissoluble hold upon the human mind, as well modern as ancient. There is some tendency in critics, from Aristotle downwards, 1 to invert the order of attributes in respect to the Homeric poems, so as to dwell most on recondite excellences which escape the unaided reader, and which are even to a great degree disputable. But it is given to few minds (as Goethe has remarked 2 ) to appreciate fully the mechanism of a long poem ; and many feel the beauty of the sep- arate parts, who have no sentiment for the aggregate perfection of the whole. Nor were the Homeric poems originally addressed to minds of the rarer stamp. They are intended for those feelings which the critic has in common with the unlettered mass, not for that enlarged range of vision and peculiar standard which he has acquired to himself. They are of all poems the most absolut ly and unreservedly popular : had they been otherwise, they could their present compass, and were regarded each as a complete and well-defined whole, not as a fluctuating aggregate of fugitive pieces." (p. 509.) This marks out the Homeric poems as ancient both in the items and in the total, and includes negation of the theory of Wolf and Lachmann, who contend that, as a total, they only date from the age of Peisistratus. It is then safe to treat the poems as unquestionable evidences of Grecian antiquity (meaning thereby 776 B. c.), which we could not do if we regarded all con- gruity of parts in the poems as brought about through alterations of Peisistratus and his friends. There is also a very just admonition of Dr. Thirlwall (p. 516} as to the difficulty of measuring what degree of discrepancy or inaccuracy might or might not have escaped the poet's attention, in an age so imperfectly known to us. 1 There are just remarks on this point in Ileyne's Excursus, ii. sect. 2 and 4, ad II. xxiv. vol. viii. pp. 771-800. 2 " Wenig Deutsche, und vielleicht nur wenige Menschen aller neuern Nationen, haben Gefuhl fur ein sesthetisches Ganzes : sie loben und tadeln BUT stellenweise, sie entzucken sich nur stellenweise." (Goethe, Wilhelm Meister : I transcribe this from Welcker's JEschyl. Trilogie, p. S06.) What ground there is for restricting this proposition to modern u con- trasted with an:i'->it nations, I am ur.ablc to conceive. ​206 HISTORY OF GREECE. not have lived so 1 ag in the mouth of the rhapsodej, and the ear and memory of the people : and it was then that their influ- ence was first acquired, never afterwards to be shaken. Their beauties belong to the parts taken separately, which revealed themselves spontaneously to the listening crowd at the festival, far more than to the whole poem taken together, which could hardly be appreciated unless the parts were dwelt upon and suf- fered to expand in the mind. The most unlettered hearer of those times could readily seize, while the most instructed reader can still recognize, the characteristic excellence of Homeric nar- rative, its straightforward, unconscious, unstudied simplicity, its concrete forms of speech 1 and happy alternation of action 1 The Kivovpeva ovo/tara of Homer were extolled by Aristotle ; see Schol. ad Iliad, i. 481 ; compare Dionys. Halicarn. De Compos. Vcrbor. c. 20. wore firjtiev rjjuv dtaQspeiv yivftptva ra 7Tpay//nra ?} Aeyopeva opav. Respect- ing the undisguised bursts of feeling by the heroes, the Scholiast ad Iliad, i. 349 tells us, eroiftov rd rjpuiKov Kpbf 6aicpvi, compare Enripid. Helen. 959, and the severe censures of Plato, Republ. ii. p. 388. The Homeric poems were the best understood, and the most widely popular of all Grecian composition, even among the least instructed per- sons, such (for example) as the semibarbarians who had acquired the Greek language in addition to their own mother tongue. (Dio Chrysost. Or. xviii. vol. i. p. 478; Or. liii. vol. ii. p. 277, Reisk.) Respecting the simplicity and perspicuity of the narrative style, implied in this extensive popularity, Por- phyry made a singular remark : he said, that the sentences of Homer really presented much difficulty and obscurity, but that ordinary readers fancied they understood him, " because of the general clearness which appeared to run through -the poems." (See the Prolegomena of Villoison's edition of the Iliad, p. xli.) This remark affords the key to a good deal of the Homeric criticism. There doubtless were real obscurities in the poems, arising from altered associations, customs, religion, language, etc., as well as from cor- rupt text ; but while the critics did good service in elucidating these diffi- culties, they also introduced artificially many others, altogether of their own creating. Refusing to be satisfied with the plain and obvious meaning, they sought in Homer hidden purposes, elaborate innuendo, recondite motives even with regard to petty details, deep-laid rhetorical artifices (see a speci- men in Dionys. Hal. Ars Rhetor, c. 15, p. 316, Reiske; nor is even Aristotle exempt from similar tendencies, Schol. ad Iliad, iii. 441, x. 198), or a sub- stratum of philosophy allegorized. No wonder that passages, quite perspic- uous to the vulgar reader, seemed difficult to them. There could not be so sure a way of missing the real Homer as by search- ing for him in these devious recesses. He is essentially the poet of th ​SIMPLICITY OF HOMERIC POETRY. 20 / rith dialogue, its vivid pictures of living agents, always clearly and sharply individualized, whether in the commanding proportions of Achilles and Odysseus, in the graceful presence of Helen and Penelope, or in the more humble contrast of Eu- maeus and Melanthius ; and always, moreover, animated by the frankness with which his heroes give utterance to all their transient emotions and even all their infirmities, its constant reference to those coarser veins of feeling and palpable motives which belong to all men in common, its fulness of graphic details, freshly draAvn from the visible and audible world, and though often homely, never tame, nor trenching upon that limit of satiety to which the Greek mind was so keenly alive, lastly, its perpetual junction of gods and men in the same picture, and familiar appeal to ever-present divine agency, in harmony with the interpretation of nature at that time universal. It is undoubtedly easier to feel than to describe the impressive influence of Homeric narrative : but the time and circumstances under which that influence was first, and most powerfully felt, preclude the possibility of explaining it by comprehensive and elaborate comparisons, such as are implied in Aristotle's remarks upon the structure of the poems. The critic who seeks the explanation in the right place will not depart widely from the point of view of those rude auditors to whom the poems were originally addressed, or from the susceptibilities and capacities common to the human bosom in every stage of progressive cul- ture. And though the refinements and delicacies of the poems, as well as their general structure, are a subject of highly interest- ing criticism, yet it is not to these that Homer owes his wide- spread and imperishable popularity. Still less is it true, as the well-known observations of Horace would lead us to believe, broad highway and the market-place, touching the common sympathies and satisfying the mental appetencies of his countrymen with unrivalled effect ; but exempt from ulterior views, either selfish or didactic, and immersed ia the same medium of practical life and experience, religiously construed, as his auditors. No nation has ever yet had so perfect and touching an expo- sition of its early social mind as the Iliad and Odyssey exhibit. In the verbal criticism of Homer, the Alexandrine literati seem to hava made a very great advance, as compared with the glossographers who pre- ceded them. (See Lehrs, De Studiis Aristarchi, Dissert, ii. p. 42.) ​208 HISTORY OF GREECE. that Homer is a teacher of ethical wisdom akin and superior to Chrysippus or Grantor. 1 No didactic purpose is to be found in the Iliad and Odyssey; a philosopher may doubtless extract, from the incidents and strongly marked characters which it con- tains, much illustrative matter for his exhortations, but- the ethical doctrine which he applies must emanate from his own reflection. The homeric hero manifests virtues or infirmities, fierceness or compassion, with the same straightforward and eimple-minded vivacity, unconscious of any ideal standard by 1 Horat. Epist. i. 2, v. 1-26 : " Sirenum voces, ct Circes pocula nosti : Quae si cum sociis stultus cupidusque bibissct, Vixissct canis immundus, vel arnica luto sus." Horace contrasts the folly and greediness of the companions of Ulysses, in accepting the refreshments tendered to them by Circe, with the self-com- mand of Ulysses himself in refusing them. But in the incident as described in the original poem, neither the praise nor the blame, here implied, finds any countenance. The companions of Ulysses follow the universal practice in accepting hospitality tendered to strangers, the fatal consequences of which, in their particular case, they could have no ground for suspecting ; while Ulysses is preserved from a similar fate, not by any self-command of his own, but by a previous divine warning and a special antidote, which had not been vouchsafed to the rest (see Odyss. x. 285). And the incident of the Sirens, if it is to be taken as evidence of anything, indicates rather the absence, than the presence, of self-command on the part of Ulysses. Of the violent mutations of text, whereby the Grammatici or critics tried to efface from Homer bad ethical tendencies (we must remember that many of these men were lecturers to youth), a remarkable specimen is afforded by Venet. Schol. ad Iliad, ix. 453 ; compare Plutarch, de Audiendis Poetis, p. 95. Phoenix describes the calamitous family tragedy in which he himself had been partly the agent, partly the victim. Now that an Homeric hero should confess guilty proceedings, and still more guilty designs, without any expression of shame or contrition, was insupportable to the feelings of the critics. One of them, Aristodemus, thrust two negative particles into one of the lines ; and though he thereby ruined not only the sense but the metre, his emendation procured for him universal applause, because he had main- tained the innocence of the hero (KOI oi> idvov rjiidoKifirjaev, u/lAu Kal e-ifj.q&ij, tl>f evacfiTj TripT/aaf rbv r/pua). And Aristarchus thought the case so alarm- ing, that he struck out from the text four lines, which have only been pre- served to us by Plutarch ('O fiev 'Aptarap^oc IfetAe T& EITTJ ravra, yopr]* tfetf). See the Fragment of Dioscorides (vepl T&V Trap 1 'Opqpv No/zwvj in Didot'a Fragmenta Historicor. Graecor. rol. ii. p. 193. ​HOMERIC HEROES 203 which his conduct is to be tried ; l nor can we trace in the poet any ulterior function beyond that of the inspired organ of the Muse, and the nameless, but eloquent, herald of lost adventures out of the darkness of the past. 1 " C'cst un tableau ideal, a coup silr, que celui de la societe Grccque dans les chants qui portent le nora d'Homere : et pourtant cette societe y cst toute entiere reproduite, avec la rusticite, la fe'rocite de ses mceurs, ses bonnes et ses mauvaises passions, sans dessein de faire particulierement ressortir, de celebrer tel ou tel de ses me'rites, de ses avantages, ou de laisser dans 1'ombre ses vices et ses maux. Ce melange du bien et du mal, du fort et du faible, cette simultane'ite d'idees et de sentimens en apparence con- traires, cette variete, cette incoherence, ce developpemeht ine'gal de la nature et de la destinee humaine, c'est precise'mcnt lei co qn'il y a de plus poe'tique, car c'est le fond meme des choses, c'est la verite' sur 1'homme et le monde : et dans les peintures ideales qu'en veulent faire la poesie, le roman et meme 1'histoire, cet ensemble, si divers et pourtant si harmonieux, doit se retrouver: sans quoi 1'ide'al veritable y manque aussi bien que la realite'.' 1

vGuizot, Conrs d'Histoire Moderua Lc^on ""*, vol. i. p. 285.) ​

Greece Proper lies between the 36th and 40th parallels of north latitude, and between the 21st and 26th degrees of east longitude. Its greatest length, from Mount Olympus to Cape Tænarus, may be stated at 250 English miles; its greatest breadth, from the western coast of Akarnania to Marathon in Attica, at 180 miles; and the distance eastward from Ambrakia across Pindus to the Magnesian mountain Homolê and the mouth of the Peneius is about 120 miles. Altogether, its area is somewhat less than that of Portugal.^[141] In regard, however, to all attempts at determining the exact limits of Greece proper, we may remark, first, that these limits seem not to have been very precisely defined even among the Greeks themselves; and next, that so large a proportion of the Hellens were distributed among islands and colonies, and so much of their influence upon the world in general produced through their colonies, as to ​ render the extent of their original domicile a matter of comparatively little moment to verify.

The chain called Olympus and the Cambunian mountains, ranging from east and west, and commencing with the Ægean sea or the gulf of Therma, near the 40th degree of north latitude, is prolonged under the name of Mount Lingon, until it touches the Adriatic at the Akrokeraunian promontory. The country south of this chair comprehended all that in ancient times was regarded as Greece, or Hellas proper, but it also comprehended something more. Hellas proper, (or continuous Hellas, to use the language of Skylax and Dikæarchus) was understood to begin with the town and gulf of Ambrakia: from thence, northward to the Akrokeraunian promontory, lay the land called by the Greeks Epirus,-occupied by the Chaonians, Molossians, and Thesprotians, who were termed Epirots, and were not esteemed to belong to the Hellenic aggregate. This at least was the general understanding, though Ætolians and Akarnanians, in their more distant sections, seem to have been not less widely removed from the full type of Hellenism than the Epirots were; while Herodotus is inclined to treat even Molossians and Thesprotians as Hellens.3

At a point about midway between the Ægean and Ionian seas, Olympus and Lingon are traversed nearly at right angles by the still longer and vaster chain called Pindus, which stretches in a line rather west of north from the northern side of the range of Olympus: the system to which these mountains belong seems to begin with the lofty masses of greenstone comprised under the name of Mount Scardus, or Scordus, (Schardagh,)3 which is divided only

'Dikæarch, 31, p. 460, ed. Fuhr:

Ἡ δ᾽ Ἑλλὰς ἀπὸ τῆς ᾿Αμβρακίας είναι δοκεῖ Μάλιστα συνεχὴς τὸ πέρας· αὐτὴ δ' ἔρχεται Ἐπὶ τὸν πόταμον Πηνειόν, ὡς Φιλέας γράφει, Όρος τε Μαγνήτων Ομόλην κεκλημένον.

Skylax, c. 35. Αμβρακία- έντεῦθεν ἄρχεται ἡ Ἑλλὰς συνεχής είναι μέχρι Πηνείου ποτάμου, καὶ Ομολίου Μαγνητικῆς πόλεως, ἤ ἔστι παρὰ τὸν πόταμον.

• Herod. i. 146: ii. 56. The Molossian Alkôn passes for a Hellen (Herod

vi. 127). 'The mountain systems in the ancient Macedonia and Illyricum, north ​ by the narrow cleft, containing the river Drin, from the limestone of the Albanian Alps. From the southern face of Olympus, Pindus strikes off nearly southward, forming the boundary between Thessaly and Epirus, and sending forth about the 39th degree of latitude the lateral chain of Othrys, which latter takes an easterly course, forming the southern boundary of Thessaly, and reaching the sea between Thessaly and the northern coast of Euboea. Southward of Othrys, the chain of Pindus, under the name of Tymphrêstus, still continues, until another lateral chain, called Eta, projects from it again towards the east,—forming the lofty coast immediately south of the Maliac gulf, with the narrow road of Thermopyla between the two,—and terminating at the Euboean strait. At the point of junction with Eta, the chain of Pindus forks into two branches; one striking to the westward of south, and reaching across Ætolia, under the names of Arakynthus, Kurius, Korax, and Taphiassus, to the promontory called Antirrhion, situated on the northern side of the narrow entrance of the Corinthian gulf, over against the corresponding promontory of Rhion in Peloponnesus; the other tending south-east, and forming Parnassus, Helicon, and Kithærôn; indeed, Ægaleus and Hymettus, even down to the south- ernmost cape of Attica, Sunium, may be treated as a continuance of this chain. From the eastern extremity of CEta, also, a range of hills, inferior in height to the preceding, takes its departure in a south-easterly direction, under the various names of Knêmis, Ptôon, and Teumêssus. It is joined with Kithærôn by the lateral communication, ranging from west to east, called Parnês; while ​ the celebrated Pentelikus, abundant in marble quarries, coustitutes its connecting link, to the south of Parnês with the chain from Kitharon to Sunium.

From the promontory of Antirrhion, the line of mountains crosses into Peloponnesus, and stretches in a southerly direction down to the extremity of the peninsula called Tænarus, now Cape Matapan. Forming the boundary between Elis with Messenia on one side, and Arcadia with Laconia on the other, it bears the successive names of Olenus, Panachaikus, Pholoê, Erymanthus, Lykæus, Parrhasius, and Taygetus. Another series of mountains strikes off from Kithærôn towards the south-west, constituting, under the names of Geraneia and Oneia, the rugged and lofty Isthmus of Corinth, and then spreading itself into Peloponnesus. On entering that peninsula, one of its branches tends westward along the north of Arkadia, comprising the Akrokorinthus, or citadel of Corinth, the high peak of Kyllênê, the mountains of Aroanii and Lampeia, and ultimately joining Erymanthus and Pholoê,—while the other branch strikes southward towards the south-eastern cape of Peloponnesus, the for midable Cape Malea, or St. Angelo,—and exhibits itself under the successive names of Apesas, Artemisium, Parthenium, Parnôn, Thornax, and Zarêx.

From the eastern extremity of Olympus, in a direction rather to the eastward of south, stretches the range of mountains first called Ossa, and afterwards Pelion, down to the south-eastern corner of Thessaly. The long, lofty, and naked back-bone of the island of Euboca, may be viewed as a continuance both of this chain and of the chain of Othrys: the line is farther prolonged by a series of islands in the Archipelago, Andros, Tênos, Mykonos, and Naxos, belonging to the group called the Cyclades, or islands encircling the sacred centre of Delos. Of these Cyclades, others are in like manner a continuance of the chain which reaches to Cape Sunium,—Keôs, Kythnos, Seriphos, and Siphnos join on to Attica, as Andros does to Euboea. And we might even consider the great island of Krete as a prolongation of the system of mountains which breasts the winds and waves at Cape Malea, the island of Kythera forming the intermediate link between them. Skiathus, Skopelus, and Skyrus, to the north-east of Euboea, also ​ mark themselves out as outlying peaks of the range comprehend- ing Pelion and Euboea.!

By this brief sketch, which the reader will naturally compare with one of the recent maps of the country, it will be seen that Greece proper is among the most mountainous territories in Europe. For although it is convenient, in giving a systematic view of the face of the country, to group the multiplicity of mountains into certain chains, or ranges, founded upon approximative uniformity of direction; yet, in point of fact, there are so many ramifications and dispersed peaks, so vast a number of hills and crags of different magnitude and elevation,―that a comparatively small proportion of the surface is left for level ground. Not only few continuous plains, but even few continuous valleys, exist throughout all Greece proper. The largest spaces of level ground are seen in Thessaly, in Ætolia, in the western portion of Peloponnesus, and in Boeotia; but irregular mountains, valleys frequent but isolated, land-locked basins and declivities, which often occur, but seldom last long, form the character of the country.2

The islands of the Cyclades, Euboea, Attica, and Laconia, consist for the most part of micaceous schist, combined with and often covered by crystalline granular limestone.³ The centre

'For the general sketch of the mountain system of Hellas, see Kruse, Hellas, vol. i.ch. 4, pp. 280-290; Dr. Cramer, Geog. of An. Greece, vol. i. pp. 3-8. Respecting the northern regions, Epirus, Illyria, and Macedonia, O. Müller, in his short but valuable treatise Ueber die Makedoner, p. 7 (Berlin, 1825), may be consulted with advantage. This treatise is annexed to the English translation of his History of the Dorians by Mr. G. C. Lewis.

• Out of the 47,600,000 stremas (= 12,000,000 English acres) included in

the present kingdom of Greece, 26,500,000 go to mountains, rocks, rivers, lakes, and forests, and 21,000,000 to arable land, vineyards, olive and currant grounds, etc. By arable land is meant, land fit for cultivation; for a comparatively small portion of it is actually cultivated at present (Strong, Statistics of Greece, p. 2, London, 1842).

The modern kingdom of Greece does not include Thessaly. The epithet Kathos (hollow) is applied to several of the chief Grecian states, - koiλn κοιλή Ήλις, κοιλὴ Λακεδαίμων, κοιλὸν "Αργος, etc.

Κόρινθος οφρύς τε καὶ κοιλαίνεται, Strabo, viii. p. 381. The fertility of Boeotia is noticed in Strabo, ix. p. 400, and in the valuable fragment of Dikæarchns, Bíoç 'E2λúdos, p. 140, ed. Fuhr.

For the geological and mineralogical character of Greece, see the survoy ​ and west of Peloponnesus, as well as the country north of the Corinthian gulf from the gulf of Ambrakia to the strait of Euboea, present a calcareous formation, varying in different localities as to color, consistency, and hardness, but, generally, belonging or approximating to the chalk: it is often very compact, but is distinguished in a marked manner from the crystalline limestone above mentioned. The two loftiest summits in Greece^[142] (both, however, lower than Olympus, estimated at nine thousand seven hundred feet) exhibit this formation,—Parnassus, which attains eight thousand feet, and the point of St. Elias in Taygetus, which is not less than seven thousand eight hundred feet. Clay-slate, and conglomerates of sand, lime, and clay, are found in many parts: a close and firm conglomerate of lime composes the Isthmus of Corinth: loose deposits of pebbles, and calcareous breccia. occupy also some portions of the territory. But the most important and essential elements of the Grecian soil, consist of the diluvial and alluvial formations, with which the troughs and basins are filled up, resulting from the decomposition of the older adjoining rocks. In these reside the productive powers of the country, and upon these the grain and vegetables for the subsistence of the people depend. The mountain regions are to a great degree barren, destitute at present of wood or any useful vegetation, though there is reason to believe that they were better wooded in antiquity: in many parts, however, and especially in Ætolia and Akarnania, they afford plenty of timber, and in all parts, pasture for the cattle during summer, at a time when the plains are thoroughly burnt up.^[143] For other articles of food, ​ dependence must be had on the valleys, which are occasionally of singular fertility. The low ground of Thessaly, the valley of the Kephisus, and the borders of the lake Kopaïs, in Boeotia, the western portion of Elis, the plains of Stratus on the confines of Akarnania and Ætolia, and those near the river Pamisus in Messenia, both are now, and were in ancient times, remarkable for their abundant produce.

Besides the scarcity of wood for fuel, there is another serious inconvenience to which the low grounds of Greece are exposed, -the want of a supply of water at once adequate and regular.^[144] Abundance of rain falls during the autumnal and winter months, little or none during the summer; while the naked limestone of the numerous hills, neither absorbs nor retains moisture, so that the rain runs off as rapidly as it falls, and springs are rare.^[145] Most of the rivers of Greece are torrents in early spring, and dry before the end of the summer: the copious combinations of the ancient language, designated the winter torrent by a special and separate word.^[146] The most considerable rivers in the country are, the Peneius, which carries off all the waters of Thessaly, finding an exit into the Egean through the narrow defile which parts Ossa from Olympus, and the Achelôus, which flows from Pindus in a southwesterly direction, separating Etolia from Akarnania, and emptying itself into the Ionian sea: the Euênus also ​ takes its rise at a more southerly part of the same mountain chain, and falls into the same sea more to the eastward. The rivers more to the southward are unequal and inferior. Kephisus and Asôpus, in Boeotia, Alpheius, in Elis and Arcadia, Pamisus in Messenia, maintain each a languid stream throughout the summer; while the Inachus near Argos, and the Kephisus and Ilissus near Athens, present a scanty reality which falls short still more of their great poetical celebrity. Of all those rivers which have been noticed, the Achelôus is by far the most important. The quantity of mud which its turbid stream brought down and deposited, occasioned a sensible increase of the land at its embouchure, within the observation of Thucydidês.^[147]

But the disposition and properties of the Grecian territory, though not maintaining permanent rivers, are favorable to the multiplication of lakes and marshes. There are numerous hollows and inclosed basins, out of which the water can find no superficial escape, and where, unless it makes for itself a subterranean passage through rifts in the mountains, it remains either as a marsh or a lake according to the time of year. In Thessaly, we find the lakes Nessônis and Bobêis; in Ætolia, between the Achelôus and Euênus, Strabo mentions the lake of Trichônis, besides several other lakes, which it is difficult to identify individually, though the quantity of ground covered by lake and marsh is, as a whole, very considerable. In Boeotia, are situated the lakes Kopaïs, Hylikê, and Harma; the first of the three formed chiefly by the river Kephisus, flowing from Parnassus on the north-west, and shaping for itself a sinuous course through the mountains of Phokis. On the north-east and east, the lake Kopaïs is bounded by the high land of Mount Ptôon, which intercepts its communication with the strait of Euboea. Through the limestone of this mountain, the water has either found or forced several subterraneous cavities, by which it obtains a partial 'tress on the other side of the rocky hill, and then flows into the strait. The Katabothra, as they were termed in antiquity, yet exist, but in an imperfect and half-obstructed condition. Even in antiquity, however, they never fully sufficed to carry off the surplus waters of the Kephisus; for the remains are still found ​ of an artificial tunnel, pierced through the whole breadth of the rock, and with perpendicular apertures at proper intervals to let in the air from above. This tunnel-one of the most interesting remnants of antiquity, since it must date from the prosperous days of the old Orchomenus, anterior to its absorption into the Boeotian league, as well as to the preponderance of Thebes,―is now choked up and rendered useless. It may, perhaps, have been designedly obstructed by the hand of an enemy, and the scheme of Alexander the Great, who commissioned an engineer from Chalkis to reopen it, was defeated, first, by discontents in Boeotia, and ultimately by his early death.1

The Katabothra of the lake Kopaïs, are a specimen of the phenomenon so frequent in Greece,- lakes and rivers finding for themselves subterranean passages through the cavities in the limestone rocks, and even pursuing their unseen course for a considerable distance before they emerge to the light of day. In Arcadia, especially, several remarkable examples of subterranean water communication occur; this central region of Peloponnesus presents a cluster of such completely inclosed valleys, or basins.?

Strabo, ix. p. 407.

2 Colonel Leake observes (Travels in Morea, vol. iii. pp. 45, 153–155), "The plain of Tripolitza (anciently that of Tegea and Mantineia) is by far the greatest of that cluster of valleys in the centre of Peloponnesus, each of which is so closely shut in by the intersecting mountains, that no outlet is afforded to the waters except through the mountains themselves," etc. Respecting the Arcadian Orchomenus, and its inclosed lake with Katabothra, see the same work, p. 103; and the mountain plains near Corinth, p. 263. This temporary disappearance of the rivers was familiar to the ancient observers - ol kaтaлivóμevol Tüv Torάuwv. (Aristot. Meteorolog. i. 13. Diodôr. xv. 49. Strabo, vi. p. 271; viii. p. 389, etc.)

Their familiarity with this phenomenon was in part the source of some geographical suppositions, which now appear to us extravagant, respecting the long subterranean and submarine course of certain rivers, and their reappearance at very distant points. Sophokles said that the Inachus of Akarnania joined the Inachus of Argolis: Ibykus the poet affirmed that the Asôpus, near Sikyon, had its source in Phrygia; the river Inôpus of the little island of Delos was alleged by others to be an effluent from the mighty Nile; and the rhetor Zôilus, in a panegyrical oration to the inhabitants of Tenedos, went the length of assuring them that the Alpheius in Elis had its source in their island (Strabo, vi. p. 271). Not only Pindar and other poets (Antigon. Caryst. c. 155), but also the historian Timæus (Timæi Frag. 127 ​ It will be seen from these circumstances, that Greece, considering its limited total extent, offers but little motive, and still less of convenient means, for internal communication among its various inhabitants.^[148] Each village, or township, occupying its ​ plain with the inclosing mountains,^[149] supplied its own main wants whilst the transport of commodities by land was sufficiently difficult to discourage greatly any regular commerce with neighbors. In so far as the face of the interior country was concerned, it seemed as if nature had been disposed, from the beginning, to keep the population of Greece socially and politically disunited,—by providing so many hedges of separation, and so many boundaries, generally hard, sometimes impossible, to overleap. One special motive to intercourse, however, arose out of this very geographical constitution of the country, and its endless alternation of mountain and valley. The difference of climate and temperature between the high and low grounds is very great; the harvest is secured in one place before it is ripe in another, and the cattle find during the heat of summer shelter and pasture on the hills, at a time when the plains are burnt up.^[150] The practice of transferring them from the mountains to the plain according to the change of season, which subsists still as it ​ did in ancient times, is intimately connected with the structure of the country, and must from the earliest period have brought about communication among the otherwise disunited villages.^[151]

Such difficulties, however, in the internal transit by land, were to a great extent counteracted by the large proportion of coast. and the accessibility of the country by sea. The prominences and indentations in the line of Grecian coast, are hardly less remarkable than the multiplicity of elevations and depressions which everywhere mark the surface.^[152] The shape of Peloponnesus, with its three southern gulfs, (the Argolic, Laconian, and Messenian,) was compared by the ancient geographers to the leaf of a plane-trce: the Pagasaan gulf on the eastern side of Greece, and the Ambrakian gulf on the western, with their narrow entrances and considerable area, are equivalent to internal ​ lakes Xenophon boasts of the double sea which embraces so large a proportion of Attica, Ephorus of the triple sea, by which Boeotia was accessible from west, north, and south,—the Euboean strait, opening a long line of country on both sides to coasting navigation.^[153] But the most important of all Grecian gulfs are the Corinthian and the Saronic, washing the northern and north-eastern shores of Peloponnesus, and separated by the narrow barrier of the Isthmus of Corinth. The former, especially, lays open Ætolia, Phokis, and Boeotia, as well as the whole northern coast of Peloponnesus, to water approach. Corinth, in ancient times, served as an entrepôt for the trade between Italy and Asia Minor,—goods being unshipped at Lechæum, the port on the Corinthian gulf, and carried by land across to Cenchreæ, the port on the Saronic: indeed, even the merchant-vessels themselves, when not very large,^[154] were conveyed across by the same route. It was accounted a prodigious advantage to escape the necessity of sailing round Cape Malea: and the violent winds and currents which modern experience attests to prevail around that formidable promontory, are quite sufficient to justify the apprehensions of the ancient Greek merchant, with his imperfect apparatus for navigation.^[155]

​ It will thus appear that there was no part of Greece proper which could be considered as out of reach of the sea, while most parts of it were convenient and easy of access: in fact, the Arcadians were the only large section of the Hellenic name, (we may add the Doric, Tetrapolis, and the mountaineers along the chain of Pindus and Tymphrêstus,) who were altogether without a seaport.^[156] But Greece proper constituted only a fraction of the entire Hellenic world, during the historical age: there were the numerous islands, and still more numerous continental colonies, all located as independent intruders on distinct points of the coast,^[157] in the Euxine, the Ægean, the Mediterranean, and the Adriatic; and distant from each other by the space which separates Trebizond from Marseilles. All these various cities were comprised in the name Hellas, which implied no geographical continuity all prided themselves on Hellenic blood, name, religion, and mythical ancestry. As the only communication ​ between them was maritime, so the sea, important, even if we look to Greece proper exclusively, was the sole channel for transmitting ideas and improvements, as well as for maintaining sympathies—social, political, religious, and literary—throughout these outlying members of the Hellenic aggregate.

The ancient philosophers and legislators were deeply impressed with the contrast between an inland and a inaritime city: in the former, simplicity and uniformity of life, tenacity of ancient habits, and dislike of what is new or foreign, great force of exclusive sympathy, and narrow range both of objects and ideas; in the latter, variety and novelty of sensations, expansive imagination, toleration, and occasional preference for extraneous customs, greater activity of the individual, and corresponding mutability of the state. This distinction stands prominent in the many comparisons instituted between the Athens of Periklês and the Athens of the earlier times down to Solôn. Both Plato and Aristotle dwell upon it emphatically,—and the former especially, whose genius conceived the comprehensive scheme of prescribing beforehand and insuring in practice the whole course of individual thought and feeling in his imaginary community, treats maritime communication, if pushed beyond the narrowest limits, as fatal to the success and permanence of any wise scheme of education. Certain it is, that a great difference of character existed between those Greeks who mingled much in maritime affairs, and those who did not. The Arcadian may stand as a type of the pure Grecian landsman, with his rustic and illiterate habits,^[158]—his diet of sweet chestnuts, barley-cakes, and pork (as contrasted with the fish which formed the chief seasoning for the bread of an Athenian,)—his superior courage and endurance, his reverence for Lacedæmonian headship as ​ an old and customary influence,—his sterility of intellect and imagination, as well as his slackness in enterprise,—his unchangeable rudeness of relations with the gods, which led him to scourge and prick Pan, if he came back empty-handed from the chase; while the inhabitant of Phôkæa or Miletus exemplifies the Grecian mariner, eager in search of gain,—active, skilful, and daring at sea, but inferior in stedfast bravery on land,—more excitable in imagination as well as more mutable in character,—full of pomp and expense in religious manifestations towards the Ephesian Artemis or the Apollo of Branchidæ; with a mind more open to the varieties of Grecian energy and to the refining influences of Grecian civilization. The Peloponnesians generally, and the Lacedæmonians in particular, approached to the Arcadian type,—while the Athenians of the fifth century B. C. stood foremost in the other; superadding to it, however, a delicacy of taste, and a predominance of intellectual sympathy and enjoyments, which seem to have been peculiar to themselves.

The configuration of the Grecian territory, so like in many respects to that of Switzerland, produced two effects of great moment upon the character and history of the people. In the first place, it materially strengthened their powers of defence: it shut up the country against those invasions from the interior, which successively subjugated all their continental colonies; and it at the same time rendered each fraction more difficult to be attacked by the rest, so as to exercise a certain conservative influence in assuring the tenure of actual possessors: for the pass of Thermopylæ, between Thessaly and Phokis, that of Kithærôn, between Boeotia and Attica, or the mountainous range of Oneion and Geraneia along the Isthmus of Corinth, were positions which an inferior number of brave men could hold against a much greater force of assailants. But, in the next place, while it tended to protect each section of Greeks from being conquered, it also kept them politically disunited, and perpetuated their separate autonomy. It fostered that powerful principle of repulsion, which disposed even the smallest township to constitute itself a political unit apart from the rest, and to resist all idea of coalescence with others, either amicable or compulsory. To a modern reader, accustomed to large political aggregations, and securities for good ​ government through the representative system, it requires a certain mental effort to transport himself back to a time when even the smallest town clung so tenaciously to its right of self-legislation. Nevertheless, such was the general habit and feeling of the ancient world, throughout Italy, Sicily, Spain, and Gaul. Among the Hellenes, it stands out more conspicuously, for several reasons,—first, because they seem to have pushed the multiplication of autonomous units to an extreme point, seeing that even islands not larger than Peparêthos and Amorgos had two or three separate city communities;^[159] secondly, because they produced, for the first time in the history of mankind, acute systematic thinkers on matters of government, amongst all of whom the idea of the autonomous city was accepted as the indispensable basis of political speculation; thirdly, because this incurable subdivision proved finally the cause of their ruin, in spite of pronounced intellectual superiority over their conquerors: and lastly, because incapacity of political coalescence did not preclude a powerful and extensive sympathy between the inhabitants of all the separate cities, with a constant tendency to fraternize for numerous purposes, social, religious, recreative, intellectual, and æsthetical. For these reasons, the indefinite multiplication of self-governing towns, though in truth a phenomenon common to ancient Europe, as contrasted with the large monarchies of Asia, appears more marked among the ancient Greeks than elsewhere: and there cannot be any doubt that they owe it, in a considerable degree, to the multitude of insulating bourdaries which the configuration of their country presented.

Nor is it rash to suppose that the same causes may have tended to promote that unborrowed intellectual development for which they stand so conspicuous. General propositions respecting the working of climate and physical agencies upon character are, indeed, treacherous; for our knowledge of the globe is now sufficient to teach us that heat and cold, mountain and plain, sea and land, moist and dry atmosphere, are all consistent with the greatest diversities of resident men: moreover, the contrast between the population of Greece itself, for the seven centuries preceding the Christian era, and the Greeks of more modern ​ times, is alone enough to inculcate reserve in such speculations Nevertheless, we may venture to note certain improving influences, connected with their geographical position, at a time when they had no books to study, and no more advanced predecessors to imitate. We may remark, first, that their position made them at once mountaineers and mariners, thus supplying them with great variety of objects, sensations, and adventures; next, that each petty community, nestled apart amidst its own rocks,^[160] was sufficiently severed from the rest to possess an individual life and attributes of its own, yet not so far as to subtract it from the sympathies of the remainder; so that an observant Greek, commercing with a great diversity of half countrymen, whose language he understood, and whose idiosyncrasies he could appreciate, had access to a larger mass of social and political experience than any other man in so unadvanced an age could personally obtain. The Phoenician, superior to the Greek on ship-board, traversed wider distances, and saw a greater number of strangers, but had not the same means of intimate communion with a multiplicity of fellows in blood and language. His relations, confined to purchase and sale, did not comprise that mutuality of action and reaction which pervaded the crowd at a Grecian festival. The scene which here presented itself, was a mixture of uniformity and variety highly stimulating to the observant faculties of a man of genius,—who at the same time, if he sought to communicate his own impressions, or to act upon this mingled and diverse audience, was forced to shake off what was peculiar to his own town or community, and to put forth matter in harmony with the feelings of all. It is thus that we may explain, in part, that penetrating apprehension of human life and character, and that power of touching sympathies common to all ages and nations, which surprises us so much in the unlettered authors of the old epic. Such periodical intercommunion of brethren habitually isolated from each other, was the only means then open of procuring for the bard a diversified range of experience and a many-colored audience; and it was to a great degree the result of geographical causes. Perhaps among other nations such facilitating causes might have been ​ found, yet without producing any result comparable to the Iliad and Odyssey. But Homer was, nevertheless, dependent upon the conditions of his age, and we can at least point out those peculiarities in early Grecian society, without which Homeric excellence would never have existed,—the geographical position is one, the language another.

In mineral and metallic wealth, Greece was not distinguished. Gold was obtained in considerable abundance in the island of Siphnos, which, throughout the sixth century B. C., was among the richest communities of Greece, and possessed a treasure-chamber at Delphi, distinguished for the richness of its votive offerings. At that time, gold was so rare in Greece, that the Lacedæmonians were obliged to send to the Lydian Croesus, in order to provide enough of it for the gilding of a statue.^[161] It appears to have been more abundant in Asia Minor, and the quantity of it in Greece was much multiplied by the opening of mines in Thrace, Macedonia, Epirus, and even some parts of Thessaly. In the island of Thasos, too, some mines were reopened with profitable result, which had been originally begun, and subsequently abandoned, by Phoenician settlers of an earlier century. From these same districts, also, was procured a considerable amount of silver; while, about the beginning of the fifth century B. C., the first effective commencement seems to have been made of turning to account the rich southern district of Attica, called Laureion. Copper was obtained in various parts of Greece, especially in Cyprus and Euboea,—in which latter island was also found the earth called Cadmia, employed for the purification of the ore. Bronze was used among the Greeks for many purposes in which iron is now employed: and even the arms of the Homeric heroes (different in this respect from the later historical Greeks) are composed of copper, tempered in such a way as to impart to it an astonishing hardness. Iron was found in Euboea, Boeôtia, and Melos,—but still more abundantly in the moun​ tainous region of the Laconian Taygetus. There is, however no part of Greece where the remains of ancient metallurgy appear now so conspicuous, as the island of Seriphos. The excellence and varieties of marble, from Pentelikus, Hymettus, Paros, Karystus, etc., and other parts of the country,―so essential for the purposes of sculpture and architecture, is well known.^[162]

Situated under the same parallels of latitude as the coast of Asia Minor, and the southernmost regions of Italy and Spain, Greece produced wheat, barley, flax, wine, and oil, in the earliest times of which we have any knowledge;^[163] though the currants, Indian corn, silk, and tobacco, which the country now exhibits, are an addition of more recent times. Theophrastus and other authors, amply attest the observant and industrious agriculture prevalent among the ancient Greeks, as well as the care with which its various natural productions, comprehending a great diversity of plants, herbs, and trees, were turned to account. The cultivation of the vine and the olive, the latter indispensable to ancient life, not merely for the purposes which it serves at present, but also from the constant habit then prevalent of anointing the body, appears to have been particularly elaborate; and the many different accidents of soil, level, and exposure, which were to be found, not only in Hellas proper, but also among the scattered Greek settlements, afforded to observant planters materials for study and comparison. The barley-cake esems to have been more generally eaten than the wheaten loaf;^[164] but one or ​ other of them, together with vegetables and fish, (sometimes fresh, but more frequently salt,) was the common food of the population; the Arcadians fed much upon pork, and the Spartans also consumed animal food; but by the Greeks, generally, fresh meat seems to have been little eaten, except at festivals and sacrifices. The Athenians, the most commercial people in Greece proper, though their light, dry, and comparatively poor soil produced excellent barley, nevertheless, did not grow enough corn for their own consumption: they imported considerable supplies of corn from Sicily, from the coast of the Euxine, and the Tauric Chersonese, and salt-fish both from the Propontis and even from Gades:^[165] the distance from whence these supplies came, when we take into consideration the extent of fine corn-land in Bœotia and Thessaly, proves how little internal trade existed between the various regions of Greece proper. The exports of Athens consisted in her figs and other fruit, olives, oil, for all of which she was distinguished, together with pottery, ornamental manufactures, and the silver from her mines at Laureion. Salt-fish, doubtless, found its way more or less throughout all Greece;^[166] but the population of other states in Greece lived more exclusively upon their own produce than the Athenians, with less of purchase and sale,^[167] a mode of life assisted by the simple domestic econ​ omy universally prevalent, in which the women no: only carded and spun all the wool, but also wove out of it the clothing and bedding employed in the family. Weaving was then considered as much a woman's business as spinning, and the same feeling and habits still prevail to the present day in modern Greece, where the loom is constantly seen in the peasants' cottages, and always worked by women.^[168]

The climate of Greece appears to be generally described by modern travellers in more favorable terms than it was by the ancients, which is easily explicable from the classical interest, picturesque beauties, and transparent atmosphere, so vividly appreciated by an English or a German eye. Herodotus,^[169] Hippocrates, and Aristotle, treat the climate of Asia as far more genial and favorable both to animal and vegetable life, but at the same time more enervating than that of Greece: the latter, they speak of chiefly in reference to its changeful character and diversities of local temperature, which they consider as highly stimulant to the energies of the inhabitants. There is reason to conclude that ancient Greece was much more healthy than the same territory is at present, inasmuch as it was more industriously cultivated, and the towns both more carefully administered and better supplied with water. But the differences in respect of healthiness, between one portion of Greece and another, appear always to have been considerable, and this, as well as the diversities of climate, affected the local habits and character of the particular sections. Not merely were there great differences between the mountaineers and the inhabitants of the plains,^[170]—between Lokrians, Ætolians, Phokians, Dorians, Œtæans, and Arcadians, on one hand, and the inhabitants of Attica, Boeotia, and Elis, on ​ the other,--but each of the various tribes which went to compose these categories, had its peculiarities; and the marked contrast between Athenians and Bœotians was supposed to be represented by the light and heavy atmosphere which they respectively breathed. Nor was this all: for, even among the Boeotian aggregate, every town had its own separate attributes, physical as well as moral and political:^[171] Orôpus, Tanagra, Thespiæ, Thebes, Anthêdôn, Haliartus, Korôneia, Onchêstus, and Platea, were known to Boeotians each by its own characteristic epithet: and Dikæarchus even notices a marked distinction between the inhabitants of the city of Athens and those in the country of Attica. Sparta, Argos, Corinth, and Sikyôn, though all called Doric, had each its own dialect and peculiarities. All these differences, depending in part upon climate, site, and other physical considerations, contributed to nourish antipathies, and to perpetuate that imperfect cohesion, which has already been noticed as an indelible feature in Hellas.

The Epirotic tribes, neighbors of the Etolians and Akarnanians, filled the space between Pindus and the Ionian sea until they joined to the northward the territory inhabited by the powerful and barbarous Illyrians. Of these Illyrians, the native Macedonian tribes appear to have been an outlying section, dwelling northward of Thessaly and Mount Olympus, eastward of the chain by which Pindus is continued, and westward of the river Axius. The Epirots were comprehended under the various denominations of Chaonians, Molossians, Thesprotians, Kassopaans, Amphilochians, Athamanes, the Ethikes, Tymphæi, Orestæ, Paroræi, and Atintänes,^[172]—-most of the latter being small communities dispersed about the mountainous region of ​ Pindus. There was, however, much confusion in the application of the comprehensive name Epirot, which was a title given altogether by the Greeks, and given purely upon geographical, not upon ethnical considerations. Epirus seems at first to have stood opposed to Peloponnesus, and to have signified the general region northward of the gulf of Corinth; and in this primitive sense it comprehended the Ætolians and Akarnanians, portions of whom spoke a dialect difficult to understand, and were not less widely removed than the Epirots from Hellenic habits.^[173] The oracle of Dodona forms the point of ancient union between Greeks and Epirots, which was superseded by Delphi, as the civilization of Hellas developed itself. Nor is it less difficult to distinguish Epirots from Macedonians on the one hand, than from Hellenes on the other; the language, the dress, and the fashion of wearing the hair being often analogous, while the boundaries, amidst rude men and untravelled tracts, were very inaccurately understood.^[174]

In describing the limits occupied by the Hellens in 776 B. C., we cannot yet take account of the important colonies of Leukas and Ambrakia, established by the Corinthians subsequently on the western coast of Epirus. The Greeks of that early time seem to comprise the islands of Kephallenia, Zakynthus, Ithaka, and Dulichium, but no settlement, either inland or insular, farther northward.

They include farther, confining ourselves to 776 B. C., the great mass of islands between the coast of Greece and that of Asia Minor, from Tenedos on the north, to Rhodes, Krete, and Kythera southward; and the great islands of Lesbos, Chios, Samos, and Euboea, as well as the groups called the Sporades and the Cyclades. Respecting the four considerable islands nearer to the coasts of Macedonia and Thrace,—Lemnos, Imbros, Samothrace, and Thasos,—it may be doubted whether they ​ were at that time Hellenized. The Catalogue of the Iliad includes, under Agamemnôn, contingents from Ægina, Euboea, Krete, Karpathus, Kasus, Kôs, and Rhodes: in the oldest epical testimony which we possess, these islands thus appear inhabited by Greeks; but the others do not occur in the Catalogue, and are never mentioned in such manner as to enable us to draw any inference. Euboea ought, perhaps, rather to be looked upon as a portion of Grecian mainland (from which it was only separated by a strait narrow enough to be bridged over) than as an island. But the last five islands named in the Catalogue are all either wholly or partially Doric: no Ionic or Æolic island appears in it: these latter, though it was among them that the poet sung, appear to be represented by their ancestral heroes, who came from Greece proper.

The last element to be included, as going to make up the Greece of 776 B. C., is the long string of Doric, Ionic, and Æolic settlements on the coast of Asia Minor,—occupying a space bounded on the north by the Troad and the region of Ida, and extending southward as far as the peninsula of Knidus. Twelve continental cities, over and above the islands of Lesbos and Tenedos, are reckoned by Herodotus as ancient Æolic foundations,—Smyrna, Kymê, Larissa, Neon-Teichos, Têmnos, Killa, Notium, Ægirossa, Pitana, Ægæ, Myrina, and Gryneia. Smyrna, having been at first Æolic, was afterwards acquired through a stratagem by Ionic inhabitants, and remained permanently Ionic. Phokaa, the northernmost of the Ionic settlements, bordered upon Æolis: Klazomenæ, Erythræ, Teôs, Lebedos, Kolophôn, Priênê, Myus, and Milêtus, continued the Ionic name to the southward. These, together with Samos and Chios, formed the Panionic federation.^[175] To the south of Milêtus, after a considerable interval, lay the Doric establishments of Myndus, Halikarnassus, and Knidus: the two latter, together with the island of Kôs and the three townships in Rhodes, constituted the Doric Hexapolis, or communion of six cities, concerted primarily with a view to religious purposes, but producing a secondary effect analogous to political federation,

Such, then, is the extent of Hellas, as it stood at the com​ mencement of the recorded Olympiads. To draw a picture even for this date, we possess no authentic materials, and are obliged to ante-date statements which belong to a later age: and this consideration might alone suffice to show how uncertified are all delineations of the Greece of 1183 B. C., the supposed epoch of the Trojan war, four centuries earlier.

---

The territory indicated in the last chapter—south of Mount Olympus, and south of the brakia with Mount Pindus,—was occupied during the historical period by the central stock of the Hellens, or Greeks, from which their numerous outlying colonies were planted out.

Both metropolitans and colonists styled themselves Hellens, and were recognized as such by each other; all glorying in the name as the prominent symbol of fraternity;—all describing non-Hellenic men, or cities, by a word which involved associations of repugnance. Our term barbarian, borrowed from this latter word, does not express the same idea; for the Greeks spoke thus indiscriminately of the extra-Hellenic world, with all its inhabitants;^[176] whatever might be the gentleness of their character, and whatever might be their degree of civilization. The rulers and people of Egyptian Thebes, with their ancient and gigantic monuments, the wealthy Tyrians and Carthaginians, the phil-Hellene Arganthonius of Tartêssus, and the well-disciplined patricians of Rome (to the indignation of old Cato,^[177]) were all ​ comprised in it. At first, it seemed to have expressed more of repugnance than of contempt, and repugnance especially towards the sound of a foreign language.^[178] Afterwards, a feeling of their own superior intelligence (in part well justified) arose among the Greeks, and their term barbarian was used so as to imply a low state of the temper and intelligence; in which sense it was retained by the semi-Hellenized Romans, as the proper antithesis to their state of civilization. The want of a suitable word, corresponding to barbarian, as the Greeks originally used it, is so inconvenient in the description of Grecian phenomena and sentiments, that I may be obliged occasionally to use the word in its primitive sense.

The Hellens were all of common blood and parentage,—were all descendants of the common patriarch Hellen. In treating of the historical Greeks, we have to accept this as a datum: it represents the sentiment under the influence of which they moved and acted. It is placed by Herodotus in the front rank, as the chief of those four ties which bound together the Hellenic aggregate: 1. Fellowship of blood; 2. Fellowship of language; 3. Fixed domiciles of gods, and sacrifices, common to all; 4. Like manners and dispositions.

These (say the Athenians, in their reply to the Spartan envoys, in the very crisis of the Persian invasion) "Athens will never disgrace herself by betraying." And Zeus Hellenius was recog- ​ nized as the god watching over and enforcing the fraternity thus constituted.¹

Hekatæus, Herodotus, and Thucydidês,2 all believed that there had been an ante-Hellenic period, when different languages, mutually unintelligible, were spoken between Mount Olympus and Cape Malea. However this may be, during the historical times the Greek language was universal throughout these limits, -branching out, however, into a great variety of dialects, which were roughly classified by later literary men into Ionic, Doric, Æolic, and Attic. But the classification presents a semblance of regularity, which in point of fact does not seem to have been realized; each town, each smaller subdivision of the Hellenic name, having peculiarities of dialect belonging to itself. Now the lettered men who framed the quadruple division took notice chiefly, if not exclusively, of the written dialects,—those which had been ennobled by poets or other authors; the mere spoken idioms were for the most part neglected.3 That there was no such thing as one Ionic dialect in the speech of the people called Ionic Greek, we know from the indisputable testimony of Herodotus,4 who tells us that there were four capital varieties of speech among the twelve Asiatic towns especially known as Ionic. Of

• Herod. viii. 144.... τὸ Ἑλληνικὸν ἐὸν ὅμαιμόν τε καὶ ὁμόγλωσσον, καὶ

θεῶν ἱδρύματά τε κοινὰ καὶ θυσίαι, ἤθεα τε ὁμότροπα· τῶν προδότας γενέσε θα 'Αθηναίους οὐκ ἂν εὖ ἔχοι. (Ιb. x. 7.) Ημείς δε, Δία τε Ελλήνιον αἰδεσθέντες, καὶ τὴν Ελλαδα δεινὸν ποιεύμενοι προδοῦναι, etc. Compare Dikæarch. Fragm. p. 147, ed. Fuhr; and Thucyd. iii. 59,-τà κοινὰ τῶν Ἑλλήνων νόμιμα...... θεοὺς τοὺς ὁμοβωμίους καὶ κοινοὺς τῶν 'Evw also, the provision about the кowvà lepà in the treaty between Sparta and Athens (Thuc. v. 18; Strabo, ix. p. 419).

It was a part of the proclamation solemnly made by the Eumolpida, prior to the celebration of the Eleusinian mysteries, "All non-Hellens to keep away," elpyeodai ruv lepuv (Isocrates, Orat. iv. Panegyr. p. 74).

Hekatæ. Fragm. 356, ed. Klausen: compare Strabo, vii. p. 321; Herod. i. 57 ; Thucyd. i. 3, — κατὰ πόλεις τε, ὅσοι ἀλλήλων συνίεσαν, etc. 3" Antiqui grammatici eas tantum dialectos spectabant, quibus scriptores usi essent: ceteras, quæ non vigebant nisi in ore populi, non notabant." (Ahrens, De Dialecto Æolicâ, p. 2.) The same has been the case, to a great degree, even in the linguistic researches of modern times, though printing now affords such increased facility for the registration of popular dialects.

• Herod. i. 142. ​

course, the varieties would have been much more numerous if he had given us the impressions of his ear in Euboea, the Cyclades, Massalia, Rhegium, and Olbia,—all numbered as Greeks and as Ionians. The Ionic dialect of the grammarians was an extract from Homer, Hekatæus, Herodotus, Hippocrates, etc.; to what living speech it made the nearest approach, amidst those divergences which the historian has made known to us, we cannot tell. Sapphô and Alkæus in Lesbos, Myrtis and Korinna in Boeotia, were the great sources of reference for the Lesbian and Boeotian varieties of the Æolic dialect,—of which there was a third variety, untouched by the poets, in Thessaly.^[179] The analogy between the different manifestations of Doric and Æolic, as well as that between the Doric generally and the Æolic generally, contrasted with the Attic, is only to be taken as rough and approximative.

But all these different dialects are nothing more than dialects, distinguished as modifications of one and the same language, and exhibiting evidence of certain laws and principles pervading them all. They seem capable of being traced back to a certain ideal mother-language, peculiar in itself and distinguishable from, though cognate with, the Latin; a substantive member of what has been called the Indo-European family of languages. This truth has been brought out, in recent times, by the comparative examination applied to the Sanscrit, Zend, Greek, Latin, German, and Lithuanian languages, as well as by the more accurate analysis of the Greek language itself to which such studies have given rise, in a manner much more clear than could have been imagined by the ancients themselves.^[180] It is needless to dwell upon the importance of this uniformity of language in holding together the race, and in rendering the genius of its most favored members available to the civilization of all. Except in the rarest cases, the divergences of dialect were not such as to prevent ​ every Greek from understanding, and being understood by, every other Greek,—a fact remarkable, when we consider how many of their outlying colonists, not having taken out women in their emigration, intermarried with non-Hellenic wives. And the perfection and popularity of their early epic poems, was here of inestimable value for the diffusion of a common type of language, and for thus keeping together the sympathies of the Hellenic world.^[181] The Homeric dialect became the standard followed by all Greek poets for the hexameter, as may be seen particularly from the example of Hesiod,—who adheres to it in the main, though his father was a native of the Æolic Kymê, and he himself resident at Askra, in the Æolic Boeotia,—and the early iambic and elegiac compositions are framed on the same model. Intellectual Greeks in all cities, even the most distant outcasts from the central hearth, became early accustomed to one type of literary speech, and possessors of a common stock of legends, maxims, and metaphors.

That community of religious sentiments, localities, and sacrifices, which Herodotus names as the third bond of union among the Greeks, was a phenomenon, not (like the race and the language) interwoven with their primitive constitution, but of gradual growth. In the time of Herodotus, and even a century earlier, it was at its full maturity: but there had been a period when no religious meetings common to the whole Hellenic body existed. What are called the Olympic, Pythian, Nemean, and Isthmian games, (the four most conspicuous amidst many others analogous,) were, in reality, great religious festivals, for the gods then gave their special sanction, name, and presence, to recreative meetings,—the closest association then prevailed between the feelings of common worship and the sympathy in common amusement.^[182] ​ Though this association is now no longer recognized, it is, nevertheless, essential that we should keep it fully before us, if we desire to understand the life and proceedings of the Greeks. To Herodotus and his contemporaries, these great festivals, then frequented by crowds from every part of Greece, were of overwhelming importance and interest; yet they had once been purely local, attracting no visitors except from a very narrow neighborhood. In the Homeric poems, much is said about the common gods, and about special places consecrated to and occupied by several of them: the chiefs celebrate funeral games in honor of a deceased father, which are visited by competitors from different parts of Greece, but nothing appears to manifest public or town festivals open to Grecian visitors generally.^[183] And, though the rocky Pytho, with its temple, stands out in the Iliad as a place both venerated and rich,—the Pythian games, under the superintendence of the Amphiktyons, with continuous enrolment of victors, and a Pan-Hellenic reputation, do not begin until after the Sacred War, in the 48th Olympiad, or 586 B. C.^[184]

The Olympic games, more conspicuous than the Pythian, as well as considerably older, are also remarkable on another ground, ​242 HISTORY OF GREECE. inasmuch as they supplied historical computers with the oldest backward record of continuous time. It was in the year 776 i<. c., that the Eleians inscribed the name of their countryman, Korcebus, as victor in the competition of runners, and that they began the practice of inscribing in like manner, in each Olympic, or fifth recurring year, the name of the runner who won the prize. Even for a long time after this, however, the Olympic games seem to have remained a local festival ; the prize being uniformly carried off, at the first twelve Olympiads, by some competitor either of Elis or its immediate neighborhood. The Nemean and Isthmian games did not become notorious or fre- quented until later even than the Pythian. Solon, 1 in his legis- lation, proclaimed the large reward of five hundred drachms for every Athenian who gained an Olympic prize, and the lower sum of one hundred drachms for an Isthmiac prize. He counts the former, as Pan-Hellenic rank and renown, an ornament even to the city of which the victor was a member, the latter, as par- tial, and confined to the neighborhood. Of the beginnings of these great solemnities, we cannot prc sume to speak, except in mythical language : we know them only 1 Plutarch, Solon, 23. The Isthmian Agon was to a certain extent a festival of old Athenian origin: for among the many legends respecting its first institution, one of the most notorious represented it as having been founded by Theseus after his victory over Sinis at the Isthmus (see Srhol. a<l Pindar. Isth. Argument.; Pausan. ii. 1, 4), or over Skciron (Plutarch, Theseus, c. 25). Plutarch says that they were first established by Theseus as funeral games for Skeiron, and Pliny gives the same story (H. N. vii 57), According to Hellanikus, the Athenian Theors at the Isthmian games had a privileged place, (Plutarch, /. c.). There is, therefore, good reason why Solon should single out the I?th mionika: as persons to be specially rewarded, not mentioning the Pytfe'.on ikae and Nemeonikae, the Nemean and Pythian games not having the* acquired Hellenic importance. Diogenes Laert. (i. 55) says that Solon provided rewards, not only for victories at the Olympic and Isthmian, but also uvaXoyov enl TUV U/U.GW, which Krause (Pythien, Nemeen und Isthmien, sect. 3, p. 13) supposes to be the truth: I think, very improbably. The sharp invective of Timokreon against Themistocles, charging him among other things with providing nothing but cold meat at the Isthmian game* ('Iai?//ot 6' ktravioKEve -yeTioiuf iffv^pa Kpea trapex^v, Plutarch. Themistoc c- 21 ), seems to imply that the Athenian visitors, whom the Thc6rs were pon to take care of at those games, were n jmerous. ​ in their comparative maturity. But the habit of common sacrifice, on a small scale, and between near neighbors, is a part of the earliest habits of Greece. The sentiment of fraternity, between two tribes or villages, first manifested itself by sending a sacred legation, or Theôria,^[185] to offer sacrifice at each other's festivals, and to partake in the recreations which followed; thus establishing a truce with solemn guarantee, and bringing themselves into direct connection each with the god of the other under his appropriate local surname. The pacific communion so fostered, and the increased assurance of intercourse, as Greece gradually emerged from the turbulence and pugnacity of the heroic age, operated especially in extending the range of this ancient habit: the village festivals became town festivals, largely frequented by the citizens of other towns, and sometimes with special invitations sent round to attract Theôrs from every Hellenic community,—and thus these once humble assemblages gradually swelled into the pomp and immense confluence of the Olympic and Pythian games. The city administering such holy ceremonies enjoyed inviolability of territory during the month of their occurrence, being itself under obligation at that time to refrain from all aggression, as well as to notify by heralds^[186] the commencement of the truce to all other cities not in avowed hostility with it. Elis imposed heavy fines upon other towns—even on the powerful Lacedæmon—for violation of the Olympic truce, on pain of exclusion from the festival in case of non-payment.

Sometimes this tendency to religious fraternity took a form called an Amphiktyony, different from the common festival. A ​ certain number of towns entered into an exclusive religious partnership, for the celebration of sacrifices periodically to the god of a particular temple, which was supposed to be the common property, and under the common protection of all, though one of the number was often named as permanent administrator; while all other Greeks were excluded. That there were many religious partnerships of this sort, which have never acquired a place in history, among the early Grecian villages, we may, perhaps, gather from the etymology of the word, (Amphiktyons^[187] designates residents around, or neighbors, considered in the point of view of fellow-religionists,) as well as from the indications preserved to us in reference to various parts of the country. Thus there was an Amphiktyony^[188] of seven cities at the holy island of Kalauria, close to the harbor of Trozên. Hermionê, Epidaurus, Ægina, Athens, Prasiæ, Nauplia, and Orchomenus, jointly maintained the temple and sanctuary of Poseidon in that island, (with which it would seem that the city of Trozên, though close at hand, had no connection,) meeting there at stated periods, to offer formal sacrifices. These seven cities, indeed, were not immediate neighbors, but the speciality and exclusiveness of their interest in the temple is seen from the fact, that when the Argeians took Nauplia, they adopted and fulfilled these religious obligations on behalf of the prior inhabitants: so, also, did the Lacedæmonians, when they had captured Prasiæ. Again, in Triphylia,^[189] situated between the Pisatid and Messenia, in the western part of Peloponnesus, there was a similar religious meeting and partnership of the Triphylians on Cape Samikon, at the temple of the Samian Poseidon. Here, the inhabitants of Makiston were intrusted with the details of superintendence, as well as with the duty of notifying beforehand the exact time of meeting, (a precaution essential amidst the diversities and irregularities of the Greek calendar,) and also of proclaiming what was called the Samian truce,—a temporary abstinence from hostilities, which bound all Triphylians during the holy period. This latter custom discloses the salutary influence of such institutions in presenting to men's minds a common object ​ of reverence, common duties, and common enjoyments; thus generating sympathies and feelings of mutual obligation amidst petty communities not less fierce than suspicious. So, too, the twelve chief Ionic cities in and near Asia Minor, had their PanIonic Amphiktyony peculiar to themselves: the six Doric cities, in and near the southern corner of that peninsula, combined for the like purpose at the temple of the Triopian Apollo; and the feeling of special partnership is here particularly illustrated by the fact, that Halikarnassus, one of the six, was formally extruded by the remaining five, in consequence of a violation of the rules.2 There was also an Amphiktyonic union at Onchêstus in Boeotia, in the venerated grove and temple of Poseidôn :3 of whom it consisted, we are not informed. These are some specimens of the sort of special religious conventions and assemblies which seem to have been frequent throughout Greece. Nor ought we to omit those religious meetings and sacrifices which were com- mon to all the members of one Hellenic subdivision, such as the Pam-Boeotia to all the Boeotians, celebrated at the temple of the Itonian Athênê near Korôneia, the common observances, rendered to the temple of Apollo Pythaeus at Argos, by all those neighboring towns which had once been attached by this religious

'At Iolkos, on the north coast of the Gulf of Pagasa, and at the borders of the Magnêtes, Thessalians, and Achæans of Phthiôtis, was celebrated a periodical religious festival, or panegyris, the title of which we are prevented from making out by the imperfection of Strabo's text (Strabo, ix. 436). It stands in the text as printed in Tzschucke's edition, 'Evravda dè kai rǹv Πυλαϊκὴν πανήγυριν, συνετέλουν. The mention of Πυλαϊκὴ πανήγυρις, which conducts us only to the Amphiktyonic convocations of Thermopyla and Delphi is here unsuitable; and the best or Parisian MS. of Strabo presents a gap (one among the many which embarrass the ninth book) in the place of the word Πυλαϊκήν. Dutneil conjectures τὴν Πελιακὴν πανήγυριν, deriving the name from the celebrated funeral games of the old epic celebrated by Akastus in honor of his father Pelias. Grosskurd (in his note on the passage) approves the conjecture, but it seems to me not probable that a Grecian panegyris would be named after Pelias. Inhiaкnv, in reference to the neighboring mountain and town of Pelion, might perhaps be less objectionable (see Dikæarch. Fragm. pp. 407-409, ed. Fuhr.), but we cannot determine with certainty.

• Herod. i.; Dionys. Hal. iv. 25.

³ Strabo, ix. p. 412; Homer. Hymn. Apoll. 232. • Strabo, ix. p. 411. ​ thread to the Argeians, the similar periodical ceremonies frequented by all who bore the Achæan or Ætolian name, name, - and the splendid and exhilarating festivals, so favorable to the diffusion of the early Grecian poetry, which brought all Ionians at stated intervals to the sacred island of Delos.1 This latter class of festivals agreed with the Amphiktyony, in being of a special and exclusive character, not open to all Greeks.

But there was one amongst these many Amphiktyonies, which, though starting from the smallest beginnings, gradually expanded into so comprehensive a character, and acquired so marked a predominance over the rest, as to be called The Amphiktyonic Assembly, and even to have been mistaken by some authors for a sort of federal Hellenic Diet. Twelve sub-races, out of the number which made up entire Hellas, belonged to this ancient Amphiktyony, the meetings of which were held twice in every year in spring, at the temple of Apollo at Delphi; in autumn, at Thermopylæ, in the sacred precinct of Dêmêtêr Amphiktyonis. Sacred deputies, including a chief called the Hieromnêmôn, and subordinates called the Pylagora, attended at these meetings from each of the twelve races: a crowd of volunteers seem to have accompanied them, for purposes of sacrifice, trade, or enjoyment. Their special, and most important function, con- sisted in watching over the Delphian temple, in which all the twelve sub-races had a joint interest; and it was the immense wealth and national ascendency of this temple, which enhanced to so great a pitch the dignity of its acknowledged administrators.

The twelve constituent members were as follows: Thessalians, Boeotians, Dorians, Ionians, Perrhæbians, Magnêtes, Lokrians, Etæans, Achæans, Phokians, Dolopes, and Malians. All are

1 Thucyd. iii. 104; v. 55. Pausan. vii. 7, 1; 24, 3. Polyb. v. 8; ii. 54. Homer. Hymn. Apoll. 146.
According to what seems to have been the ancient and sacred tradition, the whole of the month Karneius was a time of peace among the Dorians; though this was often neglected in practice at the time of the Peloponnesian war (Thuc. v. 54). But it may be doubted whether there was any festival of Karneia common to all the Dorians: the Karneia at Sparta seems to have been a Lacedæmonian festival.

The list of the Amphiktyonic constituency is differently given b given by Æs ​THE GREAT AMPHIKTYO^C ASSEMBLY. 247 counted as races, (if we treat the Hellenes as a race, we must call these sub-races,) no mention being made of cities: 1 all count equally in respect to voting, two votes being given by the depu- ties from each of the twelve : moreover, we are told that, in determining the deputies to be sent, or the manner in which the votes of each race should be given, the powerful Athens, Sparta, and Thebes, had no more influence than the humblest Ionian, Dorian, or Boeotian city. This latter fact is distinctly stated by JEschines, himself a pylagore sent to Delphi by Athens. And so, doubtless, the theory of the case stood : the votes of the Ionic races counted for neither more nor less than two, whether given by deputies from Athens, or from the small towns of Erythrte and Priene ; and, in like manner, the Dorian votes were as good in the division, when given by deputies from Boson and Kytinion in the little territory of Doris, as if the men delivering them had been Spartans. But there can be as little question that, in practice, the little Ionic cities, and the little Doric cities, pretended to no share in the Amphiktyonic deliberations. As the Ionic vote came to be substantially the vote of Athens, so, if Sparta was ever obstructed in the management of the Doric vote, it must have been by powerful Doric cities like Argos or Corinth, not by the insignificant towns of Doris. But the theory of Amphik- tyonic suffrage, as laid down by .^Eschines, however little realized in practice during his day, is important, inasmuch as it shows in full evidence the primitive and original constitution. The first establishment of the Amphiktyonic convocation dates from a time when all the twelve members were on a footing of equal independence, and when there were no overwhelming cities (such as Sparta and Athens) to cast in the shade the humbler members, when Sparta was only one Doric city, and Athens only one Ionic city, among various others of consideration, not much inferior. There are also other proofs which show the high antiquity of chines, by Harpokration, and by Pausanias. Tittmann (Ucber den Amphik- tyonischcn Bund, sect. 3, 4, 5) analyzes and compares their various state- ments, and elicits the catalogue given in the text. 1 JEschines, De Fals. Legat. p. 280, c. 36. KaTqpi&prioafiTiv de &&i>^ dudsica, TU fj.KTs%i<VTa TOV iepov KOI TOVTUV tJctfa sKaorov e&vo( Iso yevoucvov, TO fieyiarov T> &UTTOVI, etc. ​248 HISTORY OF GREtUZ.. this Arnphiktyonic convocation. .ZEschines gives us an extrao' from the oath which had been taken by the sacred deputies, who nl tended on behalf of their respective races, ever since its first establishment, and which still apparently continued to be taken in his day. The antique simplicity of this oath, and of the con- ditions to which the members bind themselves, betrays the early age in which it originated, as well as the humble resources of those towns to which it was applied. 1 " We will not destroy any Amphiktyonic town, we will not cut off any Amphiktyonic town from running water," such are the two prominent obliga- tions which -ZEschines specifies out of the old oath. The second of the two carries us back to the simplest state of society, and (o towns of the smallest size, when the maidens went out with (heir basins to fetch water from the spring, like the daughters of Keleos at Eleusis, or those of Athens from the fountain of Kallirrhoe. 2 We may even conceive that the special mention of this detail, in the covenant between the twelve races, is bor- rowed literally from agreements still earlier, among the villages or little towns in which the members of each race were distrib- uted. At any rate, it proves satisfactorily the very ancient date to which the commencement of the Amphiktyonic convocation must be referred. The belief of JEschines (perhaps, also, the belief general in his time) was, that it commenced simultaneously with the first foundation of the Delphian temple, an event of which we have no historical knowledge ; but there seems rea- son to suppose that its original establishment is connected with Thermopylae and Demeter Amphiktyonis, rather than with Delphi and Apollo. The special surname by which Demeter and her temple at Thermopylae was known, 3 the temple of the hero Amphiktyon which stood at its side, the word Pylae, which obtained footing in the language to designate the half- yearly meeting of the deputies both at Thermopylae and at 1 JEschin. Fals. Lcgat. p. 279, c. 35 : "A.[ta 6e Ij upxw die?/2.dov r/> KTiffiv Toii /cpov, Kal TTJV TrpuTrjv avvodov yevofj,EVt]v TUV ' AfiQiKTvovuv, nal Tojf opicovf avruv uveyvuv, tv olf ivopnov rjv roif apxaiotr pjdefilav Kol.iv TUV 'A.[j.$iK.rvovi6cjv avuffrarov Trotf/ativ ftf]6' iiduTuv vafianaiuv elpfeiv, etc.

• Homer, Iliad, vi. 457. Homer, Hymn to Demuter, DO, 107, 170. Ha

rodot. vi. 137. Thucyd. ii. 15. a Herodot. vii. 200 ; Livy, xxxi. 33. ​FUNCTIONS OF THE AMPHIKTYONIC ASSEMBLE 249 Delphi, these indications point to Thermopylae (the real cen- tral point for all the twelve) as the primary place of meeting, and to the Delphian half-year as something secondary and super- added. On such a matter, however, we cannot go beyond a conjecture. The hero Amphiktyon, whose temple stood at Thermopylrc, passed in mythical genealogy for the brother of Hellen. And it may be affirmed, with truth, that the habit of forming Amphikty onic unions, and of frequenting each other's religious festivals was the great means of creating and fostering the primitive, feeling of brotherhood among the children of Hellen, in those early times when rudeness, insecurity, and pugnacity did so much to isolate them. A certain number of salutary habits and sentiments, such as that which the Amphiktyonic oath embodies, in regard to abstinence from injury, as well as to mutual protec- tion, 1 gradually found their way into men's minds : the obligations thus brought into play, acquired a substantive efficacy of their own, and the religious feeling which always remained connected with them, came afterwards to be only one out of many complex agencies by which the later historical Greek was moved. Athens and Sparta in the days of their might, and the inferior cities in relation to them, played each their own political game, in which religious considerations will be found to bear only a subordinate part. The special function of the Amphiktyonic council, so far as we know it, consisted in watching over the safety, the interests, and the treasures of the Delphian temple. "If any one shall plunder the property of the god, or shall be cognizant thereof, or shall take treacherous counsel against the things in the temple, we will punish him with foot, and hand, and voice, and by every means in our power." So ran the old Amphiktyonic oath, with 1 The festival of the Amarynthia in Eubcea, held at the temple of Artemis of Amaryntlms, was frequented by the Ionic Chalcis and Eretria as well us by the Dryopic Karystus. In a combat proclaimed between Chalcis aad Eretria, to settle the question about the possession of the plain of Lclantuiu, it was stipulated that no missile weapons should be used by either party this agreement was inscribed and recorded in the temple of Artemis (Strabo ft. p. 448 ; Livy, XXXT. 38). 11* ​250 HISTORY OF GREECE. an energetic imprecation attached to it. 1 And there are some examples in which the council 9 construes its functions so largely as to receive and adjudicate upon complaints against entire cities, for offences against the religious and patriotic sentiment of the Greeks generally. But for the most part its interference relates directly to the Delphian temple. The earliest case in which it is brought to our view, is the Saci'ed War against Kirrha, in the 46th Olympiad, or 595 B. c., conducted by Eurylochus, the Thes- salian, and Kleisthenes of Sikyon, and proposed by Solon of Athens : 3 we find the Amphiktyons also, about half a century afterwards, undertaking the duty of collecting subscriptions throughout the Hellenic world, and making the contract with the Alkmasonids for rebuilding the temple after a conflagration. 4 But the influence of this council is essentially of a fluctuating and intermittent character. Sometimes it appears forward to decide, and its decisions command respect ; but such occasions are rare, taking the general course of known Grecian history ; while there are other occasions, and those too especially affecting the Delphian temple, on which we are surprised to find nothing said about it. In the long and perturbed period which Thucydi- des describes, he never once mentioned the Amphiktyons, though the temple and the safety of its treasures form the repeated sub- 1 JEschin. De Fals. Legal, c. 35, p. 279 : compare adv. Ktcsiphont. c. 36, p. 406. 2 See the charge which jEschincs alleges to have been brought by the Lokrians of Amphissa against Athens in the Amphiktyonic Council (adv. Ktesiphont. c. 38, p. 409). Demosthenes contradicts his rival as to the fact of the charge having been brought, saying that the Amphisseans had not given the notice, customary and required, of their intention to bring it : a reply which admits that the charge migl.t be brought (Demosth. dc Corona, c. 43, p. 277). The Amphiktyons offer a reward for the life of Ephialtes, the betrayer of the Greeks at Thermopylae ; they also erect columns to the memory of the fallen Greeks in that memorable strait, the place of their half-yearly meeting (Herod, vii. 213-228). 3 JEschin. adv. Ktesiph. 1, c. Plutarch, Solon, c. xi, who refers to Aris- totle tv ry TLJV tlvdiovintiv avaypafyij Pausan. x. 37, 4; Schol. ad Pindar, Nem. ix. 2. Tdf 'A/z0:rvov</cuf (Jt'/cof, oaat TTO^COI Trpof Tro/letf eloiv (Strabo, ix. p. 420). These Amphiktyonic arbitrations, however are of raie occur rence in history, and very common' 7 abused. IIerodot ii. 180 v. 62. ​POWER OF THE AMPHIKl'YONIC ASSEMBLY. 251 Ject 1 as well of dispute as of express stipulation between Athena and Sparta : moreover, among the twelve constituent members of the council, we find three the Perrhaebians, the Magnates, and the Achjeans of Phthia who were not even independent, but subject to the Thessalians, so that its meetings, when they were not matters of mere form, probably expressed only the feel- ings of the three or four leading members. When one or more of these great powers had a party purpose to accomplish against others, when Philip of Macedon wished to extrude one of the members in order to procure admission for himself, it became convenient to turn this ancient form into a serious reality, and we shall see the Athenian JEschines providing a pretext for Philip to meddle in favor of the minor Boeotian cities against Thebes, by alleging that these cities were under the protection of the old Amphiktyonic oath. 2 It is thus that we have to consider the council as an element in Grecian affairs, an ancient institution, one amongst many instances of the primitive habit of religious fraternization, but wider and more comprehensive than the rest, at first, purely religious, then religious and political at once ; lastly, more the latter than the former, highly valuable in the infancy, but unsuited to the maturity of Greece, and called into real working only on rare occasions, when its efficiency happened to fall in with the views of Athens, Thebes, or the king of Macedon. In such special moments it shines with a transient light which af- fords a partial pretence for the imposing title bestowed on it by Cicero, " commune Graeciaj concilium:" 3 but we should com- 1 Thucyd. i. 112, iv. 118, v. 18. The Phokians in the Sacred War (B.C. 354) pretended that they had an ancient and prescriptive right to the admin- istration of the Delphian temple, under accountability to the general body of Greeks for the proper employment of its possessions, thus setting aside the Amphiktyons altogether (Diodor. xvi. 27).

• JEschin. de Fals. Legat. p. 280, c. 36. The party intrigues which moved

the council in regard to the Sacred War against the Phokians (u. c. 355) may be seen in Didorus, xvi. 23-28, seq. 3 Cicero, De Invention, ii. 23. The representation of Dionysius of Hali karnassus (Ant. Eom. iv. 25) overshoots the reality still more. About the common festivals and Amphiktyones of the Hellenic world generally, see Wachsmuth, Hellenische Alterthumskunde, vol. i. sect. 22, 24, 25; also, C. F. Hermann. Lehrbuch der Griech. Staatsalterthdmer, sect 11-13. ​2o2 HISTORY OF GREECE. pletely misinterpret Grecian history if we regarded it as a fed- eral council, habitually directing or habitually obeyed. Had there existed any such " commune concilium" of tolerable wisdom and patriotism, and had the tendencies of the Hellenic mind been capable of adapting themselves to it, the whole course of later Grecian history would probably have been altered ; the Mace- donian kings would have remained only as respectable neighbors, borrowing civilization from Greece, and expending their military energies upon Thracians and Illyrians ; while united Hellas might even have maintained her own territory against the conquering legions of Rome. The twelve constituent Amphiktyonic races remained unchanged until the Sacred War against the Phokians (B. c. 355), after which, though the number twelve was continued, the Phokians were disfranchised, and their votes transferred to Philip of Mace- don. It has been already mentioned that these twelve did not exhaust the whole of Hellas. Arcadians, Eleans, Pisans, Minyoe, Dryopes, ^Etolians, all genuine Hellens, are not comprehended in it ; but all of them had a right to make use of the temple of Delphi, and to contend in the Pythian and Olympic games. The Pythian games, celebrated near Delphi, were under the superin- tendence of the Amphiktyons, 1 or of some acting magistrate chosen by and presumed to represent them : like the Olympic games, they came round every four years (the interval between one celebration and another being four complete years, which the Greeks called a Pentaeteris) : the Isthmian and Nemean games recurred every two years. In its first humble form, of a compe- tition among bards to sing a hymn in praise of Apollo, this festi- val was doubtless of immemorial antiquity ; 2 but the first extea- 1 Plutarch, Sympos. vii. 5, 1.

• In this early phase of the Pythian festival, it is said to have been cele-

brated every eight years, marking what we should call an Octacteris, and what the early Greeks called an Ennaeteris (Censorinus, De Die Natali, c. 18). This period is one of considerable importance in reference to the prin- ciple of the Grecian calendar, for ninety-nine lunar months coincide very nearly with eight solar years. The discovery of this coincidence is ascribed by Censorinus to Kleostratus of Tenedos, whose age is not directly known : he must be anterior to Melon, who discovered tho cycle of nineteen sola) years, but (I imagine) not much anterior. In spite of the authority of Idelei it seems to me not proved, nor can I believe, that this octennisil period with it* ​DELPHIAN ORACLE. 253 fion of it into Pan-Hellenic notoriety (as I have already remark- ed), the first multiplication of the subjects of competition, and the first introduction of a continuous record of the conquerors, date only from the time when it came under the presidency of the Amphiktyons, at the close of the Sacred "War against Kirrha. What is called the first Pythian contest coincides with the third year of the 48th Olympiad, or 585 B. c. From that period for- ward, the games become crowded and celebrated : but the date just named, nearly two centuries after the first Olympiad, is a proof that the habit of periodical frequentation of festivals, by numbers and from distant parts, grew up but slowly in the Gre- cian world. The foundation of the temple of Delphi itself reaches far be- yond all historical knowledge, forming one of the aboriginal in- stitutions of Hellas. It is a sanctified and wealthy place, even in the Iliad : the legislation of Lykurgus at Sparta is introduced under its auspices, and the earliest Grecian colonies, those of Sicily and Italy in the eighth century D. c., are established in consonance with its mandate. Delphi and Dodona appear, ir. the most ancient circumstances of Greece, as universally vene- rated oracles and sanctuaries : and Delphi not only receives honors and donations, but also answers questions, from Lydians, Phry- gians, Etruscans, Romans, etc. : it is not exclusively Hellenic. One of the valuable services which a Greek looked for from this and other great religious establishments was, that it should resolve his doubts in cases of perplexity, that it should advise him whether to begin a new, or to persist in an old project, that it should foretell what would be his fate under given circumstances, and inform him, if suffering under distress, on what conditions solar and lunar coincidence was known to the Greeks in the earliest times of their mythical antiquity, or before the year 600 n. c. See Ideler, Handbuch der Chronologic, vol. i. p. 366 ; vol. ii. p. 607. The practice of the Eleians to celebrate the Olympic games alternately after forty-nine and fifty lunar months, though attested for a later time by the Scholiast on Pindar, is not proved to be old. The fact that there were ancient octennial recurring festivals, does not establish a knowledge of the properties of the octaeteric or ennaeteric period : nor does it seem to me that the details of the Boeotian ticKpvriQopia, described in Proclus ap. Photinm, sect. 239, are very ancient. See, on the old mythical Octaeteris, 0. Miiller, Orchomenos 218. scqq. } and Krause, Di Pythien, Xcmeen, und Isthmien, sect. 4, p. 22. ​254 HIST OK V OF GREECE. the gods would grant him relief. The three priestesses of Do dona with their venerable oak, and the priestess of Delphi sit- ting on her tripod under the influence of a certain gas or vapor exhaling from the rock, were alike competent to determine these difficult points : and we shall have constant occasion to notice in this history, with what complete faith both the question was put and the answer treasured up, what serious influence it often exercised both upon public and private proceeding. 1 The hex- ameter verses, in which the Pythian priestess delivered herself, were, indeed, often so equivocal or unintelligible, that the most serious believer, with all anxiety to interpret and obey them, often found himself ruined by the result ; yet the general faith in the oracle was noway shaken by such painful experience. For as the unfortunate issue always admitted of being explained upon two hypotheses, either that the god had spoken falsely, or that his meaning had not been correctly understood, no man of genuine piety ever hesitated to adopt the latter. There were many other oracles throughout Greece besides Delphi and .Do- dona : Apollo was open to the inquiries of the faithful at Ptoon in Boaotia, at Abas in Phokis, at Branchidas near Miletus, at Patara in Lykia, and other places : in like manner, Zeus gave answers at Olympia, Poseidon at Taenarus, Amphiaraus at Thebes, Amphilochus at Mallas, etc. And this habit of consulting the 1 See the argument of Cicero in favor of divination, in the first book of his valuable treatise De Divinatione. Chrysippus, and the ablest of the stoic philosophers, both set forth a plausible theory demonstrating, a priori, the probability of prophetic warnings deduced from the existence and attributes of the gods : if you deny altogether the occurrence of such warnings, so essential to the welfare of man, you must deny either the existence, or the foreknowledge, or the beneficence, of the gods (c. 38). Then the veracity of the Delphian oracle had been demonstrated in innumerable instances, of which Chrysippus had made a large collection : and upon what other sup- position could the immense credit of the oracle be explained (c. 19) ? " Col- Jegit innumerabilia oracnla Chrysippus, et nullum sine locuplete teste et auctore : quse quia nota tibi sunt, relinquo. Defendo unum hoc : nunqnam illud oraculum Delphis tarn celebre clarumque fulssct, neque tantis donis refertum omnium populorum et reguni, nisi omnis setas oraculorum illornm veritatem esset experta Maneat id, quod negari non potest, nisi omnem historiam perverterimus, multis ssecnfis verax fuisse id oraculuir." Cicero admits that it had become less trustworthy in his time, and tries to explain this decline of prophetic power : compare Plutarch, De Defect. Cvacul. ​ANALOGIES PERVADING THE HELLENIC RACE. 255 oracle formed part of the still more general tendency of the Greek mind to undertake no enterprise without having first as- certained how the gods viewed it, and what measures they were likely to take. Sacrifices were offered, and the interior of the victim carefully examined, with the same intent : omens, prodi- gies, unlooked-for coincidences, casual expressions, etc., were all construed as significant of the divine will. To sacrifice with a view to this or that undertaking, or to consult the oracle with the same view, are familiar expressions ' embodied in the language. Nor could any man set about a scheme with comfort, until he had satisfied himself in some manner or other that the gods were favorable to it. The disposition here adverted to is one of those mental analo- gies pervading the whole Hellenic nation, which Herodotus indi- cates. And the common habit among all Greeks, of respectfully listening to the oracle of Delphi, will be found on many occasions useful in maintaining unanimity among men not accustomed to obey the same political superior. In the numerous colonies espe- cially, founded by mixed multitudes from distant parts of Greece, the minds of the emigrants were greatly determined towards cor- dial cooperation by their knowledge that the expedition had been directed, the rekist indicated, and the spot either chosen or ap- proved, by Apollo of Delphi. Such in most cases was the fact : that god, according to the conception of the Greeks, " takes de- light always in the foundation of new cities, and himself in person lays the first stone." 2 These are the elements of union over and above the com- mon territory, described in the last chapter with which the historical Hellens take their start : community of blood, language, religious point of view, legends, sacrifices, festivals, 3 and also (with certain allowances) of manners and character. The anal- 1 Xenophon, Anabas. vii. 8, 20 : 'O 6e 'A.ai6uTij unovaar, on m'tZiv i TT' a v r b v TE&v[j.vof eir) Hevo0<ji>. i^av7u^srai, etc. Xenoph. Hellen. iii. 2, 22: //i? xP 7 l aTr lP i <J-& (r at r v$ 'EMijvae ty 'E^rjvuv no^cftu, compare Iliad, vii. 450. 1 Callimach. Hvmn. Apoll. 55, with Spanheinvs note ; Cicero, De Divinat i. 1. 1 See this point strikingly illustrated by Plato, Kcpub. v. pp. 470-471 (c. 16), and Isocrates, Panegyr. p. 102 ​25G HISTORY OF GREECE. ogy of manners and character between the rude inhabitants of the Arcadian Kynoetha 1 and the polite AL'iens, was indeed ac- companied with wide differences : yet if we compare the two with foreign contemporaries, we shall find certain negative char- acteristics, of much importance, common to both. In no city of historical Greece did there prevail either human sacrifices, 2 or deliberate mutilation, such as cutting off the nose, ears, hands, feet, etc., or castration, or selling of children into slavery, or polygamy, or the feeling of unlimited obedience towards one man : all customs which might be pointed out as existing among the contemporary Carthaginians, Egyptians, Per- sians, Thracians, 3 etc. The habit of running, wrestling, boxing, etc., in gymnastic contests, with the body perfectly naked, was common to all Greeks, having been first adopted as a Lace- daemonian fashion in the fourteenth Olympiad : Thucydides and Herodotus remark, that it was not only not practised, but even regarded as unseemly, among non-Hellens. 4 Of such customs, indeed, at once common to all the Greeks, and peculiar to them 1 Respecting the Arcadian Kynictha, see the remarkable observations of Polybius iv. 17-23. 2 See above, vol. i. ch. vi. p. 126 of this History. 3 For examples and evidences of these practice?, see Herodot. ii. 162 ; the amputation of the nose and ears of Patarbemis, by Apries, king of Egypt (Xenophon, Anab. i. 9-13). There were a large number of men deprived of hands, feet, or eyesight, in the satrapy of Cyrus the younger, who had inflicted all these severe punishments for the prevention of crime, he did not (says Xenophon) suffer criminals to scoff at him (eta Ka.Tcr/e/.av). The KKTO/ITI was carried on at Sardis (Heroilot. iii. 49), 500 TraZJef iKTopiai formed a portion of the yearly tribute paid by the Babylonians to the court of Susa (Herod, iii. 92). Selling of children for exportation by the Thra- cians (Herod, v. 6) ; there is some trace of this at Athens, prior to the Solo- nian legislation (Plutarch, Solon, 23), arising probably out of the cruel state of the law between debtor and creditor. For the sacrifice of children to Kronus by the Carthaginians, in troubled times, (according to the lan- guage of Ennius, " Poeni soliti suos sacrificare puellos,") Didor. xx. 14; xiii. 86. Porphyr. de Abstinent, ii. 56 : the practice is abuhdantly illustrated in Mover's Die Religion der Phonizicr, pp. 298-304. Arrian blames Alexander for cutting off the nose and ears of the Satrap Bessus, saying that it was an act altogether barbaric, (i. e. non-Hellenic,) (Exp. Al. iv. 7, 6.) About the acSaa/ube i9eo~3E^f irfpl rbv 8aai/Ja in Asia, see Strabo, xi. p. 526. 4 Thncyd. i 6 : Herodot. i. 10. ​POLITICAL DISUNION. 257 us distinguished from others, we cannot specify a great number ; but we may see enough to convince ourselves that there did really exist, in spite of local differences, a general Hellenic sentiment and character, which counted among the cementing causes of an union apparently so little assured. For we must recollect that, in respect to political sovereignty, complete disunion was among their most cherished principles. The only source of supreme authority to which a Greek felt respect and attachment, was to be sought within the walls of his own city. Authority seated in another city might operate upon his fears, might procure for him increased security and advan- tages, as we shall have occasion hereafter to show with regard to Athens and her subject allies, might even be mildly exercised, and inspire no special aversion : but, still, the principle of it was repugnant to the rooted sentiment of his mind, and he is always found gravitating towards the distinct sovereignty of his own boule, or ekklesia. This is a disposition common both to democ- racies and oligarchies, and operative even among the different towns belonging to the same subdivision of the Hellenic name, Achasans, Phokians, Boeotians, etc. The twelve Achaean cities are harmonious allies, with a periodical festival which partakes of the character .of a congress, but equal and independent political communities : the Boeotian towns, under the presidency of Thebes, their reputed metropolis, recognize certain common obligations, and obey, on various particular matters, chosen offi- cers named boeotarchs, but we shall see, in this, as in other cases, the centrifugal tendencies constantly manifesting them- selves, and resisted chiefly by the interests and power of Thebes That great, successful, and fortunate revolution, which merged the several independent political communities of Attica into the single unity of Athens, took place before the time of authentic history : it is connected with the name of the hero Theseus, but we know not how it was effected, while its comparatively large size and extent, render it a signal exception to Hellenic tendencies generally. Political disunion sovereign authority within the city walls thus formed a settled maxim in the Greek mind. The rela- tion between one city and another was an international relation, VOL. ii. 17oc. ​258 HISTORY OF GREECE. not a relation subsisting between members of a common political aggregate. Within a few miles from his own city-walls, an Athenian found himself in the territory of another city, wherein he was nothing more than an alien, where he could not acquire property in house or land, nor contract a legal marriage with any native woman, nor sue for legal protection against injury, except through the mediation of some friendly citizen. The right of intermarriage, and of acquiring landed property, was occasionally granted by a city to some individual non-freeman, as matter of special favor, and sometimes (though very rarely) reciprocated generally between two separate cities. 1 But the obligations between one city and another, or between the citizen of the one and the citizen of the other, are all matters of special covenant, agreed to by the sovereign authority in each. Such coexistence of entire political severance with so much fellowship in other ways, is perplexing in modern ideas, and modern language is not well furnished with expressions to describe Greek political phenomena. We may say that an Athenian citizen was an alien when he arrived as a visitor in Corinth, but we can hardly say that he was a foreigner ; and though the relations between Cor- inth and Athens were in principle international, yet that word would be obviously unsuitable to the numerous, petty autonomies of Hellas, besides that we require it for describing the relations of Hellenes generally with Persians or Carthaginians. We are compelled to use a word such as interpolitical, to describe the transactions between separate Greek cities, so numerous in the course of this history. As, on the one hand, a Greek will not consent to look for sove- reign authority beyond the limits of his own city, so, on the other hand, he must have a city to look to : scattered villages will not satisfy in his mind the exigencies of social order, security, and dignity. Though the coalescence of smaller towns into a larger is repugnant to his feelings, that of villages into a tov/n appears to him a manifest advance in the scale of civilization. Such, at least, is the governing sentiment of Greece throughout the his- torical period ; for there was always a certain portion of the 1 Aristot. Polit. iii. 6, 12. It is unnecessary to refer to the mary inscrip- tions which confer upon some individual non-freeman the right of nd ​VILLAGE COMMUNITIES. 259 Hellenic aggregate the rudest and least advanced among them who dwelt in unfortified villages, and upon whom the citizen of Athens, Corinth, or Thebes, looked down as inferiors. Such village residence was the character of the Epirots 1 universally, and prevailed throughout Hellas itself, in those very early and even ante-Homeric times upon which Thucydides looked back as deplorably barbarous; times of universal poverty and inse- curity, absence of pacific intercourse, petty warfare and plunder, compelling every man to pass his life armed, endless migration without any local attachments. Many of the consid- erable cities of Greece are mentioned as aggregations of pre- existing villages, some of them in times comparatively recent. Tegea and Mantineia in Arcadia, represent, in this way, the confluence of eight villages, and five villages respectively ; Dyme in Achaia was brought together out of eight villages, and Elis in the same manner, at a period even later than the Persian inva- cion ;'- the like seems to have happened with Megara and Tan- agra. A large proportion of the Arcadians continued their village life down to the time of the battle of Leuktra, and it suited the purpose? of Sparta to keep them thus disunited ; a policy which we shall see hereafter illustrated by the dismember- ment of Mantineia (into its primitive component villages), which Agesiluus carried into effect, but which was reversed as soon as the power of Sparta was no longer paramount, as well as by the foundation of Megalopolis out of a large number of petty Arcadian toAvns and villages, one of the capital measures ot Epameinondas. 3 As this measure was an elevation of Arcadian 1 Skylax, Peripl. c. 28-33 ; Thucyd. ii. 80. See Dio Chrysostom, Or. xlvii. p. 225, vol. ii. ed. Reisk, fj.iM.ov fypovvro dioiKcetcrdai Kara K6/j.af, TOI( papffupoie upoiovf, r) axi/na Trofoejc Kal ovofia t%eiv. s Strabo, viii. pp. 337, 342, 386 ; Pausan. via. 45, 1 ; Plutarch, Qusest. Grace, c. 17-37. 3 Pausan. viii. 27, 2-5 ; Diod. xv. 72: compare Arist. Polit ii. 1, 5. The description of the dio'iKiaic of Mantineia is in Xenophon, Hellen. v. 2, 6-8: it is a flagrant example of his philo-Laconian bias. We see by the case of the Phokians after the Sacred War, (Diodor. xvi. 60; Pausan. x. 3, 2,) how heavy a punishment this dio'iKiaif was. Compare, also, the instructive speech of the Akanthian envoy Kleigenes, at Sparta, when he invoked the Lacedaemonian interference for the purpose of crushing the incipient feder- ation, or junction of towns into a common political aggregate, which ^as ​260 HISTORY OF GREECE. importance, so the reverse proceeding the breaking up of t, city into its elementary villages was not only a sentence of privation and suffering, but also a complete extinction of Grecian rank and dignity. The Ozolian Lokrians, the ^Etolians, and the Akarnanians maintained their separate village residence down to a still later period, preserving along with it their primitive rudeness and disorderly pugnacity. 1 Their villages were unfortified, and defended only by comparative inaccessibility ; in case of need, they fled for safety with their cattle into the woods and mountains. Amidst such inauspicious circumstances, there was no room for that expansion of the social and political feelings to which pro- tected intramural residence and increased numbers gave birth ; there was no consecrated acropolis or agora, no ornamented tem- ples and porticos, exhibiting the continued offerings of successive generations, 2 no theatre for music or recitation, no gymnasium for athletic exercises, none of those fixed arrangements, for transacting public business with regularity and decorum, which the Greek citizen, with his powerful sentiment of locality, deemed essential to a dignified existence. The village was nothing more than a fraction and a subordinate, appertaining as a limb to the organized body called the city. But the city and the state growing up round Olynthus (Xen. Ilcllen. v. 2, 11-2). The wise and admirable conduct of Olynthus, and the reluctance of the neighboring cities to merge themselves in this union, are forcibly set forth ; also, the interest of Sparta in keeping all the Greek towns disunited. Compare the descrip- tion of the treatment of Capua by the Romans (Livy, xxvi. 16). 1 Thucyd. i. 5 ; iii. 94. Xenoph. Hellen. iv. 6, 5. 2 Pausanias, x. 4, 1 : his remarks on the Phokian TroAtf Panopeus indicate what he included in the idea of a ?r6Atf : eiye ovo/nuaat TIC ir63.iv /cat rou- TOV$, olf ye OVK upheld, ov yvftvaotov kariv ov fisaTpov, OVK uyopav e%ovotv, oi>% i>6up Karspxonevov If Kprivrjv u.'KA.u. ev areyai<; Koi^atf Kara raf /ca/>.t>/?af ftuhiffra ruf iv rolf opeciv, evravtia oiKovcriv enl xapdSpq,. ofiuf 6e Spot ye rijq %upaf elaiv avrolc elf roi)f 6fiopov<;, Kal ef rbv aiikkoyov avvetipovf /cat avroi TTffinovai rbv QUKIKOV. The fiiKpa Troliicfiara of the Pelasgians on the peninsula of Mount Athua (Thucyd. iv. 109) seem to have been something between villages and cities. When the Phokians, after the Sacred War, were deprived of their cities and forced into villages by the Amphiktyons, the order was that no village should contain more than fifty houses, and that no village should be within the din tance of a furlong of any other (Diodor. xvi. 60). ​AlTTt-HELLEXIC INHABITANTS. 2C1 i e m his mind, and in his language, one and the same. While no organization less than the city can satisfy the exigencies 1 of an intelligent freeman, the city is itself a perfect and self-sufficient whole, admitting no incorporation into any higher political unity. It deserves notice that Sparta, even in the days of her greatest power, was not (properly speaking) a city, but a mere aggluti- nation of five adjacent villages, retaining unchanged its old- fashioned trim : for the extreme defensibility of its frontier and the military prowess of its inhabitants, supplied the absence of walls, while the discipline imposed upon the Spartan, exceeded in rigov and minuteness anything known in Greece. And thus Sparta, though less than a city in respect to external appearance, was more than a city in respect to perfection of drilling and fixity of political routine. The contrast between the humble appear- ance and the mighty reality, is pointed out by Thucydides. 2 The inhabitants of the small territory of Pisa, wherein Olympia is situated, had once enjoyed the honorable privilege of adminis- tering the Olympic festival. Having been robbed of it, and subjected by the more powerful Eleians, they took advantage ot various movements and tendencies among the larger Grecian powers to try and regain it ; and on one of these occasions, we find their claim repudiated because they were villagers, and unworthy of so great a distinction. 3 There was nothing to be called a city in the Pisatid territory. In going through historical Greece, we are compelled to accept the Hellenic aggregate with its constituent elements as a primary fact to start from, because the state of our information does not enable us to ascend any higher. By what circumstances, or out of what preexisting elements, this aggregate was brought together and modified, we find no evidence entitled to credit. There are, indeed, various names which are affirmed to designate ante-Hellenic inhabitants of many parts of Greece, the Pelasgi, 1 Aristot. Polit. i. 1, 8. q 6' EK ^etovuv Ki.fj.uv noivuvia reAetof Kol.i /ra<T77f exovaa Trspaf rrj$ avrapKEiaf, Compare also iii. 6, 14 ; and Plato, Legg. viii. p. 848. 2 Thucyd. i. 10. OVTB fwot/a<n?etcn7f TroP.eof, ovre lepolf Kal KaraaKevaif xolMTekeai xpyaafievris, /car Ku/iaf 6e TCJ Tra/latip T7?f 'EA?.d(5of Tp6irtf> O'IKIO tie'iar)?, Qaivoir' av imodeeaTEpa. ' Xenophon, Hellen. iii. 2, 31. ​262 HISTORY OF GREECE. the Leleges, the Kuretes, the Kaukones, the Aones, the Tern- mikes, the Hyantes, the Telchines, the Boeotian Thracians, the Telebose, the Ephyri, the Phlegyoe, etc. These are names belonging to legendary, not to historical Greece, extracted out of a variety of conflicting legends, by the logographers and subse- quent historians, who strung together out of them a supposed history of the past, at a time when the conditions of historical evidence were very little understood. That these names desig- nated re.il nations, may be true, but here our knowledge ends. We have no well-informed witness to tell us their times, their limits of residence, their acts, or their character ; nor do we know how far they are identical with or diverse from the historical Hellens, whom we are warranted in calling, not, indeed, the first inhabitants of the country, but the first known to us upon any tol- erable evidence. If any man is inclined to call the unknown ante- Hellenic period of Greece by the name of Pelasgic, it is open to him to do so ; but this is a name carrying with it no assured predicates, noway enlarging our insight into real history, nor enabling us to explain what would be the real historical problem how or from whom the Hellens acquired that stock of dispositions, aptitudes, arts, etc., with which they begin their career. Whoever has examined the many conflicting systems respecting the Pelasgi, from the literal belief of Clavier, Larcher, and Raoul Rochette, (which appears to me, at least, the most consistent way of proceeding,) to the interpretative and half-incredulous processes applied by abler men, such as Niebuhr, or O. Miiller, or Dr. Thirlwall, 1 will not be displeased with my 1 Larcher, Chronologic d'Herodote, ch. viii. pp. 215, 274; Raoul Rochette, Histoire des Colonies Grecques, book i. ch. 5 ; Niebuhr, Rb'mische Geschichte, vol. i. pp. 26-G4, 2d ed. (the section entitled Die Oenotrer und Pelasger) ; O. Miiller, Die Etrusker, vol. i. (Einleitung, ch. ii. pp. 75-100) ; Dr. Thirl- wall, History of Greece, vol. i. ch. ii. pp. 36-64. The dissentient opinions of Kruse and Mannert- may be found in Kruse, Hellas, vol. i. pp. 398-425 ; Mannert, Geographic der Griechen und Romer, part viii. Introduct. p. 4, seqq. Niebuhr puts together all the mythical and genealogical traces, many of them in the highest degree vague and equivocal, of the existence of Pelasgi in various localities ; and then, summing up their cumulative effect, asserts ("not as an hypothesis, but with full historical conviction," p. 54) "that there was a time when the Pelasgians, perhaps the most extended people in ​PELASGIAN LANGUAGE. 268 w resolution to decline so insoluble a problem. No attested fucta are now present to us none were present to Herodotus and Thucydides, even in their age on which to build trustworthy affirmations respecting the ante-Hellenic Pelasgians. And where such is the case, we may without impropriety apply the remark of Herodotus, respecting one of the theories which he had heard for explaining the inundation of the Kile by a supposed con- nection with the circumfluous Ocean, that "the man who carries up his story into the invisible world, passes out of the range of criticism." 1 As far as our knowledge extends, there were no towns or vil- lages called Pelasgian, in Greece proper, since 776 B. c. But there still existed in two different places, even in the age of Herodotus, people whom he believed to be Pelasgians. One portion of these occupied the towns of Plakia and Skylake near Kyzikus, on the Propontis ; another dwelt in a town called Kres- ton, near the Thermaic gulf. 2 There were, moreover, certain other Pelasgian townships which he does not specify, it seems, indeed, from Thucydides, that there were some little Pelasgian townships on the peninsula of Athos. 3 Now, Herodotus acquaints us with the remarkable fact, that the people of Kreston, those of Plakia and Skylake, and those of the other unnamed Pelasgian townships, all spoke the same language, and each of them re- spectively a different language from their neighbors around them. all Europe, were spread from the Po and the Arno to the Rhyndakus," (near Kyzikus,) with only an interruption in Thrace. What is perhaps the most remarkable of all, is the contrast between his feeling of disgust, despair, and aversion to the subject, when he begins the inquiry (" the name Pelasgi" ha says, "is odious to the historian, who hales the spurio'ts philology out ofwhick the pretences to knowledge on the subject of such extinct people arise" p. 28), and the full confidence and satisfaction with which he concludes it. 1 Herodot. ii. 23 : 'O 6s Trepl TOV 'Qnsuvov emac, cf a^avee TOV jii<-&oii avevsinac, OVK e%ei eAey^ov. 2 That Kreston is the proper reading in Herodotus, there seems every reason to believe not Kroton, as Dionys. Hal. represents it (Ant. Rom, i. 26) in spite of the authority of Niebuhr in favor of the latter. 3 Thucyd. iv. 109. Compare the new Fragmenta of Strabo, lib. vii. edited from the Vatican MS. by Kramer, and since by Tafel (Tubingen, 1844), 6ct 34, p. 26, ti/njaav 6i- rijv Xefrfiovijaov rcvTr/v rtiv in A.IJHVOV Tle^aa- yuv nvec, cfr irivre hr/fn'i/icvoi Atov, Qvaaov. ​264 HISTORY OF GREECE. He informs us, moreover, that their language was a barbarous (f* e. a non-Hellenic) language ; and this fact he quotes as an evidence to prove that the ancient Pelasgian language Avas a barbarous language, or distinct from the Hellenic. He at the same time states expressly that he has no positive knowledge what language the ancient Pelasgians spoke, one proof, among others, that no memorials nor means of distinct information concerning that people, could have been open to him. This is the one single fact, amidst so many conjectures con- cerning the Pelasgians, which we can be said to know upon the testimony of a competent and contemporary witness : the few town- ships scattered and inconsiderable, but all that Herodotus in his day knew as Pelasgian spoke a barbarous language. And upon such a point, he must be regarded as an excellent judge. If, then, (infers the historian,) all the early Pelasgians spoke the same language as those of Kreston and Plakia, they must have changed their language at the time when they passed into the Hellenic aggregate, or became Hellens. Now, Herodotus conceives that aggregate to have been gradually enlarged to its great actual size by incorporating with itself not only the Pelasgians, but several other nations once barbarians ; l the Hellens having been origi- nally an inconsiderable people. Among those other nations once barbarian, whom Herodotus supposes to have become Hc-llenized, we may probably number the Leleges ; and with respect to them, as well as to the Pelasgians, we have contem- porary testimony proving the existence of barbarian Leleges in later times. Philippus, the Karian historian, attested the pres- ent existence, and believed in the past existence, of Leleges in his country, as serfs or dependent cultivators under the Karians, analogous to the Helots in Laconia, or the Penestas in Thessaly. 2 We may be very sure that there were no Hellens no men speaking the Hellenic tongue standing in such a relation to the Karians. Among those many barbaric-speaking 1 Herod, i. 57. irpoaKexupijKoTuv avrij nal uAXwv idviuv (3ap/3upov

• Athenae. vi. p. 271. QiXimroc tv ru irepl Kap&v Kai Ae?.iywv

van, Kora^efaf roiif Aaice6aifj.ovi.uv EIAwraf KOI ~oi)( 9crraAt*:ot>f ir dat re KO.L vvv. ​HISTORICAL PELASGIAXS. 265 nations whom Herodotus believed to have changed their language and passed into Hellens, we may, therefore, fairly consider the Leleges to have been included. Fcr next to the Pelasgians and Pelasgus, the Leleges and Lelex figure most conspicuously in the legendary genealogies ; and both together cover the larger portion of the Hellenic soil. Confining myself to historical evidence, and believing that no assured results can be derived from the attempt to transform legend into history, I accept the statement of Herodotus with confidence, as to the barbaric language spoken by the Pelasgians of his day ; and I believe the same with regard to the historical Leleges, but without presuming to determine anything in regard to the legendary Pelasgians and Leleges, the supposed ante-Hellenic inhabitants of Greece. And I think this course more consonant to the laws of historical inquiry than that which comes recommended by the high authority of Dr. Thirlwall, who softens and explains away the statement of Herodotus, until it is made to mean only that the Pelasgians of Plakia and Kreston spoke a very bad Greek. The affirmation of Herodotus is dis- tinct, and twice repeated, that the Pelasgians of these towns, and of his own time, spoke a barbaric language ; and that word appears to me to admit of but one interpretation. 1 To suppose 1 Herod, i. 57. "HvTiva 6s -y/Maaav leaav oi Hehaayol, ovu KXU urpKKEui eiTiai. fl 6s xpeuv LGTL TeKfj,aipo[tevot T^eytiv rotai vvv eri koiiai HeAaayuv, ruv vTtep Tvpnrivuv Kprjaruva TTO^LV olneoVTuv Kal TJJV Il/la/ar/v re Kal "LK.v7MK.rjv He^aayuv oiKiaavruv Iv 'EA/l)?(T 6vr<f> Kal baa a/U,a IIe/la<7- yiK& eovTa Tro/Uu^uara TO ovvoua ucTffta^e Tovro/ni 6el "kijF.iv. fyaav oi Ik/laayoi flupfiapov yhtivvav ievTt<;. 4 roivvv T/V Kal irav TOIOVTO TO ytxdv, TO 'A.TTinbv cdvof, ebv HchacryiKbv u.ua ry (leTapo'X.T) rfj if * Kal TT/V yTi-uaaav /J.eri-fta&e Kai -yap 6rj OVTE oi KpijijTuvt^Tai ov6afioiai TUV vvv ff<j>eaf wepioiKeovruv hal duoy^uaaot, ovre oi HXaKirjvoi' atiiffi 6s, 6uu- 7/lwcr(TO. dri^ovai 6e, on TOV {jveiKavTo j^uaarj^ x a P aKT VP a uera (SaivovTef ef raiira TU %upia, TOVTOV ex oval - ^ <pv?.aKrj. In the next chapter, Herodotus again calls the Pelasgian nation /?dp Baoov. Respecting this language, heard by Herodotus at Kreston and Plakia, Dr. Thirlwall observes (chap. ii. p. 60), " This language Herodotus describes a barbarous, and it is on this fact he grounds his general conclusion as to the wicient Pelasgian tongue. But he has not entered into any details that might have served to ascertain the manner or degree in which it differed from the Greek. Still, the expressions he uses would have appeared to rot. n. 12 ​2G6 HISTORY OF GUEECE. that a man, who, like Herodotus, had heard almost every varietj of Greek, in the course of his long travels, as well as Egyptian, imply that it was essentially foreign, had he not spoken quite as strongly in another passage, where it is impossible to ascribe a similar meaning to his words. When he is enumerating the dialects that prevailed among the Ionian Greeks, he observes that the Ionian cities in Lydia agree not at all in their tongue with those of Karia; and he applies the very same term to these dialects, which he had before used in speaking of the remains of the Pelas- gian language. This passage affords a measure by which we may estimate the force of the word barbarian in the former. Nothing more can be safely inferred from it, than that the Pelasgian language which Herodotus heard on the Hellespont, and elsewhere, sounded to him a strange jargon ; as did the dialect of Ephesus to a Milesian, and as the Bolognese does to a Florentine. This fact leaves its real nature and relation to the Greek quite uncertain and we are the less justified in building on it, as the history of Pelasgian settlements is extremely obscure, and the traditions which Herodotus reports on that subject have by no means equal weight with statements made from his personal observation." (Thirlwall, History of Greece, ch. ii. p. 60, 2d edit.) In the statement delivered by Herodotus (to which Pr. Thirlwall hern refers) about the language spoken in the Ionic Greek cities, the historian had said (i. 142), TXtiaaav 6e ov TIJV avrrjv OVTOI, vevouiKaai, a/J.a T/aorrcvf recruroaf Jtapaytryeuv. Miletus, Myus, and Priene, Iv TIJ Kapi-y KaroiKrii'- -zi Kara Tavru diaheyouevai a(j>t. Ephesus, Kolophon, etc, avral ai iroTiCif TJr"t Ttporepov ?.x&eiaTiat bfj.o7Mys.ovai Kara yhuaaav ovtJev, afyl 6e 6fj.o<f>uve- ovot. The Chians and Erythraeans, Kara ruvrb diateyovTai, "Zuuioi 6s in" luvruv fioiivoi. OVTOI ^apar^pec yhaaaris Tt-vaeper -yiyvovrat. The words yhuaarjf x a P a * T *lP (" distinctive mode of speech ") are common to both these passages, but their meaning in the one and in the other is to be measured by reference to the subject-matter of which the author is speak- ing, as well as to the words which accompany them, especially the word /3ap/3opof in the first passage. Nor can I think (with Dr. Thirlwall) that the meaning of J3upi3apoc is to be determined by reference to the other two words: the reverse is, in my judgment, correct. BapfJapor is a term definite and unequivocal, but yl.uaarie x a P aKT VP varies according to the comparison which you happen at the moment to be making, and its meaning is here determined by its conjunction with /?dp/?apof. When Herodotus was speaking of the twelve Ionic cities in Asia, he might properly point out the differences of speech among them as so many different x a P aKT ^( >f ^ yhuaaijc : the limits of difference were fixed by the knowledge which his hearers possessed of the persons about whom he was epeaking ; the lonians being all notoriously Hellens. So an author, describ- ing Italy, might say that Bolognese, Romans, Neapolitans, Genoese, etc. hart different xapanrfipts yhuaaris ; it being understood that the difference was iuch as might subsist among persons all Italians. But there is also a x a t )aKT 'IP y3.w<K"7C of Greek generally (abstraction ​ALLEGED ANTE-HELLENIC COLOMhs. 2G7 Phoenician, Assyrian, Lydian, and other languages, did not know how to distinguish bad Hellenic from non-Hellenic, is, in my judgment, inadmissible ; at any rate, the supposition is not to b adopted without more cogent evidence than any which is here found. As I do not presume to determine what were the antecedent internal elements out of which the Hellenic aggregate was formed, so I confess myself equally uninformed with regard to its external constituents. Kadmus, Danaus, Kekrops, the eponyms of the Kadmeians, of the Danaans, and of the Attic Kekropia, present themselves to my vision as creatures of legend, and in that charac- ter I have already adverted to them. That there may have been very early settlements in continental Greece, from Phoenicia and Egypt, is nowise impossible ; but I see neither positive proof, nor ground for probable inference, that there were any such, though traces of Phoenician settlements in some of the islands may doubt- less be pointed out. And if we examine the character and aptitudes of Greeks, as compared either with Egyptians or Phoeni- cians, it will appear that there is not only no analogy, but an obvious and fundamental contrast : the Greek may occasionally be found as a borrower from these ultramarine contemporaries, but he cannot be looked upon as their offspring or derivative. Nor can I bring myself to accept an hypothesis which implies (unless we are to regard the supposed foreign emigrants as very made of its various dialects and diversities), as .contrasted with Persian. Phoenician, or Latin, and of Italian generally, as contrasted with German or English. It is this comparison which Herodotus is taking, when he describes the language spoken by the people of Kreston and Plakia, and which he notes by the word pdppapov as opposed to 'EW.rjvtKov : it is with reference to this comparison that x a P aKr VP yhuaaTif, in the fifty -seventh chapter, is to be construed. The word fiappapof is the usual and recognized antithesis of "Ehtyv, or 'EAA^vt/coc. It is not the least remarkable part of the statement of Herodotus, that the language spoken at Krestfin and at Plakia was the same, though the places were so far apart from each other. This identity of itself shows that he meant to speak of a substantive language, not of a " strange jargon." I think it, therefore, certain that Herodotus pronounces the Pelasgians of his day to speak a substantive language different from Greek ; bat whether differing from it in a greater or less degree (e, y. in the degree of Latin 01 vf Phoenician), we have no means of deciding. ​268 HISTORY OF GREECE. few in number, in which case the question loses most of its im- portance) that the Hellenic language the noblest among the many varieties of human speech, and possessing within itself a pervading symmetry and organization is a mere confluence of two foreign barbaric languages (Phoenician and Egyptian) with two or more internal barbaric languages, Pelasgian, Lelegian, etc. In the mode of investigation pursued by different historians into this question of early foreign colonies, there is great differ- ence (as in the case of the Pelasgi) between the different authors, from the acquiescent Euemerism of llaoul Rochette to the refined distillation of Dr. Thirlwall, in the third chapter of his History. It will be found that the amount of positive knowledge which Dr. Thirlwall guarantees to his readers in that chapter is extremely inconsiderable ; for though he proceeds upon the gene- ral theory (different from that which I hold) that historical mat- ter may be distinguished and elicited from the legends, yet when the question arises respecting any definite historical result, his canon of credibility is too just to permit him to overlook the absence of positive evidence, even when all intrinsic incredibility is removed. That which I note as Terra Incognita, is in his view a land which may be known up to a certain point ; but the map which he draws of it contains so few ascertained places as to differ very little from absolute vacuity. The most ancient district called Hellas is affirmed by Aristotle to have been near Dodona and the river Achelous, a description which would have been unintelligible (since the river does not flow near Dodona), if' it had not been qualified by the remark, that the river had often in former times changed its course. He states, moreover, that the deluge of Deukalion took place chiefly in this district, which was in those early days inhabited by the Selli, and by the people then called Graeci, but now Hellenes. 1 The Selli (called by Pindar, Helli) are mentioned in the Iliad .'is the ministers of the Dodonaean Zeus, " men who slept on the ground, and never washed their feet ;" and Hesiod, in one of the lost poems (the Eoiai), speaks of the fat land and rich pastures of the land called Hellopia, wherein Dodona was situated. 2 On 1 Aristotcl. Meteorol. i. 14. 2 Homer, Iliad, xvi. 234 ; Hesiod, Fragm. 149, ed. Marktstheffel ; So- phokl. Trachin. 1174; Strabo, vii. p. 328. ​AMPHIKTYONIC CONVOCATION. 269 what authority Aristotle made bis statement, we do not know ; but the general feeling of the Greeks was different, connecting Deukalion, Hellen, and the Hellenes, primarily and specially with the territory called Achaia Phthiotis, between Mount Othrys and CEta. Jsor can we either affirm or deny his asser- tion that the people in the neighborhood of Dodona were called Graeci before they were called Hellenes. There is no ascertained instance of the mention of a people called Grasci, in any author earlier than this Aristotelian treatise ; for the allusions to Alkman and Sophokles prove nothing to the point. 1 Nor can we explain how it came to pass that the Hellenes were known to the Romans only under the name of Grasci, or Graii. But the name by which a people is known to foreigners is often completely different from its own domestic name, and we are not less at a loss to assign the reason, how the Rasena of Etruria came to be known to the Romans by the name of Tuscans, or Etruscans. CHAPTER III. MEMBERS OF THE HELLENIC AGGREGATE, SEPARATELY TAKEN. -GREEKS NORTH OF PELOPONNESUS. HAVING in the preceding chapter touched upon the Greeks in their aggregate capacity, I now come to describe sepa- rately the portions of which this aggregate consisted, as they present themselves at the first discernible period of history. 1 Stephan. Byz. v. Tpaitcoc. TpatKef ds irapu. ru 'A^K/zuw al ruv vuv /ujjrepec, Kal irapa 'Zo(j>oKAfL kv Tloipeffiv. iari 6e TI fieTairhaffpof, rj TTJS Tpai!; ev&eiaz KAiaif kariv. The word Tpatnec, in Alkman, meaning " the mothers of the Hellenes," may well be only a dialectic variety of ypdff, analogous to tfAgf and opvi^, for K^slf, opvif, etc. (Ahrens, De Dialecto Doricft, sect. 11, p. 91 ; and sect. 31, p. 242), perhaps declined like ywalKCf. The term used by Sophokles, if we may believe Photius, was not TpaiKor^ but 'Pantos (Photius, p. 480, 15; Dindorf, Fragment Soph. 933: compare 455' Eustathius (p. 890) seems undecided between the two ​g70 HISTORY OF GREECE. It lias already been mentioned that the twelve races or subdi- visions, members of what is called the Amphiktyonic convocation, were as follows : North of the pass of Thermopylae, Thessalians, Perrhaebians, Magnetes, Achzeans, Melians, -ZEnianes, Dolopes. South of the pass of Thermopylae, Dorians, lonians, Bceo- .ians, Lokrians, Phokians. Other Hellenic races, not comprised among the Amphik- tyons, were The JEtolians and Akarnanians, north of the gulf of Corinth. The Arcadians, Eleians, Pisatans, and Triphylians, in the cen- tral and western portion of Peloponnesus : I do not here name the Achaeans, who occupied the southern or Peloponnesian coast of the Corinthian gulf, because they may be presumed to have been originally of the same race as the Phthiot Achaeans, and therefore participant in the Amphiktyonic constituency, though their actual connection with it may have been disused. The Dryopes, an inconsiderable, but seemingly peculiar sub- division, who occupied some scattered points on the sea-coast, Hennione on the Argolic peninsula; Styrus and Karystus in Euboea ; the island of Kythnus, etc. Though it may be said, in a general way, that our historical discernment of the Hellenic aggregate, apart from the illusions of legend, commences with 776 B. c., yet, with regard to the larger number of its subdivisions just enumerated, we can hardly be said to possess any specific facts anterior to the invasion of Xerxes in 480 B. c. Until the year 560 B c., (the epoch of Croesus in Asia Minor, and of Peisistratus at Athens,) the his- lory of the Greeks presents hardly anything of a collective character : the movements of each portion of the Hellenic world begin and end apart from the rest. The destruction of Kirrha by the Amphiktyons is the first historical incident which brings into play, in defence of the Delphian temple, a common Hellenic feeling of active obligation. But about 560 B. c., two important changes are seen to come into operation, which alter the character of Grecian history, extricating it out of its former chaos of detail, and centralizing its isolated phenomena : 1. The subjugation of the Asiatic Crocks by Lydia and by Persia, followed by their struggles for ​SLOW TENDENCY TO COOPERATION. 271 emancipation, wherein the European Greeks became impli- cated, first as accessories, and afterwards as principals. 2. The combined action of the large mass 'of Greeks under Sparta, as their most powerful state and acknowledged chief, succeeded by the rapid and extraordinary growth of Athens, the compleie development of Grecian maritime power, and the struggle between Athens and Sparta for the headship. These two causes, though distinct in themselves, must, nevertheless, be regarded as working together to a certain degree, or rather, the second grew out of the first. For it was the Persian invasions of Greece which first gave birth to a wide-spread alarm and antipa- thy among the leading Greeks (we must not call it Pan-Hellenic, since more than half of the Amphiktyonic constituency gave earth and water to Xerxes) against the barbarians of the East, and impressed them with the necessity of joint active operations under a leader. The idea of a leadership or hegemony of col lective Hellas, as a privilege necessarily vested in some one state for common security against the barbarians, thus became current, an idea foreign to the mind of Solon, or any one of the same age. Next, came the miraculous development of Athens, and the violent contest between her and Sparta, which should be the leader ; the larger portion of Hellas taking side with one or the other, and the common quarrel against the Per- sian being for the time put out of sight. Athens is put down, Sparta acquires the undisputed hegemony, and again the anti- barbaric feeling manifests itself^ though faintly, in the Asiatic expeditions of Agesilaus. But the Spartans, too incompetent either to deserve or maintain this exalted position, are over- thrown by the Thebans, themselves not less incompetent, with the single exception of Epameinondas. The death of that single man extinguishes the pretensions of Thebes to the hegemony, and Hellas is left, like the deserted Penelope in the Odyssey, worried by the competition of several suitors, none of whom is strong enough to stretch the bow on which the prize depends. 1 Such a manifestation of force, as well as the trampling down of 1 Xenophon, Hellen. vii. 5, 27 ; Demosthenes, De Coron. c. 7, p. 231 fakd TLf rjv anpirof nai napa TOVTOIC KOI trapa -olf aKXaif T.AA^atv Ipn 10} ​272 HISTORY OF GREECE. the competing suitors, is reserved, not for any legitimate Helleni* arm, but for a semi-Hellenized 1 Macedonian, "brought up at Pella," and making good h'is encroachments gradually from the north of Olympus. The hegemony of Greece thus passes forever out of Grecian hands ; but the conqueror finds his interest in rekindling the old sentiment under the influence of which it had first sprung up. He binds to him the discordant Greeks, by the force of their ancient and common antipathy against the Great King, until the desolation and sacrilege once committed by Xerxes at Athens is avenged by annihilation of the Persian empire. And this victorious consummation of Pan-Hellenic antipathy, the dream of Xenophon 2 and the Ten Thousand Greeks after the battle of Kunaxa, the hope of Jason of Pheras, the exhortation of Isokrates, 3 the project of Philip, and the achievement of Alexander, while it manifests the irresistible might of Hellenic ideas and organization in the then existing state of the world, is at the same time the closing scene of substantive Grecian life. The citizen-feelings of Greece become afterwards merely secondary forces, subordinate to the preponderance of Greek mercenaries under Macedonian order, and to the rudest of all native Hellens, the JEtolian moun- taineers. Some few individuals are indeed found, even in the third century B. c., worthy of the best times of Hellas, and the Achaean confederation of that century is an honorable attempt to contend against irresistible difficulties : but on the whole, that free, social, and political march, which gives so much interest to the earlier centuries, is irrevocably banished irom Greece after the generation of Alexander the Great. The foregoing brief sketch will show that, taking the period fitun Croesus and Peisistratus down to the generation of Alex- ander (560-300 B. c.), the phenomena of Hellas generally, and ' Dcmosthcn. de Coron. c. 21, p. 247. 2 Xenophon, Anabas. iii. 2, 25-26. ' Xenophon, Hellen. vi. 1,12; Isocrates, Orat. ad Philipp., Orat. v. p. 107. This discourse of Isokrate's is composed expressly for the purpose of calling on Philip to put himself at the head of united Greece against the Persians the Oratio iv, called Panegyrica, recommends a combination of all Greeks for the same purpose, but under the hegemony of Athens, putting aside aU mtestine differences : see Orat. iv. pp. 45-68. ​COMMON APATHY AGAINST THE PERSIANS. 273 her relations both foreign and inter-political, admit of being grouped together in masses, with continued dependence on one or a few predominant circumstances. They may be said to constitute a sort of historical epopee, analogous to that which Herodotus has constructed out of the wars between Greeks and barbarians, from the legends of 16 and Europa down to the repulse of Xerxes. But when we are called back to the period between 776 and 560 B. c., the phenomena brought to our know! edge are scanty in number, exhibiting few common feelings 01 interests, and no tendency towards any one assignable purpose. To impart attraction to this first period, so obscure and unprom- ising, we shall be compelled to consider it in its relation with thf second ; partly as a preparation, partly as a contrast. Of the extra-Peloponnesian Greeks north of Attica, during these two centuries, we know absolutely nothing ; but it will be possible to furnish some information respecting the early condi- tion and struggles of the great Dorian states in Peloponnesus ; and respecting the rise of Sparta from the second to the first place in the comparative scale of Grecian powers. Athens becomes first known to us at the legislation of Drako and the attempt of Kylon (620 B. c.) to make himself despot; and we gather some facts concerning the Ionic cities in Euboea and Asia Minor, during the century of their chief prosperity, prior to the reign and conquests of Croesus. In this way, we shall form to ourselves some idea of the growth of Sparta and Athens, of the short-lived and energetic development of the Ionic Greeks, and of the slow working of those causes which tended to bring about increased Hellenic intercommunication, as con- trasted with the enlarged range of ambition, the grand Pan- Hellenic ideas, the systematized party-antipathies, and the intensified action, both abroad and at home, which grew out of the contest with Persia. There are also two or three remarkable manifestations which will require special notice during this first period of Grecian history: 1. The great multiplicity of colonies sent forth by individual cities, and the rise and progress of these several colonies ; 2. The number of despots who arose in the various Grecian cities ; 3. The lyric poetry ; 4. The rudiments of that VOL. n. 12* 18oc. ​274 HISTORF OF GREECE. which afterwards ripened into moral philosophy, as manifested in gnomes, or aphorisms, or the age of the Seven Wise Men. But before I proceed to relate those earliest proceedings (un- fortunately too few) of the Dorians and lonians during the his- torical period, together with the other matters just alluded to, it will be convenient to go over the names and positions of those other Grecian states respecting which we have no information during these first two centuries. Some idea will thus be formed of the less important members of the Hellenic aggregate, pre- vious to the time when they will be called into action. We begin by the territory north of the pass of Thermopylae. Of the different races who dwelt between this celebrated pass and the mouth of the river Peneius, by far the most powerful and important were the Thessalians. Sometimes, indeed, the whole of this area passes under the name of Thessaly, since nomi- nally, though not always really, the power of the Thessalianfi extended over the whole. We know that the Trachinian Hera- kleia, founded by the Lacedaemonians in the early years of the- Peloponnesian war, close at the pass of Thermopylae, was plant- ed upon the territory of the Thessalians. 1 But there were also within these limits other races, inferior and dependent on the Thessalians, yet said to be of more ancient date, and certainly not less genuine subdivisions of the Hellenic name. The Perr- haebi 2 occupied the northern portion of the territory between the lower course of the river Peneius and Mount Olympus. The Magnetes 3 dwelt along the eastern coast, between Mount Ossa and Pelion on one side and the .ZEgean on the other, compris- ing the south-eastern cape and the eastern coast of the gulf of Pagasaj as far as lolkos. The Achaeans occupied the territory called Phthiotis, extending from near Mount Pindus on the west to the gulf of Pagasae on the east, 4 along the mountain chain 1 Thucyd. iii. 93. Oi Qeaaa7*ol ev 6vvu.fj.et ovref TUV Tavry ^up<wv,o2 uv inl ry yy IKT'I^TO (Herakleia), etc.

• Herodot. vii. 173 ; Strabo, ix. pp. 440-441. Herodotus notices the pass

over the chain of Olympus or the Cambunian mountains by which Xerxes and his army passed out of Macedonia into Perrhsebia ; see the description of the pass and the neighboring country in Leake, Travels in Northern Groece, ch. xxviii. vol. iii. pp. 338-348 ; compare Livy, xlii. 53.

• Skylax, Periplus, c. 66 ; Herodot. vii. 183-188.

4 Skylnx, 1'eripl. c. 64 ; Strabo, ix. pp. 433-434. Sophokles included th ​THESSALY. 275 of Othrys with its lateral projections northerly into the Thessa- lian plain, and southerly even to its junction with (Eta. The three tribes of the Malians dwelt between Achasa Phthiotis and ' Thermopylae, including both Trachin and Herakleia. Westward of Achsea Phthiotis, the lofty region of Pindus or Tymphrestus, with its declivities both westward and eastward, was occupied by the Dolopes. All these five tribes, or subdivisions, Perrhaebians, Magnetes, Achaeans of Phthiotis, Malians, and Dolopes, together with cer- tain Epirotic and Macedonian tribes besides, beyond the boun- daries of Pindus and Olympus, were in a state of irregular dependence upon the Thessalians, who occupied the central plain or basin drained by the Peneius. That river receives the streams from Olympus, from Pindus, and from Othrys, flowing through a region which was supposed by its inhabitants to have been once a lake, until Poseidon cut open the defile of Tempe, through which the waters found an efflux. In travelling northward from Thermopylae, the commencement of this fertile region the am- plest space of land continuously productive which Hellas presents is strikingly marked by the steep rock and ancient fortress of Thaumaki ; l from whence the traveller, passing over the moun- tains of Achaea Phthiotis and Othrys, sees before him the plains and low declivities which reach northward across Thessaly to Olympus. A narrow strip of coast in the interior of the gulf of Pagasa?, between the Magnetes and the Achasans, and con- taining the towns of Amphanasum and Pagasae 2 belonged to territory of Trachin in the limits of Phthiotis (Strabo, /. c.). Herodotus considers Phthiotis as terminating a little north of the river Spercheius (vii. 198). 1 See the description of Thaumaki in Livy, xxxii. 4, and in Dr. Holland's Travels, ch. xvii. vol. ii. p. 112, now Thomoko. 2 Skylax, Peripl. c, 65. Hesychius (v. Ila/aov'r^f 'A^o/l/lwv) seems to reckon Pagasa; as Achtean. About the towns in Thessaly, and their various positions, see Manncrt, Geograph. der Gr. und Rumcr, part vii. book iii. ch. 8 and 9. There was an ancient religious ceremony, celebrated by the Delphians every ninth year (Ennaeteris) : a procession was sent from Delphi to the pass of Tempe, consisting of well-born youths under an archi-theor, who represented the proceeding ascribed by an old legend to Apollo ; that god was believed to have gone thither to receive expiation after the slaughter of ​27C HISTORY OF GREECE. tins proper territory of Thessaly, but its great expansion wai inland : within it were situated the cities of Phone, Pharsalus, Skotussa, Larissa, Krannon, Atrax, Pharkadon, Trikka, Metro- polis, Pelinna, etc. The abundance of corn and cattle from the neighboring plains sustained in these cities a numerous population, and above all a proud and disorderly noblesse, whose manners bore much resem- blance to those of the heroic times. They were violent in their behavior, eager in armed feud, but unaccustomed to political discussion or compromise ; faithless as to obligations, yet at the same time generous in their hospitalities, and much given to the enjoyments of the table. 1 Breeding the finest horses in Greece, they were distinguished for their excellence as cavalry ; but their infantry is little noticed, nor do the Thessalian cities seem to have possessed that congregation of free and tolerably equal citi zens, each master of his own arms, out of whom the ranks of (he serpent Pytho : at least, this was one among several discrepant legends. The chief youth plucked and brought back a branch from the sacred laurel at Terape, as a token that he had fulfilled his mission : he returned by " the sacred road," and broke his fast at a place called Aetxrvtuf, near Larissa. A solemn festival, frequented by a large concourse of people from the sur- rounding regions, was celebrated on this occasion at Tempe, in honor of Apollo Tempeites ('AirZovvi Te//7m'r(z, in the JEottc dialect of Thessaly : see Inscript. in Boeckh, Corp. Ins. No. 1767). The procession was accompanied by a flute-player. See Plutarch, Quaist. Grsec. ch. xi. p. 292; De Musica, ch. xiv. p. 1130 , JElian, V. H. iii. 1 : Stephan. Byz. v. AttTrvtuf. It is important to notice these religious processions as establishing inter- course and sympathies between the distant members of Hellas: but the inferences which 0. Mailer (Dorians, b. ii. 1, p. 222) would build upon them, as to the original seat of the Dorians and the worship of Apollo, are not to be trusted. 1 Plato, Krito, c. 15, p. 53. IKEI yap dq Ttl.eiaTrj ura^ia /cat aKol.aaia (com- pare the beginning of the Menon) a remark the more striking, since ho had just before described the Boeotian Thebes as a well-regulated city, though both Dikacarchus and Polybius represent it in their times as so much the contrary. See also Demosthen. Olynth. 5. c. 9, p. 16, cont. Aristokrat. c. 29, p. 657; Schol. Eurip. Phceniss. 1466; Theopomp. Fragment. 34-178, ed. Didot; Aristophanes, Plut. 521. The march of political affairs in Thessaly is understood from Xenoph. Bel/en, vi. I : compare Anabas. i 1, 10, and Thucyd. iv 78. ​THESSALV. 277 hoplites were constituted, the warlike nobles, such as the Aleu- adae at Larissa, or the Skopadae at Krannon, despising everything but equestrian service for themselves, furnished, from their ex- tensive herds on the plain, horses for the poorer soldiers. These Thessalian cities exhibit the extreme of turbulent oligarchy, oc- casionally trampled down by some one man of great vigor, but little tempered by that sense of political communion and rever- ence for established law, which was found among the better cities of Hellas. Both in Athens and Sparta, so different in many respects from each other, this feeling will be found, if not indeed constantly predominant, yet constantly present and ope- rative. Both of them exhibit a contrast with Larissa or Pherae not unlike that between Rome and Capua, the former, with her endless civil disputes constitutionally conducted, admitting the joint action of parties against a common foe ; the latter, with her abundant soil enriching a luxurious oligarchy, and impelled according to the feuds of her great proprietors, the Magii, Blossii, and Jubellii. 1 The Thessalians are, indeed, in their character and capacity as much Epirotic or Macedonian as Hellenic, forming a sort of link between the two. For the Macedonians, though trained in aftertimes upon Grecian principles by the genius of Philip and Alexander, so as to constitute the celebrated heavy-armed pha- lanx, were originally (even in the Peloponnesian war) distin- guished chiefly for the excellence of their cavalry, like the Thes- salians ; 2 while the broad-brimmed hat, or kausia, and the short fipreading-mantle, or chlamys, were common to both. We are told that the Thessalians were originally emigrants from Thesprotia in Epirus, and conquerors of the plain of the Peneius, which (according to Herodotus) was then called JEolis, and which they found occupied by the Pelasgi. 3 It may be doubted whether the great Thessalian families, such as the Aleuadae of Larissa. descendants from Herakles, and placed by 1 See Cicero, Orat. in Pison. c. 1 1 ; DC Leg. Agrar. cont. Rullunj, c 34-35. 2 Compare the Thessalian cavalry as described by Polybius, iv. 8, with tta Macedonian as described by Thucydides, i : . 100. 3 Herodot. vii. 176 ; Thucyd. i. 12. ​278 HISTORY OF GREECE. Pindar on the same level as the Lacedaemonian kings 1 would have admitted this Thesprotian origin ; nor does it coincide with the tenor of those legends which make the eponym, Thessalus, son of Herakles. Moreover, it is to be remarked that the lan- guage of the Thessalians was Hellenic, a variety of the JEolic dialect ; 2 the same (so far as we can make out) as that of the people whom they must have found settled in the country at their first conquest. If then it be true that, at some period ante- rior to the commencement of authentic history, a body of Thes- protian warriors crossed the passes of Pindus, and established themselves as conquerors in Thessaly, we must suppose them to have been more warlike than numerous, and to have gradually dropped their primitive language. In other respects, the condition of the population of Thessaly, such as we find it during the historical period, favors the supposi- tion of an original mixture of conquerors and conquered : for it seems that there was among the Thessalians and their dependents a triple gradation, somewhat analogous to that of Laconia. First, a class of rich proprietors distributed throughout the principal cities, possessing most of the soil, and constituting separate oli- garchies, loosely hanging together. 3 Next, the subject Achaeans, Magnetes, Perrhsebi, differing from the Laconian Periceki in this point, that they retained their ancient tribe-name and sepa- rate Amphiktyonic franchise. Thirdly, a class of serfs, or depen- dent cultivators, corresponding to the Laconian Helots, who, till- ing the lands of the wealthy oligarchs, paid over a proportion of its produce, furnished the retainers by which these great fami- lies were surrounded, served as their followers in the cavalry, and were in a condition of villanage, yet with the important reserve, that they could not be sold out of the country, 4 that they 1 Pindar, Pyth. x. init. with the Scholia, and the valuable comment of Boeckh, in reference to the Aleuadae ; Schneider ad Aristot. Polit. v. 5, 9 ; and the Essay of Buttmann, Von dem Geschlecht der Aleuaden, art. xxii. vol. ii. p. 254, of the collection called " Mythol gus."

• Ahrens, De Dialect. JEolica, c. 1, 2.
• See Aristot. Polit. ii. 6, 3 ; Thucyd. ii. 99-100.
• The words ascribed by Xenophon (Hellen. vi. 1, 11 ) to Jason of Pherae,

aa well as to Theocritus (xvi. 34), attest the numbers and vigor of the Thes- salian Penestse, and the great wealth of the Aleuadae and Skopadse. Both these families acquired celebrity from the verses of Simonidcs : he was p ​PERRILEBIAXS - MAGXETES. 279 had a permanent tenure in the soil, and that they maintained among one another the relations of family and village. This last mention- ed order of men, in Thessaly called the Penesta?, is assimilated by all ancient authors to the Helots of Laconia, and in both cases the danger attending such a social arrangement is noticed by Plato and Aristotle. For the Helots as well as the Penestae had their own common language and mutual sympathies, a separate residence, arms, and courage ; to a certain extent, also, they pos- sessed the means of acquiring property, since we are told that some of the Penestag were richer than their masters. 1 So many means of action, combined with a degraded social position, gave rise to frequent revolt and incessant apprehensions. As a general rule, indeed, the cultivation of the soil by slaves, or dependents, for the benefit of proprietors in the cities, prevailed throughout most parts of Greece. The rich men of Thebes, Argos, Athens, or Elis, must have derived their incomes in the same manner ; but it seems that there was often, in other places, a larger in termixture of bought foreign slaves, and also that the number, fellow-feeling, and courage of the degraded village population was nowhere so great as in Thessaly and Laconia. Now the origin of the Penestae, in Thessaly, is ascribed to the conquest of tronized and his muse invoked by both of them ; see JElian, V. H. xii. 1 ; Ovid, Ibis, 512; Quintilian, xi. 2, 15. Pindar also boasts of his friendship with Thorax the Aleuad (Pyth. x. 99). The Thessalian uvdpa-odiaTat, alluded to in Aristophanes (Plutus, 521), must have sold men out of the country for slaves, either refractory Penes- tie, or Perrhtebian, Magnetic, and Achaean freemen, seized by violence : the Athenian comic poet Mnesimachus, in jesting on the voracity of the Pharsa- lians, exclaims, ap. Athenae. x. p. 418 upa irov IITTTIJV Kareadiovai Tro/Uv 'A^ai'/c^v , Pagasas was celebrated as a place of export for slaves (Hermippus ap. Athena;, i. 49). Menon of Pharsalus assisted the Athenians against Amphipolis with 200, pr 300 " Penestae, on horseback, of his own." (IltveoTatf idiotf) Demos- then. Trept 2wraf. c. 9, p. 173. cont. Aristokrat. c. 51, p. 687. 1 Archemachus ap. Athense. vi. p. 264; Plato, Legg. vi. p. 777; Aristot. Polit. ii. 6, 3 ; vii. 9, 9 ; Dionys. Halic. A. R. ii. 84. Both Plato and Aristotle insist on the extreme danger of having numer- ous slaves, fellow-countrymen and of one language - (ope pvtot, ouo narpiurai u/ ​280 HISTORY OF GREECE. the teiritory by the Thesprotians, as that of the Helots in La- conia is traced to the Dorian conquest The victors in both countries are said to have entered into a convention with the vanquished population, whereby the latter became serfs and tillers of the land for the benefit of the former, but were at the same time protected in their holdings, constituted subjects of the state, and secured against being sold away as slaves. Even in the Thessalian cities, though inhabited in common by Thessalian proprietors and their Penestas, the quarters assigned to each were to a great degree separated: what was called the Free Agora could not be trodden by any Penest, except when specially summoned. 1 Who the people were, whom the conquest of Thessaly by the Thesprotians reduced to this predial villanage, we find differently stated. According to Theopompus, they were Perrhsebians and Magnetes ; according to others, Pelasgians ; while Archemachus alleged them to have been Brootians of the territory of Arne, 2 some emigrating, to escape the conquerors, others remaining and accepting the condition of serfs. But the conquest, assuming it as a fact, occurred at far too early a day to allow of out making out either the manner in which it came to pass, or the state of things which preceded it. The Pelasgians whom Herodotus saw at Kreston are affirmed by him to have been the descendants of those who quitted Thessaly to escape 3 the invading Thesprotians ; though others held that the Boeotians, driven on this occasion from their habitations on the gulf of Pagasae near the Achoeans of Phthiotis, precipitated themselves on Orchome- nus and Boeotia, and settled in it, expelling the Minya3 and the Pelasgians. 1 Aristot. Polit. vii. 11, 2. 2 Theopompus and Archemachus ap. Athenje. vi. pp. 264-26u . compare Thucyd. ii. 12; Steph. Byz. v. "Apvij the converse of this story in Strabo, ix. pp. 401-411, of the Thessalian Arne being settled from Bceotia. That the villains or Pcnestae were completely distinct from the circumjacent de- pendents, Achaeans, Magnetes, Perrhasbians, we see by Aristot. Polit. ii. 6, 8. They had their eponymous hero Penestes, whose descent was traced to Thessalus son of Herakles ; they were thus connected with the mythical father of the nation (Schol. Aristoph. Vesp. 1271). 3 Ilerodot. i. 57 : compare vii. 176.

​Passing over the legends on this subject, and confining ourselves to historical time, we find an established quadruple division of Thessaly, said to have been introduced in the time of Aleuas, the ancestor (real or mythical) of the powerful Aleuadæ,— Thessaliôtis, Pelasgiôtis, Histiæôtis, Phthiôtis.^[190] In Phthiôtis were comprehended the Achæans, whose chief towns were Melitæa, Itônus, Thebæ, Phthiôtides, Alos, Larissa, Kremastê, and Pteleon, on or near the western coast of the gulf of Pagasæ. Histiæôtis, to the north of the Peneius, comprised the Perrhæbians, with numerous towns strong in situation, but of no great size or importance; they occupied the passes of Olympus^[191] and are sometimes considered as extending westward across Pindus. Pelasgiôtis included the Magnêtes, together with that which was called the Pelasgic plain, bordering on the western side of Pelion and Ossa.^[192] Thessaliôtis comprised the central plain of Thessaly and the upper course of the river Peneius. This was the political classification of the Thessalian power, framed to suit a time when the separate cities were maintained in harmonious action by favorable circumstances, or by some energetic individual ascendency; for their union was in general interrupted and disorderly, and we find certain cities standing aloof while the rest went to war.^[193] Though a certain political junction, and obligations of some kind towards a common authority, were recognized in theory by all, and a chief, or Tagus,^[194] was nominated to enforce ​obedience, yet it frequently happened that the disputes of the cities among themselves prevented the choice of a Tagus, or drove him out of the country; and left the alliance little more than nominal. Larissa, Pharsalus,^[195] and Pheræ,—each with its cluster of dependent towns as adjuncts,—seem to have been nearly on a par in strength, and each torn by intestine faction, so that not only was the supremacy over common dependents relaxed, but even the means of repelling invaders greatly enfeebled. The dependence of the Perrhæbians, Magnetes, Achæans, aud Malians, might, under these circumstances, be often loose and easy. But the condition of the Penestæ who occupied the villages belonging to these great cities, in the central plain of Pelasgiotis and Thessaliotis, and from whom the Aleuadæ and Skopadæ derived their exuberance of landed produce—was noway mitigated, if it was not even aggravated, by such constant factions. Nor were there wanting cases in which the discontent of this subject-class was employed by members of the native oligarchy,^[196] or even by foreign states, for the purpose of bringing about political revolutions.

"When Thessaly is under her Tagus, all the neighboring people pay tribute to her; she can send into the field six thousand cavalry and ten thousand hoplites, or heavy-armed infantry,"^[197] observed Jason, despot of Pheræ, to Polydamas of Pharsalus, in endeavoring to prevail on the latter to second his pretensions to that dignity. The impost due from the tributaries, seemingly considerable, was then realized with arrears, and the duties upon ​TOWER OF THE THESSALIAXS. 283 imports at the harbors of the Pagasnsan gulf, imposed for the benefit of the confederacy, were then enforced with strictness ; but the observation shows that, while unanimous Thessaly was very powerful, her periods of unanimity were only occasional. 1 Among the nations which thus paid tribute to the fulness of Thessalian power, we may number not merely the Perrhsebi, Magnates, and Achaeans of Phthiotis, but also the Malians and Dolopes, and various tribes of Epirots extending to the west- ward of Pindus.' 2 We may remark that they were all (except; the Malians) javelin-men, or light-armed troops, not serving in rank with the full panoply; a fact which, in Greece, counts as presumptive evidence of a lower civilization : the Magnetes, too, had a peculiar close-fitting mdde of dress, probably suited to move- ments in a mountainous country. 3 There was even a time whep the Thessalian power threatened to extend southward of Ther- mopylae, subjugating the Phokians, Dorians, and Lokrians. So much were the Phokians alarmed at this danger, that they had built a Avail across the pass of Thermopylae, for the purpose of more easily defending it against Thessalian invaders, who are reported to have penetrated more than once into the Phokian valleys, and to have sustained some severe defeats. 4 At what precise time these events happened, we find no information ; but it must have been considerably earlier than the invasion of Xerxes, since the defensive wall which had been built at Ther- mopylae, by the Phokians, was found by Leonidas in a state of ruin. But the Phokians, though they no longer felt the neces- sity of keeping up this wall, had not ceased to fear and hate the Thessalians, an antipathy which will be found to manifest, itself palpably in connection with the Persian invasion. On the 1 Dcmosthen. Olynth. i. c. 3, p. 15 ; ii. c. 5. p. 21. The orator had occasion to denounce Philip, as having got possession of the public authority of the Thessalian confederation, partly by intrigue, partly by force ; and we thus hear of the /U/zt'vff and the uyopal, which formed the revenue of the con- federacy.

• Xenophon (Hellen. vi. 1, 7) numbers the Maparw among these tribute-

rijs along with the Dolopes: the Maraces are named by Pliny (II. N ir 8). also, along with the Dolopes, but we do not know where they dwelt

• Xenophon, Hellen. vi. 1,9; Pindar, Pyth. iv. 80.

4 Herodot. vii. 176; viii. 27-28. ​og^ HISTORY OF GREECE. whole, the resistance of line Phokians was successful, for the power of the Thessalians never reached southward of the pass. 1 It will be recollected that these different ancient races, Pef- rhaebi, Magnetes, Achaeans, Malians, Dolopes, though tribu- taries of the Thessalians, still retained their Amphiktyonic franchise, and were considered as legitimate Hellenes : all except the Malians are, indeed, mentioned in the Iliad. We shall rarely have occasion to speak much of them in the course of this his- 1 )ry : they are found siding with Xerxes (chiefly by constraint) in his attack of Greece, and almost indifferent in the struggle between Sparta and Athens. That the Achaeans of Phthiotis are a portion of the same race as the Achaeans of Peloponnesus it seems reasonable to believe, though we trace no historical evidence to authenticate it. Achaea Phthiotis is the seat of Hellen, the patriarch of the entire race, of the primitive Hellas, by some treated as a town, by others as a district of some breadth, and of the great national hero, Achilles. Its con- nection with the Peloponnesian Achaeans is not unlike that of Doris with the Peloponnesian Dorians. 2 "We have, also, to notice another ethnical kindred, the date and circumstances of which are given to us only in a mythical form, but which seems, nevertheless, to be in itself a reality, that of the Magnetes on Pelion and Ossa, with the two divisions of Asiatic Magnetes, or Magnesia, on Mount Sipylus and Magnesia on the river Maean- der. It is said that these two Asiatic homonymous towns were founded by migrations of the Thessalian Magnetes, a body of whom became consecrated to the Delphian god, and chose a new abode under his directions. According to one story, these emi- grants were warriors, returning from the Siege of Troy ; accord- ing to another, they sought fresh seats, to escape from the Thesprotian conquerors of Thessaly. There was a third story, according to which the Thessalian Magnetes themselves were represented as colonists 3 from Delphi. Though we can elicit no 1 The story of invading Thessalians nt Kercssus, near Leuktra in Bocotia, (Pausan. ix. 13, 1,) is not at all probable.

• One story was, that these Achseans of Phthia went into Peloponneswi

with Pelops, and settled in Laconia (Strabo, viii. p. 365). 1 Aristoteles ap. Athena; iv. p. 1 73 Conon, Narrat. 29 : Stnibo. xiv. f 647. ​CCT/KAXS.-.EXIAXES. 285 distinct matter of fact from these legends, we may, nevertheless, admit the connection of race between the Thessalian and the Asiatic Magnetes, as well as the reverential dependence of both, manifested in this supposed filiation, on the temple of Delphi Of the Magnetos in Krete, noticed by Plato as long extinct in his time, we cannot absolutely verify even the existence. Of the Malians, Thucydides notices three tribes (ytv>]) at* existing in his time, the Paralii, the Hieres (priests), and the Trachinii, or men of Trachiu :' it is possible that the second oi" the two may have been possessors of the sacred spot on which the Amphiktyonic meetings were held. The prevalence of the hoplites or heavy-armed infantry among the Malians, indicates that we are stepping from Thessalian to more southerly Hellenic habits : the Malians recognized every man as a qualified citizen, who either had served, or was serving, in the ranks with his full panoply. 2 Yet the panoply was probably not perfectly suitable to the mountainous regions by which they were surrounded ; for, at the beginning of the Peloponnesian war, the aggressive moun- taineers of the neighboring region of CEta, had so harassed and Iloeck (Kreta, b. iii. vol. ii. p. 409) attempts (unsuccessfully, in my judg- ment) to reduce these stories into the form of substantial history. 1 Thucyd.iii. 92. The distinction made by Skylax (c. 61) and Diodorns (xviii. 11) between M^?at?c and Ma?uf the latter adjoining the former on the north appears inadmissible, though Letronne still defends it (Pe'ri- ple de Marcien d'Heracle'e, etc., Paris, 1839, p. 212). Instead of Mastic, we ought to read Aa^/eif, as 0. Miiller observes (Do- rians, i. 6, p. 48). It is remarkable that the important town of Lamia (the modern Zeitun) is not noticed either by Herodotus, Thucydides, or Xenophon ; Skylax is the first who mentions it. The route of Xerxes towards Thermopylae lay along the coast from Alos. TheLamieis (assuming that to be the correct reading) occupied the north- ern coast of the Maliac gulf, from the north bank of the Spercheius to the town of Echinus : in which position Dr. Cramer places the Mv/Uctf Uapd^toi an error, I think (Geography of Greece, vol. i. p. 436). It is not improbable that Lamia first acquired importance during the course of those events towards the close of the Peloponnesian war, when the Lacedaemonians, in defence of Herakleia, attacked the Achaeans of Phthiotis, and even expelled the (Etseans for a time from their seats (see Thucyd. viii 3 ; Diodor. xiv. 38). 2 Aristot. Polit. iv. 10, 10. ​286 HISTORY OF GRF.KCK. overwhelmed them in war, that they were forced to throw thenv selves on the protection of Sparta ; and the establishment of the Spartan colony of Herakleia, near Trachin, was the result of their urgent application. Of these mountaineers, described under the general name of CEtjcans, the principal were the -ZEnianes, (o- Enienes, as they are termed in the Homeric Catalogue, as well as by Herodotus), an ancient Hellenic 1 Amphiktyonic race, who are said to have passed through several successive migrations in Thessaly and Epirus, but who, in the historical times, had their settlement and their chief town, Hypata, in the upper valley of the Spercheius, on the northern declivity of Mount GEta. But other tribes were probably also included in the name, such as those JEtolian tribes, the Bomians and Kalli- ans, whose high and cold abodes approached near to the Maliac gulf. It is in this sense that we are to understand the name, as comprehending all the predatory tribes along this extensive mountain range, when we are told of the damage done by tht- G'^taeans, both to the Malians on the east, and to the Dorians on the south : but there are some cases in which the name (Etaeana seems to designate expressly the .2Enianes, especially when they are mentioned as exercising the Ainphiktyonic franchise. 2 The fine soil, abundant moisture, and genial exposure of the southern declivities of Othrys, 3 especially the valley of the Spercheius, through which river all these waters pass away, and which annually gives forth a fertilizing inundation, present a marked contrast with the barren, craggy, and naked masses of Mount (Eta, which forms one side of the pass of Thermopylae. Southward of the pass, the Lokrians, Phokians, and Dorians, occupied the mountains and passes between Thessaly and Bceo- 1 Plutarch, Quits t ion. Grace, p. 294.

• Thucyd. iii. 92-97 ; viii. 3. Xenoph. Hellen. i. 2, 18 ; in another passage

Xenophon expressly distinguishes the CEtcei and the JEnianes (Hellen. iil 5,6). Diodor. xiv. 38. ^Eschines, De Fals. Leg. c. 44, p. 290. 3 About the fertility as well as the beauty of this valley, see Pr. Holland's Travels, ch. xvii. vol. ii. p. 108, and Forchhammer (Hellenika, Griechenland, ira Neuen das Alte, Berlin. 1837). I do riot concur with the latter in his attempts to resolve the mythes of Herakles, Achilles, and others, into physi- cal phenomena; but hi? descriptions cf local scenery and attributes are most vivid and masterly. ​LOKRIAXS. 287 tia. The coast opposite to the western side of Eubcea, from the neighborhood of Thermopylae, as far as the Boeotian frontier at Anthedon, was possessed by the Lokrians, whose northern fron- tier town, Alpeni, was conterminous with the Malians. There was, however, one narrow strip of Phokis the town of Daph- nus, where the Phokians also touched the Eubcean sea which broke this continuity, and divided the Lokrians into two sections, Lokrians of Mount Knemis, or Epiknemidian Lokrians, and Lokrians of Opus, or Opuntian Lokrians. The mountain called Knemis, running southward parallel to the coast from the end of CEta, divided the former section from the inland Phokians and the upper valley of the Kephisus : farther southward, joining continuously with Mount Ptoon by means of an intervening mountain which is now called Chlomo, it separated the Lokrians of Opus from the territories of Orchomenus, Thebes, and Anthe- clon, the north-eastern portions of Boeotia, Besides these two sections of the Lokrian name, there was also a third, completely separate, and said to have been colonized out from Opus, the Lokrians surnamed Ozolse, who dwelt apart on the western side of Phokis, along the northern coast of the Corinthian gulf. They reached from Amphissa which overhung the plain of Krissa, and stood within seven miles of Delphi to Naupaktus. near the narrow entrance of the gulf; Avhich latter town was taken from these Lokrians by the Athenians, a little before the Peloponnesian war. Opus prided itself on being the mother-city of the Lokrian name, and the legends of Deukalion and Pyrrha found a home there as well as in Phthiotis. Alpeni, Nikasa, rhronium, and Skarpheia, were towns, ancient but unimportant, of the Epiknemidian Lokrians ; but the whole length of this Lokrian coast is celebrated for its beauty and fertility, both by Ancient and modern observers. 1 1 Strabo, ix. p. 425 ; Forchhammer, Hcllenika, pp. 11-12. Kynus is some- times spoken of as the harbor of Opus, but it was a city of itself as old as the Homeric Catalogue, and of some moment in the later wars of Greece, when military position came to be more va.Hied than legendary celebrity {Livy, xxviii. 6; Pausan. x. 1, 1 ; Skylax, c. Cl-62) ; the latter counts Thro- nium and Knemis or Knemides as being Phokian, not Lokrian ; which they were for a short time, during the prosperity of the Phokians, at the beginning rf the Sacred War, though not permanently ( JSscliin. Fals. Legat. c. 42, p ​288 HISTORY OF GREECE. The Phokians were bounded on the north by the little terri* tories called Doris and Dryopis, which separated them from the Malians, on the north-east, east, and south-west, by the dif- ferent branches of Lokrians, and on the south-east, by the Boeotians. They touched the Euboean sea, (as has been men- tioned) at Daphnus, the point where it approaches nearest to their chief town, Elateia ; their territory also comprised most part of the lofty and bleak range of Parnassus, as far as its southerly termination, where a lower portion of it, called Kirphis, pro- jects into the Corinthian gulf, between the two bays of An- tikyra and Krissa; the latter, with its once fertile plain, lay immediately under the sacred rock of the Delphian Apollo. Both Delphi and Krissa originally belonged to the Phokian race, but the sanctity of the temple, together with Lacedaemonian aid, enabled the Delphians to set up for themselves, disavowing their connection with the Phokian brotherhood. Territorially speaking, the most valuable part of Phokis 1 consisted in the valley of the river Kephisus, which takes its rise from Parnassus, not far from the Phokian town of Lilsea, passes between (Eta and Knemis on one side, and Parnassus on the other, and enters Bocotia near Chaeroneia, discharging itself into the lake Kopais. [t was on the projecting mountain ledges and rocks on each side )f this river, that the numerous little Phokian towns were situ- ated. Twenty-two of them were destroyed and broken up into villages by the Amphiktyonic order, after the second Sacred War ; Abas (one of the few, if not the only one, that was spared) being protected by the sanctity of its temple and oracle. Oi these cities, the most important was Elateia, situated on the left bank of the Kephisus, and on the road from Lokris into Phokis, in the natural march of an army from Thermopylae into Bosotia. The Phokian towns 2 were embodied in an ancient confederacy, 46). This serves as one presumption about the age of the Periplus of Sky- lax (see the notes of Klausen ad Skyl. p. 269). These Lokrian towns lay along the important road from Thermopylae to Elateia and Bceotia (Pansan, vii. 15, 2; Livy, xxxiii. 3) 1 Pausan. x. 33, 4.

• Pausan. x. 5, 1 ; Demosth. Fals. Leg. c. 22-28 ; Diodor. xvi. 60, with

the note of Wesseling. The tenth book of Pausanias, though the larger half of it is devoted to ​PHOKIANS. - DORIA NS. . 289 which held its periodical meetings at a temple between Daulis and Delphi. The little territory called Doris and Dryopis, occupied the southern declivity of Mount (Eta, dividing Phokis on the north and north-west, from the JEtolians, JEnianes, and Malians. That which was called Doris in the historical tunes, and which reached, in the time of Herodotus, nearly as far eastward as the Maliac gulf, is said to have formed a part of what had been once called Dryopis ; a territory which had comprised the summit of CEta as far as the Spercheius, northward, and which had been inhabited by an old Hellenic tribe called Dryopes. The Dorians acquired their settlement in Dryopis by gift from Herakles, who, along with the Malians (so ran the legend), had expelled the Dryopes, and compelled them to find for themselves new seats at Hermione, and Asine, in the Argolic peninsula of Pelopon- nesus, at Styra and Karystus in Euboea, and in the island of Kythnus ; l it is only in these five last-mentioned places, that history recognizes them. The territory of Doris was distributed into four little townships, Pindus, or Akyphas, Boeon, Kytinion, and Erineon, each of which seems to have occupied a separate valley belonging to one of the feeders of the river Kephisus, the only narrow spaces of cultivated ground which this " small and sad " region presented. 2 In itself, this tetrapoh's is so insig- nificant, that we shall rarely find occasion to mention it ; but it acquired a factitious consequence by being regarded as the me- tropolis of the great Dorian cities in Peloponnesus, and receiving on that ground special protection from Sparta, I do not here touch upon that string of ante-historical migrations stated by Delphi, tells us all that we know respecting the less important towns of Phokis. Compare also Dr. Cramer's Geography of Greece, vol. ii. sect. 10; and Leake's Travels in Northern Greece, vol. ii. ch. 13. Two funeral monuments of the Phokian hero Schedius (who commands the Phokian troops before Troy, and is slain in the Iliad) marked the two extremities of Phokis, one at Daphnus on the Euboean sea, the other at Antikyra on the Corinthian gulf (Strabo, ix. p. 425; Pausan. x. 36, 4). 1 Herodot. viii. 31, 43, 46; Diodor. iv. 57 ; Aristot. ap. Strabo, viii. p. 373. 0. Miiller (History of the Dorians, book i. ch. ii.) has given all that can be known about Doris and Dryopis, together with some matters which appear to me very inadequately authenticated.

• Tlo/lf/f [iiKpal not ?.VTrp6x<jooi, Strabo, ix. ; 427.

YCL. II J3 190C. ​290 HISTORY OF GREECE. Herodotus, and illustrated by the ingenuity as well as deco: ated by the fancy of 0. Miiller through which the Dorians are affiliated with the patriarch of the Hellenic race, moving originally out of Phthiotis to Histiaeotis, then to Pindus, and lastly to Doris. The residence of Dorians in Doris, is a fact which meets us at the commencement of history, like that of the Phokians and Lokrians in their respective territories. We next pass to the JEtolians, whose extreme tribes covered the bleak heights of (Eta and Korax, reaching almost within sight of the Maliac gulf, where they bordered on the Dorians and Malians, while their central and western tribes stretched along the frontier of the Ozolian Lokrians to the flat plain, abundant in marsh and lake, near the mouth of the Euenus. In the time of Herodotus and Thucydides, they do not seem to have extended so far westward as the Achelous ; but in later times, this latter river, throughout the greater part of its lower course, divided them from the Akarnanians :' on the north, they touched upon the Dolopians, and upon a parallel of latitude nearly as far north as Ambrakia. There were three great divisions of the JEtolian name, the Apodoti, Ophioneis, and Eurytanes, each of which was subdivided into several different village tribes. The north- ern and eastern portion of the territory 2 consisted of very high mountain ranges, and even in the southern portion, the mountains ^.rakynthus, Kurion, Chalkis, Taphiassus, are found at no great distance from the sea ; while the chief towns in uiEtolia, Kalydon, Pleuron, Chalkis, seem to have been situated eastward of the Euenus, between the last-mentioned mountains and the sea. 3 The first two towns have been greatly ennobled in legend, but 1 Herod, vii. 126; Thucyd. ii. 102. 2 See the difficult journey of Fiedler from Wrachori northward by Karpe- nitz, and then across the north-western portion of the mountains of the an- cient Eurytanes (the southern continuation of Mount Tymphrestus and (Eta), into the upper valley of the Spercheius (Fiedler's Reise in Griechenland, vol. i. pp. 177-191 ), a part of the longer journey from Missolonghi to Zeitun. Skylax (c. 35) reckons ^Etolia as extending inland as far as the bounda- ries of the JEnianes on the Spercheius which is quite correct JKtoiiu Epiktetus p-XP<- T Vf Olraiaf, Strabo, x. p. 450.

• Strabo, x. pp. 459-460. There is, however, great uncertainty about the

position of these ancient towns: compare Kruss. Hellas, vol. iii. ch. xi. pp. 833-255, and Brandslater, Geschichte des ^Etolischen Landes, pp. J21 134. ​AKARN ASIANS. 291 are little named in history ; while, on the contrary, Therinus, the chief town of the historical -ZEtolians, and the place where the aggregate meeting and festival of the ^Etolian name, for tho choice of a Pan-JEtolic general, was convoked, is not noticed by any one earlier than Ephorus. 1 It was partly legendary renown, partly ethnical kindred (publicly acknowledged on both sides) with the Eleians in Peloponnesus, which authenticated the title of the jEtolians to rank as Hellens. But the great mass of the Apodoti, Eurytanes, and Ophioneis in the inland mountains, were so rude in their manners, and so unintelligible 2 in their speech, (which, however, was not barbaric, but very bad Hellenic,) that this title might well seem disputable, in point of fact it was disputed, in later times, when the JEtolian power and depredations had become obnoxious nearly to all Greece. And it is, probably, to this difference of manners between the -ZEtolians on the sea-coast and those in the interior, that we are to trace a geographical division mentioned by Strabo, into ancient .^Etolia, and ^tolia Epiktetus, or acquired. When or by whom this division was introduced, we do not know. It cannot be founded upon any conquest, for the inland -ZEtolians were the most unconquerable of mankind : and the affirmation which Ephorus applied to the whole jJEtolian race, that it had never been reduced to sub- jection by any one, is, most of all, beyond dispute concerning the inland portion of it. 3 Adjoining the JEtolians were the Akarnanians, the western- most of extra-Peloponnesian Greeks. They extended to the Ionian sea, and seem, in the time of Thucydides, to have occupied 1 Ephorus, Fragm. 29, Marx. ap. Strabo, p. 463. The situation of Ther- mus, " the acropolis as it were of all ^Etolia," and placed on a spot almost unapproachable by^ an army, is to a certain extent, though not wholly, capa- ble of being determined by the description which Polybius gives of the rapid march of Philip and the Macedonian army to surprise it. The maps, both of Krnse and Kiepert, place it too much on the north of the lake Trichonis : the map of Fiedler notes it, more correctly, to the east of that lake (Polyb ". 7-8; compare Brandstater, Geschichte des ^Etol. Landes, p. 133).

• Thucyd. iii. 102. uyvuGToraroi 6e yTiuaaav eiai, icai ufu'vpayoi uf^,e

y ovrai. It seems that Thucydides had not himself seen or conversed with them, but he does not call them (3ap,8apoi. 3 Ephoius, Fragment. 29, ed. Marx. ; Skymn. Chius, v. 471 ; Strabo, x f> 450. ​292 HISTORY OF GREECE. both banks of the river Achelous, in the lower part of its cou rae, though the left bank appears afterwards as belonging to the JEtolians, so that the river came to constitute the boundary, often disputed and decided by arms, between them. The principal Akarnanian towns, Stratus and (Eniadce, were both on the right bank ; the latter on the marshy and ovefiflowed land near its mouth. Near the Akarnanians, towards the gulf of Ambrakia, were found barbarian, or non-Hellenic nations, the Agrseans and the Amphilochians : in the midst of the latter, on the shores of the Ambrakian gulf, the Greek colony, called Argos Amphi- lochicum, was established. Of the five Hellenic subdivisions now enumerated, Lo- krians, Phokians, Dorians (of Doris), JEtolians, and Akarnanians (of whom Lokrians, Phokians, and JEtolians are comprised in the Homeric catalogue), we have to say the same as of those north of Thermopylae : there is no information respecting them from the commencement of the historical period down to the Persian war. Even that important event brings into action only the Lokrians of the Euboean sea, the Phokians, and the Dorians : we have to wait until near the Peloponnesian war, before we require information respecting the Ozolian Lokrians, the JEto- lians, and the Akarnanians. These last three were unquestionably the most backward members of the Hellenic aggregate. Though not absolutely without a central town, they lived dispersed in villages, retiring, when attacked, to inaccessible heights, perpetu- ally armed and in readiness for aggression and plunder wherever they found an opportunity. 1 Very different was the condition of the Lokrians opposite Eubcea, the Phokians, and the Dorians. These were all orderly town communities, small, indeed, and poor, but not less well administered than the average of Grecian townships, and perhaps exempt from those individual violences which so frequently troubled the Boeotian Thebes or the great cities of Thessaly. Timaeus affirmed (contrary, as it seems, to the supposition of Aristotle) that, in early times, there were no 1 Thncyu. I. 6 ; iii. 94. Aristotle, however, included, in his large collection of TlofaTeiat, an 'AKapvavuv Hofareia as well as an AlruAtiv Tlo^.i-elo (' Aristotelis Rcrum Publicarum Reliquiae, ed. Neumann, p. 102; Strabo, vii r S2i). ​B(EOTIANS.-ORCHOMENUS. 295 slaves either among the Lokrians or Phokians, and that the work required to be done for proprietors was performed by poor freemen ; l a habit which is alleged to have been continued until the temporary prosperity of the second Sacred "War, when the plunder of the Delphian temple so greatly enriched the Pho- kian leaders. But this statement is too briefly given, and too imperfectly authenticated, to justify any inferences. We find in the poet Alkman (about G10 B. c.). the Erysl- chaean, or Kalydonian shepherd, named as a type of rude rus- ticity, the antithesis of Sardis, where the poet was born. 3 And among the suitors who are represented as coming forward to claim the daughter of the Sikyonian Kleisthenes in marriage, there appears both the Thessalian- Diaktorides from Krannon, a member of the Skopad family, and the -ZEtolian Males, brother of that Titormus who in muscular strength surpassed all his con- temporary Greeks, and who had seceded from mankind into the inmost recesses of JEtolia : this jEtolian seems to be set forth as a sort of antithesis to the delicate Smindyrides of Sybaris, the most luxurious of mankind. Herodotus introduces these charac- t^rs into his dramatic picture of this memorable wedding. 3 Between Phokis and Lokris on one side, and Attica (from which it 12 divided by the mountains Kithaeron and Parnes) on the other, we find the important territory called Boeotia, with its ten or twelve autonomous cities, forming a sort of confederacy under the presidency of Thebes, the most powerful among them. Even of this territory, destined during the second period of this history, to play a part so conspicuous and effective, we know nothing during the first two centuries after 776 B. c. We first acquire some insight into it, on occasion of the disputes between Thebes and Platoca, about the year 520 B. c. Orchomenus, on the north-west of the lake Kopai's, forms throughout the histori- cal times one of the cities of the Boeotian league, seemingly the second after Thebes. But I have already stated that the Orcho- 1 Timaeus, Fragm. xvii. ed. Goller; Polyb. xii. 6-7; Athenaeus, vi. p. 264.

• This brief fragment of the Hap&evela of Alkman is preserved by Ste-

phen. Byz. ('Epvaixi]), and alluded to by Strabo, x. p. 460: see "Welrkcr Alkm. Fragm. xi. and Bergk, Alk. Fr. xii. 'Herodot. yi. 127. ​294 HISTORY OF GREECE. menian legends, the Catalogue, and other allusions in Homer, and the traces of past power and importance yet visible in the his- torical age, attest the early political existence of Orchomenus and its neighborhood apart from Boeotia. 1 The Amphiktyony in which Orchomenus participated, at the holy island of Kalauria near the Argolic peninsula, seems to show that it must once have possessed a naval force and commerce, and that its territory must have touched the sea at Halne and the lower town of Larymna, near the southern frontier of Lokris ; this sea is separated by a very narrow space from the range of mountains which join Knemis and Ptoon, and which inclose on the east both the basin of Orcho- menus, Aspledon, and Kopae, and the lake Kopais. The migration of the Boeotians out of Thessaly into Boeotia (which is repre- sented as a consequence of the conquest of the former country by the Thesprotians) is commonly assigned as the compulsory force which Boeotized Orchomenus. By whatever cause, or at what- ever time (whether before or after 77G B. c.) the transition may have been effected, we find Orchomenus completely Boeotian throughout the known historical age, yet still retaining its local Minyeian legends, and subject to the jealous rivalry 2 of Thebes, as being the second city in the Boeotian league. The direct road from the passes of Phokis southward into Boeotia went through Chasroneia, leaving Lebadeia on the right, and Orchomenus on the left hand, and passed the south-western edge of the lake 1 See an admirable topographical description of the north part of Boeotia, the lake Kopats and its environs, in Forchhammer's Hellenika, pp. 159- 1 86, with an explanatory map. The two long and laborious tunnels con- structed by the old Orchomenians for the drainage of the lake, as an aid to the insufficiency of the natural Katabothra, are there very clearly laid down : one goes to the sea, the other into the neighboring lake Hylika, which is surrounded by high rocky banks and can take more water without overflow- ing. The lake KopaYs is an inclosed basin, receiving all the water from Doris and Phokis through the Kephisus. A copy of Forchhammcr's map will be found at the end of the present volume. Forchhammer thinks that it was nothing but the similarity of the name Itonca (derived from Irea, a willow-tree) which gave rise to the tale of an emigration of people from the Thessalian to the Boeotian Itone (p. 148). The Homeric Catalogue presents Kopse, on the north of the lake, as Boeo- tian, but not Orchomenus nor Aspledon (Iliad, ii. 502).

• See 0. Miiller, Orchomenos, cap. xx. p. 418, aeq. ​B(EOTIAN CONFEDERACY. 295

Kopa'is near the towns of Koroneia, Alalkomenas, and Ilaliarius, all situated on the mountain Tilphossion, an outlying ridge connected with Helicon by the intervention of Mount Leibe thrius. The Tilphossseon was an important military post, com- manding that narrow pass between the mountain and the lake which lay in the great road from Fhjkis to Thebes. 1 The ter- ritory of this latter city occupied the greater part of central Boeotia, south of the lake KGpai's ; it comprehended Akrsephia and Mount Ptoon, and probably touched the Euboean sea at the village of Salganeus south of Anthedon. South-west of Thebes, occupying the southern descent of lofty Helicon towards the inmost corner of the Corinthian gulf, and bordering on the south- eastern extremity of Phokis with the Phokian town of Bulis, stood the city of Thespiae. Southward of the Asopus, between that river and Mount Kithseron, were Plataea and Tanagra ; in the south-eastern corner of Bceotia stood Oropus, the frequent subject of contention between Thebes and Athens ; and in the road between the Euboean Chalkis and Thebes, the town of Mykalessus. From our first view of historical Boeotia downward^ there appears a confederation which embraces the whole territory: and during the Peloponnesian war, the Thebans invoke " the ancient constitutional maxims of the Boeotians " as a justification of extreme rigor, as well as of treacherous breach of the peace, against the recusant Plataeans. 2 Of this confederation, the greater cities were primary members, while the lesser were attached to one or other of them in a kind of dependent union. Neither the names nor the number of these primary members can be certainly known : there seem grounds for including Thebes, Orchomenus, Lebadeia, Koroneia, Haliartus, Kopse, Anthedon, Tanagra, Thespiae, and Platnea before its secession. 3 1 See Demosthcn. De Fals. Legat. c. 43-45. Another portion of this nar- row road is probably meant by the pass of Koroneia ra irepi Kopuveiav crevu. (Diodor. xv. 52; Xenoph. Hellen. iv. 3, 15) which Epameinondaa occupied to prevent the invasion of Kleombrotus from Phokis. 7 JThucyd. ii. 2 KarH ri iruTpia ruv TTUV-UV Eoiurtiv: compare the cpeech of the Thebans to the Lacedaemonians after the capture of Platsea, iii. 61, 65, 66. 3 Thucyd. iv. 91 ; C. F. Hermann, Griechischc Stnnts Alterthiiiner; seel ​296 HISTORY OF GREECE. Akrtcphia, with the neighboring Mount Ptoon and its oracle, Skolus, Glisas, and other places, were dependencies of Thebes : Chacroneia, Aspledon, Holmones, and Hyettus, of Orchomenus : Siphae, Leuktra, Keressus, and Thisbe, of Thespiae. 1 Certain generals or magistrates, called Boeotarchs, were chosen annually to manage the common affairs of the confederation. At the time of the battle of Delium in the Peloponnesian war, they were eleven in number, two of them from Thebes ; but whether this number was always maintained, or in what proportions the choice was made by the different cities, we find no distinct information. There were likewise, during the Peloponnesian war, four different senates, with whom the Boeotarchs consulted on matters of im- portance ; a curious arrangement, of which we have no explana- tion. Lastly, there was the general concilium and religious festival, the Pamboeotia, held periodically at Koroneia. Such were the forms, as far as we can make them out, of the Boeotian confederacy ; each of the separate cities possessing its own senate and constitution, and having its political consciousness as an autonomous unit, yet with a certain habitual deference to the fed- eral obligations. Substantially, the affairs of the confederation will be found in the hands of Thebes, managed in the interests of Theban ascendency, which appears to have been sustained by no other feeling except respect for superior force and bravery. The discontents of the minor Boeotian towns, harshly repressed and punished, form an uninviting chapter in Grecian history. One piece of information we find, respecting Thebes singly and apart from the other Boeotian towns anterior to the year 700 B. c. Though brief, and incompletely recorded, it is yet highly valuable, as one of the first incidents of solid and positive Grecian history. Diokles, the Corinthian, stands enrolled as Olympic victor in the 13th Olympiad, or 728 B. c., at a time when the oligarchy called Bacchiadae possessed the government of Corinth. The beauty of his person attracted towards him the attachment of Philolaus, ono of the members of this oligarchical body, a sentiment 179; Herodot v. 79; Boeckli, Commentat. ad, Inscript. Bceotic. ap. Corp. Ins. Gr. part v. p. 726. 1 Herodot viii. 135 ; ix. 15-43. Pausan ix. 13, 1 ; ix. 23, 3 ; ix. 24, 3' ix. 32, 1-4. Xenophon, Hellcn. vi. 4, 3-4 : compare 0. Miillcr, Orchoma BOS, cap. XT. p. 403. ​EARLY LAWS OF PHILOLAUS AT TIIEI5ES. 297 which Grecian manners did not proscribe ; but it also provoked an incestuous passion on the part of his own mother, Halcyone, from which Diokles shrunk with hatred and horror. He aban- doned forever his native city and retired to Thebes, whither he was followed by Philolaus, and where both of them lived and died. Their tombs were yet shown in the time of Aristotle, close adjoining to each other, yet with an opposite frontage; that of Philolaus being so placed that the inmate could command a view of the lofty peak of his native city, while that of Diokles was so disposed as to block out all prospect of the hateful spot. That which preserves to us the memory of so remarkable an incident, is, the esteem entertained for Philolaus by the Thebans, a feeling so profound, that they invited him to make laws for them. We shall have occasion to point out one or two similar cases, in which Grecian cities invoked the aid of an intelligent stranger ; and the practice became common, among the Italian republics in the Middle Ages, to nominate a person not belonging to their city either as podesta or as arbitrator in civil dissensions. It would have been highly interesting to know, at length, what laws Philolaus made for the Thebans ; but Aristotle, with his usual conciseness, merely alludes to his regulations respecting the adoption of children and respecting the multiplication of offspring in each separate family. His laws were framed with the view to maintain the original number of lots of land, without either subdivision or consolidation ; but by what means the purpose was to be fulfilled we are not informed. 1 There existed a law at 1 Aristot. Polit. ii. 9, 6-7. No//o#er?c 6' avrolf (to the Thebans) tyevtro 4uA.6^aof TTfpf T' uXhuv rivCiv KOI irepl r^f iratfioTroitaf, ovf KoXovatv IKEIVOI VO/lOVt; &TlKOVf KOI TOVT' t'OTtV I6i(jf VTf' iKElVOV VVO(lO'&eTTl[lVOl>, SlTUf 6 apid/ide au&jrai ruv K/.fipuv. A perplexing passage follows within three lines of this, $Ao/luov 6e idiov tanv rj ruv ovmuv avo/tdXuaif, which raises two questions : first, whether Philolaus can really be meant in the second passage, which talks of what is ISiov to Philolaus, while the first pas- sage had already spoken of something itiiuf vEvopodeTijfj.ei'o* by the same person. Accordingly, Gottling and M. Barthelemy St. Hltalre follow one of the MSS. by writing Qateov in place of Qihohaov. Next, what is tha meaning of uvo/ia^wtrtf ? O- Miiller (Dorians, ch. x. 5, p. 209) considers it to mean a " fresh equalization, just as ava6aafj.bg means a fresh division," adopting the translation of Victorins and Schlosser. The point can hardly be decisively settled ; but if this tranlation of avt 13* ​298 HISTORY OF GREECE. Thebes, which perhaps may have been part of the scheme of Philolaus, prohibiting exposure of children, and empowering a father, under the pressure of extreme poverty, to bring his new- born infant to the magistrates, who sold it for a price to any citizen-purchaser, taking from him the obligation to bring it up, but allowing him in return, to consider the adult as his slave. 1 From these brief allusions, coming to us without accompanying illustration, we can draw no other inference, except that the great problem of population the relation between the well-being of the citizens and their more or less rapid increase in numbers had engaged the serious attention even of the earliest Grecian legislators. We may, howev-er, observe that the old Corinthian legislator, Pheidon, (whose precise date cannot be fixed) is stated by Aristotle, 2 to have contemplated much the same object as that which is ascribed to Philolaus at Thebes; an unchangeable num- ber both of citizens and of lots of land, without any attempt to alter the unequal ratio of the lots, one to the other. CHAPTER IV. EARLIEST HISTORICAL VIEW .OF PELOPONNESUS. DORIANS IN ARGOS AND THE NEIGHBORING CITIES. WE now pass from the northern members to the heart and head of Greece, Peloponnesus and Attica, taking the former first in order, and giving as much as can be ascertained re- specting its early historical phenomena. The traveller who entered Peloponnesus from Bceotia during the youthful days of Herodotus and Thucydides, found an array (inAuatS be correct, there is good ground for preferring the word Qaheov to Qikohdnv ; since the proceeding described would harmonize better with the ideas of Phaleas (Aristot. Pol. ii. 4, 3). 1 JElian, V. H. ii. 7.

• Aristot. Polit. ii. 3, 7. This Pheidon seems different from Pheidon of

Argos, as far as we are enabled to judge. ​EARLIEST HISTORICAL VIEW OF PELOPONNESUS. 290 of powerful Doric cities conterminous to each other, and begin ning at the isthmus of Corinth. First came Megara, stretching across the isthmus from sea to sea, and occupying the high and rugged mountain-ridge called Geraneia ; next Corinth, with its strong and conspicuous acropolis, and its territory including Mount Oneion as well as the portion of the isthmus at once most level and narrowest, which divided its two harbors called Le- chaeum and Kenchreae. "Westward of Corinth, along the Corin- thian gulf, stood Sikyon, with a plain of uncommon fertility, between the two towns : southward of Sikyon and Corinth were Phlius and Kleonae, both conterminous, as well as Corinth, with Argos and the Argolic peninsula. The inmost bend of the Argolie gulf, including a considerable space of flat and marshy ground adjoining to the sea, was possessed by Argos ; the Ar- golic peninsula was divided by Argos with the Doric cities of Epidaurus and Trrczen, and the Dryopian city of Hermione, the latter possessing the south-western corner. Proceeding south- ward along the western coast of the gulf, and passing over the little river called Tanos, the traveller found himself in the do- minion of Sparta, which comprised the entire southern region of the peninsula from its eastern to its western sea, where the river Keda flows into the latter. He first passed from Argos across the difficult mountain range called Parnon (which bounds to the west the southern portion of Argolis), until he found himself in the valley of the river CEnus, which he followed until it joined the Eurotas. In the larger valley of the Eurotas, far removed from the sea, and accessible only through the most impracticable mountain roads, lay the five unwalled, unadorned, adjoining villages, which bore collectively the formidable name of Sparta. The whole valley of the Eurotas, from Skiritis and Beleminatis at the border of Arcadia, to the Laconian gulf, expanding in several parts into fertile plain, especially near to its mouth, where the towns of Gythium and Helos were found, belonged to Sparta ; together with the cold and high mountain ringe to the eastward, which projects into the promontory of Malea, and the still loftier chain of Taygetus to the westward, which ends in the promontory of Tsenarus. On the other side of Taygetus, on the banks of the river Pamisus, which there flows into the Messeiwn gulf, lay the plain of Messene, the richest land in th ​300 HISTORY OF GREECE. peninsula. This plain bad once yielded its ample produce to the free Messenians Dorians, resident in the towns of Stenyklerus and Andania. But in the time of which we speak, the name of Messenians was borne only by a body of brave but homeless exiles, whose restoration to the land of their forefathers over passed even the exile's proverbially sanguine hope. Their land was confounded with the western portion of Laconia, which reached in a south-westerly direction down to the extreme point of Cape Akritas, and northward as far as the river JSeda. Throughout his whole journey to the point last mentioned, from the borders of Bceotia and Megaris, the traveller would only step from one Dorian state into another. But on crossing from the south to the north bank of the river Neda, at a point near to its mouth, he would find himself out of Doric land altogether : first, in the territory called Triphylia, next, in that of Pisa, or the Pisatid, thirdly, in the more spacious and powerful state called Elis ; these three comprising the coast-land of Peloponne- sus from the mouth of the Neda to that of the Larissus. The Triphylians, distributed into a number of small townships, the largest of which was Lepreon, and the Pisatans, equally des- titute of any centralizing city, had both, at the period of which we are now speaking, been conquered by their more powerful northern neighbors of Elis, who enjoyed the advantage of a spacious territory united under one government ; the mid- dle portion, called the Hollow Elis, being for the most part fertile, though the tracts near the sea were more sandy and barren. The Eleians were a section of jEtolian emigrants into Peloponnesus, but the Pisatans and Triphylians had both been originally independent inhabitants of the peninsula, the latter being affirmed to belong to the same race as the Minyae who had occupied the ante-Boeotian Orchomenos : both, too, bore the ascendency of Elis with perpetual murmur and occasional resistance. Crossing the river Larissus, and pursuing the northern coast of Peloponnesus south of the Corinthian gulf, the traveller would pass into Achaia, a name which designated the narrow strip of level land, and the projecting spurs and declivities, between that gulf and the northernmost mountains of the peninsula, Skollis, Erymanthus, Aroania. Krathis, and the towering eminence called ​ARCADIA 301 Kyllene. Achaean cities, twelve in number at least, if not more, divided this long strip of land amongst them, from the mouth of the Larissus and the north-western Cape Araxus on one side, to the western boundary of the Sikyonian territory on the other. According to the accounts of the ancient legends and the belief of Herodotus, this territory had once been occupied by Ionian inhabitants whom the Achaeans had expelled. In making this journey, the traveller would have finished the circuit of Peloponnesus ; but he would still have left untrodden the great central region, inclosed between the territories just enumerated, approaching nearest to the sea on the borders of Triphylia, but never touching it anywhere. This region was Arcadia, possessed by inhabitants who are uniformly represented as all of one race, and all aboriginal. It was high and bleak, full of wild mountain, rock, and forest, and abounding, to a de- gree unusual even in Greece, with those land-locked basins from whence the water finds only a subterraneous issue. It was dis- tributed among a large number of distinct villages and cities. Many of the village tribes, the Maenalii, Parrhasii, Azanes, etc., occupying the central and the western regions, were num- bered among the rudest of the Greeks : but along its eastern frontier there were several Arcadian cities which ranked de- servedly among the more civilized Peloponnesians. Tegea, Man- tineia, Orchomenus, Stymphalus, Pheneus, possessed the whole eastern frontier of Arcadia from the borders of Laconia to those of Sikyon and Pellene in Achaia : Phigaleia at the south west- ern corner, near the borders of Triphylia, and Heraea, on the north bank of the Alpheius, near the place where that river quits Arcadia to enter the Pisatis, were also towns deserving of notice. Towards the north of this cold and thinly-peopled region, near Pheneos, was situated the small town of Nonakris, adjoining to which rose the hardly accessible crags where the rivulet of Styx ' 1 Herodot. vi. 74 ; Pausan. viii. 18, 2. See the description and print of the river Styx, and the neighboring rocks, in Fiedler's Reise dnrch Griechenland, rol. i. p. 400. lie describes a scene amids; these rocks, in 1826, when the troops of Ibrahim Pasha were in the Morea, which realizes the fearful pictures of war after the manner of the ancient Gauls, or Thracians. A crowd of five thou- sand Greeks, of every age and sex, had found she'ter in a grassy and bushy ​30& HISTORY OF GREECE. flowed down : a point of common feeling for all Arcadians, from the terrific sanction which this water was understood to impart to their oaths. The distribution of Peloponnesus here sketched, suitable to the Persian invasion and the succeeding half century, may also be said (with some allowances) to be adapted to the whole inter- val between about B. c. 550-370 ; from the time of the conquest of Thyreatis by Sparta to the battle of Leuktra, But it is not the earliest distribution which history presents to us. Not pre- suming to criticize the Homeric map of Peloponnesus, and going back only to 776 B.C., we find this material difference, that Sparta occupies only a very small fraction of the large territory above described as belonging to her. Westward of the summit of Mount Taygetus are found another section of Dorians, independ- ent of Sparta: the Messenian Dorians, whose city is on the hill of Stenyklerus, near the south-western boundary of Arcadia, and whose possessions cover the fertile plain of Messene along the river Pamisus to its mouth in the Messenian gulf: it is to be noted that Messene was then the name of the plain generally, and that no town so called existed until after the battle of Leuktra. Again, eastward of the valley of the Eurotas, the mountainous region and the western shores of the Argolic gulf down to Cape Malea are also independent of Sparta ; belonging to Argos, or rather to Dorian towns in unison with Argos. All the great Dorian towns, from the borders of the Megarid to the eastern frontier of Arcadia, as above enumerated, appear to have existed in 776 B. c. : Achaia was in the same condition, so far as we are able to judge, as well as Arcadia, except in regard to its southern frontier, conterminous with Sparta, of which more will hereafter be said. In respect to the western portion of Peloponnesus, Elis (properly so called) appears to have embraced the same spot embosomed amidst these crags, few of them armed. They were pursued by five thousand Egyptians and Arabians : a very small resistance, in such ground, would have kept the troops at bay, but the poor men either could not or would not offer it. They were forced to surrender : the young- est and most energetic cast themselves headlong from the rocks and per- ished: three thousand prisoners were carried away captive, and sold for slaves at Corinth, Patras, and Modon : all those who were unfit for sale wen massacred on the spot by the Egyptian troops. ​DORIAN EMIGRATION INTO FELOPONNKSUS. 303 territory in 776 B. c. as in 550 B. c. : but the Pisatid had been recently conquered, and was yet imperfectly subjected by the Eleians; while Triphylia seems to have been quite independ- ent of them. Respecting the south-western promontory of Pelo- ponnesus down to Cape Akritas, we are altogether without infor- mation : reasons will hereafter be given for believing that it did not at that time form part of the territory of the Messenian Dorians. Of the different races or people whom Herodotus knew in Peloponnesus, he believed thr.ee to be aboriginal, the Arca- dians, the Aclueans, and the Kynurians. The Achaeans, though belonging indigenously to the peninsula, had yet removed from the southern portion of it to the northern, expelling the previous Ionian tenants : this is a part of the legend respecting the Dorian conquest, or Return of the Herakleids, and we can neither verify nor contradict it. But neither the Arcadians nor the Kynurians had ever changed their abodes. Of the latter, I havu not before spoken, because they were never (so far as history knows them) an independent population. They occupied the larger portion l of the territory of Argolis, from Orneae, near the northern 2 or Phliasian border, to Thyrea and the Thyreatis, on the Laconian border : and though belonging originally (as Herodotus imagines rather than asserts) to the Ionic race they had been so long subjects of Argos in his time, that almost all evidence of their ante- Dorian condition had vanished. But the great Dorian states in Peloponnesus the capital powers in the peninsula were all originally emigrants, accord- ing to the belief not only of Herodotus, but of all the Grecian world : so also were the JEtolians of Elis, the Triphylians, and the Dryopes at Hermione and Asine. All these emigrations are so described as to give them a root in the Grecian legendary world : the Triphylians are traced back to Lemnos, as the off- spring of the Argonautic heroes, 3 and we are too uninformed 1 This is the only way of reconciling Herodotus (viii. 73) with Thucydi- des (iv. 56, and v. 41). The original extent of the Kynurian territory is a point on which neither of them had any means of very ccrrect information , bat there is no occasion to reject the one in favor of the other.

• Herod, viii. 73. Oi 6e Kwovpiot, avTox&ovef iovref, doKsovat uovvoi

elvai "Iwvej eKfiedupievvrat <5e, viro re 'Apyetuv ap^o/mw /cot rov xpovot 'Opvt rj-rai K.a.1 ntpioitioi, 3 Herodot. ir. 145-146. ​304 HISTORY OF GREECE. about them to venture upon any historical guesses. But respect- ing the Dorians, it may perhaps be possible, by examining the first historical situation in which they are presented to us, to offer some conjectures as to the probable circumstances under which they arrived. The legendary narrative of it has already been given in the Crst chapter of this volume, that great mythical event called the Return of the Children of Herakles, by which the first establishment of the Dorians in the promised land of Peloponnesus was explained to the full satisfaction of Grecian faith. One single armament and expedition, acting by the special direction of the Delphian god, and conducted by three brothers, lineal descendants of the principal Achajo-Dorian heroes through Hyllus, (the eponymus of the principal tribe,) the national heroes of the preexisting population vanquished and expelled, and the greater part of the peninsula both acquired and parti- tioned at a stroke, the circumstances of the partition adjusted to the historical relations of Laconia and Messenia, the friend- ly power of -(Etolian Elis, with its Olympic games as the bond of union in Peloponnesus, attached to this event as an appendage, in the person of Oxylus, all these particulars compose a narra- tive well calculated to impress the retrospective imagination of a Greek. They exhibit an epical fitness and sufficiency which it would be unseasonable to impair by historical criticism. The Alexandrine chronology sets down a period of 328 years from the Return of the Herakleids to the first Olympiad (1104 B.C. -776 B. c,), a period measured by the lists of the kings of Sparta, on the trustworthiness of which some remarks have already been offered. Of these 328 years, the first 250, at the least, are altogether barren of facts ; and even if we admitted them to be historical, we should have nothing to recount except a succession of royal names. Being unable either to guarantee the entire list, or to discover any valid test for discriminating the historical and the non-historical items, I here enumerate the Lacedaemonian kings as they appear in Mr. Clinton's Fasti Hel- lenici. There were two joint kings at Sparta, throughout nearly all the historical time of independent Greece, deducing their descent from Herakles through Eurysthenes and Prokles, the twin sons of Aristodemus ; the latter being one of those three ​EARLIEST HISTORICAL VIEW OF PELOPOXtfESUS. 303 Herakleid brothers to whom the conqiest of the peninsula is ascribed : Line of Eurysthen is.

d 42 years.

31 " 35 " 37 " 29 " 44 " 60 <; 40 ' " 10 " Line of ProTdCs. ProkleS rpio-nf- I 51 yeara 49 " 45 " 60 " 38 " 10 " Sous (i , Eurvpon . . u u Prytanis .

... " n ii Archelaus

II Telcklus u Theopompus . . " Alkamenes . . .

328 Both Theopompus and Alkamenes reigned considerably longer, but the chronologists affirm that the year 776 B. c. (or the first Olympiad) occurred in the tenth year of each of their reigns. It is necessary to add, with regard to this list, that there are some material discrepancies between different authors even as to the names of individual kings, and still more as to the duration of their reigns, as may be seen both in Mr. Clinton's chronology and in Muller's Appendix to the History of the Dorians. 1 The alleged sum total cannot be made to agree with the items without great license of conjecture. O. Miiller observes, 2 in reference to this Alexandrine chronology, " that our materials only enable us to restore it to its original state, not to verify its correctness." 1 Herodotus omits Sous between Prokles and Eurypon, and inserts Poly- dektcs between Prytanis and Eunomus : moreover, the accounts of the Lacedaemonians, as he states them, represented Lykurgus, the law-giver, as uncle and guardian of Labotas, of the Eurysthenid house, while Simonides made him son of Prytanis, and others made him son of Eunomus, of the Proklid line: compare Herod, i. 65 ; viii. 131. Plutarch, Lycurg. c. 2. Some excellent remarks on this early series of Spartan kings will be found in Mr. G. C. Lewis's article in the Philological Museum, vol. ii. pp. 42-48, in a review of Dr. Arnold on the Spartan Constitution. Compare also Larcher, Chronologic d'Herodote, ch. 13, pp. 484-514. Ha lengthens manv of the reigns considerably, in order to suit the earlier epoch which he assigns to the capture of Troy and the Return of the Hcrakleid*.

• History of the Dorians, vol. ii. Append, p. 442.

. ii. 20oc. ​

}06 HISTORY OF GREECE.

In point of fact they are insufficient even for the former purpose, as the dissensions among learned critics attest. We have a succession of names, still more barren of facts, in the case of the Dorian sovereigns of Corinth. This city had its ov n line of Herakleids, descended from Herakles, but not through Hyllus. Hippotes, the progenitor of the Corinthian Herakleids, was reported in the legend to have originally joined the Dorian invaders of the Peloponnesus, but to have quitted them in conse- quence of having slain the prophet Karnus. 1 The three brothers, when they became masters of the peninsula, sent for Aletes, the son of Hippotes, and placed him in possession of Corinth, over which the chronologists make him begin to reign thirty years after the Herakleid conquest. His successors are thus given - - Aletes reigned 38 years, Ixion " 38 " Agelas " 37 " Prymnis u 35 " Bacchis " 35 " Agelas " 30 " Eudemus " 25 " Aristomedes " 35 " Agemon " 16 " Alexander " 25 " Telests " 12 " Automenes i( 1 " 327 1 This story that the heroic ancestor of the great Corinthian Bacchiadae had slain the holy man Karnus, and had been punished for it by long ban- ishment and privation leads to the conjecture, that the Corinthians did not celebrate the festival of the Karneia, common to the Dorians generally. Herodotus tells us, with regard to the Ionic cities, that all of them cele- brated the festival of Apaturia, except Ephesus and Kolophon ; and that these two cities did not celebrate it, " because of a certain reason of murder committed," OVTOI -yap pouvoi 'luvuv OVK uyovaiv 'ATraTovpia /co2 ovroi Kara <j>6vov nva OKT/IJJIV (Herod, i. 147). The murder of Karnus by Hippotes was probably the tyov ov aur/ipi? which forbade the Corinthians fronr celebrating the Karneia; at least, this supposi- tion gives to the legend a special pertinence which is otherwise wanting to it Respecting the Karneia and Hyacinthia, see Schoell De Origine Grseci ramatis, pp. 70-78. Tubingen, 1828. There were varicus singular customs connected with the Grecian festival*, ​BACCHIAD.E AT CORIXTH. 307 Such was the celebrity of Bacchis, we are told, that those who uuccceded him took the name of Bacchiads in place of Aletiads or Herakleids. One year after the accession of Automenes, the family of the Bacchiads generally, amounting to 200 persons, determined to abolish royalty, to constitute themselves a standing oligarchy, and to elect out of their own number an annual Pry- tanis. Thus commenced the oligarchy of the Bacchiads, which lasted for ninety years, until it was subverted by Kypselus in G57 B. c. 1 Reckoning the thirty years previous to the begin- ning of the reign of Aletes, the chronologists thus provide an interval of 447 years between the Return of the Herakleids and the accession of Kypselus, and 357 years between the same period and the commencement of the Bacchiad oligarchy. The Bacchiad oligarchy is unquestionably historical ; the conquest of the Herakleids belongs to the legendary world ; while the inter- val between the two is filled up, as in so many other cases, by a mere barren genealogy. When we jump this vacant space, and place ourselves at the first opening of history, we find that, although ultimately Sparta came to hold the first place, not only in Peloponnesus, but in all Hellas, this was not the case at the earliest moment of which we have historical cognizance. Argos, and the neighboring towns connected with her by a bond of semi-religious, semi-political union, Sikyon, Phlius, Epidaurus, and Troszen, were at first of greater power and consideration than Sparta ; a fact which the legend of the Herakleids seems to recognize by making Te- which it was usual to account for by some legendary tale. Thus, no native of Elis ever entered himself as a competitor, or contended for the prize, at the Isthmian games. The legendary reason given for this was, that Herakles had waylaid and slain (at Kleonae) the two Molionid brothers, when they were proceeding to the Isthmian games as Theors or sacred envoys from the Eleian king Augeas. Redress was in vain demanded for this outrage, and Molione, mother of the slain envoys, imprecated a curse upon the Eleians generally if they should ever visit the Isthmian festival. This legend is the <j>6vov GKf/ipi?, explaining why no Eleian runner or wrestler was ever known to contend th .re (Pausan. ii. 15, 1 ; v. 2, 1-4. Ister, Fragment. 46, ed. Didot). 1 Diodor. Fragm. lib. vii. p. 14, with the note of Wesscling. Strabo (viii. p. 378) states the Ba-chiad oligarchy to hive lasted nearly two hundred years. ​308 HISTORY OF GREECE menus the eldest brother of the three, And Herodotus assurea us that at one time all the eastern coast of Peloponnesus down to Cape Melea, including the island of Cythera, all which came afterwards to constitute a material part of Laconia, had belonged to Argos. 1 Down to the time of the first Messenian war, the comparative importance of the Dorian establishments in Pelo- ponnesus appears to have been in the order in which the legend placed them, Argos first, 2 Sparta second, Messene third. It will be seen hereafter that the Argeians never lost the recollec- tion of this early preeminence, from which the growth of Sparta had extruded them ; and the liberties of entire Hellas were more than once in danger from their disastrous jealousy of a more for- tunate competitor. At a short distance of about three miles from Argos, and at the exact point where that city approaches nearest to the sea, 3 was situated the isolated hillock called Temenion, noticed both by Strabo and Pausanias. It was a small village, deriving both its name and its celebrity from the chapel and tomb of the here Temenus, who was there worshipped by the Dorians ; and the statement which Pausanias heard was, that Temenus, with his invading Dorians, had seized and fortified the spot, and employed it as an armed post to make war upon Tisamenus and the Achae- ans. What renders this report deserving of the greater attention, is, that the same thing is affirmed with regard to the eminence called Solygeius, near Corinth : this too was believed to be the place which the Dorian assailants had occupied and fortified against ' Herodot. i. 82. The historian adds, besides Cythera, KOI ai T^nnrai -H>v vfjauv. What other islands are meant, I do not distinctly understand.

• So Plato (Legg. iii. p. 692), whose mind is full of the old mythe and the

tripartite distribution of Peloponnesus among the Herakleids, fj (5* av, irpureiiovaa iv roif TOTE xpovoif roZf Treol TI/V diavofiT/v. rj irepl rd "Apyof, fctc. 3 Pausan. ii. 38, 1 ; Strabo, viii. p. 368. Professor Ross observes, i aspect- ing the line of coast near Argos, " The sea-side is thoroughly flat, and for the most part marshy ; only at the single point where Argos comes nearest to the coast, between the month, now choked by sand, of the united Inachns and Charadrus, and the efflux of the Erasinus, overgrown with weeds and bulrushes, stands an eminence of some elevation and composed of firmei earth, upon which the ancient Temenion was placed." (Roisen im Pclopon ncs, vol. i. sect. 5, p. 149, Berlin, 1841 ) ​DORIAN CONQUEST OF ARGOS AND COBINTL. 309 the preexisting Corinthians in the city. Situated close upon the Saronic gulf, it was the spot which invaders landing from that gulf would naturally seize upon, and which Nikias with his powerful Athenian fleet did actually seize and occupy against Corinth in the Peloponnesian Avar. 1 In early days, the only way of overpowering the inhabitants of a fortified town, generally also planted in a position itself very defensible, was, that the invaders, entrenching themselves in the neighborhood, harassed the inhabitants and ruined their produce until they brought them to terms. Even during the Peloponnesian war, when the art of besieging had made some progress, we read of several instances in which this mode of aggressive warfare was adopted with effi- cient results. 2 We may readily believe that the Dorians obtain- ed admittance both into Argos and Corinth in this manner. And it is remarkable that, except Sikyon (which is affirmed to have been surprised by night), these were the only towns in the Argo- lic region which are said to have resisted them ; the story being, that Phlius, Epidaurus, and Trcezen had admitted the Dorian intruders without opposition, although a certain portion of the previous inhabitants seceded. We shall hereafter see that the non-Dorian population of Sikyon and Corinth still remained con- siderable. The separate statements which we thus find, and the position of the Temenion and the Solygeius, lead to two conjectures, first, that the acquisitions of the Dorians in Peloponnesus were also isolated and gradual, not at all conformable to the rapid strides of the old Herakleid legend ; next, that the Dorian invad- ers of Argos and Corinth made their attack from the Argolic and the Saronic gulfs, by sea and not by land. It is, indeed, difficult to see how they can have got to the Temenion in any other way than by sea ; and a glance at the map will show that the eminence Solygeius presents itself, 3 with reference to Corinth, as the nearest and most convenient holding-ground for a mari- time invader, conformably to the scheme of operations laid by Nikias. To illustrate the supposition of a Dorian attack by sea on Corinth, we may refer to a story quoted from Aristotle (vrtich 1 Thucyd. iv. 42. T uoyd. i. 122 ; iii. 85 , vii. 18-27 ; viii. 38-40. Thucyd. iv. 42. ​810 HISTORY OF GREECE. we find embodied in the explanation of an old adage), re ing Hippotes the father of Aletes as having crossed the Malias gulf 1 (the sea immediately bordering on the ancient MaleanSj Dryopians, and Dorians) in ships, for the purpose of colonizing. And if it be safe to trust the mention of Dorians in the Odyssey, as a part of the population of the island of Crete, we there have nn example of Dorian settlements which must have been effected by sea, and that too at a very early period. " "We must suppose (observes O. Miiller, 2 in reference to these Kretan Dorians) that the Dorians, pressed by want or restless from inactivity, con- structed piratical canoes, manned these frail and narrow barks with soldiers who themselves worked at the oar, and thus being changed from mountaineers into seamen, the Normans of Greece, set sail for the distant island of Krete." In the same manner, we may conceive the expeditions of the Dorians against Argos and Corinth to have been effected ; and whatever difficul- ties may attach to this hypothesis, certain it is that the difficulties of a long land-march, along such a territory as Greece, are still more serious. The supposition of Dorian emigrations by sea, from the Ma- liac gulf to the north-eastern promontory of Peloponnesus, is farther borne out by the analogy of the Dryopes, or Dryopians. During the historical times, this people occupied several detached settlements in various parts of Greece, all maritime, and some insular; they were found at Hermione, Asine, and Eion, in the Argolic peninsula (very near to the important Dorian towns 1 Aristot. ap. Prov. Vatican, iv. 4, Mi^a/cdv K^OIOV. also. Prov. Suidaa, X. 2. 2 Hist, of Dorians, ch. i. 9. Andron positively affirms that the Dorians came from Ilistircotis to Krete ; but his affirmation does not seem to me to constitute any additional evidence of the fact : it is a conjecture adapted to the passage in the Odyssey (xix. 174), as the mention of Achaeans and Pelasgians evidently shows. Aristotle (ap. Strab. viii. p. 374) appears to have believed that the Hera- kleids returned to Argos out of the Al,tic Tetrapolis (where, according to the Athenian legend, they had obtained shelter when persecuted by Eurys- theus), accompanying a body of lonians who then settled at Epidaurus. He cannot, therefore, have connected the Dorian occupation of Argos with the expedition from Naupaktus. ​DOKIAXS AT SPARTA AXD IN MESSEXE. 3H constituting the Amphiktyony of Argos, 1 ) at Styra and Karys- tus in the island of Euboea, in the island of Kythnus, and even at Cyprus. These dispersed colonies can only have been plant- ed by expeditions over the sea. Now we are told that the origi- nal Dryopis, the native country of this people, comprehended both the territory near the river Spercheius, and north of CEta, afterwards occupied by the Malians, as well as the neighboring district south of CEta, which was afterwards called Doris. From hence the Dryopians were expelled, according to one story, by the Dorians, according to another, by Herakles and the Malians : however this may be, it was from the Maliac gulf that they started on shipboard in quest of new homes, which some of them found on the headlands of the Argolic peninsula. 2 And it was from this very country, according to Herodolus, 3 that the Dorians also set forth, in order to reach Peloponnesus. Nor does it seem unreasonable to imagine, that the same means of conveyance, which bore the Dryopians from the Maliac gulf to Hermione and Asine, also carried the Dorians from the same place to the Temenion, and the hill Solygeius. The legend represents Sikyon, Epidaurus, Trcczen, Phlius, and Kleonae, as all occupied by Dorian colonists from Argos, under the different sons of Temenus : the first three are on the sea, and fit places for the occupation of maritime invaders. Ar- gos and the Dorian towns in and near the Argolic peninsula are to be regarded as a cluster of settlements by themselves, com- pletely distinct from Sparta and the Messenian Stenyklerus, which appear to have been formed under totally different condi- tions. First, both of them are very far inland, Stenyklerus not easy, Sparta very difficult of access from the sea ; next, we know that the conquests of Sparta were gradually made down the valley of the Eurotas seaward. Both these acquisitions pre- sent the appearance of having been made from the land-side, and 1 Herod, viii. 43-46; Diodor. iv. 37 ; Pausan. iv. 34, C. s Strabo, viii. p. 373 ; ix. p. 434. Hcrodot. viii. 43. Phcrekydes, Fr. 23 find 38, ed. Didot. Stcph. Byz. v. Apvoirr}. Apoll'xlor. ii. 7, 7. Schol. Apollon. Rhod. i. 1213. 3 Herodot. i. 5G. tvdevrev <5t- avrif if rt/v A/n>07n<5a ue-ecty, Kal IK r^f &pvoTfi6of oflrwf ec Htf.oirwvijaov l/.&bi; AtifUtdv. i&tpdf, to the samt purpose, viii. 31-43. ​gi2 HISTORY OF GREECE. perhaps in the direction which the Herakleid legend describes, by warriors entering Peloponnesus across the narrow mouth of the Corinthian gulf, through the aid or invitation of those ^Etolian settlers who at the same time colonized Elis. The early and intimate connection (on which I shall touch presently) be- tween Sparta and the Olympic games as administered by the Eleians, as well as the leading part ascribed to Lykurgus in the constitution of the solemn Olympic truce, tend to strengthen such a persuasion. In considering the early affairs of the Dorians in Peloponnesus, we are apt to have our minds biased, first, by the Herakleid legend, which imparts to them an impressive, but deceitful, epical unity ; next, by the aspect of the later and better-known history, which presents the Spartan power as unquestionably preponder- ant, and Argos only as second by a long interval. But the first view (as I have already remarked) which opens to us, of real Grecian history, a little before 776 B. c., exhibits Argos with its alliance or confederacy of neighboring cities colonized from itself, as the great seat of Dorian power in the peninsula, and Sparta as an outlying state of inferior consequence. The recollection of this state of things lasted after it had ceased to be a reality, and kept alive pretensions on the part of Argos to the headship of the Greeks as a matter of right, which she became quite inca- pable of sustaining either by adequate power or by statesmanlike sagacity. The growth of Spartan power was a succession of en- croachments upon Argos. 1 How Sparta came constantly to gain upon Argos will be matter for future explanation : at present, it is sufficient to remark, that the ascendency of Argos was derived not exclusively from her own territory, but came in part from her position as metropolis of an alliance of autonomous neighboring cities, all Dorian and all colonized from herself, and this was an element of poAver 1 See Herodot. vii. 148. The Argeians say to the Lacedaemonians, in refer ence to the chief command of the Greeks Kalrot Kara ye rb dinaiov yivec flat rrjv riyeuovirjv tuiiruv, etc. Schweighauser and others explain the point by reference to the command of Agamemnon ; but this is at best only a part of the foundation of their claim : they had a more recent historical reality to plead also : compare Strabo, viii. p. 37f . ​ARGEIAN CONFEDERACY. 313 essentially fluctuating. "What Thebes was to the cities of Boeotia, of which she either was, or professed to have been, the founder, the same was Argos in reference to Kleonae, Phlius, Sikyon, Epidaurus, Troezen, and JEgina. These towns formed, in mythi- cal language, " the lot of Temenus," 2 in real matter of fact, the confederated allies or subordinates of Argos : the first four of them were said to have been Dorized by the sons or immediate relatives of Temenus ; and the kings of Argos, as acknowledged descendants of the latter, claimed and exercised a sort of suzerainete over them. Hennione, Asine, and Nauplia seem also to have been under the supremacy of Argos, though not colonies. 2 But this supremacy was not claimed directly and nakedly : agreeably to the ideas of the time, the ostensible purposes of the Argeian confederacy or Amphiktyony were religious, though its secondary and not less real effects, were political. The great patron-god of the league was Apollo Pythaeus, in whose name the obligations incumbent on the members of the league were imposed. While in each of the confederated cities there was a temple to this god, his most holy and central sanctuary was on the Larissa or acrop- olis of Argos. At this central Argeian sanctuary, solemn sacri- fices were offered by Epidaurus as well as by other members of the confederacy, and, as it should seem, accompanied by money- 1 'H/zcjv KTiai'ivTuv (so runs the accusation of the Theban orators against the captive Platajans, before their Lacedaemonian judges, Thucyd. iii. 61.) H/M-aiav varepov ri?f aA/.7?f Eoturiaf OVK r/^iovv avrol, woTrep ETUX&IJ rb Trpairov, ij-//Jiovfvea-9ai vfi f/iitiv, e^u 6e TUV ul.l.uv "Boturuv ifi nurpia, iireidq irpoarivayKuZovTO, tTpQaexupTjaav ;rp6c ai'Tuv 7ro?i./lu r/fidr efihairrov. 2 Respecting Pheidon, king of Argos, Ephorus said, rrjv hysiv o'Xijv av&aSe TJJV 'Ytjfievov SiEa~aanivriv elf xAeiu fifprj (ap. Strabo. viii. p. 358).. 3 The worship of Apollo Pythaeus, adopted from Argos both at Hermionfi and Asine, shows the connection between them and Argos (Pausan. ii. 35, 2; ii. 36, 5): but Pansanias can hardly be justified in saying that the Argeians actually Dorized Hermione : it was Dryopian in the time of He- rodotus, and seemingly for a long time afterwards (Herodot. viii. 43). The Hermionian Inscription, No. 1193, in Boeckh's Collection, recognizes their old Dryopian connection with Asine in Laconia: that town had once been neighbor of Hermione, but was destroyed by the Argeians, and the inhab- itants received a new home from the Spartans. The dialect of the Hermio- nians ("probably that of the Dryopians generally) was Doric. See Ahrens, De Dialecto Doric.i, pp. 2-12. VOL. U Ii ​SH HISTORY OF GREECE payments, 1 which the Argeians, as chief administrators on behalf of the common god, took upon them to enforce against defaulters, and actually tried to enforce during the Peloponnesian war against Epidaurus. On another occasion, during the 66th Olympiad (B. c. 514), they imposed the large fine of 500 talents upon each of the two states Sikyon and ^Egina, for having lent ships to the Spartan king Kleomenes, wherewith he invaded the Argeian territory. The ^Sginetans set the claim at defiance, but the Sikyonians acknowledged its justice, and only demurred to its amount, professing themselves ready to pay 100 talents. 2 There can be no doubt that, at this later period, the ascendency of Argos over the members of her primitive confederacy had become practically inoperative ; but the tenor of the cases men- tioned shows that her claims were revivals of bygone privileges, which had once been effective and valuable. How valuable the privileges of Argos were, before the great rise of the Spartan power, how important an ascendency they conferred, in the hands of an energetic man, and how easily they admitted of being used in furtherance of ambitious views, is shown by the remarkable case of Pheidon, the Temenid. The few facts which we learn respecting this prince exhibit to us, for the first time, something like a real position of parties in the Peloponnesus, wherein the actual conflict of living historical men and cities, comes out in tolerable distinctness. Pheidon was designated by Ephorus as the tenth, and by Theopompus as the sixth, in lineal descent from Temenus. Respecting the date of his existence, opinions the most dis- crepant and irreconcilable have been delivered ; but there seems good reason for referring him to the period a little before and a little after the 8th Olympiad, between 770 B. c. and 730 1 Thucyd. v. 53. Kvptwrarot rov iepov i/aav ol 'ApyeZot. The word ei<T7rpaif, which the historian uses in regard to the claim of Aigos againsf Epidaurus, seems to imply a money-payment withheld : compare the offer- ings exacted by Athens from Epidanrns (Herod, v. 82). The peculiar and intimate connection between the Argeians, and Apollo, mth his surname of PythaCus, was dwelt upon by the Argeian poj'fcs* Telesilla (Pausan. ii. 36, 2).

• Hcrodot. vi. 92. See 0. Miiller, History of the Dorians, ch. 7, 15. ​PHEIDOX OF AEGOS. 310

B. c. 1 Of the preceding kings of Argos we hear little : one of them, Eratus, is said to have expelled the Dryopian inhabitants of Asine from their town on the Argolic peninsula, in conse- quence of their having cooperated with the Spartan king, Nikan- der, when he invaded the Argeian territory, seemingly during the generation preceding Pheidon ; there is another, Damokra- tidas, whose date cannot be positively determined, but he appears rather as subsequent than as anterior to Pheidon. 2 We are in- formed, however, that these anterior kings, even beginning with Medon, the grandson of Temenus, had been forced to sub- mit to great abridgment of their power and privileges, and that a form of government substantially popular, though nomi- nally regal, had been established. 3 Pheidon, breaking through 1 Ephor. Fragm. 15, ed. Marx; ap. Strabo, viii. p. 358; Theopompus, Fragm. 30, ed. Didot ; ap. Diodor. Fragm. lib. iv. The Parian Marble makes Pheidon the eleventh from Herakles, and places him B. c. 895 ; Herodotus, on the contrary (in a passage which affords con- siderable grounds for discussion), places him at a period which cannot be much higher than 600 B. c. (vi. 127.) Some authors suspect the text of Herodotus to be incorrect : at any rate, the real epoch of Pheidon is determined by the 8th Olympiad. Several critics suppose tuv Pheidons, each king of Argos, among others, 0. Miiller (Dorians, iii. 6, 10); but there is nothing to countenance this, except the impossibility of reconciling Herodotus with the other authorities. And Weissenborn. in a dissertation of some length, vindicates the emendation of Pausanias proposed by somo former critics, altering the 8th Olympiad, which now stands in the text of Pausanias, into the twenty-eighth, as the date of Pheidon's usurpation at the Olympic games. Weissenborn endeavors to show that Pheidon cannot have flourished earlier than 660 B. c. ; but his arguments do not appear to me very forcible, and certainly not sufficient to justify so grave an alteration in the number of Pausanias (Beitrage zur Griechischen Alterthumskunde, p. 18, Jena, 1844). Mr. Clinton (Fasti Hellenic!, vol. i. App. 1, p. 249) places Pheidon between 783 and 744 B. c. ; also, Boeckh. ad Corp. Inscript No. 2374, p. 335, and Miiller, ^Eginctica, p. 63. 2 Pausan. ii. 36, 5 ; iv. 35, 2. 3 Pausan. ii. 19, 1. 'Apyetot 6e, UTE iariyopiav not TO alrovofiov dyoTui/rff K TrahaioTuTov, TO. r^f i^ovaiaf TUV ftaaikiuv if tXaxiGTov Tcporryayov, uf Mr/ftuvt T(J Kelaov Kal Toif cnroyovoif TO bvofia faup&ijvai TOV paaiteuf pov ov This passage has all the air of transferring back to the early government of Argos, feelings which were only true of the later. It is curious that, in this chapter, though devoted to the Argeian regal line and government, Pausa- nias takes no notice of Pheidon: he mentions him only with reference to the digputed Olympic ceremony. ​the limits imposed, made himself despot of Argos. He then re- established the power of Argos over all the cities of her confed- eracy, which had before been so nearly dissolved as to leave all the members practically independent.^[198] Next, he is said to have acquired dominion over Corinth, and to have endeavored to assure it, by treacherously entrapping a thousand of her warlike citizens ; but his artifice was divulged and frustrated by Abron, one of his confidential friends.^[199] He is farther reported to have aimed at extending his sway over the greater part of Pelopon- nesus,—laying claim, as the descendant of Herakles, through the eldest son of Hyllus, to all the cities which that restless and irresistible hero had ever taken.^[200] According to Grecian ideas, this legendary title was always seriously construed, and often admitted as conclusive ; though of course, where there were strong opposing interests, reasons would be found to elude it. Pheidon would have the same ground of right as that which, two hundred and fifty years afterwards, determined the Herakleid Dorieus, brother of Kleomenes king of Sparta, to acquire for himself the territory near Mount Eryx in Sicily, be- cause his progenitor,^[201] Herakles, had conquered it before him. So numerous, however, were the legends respecting the con- quests of Herakles, that the claim of Pheidon must have covered the greater part of Peloponnesus, except Sparta and the plain of Messene, which were already in the hands of Herakleids. Nor was the ambition of Pheidon satisfied even with these large pretensions. He farther claimed the right of presiding at the celebration of those religious games, or Agones, which had ​ADMINISTRATION OF THE OLYMPIC GAMKC. 317 been instituted by Herakles, and among these was numbered the Olympic Agon, then, however, enjoying but a slender fraction of the lustre which afterwards came to attach to it. The presi- dency of any of the more celebrated festivals current throughout Greece, was a privilege immensely prized. It was at once dig- nified and lucrative, and the course of our history will present more than one example in which blood was shed to determine what state should enjoy it. Pheidon marched to Olympia, at the epoch of the 8th recorded Olympiad, or 747 B. c. ; on the occasion of which event we are made acquainted with the real state of parties in the peninsula. The plain of Olympia, now ennobled only by immortal recollections, but once crowded with all the decorations of religion and art, and forming for many centuries the brightest centre of attraction known in the ancient world, was situated on the river Alpheius, in the territory called the Pisatid, hard by the borders of Arcadia. At what time its agonistic festival, recurring every fifth year, at the first full moon after the sum- mer solstice, first began or first acquired its character of special sanctity, we have no means of determining. As with so many of the native waters of Greece, we follow the stream upward to a certain point, but the fountain-head, and the earlier flow of his- tory, is buried under mountains of unsearchable legend. The first celebration of the Olympic contests was ascribed by Grecian legendary faith to Herakles, and the site of the place, in the middle of the Pisatid, with its eight small townships, is quite suf- ficient to prove that the inhabitants of that little territory were warranted in describing themselves as the original administrator? of the ceremony. 1 But this state of things seems to have been altered by the JEtolian settlement in Elis, which is represented as having been conducted by Oxylus and identified with the Eeturn of the Herakleids. The JEtolo-Eleians, bordering upon the Pisatid to the north, employed their superior power in sub- duing their weaker neighbors, 2 who thus lost their autonomy and became annexed to the territory of Elis. It was the general rule throughout Greece, that a victorious state undertook to perform 3 1 Xenoph. Hcllcn. vii. 4, 28 ; Diodor. xv. 78.

• Strabo, viii. p. 354. 3 Thucyd. iv. 98 ​318 HISTORY OF GREECK.

the current services of the conquered people towards the godtt, such services being conceived as attaching to the soil : hence, the celebration of the Olympic games became numbered among the incumbences of Elis, just in the same way as the worship of the Eleusinian Demeter, when Eleusis lost its autonomy, was included among the religious obligations of Athens. Tha Pisa- tans, however, never willingly acquiesced in this absorption of what had once been their separate privilege ; they long main- tained their conviction, that the celebration of the gams was their right, and strove on several occasions to regain it. On those occasions, the earliest, so fur as we hear, was connected with the intervention of Pheidon. It was at their invitation that the king of Argos went to Olympia, and celebrated the games him- self, in conjunction with the Pisatans, as the lineal successor of Herakles ; while the Eleians, being thus forcibly dispossessed, refused to include the 8th Olympiad in their register of the vic- torious runners. But their humiliation did not last long, for the Spartans took their part, and the contest ended in the defeat of Pheidon. In the next Olympiad, the Eleian management and the regular enrolment appear as before, and the Spartans are even said to have confirmed Elis in her possession both of Pisa- tis and Triphylia. 1 Unfortunately, these scanty particulars are all which we learn respecting the armed conflict at the 8th Olympiad, in which the religious and the political grounds of quarrel are so intimately blended, as we shall find to be often the case in Grecian his- tory. But there is one act of Pheidon yet more memorable, of which also nothing beyond a meagre notice has come down to us. He first coined both copper and silver money in JEgina, and first established a scale of weights and measures, 2 which, through his influence, became adopted throughout Peloponnesus, and acquired, ultimately, footing both in all the Dorian states, and in Boeotia, Thessaly, northern Hellas generally, and Mace- donia, under the name of the ^Eginaean Scale. There arose 1 Pausan. v. 22, 2 ; Strabo, viii. pp. 354-358 ; Herodot. vi. 127. The nam of the victor (Antikles the MessenianJ, however, belonging to the 8th Olym piad, appears July in the lists ; it must have been supplied afterwards.

• Herodot. vi. 127 ; Ephor. ap. Strab. viii. pp. 358-376. ​JEGIX.EAN SCALE OF WEIGHTS AND MEASURES. 31 3

eubsequently another rival scale in Greece, called the Euboic, differing considerably from the JEginaaan. We do not know at what time it was introduced, but it was employed both at Athens and in the Ionic cities generally, as well as in Euboea, being modified at Athens, so far as money was concerned, by Solon's debasement of the coinage. The copious and valuable information contained in M. Boeckh'd recent publication on Metrology, has thrown new light upon these monetary and statical scales. 1 He has shown that both the ./Egi- naean and the Euboic scales the former standing to the latter in the proportion of 6:5 had contemporaneous currency in different parts of the Persian empire ; the divisions and denomi- nations of the scale being the same in both, 100 drachmae to a mina, and 60 minaa to a talent. The Babylonian talent, mina, and drachma are identical with the -^Eginaean : the word mina is of Asiatic origin ; and it has now been rendered highly probable, that the scale circulated by Pheidon was borrowed immediately from the Phoenicians, and by them originally from the Babylonians. The Babylonian, Hebraic, Phoenician, Egyptian, 2 and Grecian scales of weight (which were subsequently followed wherever coined money was introduced) are found to be so nearly conform- able, as to warrant a belief that they are all deduced from one common origin ; and that origin the Chaldaean priesthood of Babylon. It is to Pheidon, and to his position as chief of the 1 Metrologische Untersuchungen iiber Gcwielite, Miinzfusse, und Masse des Alterthums in ihrem Zusammenhange dargestcllt, von Aug. Bocckh ; Berlin, 1838. See chap. 7, 1-3. But I cannot agree with M. Boeckh, in thinking that Pheidon, in celebrating the Olympic games, deduced from the Olympic stadium, and formally adopted, the measure of the foot, or that he at all settled measures of length. In general, I do not think that M. Boeckh's con- clusions are well made out, in respect to the Grecian measures of length and capacity. In an examination of this eminently learned treatise (inserted in the Classical Museum, 1844, vol. i.). I endeavored to set forth both the new and interesting points established by the author, and the various others in Irhich he appeared to me to have failed.

• I have modified this sentence as it stood in my first edition. It is not

correct to speak of the Egyptian money scale : the Egyptians had no coined money. See a valuable article, in review of my History, in the Christian Reformer, by Mr. Kenrick, who pointed out this inaccuracy. ​320 HISTORY OF GREECE. Argeian confederacy, that the Greeks owe the first introduction of the Babylonian scale of weight, and the first employment of coined and stamped money. If we maturely weigh the few, hut striking acts of Pheidon which have been preserved to us, and which there is no reason to discredit, we shall find ourselves introduced to an early historical state of Peloponnesus very different from that to which another century will bring us. That Argos, with the federative cities attached to her, was at this early time decidedly the commanding power in that peninsula, is sufficiently shown by the establishment and reception of the Pheidonian weights, measures, and monetary system, while the other incidents mentioned completely har- monizo with the same idea. Against the oppressions of Elis, the Pisatans invoked Pheidon, partly as exercising a primacy in Peloponnesus, just as the inhabitants of Lepreum in Triphylia, 1 three centuries afterwards, called in the aid of Sparta for the same object, at a time when Sparta possessed the headship, and partly as the lineal representative of Herakles, who had founded those games from the management of which they had been unjustly extruded. On the other hand, Sparta appears as a second-rate power. The ^Eginaejai scale of weight and measure was adopted there as elsewhere, 2 the Messenian Dorians were still equal and independent, and we find Sparta interfering to assist Elis by virtue of an obligation growing (so the legend represents it) out of the common JEtolo-Dorian emigration ; not at all from any acknowledged primacy, such as we shall see her enjoying hereafter. The first coinage of copper and silver money is a capital event in Grecian history, and must be held to imply con- siderable commerce as well as those extensive views which belong only to a conspicuous and leading position. The ambition of Pheidon to resume all the acquisitions made by his ancestor Herakles, suggests the same large estimate of his actual power. He is characterized as a despot, and even as the most insolent 1 Thucyd. v. 31.

• Plutarch, Apophthegm. Laconic, p. 226 ; Dikseardms ap. Athcnae. if.

p. 141. The JEginaean mina, drachma, and obolus were the denominations em ployed in stipulations among the Peloponnesian states (Thncyd. v. 47). ​ARGOS AXD SPARTA. 321 of all despots : * bow far he deserved such a reputation, we have no means of judging. We may remark, however, that he lived before the age of despots or tyrants, properly so called, and before the Herakleid lineage had yet lost its primary, half-politi- cal, half-religious character. Moreover, the later historians have invested his actions with a color of exorbitant aggression, by applying them to a state of things which belonged to their time and not to his. Thus Ephorus represents him as having de- prived the Lacedaemonians of the headship of Peloponnesus, which they never possessed until long after him, and also as setting at naught the sworn inviolability of the territory of the Eleians, enjoyed by the latter as celebrators of the Olympic games ; where- as the Agonothesia, or right of superintendence claimed by Elis, had not at that time acquired the sanction of prescription, while the conquest of Pisa by the Eleians themselves had proved that this sacred function did not protect the territory of a weaker people. How Pheidon fell, and how the Argeians lost that supremacy which they once evidently possessed, we have no positive details to inform us : with respect to the latter point, however, we can discern a sufficient explanation. The Argeians stood predomi- nant as an entire and unanimous confederacy, which required a vigorous and able hand to render its internal organization effec- tive or its ascendency respected without. No such leader after- wards appeared at Argos, the whole history of which city is destitute of eminent individuals : her line of kings continued at least down to the Persian war, 2 but seemingly with only titular functions, for the government had long been decidedly popular. The statements, which represent the government as popular an- terior to the time of Pheidon, appear unworthy of trust. That prince is rather to be taken as wielding the old, undiminished prerogatives of the Herakleid kings, but wielding them with un- usual effect, enforcing relaxed privileges, and appealing to the 1 Herodot. vi. 127. Qeiduvof rov A.pyeiuv rvpdvvov TOV vj3piaavro( syiara 6r/ 'EM^ijvuv &TTUVTUV. Pausanias (vi. 22, 2) copies the expression. Aristotle cites Pheidon as a person who, being a [3aat%ei)f, made himseif a vpavvoe (Politic, viii. 8, 5). 1 Herodot. vii. 149. VOL. ii. 14* 21oc. ​322 HISTORY OF GREECE. old heroic sentiment in reference to Herakles, rather than revo lutionizing the existing relations either of Argos or of Pelopon- nesus. It was in fact the great and steady growth of Sparta, for three centuries after the Lykurgean institutions, which operated as a cause of subversion to the previous order of command and obedience in Greece. The assertion made by Herodotus, that, in earlier times, the whole eastern coast of Laconia as far as Cape Malea, including the island of Kythera and several other islands, had belonged to Argos, is referred by O. Miiller to about the 50th Olympiad, or 580 B. c. Perhaps it had ceased to be true at that period ; but that it Avas true in the age of Pheidon, there seem good grounds for believing. "What is probably meant is, that the Dorian towns on this coast, Prasiae, Zarex, Epidaurus Limera, and Breae, were once autonomous, and members of the Argeian confederacy, a fact highly probable, on independent evidence, with respect to Kpidaurus Limera,. inasmuch as that town was a settlement from Epidaurus in the Argolic peninsula : and Boeae too had its own oekist and eponymus, the Herakleid Brous, 1 noway connected with Sparta, perhaps derived from the same source as the name of the town Boeon in Doris. The Argeian confederated towns would thus comprehend the whole coast of the Argolic and Saro- nic gulfs, from Kythera as far as JEgina, besides other islands which we do not know : ^Egina had received a colony of Dorians from Argos and Epidaurus, upon which latter town it continued for some time in a state of dependence. 1 It will at once be seen that this extent of coast implies a considerable degree of com- merce and maritime activity. We have besides to consider the range of Doric colonies in the southern islands of the JEgean and in the south-western corner of Asia Minor, Krete, Kos, Rhodes (with its three distinct cities), Halikarnassus, Knidus, Myndus, Nisyrus, Syme, Karpathus, Kalydna, etc. Of the Doric establishments here named, several are connected (as has been before stated) with the great emigration of the Temenid Althae- menes from Argos : but what we particularly observe is, that they are often referred as colonies promiscuously to Argos, Trcezen, 1 Pausan. iii. 22, 9 ; iii. 23, 4. 1 Herodot. v. 83; Strabo, viii. p. 375. ​DORIANS IN ASIA AND IN THE ISLANDS. 323 Epidauras 1 more frequently however, as it seems, to Argos. All these settlements are doubtless older than Pheidon, and we may conceive them as proceeding conjointly from the allied Dorian towns in the Argolic peninsula, at a time when they were more in the habit of united action than they afterwards became : a captain of emigrants selected from the line of Herakles and Temenus was suitable to the feelings of all of them. We may thus look back to a period, at the very beginning of the Olym- piads, when the maritime Dorians on the east of Peloponnesus maintained a considerable intercourse and commerce, not only among themselves, but also with their settlements on the Asiatic coast and islands. That the Argolic peninsula formed an early centre for maritime rendezvous, we may farther infer from the very ancient Amphiktyony of the seven cities (Hermione, Epi- daurus, JEgina, Athens, Prasiae, Nauplia, and the Minyeian Or- chomenus), on the holy island of Kalauria, off the harbor of Tro3zen. 2 The view here given of the early ascendency of Argos, as the head of the Peloponnesian Dorians and the metropolis of the Asiatic Dorians, enables us to understand the capital innovation of Pheidon, the first coinage,, and the first determinate scale of weight and measure, known in Greece. Of the value of such improvements, in the history of Grecian civilization, it is super- fluous to speak, especially when we recollect that the Hellenic states, having no political unity, were only held together by the 1 Rhodes, Kos, Knidus, and Halikarnassus are all treated by Strabo (xiv p. 653) as colonies of Argos: Rhodes is so described by Thucydides (vii. 57), and Kos by Tacitus (xii. 61). Kos, Kalydna, and Nisyrus are described bv Herodotus as colonies of Epidaurus (vii. 99) : Halikarnassus passes sometimes for a colony of Trcezen, sometimes of Trcezen, and Argos con- jointly: "Cum Melas et Areuanius ab Argis et Troezene coloniam com- munem eo loco induxerunt, barbaros Caras et Leleges ejecerunt ( Vitruv. ii. 8, 12 : Steph. Byz. v. 'A?uKupvaaffO )." Compare Strabo, x. p. 479 ; Conon, Narr. 47 ; Diodor. v. 80. Raoul Rochette (Histoire des Colonies Grecques, t. iii. ch. 9) and 0. Miil- !er (History of the Dorians, ch. 6) have collected the facts about theso Asiatic Dorians. The little town of Bcese had its counterpart of the same name in Kr$te (Steph. Byz. v. Botov). Strabo, p. 374. ​324 HISTORY OF GREECE aggregate of spontaneous uniformities, in language, religion, sym- pathies, recreations, and general habits. We see both how Phei- don came to contract the wish, and how he acquired the power, to introduce throughout so much of the Grecian world an uni- form scale ; we also see that the Asiatic Dorians form the link between him and Phoenicia, from whence the scale was derived, just as the Euboic scale came, in all probability, through the Ionic cities in Asia, from Lydia. It is asserted by Ephorus, and admitted even by the ablest modern critics, that Pheidon first coined money " in ^Egina : " 1 other authors (erroneously believ- ing that his scale was the Euboic scale) alleged that his coinage had been carried on " in a place of Argos called Euboea." a Now both these statements appear highly improbable, and both are traceable to the same mistake, of supposing that the title, by which the scale had come to be commonly known, must neces- sarily be derived from the place in which the coinage had been struck. There is every reason to conclude, that what Pheidon did was done in Argos, and nowhere else : his coinage and scale were the earliest known in Greece, and seem to have been known by his own name, " the Pheidonian measures," under which de- signation they were described by. Aristotle, in his account of the constitution of Argos. 3 They probably did not come to bear the specific epithet of ^gincean until there was another scale in vogue, the JZuboic, from which to distinguish them ; and both the epithets were probably derived, not from the place where the scale first originated, but from the people whose commercial activity tended to make them most generally known, in the one case, the JEginetans ; in the other case, the inhabitants of Chalkis and Eretria. I think, therefore, that we are to look upon the Pheidonian measures as emanating from Argos, and as having 1 Ephorus ap. Strabo, viii. p. 376 ; Boeckh, Mctrologie, Abschn. 7, 1 : see also the Marmor Parium, Epoch 30. s Etymologicon Magn. Evj3oinbv vofiiffpa. 3 Pollux, Onomastic. x. 1 79. Etj; 6' uv Kal Qeiduv TI uyydov Mairipbv, aird rd-i <l>i6uvi(jv fjtxrpuv uvofiaapevov, iiirlp uv iv 'Apyetwv Kokntla 'Aptarore- Atyf ?.eyei, Also Ephorus ap. Strab. viii. p. 358. /cat pirpa. it-evpe TU Qetduveta vaP.ov* utva /cat aTadfj.oi)f, aal vo^ia^a Ke^apu^evov, etc. ​^ETOLO-DORIAN EMIGRATION. 325 no greater connection, originally, with ./Egina, than with any other city dependent upon Argos. There is, moreover, another point which deserves notice. What was known by the name of the JEginaean scale, as contrasted with and standing in a definite ratio (6:5) with the Euboic scale, related only to weight and money, so far as our knowledge ex- tends : ! we have no evidence to show that the same ratio extend- ed either to measures of length or measures of capacity. But there seems ground for believing that the Pheidonian regulations, taken in their full comprehension, embraced measures of capacity as well as weights : Pheidon, at the same time when he deter- mined the talent, mina, and drachm, seems also to have fixed the dry and liquid measures, the medimnus and metretes, with their parts and multiples : and there existed 2 Pheidonian measures of capacity, though not of length, so far as we know. The .2gin- ajan scale may thus have comprised only a portion of what was established by Pheidon, namely, that which related to weight and money. CHAPTER V. JETOLO-DORIAN EMIGRATION INTO PELOPONNESUS. -ELIS, LACONIA, AND MESSENIA. IT has already been stated that the territory properly called Elis, apart from the enlargement which it acquired by conquest, included the westernmost land in Peloponnesus, south of Achaia, and west of Mount Pholoe and Olenus in Arcadia, but not extending so far southward as the river Alpheius, the course of which lay along the southern portion of Pisatis and on the bor- ders of Triphylia. This territory, which appears in the Odyssey 1 This differs from Boeckh's opinion: see the note in pagt 315. 1 Theophrast. Character, c. 13 ; Pollux, x. 179. ​5-20 HISTORY OF GREECE. as " the divine Elis, where the Epeians hold sway," 1 is in the his* torical times occupied by a population of .ZEtolian origin. The connection of race between the historical Eleians and the his- torical .^Etolians was recognized by both parties, nor is there any ground for disputing it. 2 That JEtolian invaders, or emigrants, into Elis, would cross from Naupaktus, or some neighboring point in the Corinthian gulf, is in the natural course of things, and such is the course which Oxylus, the conductor of the invasion, is represented by the Herakleid legend as taking. That legend (as has been already recounted) introduces Oxylus as the guide of the three Hera- kleid brothers, Temenus, Kresphontes, and Aristodemus, and as stipulating with them that, in the new distribution about to take place of Peloponnesus, he shall be allowed to possess the Eleian territory, coupled with many holy privileges as to the celebration of the Olympic games. In the preceding chapter, I have endeavored to show that the settlements of the Dorians in and near the Argolic peninsula, so far as the probabilities of the case enable us to judge, were not accomplished by any inroad in this direction. But the localities occupied by the Dorians of Sparta, and by the Dorians of Steny- klerus, in the territory called Messene, lead us to a different con- clusion. The easiest and most natural road through which emi- grants could reach either of these two spots, is through the Eleian and the Pisatid country. Colonel Leake observes, 3 that the direct road from the Eleian territory to Sparta, ascending the valley of the Alpheius, near Olympia, to the sources of its branch, the Theius, and from thence descending the Eurotas, affords the only easy march towards that very inaccessible city: and both ancients and moderns have remarked the vicinity of the source of the Alpheius to that of the Eurotas. The situation of Steny- klerus and Andania, the original settlements of the Messenian Dorians, adjoining closely the Arcadian Parrhasii, is only at a short distance from the course of the Alpheius ; being thus reached 1 Odyss. xv. 297. * Strabo, x. p. 479. 3 Leake, Travels in Morca, vol. iii. ch. 23, p. 29 ; compare Diodor. xv. 66. The distance from Olympia to Sparta, as marked on a pillar which Pan- manias saw at Olympia, was 660 stadia, about 77 English miles (Pausan. Ti. 16, 6). ​DORIAN SETTLEMENTS AT SPARTA. 327 most easily by the same route. Dismissing the idea of a grea collective Dorian armament, powerful enough to grasp at once the entire peninsula, we may conceive two moderate detach- ments of hardy mountaineers, from the cold regions in and near Doris, attaching themselves to the JEtolians, their neighbors, who were proceeding to the invasion of Elis. After having aided the JEtolians, both to occupy Elis and to subdue the Pisatid, these Dorians advanced up the valley of the Alpheius in quest of settlements for themselves. One of these bodies ripens into the stately, stubborn, and victorious Spartans ; the other, into the short-lived, trampled, and struggling Messenians. Amidst the darkness which overclouds these original settle- ments, we seem to discern something like special causes to deter- mine both of them. With respect to the Spartan Dorians, we are told that a person named Philonomus betrayed Sparta to them, persuading the sovereign in possession to retire with his people into the habitations of the lonians, in the north of the peninsula, and that he received as a recompense for this accept- able service Amyklae, Avith the district around it. It is farther stated, and this important fact there seems no reason to doubt, that Amyklse, though only twenty stadia or two miles and a half distant from Sparta, retained both its independence and its Achrcan inhabitants, long after the Dorian emigrants had ac- quired possession of the latter place, and was only taken by them under the reign of Teleklus, one generation before the first Olympiad. 1 Without presuming to fill up by conjecture incurable gaps in the statements of our authorities, we may from hence reasonably presume that the Dorians were induced to invade, and enabled to acquire, Sparta, by the invitation and assistance of a party in the interior of the country. Again, with respect to the Messenian Dorians, a different, but not less effectual temp- tation was presented by the alliance of the Arcadians, in the south-western portion of that central region of Peloponnesus. Kresphontes, the Herakleid leader, it is said, espoused the daugh- ter 2 of the Arcadian king, Kypselus, which procured for him the 1 Strabo, viii. pp. 364, 365 ; Pausan. iii. 2 5 : compare the atory of Kjiua, Fausan. iii. 13, 3.

• Tausan. iv. 3, 3 ; viii. 29. 4. ​328 HISTORY OF GREECE.

support of a powerful section of Arcadia. His settlement ai Stenyklerus was a considerable distance from the sea, at the north-east corner of Messenia, 1 close to the Arcadian frontier ; and it will be seen hereafter that this Arcadian alliance is a con- stant and material element in the disputes of the Messenian Dorians with Sparta. We may thus trace a reasonable sequence of events, showing how two bodies of Dorians, having first assisted the jEtolo- Eleians to conquer the Pisatid, and thus finding themselves on the banks of the Alpheius, followed the upward course of that river, the one to settle at Sparta, the other at Stenyklerus. The historian Ephorus, from whom our scanty fragments of informa tion respecting these early settlements are derived, it is im- portant to note that he lived in the age immediately succeeding the first foundation of Messene as a city, the restitution of the long-exiled Messenians, and the amputation of the fertile western half of Laconia, for their benefit, by Epameinondas, imparts to these proceedings an immediate decisiveness of effect which does not properly belong to them : ^ if the Spartans had become at once possessed of all Laconia, and the Messenians of all Mes- senia : Pausanias, too, speaks as if the Arcadians collectively had assisted and allied themselves with Kresphontes. This is the general spirit which pervades his account, though the particular facts in so far as we find any such, do not always harmonize with it. Now we are ignorant of the preexisting divisions of the country, either east .or west of Mount Taygetus, at the time when the Dorians invaded it. But to treat the one and the other as integral kingdoms, handed over at once to two Dorian leaders, is an illusion borrowed from the old legend, from the his- toricizing fancies of Ephorus, and from the fact that, in the well- known times, this whole territory came to be really united under the Spartan power. At what date the Dorian settlements at Sparta and Stenyk- lerus were effected, we have no means of determining. Yet, that there existed between them in the earliest times a degree of fra- ternity which did not prevail between Lacedasmon and Argos, 1 Strabo (viii. p. 366) blames Euripides for calling Messene an inland country ; but the poet seems to have been quite correct in doing so. ​TARLIEST HISTORY OF SPARTA. S29 we may fairly presume from the common temple, with joint religious sacrifices, of Artemis Ijmnatis, or Artemis on the Marsh, erected on the confines of Messenia and Laconia. 1 Our first view of the two, at all approaching to distinctness, seems to date from a period about half a century earlier than the first Olympiad (77G B. c.), about the reign of king Teleklus of the Eurystheneid or Agid line, and the introduction of the Lykurgean discipline. Teleklus stands in the list as the eighth king dating from Eurysthenes. But how many of the seven kings before him are to be considered as real persons, or how much, out of the brief warlike expeditions ascribed to them, is to be treated as authentic history, I pretend not to define. The earliest determinable event in the internal history of Sparta is the introduction of the Lykurgean discipline; the earliest external events are the conquest of Amyklae, Pharis, and Geron- thrae, effected by king Teleklus, and the first quarrel with the Messenians, in which that prince was slain. When we come to see how deplorably great was the confusion and ignorance which reigned with reference to a matter so preeminently important as Lykurgus and his legislation, we shall not be inclined to think that facts much less important, and belonging to an earlier epoch, can have been handed down upon any good authority. And in like manner, when we learn that Amyklos, Pharis, and Geronthne (all south of Sparta, and the first only two and a half miles dis- tant from that city) were independent of the Spartans until the reign of Teleklus, we shall require some decisive testimony before we can believe that a community so small, and so hemmed in as Sparta must then have been, had in earlier times undertaken expeditions against Helos on the sea-coast, against Kleitor on the extreme northern side of Arcadia, against the Kynurians, or against the Argeians. If Helos and Kynuriawere conquered by these early kings, it appears that they had to be conquered a second time by kings succeeding Teleklus. It would be more natural that we should hear when and how they conquered the places nearer to them, Sellasia, or Belemina, the valley of the CEnus, or the upper valley of the Eurotas. But these seem to be 1 Pausan. iv. 2, 2. fi-t%ov 6e avrov ucvot Aupieuv ol TE ^Hecarjvioi nal Aaicedaiftuvioi. ​330 HISTORY OF SKEECE. assumed as matters of course ; the proceedings ascribed to the early Spartan kings are such only as might beseem the palmy days when Sparta was undisputed mistress of all Laconia. The succession of Messenian kings, beginning with Kresphon- tes, the Herakleid brother, and continuing from father to son, jEpytus, Glaukus, Isthnius, Dotadas, Subotas, Phintas, the last being contemporary with Teleklus, is still less marked by inci- dent than that of the early Spartan kings. It is said that the reign of Kresphontes was troubled, and himself ultimately slain by mutinies among his subjects : ^Epytus, then a youth, having escaped into Arcadia, was afterwards restored to the throne by the Arcadians, Spartans, and Argeians. 1 From .^Epytus, the Messenian line of kings are stated to have been denominated JEpytids in preference to Herakleids, which affords another proof of their intimate connection with the Arcadians, since -3py- tus was a very ancient name in Arcadian heroic antiquity. 2 There is considerable resemblance between the alleged behavior of Kresphontes on first settling at Stenyklerus, and that of Eurys- thenes and Prokles at Sparta, so far as we gather from state- ments alike meagre and uncertified, resting on the authority of Ephorus. Both are said to have tried to place the preexisting inhabitants of the country on a level with their own Dorian bands ; both provoked discontents and incurred obloquy, with their con- temporaries as well as with posterity, by the attempt ; nor did either permanently succeed. Kresphontes was forced to concen- trate all his Dorians in Stenyklerus, while after all, the discontents ended in his violent death. And Agis, the son of Eurysthenes, is said to have reversed all the liberal tentatives of his father, so as to bring the whole of Laconia into subjection and dependence on the Dorians at Sparta, with the single exception of Amykloe. So odious to the Spartan Dorians was the conduct of Eurysthenes, that they refused to acknowledge him as their O3kist, and conferred that honor upon Agis ; the two lines of kings being called Agiada 1 Pausan. iv. 3, 5-6. ' Homer, Iliad, ii. 604. Ol <T i%ov 'A.pica6ir)v, inrb K.vWqvj}f ipof airri), A.ITTVTIOV irapti rvfiftov. S"*ol ad loc. (5 <5' AtTrurof upxaiorirof f/puf, 'Ap/caf rd ​THE MESSKNIAN DORIANS. 331 and Eurypontids, instead of Eurystheneids and Prokleids. 1 We ee in these statements the same tone of mind as that which pervades the Panathenaic oration of Isokrates, the master of Ephorus, the facts of an unknown period, so colored as to suit an ideal of haughty Dorian exclusiveness. Again, as Eurysthenes and Prokles appear, in the picture of Ephorus, to carry their authority at once over the whole of Laconia, so too does Kresphontes over the whole of Messenia, over the entire south-western region of Peloponnesus, westward of Mount Taygetus and Cape Tasnarus, and southward of the river Neda. He sends an envoy to Pylus and Rhium, the western and southern portions of the south-western promontory of Peloponnesus, treating the entire territory as if it were one sovereignty, and inviting the inhabitants to submit under equal laws. 2 But it has already been observed, that this supposed ' Compare the two citations from Ephorus, Straho, viii. pp. 361-365. Unfortunately, a portion of the latter citation is incurably mutilated in the text : O. Miiller (History of the Dorians, book i. ch. v. 13) has proposed an ingenious conjecture, which, however, cannot be considered as trustworthy. Grosskurd, the German translator, usually skilful in these restorations, leaves the passage untouched. For a new coloring of the death of Kresphontes, adjusted by Isokrates so as to suit the purpose of the address which he puts into the mouth of Archi- damus king of Sparta, see the discourse in his works which passes under that name (Or. iv. pp. 120-122). Isokrates says that the Messenian Dorians slew Kresphontes, whose children fled as suppliants to Sparta, imploring revenge for the death of their father, and surrendering the territory to the Spartans. The Delphian god advised the latter to accept the tender, and they accordingly attacked the Messenians, avenged Kresphontes, and appro- priated the territory. IsokratGs always starts from the basis of the old legend, the triple Dorian conquest made all at once : compare Panathenaic. Or. xii. pp. 270-287. 2 Ephorus ap. Strabo, viii. p. 361. Dr. Thirlwall observes (History of Greece, ch. vii. p. 300, 2d edit.), " The Messenian Pylus seems long to have retained its independence, and to have been occupied for several centuries by one branch of the family of Neleus ; for descendants of Nestor are men- tioned as allies of the Messenians in their struggle with Sparta in the latter half of the seventh century B. c." For this assertion, Dr. Thirlwall cites Strabo (viii. p. 355). I agree with him as to the matter of fact : I see no proof that the Dorians of Stenyklerus ever ruled over what is called the Messenian Pylus ; for, of course,, if they ​332 HISTORY" OF GREECE. oneness and indivisibility is not less uncertified in regard tc Messenia than in regard to Laconia. How large a proportion of the former territory these kings of Stenyklerus may have ruled, we have no means of determining, but there were certainly por- tions of it which they did not rule, not merely during the reign of Teleklus at Sparta, but still later, during the first Messenian war. For not only are we informed that Teleklus established three townships, Poieessa, Echeiae, 1 and Tragium, near the Mes- senian gulf, and on the course of the river Nedon, but we read also a farther matter of evidence in the roll of Olympic victors. Every competitor for the prize at one of these great festivals was always entered as member of some autonomous Hellenic commu- nity, which constituted his title to approach the lists ; if success- ful, he was proclaimed with the name of the community to which he belonged. Now during the first ten Olympiads, seven winners are proclaimed as Messenians ; in the llth Olympiad, we find the name of Oxythemis Korona?us, Oxythemis, not of Koroneia in Jkeotia, but of Korone in the western bend of the Messenian gulf, 8 did not rule over it before the second Messenian war. they never acquired it at all. But on reference to the passage in Strabo, it will not be found to prove anything to the point ; for Strabo is speaking, not of the Messenian Pylus, but of the Triphyliun Pylus : he takes pains to show that Nestor had nothing to do with the Messenian Pylus, Ncerropof uTtoyovot means the inhabitants of Triphylia, near Lepreum : compare p. 350. 1 Strabo, viii. p. 360. Concerning the situation of Korone, in the Messe- nian gulf, see Pausanias, iv. 34, 2 ; Strabo, viii. p. 361 ; and the observations of Colonel Leake, Travels in Morea, ch. x. vol. i. pp. 439-448. He placei it near the modern PetaUdhi, seemingly on good grounds.

• See Mr. Clinton's Chronological Tables for the year 732 B. c. ; 0. Mallei

(in the Chronological Table subjoined to his History of the Dorians) calls this victor, Oxythemis ofKordneia, in Boeotia. But this is inadmissible, on two grounds : 1. The occurrence of a Boeotian competitor in that early day a* the Olympic games. The first eleven victors (I put aside Oxythemis, because he is the subject of the argument) are all from western and southern Peloponnesus ; then come victors from Corinth, Megara, and Epidaurus ; then from Athens ; there is one from Thebes in the 41st Olympiad. I infer from hence that the celebrity and frequentation of the Olympic games increased only by degrees, and had not got beyond Peloponnesus in the eighth century B. c. 2. The name Coronaius, Kopuvalo?, is the proper ntul formal title for a citizen of Korone, not for a citizen of Koroneia : the latter gtyles himself Kopuveve. The ethnical name Kopavevf, as belonging to Kwoneia in Bceotin, is placed beyond doubt by several inscriptions in Bocckh's ​OLYMPIC FESTIVAL. 333 some miles on the right bank of the Pamisus, and a considerable distance to the north of the modern Coron. Now if Korone had then been comprehended in Messenia, Oxythemis would have been proclaimed as a Messenian, like the seven winners who preceded him ; and the fact of his being proclaimed as a Koronsean, proves that Korone was then an independent community, not under the dominion of the Dorians of Stenyklerus. It seems clear, therefore, that the latter did not reign over the whole territory commonly known as Messenia, though we are unable to assign the proportion of it which they actually possessed. The*Olympic festival, in its origin doubtless a privilege of the neighboring Pisatans, seems to have derived its great and gradu*- vlly expanding importance from the JEtolo-Eleian settlement in Peloponnesus, combined with the Dorians of Laconia and Mes- senia. Lykurgus of Sparta, and Iphitus of Elis, are alleged to have joined their efforts for the purpose of establishing both the collection; especially No. 1583, in which a citizen of that town is proclaimed as victoriou.5 at the festival of the Charitesia at Orchomenus: compare Nos. 1587-1593, in which the same ethnical name occurs. The Boeotian Inscrip tions attest in like manner the prevalence of the same etymological law in forming ethnical names, for the towns near Koroneia : thus, Chardneia makes Xaipuvevf, Lebadeia. Aepadevf, Elateia, 'E/larevc, or 'EAaretet'f The Inscriptions afford evidence perfectly decisive as to the ethnical title under which a citizen of Koroneia in Bceotia would have caused himself to be entered and proclaimed at the Olympic games ; better than the evidence of Herodotus and Thucydides, who both call them Kopuvaioi (Herodot. v. 79; Thucyd. iv. 93) : Polybitis agrees with the Inscription, and speaks of the Kopuveif, Ae/3a<5f, Xaipuvslf (xxvii. 1). 0. MUller himself admits, in another place ( Orchomcnos, p. 480J, that the proper ethnical name is Kopu- veuf. The reading of Strabo (ix. p. 41 1 ) is not trustworthy : see Grosskard, ad loc.; compare Steph. Byz. Kopuveia and KoptJvrj. In regard to the formation of ethnical names, it seems the general rule, that a town ending in 77 or at, preceded by a consonant, had its ethnical deriv- ative in aiof ; such as ZKIUVT], Topuvrj, Kvurj, 0;)/?af, 'Atf^vat ; while names ending in eta had their ethnicon in ere, as 'A/le^avtJpeta, 'Apaacia, 2e/lrvKe<, A.vaipuxia (the recent cities thus founded by the successors of Alexander are perhaps the best evidences that can be taken of the analogies of the language), MeAd/iTreia, MeAtma, in addition to the Boeotian names of towns above quoted. There is, however, great irregularity in particular cases, and the number of towns called by the same name created an anxiety to vary he ethnicon for er.ch : see Stephan. Byz. v. 'HpuAeta. ​334 HISTORY OF CREECH. sanctity of the Olympic truce and the inviolability of the Eleian territory. Hence, though this tale is riot to be construed as matter of fact, we may see that the Lacedaemonians regarded the Olympic games as a portion of their own antiquities. More- over, it is certain, both that the dignity of the festival increased simultaneously with their ascendency, 1 and that their peculiar fashions were very early introduced into the practice of the Olympic competitors. Probably, the three bands of cooperat- ing invaders, JEtolians and Spartan and Messenian Dorians, may have adopted this festival as a periodical renovation of mu- tual union and fraternity ; from which cause the games became an attractive centre for the western portion of Peloponnesus, be fore they were much frequented by people from the eastern, or still more from extra-Peloponnesian Hellas. For it cannot be altogether accidental, when AVC read the names of the first twelve proclaimed Olympic victors (occupying nearly half a century from 776 B. c. downwards), to find that seven of them are Messenians, three Eleians, one from Dyme, in Achaia, and one from Korone ; while after the 12th Olympiad, Corinthians and Megarians and Epidaurians begin to occur ; later still, extra-Peloponnesian vic- tors. "VVe may reasonably infer from hence that the Olympic ceremonies were at this early period chiefly frequented by visi- tors and competitors from the western regions of Peloponnesus, and that the affluence to them, from the more distant parts of the Hellenic world, did not become considerable until the first Messenian war had closed. Having thus set forth the conjectures, to which our very scanty knowledge points, respecting the first establishment of the ^tolian and Dorian settlements in Elis, Laconia, and Mes- senia, connected as they are with the steadily increasing dignity and frequentation of the Olympic festival, I proceed, in the next chapter, to that memorable circumstance which both deter- mined the character, and brought about the political ascendency, of the Spartans separately: I mean, the laws and discipline of Lykurgus. 1 The entire nakedness of the competitors at Olympia was adopted fron-. the Spartan practice, seemingly in the 14th Olympiad, as is testified by the epigram on Orsippus the Megarian. Previous to that period, the Olympi* competitors had <5mV,'>/*ara nspl TU alfiola (Thucyd. i. 6). ​ACH.EANS IN PELOPONXLSUS. 335 Of the preexisting inhabitants of Laconia and Messenia, whom we are accustomed to call Achaeans and Pylians, so little is known, that we cannot at all measure the difference between them and their Dorian invaders, either in dialect, in habits, or in intelligence. There appear no traces of any difference of dialect among the various parts of the population of Laconia : the Mes- senian allies of Athens, in the Peloponnesian war, speak the same dialect as the Helots, and the same also as the Ambrakiotic colo- nists from Corinth : all Doric. 1 Nor are we to suppose that the Doric dialect was at all peculiar to the people called Dorians. As far as can be made out by the evidence of Inscriptions, it seems to have been the dialect of the Phokians, Delphians, Lo- krians, JEtolians, and Achteans of Phthiotis : with respect to the latter, the Inscriptions of Thaumaki, in Achaea Phthiotis, afford a proof the more curious and the more cogent of native dialect, because the Phthiots were both immediate neighbors and sub- jects of the Thessalians, who spoke a variety of the .ZEolic. So, too, within Peloponnesus, we find evidences of Doric dialect among the Achaeans in the north of Peloponnesus, the Dryo- pic inhabitants of Hermione, 2 and the Eleuthero-Lacones, or Laconian townships (compounded of Perioeki and Helots), eman- cipated by the Romans in the second century B. c. Concerning the speech of that population whom the invading Dorians found in Laconia, we have no means of judging^ the presumption would rather be that it did not differ materially from the Do- ric. Thucydides designates the Corinthians, whom the invading Dorians attacked from the hill Solygeius, as being JEolians, and Strabo speaks both of the Achaeans as an JEolic nation, and of the JE-oliic dialect as having been originally preponderant iin Peloponnesus. 3 But we do not readily see what means of in formation either of these authors possessed respecting the speech of a time which must have been four centuries anterior even to Thucydides. Of that which is called the jEolic dialect there are three 1 Thucyd. iii. 112 : iv. 41 : compare vii. 44, about the sameness of sound tf the war-shout, or pscan, as delivered by all the different Dorians. 4 Corpus Jnscript. Boeckh. Nos. 1771, 1772. 1773; Ahrens, De Dialecio JJoricA, sect. i-ii. 48. 3 Thucyd. iv. 42 : Strabo. viii. p. 333. ​836 HISTORY OF GRKLCE. marked and distinguishable varieties, the Lesbian, the Tlies- salian, and the Boeotian ; the Thessalian forming a mean term between the other two. Ahrens has shown that the ancient gram matical critics are accustomed to affirm peculiarities, as belong- ing to the -ZEolic dialect generally, which in truth belong only to the Lesbian variety of it, or to the poems of Alkaeus and Sappho, which these critics attentively studied. Lesbian JEolic, Thes- salian JEolic, and Boeotian ^Eolic, are all different : and if, ab- stracting from these differences, we confine our attention to that which is common to all three, we shall find little to distinguish this abstract JEolic from the abstract Doric, or that which is common to the many varieties of the Doric dialect. 1 These two are sis- ters, presenting, both of them, more or less the Latin side of the Greek language, while the relationship of either of them to the Attic and Ionic is more distant. Now it seems that, putting Aside Attica, the speech of all Greece, 2 from Perrhaebia and Mount Olympus to Cape Malea and Cape Akritas, consisted of different varieties, either of the Doric or of the ^Eolic dialect ; this being true (as far as we are able to judge) not less of the aboriginal Arcadians than of the rest. The Laconian dialect 1 See the valuable work of Ahrens, De Dialccto .^Eolica. sect. 51. He observes, in reference to the Lesbian, Thessalian, and Boeotian dialects : " Tres ilJas dialectos, quse optimo jure ^Eolicae vocari videntur quia, qui illis usi sunt, ^Eoles erant comparantem mirum habere oportet, quod Asia- norum JEolum et Bceotorum dialecti tantum inter se distant, quantum vix ab alii quavis Grsecas linguae dialecto." He then enumerates many point? of difference : " Contra tot tantasque differentias pauca reperiuntur eaque fere levia, quae utriquc Jialecto, neque simul Doricae, communia sint Vides his comparatis tantum interesse inter utramque dialectum, ut dubitare liceat, an JSoles Bceoti non magis cum JEolibus Asianis conjuncti fuerint, 411:1111 qui hodie miro quodam casu Saxones vocantur cum antiquis Saxon- ibus. Nib ; lominus Thessalica dialecto in comparationem vocata, diversis- sima quoe videntur aliqxto vinculo conjungere licet. Quamvis enim pauca de ea compei'ta habeamus, hoc tamen ccrtum est, alia Thcssalis cum Lesbiis, alia cum solis Bceotis communia esse." (P. 222-223.)

• About the JEolic dialect of the Perrhsebians, see Stephanus Byz. v. Tov-

vof, and ap. Eustath. ad Iliad, p. 335. The Attic judgment, in comparing these different varieties of Greek speech, is expressed in the story of a man being asked Whether the Boeotians or the Thessalians were most of barbarians f He answered The Eleians {Eustath. ad Iliad, p 304). ​LAWS AND DISCIPLINE OF LYKUEGUS. 337 contained more specialties of its own, and approached nearer to the ^Eolic and to the Eleian, than any other variety of the Dorian : it stands at the extreme of what has been classified as the strict Dorian, that is, the farthest removed from Ionic and Attic. The Kretan towns manifest also a strict Dorism ; as well as the Lacedaemonian colony of Tarentum, and, seemingly, most of the Italiotic Greeks, though some of them are called Achaean colonies. Most of the other varieties of the Doric dialect (Pho- kian, Lokrian, Delphian, Achaean of Phthiotis) exhibit a form departing less widely from the Ionic and Attic : Argos, and the towns in the Argolic peninsula, seem to form a stepping-stone between the two. These positions represent the little which can be known re- specting those varieties of Grecian speech which are not known to us by written works. The little presumption which can be raised upon them favors the belief that the Dorian invaders of Laconia and Messenia found there a dialect little different from that which they brought with them, a conclusion which it is the more necessary to state distinctly, since the work of 0. Muller has caused an exaggerated estimate to be formed of the distinc- tive peculiarities whereby Dorism was parted off from the rest of Hellas. CHAPTER VI. LAWS AND DISCIPLINE OF LYKURGUS AT SPAKTA. PLUTAUCH begins his biography of Lykurgus with the following ominous words : " Concerning the lawgiver Lykurgus, we can assert absolutely nothing which is not controverted : there are different stories in respect to his birth, his travels, his death, and also his mode of proceeding, political as well as legislative : least of all is the time in which he lived agreed upon." VOL. ir. 15 22oc. ​338 HISTORY OF GREECE. And this exordium is but too well borne out by the unsatisfac- tory nature of the accounts which we read, not only in Plutarch himself, but in those other authors out of whom we are obliged to make up our idea of the memorable Lykurgean system. If we examine the sources from which Plutarch's life of Lykurgus is deduced, it will appear that excepting the poets Alkman, Tyrtaeus, and Simonides, from whom he has borrowed less than we could have wished he has no authorities older than Xen ophon and Plato : Aristotle is cited several times, and is unques- tionably the best of his witnesses, but the greater number of them belong to the century subsequent to that philosopher. Neither Herodotus nor Ephorus are named, though the former furnishes some brief, but interesting particulars, and the latter also (as far as we can judge from the fragments remaining) entered at large into the proceedings of the Spartan lawgiver. 1 Lykurgus is described by Herodotus as uncle and guardian to king Labotas, of the Eurystheneid or Agid line of Spartan kings ; and this would place him, according to the received chronology, about 220 years before the first recorded Olympiad (about B. c. 9 9 6) . 2 All the other accounts, on the contrary, seem to repre- sent him as a younger brother, belonging to the other or Prokleid tine of Spartan kings, though they do not perfectly agree respect- ing his parentage. While Simonides stated him to be the son of Prytanis, Dieutychidas described him as grandson of Prytanis, son of Eunomus, brother of Polydektes, and uncle as well as guardian to Charilaus, thus making him eleventh in descent from Herakles. 3 This latter account was adopted by Aristotle, coinciding, according to the received chronology, with the date of Iphitus the Eleian, and the first celebration of the Olympic games by Lykurgus and Iphitus conjointly, 4 which Aristotle 1 See Hcercn, Disscrtatio de Fontibus Plutarchi, pp. 19-25.

• Herodot. i. 65. Moreover, Herodotus gives this as the statement of the

Lacedaemonians themselves. 3 Plutarch, Lykurg. c. 1. According to Dionys. Halik. (Ant. Rom. ii. 49/ Lykurgus was uncle, not son, of Eunomus. Aristotle considers Lykurgus as guardian of Charilaus (Politic, ii. 7, 1 ) : compare v. 10, 3. See O. Miiller (Hist, of Dorians, i. 7, 3). 4 Phlegon also adds Kleosthenes of Pisa (De Olympiis ap. Menrsii Opp. f ii. p. 128). It appears that there existed a quoit at Olympia, upon whick ​DATE AND PARENTAGE OF LYKURGUS. 339 accepted as a fact. Lykurgus, on the hypothesis here mentioned, would stand about B. c. 880, a century before the recorded Olympiads. Eratosthenes and Apollodorus placed him " not a few years earlier than the first Olympiad." If they meant hereby the epoch commonly assigned as the Olympiad of Iphitus, their date would coincide pretty nearly with that of Herodotus : if, on the other hand, they meant the first recorded Olympiad (B. c. 77G), they would be found not much removed from the opinion of Aristotle. An unequivocal proof of the inextricable confusion in ancient times respecting the epoch of the great Spartan law- giver is indirectly afforded by Timceus, who supposed that there had existed two persons named Lykurgus, and that the acts of both had been ascribed to one. It is plain from hence that there was no certainty attainable, even in the third century before the Christian era, respecting the date or parentage of Lykurgus. Thucydides, without mentioning the name of Lykurgus, informs us that it was "400 years and somewhat more" anterior to the close of the Peloponnesian war, 1 when the Spartans emerged from their previous state of desperate internal disorder, and en- tered upon " their present polity." We may fairly presume that the formula of the Olympic truce was inscribed, together with the names of Iphitus and Lykurgus as the joint authors and proclaimers of it. Aristotle believed this to be genuine, and accepted it as an evidence of the fact which it professed to certify : and 0. Miiller is also disposed to admit it as genuine, that is, as contemporary with the times to which it professes to relate. I come to a different conclusion : that the quoit existed, I do not doubt ; but that the inscription upon it was actually set down in writing, in or near B. c. 880, would be at variance with the reasonable probabilities resulting from Grecian palaeography. Had this ancient and memorable instrument existed at Olympia in the days of Herodotus, he could hardly have assigned to Lykurgus the epoch which we now read in his writings. The assertions in Miiller's History of the Dorians (i. 7, 7), about Lykur- gus, Iphitus, and Kleosthenes " drawing up the fundamental law of the Olympic armistice," are unsupported by any sufficient evidence. In the later times of established majesty of the Olympic festival, the Eleians did undoubtedly exercise the power which he describes ; but to connect this with any deliberate regulation of Iphitus and Lykurgus, is in my judgment incor- rect. See the mention of a similar truce proclaimed throughout Triphylia by the Makistians as presidents of the common festival at the temple of tha Samian Poseidon (Strabo, viii. p. 343). 1 Thucvd. i. 18. ​340 HISTORY OF GREECE. this alludes to the Lykurgean discipline and constitution, vhicli Thucydides must thus have conceived as introduced about B. c. 830-820, coinciding with something near the commencement of the reign of king Teleklus. In so far as it is possible to form an opinion, amidst evidence at once so scanty and so discordant, J incline to adopt the opinion of Thucydides as to the time at which the Lykurgean constitution was introduced at Sparta. The state of " eunomy " and good order which that constitution brought about, combined with the healing of great previous internal sedition, which had tended much to enfeeble them, is represented (and with great plausibility) as the grand cause of the victorious career beginning with king Teleklus, the conqueror of Amykloe, Pharis, and Geronthrac. Therefore it would seem, in the absence of better evidence, that a date, connecting the fresh stimulus of the new discipline with the reign of Teleklus, is more probable than any epoch either later or earlier. 1 1 Mr. Clinton fixes the legislation of Lykurgus, " in conformity with Thu cydides," at about 817 B. c., and his regency at 852 B. c., about thirty-five years previous (Fasti Hellen. v. i. c. 7, p. 141) : he also places the Olympiad of Iphitus B. c. 828 (F. H. vol. ii. p. 410 ; App. c. 22). In that chapter, Mr. Clinton collects and discusses the various statements respecting the date of Lykurgus : compare, also, Larchcr ad Hcroclot. i. 67, and Chronologic, pp. 486-492. The differences in these statements must, after all, be taken as they stand, for they cannot be reconciled except by the help of arbitrary suppositions. which only mislead us by producing a show of agreement where there is none in reality. I agree with Mr. Clinton, in thinking that the assertion of Thucydides is here to be taken as the best authority. But I altogether dis- sent from the proceeding which he (in common with Larcher, Wcsseling, Sir John Marsham, and others) employs with regard to the passage of Herodotus, where that author calls Lykurgus the guardian and uncle of Labotas (of the Eurystheneid line). Mr. Clinton says: "From the notoriety of the fact that Lycurgus was ascribed to the other house (the Prokleids), it is manifest thet the passage must be corrupted'" (p. 144); and he then goes on to correct the text of Herodotus, agreeably to the proposition of Sir J. Marsham. This proceeding seems to me inadmissible. The text of Herodotus reads perfectly well, and is not contradicted by anything to be found elsewhere i Herodotus himself: moreover, we have here a positive guarantee of its accuracy, for Mr. Clinton himself admits that it stood in the days of Pausa- nias just as we now read it (Pausan. iii. 2, 3). By what right, then, do wa niter it ? or what do we gain by doing so ? Our only right to do so, is, th assumption that there must have been uniformity of belief and means of ​CONTRADICTORY ACCOUNTS. 341 O. Muller, 1 after glancing at the strange and improbable cir cumstances handed down to us respecting Lykurgus, observes, " that we have absolutely no account of him as an individual person." This remark is perfectly just : but another remark, made by the same distinguished author, respecting the Lykurgean system of laws, appears to me erroneous, and requires more especially to be noticed, inasmuch as the corollaries deduced from it pervade a large portion of his valuable History of the Dorians. He affirms that the laws of Sparta were considered the true Doric institutions, and that their origin was identical with that of the people : Sparta is, in his view, the full type of Dorian principles, tendencies, and sentiments, and is so treated throughout his entire work. 2 But such an opinion is at once gratuitous (for the passage of Pindar cited in support of it is scarcely of any value) and contrary to the whole tenor of ancient evidence. The insti- tutions of Sparta were not Dorian, but peculiar to herself; 3 dis- tinguishing her not less from Argos, Corinth, Megara, Epidaurus, Sikyon, Korkyra, or Knidus, than from Athens or Thebes. Krete was the only other portion of Greece in which there prevailed institutions in many respects analogous, yet still dissimilar in those two attributes which form the real mark and pinch of Spar- tan legislation, namely, the military discipline and the rigorous private training. There were doubtless Dorians in Krete, but we have no proof that these peculiar institutions belonged to satisfactory ascertainment, (respecting facts and persons of the ninth and tenth centuries before the Christian era,) existing among Greeks of the fifth and succeeding centuries ; an assumption which I hold to be incorrect. And all we gain is, an illusory unanimity produced, by gratuitously putting words into the mouth of one of our witnesses. If we can prove Herodotus to have been erroneously informed, it is right to do so ; but we have no ground for altering his deposition. It affords a clear proof that there were very different stories as to the mere question, to which of the two lines of Herakleids the Spartan lawgiver belonged, and that there was an enormous difference as to the time in which he lived. 1 History of the Dorians, i. 7, 6. 2 History of the Dorians, iii. 1, 8. Alf. Ivopstadt recognizes this as an error in Mailer's work : see his recent valuable Dissertation " De Eerum Laconicarum Ccnstitutionis LjTurgea; Origine et Indole," Gryphioe, 1849, sect. 3, p. 18. 3 Among the many other evidences to this point, see Aristotle, Ethic. 7 9 ; Xenophon, Republ. Laced. 10, 8. ​542 HISTORY OF GREECE. them more than to the other inhabitants of the island. That the Spartans had an original organization, and tendencies common to them with the other Dorians, we may readily concede ; but the Lykurgean constitution impressed upon them a peculiar tendency, which took them out of the general march, and rendered them the least fit of all states to be cited as an example of the class- attributes of Dorism. One of the essential causes, which made the Spartan institutions work ?o impressively upon the Grecian mind, was their perfect singularity, combined with the conspicu- ous ascendency of the state in which they were manifested ; while the Kretan communities, even admitting their partial resemblance (which was chiefly in the institution of the Syssitia, and was alto- gether more in form than in spirit) to Sparta, were too insignifi- cant to attract notice except from speculative observers. It i3 therefore a mistake on the part of O. Muller, to treat Sparta as the type and representative of Dorians generally, and very many of the positions advanced in his History of the Dorians require to be modified when this mistake is pointed out. The first capital fact to notice respecting the institutions ascribed to Lykurgus, is the very early period at which they had their commencement : it seems impossible to place this period later than 825 B. c. We do not find, nor have we a right to expect, trustworthy history in reference to events so early. If we have one foot on historical ground, inasmuch as the institutions them- selves are real, the other foot still floats in the unfaithful re- gion of mythe, when we strive to comprehend the generating causes : the mist yet prevails which hinders us from distinguish- ing between the god and the man. The light in which Lykur- gus appeared, to an intelligent Greek of the fifth century before the Christian era, is so clearly, yet briefly depicted, in the follow- ing passage of Herodotus, that I cannot do better than translate it: " In the very early times (Herodotus observes) the Spartans were among themselves the most lawless of all Greeks, and unap- proachable by foreigners. Their transition to good legal order took place in the following manner. "When Lycurgus, a Spartan of consideration, visited Delphi to consult the oracle, the instant that he entered the sanctuary, the Pythian priestess exclaimed, " Thou art come, Lycurgus, to my fat shrine, beloved by Zeus, ​LYKUKGUS, AS DESCKIBED BY HERODOTUS. 343 and by all the Olympic gods. Is it as god or as man that 1 am to address thee in the spirit ? I hesitate, and yet, Lycur^us, I incline more to call thee a god." So spake the Pythian priestess. " Moreover, in addition to these words, some affirm that the Pythia revealed to him the order of things now established among the Spartans. But the Lacedcemonians themselves say, that Lycurgas, when guardian of his nephew Labotas, king of the Spartans, introduced these insti- tutions out of Krete. No sooner had he obtained this guardian- ship, than he changed all the institutions into their present form, and took security against any transgression of it. Next, he con- stituted the military divisions, the Enomoties and the Triakads, as well as the Syssitia, or public mess : he also, farther, appointed the ephors and the senate. By this means the Spartans passed from bad to good order : to Lycurgus, after his death, they built a temple, and they still worship him reverentially. And as might naturally be expected in a productive soil, and with no inconsid- erable numbers of men, they immediately took a start forward, and flourished so much that they could not be content to remain tranquil within their own limits," etc. Such is our oldest statement (coming from Herodotus) respect- ing Lykurgus, ascribing to him that entire order of things which the writer witnessed at Sparta. Thucydides also, though not mentioning Lykurgus, agrees in stating that the system among the Lacedcemonians, as he saw it, had been adopted by them four centuries previously, had rescued them from the most intoler- able disorders, and had immediately conducted them to prosper- ity and success. 1 Hellanikus, whose writings a little preceded those of Herodotus, not only did not (any more than Thucydides) make mention of Lykurgus, but can hardly be thought to have attached any importance to the name ; since he attributed the constitution of Sparta to the first kings, Eurysthenes and Prokles. 2 But those later writers, from whom Plutarch chiefly compiled his biography, profess to be far better informed on the subject of Lykurgus, and enter more into detail. His father, we are told, was assassinated during the preceding state of lawlessness ; his elder brother Polydektes died early, leaving a pregnant widow, 1 Herodot i. 65-66 ; Thucyd. i. IS. a Strabo, viii. p. 3G3. ​3U HISTORY OF GREECE. who made to Lykurgus propositions that he should many her and become king. But Lykurgus, repudiating the offer with indignation, awaited the birth of his young nephew Charilaus, held up the child publicly in the agora, as the future king of Sparta, and immediately relinquished the authority which he had provisionally exercised. However, the widow and her brother Leonidas raised slanderous accusations against him, of designs menacing to the life of the infant king, ticcusations which he deemed it proper to obviate, by a temporary absence. Accord- ingly, he left Sparta and went to Krete, where he studied the polity and customs of the different cities ; next, he visited Ionia and Egypt, and (as some authors affirmed) Libya, Iberia, and even India. While in Ionia, he is reported to have obtained from the descendants of Kreophylus a copy of the Homeric poems, which had not up to that time become known in Peloponnesus : there were not wanting authors, indeed, who said that he had conversed with Homer himself. 1 Meanwhile, the young king Charilaus grew up and assumed the sceptre, as representing the Prokleid or Eurypontid family. But the reins of government had become more relaxed, and the disoixlers worse than ever, when Lykurgus returned. Finding that die two kings as well as the people were weary of so disas- trous a condition, he set himself to the task of applying a correc- tive, and with this view consulted the Delphian oracle ; from which he received strong assurances of the divine encouragement, together with one or more special injunctions (the primitive Rhetras of the constitution), which he brought with him to Sparta. 2 He then suddenly presented himself in the agora, with thirty of the most distinguished Spartans, all in arms, as his guards and partisans. King Charilaus, though at first terrified, when informed of the designs of his uncle, stood forward willingly to second them ; while the bulk of the Spartans respectfully submitted to the venerable Herakleid, who came as reformer and missionary 1 Plutarch, Lykurg. 3, 4, 5. 2 For an instructive review of the text as well as the meaning cf this ancient Rhetra, see Urlichs, Ueber die Lycurgischen Rhctrca, published sinca the first edition of this History. His refutation of the rash charges of Got- tling seems to me comp'.ete : but his own conjectures are not all cquallj plausible ; ncr can I subscribe to his explanation of a<j>iaT(icdai. ​SANCTION BROUGHT BY LYKURGUS FROM DELPHI. 34 a from Delphi. 1 Such were the steps by which Lykurgus acquired his ascendency : we have now to see how he employed it. His first proceeding, pursuant to the Rhetra or Compact brought from Delphi, was to constitute the Spartan senate, consisting of twenty-eight ancient men ; making an aggregate of thirty in con- junction with the two kings, who sat and voted in it. With this were combined periodical assemblies of the Spartan people, in the open air, between the river Knakion and the bridge Babyka. Yet no discussion was permitted in these assemblies, their functions were limited to the simple acceptance or rejection of that which had previously been determined in the senate. 2 Such was the 1 Plutarch, Lykurg. c. 5-6. Hcrmippus, the scholar c/ Aristotle, professed to give the names of twenty out of these thirty devoted partisans. There was, however, a different story, which represented that Lykurgus, on his return from his travels, found Charilaus governing like a despot (Hera- clid. Pontic. c. 2). 2 The words of the old Ilhetra Atof 'E/U.avi'ov not 'A&ijvaf 'E^/lavt'af ispbv I6pvad/j.vov, <j>v?,u <j>vPid^avra, teal (jj3uf u/3d^avTa, rpiuKovTa, yepovaiav KVV up^ayeratf, /caraar^cravra, wpaf k$ tipaf aitek'Ku.&iv fisra^i) Bajvuae Kal Kvatduvor. ovrcjf eiefyspciv TS nal atpiffTaa&ai- (5a//a> cT uyopav tlpev nal lipdrof. (Plutarch, ib.) The reading dyopuv (last word but three) is that of Coray's edition: other readings proposed are Kvpiav, uvu-yuv, dyopiav, etc. The MSS., however, are incurably corrupt, and none of the conjectures can be pronounced certain. The Rhetra contains various remarkable archaisms, u7re/U,aetv dfyi crafftfai, the latter word in the sense of putting the question for decision corresponding to the function of the 'A0ecn%> at Knidus, (Plutarch, Quaest. Grac. c. 4 ; see Schneider, Lexicon, ad. voc.) O. Miiller connects rpuiKovra with ufiaf, and lays it down that there were thirty Obes at Sparta : I rather agree with those critics who place the comma after t>/3u;ov7-a, and refer the number thirty to the senate. Urlu-hs, in his Dissertation Ueber Die Lykurgisch. Rhetren (published in the Rheinisches Museum for 1847, p. 204), introduces the word Tcpeoftvyevias after rpiaKovra ; which seems a just conjecture, when we look to the addition afterwards made by Theopompus. The statements of Muller about the Obes seem to me to rest on no authority. The word Rhetra means a solemn compact, either originally emanating from, or subsequently sanctioned by, the gods, who are always parties to such agreements : see the old Treaty between the Eleians and Heraeans, 'A Fpurpa, between the two, commemorated in the valuable inscription atill preserved, as ancient, according to Boeckh, as Olymp. 40-60, (Boeckh, Corp. Inscript. No. 2, p. 26, part i.) The words of Tyrtseus imply such a ompact between contracting parties : first the kings, then the senate, lastly 15* ​34G HISTORY OF GREECE. Spartan political constitution as fixed by Lykurgus ; but a cen- tury afterwards (so Plutarch's account runs), under the kings Polydorus and Theopompus, two important alterations were made. A rider was then attached to the old Lykurgean Rhetra, by which it was provided that, " in case the people decided crookedly, the senate, with the kings, should reverse their decisions:" 1 while the people evdeiaif prjrpaK; a v Tanape ifto/ievovf where the parti oiple last occurring applies not to the people alone, but to all the three. The Ehetra of Lykurgus emanated from the Delphian god ; but the kings, senatei and people all bound themselves, both to each other and to the gods, to obey it. The explanations given of the phrase by Nitzsch and Schomann (in Dr. Thirlwall's note, ch. viii. p. 334 ) seem to me less satisfactory than what ap- pears in C. F. Hermann (Lehrbuch der Griech. Staatsalterthiimer, s. 23). Nitzsch (Histor. Homer, sect. xiv. pp. 50-55) does not take sufficient account of the distinction between the meaning of (>r)Tpa in the early and in the later times. In the time of the Ephor Epitadeus, or of Agis the Third, he is right in saying that ftijrpa is equivalent to scitum, still, however, with an idea of greater solemnity and unchangeability than is implied in the word voyuof, analogous to what is understood by a fundamental or organic enactment in modern ideas. The old ideas, of a mandate from the Delphian god, and a compact between the kings and the citizens, which had once been connected with the word, gradually dropped away from it. There is no contradiction in Plutarch, therefore, such as that to which Nitzsch alludes (p. 54). Kopstadt's Dissertation (pp. 22, 30) touches on the same subject. I agree with Kopstadt (Dissert, pp. 28-30), in thinking it probable that Plutarch copied the words of the old Lykurgean constitutional Ehetra, from the ac count given by Aristotle of the Spartan polity. King Theopompus probably brought from the Delphian oracle the impor- tant rider which he tacked to the mandate as originally brought by Lykurgus ol fiaaifaie QeoirofiTTOf KOI Tiokiidupot; rude TT) prjTpp Trapeveypaijiav. The authority of the oracle, together with their own influence, would enable them to get these words accepted by the people. 1 A.L <Je oKohiuv 6 duuoc ZhoiTO, Toi>$ KpcafivyEVEai; KOI up^cr/erae uKoaTUT- ijpaf tlfiEv. (Plutarch, ib.) Plutarch tells us that the primitive Rhotra, anterior to this addition, spe- cially enjoined the assembled citizens either to adopt or reject, without change, the Rhetra proposed by the kings and senate, and that the rider was in- troduced because the assembly had disobeyed this injunction, and adopted amendments of its own. It is this latter sense which he puts on the word OKohiuv. Urlichs (Ueber Lye. Rhetr. p. 232) and Nitzsch (Hist. Homer, p. 54) follow him, and the latter even construes the epithet Evdeiaif prjrpaii; tiraira[j.ipo[tvove of Tyrtaeus in a corresponding sense : he says, " Populus iis (rhetris) ev&eiaie, i. e. nihil in/lexis, suffragari jubetur: nam lex cnjus Tyrtaeus admonet, ita sanxerat si populus rogationem wjlexam (i. . non ​LYKURGEAN RHETRA. ^547 another change, perhaps intended as a sort of compensation for this bridle on the popular assembly, introduced into the constitu- tion a new executive Directory of five men, called Ephors. This Board annually chosen, by some capricious method, the result of which could not well be foreseen, and open to be filled by every Spartan citizen either originally received, or gradually drew to itself, functions so extensive and commanding, in regard to inter- nal administration and police, as to limit the authority of the kings to little more than the exclusive command of the military force. Herodotus was informed, at Sparta, that the ephors as well as the nisi ad suum arbitrium immutatam) accipcre voluerit, senatores et auctores abolento totam." Now, in the first place, it seems highly improbable that the primitive Khetra, with its antique simplicity, would contain any such preconceived speciality of restriction upon the competence of the assembly. That restriction received its formal commencement only from the rider annexed by king Theopom- pus, which evidently betokens a previous dispute and refractory behavior on the part of the assembly, In the second place, the explanation which these authors give of the words cKo^iav and eiide'caif, is not conformable to the ancient Greek, as we find it in Homer and Hesiod : and these early analogies are the proper test, seeing that we are dealing with a very ancient document. In Hesiod, /i?i)f and OYCO/UOC are used in a sense which almost exactly corresponds to rigla. and wrong (which words, indeed, in their primitive etymology, may be traced back to the meaning of straigltt and crooked). See Hesiod. Opp. Di. 36, 192, 218, 221, 226, 230, 250, 262, 264; also Theogon. 97, and Fragm. 217, ed. Gottling; where the phrases are constantly repeated, Idelat, dittac, aitol.ial 6'iKai, <TKo/Uot fivdoi. There is also the remarkable expression, Opp. Di. 9. fteia 6e T' idvvei OKofaov : compare v. 263. Mwere [ivdov-. also Homer, Iliad, xvi. 387. Ol (31% dv dyopy ovco/Uuf Kpivuci de/ucraf; and xxiii. 580. i&ela ; xviii. 508. of fiera roiai 6iKrjv Idvvra-a elirij, etc. If we judge by these analogies, we shall see that the words of Tyrtaeus, estate f)^Tpatf, mean " straightforward, honest, statutes or conventions " not propositions adopted without change, as Nitzsch supposes. And so the words aKo7.iav lAotro, mean, " adopt a wrong or dishonest determination" not a determination different from what was proposed to them. These words gave to the kings and senate power to cancel any decision of the public assembly which they disapproved. It retained only the power of refusing assent to some substantive propositions of the authorities, first of the kings and senate, afterwards of the ephors. And this limited power it seems always to have preserved. Kopstadt explains well the expression ff/eo/Udv, as the antithesis to th* epithet of Tyrtseus, evdsiate fnjrpatf (Dissertat. sect. 15, p. 124). ​348 HISTORY OF GREECE. senate had been constituted by Lykurgus ; but the authority of Aristotle, as well as the internal probability of the case, sanctions the belief that they were subsequently added. 1 Taking the political constitution of Sparta ascribed to Lykurgus, it appears not to have differed materially from the rude organiza- tion exhibited in the Homeric poems, where we always find a council of chiefs or old men, and occasional meetings of a listening agora. It is hard to suppose that the Spartan kings can ever have governed without some formalities of this sort ; so that the innovation (if innovation there really was) ascribed to Lykurgus, must have consisted in some new details respecting the senate and the agora, in fixing the number 2 thirty, and the life-tenure of the former, and the special place of meeting of the latter, as well as the extent of privilege which it was to exercise ; conse- crating the whole by the erection of the temples of Zeus Hellanius and Athene Hellania. The view of the subject presented by Plutarch as well as by Plato, 3 as if the senate were an entire novelty, does not consist with the pictures of the old epic. Hence we may more naturally imagine that the Lykurgean political con- stitution, apart from the ephors who were afterwards tacked to it, presents only the old features of the heroic government of Greece, defined and regularized in a particular manner. The presence of two coexistent and coordinate kings, indeed, succeeding in hered- itary descent, and both belonging to the gens of Herakleids, is 1 Herod, i. 65 : compare Plutarch, Lycurg. c. 7 ; Aristotet. Polit. v. 9, 1 (where he gives the answer of king Theopompus). Aristotle tells us that the ephors were chosen, hut not ?tow they were chosen ; only, that it was in some manner excessively puerile, ;raJa/jt<j<5;;f yap iari "kiav (ii. G, 16). M. Barthelemy St. Hilaire, in his note to the passage of Aristotle, pre- sumes that they were of course chosen in the same manner as the senators ; but there seems no sufficient ground in Aristotle to countenance this. Nor is it easy to reconcile the words of Aristotle respecting the election of the senators, where he assimilates it to an alpeoif favaerrevTiia) (Polit. v. 5, 8 ; ii. 6, 18), with the description which Plutarch (Lycurg. 26) gives of that election.

• Kopstadt agrees in this supposition, that the r.umber of the senate was

probably not peremptorily fixed before the Lykurgean reform (Dissertat. u sup. sect. 13, p. 109).

• Plato, Legg. iii. p. 691 ; Plan Epist. viii. p. 354, B. ​RETROSPECTIVE HYPOTHESES OF LATER SPARTANS. 343

something peculiar to Sparta, the origin of which receives no other explanation than a reference to the twin sons of Aristode- mus, Eurysthenes and Prokles. These two primitive ancestors are a type of the two lines of Spartan kings ; for they are said to have passed their lives in perpetual dissensions, which was the habitual state of the two contemporaneous kings at Sparta. While the coexistence of the pair of kings, equal in power and constantly thwarting each other, had often a baneful effect upon the course of public measures, it was, nevertheless, a security to the state against successful violence, 1 ending in the establishment of a des- potism, on the part of any ambitious individual among the regal line. During five successive centuries of Spartan history, from Poly- dorus and Theopompus downward, no such violence was attempted by any of the kings, 2 until the times of Agis the Third and Kleomenes the Third, 240 B. c. to 220 B. c. The importance of Greece had at this last-mentioned period irretrievably declined, and the independent political action which she once possessed had become subordinate to the more powerful force either of the /Etolian mountaineers (the rudest among her own sons) or to Epirotic, Macedonian, and Asiatic foreigners, preparatory to the final absorption by the Romans. But amongst all the Grecian states, Sparta had declined the most ; her ascendency was totally gone, and her peculiar training and discipline (to which she had chiefly owed it) had degenerated in every way. Under these untoward circumstances, two young kings, Agis and Kleomenes, the former a generous enthusiast, the latter more violent and ambitious, conceived the design of restoring the Lykurgean constitution in its supposed pristine purity, with the hope of reviving both the spirit of the people and the ascendency of the state. But the Lykurgean constitution had been, even in tie 1 Plato, Lcgg. iii- p. C91 ; Aristot. Polit. ii. 6, 20. 2 The conspiracy of Pausanias, after the repulse of Xerxes, was against the liberty of combined Hellas, to constitute himself satrap of Hellas under the Persian monarch, rather than against the established Lacedmonian government ; though undoubtedly one portion of his project was to excite the Helots to revolt, and Aristotle treats him as specially aiming to put down the power of the ephors (Polit. v. 5, 6 ; compare Thucyd. i. 128-134; Herodot. v. 32). ​50 HISTORY OF GREECE. time of Xenophon, 1 in part, an ideal not fully realized in practice much less was it a reality in the days of Kleomenes and Agis moreover, it was an ideal which admitted of being colored accord- ing to the fancy or feelings of those reformers who professed, and probably believed, that they were aiming at its genuine restora- tion. What the reforming kings found most in their way, was the uncontrolled authority, and the conservative dispositions, of the ephors, which they naturally contrasted with the original fulness of the kingly power, when kings and senate stood alone. Among the various ways in which men's ideas of what the primi- tive constitution had been, were modified by the feelings of their own time (we shall presently see some other instances of this), is probably to be reckoned the assertion of Kleomenes respecting the first appointment of the ephors. Kleomenes affirmed that the ephors had originally been nothing more than subordinates and deputies of the kings, chosen by the latter to perform for a time their duties during the long absence of the Messenian war. Start- ing from this humble position, and profiting by the dissensions of the two kings, 2 they had in process of time, especially by the ambition of the ephor Asteropus, found means first to constitute themselves an independent board, then to usurp to themselves more and more of the kingly authority, until they at last reduced the kings to a state of intolerable humiliation and impotence. As a proof of the primitive relation between the kings and the ephors. he alluded to that which was the custom at Sparta in his own time. When the ephors sent for either of the kings, the latter had a right to refuse obedience to two successive summonses, but the third summons he was bound to obey. 3 It is obvious that the fact here adduced by Kleomenes (a curious point in Spartan manners) contributes little to prove the conclusion which he deduced from it, of the original nomination of the ephors as mere deputies by the kings. That they were first appointed at the time of the Messenian war is probable, and coincides with the tale that king Theopompus was a consenting 1 Xenophon, Kepublic. Laced, c. 14. "Plutarch, Agis, c. 12. TOVTO yap TO ap^sTov (the ephors) laxvtiv In (Jia^optif T&V (3aai3.uv, etc.

• Plutarch, Kleomenes, c. 10. arifiEiov tie Totrov, rd /tsxP 1 vvv, n+

rantpirofievuv rby SaaL^ea ~iJv 'E^opwv, etc. ​ORIGINAL FUNCTIONS OF THE EPIIORS. 351 party to the measure, that their functions were at first com paratively circumscribed, and extended by successive encroach- ments, is also probable ; but they seem to have been from the beginning a board of specially popular origin, in contraposition to the kings and the senate. One proof of this is to be found in the ancient oath, which was every month interchanged between the kings and the ephors ; the king swearing for himself, that lie would exercise his regal functions according to the established laws, the ephors swearing on behalf of the city, that his au- thority should on that condition remain unshaken. 1 This mutual compact, which probably formed a part of the ceremony during the monthly sacrifices offered by the king, 2 continued down to a time when it must have become a pure form, and when the kings had long been subordinate in power to the ephors. But it evi- dently began first as a reality, when the king was predominant and effective chief of the state, and when the ephors, clothed with functions chiefly defensive, served as guai'antees to the people against abuse of the regal authority. Plato, Aristotle, and Cicero, 3 all interpret the original institution of the ephors as designed to protect the people and restrain the kings : the latter assimilates them to the tribunes at Rome. Such were the relations which had once subsisted between the kings and the ephors : though in later times these relations had been so completely reversed, that Polybius considers the former as essentially subordinate to the latter, reckoning it as a point of duty in the kings to respect the ephors "as their fathers." 4 And such is decidedly the state of things throughout 1 Xenophon, Republic. Lacedsemon. c. 15. Kal opKove filv d/U,7//loif /j.7/va Koiovvrai' "Epopot JJ.EV vTrep rJjs Tro/leuf, fiaaihevs S 1 virep &O.VTOV. 'O 6e opKOf iaTi, r> fiev f3aai^.Ei, Karli roi)f T>/f irohevf KEtfisvovf v6fiov<; Paaifev- aeiv. ry Se trohei, efnredopKOvvTOf EKE'CVOV, uarvfyeTiiKTOv rr/v ftam^eiav irap- il-eiv. 2 Herodot. vi. 57. 3 Plato, Legg. iii. p. 692; Aristot. Polit. v. 11, 1; Cicero de Republic. Fragm. ii. 33, ed. Maii " Ut contra consulare imperium tribuni plebis, sic illi (ephori) contra vim regiam constituti ;" also, De Lcgg. iii. 7. and Valer. Max. iv. 1 . Compare Plutarch, Lycurg. c. 7 : Tittmann, Griechisch. Staats *rfassung, p. 108, seqq. ' Pr-lyb. xxiv. 8. ​552 HISTORY OF GREECE. all the better-known period of history which we shall hereaftei traverse. The ephors are the general directors of public affairs' and the supreme controlling board, holding in check every other authority in the state, without any assignable limit to their pow- ers. The extraordinary ascendency of these magistrates is par- ticularly manifested in the fact stated by Aristotle, that they exempted themselves from the public discipline, so that their self-indulgent year of office stood in marked contrast with the toilsome exercises and sober mess common to rich and poor alike. The kings are reduced to a certain number of special functions, combined with privileges partly religious, partly honorary : their most important political attribute is, that they are ex officio gen- erals of the military force on foreign expeditions. But even here, we trace the sensible decline of their power. For whereas Herodotus was informed, and it probably had been the old privi- lege, that the king could levy war against whomsoever he chose, and that no Spartan could impede him on pain of committing sacrilege, 2 we shall see, throughout the best-known periods of this history, that it is usually the ephors (with or without the senate and public assembly) who determine upon war, the king only takes the command when the army is put on the march. Aristotle seems to treat the Spartan king as a sort of hereditary general ; but even in this privilege, shackles were put upon him, for two, out of the five ephors, accompanied the army, and their power seems to have been not seldom invoked to insure obedience to his orders. 3 The direct political powers of the kings were thus greatly cur- tailed ; yet importance, in many ways, was still left to them. 1 Aristot. Polit. ii. 6, 14-16; 'Ecr2 <5e Kal f/ diaira ruv ' ot'fievTj T(f> povTiT/f^aTi rr^ TroAfwf avrri [lev -yap uvEtfievr) Ziav eari- iv <5 otf uA/lof /iuAAov {nreppaM.ei tiri rb OK^r/pav, etc. 8 Herodot. vi. 56. 3 Aristot. ii. 7, 4: Xenoph. Republ. Laced, c. 13. Tlavaaviaf, irelaaf TUV v rpeif, ffuyet Qpovpuv, Xenoph. Ilellcn. ii. 4, 29; typovpav tyyvav o< i, iii. 2, 23. A special restriction was put on the functions of the king, as military commander-in-chief, in 417 B.C., after the ill-conducted expedition ofAgis, son of Archidamus, against Argos. It was then provided that ten Spartan counsellors should always accompary the king in every expedition (Thucyd ​POWERS OF THE SPARTAN KINGS. 353 -'They possessed large royal domains, in many of the townships of the Perioeki : they received frequent occasional presents, and when victims were offered to the gods, the skins and other por- tions belonged to them as perquisites : ! they had their votes in the senate, which, if they were absent, were given on their be- half, by such of the other senators as were most nearly related to them: the adoption of children received its formal accom- plishment in their presence, and conflicting claims at law, for the hand of an unbequeathed orphan heiress, were adjudicated by them. But above all, their root was deep in the religious feelings of the people. Their preeminent lineage connected the entire state with a divine paternity./ They, the chiefs of the Herakleids, were the special grantees of the soil of Sparta from the gods, the occupation of the Dorians being only sanctified and blest by Zeus for the purpose of establishing the children of Herakles in the valley of the Eurotas. 2 They represented the state in its relations with the gods, being by right priests of Zeus Lacedasmon, (the ideas of the god and the country coalesc- ing into one), and of Zeus Uranius, and offering the monthly sacrifices necessary to insure divine protection to the people. Though individual persons might sometimes be put aside, noth- ing short of a new divine revelation could induce the Spartans to step out of the genuine lineage of Eurysthenes and Prokles. Moreover, the remarkable mourning ceremony, which took place at the death of every king, seems to indicate that the two kingly families which counted themselves Achaean, 3 not Dorian 1 The hide-money (dep/ianicbv) arising from the numerous victims offered at public sacrifices at Athens, is accounted for as a special item of the public revenue in the careful economy of that city : see Boeckh, Public Econ. of Athens, iii. 7, p. 333 ; Eng. Trans. Corpus Inscription. No. 1 57. - Tyrtffius, Fragm. 1, ed. Bergk ; Strabo, xviii. p. 362 : At'-oc -yap Kpoviuv KaM.iaTEpuvov TTOOYC 'HpiJG Zei)f 'HpaK^eifiatf rf/vde 6e6uKe "Ko7.iv Qlaiv ujj,a irpo?uiT6vT 'Eplveov yve/toEVTa Eipelav H&OTTOC vr/aw u<piKOfie-&a. Compare Thucyd. v. 16 ; Herodot. v. 39 ; Xenoph. Hcllen. iii. 3, 3 ; Plutarch, Lysand. c. 22. 3 Herod, v. 72. Sec the account in Plutarch, of the abortive stratagem of Lysander, to make the kingly dignity elective, by putting forward a youth who passed for the son of Apollo (Plutarch, Lysaud. c. 25-26). VOL. ii. 23cc. ​354 HISTORY OF GREECE. were consideied as the great common bond of union between the three component parts of the population of Laconia, Spartans, Periceki, and Helots. Not merely was it required, on this occa- sion, that two members of every house in Sparta should appear in sackcloth and ashes, but the death of the king was formally made known throughout every part of Laconia, and deputies from the townships of the Perioeki, and the villages of the Helots, to the number of several thousand, were summoned to Sparta to take their share in the profuse and public demonstra- tions of sorrow, 1 which lasted for ten days, and which imparted to the funeral obsequies a superhuman solemnity. I T or ought we to forget, in enumerating the privileges of the Spartan king, that he (conjointly with two officers called Pythii, nominated by him,) carried on the communications between the state and the temple of Delphi, and had the custody of oracles and prophecies generally. In most of the Grecian states, such inspired declara- tions were treasured up, and consulted in cases of public emer- gency : but the intercourse of Sparta with the Delphian oracle was peculiarly frequent and intimate, and the responses of the Pythian priestess met with more reverential attention from the Spartans than from any other Greeks. 3 So much the more im- portant were the king's functions, as the medium of this inter- course : the oracle always upheld his dignity, and often even seconded his underhand personal schemes. 3 Sustained by so great a force of traditional reverence, a Spar- tan king, of military talent and individual energy, like Agesilaus, exercised great ascendency ; but such cases were very rare, and we shall find the king throughout the historical period only a secondary force, available on special occasions. For real politi- cal orders, in the greatest cases as well as the least, the Spar- tan looks to the council of ephors, to whom obedience is paid with a degree of precision which nothing short of the Spartan discipline could have brought about, by the most powerful 1 Xenoph. Hcllcn. iii. 3, 1. 'Aytf trv^e crfpvortpac 7; /car' fiv&fuirc*

• For the privileges of the Spartan kings, see Ilcrodot. vi. 56-57; Xeto

plion, Rcpubl. Laced, c. 15; Plato, Alcib. i. p. 123. Ilcrodot. vi. 66, and Thucyd. v. 16, furnish examples of this. ​LARGE POWERS OF THE EPIIORS. 355 eitixens not less than by the meanest. 1 Both the internal police and the foreign affairs of the state are in the hands of the ephors, r/ho exercise an authority approaching to despotism, and alto- gether without accountability. They appoint and direct the body of three hundred young and active citizens, who performed the immediate police service of Laconia: they cashier at pleasure any subordinate functionary, and inflict fine or arrest at their own discretion : they assemble the military force, on occasion of foreign war, and determine its destination, though the king has the actual command of it : they imprison on suspicion even the regent or the king himself: 2 they sit as judges, sometimes indi- vidually and sometimes as a board, upon causes and complaints of great moment, and they judge without the restraint of written laws, the use of which was peremptorily forbidden by a special Rhetra, 3 1 Xenophon, Republ. Laced, c. 8, 2, and Agesilaus, cap. 7, 2. 2 Xenoph. Rep. Laced. 8, 4 ; Thucydid. i. 131 ; Aristot. Polit. ii. 6, 14 - "/.lav fj.eyu7.7jv Kal laorvpavvov. Plutarch, Lycurg. c. 13, f vouotf e-yypa<j>oi(. Plato, in his Republic, in like manner disapproves of any general enact- ments, tying up beforehand the discretion of perfectly educated men, like his guardians, who will always do what is best on each special occasion (Re- public, iv. p. 425). 3 Besides the primitive constitutional Rhetra mentioned above, page 345, various other Rhetras are also attributed to Lykurgus : and Plutarch singles out three under the title of " The Three Rhetrae," as if they were either the only genuine Lykurgean Rhetrae, or at least stood distinguished by some peculiar sanctity from all others (Plutarch, Qusest. Roman, c. 87. Agesilaus, c. 26). These three were (Plutarch, Lycurg. c. 13 ; comp. Apophth. Lacon. p. 227) : 1. Not to resort to written laws. 2. Not to employ in house-building any other tools than the axe and the saw. 3. Not to undertake military expeditions often against the same enemies. I agree with Nitzsch (Histor. Homer, pp. 61-65) that these Rhetrae, though doubtless not actually Lykurgean, are, nevertheless, ancient (that is, probably dating somewhere between 650-550 B. c.) and not the mere fictions of recent writers, as Schomann (Ant. Jur. Pub. iv. 1 ; xiv. p. 132) and Urlichs (p. 241 ) seem to believe. And though Plutarch specifies the number three, yet there sqems to have been still more, as the language of Tyrtseus must be held to indicate : out of which, from causes which we do not now understand, the three which Plutarch distinguishes excited particular notice. These maxims or precepts of state were probably preserved along with the dicta of the Delphian oracle, from which authority, doubtless, many of them may have emanated, such as the famous ancient prophecy ' ​856 HISTORY OF GREECE. erroneously connected with Lykurgus himself, but at any rat* ancient. On certain occasions of peculiar moment, they take the sense of the senate, and the public assembly, 1 such seems to have been the habit on questions of war and peace. It ap- pears, however, that persons charged with homicide, treason, or capital offences generally, were tried before the senate. We read of several instances in which the kings were tried and severely fined, and in which their houses were condemned to be razed to the ground, probably by the senate, on the proposition of the ephors : in one instance, it seems that the ephors inflicted by their own authority a line even upon Agesilaus. 2 War and peace appear to have been submitted, on most, if not on all occasions, to the senate and the public assembly ; no matter could reach the latter until it had passed through the former. And we find some few occasions on which the decision of the public assembly was a real expression of opinion, and operative as to the result, as, for example, the assembly which immedi ZKuprav 67.EL, d/l/lo 61 ovdlv (Krebs, Lectioncs Diodorcae, p. 140. Aristotcl. Ilept Tlo/Urawv, ap. Schol. ad Eurip. Andromach. 446. Schumann, Comm ad Plutarch. Ag. et Cleomen. p. 123). Nitzsch has good remarks in explanation of the prohibition against " using written laws." This prohibition was probably called forth by the circumstance that other Grecian states were employing lawgivers like Zaleukus, Drako, Charondas, or Solon, to present them, at once, with a series of written enactments, or provisions. Some Spartans may have proposed that an anal- ogous lawgiver should be nominated for Sparta : upon which proposition a negative was put in the most solemn manner possible, by a formal Rhetra, per- haps passed after advice from Delphi. There is no such contradiction, there- fore, (when we thus conceive the event,) as some authors represent, in forbid- ding the use of written laws by a Rhetra itself, put into writing. To employ a phrase in greater analogy with modern controversies " The Spartans, on the direction of the oracle, resolve to retain their unwritten common law, and not to codify." 1 *EJc|e Tolf 'E06/>o:f icai ry iKKTirjcria (Xen. Hellen. iii. 2, 23).

• The case of Leotychides, Herod, vi. 72 ; of Pleistoanax, Thucyd. ii. 21-v.

16 ; A'jis the Second, Thucyd. v. 63 ; Agis tfie Third, Plutarch, Agis, c. 19 : se 1'lutarch, Agesilaus, c. 5. Respecting the ephors generally, see Wachsmuth, Hellen. Alterthum skunde, v. 4, 42, vol. i. p. 223 ; Cragius, Rep. Lac. ii. 4, p. 121. Aristotle distinctly marks the ephors as uvvxevdvvoi : so that the ston alluded to briefly in the Rhetoric (iii. 18) is not easy to be undcrsiood. ​SENATE AND PUBLIC ASSEMBLY. 357 Rtely preceded and resolved upon the Peloponnesian war. Here, in addition to the serious hazard of the case, and the general caution of a Spartan temperament, there was the great personal weight and experience of king Archidamus opposed to the war, though the ephors were favorable to it. 1 .The public assembly, under such peculiar circumstances, really manifested ah opinion 1 " and came to a division. But, for the most part, it seems to have been little better than an inoperative formality. The general rule permitted no open discussion, nor could any private citizen speak except by special leave from the magistrates. Perhaps even the general liberty to discuss, if given, might have been of no avail, for not only was there no power of public speaking, but no habit of canvassing public measures, at Sparta ; nothing was more characteristic of the government than the .eslcenie^jecrecy of i{s_j)roceedings. 2 The propositions brought forward by thlT magistrates were either accepted or rejected, without any license of amending. There could be no attraction to invite the citizen to be present at such an assembly : and we may gather from the language of Xenophon that, in his time, it consisted only of a certain number of notables specially summoned in addition to the senate, which latter body is itself called " the lesser Ekklc- sia. 3 " Indeed, the constant and formidable diminution in the number of qualified citizens was alone sufficient to thin the attend- ance of the assembly, as well as to break down any imposing force which it might once have possessed. 1 Thucyd. i. 67, 80, 87. S-vTiA-oyov afyuv aiiruv TOV dudo-a. 2 Thucyd. iv. 68. TJJ<; TrohiTeiaf TO KPVXTOV : compare iv. 74 ; also, his remarkable expression about so distinguished a man as Brasidas, TJV 6e OVK utivvaroc, o>c AaKedaifioviof, tixelv, and iv. 24, about the Lacedaemonian envoys to Athens. Compare Schomann, Antiq. Jur. Pub. Grsec. iv. 1, 10, p. 122. Aristotel. Polit. ii. 8, 3. 3 Tf/v fii/cpav KatovfiEVTjv eKK/.r/aiav (Xenoph. Ilellcn. iii. 3, 8), which means the -yepovrsf, or senate, and none besides, except the ephors, who con- voked it. (See Lachmann, Span. Verfass. sect. 12, p. 216.) What is still more to be noted, is the expression ol EKK?^IJTOI as the equivalent of r> eKKTirj- cia (compare Ilellen. v. 2, 11 ; vi. 3, 3), evidently showing a special and limited number of persons convened : fee, also, ii. 4, 38 ; iv. 6, 3 ; v. 2, 33 ; Thucyd. v. 77. The expression ol EKH^TITOL could never have got into use as an equivalent for the Athenian ecclesia. ​358 HISTORY OF GKKECE. An assembly thus circumstanced, though always retained as a formality, and though its consent on considerable matters and for the passing of laws (which, however, seems to have been a rare occurrence at Sparta) was indispensable, could be very little of a practical check upon the administration of the ephors. The senate, a permanent body, with the kings included in it, was the only real check upon them, and must have been to a certain extent a concurrent body in the government, though the large and imposing language in which its political supremacy is spoken of by Demosthenes and Isokrates exceeds greatly the reality of the case. Its most important function was that of a court of criminal justice, before whom every man put on trial for his life was arraigned. 1 But both in this and in their other duties, we find the senators as well as the kings and the ephors charged with corruption and venality. 2 As they were not appointed until sixty years of age, and then held their offices for life, we may readily believe that some of them continued to act after the period of extreme and disqualifying senility, which, though the extraordinary respect of the Lacedaemonians for old age would doubtless tolerate it, could not fail to impair the influence of the body as a concurrent element of government. The brief sketch here given of the Spartan government will show that, though Greek theorists found a difficulty in determin- ing under what class they should arrange it, 3 it was in substance 1 Xcnoph. Rcpubl. Laced. 10; Aristot. Polit.ii. 6, 17 ; iii. 1,7; Demosthcn. cont. Leptin. c. 23, p. 489 ; Isokrates, Or. xii. (Panathenaic.) p. 266. Tho language of Demosthenes seems particularly inaccurate. Plutarch (Agesilaus, c. 32), on occasion of some suspected conspirators, ,vho were put to death by Agesilaus and the ephors, when Sparta was in imminent danger from the attack of Epameinondas, asserts, that this was the first time that any Spartan had ever been put to death without trial.

• Aristot. Polit. ii. 6, 18. Compare, also, Thucydid. i. 131, about the guilty

Pausanias, xcaTevuv x9W a(sl ttaXbitetV TJ/V diaflohqv ; Herodot. v. 72 ; Thucyd. v. 16, about the kings Leotychides and Pleistoanax ; the brave and able Gylippus, Plutarch, Lysand. c. 16. 8 The ephors are sometimes considered as a democratical element, because every Spartan citizen had a chance of becoming ephor; sometimes as a despotical element, because in the exercise of their power they were subjeo* to little restraint and no responsibility : see Plato, Legg. iv. p 7J.2 ; Aristot Polit. ii. 3, 10 ; iv. 7, 4, 5. ​SPARTAN CONSTITUTION OLIGARCHIC L. 359 ft close, unscrupulous, and well-obeyed oligarchy, including within it, as subordinate, those portions which had once been dominant, the kings and the senate, and softening the odium, without abating the mischief, of the system, by its annual change of the ruling ephors. We must at the same time distinguish the government from the Lykurgean discipline and education, which doubtless tended much to equalize rich and poor, in respect to practical life, habits, and enjoyments. Herodotus (and seem- ingly, also, Xenophon) thought that the form just described was that which the government had originally received from the hand of Lykurgus. Now, though there is good reason for supposing otherwise, and for believing the ephors to be a subsequent addi- tion, yet, the mere fact that Herodotus was so informed at Sparta, points our attention to one important attribute of the Spartan polity, which it is proper to bring into view. This attri- bute is, its unparalleled steadiness, for four or five successive centuries, in the midst of governments like the Grecian, all of which had undergone more or less of fluctuation. No considera- ble revolution not even any palpable or foi'mal change oc- curred in it, from the days of the Messenian war, down to those of Agis the Third : in spite of the irreparable blow which the power and territory of the state sustained from Epameinondas and the Thebans, the form of government, nevertheless, remained unchanged. It was the only government in Greece which could trace an unbroken, peaceable descent from a high antiquity, and from its real or supposed founder. Now this was one of the main circumstances (among others which will hereafter be men- tioned) of the astonishing ascendency which the Spartans ac- quired over the Hellenic mind, and which they will not be found at all to deserve by any superior ability in the conduct of affairs. The steadiness of their political sympathies, exhibited at one time, by putting down the tyrants, or despots, at another, by overthrowing the democracies, stood in the place of ability ; and even the recognized failings of their government were often covered by the sentiment of respect for its early commencement and uninterrupted continuance. If such a feeling acted on tho Greeks generally, 1 much more powerful was its action upon the 1 A specimen of the way in which this antiquity was lauded, may be seen in Isokrates, Or. xii. (Panathenaic.) p. 288 ​g(50 HISTORY OF GREECE. Spartans themselves, in inflaming that haughty exclusiveness for which they stood distinguished. And it is to be observed that the Spartan mind continued to be cast on the old-fashioned scale, and unsusceptible of modernizing influences, longer tLan that of most other people of Greece. The ancient legendary faith, and devoted submission to the Delphian oracle, remained among them unabated, at a time when various influences had consider- ably undermined it among their fellow-Hellens and neighbors. But though the unchanged title and forms of the government thus contributed to its imposing effect, both at home and abroad, the causes of internal degeneracy were not the less really at work, in undermining its efficiency. It has been already stated, that the number of qualified citizens went on continually diminishing, and even of this diminished number a larger proportion than be- fore were needy, since the landed property tended constantly to concentrate itself in fewer hands. There grew up in this way a body of discontent, which had not originally existed, both among the poorer citizens, and among those who had lost their fran- chise as citizens ; thus aggravating the danger arising from Perireki and Helots, who will be presently noticed. "We pass from the political constitution of Sparta to the civil ranks and distribution, economical relations, and lastly, the pe- culiar system of habits, education, and discipline, said to have been established among the Lacedaemonians by Lykurgus. Here, again, we shall find ourselves imperfectly informed as to the ex- isting institutions, and surrounded by confusion when we try to explain how those institutions arose. It seems, however, ascertained that the Dorians, in all their settlements, were divided into three tribes, the Hylleis, the Pamphyli, and the Dymanes : in all Dorian cities, moreover, there were distinguished Herakleid families, from whom oekists were chosen when new colonies were formed. These three tribes can be traced at Argos, Sikyon, Epidaurus, Troszen, Megara, Korkyra, and seemingly, also, at Sparta. 1 The Hylleis recog- nized, as their eponym and progenitor, Hyllus, the son of Hera- 1 Herodot. v. 68 ; Stcphan. Byz. 'T?.Af and &V/MV O. Miiller, Dorians, Si. 5, 2 ; Boeckh. ad Corp. Inscrip. No. 1123. Thucjd. i. 24, about Phallus, the Herakleid, at Corinth. ​klês, and were therefore, in their own belief, descended from Hêraklês himself: we may suppose the Herakleids, specially so called, comprising the two regal families, to have been the elder brethren of the tribe of Hylleis, the whole of whom are sometimes spoken of as Herakleids, or descendants of Hêraklês.^[202] But there seem to have been also at Sparta, as in other Dorian towns, non-Dorian inhabitants, apart from these three tribes, and embodied in tribes of their own. One of these, the Ægeids, said to have come from Thebes as allies of the Dorian invaders, is named by Aristotle, Pindar, and Herodotus,^[203]—while the Ægialeis at Sikyôn, the tribe Hyrnêthia at Argos and Epidaurus, and others, whose titles we do not know, at Corinth, represent, in like manner, the non-Dorian portions of their respective communities.^[204] At Corinth, the total number of tribes is said to have been eight.^[205] But at Sparta, though we seem to make out the existence of the three Dorian tribes, we do not know how many tribes there were in all: still less do we know what relation the Obæ, or Obes, another subordinate distribution of the people, bore to the tribes. In the ancient Rhetra of Lykurgus, the Tribes and Obés are directed to be maintained unaltered: but the statement of O. Müller and Boeckh^[206] that there were thirty ​862 . HISTORY OF GREECE. Obes in all, ten to each tribe rests upon no other evidence than a peculiar punctuation of this Rhetra, which various other critics reject ; and seemingly, with good reason. We are thus left with- out any information respecting the Obe, though we know that it was an old, peculiar, and lasting division among the Spartan people, since it occurs in the oldest Rhetra of Lykurgus, as well as in late inscriptions of the date of the Roman empire. In similar inscriptions, and in the account of Pausanias, there in, however, recognized a classification of Spartans distinct from and independent of the three old Dorian tribes, and founded upon the different quarters of the city, Limnze, Mesoa, Pitane, and Kynosura ; l from one of these four was derived the usual de- scription of a Spartan in the days of Herodotus. There is reason to suppose that the old Dorian tribes became antiquated at Sparta, (as the four old Ionian tribes did at Athens,) and that the topical classification derived from the quarters of the city superseded it, these quarters having been originally the sepa- rate villages, of the aggregate of which Sparta was composed. 2 That the number of the old senators, thirty, was connected with the three Dorian tribes, deriving ten members from each, is probable enough, though there is no proof of it. Of the population of Laconia, three main divisions are recog- nized, Spartans, Perioekt, and Helots. The first of the three were the full qualified citizens, who lived in Sparta itself, fulfilled all the exigences of the Lykurgean discipline, paid their quota to the SySfeitia, or public mess, and were alone eligible to honors 3 or 1 Pausan. iii. 16, 6; Herodot. iii. 55; Bocckh, Corp. Inscript. Nos. 1241, 1338, 1347, 1425 j Stcph. Byz. v. Meaoa; Strabo, viii. p. 364; Hesych. v. Tliravri. There is much confusion and discrepancy of opinion about the Spartan tribes. Cragins admits six (De Republ. Lacon. i. 6) ; Meursius, eight (Rep. Lacon. i. 7): Barthe'lemy (Voyage du Jeune Anacharsis, iv. p. 185) makes them five. Manso has discussed the subject at large, but I think not very satisfactorily, in the eighth Beilagc to the first book of his History of Sparta (vol. ii. p. 125) ; and Dr. ThirlwalPs second Appendix (vol. i. p. 517) botli notices all the different modern opinions on this obscure topic, and adds several useful criticisms. Our scanty stock of original evidence .leaves much room for divergent hypotheses, and little chance of any certain conclusion. 2 Thucyd. i. 10.

• One or two Perioekic officers appear in military command towards th ​POPULATION OF LACOXIA. 363

public offices. These men had neither time, nor taste even, for cultivation of the land, still less for trade or handicraft : such occupations were inconsistent with the prescribed training, even if they had not been positively interdicted. They were maintained from the lands round the city, and from the large proportion of Laconia which belonged to them ; the land being tilled for them by Helots, who seem to have paid over to them a fixed propor- tion of the produce ; in some cases, at least, as much as one- half. 1 Each Spartan retained his qualification, and transmit- ted it to his children, on two conditions, first, that of sub- mitting to the prescribed discipline ; next, that of paying, each, his stipulated quota to the public mess, which was only maintained by these individual contributions. The multiplication of children in the poorer families, after acquisitions of new terri- tory ceased, continually augmented both the number and the proportion of citizens who were unable to fulfil the second of these conditions, and who therefore lost their franchise : so that there arose towards the close of the Peloponnesian war, a dis- tinction, among the Spartans themselves, unknown to the earlier times, the reduced number of fully qualified citizens being called The Equals, or Peers, the disfranchised poor, The Infe- riors. The latter, disfranchised as they were, nevertheless, did not become Perioeki : it was probably still competent to them to resume their qualification, should any favorable accident enable them to make their contributions to the public mess. The Perioekus was also a freeman and a citizen, not of Sparta, but of some one of the hundred townships of Laconia. 2 Both he end of the Pefoponnesian war (Thucyd. viii. 6, 22), but these seem rare exceptions, even as to foreign service by sea or land, while a Pcricekus, as magistrate at Sparta, was unheard of. 1 One half was paid by the enslaved Messenians (Tyrtaeus, Frag. 4, Bergk): ijfiiav nuv, oaaov tapirov upovpa ijtepei. 2 Strabo, viii. p. 362. Stephanas Byz. alludes to this total of one hundred townships in his notice of several different items among them, 'Avduva irofaf AaKuviKTj pia TUV KO.TOV ; also. v. 'A0po<5t<rtaf, 'Bolai, Avppaxtov, etc: bat he probably copied Strabo, and, therefore, cannot pass for a distinct authority. The total of one hundred townships belongs to the maximum of Spartan power, after the conquest and before the severance of MessC' nia; for Aulon, Boise, and Methone (the extreme places) are included among them. ​364 HISTORY OF GREECK. and the community to which he belonged received their orders only from Sparta, having no political sphere of their own, and nc share in determining the movements of the Spartan authorities. In the island of Kythera, 1 which formed one of .the Pericekic townships, a Spartan bailiff resided as administrator. But whether the same was the case with others, we cannot affirm : nor is it safe to reason from one of these townships to all, there may have been considerable differences in the mode of dealing with one and another. For they were spread through the whole of ' Laconia, some near and some distant from Sparta : the free inhabi- tants of Amyklas must have been Perireki, as well as those of Ky- thera, Thuria, JEtheia, or Aulon : nor can we presume that the feeling on the part of the Spartan authorities towards all of them was the same. Between the Spartans and their neighbors, the numerous Perireki of Amyklae, there must have subsisted a degree of intercourse and mutual relation in which the more distant Periceki did not partake, besides, that both the religious edifices and the festivals of Amyklre were most reverentially adopted by the Spartans and exalted into a national dignity : and we seem to perceive, on some occasions, a degree of consideration manifested for the Amyklsean hoplites, 2 such as perhaps other Periocki might not have obtained. The class-name, Perioeki, 3 circum- Mr. Clinton (Fast. Hellen. ii. p. 401) has collected the names of above sixty out of the one hundred. 1 Thucyd. iv. 53. 1 Xenophon, Hellen. iv. 5, 11; Herod, ix. 7; Thucyd. v. 18-23. TheAmyk- lacan festival of the Hyacinthia, and the Amyklasan temple of Apollo, seem to stand foremost in the mind of the Spartan authorities. VTOI KOI ol kyyvrara ruv irepioiKuv (Thucyd. iv. 8), who are ready before the rest, and march against the Athenians at Pylus, probably include the Amyklseans. Laconia generally is called by Thucydides (iii. 16) as the irepiotKif of Sparta. 3 The word mpioiKot is sometimes used to signify simply " surrounding neighbor states," in its natural geographical sense: see Thucyd. i. 17, and Aristot. Polit. ii. 7, 1. But the more usual employment of it is, to mean, the unprivileged or less privileged members of the same political aggregate living without the city in contrast with the full-privileged burghers who lived within it. Aristotle uses it to signify, in Krete, the class corresponding to the Lacedaemonian Helots (Pol. ii. 7, 3) : there did not exist in Krete any class corresponding to the Lacedaemonian Periceki. In Krete, there were not two stages of infe​PERKEKI. 365 residents, or dwellers around the city, usually denoted native inhabitants of inferior political condition as contrasted with the riority, there was only one, and that one is marked by the word while the Lacedaemonian Perioekus had the Helot below him. To an Athen- ian the word conveyed the idea of undefined degradation. To understand better the status of the Pericekus, we may contrast him with the Metcekus, or Metic. The latter resides in the city, but he is an alien resident on sufferance, not a native: he pays a special tax, stands excluded from all political functions, and cannot even approach the magis- trate except through a friendly citizen, or Prostates) etri -Kpoarurov olxslv Lycurgns cont. Leocrat. c. 21-53) : he bears arms for the defence of the state. The situation of a Metic was, however, very different in different cities of Greece. At Athens, that class were well-protected in person and prop- erty, numerous and domiciliated : at Sparta, there were at first none, the Xenelasy excluded them ; but this must have been relaxed long before the days of Agis the Third. The Perioekus differs from the Metic. in being a native of the soil, subject by birth to the city law. M. Kopstadt (in his Dissertation above cited, on Lacedaemonian affairs, sect. 7, p. 60) expresses much surprise at that which I advance in this note respecting Krete and Lacedsemon, that in Krete there was no class of men analogous to the Lacedaemonian Periceki, but only two classes, t. e. free citizens and Helots. He thinks that this position is " prorsus falsum." But I advance nothing more here than what is distinctly stated by Aristo tie, as Kopstadt himself admits (pp. 60, 71). Aristotle calls the subject class in Krete by the name of liepioiKot. And in this case, the general presump- tions go far to sustain the authority of Aristotle. For Sparta was a domi- nant or capital city, including in its dependence not only a considerable territory, but a considerable number of inferior, distinct, organized townships. In Krete, on the contrary, each autonomous state included only a town with its circumjacent territory, but without any annexed townships. There was, therefore, no basis for the intermediate class called, in Laconia, Periceki : just as Kopstadt himself remarks (p. 78) about the Dorian city of Megara. There were only the two classes of free Kretan citizens, and serf-cultiva- tors in various modifications and subdivisions. Kopstadt (following Hoeck, Kreta, b. iii. vol. iii. p. 23) says that the authority of Aristotle on this point is overborne by that of Dosiadas and, Sosikrates, authors who wrote specially on Kretan affairs. Now it" we were driven to make a choice, I confess that I should prefer the testimony of Aristotle, considering that we know little or nothing respecting the other two. But in this case I do not think that we are driven to make a choice : Dosiadas (ap. Athena?, xiv. p. 143) is not cited in terms, so that we cannot affirm him to contradict Aristotle : and Sosikrates (upon whom Hoeck and Kopstadt rely) says something which does not necessarily contradict him, ​366 HISTORY OF GREECE. full-privileged burghers who lived in the city, but it did not mark any precise or uniform degree of inferiority. It is sometimes so used by Aristotle as to imply a condition no better than that of the Helots, so that, in a large sense, all the inhabitants of Laconia (Helots as well as the rest) might have been included in it. But when used in reference to Laconia, it bears a technical sense, whereby it is placed in contraposition with the Spartan on one side, and with the Helot on the other : it means, native free- men and proprietors, grouped in subordinate communities l with more or less power of local management, but (like the subject towns belonging to Bern, Zurich, and most of the old thirteen cantons of Switzerland) embodied in the Lacedaemonian aggre- gate, which was governed exclusively by the kings, senate, and citizens of Sparta. When we come to describe the democracy of Athens after the revolution of Kleisthenes, we shall find the demes, or local town- ships and villages of Attica, incorporated as equal and constituent fractions of the integer called The Deme (or The City) of Athens, so that a demot of Acharnae or Sphettus is at the same time a full Athenian citizen. But the relation of the Perkekic townships to Sparta is one of inequality and obedience, though both belong to the same political aggregate, and make up together the free Lacedaemonian community. In like manner, Orneas and other places were townships of men personally free, but politically dependent on Argos, Akraephias on Thebes, Chaeroneia on Orchomenus, and various Thessalian towns on Pharsalus and Larissa. 2 Such, moreover, was, in the main, the state into which but admits of being explained so as to place the two witnesses in harmony with each other. Sosikrates says (ap. Athenae. vi. p. 263), Ti)v pev KOIVTJV fiovhetav ol Kpf/r Kokovci jivo'iav. TT/V <5e idiav uQafiiuTaf, rotif 6e Trepiotnove inrriiioovf. Now the word Trepioiitavc seems to be here used just as Aristotle would have used 't, to comprehend the Kretan serfs universally : it is not distinguished from rivuirai and u^a^iiurai, but comprehends both of them as different species under a generic term The authority of Aristotle affords a" reason for pre- ferring to construe the passage in this manner, and the words appear to ma to admit of it fairly. 1 The To?.e*f of the Lacedaemonian Perioeki are often noticed : see Xeno phon (Agesilaus, ii. 24 ; Laced. Repub. xv. 3 ; Hellenic, vi 5, 21 ). 2 Herod, viii. 73-135 ; Xenoph. Hellen. vi. 1,8; Thucyd. iv. 76-94. ​SUPPOSED ORIGIN OF THE PKRKEKI. 3G? Athens would have brought her allies, and Thebes the free Boeo tian communities, 1 if the policy of either of these cities had permanently prospered. This condition carried with it a sentiment of degradation, and a painful negation of that autonomy for which every Grecian community thirsted ; while being maintained through superior force, it had a natural tendency, perhaps without the deliberate wish of the reigning city, to degenerate into prac- tical oppression. But in addition to this general tendency, the peculiar education of a Spartan, while it imparted force, fortitude, and regimental precision, was at the same time so rigorously peculiar, that it rendered him harsh, unaccommodating, and incapable of sympathizing with the ordinary march of Grecian feeling, not to mention the rapacity and love of money, whicL is attested, by good evidence, as belonging to the Spartan charac- ter, 2 and which we should hardly have expected to find in the pupils of Lykurgus. As Harmosts out of their native city, 3 and in relations with inferiors, the Spartans seem to have been more unpopular than other Greeks, and we may presume that a similar haughty roughness pervaded their dealings with their own Periceki ; who were bound to them certainly by no tie of affection, and who for the most part revolted after the battle of Leuktra, as soon as the invasion of Laconia by Epameinondas enabled them to do so with safety. Isokrates, taking his point of departure from the old Herakleitl legend, with its instantaneous conquest and triple partition of all Dorian Peloponnesus, among the three Herakleid brethren, deduces the first origin of the Perirekic townships from internal seditions among the conquerors of Sparta. According to him, the period immediately succeeding the conquest was one of fierce 1 Xenoph. Hellen. vi. 3, 5, 9, 19. Isokrates, writing in the days of Th&- ban power, after the battle of Leuktra, characterizes the Boeotian towns as rrepioiKoi of Thebes (Or. viii. De Pace, p. 182) ; compare Orat. xiv. Plataic. pp. 299-303. Xenophon holds the same language, Hellen. v. 4,46: com pare Plutarch, Agesilans, 28. 2 Aristot. Polit. ii. 6, 23. 3 Thucyi. i. 77-95 ; vi. 105. Isokrates (Panathenaic. Or. xii. p. 283), Zjraprwra? de vTrepOKTiKotis /cat Ttofa/UKOvf Kai Tr^eovf/trac, oiovf nsp aiiTotJf elvai Travrff vneiA^(j>afft. Compare his ratio de Pace (Or. viii. pp. ISO* 181) ; Oratio Pancgyr. (Or. iv. pp. 64-67). ​368 HISTORY OF GREECE. intestine warfare iu newly-conquered Sparta, between the Few and the Many, the oligarchy and the demus. The former being victorious, two important measures were the consequences of their victory. They banished th3 defeated Many from Sparta into Laconia, retaining the residence in Sparta exclusively for themselves ; they assigned to them the smallest and least fertile half of Laconia, monopolizing the larger and better for them- selves ; and they disseminated them into many very small town- ships, or subordinate little communities, while they concentrated themselves entirely at Sparta. To these precautions for insuring dominion, they added another not less important. They estab- lished among their own Spartan citizens equality of legal privi- lege and democratical government, so as to take the greatest securities for internal harmony ; which harmony, according to the judgment of Isokrates, had been but too effectually perpetu- ated, enabling the Spartans to achieve their dominion over oppressed Greece, like the accord of pirates 1 for the spolia- tion of the peaceful. The Perioekic townships, he telb us, while deprived of all the privileges of freemen, were exposed to all the toils, as well as to an unfair share of the dangers, of war. The Spartan authorities put them in situations and upon enter- prises which they deemed too dangerous for their own citizens : and, what was still worse, the ephors possessed the power of putting to death, without any form of preliminary trial, as many Perioeki as they pleased. 2 The statement here delivered by Isokrates, respecting the first origin of the distinction of Spartans and Perioeki, is nothing better than a conjecture, nor is it even a probable conjecture, since it is based on the historical truth of the old Herakleid legend, and transports the disputes of his own time, between the oligarchy and the demus, into an early period, to which such dis- ' Isokrates, Panathenaic. Or. xii. p. 280. VOTE oMrif uv avrove 6iu ye r'r/v bfiovoiav dutaiuc eTratveffmv, oMev pCMov ?/ roi-f /cara;roi'-7-af Kai /tjcrrac Kai rotif nepl raf uA/laf udiKtaf ovraf Kal yap tuelvoi aQiaiv avrolf

• Isokrates, Orat. xii. (Panathenaic.) pp. 270-271. The statement in the

inme oration (p. 246), that the Lacedaemonians " had put to death without trial more Greeks (irfaiovf ruv 'EAA^vwv) than had ever been tried at Athena since Athens was a city, refers to their allies or dependents out of Laconia ​TREATMENT OF THE PERIQ.Kr. 369 putes do not belong. Nor is there anything, so far as our knowl- edge of Grecian history extends, to bear out his assertion, that the Spartans took to themselves the least dangerous post in the field, and threw undue peril upon their Perioeki. Such dastardly temper was not among the sins of Sparta ; but it is undoubtedly true that, as the number of citizens continually diminished, so the Perioeki came to constitute, in the later times, a larger and larger proportion of the Spartan force. Yet the power which Isokrates represents to have been vested in the ephors, of putting to death Perioeki without preliminary trial, we may fully believe to be i eal, and to have been exercised as often as the occasion seemed to call for it. We shall notice, presently, the way in which these magistrates dealt with the Helots, and shall see ample reason from thence to draw the conclusion that, whenever the ephors believed any man to be dangerous to the public peace, whether an inferior Spartan, a Pericekus, or a Helot, the most sum- mary mode of getting rid of him would be considered as the best. Towards Spartans of rank and consideration, they were doubtless careful and measured in their application of punish- ment, but the same necessity for circumspection did not exist with regard to the inferior classes : moreover, the feeling that the exigences of justice required a fair trial before punishment was inflicted, belongs to Athenian associations much more than to Spartan. How often any such summary executions may have taken place, we have no information. We may remark that the account which Isokrates has here given of the origin of the Laconian Perioeki is not essentially irreconcilable with that of Ephorus, 1 who recounted that Eurys- thenes and Prokles, on first conquering Laconia, had granted to the preexisting population equal rights with the Dorians, but that Agis, son of Eurysthenes, had deprived them of this equal position, and degraded them into dependent subjects of the latter. At least, the two narratives both agree in presuming that the Perioeki had once enjoyed a better position, from which they had been extruded by violence. And the policy which Isokrates ascribes to the victorious Spartan oligarchs, of driving out the demus from concentrated residence in the city to disseminated 1 Ephortis, Fragm. 18. e<l. Mane ; ap. Strabo, viii. p. 365. VOL. n. 16* 24oc. ​870 HISTORY OF GREECE. residence in many separate and insignificant townships, scorns to be the expression of that proceeding which in his time was numbered among the most efficient precautions against refractory subjects, the Dioekisis, or breaking up of a town-aggregate into villages. We cannot assign to the statement any historical authority. 1 Moreover, the division of Laconia into six districts, together with its distribution into townships (or the distribution of settlers into preexisting townships), which Ephorus ascribed to the first Dorian kings, are all deductions from the primitive legendary account, which described the Dorian conquest as achieved by one stroke, and must all be dismissed, if we sup- pose it to have been achieved gradually. This gradual conquest is admitted by 0. Miiller, and by many of the ablest subsequent inquirers, who, nevertheless, seem to have the contrary suppo- sition involuntarily present to their minds when they criticize the early Spartan history, and always unconsciously imagine the Spartans as masters of all Laconia. We cannot even assert that Laconia was ever under one government before the consumma- tion of the successive conquests of Sparta. Of the assertion of O. Miiller repeated by Schumann 2 " that the difference of races was strictly preserved, and that 1 Dr. Arnold (in his Dissertation on the Spartan Constitution, appended to the first volume of his Thucydides, p. 643) places greater confidence in the historical value of this narrative of Isokrates than I am inclined to do. On the other hand, Mr. G. C. Lewis, in his Review of Dr. Arnold's Disser- tation (Philological Museum, vol. ii. p. 45), considers the " account of Iso- krates as completely inconsistent with that of Ephorus ;" which is saying rather more, perhaps, than the tenor of the two strictly warrants. In Mr. Lewis's excellent article, most of the difficult points respecting the Spartan constitution will be found raised and discussed in a manner highly instruc tivc. Another point in the statement of Isokrates is, that the Dorians, at the time of the original conquest of Laconia, were only two thousand in number (Or. xii. Panath. p. 286). Mr. Clinton rejects this estimate as too small, and observes, " I suspect that Isokrates. in describing the numbers of the Dorians at the original conquest, has adapted to the description the actual numbers of the Spartans in his own time.' (Fast. Hellen. ii. p. 408.) This seems to me a probable conjecture, and it illustrates as well the absence of data under which Isokrates or his informants labored, as th method which they took to supply the deficiency. f Schomann, Antiq. Juiisp. Grsecorum, iv. 1, 5, p. 1 12. ​DISTINCTIONS OF RA'JE IN LACONIA. 37] the Perioeki were always considered as Achaeans," I find nc proof, and I believe it to be erroneous. Respecting Pharis, Gercnthrse, and Amykloe, three Perioekic towns, Pausanias gives us to understand that the preexisting inhabitants either retired or were expelled on the Dorian conquest, and that a Dorian pop- ulation replaced them. 1 Without placing great faith in this statement, for which Pausanias could hardly have any good authority, we may yet accept it as representing the probabilities of the case, and as counterbalancing the unsupported hypothesis of Miiller. The Perkekic townships were probably composed either of Dorians entirely, or of Dorians incorporated in greater or less proportion with the preexisting inhabitants. But what- ever difference of race there may once have been, it was effaced before the historical times, 2 during which we find no proof of 1 Pausan. iii. 2, 6 ; iii. 22, 5. The statement of Miiller is to be found (History of the Dorians, iii. 2, 1) : he quotes a passage of Ptiusanias, which is noway to the point. Mr. G. C. Lewis (Plulolog. Mus. ut. sup. p. 41) is of the same opinion as Miiller. 2 M. Kopstadt (in the learned Dissertation which I have before alluded to, De Rcram Laconicarum Constitutionis Lycurgese Origine ct Indole, cap. ii p. 31) controverts this position respecting the Perioeki. He appears to un- derstand it in a sense which my words hardly present, at least, a sense which I did not intend them to present : as if the majority of inhabitants in each of the hundred Perioekic towns were Dorians, " ut per centum Lacoiiias oppida distributi ubique majorem incolarum numerum efficerent," (p 32.) I meant only to affirm that some of the Perioekic towns, such as Amyk- lae, were wholly, or almost wholly, Dorian ; many others of them partially Dorian. But what may have been the comparative numbers (probably dif- ferent in each town ) of Dorian and non-Dorian inhabitants, there are no means of determining. M. Kopstadt (p. 35) admits that Amyklse, Pharis, and Geronthrse, were Pericekic towns peopled by Dorians ; and if this be true, it negatives the general maxim on the faith of which he contradicts what I affirm : his maxim is nunquam Dorienses a Doriensibus nisi bello victi erant, civitate sequoque jure pvivati sunt," (p. 31.) It is very un- safe to lay down such large positions respecting a supposed uniformity of Dorian rules and practice. The high authority of 0. Miiller has been ex- tremely misleading in this respect. It is plain that Herodotus (compare his expression, viii. 73 and i. 145) conceived all the free inhabitants of Laconia not as Achaean?, but as Dorians. He believes in the story of the legend, that the Achseans, driven out of Laco aia by the invading Dorians and Herakleidse, occupied the territory in the ​372 HISTORY OF GREECE. Aclia^ans, known as such, in Laconia. The Herakleids, th jEgeids, and the Talthybiads, all of whom belong to Sparta, seem to be the only examples of separate races, partially dis- tinguishable from Dorians, known after the beginning of au- thentic history. The Spartans and the Perioeki constitute one political aggregate, and that too so completely melted together in the general opinion (speaking of the times before the battle of Leuktra), that the peace of Antalkidas, which guaranteed au- tonomy to every separate Grecian city, was never so construed as to divorce the Perioekic towns from Sparta. Both are known as Laconians, or Lacedaemonians, and Sparta is regarded by Herodotus only as the first and bravest among the many and brave Lacedaemonian cities. 1 The victors at Olympia are pro- claimed, not as Spartans, but as Laconians, a title alike borne by the Perioeki. And many of the numerous winners, whose names we read in the Olympic lists as Laconians, may proba- bly have belonged to Amyklse or other Pericekic towns. The Perioekic hoplites constituted always a large in later times a preponderant numerical proportion of the Lacedaemo- nian army, and must undoubtedly have been trained, more or less perfectly, in the peculiar military tactics of Sparta ; since they were called upon to obey the same orders as the Spartans in the field, 2 and to perform the same evolutions. Some cases appear, though rare, in which a Pericekus has high command in a foreign expedition. In the time of Aristotle, the larger proportion of Laconia (then meaning only the country eastward of Taygetus, north-west of Peloponnesus which was afterwards called Achh..a, expel- ling from it the lonians. Whatever may be the truth about this legendary statement, and whatever may have been the original proportions of Dorians and Achaeans in Laconia, these two races had (in the fifth century B.C.; become confounded in one undistinguishable ethnical and political aggre- gate called Laconian, or Lacedaemonian, comprising both Spartans and Pe- rioeki, though with very unequal political franchises, and very material differ cnces in individual training and habits. The case was different in Thessaly, where the Thessalians held in dependence Magnetes, Perrhaebi. and Achajons : the separate nationality of these latter was never lost. 1 Herod, vii. 234.

• Thucyd. viii. 6-22. They did not, however, partake in the Lykurgean

discipline ; but they seem to be named oi tic r/}f x&pac Trau^f. as contrasted

• itb ol IK r;/f aj-uyf/f (Sosibius ap. Athenae. xv. p. 674). ​HELOTS IN THE VILLAGES. 373

since the foundation of Messene by Epameinondas had been con sumraated) belonged to Spartan citizens,! but the remaining smaller half must have been the property of the Perijeki, who must besides have carried on most of the commerce of export and import, the metallurgic enterprise, and the distribution of internal produce, which the territory exhibited; since no Spar- Ian ever meddled in such occupations. And thus the peculiar training of Lykurgus, by throwing all .these employments into the hands of the Periceki, opened to them a new source of im- portance, which the dependent townships of Argos, of Thebes, or of Orchomenus, would not enjoy. The Helots of Laconia were Coloni, or serfs, bound to the soil, who tilled it for the benefit of the Spartan proprietors certainly, probably, of Perioekic proprietors also. They were the rustic- population of the country, who dwelt, not in towns, but either in small villages 2 or in detached farms, both in the district imme- 1 Aristot. Polit. ii. 6, 23. diii yap TO ruv 2 Trapriaruv elvat Tt}v Trtaiffrjyv yfjv, oiiK s^eTu^ovatv <i/l/l^/l<ji/ raf eicr^opuf. Mr. G. C. Lewis, in the article above alluded to (Philolog. Mus. ii. p. 54), says, about the Periceki : " They lived in the country or in small towns of the Laconian territory, and cultivated the land, which they did not hold of any individual citizen, but paid for it a tribute or rent to the state ; being exactly in the same condition as the possessores of the Roman domain, or the Ryots, in Hindostan, before the introduction of the Permanent Settlement." It may be doubted, I think, whether the Periceki paid any such rent or tribute as that which Mr. Lewis here supposes. The passage just cited from Aristotle seems to show that they paid direct taxation Individually, and just upon the same principle as the Spartan citizens, who are distinguished only by being larger landed-proprietors. But though the principle of taxation be the same, there was practical injustice (according to Aristotle) in the mode of assessing it. "The Spartan citizens (he observes) being the largest landed- proprietors, take care not to canvass strictly each other's payment of property-tax" i. e. they wink mutually at each other's evasions. If the Spartans had been the only persons who paid datyopa, or property-tax, this observation of Aristotle would have had no meaning. In principle, the tax was assessed, both on their larger properties and on the smaller properties of the Periceki : in practice, the Spartans helped each other to evade the due proportion. 1 The village-character of the Helots is distinctly marked by Livy, xxxiv 27, in describing the inflictions of the despot Nabis : " Ilotarum quidam (bJ sunt jam indc antiquitus castellani, agrcste genus) transfugerc voluisse insimu- !ati, per omnes vicos sub verberibus acti necantur." ​874 HISTORY OF GREECE. diately surrouiuLng Sparta, and round the Perioekic Laconian towns also. Of course, there were also Helots who lived in Sparta and other towns, and did the work of domestic slaves, but such was not the general character of the class. We cannot doubt that the Dorian conquest from Sparta found this class in the condition of villagers and detached rustics ; but whether they were dependent upon preexisting Achaean proprietors, or inde- pendent, like much of tfye Arcadian village population, is a ques- tion which we cannot answer. In either case, however, it is easy to conceive that the village lands (with the cultivators upon them) were the most easy to appropriate for the benefit of masters resident at Sparta ; while the towns, with the district immediate- ly around them, furnished both dwelling and maintenance to the outgoing detachments of Dorians. If the Spartans had succeeded in their attempt to enlarge their territory by the conquest of Arcadia, 1 they might very probably have converted Tegea and Mantineia into Perirekic towns, with a diminished territory inhab- ited (either wholly or in part) by Dorian settlers, while they would have made over to proprietors in Sparta much ot the village lands of the Macnalii, Azanes, and Parrhasii, Helotizing the inhabitants. The distinction between a town and a village population seems the main ground of the different treatment of Helots and Perioeki in Laconia. A considerable proportion of the Helots were of genuine Dorian race, being the Dorian Messe- nians west of Mount Taygetus, subsequently conquered and ag- gregated to this plass of dependent cultivators, who, 'as a class, must have begun to exist from the very first establishment of the invading Dorians in the district round Sparta. From whence the name of Helots arose, we do not clearly make out : Ephorua deduced it from the town of Helus, on the southern coast, which the Spartans are said to have taken after a resistance so obstinate as to provoke them to deal very rigorously with the captives. There are many reasons for rejecting this story, and another etymology has been proposed, according to which Helot is synon- ymous with captive: this is more plausible, yet still not convinc- ing.2 The Helots lived in the rural villages, as adscripts glelxz, 1 Herodot. i. 66. IxpijarTipiafrvTo h k&fyoiai Lm -KUOTJ ry 'Apuaduv z^P?.

• See O. Miiller, Dorians, iii. 3, 1 ; Ephorus np. Strnbo, viii. p. 365 : Har

pocration, v. EiXurec. ​HELOTS IN THE VILLAGES. 375 cultivating their lands and paying over their rent to the master at Sparta, but enjoying their homes, wives, families, and mutual neighborly feelings, apart from the master's view. They were never sold out of the country, and probably never sold at all ; belonging, not so much to the master as to the state, which con- stantly called upon them for military service, and recompensed their bravery or activity with a grant of freedom. Meno, the Thessalian of Pharsalus, took out three hundred Penestse of his own, to aid the Athenians against Amphipolis : these Thessalian Penestze were in many points analogous to the Helots, but no individual Spartan possessed the like power over the latter. The Helots were thus a part of the state, having their domestic and social sympathies developed, a certain power of acquiring prop- erty, 1 and the consciousness of Grecian lineage and dialect, points of marked superiority over the foreigners who formed the slave population of Athens or Chios. They seem to have been noway inferior to any village population of Greece ; while the Grecian observer sympathized with them more strongly than with the bought slaves of other states, not to mention that' their homogeneous aspect, their numbers, and their employment in military service, rendered them more conspicuous to the eye. The service in the Spartan house was all performed by mem- bers of the Helot class ; for there seem to have been few, if any, other slaves in the country. The various anecdotes which are told respecting their treatment at Sparta, betoken less of cruelty than of ostentatious scorn, 2 a sentiment which we are noway surprised to discover among the citizens at the mess-table. But the great mass of the Helots, who dwelt in the country, were objects of a very different sentiment on the part of the Spartan ephors, who knew their bravery, energy, and standing discontent, 1 Kleomenes the Third, offered manumission to every Helot, who could pay down five Attic minse : he was in great immediate want of money, and he raised, by this means, five hundred talents. Six thousand Helots must thus have been in a condition to find five minae each, which was a very consider- able sum (Plutarch, Kleomenes, c. 23). 3 Such is the statement, that Helots were compelled to appear in a sta'e of drunkenness, in order to excite in the youths a sentiment of repugnance against intoxication (Plutarch, Lycurg. c. 28; also, Adversus Stoicos d Commun. Notit. c. 19. p. 1067). ​37G HISTORY OF GREECE. and yet were forced to employ them as an essential portion of the state army. The Helots commonly served as light-armed, in which capacity the Spartan hoplites could not dispense with their attendance. At the battle of Plataea, every Spartan hoplite had seven Helots, 1 and every Perirekic hoplite one Helot, to attend him: 2 but, even in camp, the Spartan arrangements were framed to guard against any sudden mutiny of these light-armed compan- ions, while, at home, the citizen habitually kept his shield dis- joined from its holding-ring, to prevent the possibility of its being snatched for the like purpose. Sometimes, select Helots were clothed in heavy armor, and thus served in the ranks, receiving manumission from the state as the reward of distinguished bravery. 3 But Sparta, even at the maximum of her power, was more than once endangered by the reality, and always beset with the apprehension, of Helotic revolt. To prevent or suppress it, the ephors submitted to insert express stipulations for aid in their treaties with Athens, to invite Athenian troops into the heart of Laconia, and to practice combinations of cunning and atrocity which even yet stand without parallel in the long list of precau- tions for fortifying unjust dominion. It was in the eighth year of the Peloponnesian war, after the Helots had been called upon for signal military efforts in various ways, and when the Athen- ians and Messenians were in possession of Pylus, that the ephors felt especially apprehensive of an outbreak. Anxious to single 1 Herod, ix. 29. The Spartans, at Thermopylae, seem to have been attended each by only one Helot (vii. 229). O. MUller seems to consider that the light-armed, who attended the Peri- cekic hoplites at Plataea, were not Helots (Dor. iii. 3, 6). Herodotus does noi distinctly say that they were so, but I see no reason for admitting two differ ent classes of light-armed in the Spartan military force. The calculation which Miiller gives of the number of Periceki and Helots altogether, proceeds upon very untrustworthy data. Among them is to be noticed his supposition that iroAm/ci) %upa means the district of Sparta as distinguished from Laconia. which is contrary to the passage in Polybiua (vi. 45) : iroXiTiKri x&pa, in Polybius, means the territory of the state gene- rally. 3 Xenophon, Rep. Lac. c. 12, 4; Kritias, De Lacedaem. Repub. ap. Liba- nium, Orat. de Servitute, L ii. p. 85, Reisk. wf u7r.<m'af elvena rijg Trpdf ro)f EZAurof i^aipel [lev S^apriar^f OIKOI TJIC u<T7ncJo$ rf/v room k' a, etc. ' 3 Thucyd. i. 101 ; iv. 80 ; v. 14-23. ​SPARTAN CRUELTY. y/7 out the most forward and daring Helots, as the men from whom they had most to dread, they issued proclamation that every member of that class who had rendered distinguished services should make his claims known at Sparta, promising liberty to the most deserving. A large number of Helots came forward to claim the boon : not less than two thousand of them were approved, formally manumitted, and led in solemn procession round the temples, with garlands on their heads, as an inauguration to their coming life of freedom. But the treacherous garland only marked them out as victims for the sacrifice: every man of them forthwith disappeared, the manner of their death was an un- told mystery. For this dark and bloody deed, Thucydides is our witness,' and Thucydides describing a contemporaiy matter into which he had inquired. Upon any less evidence we should have hesitated to believe the statement ; but standing as it thus does above all suspicion, it speaks volumes as to the inhuman character of the Lacedaemonian government, while it lays open to us at the same time the intensity of their fears from the Helots. In the assassi- nation of this fated regiment of brave men, a large number of auxiliaries and instruments must have been concerned : yet Thu- cydides, with all his inquiries, could not find out how any of them perished : he tells us, that no man knew. "We see here a fact which demonstrates unequivocally the impenetrable mystery in which the proceedings of the Spartan government were wrapped, the absence not only of public discussion, but of public curio- sity, and the perfection with which the ephors reigned over the will, the hands, and the tongues, of their Spartan subjects. The Venetian Council of Ten, with all the facilities for nocturnal drowning which their city presented, could hardly have accom- plished so vast a coup-d'etat with such invisible means. And we may judge from hence, even if we had no other evidence, how little the habits of a public assembly could have suited either the temper of mind or the march of government at Sparta. Other proceedings, ascribed to the ephors against the Helots, are conceived in the same spirit as the incident just recounted 1 Thucyd. iv. 80. oil 6e ov Tro/lAw vo' * *ov rjfyuvtauv re avroijf "<il aidtlf fyadero oru rpoTro e/caorof ​0,78 HISTORY OF GREECE. from Thucydides, though they do not carry with them the same certain attestation. It was a part of the institutions of L/ykurgus (according to a statement which Plutarch professes to have bor- rowed from Aristotle) that the ephors should every year declare war against the Helots, in order that the murder of them mighi be rendered innocent ; and that active young Spartans should be armed with daggers and sent about Laconia, in order that they might, either in solitude or at night, assassinate such of the Helots as were considered formidable. 1 This last measure passes by the name of the Krypteia, yet we find some difficulty in deter- mining to what extent it was ever realized. That the ephors, indeed, would not be restrained by any scruples of justice or humanity, is plainly shown by the murder of the two thousand Helots above noticed ; but this latter incident really answered its purpose, while a standing practice, such as that of the Krypteia, and a formal notice of war given beforehand, would provoke the reaction of despair rather than enforce tranquillity. There seems, indeed, good evidence that the Krypteia was a real practice, 2 that the ephors kept up a system of police or espionage through- out Laconia, by the employment of active young citizens, who lived a hard and solitary life, and suffered their motions to be as little detected as possible. The ephors might naturally enough take this method of keeping watch both over the Perioekic town- ships and the Helot villages, and the assassination of individual Helots by these police-men, or Krypts, would probably pass un- noticed. But it is impossible to believe in any standing murder- ous order, or deliberate annual assassination of Helots, for the purpose of intimidation, as Aristotle is alleged to have represent- ed, for we may well doubt whether he really did make such a representation, when we see that he takes no notice of this mea- sure in his Politics, where he speaks at some length both of the Spartan constitution and of the Helots. The well-known hatred and fear, entertained by the Spartans towards their Helots, has probably colored Plutarch's description of the Krypteia, so as to 1 Plutarch, Lycurg. c. 28; Heraclides Pontic. p. 504, ed. Crag 4 Plato, Lcgg. i. p. 633 : the words of the Lacedaemonian Megillns desig- nate an existing Spartan custom. Compare the same treatise, vi. p. 763, wherfl Ast suspects, without reason, the genuineness of the word Kpvxroi. ​MANUMITTED HELOTS. 379 exaggerate those unpunished murders which occasionally hap pened into a constant phenomenon with express design. A simi- lar deduction is to be made from the statement of Myron of Priene, 1 who alleged that they were beaten every year without any special fault, in order to put them in mind of their slavery, and that those Helots, whose superior beauty or stature placed them above the visible stamp of thei; condition, were put to death ; while such masters as neglected to keep down the spirit of their vigorous Helots were punished. That secrecy, for which the ephors were so remarkable, seems enough of itself to refute the assertion that they publicly proclaimed war against the Helots ; though we may well believe that this unhappy class of men may have been noticed as objects for jealous observation in the annual ephoric oath of office. Whatever may have been the treatment of the Helots in later times, it is at all events hardly to be supposed that any regulation hostile to them can have emanated from Lykurgus. For the dangers arising from that source did not become serious until after the Messenian war, nor, indeed, until after the gradual diminution of the number of Spartan citi- zens had made itself felt. The manumitted Helots did not pass into the class of Perioeki, for this purpose a special grant, of the freedom of some Periuikic township, would probably be required, but consti- tuted a class apart, known at the time of the Peloponnesian war by the name of Neodamodes. Being persons who had earned their liberty by signal bravery, they were of course regarded by the ephors with peculiar apprehension, and, if possible, employed on foreign service, 2 or planted on some foreign soil as settlers. In what manner these freedmen employed themselves, we find no distinct information ; but we can hardly doubt that they quitted the Helot village and field, together with the rural cos- tume (the leather cap and sheepskin) which the Helot com- monly wore, and the change of which exposed him to suspicion, if not to punishment, from his jealous masters. Probably they, as well as the disfranchised Spartan citizens (called Hypcmeionea, 1 Myron, ap. Athense. xiv. p. 657. kxiKoxreiv roi)f afoovpsvc* does nrt strictly mean " to put to death." 5 Thucyd. v. 34. ​580 HISTORY OF GREECE. or Inferiors), became congregated at Sparta, and found employ mcnt either in various trades or in the service of the government. It has been necessary to give this short sketch of the orders of men vho inhabited Laconia, in order to enable us to under- stand the statements given about the legislation of Lykurgus. The arrangements ascribed to that lawgiver, in the way that Plutarch describes them, presuppose, and do not create, the three orders of Spartans, Perioeki, and Helots. We are told by Plutarch that the disorders which Lykurgus found existing in the state arose in a great measure from the gross inequality of property, and from the luxurious indulgence and unprincipled rapacity of the rich, who had drawn to themselves the greater proportion of the lands in the country, leaving a large body of poor, without any lot of land, in hopeless misery and degrada- tion. To this inequality (according to Plutarch) the reforming legislator applied at once a stringent remedy. He redistributed the whole territory belonging to Sparta, as well as the remainder of Laconia ; the former, in nine thousand equal lots, one to each Spartan citizen ; the latter, in thirty thousand equal lots, one to each Perioekus : of this alleged distribution, I shall speak farther presently. Moreover, he banished the use of gold and silver money, tolerating nothing in the shape of circulating medium but pieces of iron, heavy and scarcely portable ; and he forbade 1 to the Spartan citizen every species of industrious or money- seeking occupation, agriculture included. He farther constituted, though not without strenuous opposition, during the course of which his eye is said to have been knocked out by a violent youth, named Alkander, the Syssitia, or public mess. A cer- tain number of joint tables were provided, and every citizen was required to belong to some one of them, and habitually to take his meals at it, 2 no new member being admissible without an unanimous ballot in his favor by the previous occupants. Each provided from his lot of land a specified quota of barley-meal, wine, cheese, and figs, and a small contribution of money for con- diments : game was obtained in addition by hunting in the 1 Xenophon, Rep. Lac. c. 7.

• Plutarch, T.ykurg. c. 15; substantially confirmed by Xencphon, Rep

Lac. c. 1, 5. ​LYKURGEAN DISCIPLINE. 881 public forests of the state, while every one who sacrificed to the gods, 1 sent to his mess-table a part of the victim killed. From boyhood to old age, every Spartan citiz*en took his sober meals at this public mess, where all shared alike ; nor was distinction of any kind allowed, except on signal occasions of service ren- dered by an individual to the state. These public Syssitia, under the management of the Pole- marchs, were connected with the military distribution, the con- stant gymnastic training, and the rigorous discipline of detail, enforced by Lykurgus. From the early age of seven years, throughout his whole life, as youth and man no less than as boy, the Spartan citizen lived habitually in public, always either himself under drill, gymnastic and military, or a critic and spectator of others, always under the fetters and observances of a rule partly military, partly monastic, estranged from the independence of a separate home, seeing his wife, during the first years after marriage, only by stealth, and maintaining little peculiar relation with his children. The supervision, not only of his fellow-citizens, but also of authorized censors, or captains nominated by the state, was perpetually acting upon him : his day was passed in public exercises and meals, his nights in the public barrack to which he belonged. Besides the particular military drill, whereby the complicated movements required from a body of Lacedaemonian hoph'tes in the field, were made familiar to him from his youth, he also became subject to severe bodily discipline of other kinds, calculated to impart strength, activity, and endurance. To manifest a daring and pugnacious spirit, to sustain the greatest bodily torture un- moved, to endure hunger and thirst, heat, cold, and fatigue, to tread the worst ground barefoot, to wear the same garment winter and summer, to suppress external manifestations of feeling, and to exhibit in public, when action was not called for, a bearing shy, silent, and motionless as a statue, all these were the virtues of the accomplished Spartan youth. 2 Two squadrons 1 See the authors quoted in Athenaeus, iv. p. 141. 7 Xenoph. Eep. Lac. 2-3, 3-5, 4-6. The extreme pains taken to enforca KapTepia (fortitude and endurance) in the Spartan system is especiallj dwell upon by Aristotle (Politica, ii. 6, 5-16); compare Plato, De Legibus, i. p. ​382 HISTORY OF GREECE. were often matched against each other to contend (without amis) in the little insular circumscription called the Platanistuis, and these contests were earned on, under the eye of the authorities, with the utmost extremity of fury. Nor was the competition among them less obstinate, to bear without murmuring the cruel scourgings inflicted before the altar of Artemis Orthia, supposed to be highly acceptable to the goddess, though they sometimes terminated even in the death of the uncomplaining sufferer. 1 Besides the various descriptions of gymnastic contests, the youths were instructed in the choric dances employed in festivals of the 633 ; Xenophon, DC Laced. Repub. ii. 9, with the references in Schneider's note, likewise Cragius, De Republica Laced, iii. 8, p. 325. 1 It is remarkable that these violent contentions of the youth, wherein kicking, biting, gouging out each other's eyes, was resorted to, as well as the dia/iaaTiyuaif, or scourging-match, before the altar of Artemis, lasted down to the closing days of Sparta, and were actually seen by Cicero, Plutarch, and even Pausanias. Plutarch had seen several persons die under the suffering (Plutarch, Lykurg. c. 16, 18-30; and Instituta Laconica, p. 239; Pausan. iii. 14, 9, 16, 7 ; Cicero, Tuscul. Disp. ii. 15). The voluntary tortures, undergone by the young men among the Mandan tribe of Indians, at their annual religious festival, in the presence of the elders of the tribe, afford a striking illustration of the same principles and ten- dencies as this Spartan diapaari-yuaic. They are endured partly under the influence of religious feelings, as an acceptable offering to the Great Spirit, partly as a point of emulation and glory on the part of the young men, to show themselves worthy and unconquerable in the eyes of their seniors. The intensity of these tortures is, indeed, frightful to read, and far surpasses in that respect anything ever witnessed at Sparta. It would be incredible, were it not attested by a trustworthy eye-witness. See Mr. Catlin's Letters on the North American Indians, Letter 22, vol. i. p. 157, seq. " These religious ceremonies are held, in part, for the purpose of conduct- ing all the young men of the tribe, as they annually arrive at manhood, through an ordeal of privation and torture ; which, while it is supposed to harden their muscles and prepare them for extreme endurance, enables the chiefs who are spectators of the scene, to decide upon their comparative bodily strength and ability, to endure the extreme privations and sufferings that often fall to the lot of Indian warriors ; and that they may decide who is the most hardy and best able to lead a war-party in case of emergency." Again, p. 173, etc. The Kaprepia or power of endurance ( Aristot. Pol. ii. 6,5-16) which formed one of the prominent objects of the Lycurgcan training, dwindles into nothing compared to that of the Mandan Indians. ​SPARTAN WOMEN. 333 gods, which contributed to impart to them methodized and har- monious movements. Hunting in the woods and mountains of Laconia was encouraged, as a means of inuring them to fatigue and privation. The nourishment supplied to the youthful Spar- tans was purposely kept insufficient, but they were allowed to make up the deficiency not only by hunting, but even by stealing whatever they could lay hands upon, provided they could do so without being detected in the fact ; in which latter case they were severely chastised. 1 In reference simply to bodily results, 3 the training at Sparta was excellent, combining strength and agility with universal aptitude and endurance, and steering clear of that mistake by which Thebes and other cities impaired the effect of their gymnastics, the attempt to create an athletic habit, suited for the games, but suited for nothing else. Of all the attributes of this remarkable community, there is none more difficult to make out clearly than the condition and character of the Spartan women. Aristotle asserts that, in his time, they were imperious and unruly, without being really so brave and useful in moments of danger as other Grecian females ; 3 that they possessed great influence over the men, and even ex- ercised much ascendency over the course of public affairs ; and 1 Xenophon, Anab. iv. 6, 14 ; and De Repub. Lac. c. 2, 6 ; Isokrates, Or. xii. (Panath.) p. 27". It is these licensed expeditions for thieving, I pre- sume, to which Isokrates alludes, when he speaks of rtjf Traidav avrovofiias at Sparta, which, in its natural sense, would be the reverse of the tru>h (p. 277). s Aristot Polit. viii. 3. 3, the remark is curious, vvv filv ovv ai fia^tcra doKOvaai TUV XOAFUV sTri/zeTiela&ai ruv iraiduv ai plv a-&^,r]TiK.j]v iv i/nnot- ovai, fapufievai rii r' d6rj K.a.1 TTJV aii^rjaiv TUV au/j.a.Tuv ol 6e A.aKuvff ravTTjv [J.EV ovx ij^aprov ryv ufiapriav, etc. Compare the remark in Plato, Protagor. p. 342. 3 Aristot. Polit. ii. 6, 5 ; Plutarch, Agcsilans, c. 31 . Aristotle alludes to the conduct of the Spartan women on the occasion of the invasion of Laco- nia by the Thebans, as an evidence of his opinion respecting their want of courage. His judgment in this respect seems hard upon them, and he prob- ably had formed to himself exaggerated notions of what their courage undci finch circumstances ought to have been, as the result of their peculiar train ing. We may add that their violent demonstrations on that trying occasion may well have arisen quite as much from the agony of wou-ided honor n from fear, when we consider what an event 'he appearance of a conquering army in Sparta was. ​384 US TORY OF GREECE. that nearly half (Le landed property of Laconia had come tc belong to them. The exemption of the women from all control, formed, in his eye, a pointed contrast with the rigorous discipline imposed upon the men, and a contrast hardly less pointed with the condition of women in other Grecian cities, where they were habitually confined to the interior of the house, and seldom appeared in public. While the Spartan husband went through the hard details of his ascetic life, and dined on the plainest fare at the Pheidition, or mess, the wife (it appears) maintained an ample and luxurious establishment at home ; and the desire to provide for such outlay was one of the causes of that love of money which prevailed among men forbidden to enjoy it in the ordinary ways. To explain this antithesis between the treatment of the two sexes at Sparta, Aristotle was informed that Lykurgus had tried to bring the women no less than the men under a system of discipline, but that they made so obsti nate a resistance as to compel him to desist. 1 The view here given by the philosopher, and deserving of course careful attention, is not easy to reconcile with that of Xenophon and Plutarch, who look upon the Spartan Avomen from a different side, and represent them as worthy and homo- geneous companions to the men. The Lykurgean system (as these authors describe it) considering the women as a part of the state, and not as a part of the house, placed them under training hardly less than the men. Its grand purpose, the main- tenance of a vigorous breed of citizens, determined both the treatment of the younger women, and the regulations as to the intercourse of the sexes. " Female slaves are good enough (Lykurgus thought) to sit at home spinning and weaving, but who can expect a splendid offspring, the appropriate mission and duty of a free Spartan woman towards her country, from mothers brought up in such occupations ?" 2 Pursuant to these views, the Spartan damsels underwent a bodily training analogous to that of the Spartan youth, being formally exercised, and contend- ing with each other in running, wrestling, and boxing, agreeably to the forms of the Grecian agones. They seem to have worn a 1 Aristot. Polit. ii. 6, 5, 8, 11. 1 Xenoph. Rep. Lac. i. 3-4 ; Plutarch, Lycurg. c. 13-14. ​SOCIAL REGULATIONS AT SPARTA. 385 HjjKi kinic, cut open at the skirts, so as to leave the limbs both free *nd exposed to view, hence Plutarch speaks of them as completely uncovered, while other critics, in different quarters of Greece, heaped similar reproach upon the practice, as if it had been perfect nakedness. 1 The presence of the Spartan youths, and even of the kings and the body of citizens, at these exercises, lent animation to the scene. In like manner, the young wo- men marched in the religious processions, sung and danced at particular festivals, and witnessed as spectators the exercises and contentions of the youths ; so that the two sexes were perpetually intermingled with each other in public, in a way foreign to the habits, as well as repugnant to the feelings, of other Grecian states. "We may well conceive that such an education imparted to the women both a demonstrative character and an eager inter- est in masculine accomplishments, so that the expression of their praise was the strongest stimulus, and that of their reproach the bitterest humiliation, to the youthful troop who heard it. The age of marriage (which in some of the unrestricted cities of Greece was so early as to deteriorate visibly the breed of citizens) 2 was deferred by the Spartan law, both in women and men, until the period supposed to be most consistent with the perfection of the offspring. And when we read the restriction which Spartan custom imposed upon the intercourse even between married persons, we shall conclude without hesitation that the public intermixture of the sexes, in the way just de- scribed, led to no such liberties, between persons not married, as might be likely to arise from it under other circumstances. 3 j p 1 Eurip. Androm. 598; Cicero, Tuscul. Qnoest. ii. 15. The epithet Qaivo- /trjpidef, as old as the poet Ibykus, shows that the Spartan women were not uncovered (see Julius Pollux, vii. 55). It is scarcely worth while to notice the poetical allusions of Ovid and Propertius. How completely the practice of gymnastic and military training for young women, analogous to that of the other sex, was approved by Plato, may be seen from the injunctions in his Eepublic. 2 Aristot. Polit. vii. 14, 4. 3 " It is certain (observes Dr. Thirlwall, speaking of the Spartan unmarried women) that in this respect the Spartan morals were as pure as those of any ancient, perhaps of any modern, people." (History of Greece, ch. viii. rcl i. p. 371.) VOL. II. 17 270C. ​886 HISTORY OF GREECE. Marriage was almost universal among the citizens, enforced by general opinion at least, if not by law. The young Spartan carried away his bride by a simulated abduction, but she still seems, for some time at least, to have continued to reside with her family, visiting her husband in his barrack in the disguise of male attire, and on short and stolen occasions. 1 To some married couples, according to Plutarch, it happened, that they had been married long enough to have two or three children, while they had scarcely seen each other apart by daylight. Secret intrigue on the part of married women was unknown at Sparta ; but to bring together the finest couples was regarded by the citizens as desirable, and by the lawgiver as a duty. No personal feeling or jealousy on the part of the husband found sympathy from any one, and he permitted without difficulty, sometimes actively en- couraged, compliances on the part of his wife, consistent with (his generally acknowledged object. So far was such toleration carried, that there were some married women who were recog- nized mistresses of two houses, 2 and mothers of two distinct families, a sort of bigamy strictly forbidden to the men, and never permitted, except in the remarkable case of king Anaxandrides, when the royal Herakleidan line of Eurysthenes was in danger of becoming extinct. The wife of Anaxandrides being childless, the ephors strongly urged him, on grounds of public necessity, to repudiate her and marry another. But he refused to dismiss a wife who had given him no cause of complaint ; upon which, when they found him inexorable, they desired him to retain her, but to marry another wife besides, in order that at any rate there might be issue* to the Eurystheneid line. " He thus (says 1 Plutarch, Lycurg. c. 15 ; Xcnoph. Rep. Lac. i. 5. Xenophon does not make any allusion to the abduction as a general custom. There occurred cases in which it was real and violent: see Herod, v. 65. Demaratus carried off and married the betrothed bride of Leotychides. 2 Xenoph. Rep. Lac. i. 9. Ei 6e TIC av yvvai.K.1 p.lv awoiKelv pj /Jou/ioiTo, TEKVUV 6e aZtoTioyav tTridvfioiri, nal rovry vofiov iTroiqaev, r/vnva av EVTCK- vov KO.I yevvaiav 6p<jiij, Kflaavra TOV tyovTa, K TO.VTTIS TEKvonoitlcr&ai. Kal iroMaftiv roiaOra ffuve^wpec. Alre yap yvvaiKEf Airrovf olxovf (3ovl.ov ra i K ar e % lv > ol re uvdpef u6e%<j>ovi; Tolf natal npoaXauSuveiv, l TOV fiev yevouj *ai r^f dvvapeui KOivuvovai, ruv de xprj/mruv oi'K dvnirot- ma ​GYMNASTIC TRAINING. 337 Herodotus) married two wives, and inhabited two family-hearth^ a proceeding unknown at Sparta;" 1 yet the same privilege which, according to Xenophon, some Spartan women enjoyed without reproach from any one, and with perfect harmony between the inmates of both their houses. O. MullerS remarks and the evidence, as far as we know it, bears him out that love-mar- riages and genuine affection towards a wife were more familiar to Sparta than to Athens; though in the former, marital jealousy was a sentiment neither indulged nor recognized, while in the latter, it was intense and universal. 3 To reconcile the careful gymnastic training, which Xenophon and Plutarch mention, with that uncontrolled luxury and relaxa- tion which Aristotle condemns in the Spartan women, we may perhaps suppose that, in the time of the latter, the women of high position and wealth had contrived to emancipate themselves from the general obligation, and that it is of such particular cases that he chiefly speaks. He dwells especially upon the increasing tendency to accumulate property in the hands of the women, 4 which seems to have been still more conspicuous a century after- wards, in the reign of Agis the Third. And we may readily imagine that one of the employments of wealth thus acquired would be to purchase exemption from laborious training, an object more easy to accomplish in their case than in that of the men, whose services were required by the state as soldiers. By what steps so large a proportion as two-fifths of the landed prop- erty of the state came to be possessed by women, he partially explains to us. There were (he says) many sole heiresses, the dowries given by fathers to their daughters were very large, and the father had unlimited power of testamentary bequest, 1 Herodot. v. 39-40. Merd 6e ravra, yvval'caf l%uv 6i<o. digue lariaf O'IKEC, iroieav ovtiafiii ^TrapTnjTiKu.

• Miiller, Hist of Dorians, iv. 4, 1. The stories recounted by Plutarch,

(Agis, c. 20; KJeomenes, c. 37-38,) of the conduct of Agesistrata and Kra- tesikleia, the wives of Agis and Kleomenes, and of the wife of Panteus (whom he does not name) on occasion of the deaths of their respective hus- bands, illustrate powerfully the strong conjugal affection of a Spartan woman, and her devoted adherence and fortitude in sharing with her husband the last extremities of suffering. 3 See the Oration of Lysias, De Csede Eratosthenis, Orat. i. p. 94. teq 4 Plutarch, Agis, c. 4. ​388 HISTORY OF GREECE. which he was disposed to use to the advantage of his daughter over his son. In conjunction with this last circumstance, we have to notice that peculiar sympathy and yielding disposition towards women in the Spartan mind, of which Aristotle also speaks, 1 and which he ascribes to the warlike temper both of the citizen and the state, Ares bearing the yoke of Aphrodite. But, apart from such a consideration, if we suppose, on the part of a wealthy Spartan father, the simple disposition to treat sons and daughters alike as to bequest, nearly one half of the in- herited mass of property would naturally be found in the hands of the daughters, since on an average of families the number of the two sexes born is nearly equal. In most societies, it is the men who make new acquisitions : but this seldom or never hap- pened with Spartan men, who disdained all money-getting occu- pations. Xenophon, a warm panegyrist of Spartan manners, points with Borne pride to the tall and vigorous breed of citizens which the Lykurgic institutions had produced. The beauty of the Lacedae- monian women was notorious throughout Greece, and Lampito, the Lacedaemonian woman introduced in the Lysistrata of Aris- tophanes, is made to receive from the Athenian women the loud- est compliments upon her fine shape and masculine vigor. 3 We may remark that, on this as well as on the other points, Xeno- phon emphatically insists on the peculiarity of Spartan institu- tions, contradicting thus the views of those who regard them merely as something a little Hyper-Dorian. Indeed, such pecu- liarity seems never to have been questioned in antiquity, either by the enemies or by the admirers of Sparta. And those who censured the public masculine exercises of the Spartan maidens, as well as the liberty tolerated in married women, al- lowed at the same time that the feelings of both were actively identified with the state to a degree hardly known in Greece ; that the patriotism of the. men gi-eatly depended upon the sym- pathy of the other sex, which manifested itself publicly, in a 1 Aristot. Polit. ii. 6, 6 ; Plutarch, Agis, c. 4. rovf A.OKe6aifioviwf K<ITTJKU ovf 6vraf uel ruv yvvaiKuv, Kal xfalov tueivais ruv Sqftoatuv, % ruv 16'tut irotf, iroTivirpayfiovElv Sifio

• Aristophan Lysistr. 80. ​LAWS AND DISCIPLINE OF LYKURGUS AT SPARTA. 389

manner not compatible with the recluse life of Grecian women generally, to the exaltation of the brave as well as to the abase- ment of the recreant ; and that the dignified bearing of the Spar- tan matrons under private family loss seriously assisted the state in the task of bearing up against public reverses. " Return either with your shield or upon it," was their exhortation to their sons when departing for foreign service : and after the fatal day of Leuktra, those mothers who had to welcome home their sur- viving sons in dishonor and defeat, were the bitter sufferers ; while those whose sons had perished, maintained a bearing com- paratively cheerful. 1 Such were the leading points of- the memorable Spartan disci- pline, strengthened in its effect on the mind by the absence of communication with strangers. For no Spartan could go abroad without leave, nor were strangers permitted to stay at Sparta ; they came thither, it seems, by a sort of sufferance, but the un courteous process called xenelasy 2 was always available to re move them, nor could there arise in Sparta that class of resident metics or aliens who constituted a large part of the population of Athens, and seem to have been found in most other Grecian towns. It is in this universal schooling, training, and drilling, imposed alike upon boys and men, youths and virgins, rich and poor, that the distinctive attribute of Sparta is to be sought, not in her laws or political constitution. Lykurgus (or the individual to whom this system is owing, whoever he was) is the founder of a warlike brotherhood rather than the lawgiver of a political community ; his brethren live together like bees in a hive (to borrow a simile from Plutarch), 1 See the remarkable account in Xenophon, Hcllen. iv. 16; Plutarch, Agesilaus, c. 29 ; one of the most striking incidents in Grecian history. Compare, also, the string of sayings ascribed to Lacedaemonian women, in Plutarch, Lac. Apophth. p. 241, seq.

• How offensive the Lacedaemonian xenelasy or expulsion of strangers

appeared in Greece, we may see from the speeches of Perikles in Thucydi- dcs (i. 144 ; ii. 39). Compare Xenophon, Rep. Lac. xiv. 4 ; Plutarch, Agis, C. 10 ; Lykurgus, c. 27; Plato, Protagoras, p. 348. No Spartan left the country without permission : Isokrates, Orat. xi (Busiris), p. 225 ; Xenoph. vt sup. Both these regulations became much relaxed after the close of the Pelo ponnesian war. ​390 HISTORY OF GREECE. with all their feelings implicated in the commonwealth, and di vorced from house and home. 1 Far from contemplating the society as a whole, with its multifarious wants and liabilities, he interdicts beforehand, by one of the three primitive Rhetrae, all written laws, that is to say, all formal and premeditated enact- ments on any special subject. When disputes are to be settled or judicial interference is required, the magistrate is to decide from his own sense of equity ; that the magistrate will not de- part from the established customs and recognized purposes of the city, is presumed from the personal discipline which he and the select body to whom he belongs, have undergone. It is this select body, maintained by the labor of others, over whom Lykur- gus exclusively watches, with the provident eye of a trainer, for the purpose of disciplining them into a state of regimental prep- aration, 2 single-minded obedience, and bodily efficiency and endurance, so that they may be always fit and ready for defence, for conquest and for dominion. The parallel of the Lykurgean institutions is to be found in the Republic of Plato, who approves the Spartan principle of select guardians carefully trained and administering the community at discretion ; with this momentous difference, indeed, that the Spartan character 3 formed by Lykur- 1 Plutarch, Lykurg. c. 25.

• Plutarch observes justly about Sparta, under the discipline of Lykurgus,

that it was " not the polity of a city, but the life of a trained and skilful man," ov Tro/lewf TI 'Ziruprj) iro'kiTeiav, d/U,' uvdpbf UOKTITOV Kal ao<j>ov (3iov IXOVOCL (Plutarch, Lyk. c. 30). About the perfect habit of obedience at Sparta, see Xenophon, Memorab. Hi. 5, 9, 15-iv. 4, 15, the grand attributes of Sparta in the eyes of its ad- mirers (Isokrates, Panathen. Or. xii. pp. 256-278), ireidapx'ta cuppoavvr) T& yvpvaota TU.KEI Kadeffrura Kal Trpde rijv uaKqoiv rfc uvdpia^ ical Trpof TTJV 6fiovoiav Kal owoAwf TTJV nepl TOV irohepov i/nreipiav. 3 Aristot. Polit. viiL 3, 3. Ol Aaxovef dtiptudeif uirep-yu&VTai rolf irovoif. That the Spartans were absolutely ignorant of letters, and could not read, is expressly stated by Isokrates (Panathen. Or. xii. p. 277). ovroi 6e TOOOV- TOV aTrohefai/i.(ievoi TJjf KOIVTIS iraidciae Kal (jtrtoaoQiaf elalv, war' ov6e ypdfipaTa /tavSavovaiv, etc. The preference of rhetoric to accuracy, is so manifest in Isokrates, that we ought to understand his expressions with some reserve ; but in this case it ia evident that he means literally what he says, for in another part of the same discourse, there is an expression dropped, almost unconsciously, which con ​LAWS AND DISCIPLINE OF LYKURGUS AT SPARTA. gyj gus is of a low type, rendered savage and fierce by exclusive and overdone bodily discipline, destitute even of the elements of letters, immersed in their own narrow specialities, and taught to despise all that lay beyond, possessing all the quali- ties requisite to procure dominion, but none of those calculated to render dominion popular or salutary to the subject ; while the habits and attributes of the guardians, as shadowed forth by Plato, are enlarged as well as philanthropic, qualifying them not simply to govern, but to govern for purposes protective, concilia- tory, and exalted. Both Plato and Aristotle conceive as the per- fection of society something of the Spartan type, a select body of equally privileged citizens, disengaged from industrious pur- suits, and subjected to public and uniform training. Both admit (with Lykurgus) that the citizen belongs neither to himself nor to his family, but to his city ; both at the same time note with regret, that the Sparfim training was turned only to one portion of human virtue, that which is called forth in a state of war ; l the citizens being converted into a sort of garrison, always under drill, and always ready to be called forth either against Helots at home or against enemies abroad. Such exclusive tendency will appear less astonishing if we consider the very early and inse- cure period at which the Lykurgean institutions arose, when none of those guarantees which afterwards maintained the peace of the Hellenic world had as yet become effective, no constant habits of intercourse, no custom of meeting in Amphiktyony from the distant parts of Greece, no common or largely fre- quented festivals, no multiplication of proxenies (or standing tickets of hospitality) between the important cities, no pacific or industrious habits anywhere. When we contemplate the general insecurity of Grecian life in the ninth or eighth century before the Christian era, and especially the precarious condition of a small band of Dorian conquerors in Sparta and its district, with sub-' dued Helots on their own lands and Achaeans unsubdued all around them, we shall not be surprised that the language firms it. " The most rational Spartans (he says) will appreciate this discourse, if theyjind any one to read it to them" f/v AoSoxrt rbv uvayvood- uevov (p. 285). 1 Aristot. Polit. ii. 6, 22; vii. 13, 11 ; viii. 1, 3 ; viii. 3, 3. Plato, Legg. i pp. 626-629. Plutarch, Solon, c. 22. ​392 HISTORY OF GREECE. which Brasidas in the Peloponnesian war addresses to his armj in reference to the original Spartan settlement, was still more powerfully present to the mind of Lykurgus four centuries earlier " We are a few in the midst of many enemies ; we can only maintain ourselves by fighting and conquering." 1 Under such circumstances, the exclusive aim which Lykurgua proposed to himself is easily understood ; but what is truly sur- prising, is the violence of his means and the success of the result. He realized his project of creating, in the eight thousand or nine thousand Spartan citizens, unrivalled habits of obedience, hardihood, self-denial, and military aptitude, complete subjec- tion on the part of each individual to the local public opinion, and preference of death to the abandonment of Spartan maxims, intense ambition on the part of every one to distinguish himself within the prescribed sphere of duties, with little ambition for anything else. In what manner so rigofbus a system of indi- vidual training can have been first brought to bear upon any community, mastering the course of the thoughts and actions from boyhood to old age, a work far more difficult than any political revolution, we are not permitted to discover. Nor does the influence of an earnest and energetic Herakleidman, seconded by the still more powerful working of the Delphian god behind, upon the strong pious susceptibilities of the Spartan mind, sufficiently explain a phenomenon so remarkable in the history of mankind, unless we suppose them aided by some com- bination of cooperating circumstances which history has not transmitted to us, 2 and preceded by disorders so exaggerated a* to render the citizens glad to escape from them at any price. Respecting the ante-Lykurgean Sparta we possess no positive information whatever. But although this unfortunate gap cannot be filled up, we may yet master the negative probabilities of the 1 Thucyd, iv. 126. OJ ye. fir^de uitb iroTitrettiv TOIOVTUV //Kert, tv alf ov nofaol biyuv upgovai, uTi^a Ttfaiovuv fj.a}^ov fkaaaovt; oi<K d^y nv KTrjaufievot TTJV dwaoreiav % r> ftaxopevoi Kparelv. The most remarkable circumstance is, that these words are addressed by Brasidas to an army composed, in large proportion, of manumitted Helot* (Thucyd. iv. 81). 3 Plato treats of the system of Lykurgns, as emanating fi ow- the Delphi** Apollo and Lykurgus as his missionary (Legg. i. p. 632). ​PARTITION OF LANDS. 393 case sufficiently to see that, in what Plutarch has told us ("and from Plutarch the modern views have, until lately, been de rived), there is indeed a basis of reality, but there is also a large superstructure of romance, in not a few particulars essentially misleading. For example, Plutarch treats Lykurgus as intro- ducing his reforms at a time when Sparta was mistress of La- conia, and distributing the whole of that territory among the Periceki. Now we know that Laconia was not then in possession of Sparta, and that the partition of Lykurgus (assuming it to be real) could only have been applied to the land in the immediate vicinity of the latter. For even Amyklae, Pharis, and Geron thras, were not conquered until the reign of Teleklus, posterior to any period which we can reasonably assign to Lykurgus : nor can any such distribution of Laconia have really occurred. Farther, we are told that Lykurgus banished from Sparta coined gold and silver, useless professions and frivolities, eager pursuit of gain, and ostentatious display. Without dwelling upon the improbability that any one of these anti-Spartan characteristics should have existed at so early a period as the ninth century before the Christian era, we may at least be certain that coined silver was not then to be found, since it was first introduced into Greece by Pheidon of Argos in the succeeding century, as has been stated in the preceding section. But amongst all the points stated by Plutarch, the most sus- picious by far, and the most misleading, because endless calcula- tions have been built upon it, is the alleged redivision of landed property. He tells us that Lykurgus found fearful inequality in the landed possessions of the Spartans ; nearly all the land in the hands of a few, and a great multitude without any land ; that he rectified this evil by a redivision of the Spartan district into nine thousand equal lots, and the rest of Laconia into thirty thousand, giving to each citizen as much as would produce a given quota of barley, etc. ; and that he wished, moreover, to have divided the movable property upon similar principles of equality, but was deterred by the difficulties of carrying hia design into execution. Now we shall find on consideration that this new and equal partition of lands by Lykurgus is still more at variance with 17* ​394 HISTORY OF GREECE. fact and probability than the two former alleged proceedings^ All the historical evidences exhibit decided inequalities of prop- erty among the Spartans, inequalities which tended constantly to increase ; moreover, the earlier authors do not conceive this evil as having grown up by way of abuse out of a primeval system of perfect equality, nor do they know anything of the original equal redivision by Lykurgus. Even as early as the poet Alkaeus (B. c. 600-580) we find bitter complaints of the oppressive ascendency of wealth, and the degradation of the poor man, cited as having been pronounced by Aristodemus at Sparta : " Wealth (said he) makes the man, no poor person is either accounted good or honored." 1 Next, the historian Hella- nikus certainly knew nothing of the Lykurgean redivision, for he ascribed the whole Spartan polity to Eurysthenes and Pro- kles, the original founders, and hardly noticed Lykurgus at all. Again, in the brief, but impressive description of the Spartan lawgiver by Herodotus, several other institutions are alluded to, but nothing is said about a redivision of the lands ; and this latter point is in itself of such transcendent moment, and was so recognized among all Grecian thinkers, that the omission is almost a demonstration of ignorance. Thucydides certainly could not have believed that equality of property was an origi- nal feature in the Lykurgean system ; for he says that, at Lace- dasmon, " the rich men assimilated themselves greatly in respect of clothing and general habits of life to the simplicity of the poor, and thus set an example which was partially followed in the rest of Greece :" a remark which both implies the existence of unequal property, and gives a just appreciation of the real working of Lykurgic institutions. 2 The like is the sentiment of Xenophon : 3 he observes that the rich at Sparta gained little by

• Alcsei Fragment 41, p. 279, ed. Schneidewin:

'Cf yap dqiror' ' piar oda/tov (paia 1 OVK uiruhafivov h> Sir upra Xoycv EtTnJv Xp^/iar' uvrjp' irevixpbf J' oMelf Tre/ler' totihof oiide: ri.fj.iof. Compare the Schol. ad Pindar. Isthm. ii. 17, and Diogen. Lafirt. i. 31. J Thucydid. i. 6. jieTpip 6' av IffdijTi KCU If rbv vvv rpoirov irpuroi AateJai uovioi kxpfiaavTo, KOI if r& uAAa irpbf rotif 7ro/Wot)f oi rd [iiifc KeKTTjftevat ioodiaiTot Honiara Karearrjaav. See, also, Plutarch, Apophthegm. Lacon. p 0, A F.

• Xenoph. Republ. Laced, c. 7. ​PAKTITION OF LANDb. 395

their wealth in point of superior comfort ; but he never glances at any original measure carried into effect by Lykurgus for equalizing possessions. Plato too, 1 while he touches upon the great advantage possessed by the Dorians, immediately after their conquest of Peloponnesus, in being able to apportion land suitably to all, ever hints that this original distribution had degenerated into an abuse, and that an entire subsequent redi- vision had been resorted to by Lykurgus : moreover, he is him. self deeply sensible of the hazards of that formidable proceeding. Lastly, Aristotle clearly did not believe that Lykurgus had re- divided the soil. For he informs us first, that, " both in Lacedae- mon and in Krete, 2 the legislator had rendered the enjoyment of property common through the establishment of the Syssitia, or public mess." Now this remark (if read in the chapter of which it forms a part, a refutation of the scheme of Communism for the select guardians in the Platonic Republic) will be seen to tell little for its point, if we assume that Lykurgus at the same time equalized all individual possessions. Had Aristotle known that fact, he could not have failed to notice it : nor could he have assimilated the legislators in Lacedaemon and Krete, seeing that in the latter no one pretends that any such equaliza- tion was ever brought about. Next, not only does Aristotle dwell upon the actual inequality of property at Sparta as a serious public evil, but he nowhere treats this as having grown out of a system of absolute equality once enacted by the law- giver as a part of the primitive constitution : he expressly notices inequality of property so far back as the second Messenian war. Moreover, in that valuable chapter of his Politics, where the scheme of equality of possessions is discussed, Phaleas of Chal- kedon is expressly mentioned as the first author of it, thus indi- rectly excluding Lykurgus. 3 The mere silence of Aristotle is in 1 Plato, Legg. iii. p. 684.

• Aristotel. Politic, ii. 2, 10. ua-nep TO. nepl ruf KT^aeif v Aantdaipovi nal

Kpr/Tiy Tolf avoffirioif 6 vofiofieTTif iKoivuaE. 3 Aristot. Politic, ii. 4, 1, about Phaleas; and about Sparta and Krete, generally, the whole sixth and seventh chapters of the second book ; abo, r. 6, 2-7. Theophrastus (apud Plutarch, Lycurg. c. 10) makes a similar observation, that the public mess, and the general simplicity of habits, tended to render ​396 HISTORY OF GREECE. this discussion a negative argument of the greatest weight. Jso krates, 1 too, speaks much about Sparta for good and for evil, mentions Lykurgus as having established a political constitution much like that of the earliest days of Athens, praises the gymnasia and the discipline, and compliments the Spartans upon the many centuries which they have gone through without violent sedition, extinction of debts, and redivision of the land, those " monstrous evils," as he terms them. Had he con- ceived Lykurgus as being himself the author of a complete redivision of land, he could hardly have avoided some allusion to it. It appears, then, that nftne of the authors down to Aristotle ascribe to Lykurgus a redivision of the lands, either of Sparta or of Laconia. The statement to this effect in Plutarch, given in great detail and with precise specification of number and produce, must have been borrowed from some author later than Aristotle ; and I think we may trace the source of it, when we study Plu- tarch's biography of Lykurgus in conjunction with that of Agis and Kleomenes. The statement is taken from authors of the century after Aristotle, either in, or shortly before, the age when both those kings tried extreme measures to renovate the sinking state : the former by a thorough change of system and property, yet proposed and accepted according to constitutional forms ; the latter by projects substantially similar, with violence to enforce them. The accumulation of landed property in few hands, the multiplication of poor, and the decline in the number of citizens* which are depicted as grave mischiefs by Aristotle, had become wealth of little service to the possessor: rby TT^OVTOV uir^ovrov airspyuoaa- &at TTJ KOLVOTrjTt rdv deiirvuv, KOI TTJ Trepl TTJV dicurav evre^eia. Compare Plutarch. Apophthegm. Lacon. p. 226 E. The wealth, therefore, was not formally done away with in the opinion of Theophrastus : there was no positive equality of possessions. Both the Spartan kings dined at the public mess at the same pheidition (Plutarch, Agesilaus, c. 30). Herakleide's Ponticus mentions nothing, either about equality of Spartan lots or fresh partition of lands, by Lykurgus (ad calccm Crngii, De Sparta- nornm Repub. p. 504), though he speaks about the Spartan lets and law of succession as well as about Lykurgus. 1 Isokrates, Panathen. Or. xii. pp. 266, 270, 278: oMf %-ieiJv anon tt>Jf y^f uvadaanuv ovd' u7^ oiidsv TUV uvijKfarvv KaKiiv ​PARTITION OF LANDS. 397 greatly aggravated during the century between him and Agis. The number of citizens, reckoned by Herodotus in the time of the Persian invasion at eight thousand, had dwindled down in the time of Aristotle to one thousand, and in that of Agis to seven hundred, out of which latter number one hundred alone possessed most of the landed property of the state. 1 Now, by the ancient rule of Lykurgus, the qualification for citizenship was the ability to furnish the prescribed quota, incumbent on each individual, at the public mess : so soon as a citizen became too poor to answer to this requisition, he lost his franchise and his eligibility to offices. 2 The smaller lots of land, though it was held discredit- able either to buy or sell them, 3 and though some have asserted 1 Plutarch, Agis, c. iv. ' 2 Aristot. Polit. ii. 6, 21. Hapu 6e rolf AUKUOIV tKaarov Jet tyepsiv, Kal a(j>n6pa TTfVT/Tuv tviuv OVTUV, teal TOVTO Tb uvu^ufia oil tivvoftsvuv 6a.Kavq.v.

• O p o c tie rijf TT o ? IT eia<: OVTO c lar iv 6 TTUT p toe, rbv

uf) 6vvu JJLEV ov TOVTO rb re/t-of (j> sps iv, /*# ft ere^e iv avr^f. So also Xenophon, Rep. Lac. c. vii. laa /lev ipepeiv elf TO. cmr^deia, ofioiuc 6e diaiTaatiai rufac. The existence of this rate-paying qualification, is the capital fact in the history of the Spartan constitution ; especially when we couple it with the other fact, that no Spartan acquired anything by any kind of industry. 3 Herakleides Ponticus, ad calcem Cragii De Eepub. Laced, p. 504. Com- pare Cragius, iii. 2, p. 196. Aristotle (ii. 6, 10) states that it was discreditable to buy or sell a lot of land, but that the lot might be either given or bequeathed at pleasure. He mentions nothing about the prohibition to divide, and even states what con- tradicts it, that it was the practice to give a large dowry when a rich man's daughter married (ii. 6, 11). The sister of Agesilaus, Kyniska, was a person of large property, which apparently implies the division of his father's estate (Plutarch, Agesilaus, 30). Whether there was ever any law prohibiting a father from dividing his lot among his children, may well be doubted. The Rhetra of the ephor Epitadeus (Plutarch, Agis, 5), granted unlimited power of testamentary disposition to the possessor, so that he might give away or bequeathe his land to a stranger if he chose. To this law great effects are ascribed : but it is evident that the tendency to accumulate property in few hands, and the tendency to diminution in the number of qualified citizens, were powerfully manifested before the time of Epitadeus, who came after Lysander. Plutarch, in another place, notices Hesiod, Xenokrates, and Lykurgus, as having con- curred with Plato, in thinking that it was proper to leave only one single heir (Iva fiovov K~X.rip6vofj.ov KaTahnrelv] ('^C^op>f)(iaTa fie 'Haiodov, Fragm vol. v. p. 777, Wyttcub.). But Hesiod Iocs not lay down this as a necessity ​398 HISTORY OF GREECE. (without ground, I think) that it was forbidden to divide them,- became insufficient for numerous families, and seem to have been alienated in some indirect manner to the rich ; while every indus- trious occupation being both interdicted to a Spartan citizen and really inconsistent with his rigorous personal discipline, no other means of furnishing his quota, except the lot of land, was open to him. The difficulty felt with regard to these smaller lots of land may be judged of from the fact stated by Polybius, 1 that three or four Spartan brothers had often one and the same wife, the paternal land being just sufficient to furnish contributions for all to the public mess, and thus to keep alive the citizen-rights of all the sons. The tendency to diminution in the number of Spartan citizens seems to have gone on uninterruptedly from the time of the Persian war, and must have been aggravated by the founda- tion of Messene, with its independent territory around, after the battle of Leuktra, an event which robbed the Spartans of a large portion of their property. Apart from these special causes, more- over, it has been observed often as a statistical fact, that a close corporation of citizens, or any small number of families, inter- or as a universal rule ; he only says, that a man is better off who has only one son (Opp. Di. 374). And if Plato had been able to cite Lykurgus aa an authority for that system of an invariable number of separate K^pot, or lots, which he sets forth in his treatise De Legibns (p. 740), it is highly probable that he would have clone so. Still less can Aristotle have supposed that Lykurgus or the Spartan system either insured, or intended to insure, the maintenance of an unalterable number of distinct proprietary lots ; for he expressly notices that scheme as a peculiarity of Philolaus the Corinthian, in his laws for the Thebans (Polit. ii. 9, 7). 1 Polybius, Fragm. ap. Maii. Collect. Vett. Scrip, vol. ii. p. 384. Perhaps, as 0. Miiller remarks, this may mean only, that none except the eldest brother could afford to marry ; but the feelings of the Spartans in respect to marriage were, in many other points, so different from ours, that we are hardly authorized to reject the literal statement (History of the Dorians, iii. 10, 2), which, indeed, is both illustrated and rendered credible by the per- mission granted in the laws of Solon to an kmn^poc who had been claimed in marriage by a relative in his old age, > uv 6 icpaTuv KOI nvpiof yeyovbf KSTU. rbv vofiov ofrdf fir) dvvardf y Tr^rjaiu^etv i'irb TUV lyytaTO. rov uvip&( brv'aadai (Plutarch, Solon, c. 20). I may observe that of 0. Miiller's statements, respecting the lots of land at Sparta, several are unsupported and some incorrect. ​DECLINE OF SPARTAN INSTITUTIONS. 893 marrying habitually among one another, and not reinforced from without, have usually a tendency to diminish. The present is not the occasion to enter at length into that combination of causes which partly sapped, partly overthrew, both the institutions of Lykurgus and the power of Sparta. But taking the condition of that city as it stood in the time of Agis the Third (say about 250 B. c.), we know that its citizens had become few in number, the bulk of them miserably poor, and all the land in a small number of hands. The old discipline and the public mess (as far as the rich were concerned) had degenerated into mere forms, a numerous body of strangers or non-citizens (the old xenelasy, or prohibition of resident strangers, being long dis continued) were domiciled in the town, forming a powerful moneyed interest ; and lastly, the dignity and ascendency of the state amongst its neighbors were altogether ruined. It was insupportable to a young enthusiast like king Agis, as well as to many ardent spirits among his contemporaries, to contrast this degradation with the previous glories of their country : nor did they see any other way of reconstructing the old Sparta except by again admitting the disfranchised poor citizens, redividing the lands, cancelling all debts, and restoring the public mess and military training in all their strictness. Agis endeavored tc carry through these subversive measures, (such as no demagogue in the extreme democracy of Athens would ever have ventured to glance at,) with the consent of the senate and public assembly, and the acquiescence of the rich. His sincerity is attested by the fact, that his own property, and that of his female relatives, among the largest in the state, was cast as the first sacrifice into the common stock. But he became the dupe of unprincipled coadjutors, and perished in the unavailing attempt to realize his scheme by persuasion. His successor, Kleomenes, afterwards accomplished by violence a change substantially similar, though the intervention of foreign arms speedily overthrew both himself and his institutions. Now it was under the state of public feeling which gave birth to these projects of Agis and Kleomenes at Sparta, that the his- toric fancy, unknown to Aristotle and his predecessors, first gain- ed ground, of the absolute equality of property as a primitive institution of Lykurgus. How much such a belief would favor ​400 HISTORY OF GREECE. the schemes of innovation is too obvious to require notice ; and without supposing any deliberate imposture, we cannot be aston- ished that the predispositions of enthusiastic patriots interpreted, according to their own partialities, an old unrecorded legislation from which they were separated by more than five centuries. The Lykurgean discipline tended forcibly to suggest to men's minds the idea of equality among the citizens, that is, the nega- tion of all inequality not founded on seme personal attribute, inasmuch as it assimilated the habits, enjoyments, and capacities of the rich to those of the poor; and the equality thus existing in idea and tendency, which seemed to proclaim the wish of the founder, was strained by the later reformers into a positive insti- tution which he had at first realized, but from which his degene- rate followers had receded. It was thus that the fancies, longings, and indirect suggestions of the present assumed the character of recollections out of the early, obscure, and extinct historical past. Perhaps the philosopher Sphzerus of Borysthenes (friend and companion of Kleomenes, 1 disciple of Zeno the Stoic, and author of works now lost, both on Lykurgus and Socrates, and on the constitution of Sparta) may have been one of those who gave currency to such an hypothesis. And we shall readily believe that, if advanced, it would find easy and sincere credence, when we recollect how many similar delusions have obtained vogue in 'Plutarch, Kleomenes, cap. 2-11, with the note of Sdiomann, p. 175; also, Lycurg. cap. 8 ; Athense. iv. p. 141. Phylarchus, also, described the proceedings of Kleomenes, seemingly with favor (Athenae. ib.) ; compare Plutarch, Agis, c. 9. Polybius believed, that Lykurgus had introduced equality of landed pos- session, both in the district of Sparta, and throughout Laconia : his opinion is, probably, borrowed from these same authors, of the third century before the Christian era. For he expresses his great surprise, how the best-informed ancient authors (ol /loyujrarot TUV up%aiuv avyypatyiuv), Plato, Xenophon, Ephorus, Kallisthenes, can compare the Kretan polity to the old Lacedaemo- nian, the main features of the two being (as he says) so different, equality of property at Sparta, great inequality of property in Kretc. among other differences (Polyb. vi. 45-48). This remark of Polybius, exhibits the difference of opinion of the earlier writers, as compared with those during the third century before the Christian era. The former compared Spartf.n and Kretan institutions, because they did not conceive equality of landed property as a feature in old Sparta. ​HYPOTHESIS REGARDING LVKUKUf* 401 modern times, far more favorable to historical accuracy, how much false coloring has been attached by the political feeling of recent days to matters of ancient history, such as the Saxon Witenagemote, the Great Charter, the rise and growth of the English House of Commons, or even the Poor Law of Elizabeth. When we read the division of lands really proposed by king Agis, it is found to be a very close copy of the original division ascribed to Lykurgus. He parcels the lands bounded by the four limits of Pellene, Sellasia, Malea, and Taygetus, into four thousand five hundred lots, one to every Spartan; and the lands beyond these limits into fifteen thousand lots, one to each Peri- oekus ; and he proposes to constitute in Sparta fifteen pheiditia, or public mess-tables, some including four hundred individuals, others two hundred, thus providing a place for each of his four thousand five hundred Spartans. "With respect to the division originally ascribed to Lykurgus, different accounts were given. Some considered it to have set out nine thousand lots for the district of Sparta, and thirty thousand for the rest of Laconia; l others affirmed that six thousand lots had been given by Lykur- gus, and three thousand added afterwards by king Polydorus ; a third tale was, that Lykurgus had assigned four thousand five hundred lots, and king Polydorus as many more. This last scheme is much the same as what was really proposed by Agis. In the preceding argument respecting the redivision of land ascribed to Lykurgus, I have taken that measure as it is described by Plutarch. But there has been a tendency, in some able modern writers, while admitting the general fact of such redivi- sion, to reject the account given by Plutarch in some of its main circumstances. That, for instance, which is the capital feature in Plutarch's narrative, and which gives soul and meaning to his picture of the lawgiver the equality of partition is now re- jected by many as incorrect, and it is supposed that Lykurgus made some new agrarian regulations tending towards a general equality of landed property, but not an entirely new partition ; that he may have resumed from the wealthy men lands which they had unjustly taken from the conquered Achaians, and thus Respecting Sphasrus, see Plutarch, Lycurg. c. 8 ; Ivleomen. c. 2 ; Athcnw v. p. 141 ; Diogen. LaSrt. vii. sect. 137 VOL. ii, 2Goc. ​402 HISTORY OF GREECE. provided allotments both for the poorer citizens and for the sul> ject Laconians. Such is the opinion of Dr. Thirlwall, who at the same time admits that the exact proportion of the Lykurgean distribution can hardly be ascertained. 1 I cannot but take a different view of the statement made by Plutarch. The moment that we depart from that rule of equality, wtich stands so prominently marked in his biography of Lykur- 1 Hist, of Greece, ch. viii.vol. i. pp. 344-347. C. F. Hermann, on the contrary, considers the equal partition of Laconia into lots indivisible and inalienable, as "an essential condition" (cine wesent liche Bedingung) of the whole Lykurgean system (Lehrbuch der Griechis chen Staatsalterthiimer, sect. 28). Tittmann (Griechische Staatsverfussungen, pp. 588-596) states and seems to admit the equal partition as a fact, without any commentary. Wachsmuth (Hellenisch. Alterthumskunde, v. 4, 42, p. 217) snppose-j " that the best land was already parcelled, before the time of Lykurgus, into lots of equal magnitude, corresponding to the number of Spartans, which number afterwards increased to nine thousand." For this assertion, I know no evidence : it departs from Plutarch, without substituting anything better authenticated or more plausible. Wachsmuth notices the partition of Laconia among the Periceki in thirty thousand equal lots, without any comment, anil seemingly as if there were no doubt of it (p. 218). Manso, also, supposes that there had once been an equal division of land prior to Lykurgus, that it had degenerated into abuse, and that Lyknr- gus corrected it, restoring, not absolute equality, but something near to equality (Manso, Sparta, vol. i. pp. 110-121). This is the same gratuitous supposition as that of Wachsmuth. 0. Muller admits the division as stated by Plutarch, though he says that the whole number of nine thousand lots cannot have been set out before the Messenian war; and h'e adheres to the idea of equality as contained in Plutarch ; but he says that the equality consisted in " equal estimate of average produce," not in equal acreable dimensions. He goes so far as to tell us that " the lots of the Spartans, which supported twice as many meu as the lots of the Periceki, must, upon the whole, have been twice as exten- sive ({. e. ift the aggregate) : each lot must, therefore, have been seven times greater," (compare History of the Dorians, iii. 3, 6 ; iii. 10, 2.) He also sup- poses, that " similar partitions of land had been made from the time of the first occupation of Laconia by the Dorians." Whoever compares his various positions with the evidence brought to support them, will find a painful disproportion between the basis and the superstructure. The views of Schomann, as far as I collect from expressions somewhat vague, seem to coincide with those of Dr. Thirlwall. He admits, however that the alleged Lykurgean equalization is at -rnriance with the represent* tions of Plato (Schomann, Antiq. Jur. Pub. iv 1, 7, note 4 p 116) ​STATEMENT OF PLU f ARCH. 40 3 gas, we step into a boundless field of possibility, in which there is nothing to determine us to one point more than to another. The surmise started by Dr. Thirlwall, of lands unjustly taken from the conquered Achaeans by wealthy Spartan proprietors, is altogether gratuitous ; and granting it to be correct, we have still to explain how it happened that this correction of a partial injustice came to be transformed into the comprehensive and systematic measure which Plutarch describes ; and to explain, farther, from whence it arose that none of the authors earlier than Plutarch take any notice of Lykurgus as an agrarian equalizer. These two difficul- ties will still remain, even if we overlook the gratuitous nature of Dr. Thirlwall's supposition, or of any other supposition which can be proposed respecting the real Lykurgean measure which Plutarch is affirmed to have misrepresented. It appears to me that these difficulties are best obviated by adopting a different canon of historical interpretation. We can- not accept as real the Lykurgean land division described in the life of the lawgiver; but treating this account as a fiction, two modes of proceeding are open to us. We may either consider the fiction, as it now stands, to be the exaggeration and distortion of some small fact, and then try to guess, without any assistance, what the small fact was. Or we may regard it as fiction from first to last, the expression of some large idea and sentiment so powerful in its action on men's minds at a given time, as to induce them to make a place for it among the realities of the past. Now the latter supposition, applied to the times of Agis the Third, best meets the case before us. The eighth chapter of the life of Lykurgus by Plutarch, in recounting the partition of land, describes the dream of king Agis, whose mind is full of two sentiments, grief and shame for the actual condition of his country, together with reverence for its past glories, as well as for the lawgiver from whose institutions those glories had eman- ated. Absorbed with this double feeling, the reveries of Agis go back to the old ante-Lykurgean Sparta, as it stood more than five centuries before. He sees, in the spirit, the same mischiefs End disorders as those which afflict his waking eye, gross in- equalities of property, with a few insolent and luxurious rich, a crowd of mutinous and suffering poor, and nothing but fierce antipathy reigning between the two. Into the midst of this fro​404 HISTORY OF GREECE. ward, lawless, and distempered community, steps the venerable missionary from Delphi, breathes into men's minds new im- pulses, and an impatience to shake off the. old social and political Adam, and persuades the rich, voluntarily abnegating their temporal advantages, to welcome with satisfaction a new system, wherein no distinction shall be recognized, except that of good or evil desert. 1 Having thus regeneratei the national mind, he parcels out the territory of Laconia into equal lots, leaving no superiority to any one. Fraternal harmony becomes the reign- ing sentiment, while the coming harvests present the gratifying spectacle of a paternal inheritance recently distributed, with the brotherhood contented, modest, and docile. Such is the picture with which " mischievous Oneirus " cheats the fancy of the pa- triotic Agis, whispering the treacherous message that the gods have promised him success in a similar attempt, and thus seduc- ing him into that fatal revolutionary course, which is destined to bring himself, his wife, and his aged mother, to the dungeon and the hangman's rope. 2 That the golden dream just described was dreamed by some Spartan patriots is certain, because it stands recorded in Plu- tarch; that it was not dreamed by the authors of centuries preceding Agis, I have already endeavored to show ; that the earnest feelings, of sickness of the present and yearning for a better future under the colors of a restored past, which filled the soul of this king and his brother-reformers, combined with the levelling tendency between rich and poor which really was inhe- rent in the Lykurgean discipline, were amply sufficient to beget such a dream, and to procure for it a place among the great deeds of the old lawgiver, so much venerated and so little known, this too I hold to be unquestionable. Had there been any evi- dence that Lykurgus had interfered with private property, to the limited extent which Dr. Thirlwall and other able critics imag- ine, that he had resumed certain lands unjustly taken by the ​PLUTARCH'S STORY OF xTITADELS. 405 rich from the Achaeans, I should have been glad to record it ; but, finding no such evidence, I cannot think it necessary to presume the fact, simply in order to account for the story in Plutarch.i The various items in that story all hang together, and must be understood as forming parts of the same comprehensive fact, or comprehensive fancy. The fixed total of nine thousand Spartan, and thirty thousand Laconian lots, 2 the equality between them, 1 I read with much sat ; sfrction, in M. Kopstadt's Dissertation, that the gen eral conclusion which I have endeavored to establish respecting the alleged Lykurgean redivision of property, appears to him successfully proved. (Dissert. De Eerum Laconic. Const, sect. 18, p. 138.) He supposes, with perfect truth, that, at the time when the first edition of these volumes was published, I was ignorant of the fact, that Lachmann and Kortflm had both called in question the reality of the Lykurgean redivision. In regard to Professor Kortiim, the fact was first brought to my knowledge, by his notice of these two volumes, in the Heidelberger Juhrbiicher, 1846, No. 41, p. 649. Since the first edition, I have read the treatise of Lachmann (Die Spar tanische Staats Verfassung in ihrer Entwicklung und ihrcm Verfalle, sect. 10, p. 170) wherein the redivision ascribed to Lykurgus is canvassed. He, too, attributes the origin of the tale, as a portion of history, to the social and po- litical feelings current in the days of Agis the Third, and Kleomenes the Third. He notices, also, that it is in contradiction with Plato and Isokrates. Bnt a large proportion of the arguments which he brings to disprove it, are con- nected with ideas of his own respecting the social and political constitution of Sparta, which I think either untrue or uncertified. Moreover, he believes in the inalienability as well as the indivisibility of the separate lots of land, which I believe to be just as little correct as their supposed equality. Kopstadt (p. 139) thinks that I have gone too far in rejecting every middle opinion. He thinks that Lykurgus must have done something, though much less than what is affirmed, tending to realize equality of individual property. I shall not say that this is impossible. If we had ampler evidence, per- haps such facts might appear. But as the evidence stands now, there is nothing whatever to show it. 2s T or are we entitled (in my judgment) to presume that it was so, in the absence of evidence, simply in order to make out that the Lykurgean mythe is only an exaggeration, and not entire fiction.

• Aristotle (Polit. ii. 6,11) remarks that the territory of the Spartans

would maintain fifteen hundred horsemen and thirty thousand hoplites, while the number of citizens was, in point of fact, less than one thousand. Dr. Thirlwall seems to prefer the reading of Gottling, three thousand instead ​406 HISTORY OF GREECE. and the rent accruing from each, represented by a given quantity of moist and dry produce, all these particulars are alike true or alike uncertified. Upon the various numbers here given, many authors have raised calculations as to the population and produce of Laconia, which appear to me destitute of any trustworthy foundation. Those who accept the history, that Lykurgus con- stituted the above-mentioned numbers both of citizens and of lota of land, and that he contemplated the maintenance of both num- bers in unchangeable proportion, are perplexed to assign the means whereby this adjustment was kept undisturbed. Nor are they much assisted in the solution of this embarrassing problem by the statement of Plutarch, who tells us that the number re- mained fixed of itself, and that the succession ran on from father to son, without either consolidation or multiplication of parcels, down to the period when foreign wealth flowed into Sparta, as a consequence of the successful conclusion of the Peloponnesian war. Shortly after that period (he tells us) a citizen named Epitadeus became ephor, a vindictive and malignant man, who, having had a quarrel with his son, and wishing to oust him from the succession, introduced and obtained sanction to a new Rhetra, whereby power was granted to every father of a family either to make over during life, or to bequeathe after death, his house and his estate to any one whom he chose. 1 But it is plain that this story (whatever be the truth about the family quarrel of Epita- deus) does not help us out of the difficulty. From the time of Lykurgus to that of this disinheriting ephor, more than four centuries must be reckoned : now, had there been real causes at work sufficient to maintain inviolate the identical number of lots and families during this long period, we see no reason why his new law, simply permissive and nothing more, should have over- thrown it. We are not told by Plutarch what was the law of succession prior to Epitadeus. If the whoje estate went by law to one son in the family, what became of the other sons, to whom industrious acquisition in any shape was repulsive as well as interdicted ? If, on the other hand, the estate was divided be- of thirty thousand ; but the latter seems better supported by MSS, aiwt most suitable. 1 Plutarch, Agis, c. 5. ​INEQUALITY OF LANDKD PROPERTY. 407 tween the sons equally (as it was by the law of succession at Athens), how can we defend the maintenance of an unchanged aggregate number of parcels ? Dr. Thirlwall, after having admitted a modified interference with private property by Lykurgus, so as to exact from the wealthy a certain sacrifice in order to create lots for the poor, and to bring about something approaching to equi-producing lots for ell, observes : " The average amount of the rent, paid by the cul- tivating Helots from each lot, seems to have been no more than was required for the frugal maintenance of a family with six persons. The right of transfer was as strictly confined as that of enjoyment ; the patrimony was indivisible, inalienable, and descended to the eldest son ; in default of a male heir, to the eldest daughter. The object seems to have been, after the number of the allotments became fixed, that each should be constantly represented by one head of a household. But the nature of the means employed for this end is one of the most obscure points of the Spartan system .... In the better times of the commonwealth, this seems to have been principally effected by adoptions and marriages with heiresses, which provided for the marriages of younger sons in families too numerous to be supported on their own hereditary property. It was then probably seldom necessary for the state to interfere, in order to direct the childless owner of an estate, or the father of a rich heiress, to a proper choice. But as all adoption required the sanction of the kings, and they had also the disposal of the hand of orphan heiresses, there can be little doubt that the magistrate had the power of interposing on such occasions, even in opposition to the wishes of individuals, to relieve poverty and check the accumulation of wealth." (Hist Gr. ch. 8, vol. i. p. 367). I cannot concur in the view which Dr. Thirlwall here takes >f the state of property, or the arrangements respecting its trans mission, in ancient Sparta. Neither the equal modesty of pos session which he supposes, nor the precautions for perpetuating it, can be shown to have ever existed among the pupils of Ly- kurgus. Our earliest information intimates the existence of rich men at Sparta : the story of king Aristo and Agetus, in Herodo tus, exhibits to us the latter as a man who cannot be supposed to have had only just " enough to maintain six persons frugally ," ​4Qb HISTORY OF GREECE. while his beautiful wife, whom Aristo coveted and entrapped from him, is expressly described as the daughter of opulent parents. Sperthies and Bulis, the Talthybiads, are designated as belonging to a distinguished race, and among the wealthiest men in Sparta. 1 Demaratus was the only king of Sparta, in the days of Herodo- tus, who had ever gained a chariot-victory in the Olympic games ; but we know by the case of Lichas, during the Peloponnesian war, Evagoras, and others, that private Spartans were equally successful; 2 and for one Spartan who won the prize, there must of course have been many who bred their horses and started their chariots unsuccessfully. It need hardly be remarked, that chariot-competition at Olympia was one of the most significant evidences of a wealthy house: nor were there wanting Spartans who kept horses and dogs without any exclusive view to the games. We know from Xenophon that, at the time of the battle of Leuktra, " the very rich Spartans " provided the horses to be mounted for the state-cavalry. 3 These and other proofs, of the existence of rich men at Sparta, are inconsistent with the idea of a body of citizens each possessing what was about enough for the frugal maintenance of six persons, and no more. As we do not find that such was in practice the state of prop- erty in the Spartan community, so neither can we discover that the lawgiver ever tried either to make or to keep it so. "What he did was to impose a rigorous public discipline, with simple slothing and fare, incumbent alike upon the rich and the poor (this was his special present to Greece, according to Thucydides, 4 and his great point of contact with democracy, according to Aris- totle) ; but he took no pains either to restrain the enrichment of the former, or to prevent the impoverishment of the latter. He meddled little with the distribution of property, and such neglect is one of the capital deficiences for which Aristotle censures him That philosopher tells us, indeed, that the Spartan law had made it dishonorable (he does not say, peremptorily forbidden) to buy cr sail landed property, but that there was the fullest liberty both 4 1 Herod, vi. 61. ola avdpiJTruv rt Mfiiuv tivyaTepa, etc ; vii. 134.

• Herod, vi. 70-103 ; Thucyd. v. 50.
• Xenoph. Hellen. vi. 4, 11 ; Xenoph. de Rep. Lac. v. 3 ; Molpis np.

. iv. p. 141 ; Aristot. Polit. ii. 2, 5. 4 Thncyd. i. 6 ; Aristot. Polit. iv. 7, 4, 5 ; viii. 1. B. ​FAKCY RESPECTING SPARTAN PROPERTY. 409 of donation and bequest : and the same results, he justly observes, ensued from the practice tolerated as would have ensued from the practice discountenanced, since it was easy to disguise a real sale under an ostensible donation. He notices pointedly the tendency of property at Sparta to concentrate itself in fewer hands, unopposed by any legal hindrances : the fathers married their daughters to whomsoever they chose, and gave dowries according to their own discretion, generally very large : the rich families, moreover, intermarried among one another habitually, and without restriction. Now all these are indicated by Aristotle as cases in which the law might have interfered, and ought to have interfered, but did not, for the great purpose of dissemi- nating the benefits of landed property as much as possible among the mass of the citizens. Again, he tells us that the law en- couraged the multiplication of progeny, and granted exemptions to such citizens as had three or four children, but took no thought how the numerous families of poorer citizens were to live, or to maintain their qualification at the public tables, most of the lands of the state being in the hands of the rich. 1 His notice, and condemnation, of that law, which made the franchise of the Spartan citizen dependent upon his continuing to furnish his quota to the public table, has been already adverted to ; as well as the potent love of money 2 which he notes in the Spartan character, and which must have tended continually to keep together the richer families among themselves : while amongst a commu- nity where industry was unknown, no poor citizen could ever become rich. If we duly weigh these evidences, we shall see that equality of possessions neither existed in fact, nor ever entered into the scheme and tendencies of the lawgiver at Sparta. And the pic- ture which Dr. Thirl wall 3 has drawn of a body of citizens each 1 Aristot. Polit. ii. 6, 10-13 ; v. 6. 7. z The panegyrist Xenophon acknowledges much the same respecting the Sparta which he witnessed ; but he maintains that it had been better in former times (Repub. Lac. c. 14). 3 The view of Dr. Thirlwall agrees, in the main, with that of Manso and 0. Mailer (Manso, Sparta, vol. i. pp. 1 18-128 ; and vol. ii. Beilage, 9, p. 129; nd Miiller, History of the Dorians, vol. ii. b. iii. c. 10, sect. 2, 3). Both these authors maintain the proposition stated by Plutarch (Agis c U. 18 ​410 HISTORY OF GREECE. possessing a lot of land about adequate to the frugal maintenance of six persons, of adoptions and marriages of heiresses arranged , in his reference to the ephor Epitadeus, and the new law carried by that ephor), that the number of Spartan lots, nearly equal and rigorously indi- visible, remained with little or no change from the time of the original division, down to the return of Lysander, after his victorious close of the Peloponnesian war. Both acknowledge that they cannot understand bj what regulations this long unalterability, so improbable in itself, was main- tained : but both affirm the fact positively. The period will be more than four hundred years if the original division be referred to Lykurgus : moro than three hundred years, if the nine thousand lots are understood to date from the Messenian war. If this alleged fact be really a fact, it is something almost without a parallel in the history of mankind : and before we consent to believe it, we ought at least to be satisfied that there is considerable show of positive evi- dence in its favor, and not much against it. But on examining Manso and Mtiller, it will be seen that not only is there very slender evidence in its favor, there is a decided balance of evidence against it. The evidence produced to prove the indivisibility of the Spartan lot, is a passage of Herakleides Ponticus, c. 2 (ad. calc. Cragii, p. 504), TTU^CIV 6e yrjv AaKc6at/j.ovioif alaxpbv vevofuarat, rijf upxaias fioipaf uvavefieatiai ("or vevenfi<r&ai) ovdev efe<m. The first portion of this assertion is confirmed by, and probably borrowed from, Aristotle, who says the same thing, nearly in the same words : the second portion of the sentence ought, according to all reasonable rules of construction, to be understood with reference to the first part ; that is, to the sale of the original lot " To sell land, is held disgraceful among the Lacedaemonians, nor is it permitted to sever off any portion of the original lot," i. e.for sale. Herakleides is not here speaking of the law of succession to property at Lacedaeinon, nor can we infer from his words that the whole lot was transmitted entire to one son. No evidence except this very irrelevant sentence is produced by Miiller and Manso to justify their positive assertion, that the Spartan lot of land was indivisible in respect to inheritance. Having thus determined the indivisible transmission of lots to one son of a family, Manso and Miiller presume, without any proof, that that son must be the eldest : and Miiller proceeds to state something equally unsupported by proof: "The extent of his rights, however, was perhaps no farther than that he was considered master of the house and property ; while the other members of the family had an equal right to the enjoyment of it The master of the family was, therefore, obliged to contribute for all these to the syssitia, without which contribution no one was admitted." pp. 199, 200. All this is completely gratuitous, and will be found to produce as many difficulties in one way as it removes in another. The next law as to the transmission of property, which Manso states to ave prevailed, is, that all daughters ivere to marry without receiving any ​LYKURGEAN REGULATIONS ABOUT PROrER'n. 41 J with a deliberate view of providing for the younger children of numerous families, of interference on the part of the kings to dowry, the case of a sole daughter is here excepted. For this proposition he cites Plutarch, Apophtheg. Laconic, p, 227 ; Justin, iii. 3 ; ^Elian. V. H. vi. 6. These authors do certainly affirm, that there was such a regulation, and both Plutarch and Justin assign reasons for it, real or supposed. ' ; Ly- kurgus, being asked why he directed that maidens should be married without dowry, answered, In order that maidens of poor families might not remain unmarried, and that character and virtue might be exclusively attended to in the choice of a wife." The same general reason is given by Justin. Now the reason here given for the prohibition of dowry, goes, indirectly, to prove that there existed no such law of general succession, as that which had been before stated, namely, the sacred indivisibility of the primitive lot. For had this latter been recognized, the reason would have been obvious why daughters could receive no dowry ; the father's whole landed property (and a Spartan could have little of any other property, since he never acquired anything by industry) was under the strictest entail to his eldest son. Plutarch and Justin, therefore, while in their statement as to the matter of fact, they warrant Manso in affirming the prohibition of dowry (about this matter of fact, more presently), do, by the reason which they give, discountenance his former supposition as to the indivisibility of the primitive family lots. Thirdly, Manso understands Aristotle (Polit. ii. 6, 11), by the use of the adverb vvv, to affirm something respecting his own time specially, and to im ply at the same time that the ancient custom had been the reverse. I cannot think that the adverb, as Aristotle uses it in that passage, bears out such a construction: vvv 6e, there, does not signify present time as opposed to past, but the antithesis between the actual custom and that which Aristotle pronounces to be expedient. Aristotle gives no indication of being aware that any material change had taken place in the laws of succession at Sparta : this is one circumstance, for which both Manso and Miiller, who both believe in tlw extraordinary revolution caused by the permissive law of the ephor Epita- deus, censure him. Three other positions are laid down by Manso about the laws of property at Sparta. 1. A man might give away or bequeathe his land to whomsoever he pleased. 2. But none except childless persons could do this. 3. They could only give or bequeathe it to citizens who had no land of their own. Of these three regulations, the first is distinctly affirmed by Aristotle, and in^y be relied upon : the second is a restriction not noticed by Aristotle, and supported by no proof except that which arises out of the story of the ephor Epitadens, who is said to have been unable to disinherit his son without causing a new law to be passed : the third is a pure fancy. So much for the positive evidence, on the faith of which Manso and Mtlller affirm the startling fact, that the lots of land in Sparta remained dis tinct, indivisible, and unchanged in number, down to the close of the Pelo- ponnesian war. I venture to say that such positive evidence is far too weak ​412 HISTORY OF GREECE. insure this object, of a fixed number of lots of land, each repre- eented by one head of a household, this picture is one, of which to sustain an affirmation in itself so improbable, even if there were no evi dcncc on the other side for contradiction. But in this case there is powerful contradictory evidence. First, the assertions of these authors are distinctly in the teeth of Aristotle, whose authority they try to invalidate, by saying that he spoke altogether with reference to his own time at Sparta, and that he misconceived the prim- itive Lykurgean constitution. Now this might form a reasonable ground of presumption against the competency of Aristotle, if the witnesses produced on the other side were older than he. But it so happens, that every one of the witnesses produced by Manso and Miiller, are younger than Aristotle : Herakleides Ponticus, Plutarch, Justin, ^Elian, etc. Nor is it shown that these authors copied from any source earlier than Aristotle, for his testi- mony cannot be contradicted by any inferences drawn from Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon, Plato, Isokrates, or Ephorus. None of these writers, anterior to, or contemporary with, Aristotle, countenance the fancy of equal, indivisible, perpetual lots, or prohibition of dowry. The fact is, that Aristotle is not only our best witness, but also our oldest witness, respecting the laws of property in the Spartan commonwealth. I could have wished, indeed, that earlier testimonies had existed, and I admit that even the most sagacious observer of 340-330 B. c. is liable to mistake when he speaks of one or two centuries before. But if Aristotle is to be discredited on the ground of late date, what are we to say to Plutarch ? To insist on the intellectual eminence of Aristotle would be superfluous : and on this subject he is a witness the more valuable, as he had made care- ful, laborious, and personal inquiries into the Grecian governments generally, and that of Sparta among them, the great point de mire for ancient specu lative politicians. Now the statements of Aristotle, distinctly exclude the idea of equal. indivisible, inalienable, perpetual lots, and prohibition of dowry. He par- ticularly notices the habit of giving very large dowries, and the constant tendency of the lots of land to become consolidated in fewer and fewer hands. He tells us nothing upon the subject which is not perfectly consist ent, intelligible, and uncontradicted by any known statements belonging to his own, or to earlier times. But the reason why men refuse to believe him, and either set aside or explain away his evidence, is, that they sit down to the study with their minds full of the division of landed property ascribed to Lykurgus by Plutarch. I willingly concede that, on this occasion, we have to choose between Plutarch and Aristotle. We cannot reconcile them except by arbitrary suppositions, every one of which breaks up the simplicity, beauty, and symmetry of Plutarch's agrarian idea, and everyone of which still leaves the perpetuity of the original lots unexplained. And I have no hesitation in preferring the authority of Aristotle (which is in perfect conso- nance with what we indirectly gather from other authors, his contemporaries ​LYKURGEAN REGULATIONS ABOUT PROPERTY. 413 the reality must not be sought on the banks of the Eurotas. The " better times of the commonwealth," to which he refers, and predecessors) as a better witness 011 every ground ; rejecting the state- ment of Plutarch, and rejecting it altogether, with all its consequences. Bat the authority of Aristotle is not the only argument which may be urged to refute this supposition that the distinct Spartan lots rema'incd unaltered in number down to the time of Lysander. For if the number of distinct lots remained undimimshed, the number of citizens cannot have greatly diminished. Now the conspiracy of Kinadon falls during the life of Lysander, within the first ten years after the close of the Peloponnesian war: and in the account which Xcnophon gives of that conspiracy, the paucity of the number of citizens is brought out in the clearest and most emphatic manner. And this must be before the time when the new law of Epitadeus is said to have passed, at least before that law can have had room to produce any sensible effects. If, then, the ancient nine thousand lots still remained all separate, without either consolidation or subdivision, how are we to account for the small number of citizens at the time of the con- spiracy of Kinadon ? This examination of the evidence, for the purpose of which I have been compelled to prolong the present note, shows 1. That the hypothesis of indivisible, inalienable lots, maintained for a long period in undiminished number at Sparta, is not only sustained by the very minimum of affirmative evidence, but is contradicted by very good negative evidence. 2. That the hypothesis which represents dowries to daughters as being prohibited by law, is, indeed, affirmed by Plutarch, ^Elian, and Justin, but is contradicted by the better authority of Aristotle. The recent edition of HerakleidGs Ponticus, published by Schneidewin, in 1847, since my first edition, presents an amended text, which completely bears out my interpretation. His text, derived from a fuller comparison of existing MSS., as well as from better critical judgment (see his Prolegg. c. iii. p. liv.), stands Hul.eiv 6e jrjv AaKedai/zovioif ala%pbv vevo/uffrai' TI/S 6k upxaiae [loipae ovde e&ariv (p. 7). It is plain that all this passage relates to sale of land, and not to testation, or succession, or division. Thus much negatively is certain, and Schneidewin remarks in his note (p. 53) that it contra- dicts Muller, Hermann, and Schomann, adding, that the distinction drawn is, between land inherited from the original family lots, and land otherwise acquired, by donation, bequest, etc. Sale of the former was absolutely illegal : sale of the latter was discreditable, yet not absolutely illegal. Aris- totle in the Politics (ii. 6, 10) takes no notice of any such distinction, between land inherited from the primitive lots, and land otherwise acquired. Nor was there, perhaps, any well-defined line of distinction, in a country of unwritten customs, like Sparta, between what was simply disgraceful and what was positively illegal. Schneidewin, in his note, however, assumes the original equality of the lots as certain in itself, and as being the cause of tha prohibition : neither of which appears to me true. ​414 HISTOKT OF GREECE. may have existed in the glowing retrospect of Agis, but are not acknowledged in the sober appreciation of Aristotle. That the citizens were far more numerous in early times, the philosopher tells us, and that the community had in his day greatly declined in power, we also know : in this sense, the times of Sparta had doubtless once been better. We may even concede that during the three centuries succeeding Lykurgus, when they were con- tinually acquiring new territory, and when Aristotle had been told that they had occasionally admitted new citizens, so that the aggregate number of citizens had once been ten thousand, we may concede that in these previous centuries the distribution of land had been less unequal, so that the disproportion between the great size of the territory and the small number of citizens was not so marked as it had become at the period which tha philosopher personally witnessed ; for the causes tending to aug- mented inequality were constant and uninterrupted in their work- ing. But this admission will still leave us far removed from the sketch drawn by Dr. Thirlwall, which depicts the Lykurgean Sparta as starting from a new agrarian scheme not far removed from equality of landed property, the citizens as spontaneously disposed to uphold this equality, by giving to unprovided men the benefit of adoptions and heiress-marriages, and the magis- trate as interfering to enforce this latter purpose, even in cases where the citizens were themselves unwilling. All our evidence exhibits to us both decided inequality of possessions and inclina- tions on the part of rich men, the reverse of those which Dr. Thirlwall indicates ; nor will the powers of interference which he I speak of this confused compilation still under the name of Herakleides Ponticus, by which it is commonly known: though Schneidewin, in the second chapter of his Prolegomena, has shown sufficient reason for believing that there is no authority for connecting it with the name of Herakleides. He tries to establish the work as consisting of Excerpta from the lost treatise of Aristotle's xepl Ilo^tTeiuv : which is well made out with regard to som parts, but not enough to justify his inference as to the whole. The article, wherein Welcker vindicates the ascribing of the work to an Excerptor of Herakleides, is unsatisfactory (Kleine Schriften, p. 451). Beyond this irrelevant passage of Herakleides Ponticus, no farther evidence is produced by Miiller and Manso to justify their positive assertion, that tht Spartan lot of land was indivisible in respect to inheritance. ​LYKURGEAN REGULATIONS ABOUT PROPERTY. 41 5 ascribes to the magistrate be found sustained by the chapter of Herodotus on which he seems to rest them. 1 1 Herod, vi. 57, in enumerating the privileges and perquisites of the kings dcKufriv 6k novvovs rotJf Paaihijas roaade ^ovva -irarpov^ov re Traptisvov xipt, ec rbv ittveerai e^stv, rjv [ijjxep 6 Trar^p avrr/v i-yyvqarf Koi 66uv v Trt'ot Kal TJV TIC tieTov iralda Troieecrdai i?e/b/, (iaai/.rjuv ivdvTiov It seems curious that Trarpot^of napdevor should mean a damsel who has .w father (liteially, lucus a non lucendo) : but I suppose that we must accept this apon the authority of Julius Pollux and Timaeus. Proceeding on this int/". '^relation, Valckenaer gives the meaning of the passage very justly : ' : OrU" uuptias, nccduju a patre desponsatse, si plures sibi vindicarent, fieretque r, .rlK^rjpof, ut Athenis loquebantur, emdiKOf, Sparta? lis ista dirimebatur a tigibus solis." iVow the judicial function here described, is something very different from the language of Dr. Thirlwall, that " the kings had the disposal of the hand of orphan heiresses in cases where the father had not signified his will." Such disposal would approach somewhat to that omnipotence which Aristo- phanes ( Vesp. 585) makes old Philokleon claim for the Athenian dikasts (an exaggeration well calculated to serve the poet's purpose of making the dikasts appear monsters of caprice and injustice), and would be analogous to the power wnich English kings enjoyed three centuries ago as feudal guardians over wards. But the language of Herodotus is inconsistent with the idea that the kings chose a husband for the orphan heiress. She was claimed, as of right, by persons in certain degrees of relationship to heiv Whether the law about uyxioTeia, affinity carrying legal rights, was the same as at Athens, we cannot tell ; but the question submitted for adjudication at Sparta, to the kings, and at Athens to the dikasteries, was certainly the same, agreeabiy to the above note of Valckenaer, namely, to whom, among the various clarnuints for the marriage, the best legal title really belonged. It is, indeed, probable enough, that the two royal descendants of Herakles might abuse their judicial function, as there are various instances known in which they take bribes ; but they were not likely to abuse it in favor of an unprovided youth. Next, as to adoption : Herodotus tells us that the ceremony of adoption was performed before the kings : probably enough, there was some fee paid with it. But this affords no ground for presuming that they had any hand in determining whom Uie childless father was to adopt. According to the Attic law about adoption, there were conditions to be fulfilled, consents to be obtained, the absence of disqualifying circumstances verified, etc ; and some authority before which this was to be done was indispensable (see Meier und Schoniann, Attisch. Prozess, b. iii. ch. ii. p. 436). At Sparta, such authority was vested by ancient custom in the king : but we are not told, nor is it prol >able, " that he could interpose, in opposition to the wishe* of individuals, to relieve porerty," as Dr. Thirlwall supposes ​416 HIS10RY OF GKKKCfc. To conceive correctly, then, the Lykurgean system, as far as obscurity and want of evidence will permit, it seems to me that there are two current misconceptions which it is essential to dis- card. One of these is, that the system included a repartition of landed property, upon principles of exact or approximative equality (distinct from that appropriation which belonged to the Dorian conquest and settlement), and provisions for perpetuating the number of distinct and equal lots. The other is, that it was first brought to bear when the Spartans were masters of all Laconia. The illusions created by the old legend, which depicts Laconia as all one country, and all conquered at one stroke, yet survive after the legend itself has been set aside as bad evidence : we cannot conceive Sparta as subsisting by itself without dominion over Laconia ; nor Amyklae, Pharis, and Geronthras, as really and truly independent of Sparta. Yet, if these towns were independent in the time of Lykurgus, much more confidently may the same independence be affirmed of the portions of Laconia which lie lower than Amyklte down the valley of the Eurotas, as well as of the eastern coast, which Herodotus expressly states to have been originally connected with Argos. Discarding, then, these two suppositions, we have to consider the Lykurgean system as brought to bear upon Sparta and its immediate circumjacent district, apart from the rest of Laco- nia, and as not meddling systematically with the partition of property, whatever that may have been, which the Dorian con- querors established at their original settlement. Lykurgus does not try to make the poor rich, nor the rich poor ; but he imposes upon both the same subjugating drill, 1 the same habits of life, gentlemanlike idleness, and unlettered strength, the same fare, clothing, labors, privations, endurance, punishments, and subordi- nation. It is a lesson instructive at least, however unsatisfactory, to political students, that, with all this equality of dealing, he ends in creating a community in whom not merely the love of preeminence, but even the love of money, stands powerfully and specially developed. 2 6afiaai(il3poTO, Simonides, apud Plutarch. Agcsilaus, c. 1 " Aristotcl. Polit. ii. 6. 9, 19, 23. rb QiMn/iov ri> ​GRADUAL CONQUESTS OE SPAE'lA. 417 How far the peculiar of the primitive Sparta extended w have no means of determining ; but its limits down the valley of the Eurotas were certainly narrow, inasmuch as it did not reach so far as AmyklDe. Nor can we tell what principles the Dorian conquerors may have followed in the original allotment of lands within the limits of that peculiar. Equal apportionment is not probable, because all the individuals of a conquering band are seldom regarded as possessing equal claims ; but whatever the original apportionment may have been, it remained without any general or avowed disturbance until the days of Agis the Third, and Ifleomenes the Third. Here, then, we have the primitive Sparta, including Dorian warriors with their Helot subjects, but no Periceki. And it is upon these Spartans separately, perhaps after the period of aggravated disorder and lawlessness noticed by Herodotus and Thucydides, that the painful but invigorating discipline, above sketched, must have been originally brought to bear. The gradual conquest of Laconia, with the acquisition of additional lands and new Helots, and the formation of the order of Perioeki, both of which were a consequence of it, is to be considered as posterior to the introduction of the Lykurgean system at Sparta, and as resulting partly from the increased force which that system imparted. The career of conquest went on, beginning from Teleklus, for nearly three centuries, with some interruptions, indeed, and in the case of the Messenian war, with a desperate and even precarious struggle, so that in the time of Thucydides, and for some time previously, the Spar- tans possessed two-fifths of Peloponnesus. And this series of new acquisitions and victories disguised the really weak point of the Spartan system, by rendering it possible either to plant the poorer citizens as Perioeki in a conquered township, or to supply them with lots of land, of which they could receive the produce without leaving the city, so that their numbers and their military strength were prevented from declining. It ia even affirmed by Aristotle, 1 that during these early times they augmented the numbers of their citizens by fresh admissions, which of course implies the acquisition of additional lots of 1 Aristot.Polit.ii. 6, 12. VOL. n. 18* 27oo. ​418 HISTORY OF GREECE. land. But successful war, to use an expression substantially borrowed from the same philosopher, was necessary to their salvation : the establishment of their ascendency, and of their maximum of territory, was followed, after no very long interval, by symptoms of decline. 1 It will hereafter be seen that, at the period of the conspiracy of Kinadon (395 B. c.), the full citizens (called Homoioi, or Peers) were considerably inferior in number to the Hypomeidnes, or Spartans, who could no longer furnish their qualification, and had become disfranchised. And the loss thus sustained was very imperfectly repaired by the ad- mitted practice, sometimes resorted to by rich men, of asso- ciating with their own children the children of poorer citizens, and paying the contribution for these latter to the public tables, so as to enable them to go through the prescribed course of education and discipline, whereby they became (under the title or sobriquet of MothSkes 9 ) citizens, with a certain taint of inferiority, yet were sometimes appointed to honorable commands. Laconia, the state and territory of the Lacedaemonians, was affirmed, at the time of its greatest extension, to have compre- hended a hundred cities, 3 this after the conquest of Messenia; 1 Aristot. 'Polit. ii. 6, 22. Totyapow iau&vro no^efiovvTer, UTT^.OVTO 6t ApgavTEf, etc. Compare also vii. 13, 15. 2 Plutarch, Kleomen. c. 8; Phylarch. ap. Athense. vi. p. 271. The strangers called Tpotyiftoi, and the illegitimate sons of Spartans, whom Xenophon mentions with eulogy, as " having partaken in the honorable training of the city," must probably have been introduced in this same way, by private support from the rich (Xenoph. Hellen. v. 3, 9). The xenelasy must have then become practically much relaxed, it' not extinct. 3 Strabo, viii. p. 362 ; Steph. Byz. Altisia. Construing the word TroAetf extensively, so as to include townships small as well as considerable, this estimate is probably inferior to the truth ; since, even during the depressed times of modern Greece, a fraction of the ancient Laconia (including in that term Messenia) exhibited much more than one hundred bourgs. In reference merely to the territory called La Magne, between Calamat* in the Messenian gulf and Capo di Magna, the lower part of the peninsula of Tanarus, see a curious letter, addressed to the Due de Nevers, in 1618, (on occasion of a projected movement to liberate the Morea from the Turks, and to insure to him the sovereignty of it, as descertjant of the Palseologi,) by a confidential agent whom he despatched thither. M.Chateaurenaud, ​DISTRIBUTION OF LACONIA. 419 BO tlita it would include all the southern portion of Peloponne- sus, hum Thyrea, on the Argolic gulf, to the southern bank of the river Nedon, in its course into the Ionian sea. But Laconia, more strictly so called, was distinguished from Messenia, and was understood to designate the portion of the above-mentioned territory which Jay to the east of Mount Taygetus. The con- quest of Messenia by the Spartans we shall presently touch upon ; but that of Laconia proper is very imperfectly narrated to us. Down to the reign of Teleklus, as has been before re- marked, Amyklae, Pharis, and Geronthree, were still Achaean : in the reign of that prince they were first conquered, and the Achaeans either expelled or subjugated. It cannot be doubted that AmykliB had been previously a place of consequence : in point of heroic antiquity and memorials, this city, as well as Therapnae, seems to have surpassed Sparta. And the war of the Spartans against it is represented as a struggle of some mo- ment, indeed, in those times, the capture of any walled city was tedious and difficult. Timomachus, an -ZEgeid from Thebes," who sends to him " une sorte de ttibleau statistiquc du Magne, ou sont enu- mere's 125 bourgs ou villages renfermans 4,913 feux, et pouvans fournir 10,- 000 combattans, dont 4,000 armes, et 6,000 sans armes (between Calamata and Capo di Magna)." (Me'moires de 1' Academic des Inscriptions, torn. xv. 1 842, p. 329. Me'moire de M. Berger Xivrey.) This estimate is not far removed from that of Colonel Leake, towards the beginning of the present century, who considers that there were then in Mani (the same territory) one hundred and thirty towns and villages; and this too in a state of society exceedingly disturbed and insecure, where private feuds and private towers, or pyrghi, for defence, were universal, and in parts of which, Colonel Leake says, " I see men preparing the ground for cotton, with a dagger and pistols at their girdles. This, it seems, is the ordinary armor of the cultivator when there is no particular suspicion of danger: the shepherd is almost always armed with a musket." " The Maniotes reckon their population at thirty thousand, and their muskets at ten thousand." (Leake, Travels in Morea, vol. i. ch. vii. pp. 243, 263-266.) Now, under the dominion of Sparta, all Laconia doubtless enjoyed com- plete internal security, so that the idea of the cultivator tilling his land in arms would be unheard of. Reasoning upon the basis of what has just been Btated about the Maniote population and number of townships, one hundred trohetf, for all Laconia, is a very moderate computation. 1 Aristot. Aaxuv. TLohiTeia, ap. Schol. Pindar. Isthm. vii. 18. I agree with M. Boeckh, that Pindar himself identifies this march of the ​420 HISTORY OF GREECE. at the Lead of a body of his countrymen, is said to have ren- dered essential service to the Spartans in the conquest of the Achaeans of Amyklte ; and the brave resistance of the latter was commemorated by a monument erected to Zeus Tropoeus, at Sparta, which was still to be seen in the time of Pausanias. 1 The Achasans of Pharis and Geronthrse, alarmed by the fate of Amyklse, are said to have surrendered their towns with little or no resistance : after which the inhabitants of all the three cities, either wholly or in part, went into exile beyond sea, giving place to colonists from Sparta. 2 From this time forward, according to Pausanias, Amyklse continued as a village. 3 But as the Amy- klrean hoplites constituted a valuable portion of the Spartan army, it must have been numbered among the cities of the Periceki, as one of the hundred; 4 the distinction between a dependent city and a village not being very strictly drawn. The festival of the Hyacinthia, celebrated at the great temple of the Amyklaean Apollo, was among the most solemn and venerated in the Spartan calendar. It was in the time of Alkamenes, the son of Teleklus, that the Spartans conquered Helus, a maritime town on the left bank of the Eurotas, and reduced its inhabitants to bondage, from whose name, 5 according to various authors, the general title Helots, belonging to all the serfs of Laconia, was derived. But of the conquest of the other towns of Laconia, Gytheium, Akriae, Therapnae, etc., or of the eastern land on the coast of the Argolic gulf, including Brasite and Epidaurus Limera, or the island of Kythera, all which at one time belonged to the Argeian confederacy, we have no accounts. Scanty as our information is, it just enables us to make out a progressive increase of force and dominion on the part of the Spartans, resulting from the organization of Lykurgus. Of this ./Egeids to Amyklse with the original Herakleid conquest of Peloponnesus. (Notae Criticse ad Pindar. Pyth. v. 74, p. 479.) 1 Pausan. iii. 2, 6 ; iii. 12, 7. * Pausan. iii. 22, 5. 8 Pansan. iii. 19, 5. 4 Xenoph. Ilellcn. iv. 5, 11. b Pansan. iii. 2, 7 ; iii. 20. 6. Strabo, viii. p. 363. If it be true, as Pausanias states, that the Argeians aided Helus to resist. their assistance must probably have been given by sea ; perhaps from Epi- daurns Limera, or Prasise. when they formed part of the Argeian federation ​FIRST AND SECOND MKSSOIAN WARS. 49] progress, a farther manifestation is found, besides the conquest of the Achseans in the south by Teleklus and AlkamenOs, in- their successful opposition to the great power of Pheidon the Argeian, related in a previous chapter. We now approach the long and arduous efforts by which they accomplished the sub- jugation of their brethren the Messenian Dorians. CHAPTER VII. FIRST AND SECOND MESSENIAN WARS. THAT there were two long contests between the Lacedaemo- nians and Messenians, and that in both the former were com- pletely victorious, is a fact sufficiently attested. And if we could trust the statements in Pausanias, our chief and almost only authority on the subject, we should be in a situation to recount the history of both these wars in considerable detail. But unfor- tunately, the incidents narrated in that writer have been gathered from sources which are, even by his own admission, undeserving of credit, from Rhianus, the poet of Bene in Krete, who had composed an epic poem on Aristomenes and the second Messe- nian war, about u. c. 220, and from Myron of Priene, a prose author whose date is not exactly known, but belonging to the Alexandrine age, and not earlier than the third century before the Christian era. From Rhianus, we have no right to expect trustworthy information, while the accuracy of Myron is much depreciated by Pausanias himself, on some points even too much, as will presently be shown. But apart from the mental habits either of the prose writer or the poet, it does not seem that any good means of knowledge were open to either of them, ex- cept the poems of Tyrtasus, which we are by no means sure that they ever consulted. The account of the two wars, extracted from these two authors by Pausanias, is a string of tableaux, several of them, indeed, highly poetical, but destitute of historical cohen ​422 HISTORY OF GREECE. ence or sufficiency : and O. Miiller has justly observed, that " absolutaly no reason is given in. them for the subjection of Mes- senia." 1 They are accounts unworthy of being transcribed in detail into the pages of genuine history, nor can we pretend to do anything more than verify a few leading facts of the war. The poet Tyrtaeus was himself engaged on the side of the Spartans in the second war, and it is from him that we learn the few indisputable facts respecting both the first and the second. If the Messenians had never been reestablished in Peloponnesus, we should probably never have heard any farther details respect- ing these early contests. That reestablishment, together with the first foundation of the city called Messene on Mount Ithome, was among the capital wounds inflicted on Sparta by Epamei- nondas, in the year B. c. 369, between three hundred and two hundred and fifty years after the conclusion of the second Messe- nian war. The descendants of the old Messenians, who had remained for so long a period without any fixed position in Greece, were incorporated in the new city, together with various Helots and miscellaneous settlers who had no claim to a similar geneal ogy. The gods and heroes of the Messenian race were reveren- tially invoked at this great ceremony, especially the great Hero Aristomenes ; 2 and the site of Mount Ithome, the ardor of the newly established citizens, the hatred and apprehension of Sparta, operating as a powerful stimulus to the creation and multiplica- tion of what are called traditions, sufficed to expand the few facts known respecting the struggles of the old Messenians into a varie- ty of details. In almost all these stories we discover a coloring unfavorable to Sparta, contrasting forcibly with the account given by Isokrates, in his Discourse called Archidamus, wherein we 1 History of the Dorians, i. 7, 10 (note). It seems that Diodorns had given a history of the Messenian wars in considerable detail, if we may judge from a fragment of the last seventh hook, containing the debate be- tween Kleonnis and Aristomenes. Very probably it was taken from Ephorus, though this we do not know. For the statements of Pausanias respecting Myron and Rhianus, see iv. G. Besides Myron and Rhianus, however, he seems to have received oral state- ments from contemporary Messenians and Lacedaemonians ; at least on soma occasions he states and contrasts the two contradictory stories (iv. 4, 4; if, 5,1). f Pausan. iv. 27, 2-3 : Diodor. xv. 77. ​FIRST AND SECOND MESSENIAX WAKS. 423 read the view which a Spartan might take of the ancient con- quests of his forefathers. But a clear proof that these Messe- nian stories had no real basis of tradition, is shown in the contra- dictory statements respecting the principal Hero Aristomenes ; for some place him in the first, others in the second, of the two Avars. Diodorus and Myron both placed him in the first ; Rhia- nus, in the second. Though Pausanias gives it as his opinion that the account of the latter is preferable, and that Aristomenes really belongs to the second Messenian war, it appears to me that the one statement is as much worthy of belief as the other, and that there is no sufficient evidence for deciding between them, a conclusion which is substantially the same with that of "Wesseling, who thinks that there were two persons named Aristomenes, one in the first and one in the second war. 1 This inextricable confusion respecting the greatest name in Messenian antiquity, shows how little any genuine stream of tradition can here be recognized. Pausanias states the first Messenian war as beginning in B. c. 743 and lasting till B. c. 724, the second, as beginning in B. c. 685 and lasting till B. c. 6G8. Neither of these dates rest upon 1 See Diodor. Fragm. lib. viii. vol. iv. p. 30 : in his brief summary of Messenian events (xv. 66), he represents it as a matter on which authors differed, whether Aristomenes belonged to the first or second war. Clemens Alexand. (Prot. p. 36) places him in the Jirst, the same as Myron, by men- tioning him as having killed Theopompus. Wesseling observes (ad Diod. 1. c.), " Duo fuerunt Aristomenes, uterque in Messeniorum contra Spartanos bello illustrissimus, alter posteriore, priore alter bello." Unless this duplication of homonymous persons can be shown to be probable, by some collateral evidence, I consider it only as tantamount to a confession, that the difficulty is insoluble. Pausanias is reserved in his manner of giving judgment, b fiivrot 'Aptff- rouevrie ooZy ye tfty yeyovev ITTI TOV iroherjov TOV varepov (iv. 6). Miil- ler (Dorians, i. 7, 9) goes much too far when he affirms that the statement of Myron was " in the teeth of all tradition." Miiller states incorrectly the citation from Plutarch, Agis, c. 21 (see his Note h). Plutarch there says nothing about Tyrtceus: he says that the Messenians affirmed that their here Aristomenes had killed the Spartan king Theopompus, whereas the Lacedae- monians said, that he had only wounded the king. According to both ac- counts, then, it would appear that Aristomenes belonged to the first Mes**- aian war, not to the second. ​424 HISTORY OF GREECE. any assignable positive authority ; but the time assigned to th first war seems probable, while that of the second is apparently too early. Tyrtaeus authenticates both the duration of the first war, twenty years, and the eminent services rendered in it by the Spartan king Theopompus. 1 He says, moreover, speaking during the second war, " the fathers of our fathers conquered Messene ;" thus loosely indicating the relative dates of the two. The Spartans (as we learn from Isokrates, whose words date from a time when the city of Messene was only a recent founda- tion) professed to have seized the territory, partly in revenge for the impiety of the Messenians in killing their own king, the Hef a- kleid Kresphontes, whose relative had appealed to Sparta for aid, partly by sentence of the Delphian oracle. Such were the causes which had induced them first to invade the country, and they had conquered it after a struggle of twenty years. 2 The Lacedaemonian explanations, as given in Pausanias, seem for the most part to be counter-statements arranged after the time when the Messenian version, evidently the interesting and popular account, had become circulated. It has already been stated that the Lacedaemonians and Mes- senians had a joint border temple and sacrifice in honor of Arte- mis Limnatis, dating from the earliest times of their establish- ment in Peloponnesus. The site of this temple, near the upper course of the river Nedon, in the mountainous territory north-east of -Kalamata, but west of the highest ridge of Taygetus, has recently been exactly verified, and it seems in these early days 1 Tyrtseus, Fragm. 6, Gaisford. But Tyrtaeus ought not to be understood to affirm distinctly (as Pausanias, Mr. Clinton, and Miiller, all think) that Theopompus survived and put a close to the war : his language might consist with the supposition that Theopompus had been slain in the war, 'Ov Sia (Theopompus), Meao'^j'7/v etAo^ev eiipvxopov. For we surely might be authorized in saying "It was through Epa- meinondas that the Spartans were conquered and humbled ; or it was through Lord Nelson that the French fleet was destroyed in the last war," thpugh both of them perished in the accomplishment. Tyrtseus, therefore, does not contradict the assertion, that Theopompus was slain by Aristomenes, nor can he be cited as a witness to prove that Aristomenes did not live during the first Messenian war; which is the pur- pose for which Pausanias quotes him (iv. 6). Isokrates (Archidamus), Or. vi. pp. 121-122. ​HOSTILITIES COMMENCED BY THE SPARTANS. 425 to have belonged to Sparta. That the quarrel began at one of these border sacrifices was the statement of both parties, Lacedae- monians and Messenians. According to the latter, the Lacedae- monian king Teleklus laid a snare for the Messenians, by dressing up some youthful Spartans as virgins, and giving them daggers ; whereupon a contest ensued, in which the Spartans were worsted and Teleklus slain. That Teleklus was slain at the temple by the Messenians, was also the account of the Spartans. but they affirmed that he was slain in attempting to defend some young Lacedaemonian maidens, who were sacrificing at the temple, against outrageous violence from the Messenian youth. 1 In spite of the ieath of this king, however, the war did not actually break out 1 Strabo (vi. p. 257) gives a similar account of the sacrilege and murder- ous conduct of the Messenian youth at the temple of Artemis Limnatis. His version, substantially agreeing with that of the Lacedaemonians, seems to be borrowed from Antiochus, the contemporary of Thucydides, and is therefore earlier than the foundation of Messene by Epameinondas, from which event the philo-Messenian statements take their rise. Antiochus, writ- ing during the plenitude of Lacedaemonian power, would naturally look upon the Messenians as irretrievably prostrate, and the impiety here nar- rated would in his mind be the natural cause why the divine judgments overtook them. Ephorus gives a similar account (ap. Strabo. vi. p. 280). Compare Herakleides Ponticus (ad calcem Cragii De Rep. Laced, p. 528) and Justin, iii. 4. The possession of this temple of Artemis Limnatis, and of the Ager Dentheliates, the district in which it was situated, was a subject of con stant dispute between the Lacedaemonians and Messenians after the founda- tion of the city of Messene, even down to the time of the Roman emperor Tiberius (Tacit. Annal. iv. 43). See Stephan. Byz. v. Atf.duvioi ; Pausan. iii. 2, 6; iv. 4, 2; iv. 31, 3. Strabo, viii. p. 362. From the situation of the temple of Artemis Limnatis, and the description of the Ager Dentheliates, see Professor Ross, Reisen im Peloponnes. i. pp. 5- 11. He discovered two boundary-stones with inscriptions, dating from the time of the early Roman emperors, marking the confines of Lacedcemon and Messene ; both on the line of the highest ridge of Taygetus, where the waters separate east and west, and considerably to the eastward of the temple of Artemis Limnatis, so that at that time the Ager Dentheliates was considered a part of Messenia. I now find that Colonel Leake (Peloponnesiaca, p. 181) regards these Inscriptions, discovered by Professor Ross, as not proving that the temple of Artemis Limnatis was situated near the spot where they were found. Hii authority weighs much with me on such a point, though the arguments which he here employs do not seem to me conclusive. ​426 HISTORY OF GREECi,. until some little tine after, when Alkamenes and Theopompm were kings at Sparta, and Antiochus and Androkles, sons of Phin- tas, kings of Messenia. The immediate cause of it was a private altercation between the Messenian Polychares (victor at the fourth Olympiad, B. c. 764) and the Spartan Euaephnus. Polychares, having been grossly injured by Eusephnus, and his claim for redress having been rejected at Sparta, took revenge by aggres- sions upon other Lacedaemonians ; the Messenians refused to give him up, though one of the two kings, Androkles, strongly insisted upon doing so, and maintained his opinion so" earnestly against the opposite sense of the majority and of his brother Antiochus, that a tumult arose, and he was slain. The Lacedaemonians, now resolving upon war, struck the first blow without any formal declaration, by surprising the border town of Ampheia, and put- ting its defenders to the sword. They farther overran the Messe- nian territory, and attacked some other towns, but without success. Euphaes, who had now succeeded his father Antiochus as king of Messenia, summoned the forces of the country and carried on the war against them with energy and boldness. For the first four years "of the war, the Lacedaemonians made no progress, and even incurred the ridicule of the old men of their nation as faint- hearted warriors : in the fifth year, however, they undertook a more vigorous invasion, under their two kings, Theopompus and PolydSrus. who were met by Euphaes with the full force of the Messenians. A desperate battle ensued, in which it does not seem that either side gained much advantage : nevertheless, the Messenians found themselves so much enfeebled by it, that they were forced to take refuge on the fortified mountain of Ithome, abandoning the rest of the country. In their distress, they sent to solicit counsel and protection from Delphi, but their messenger brought back the appalling answer that a virgin, of the royal race of .2Epytus, must be sacrificed for their salvation : in the tragic scene which ensues, Aristodemus puts to death his own daughter, yet without satisfying the exigencies of the oracle. The war still continued, and in the thirteenth year of it another hard- fought battle took place, in which the brave Euphaes was slain, but the result was again indecisive. Aristodemus, being elected king in his place, prosecuted the war strenuously : the fifth year of his reign is signalized by a third general battle, wherein the ​END OF THE FIRST WAR. 427 Corinthians assist the Spartans, and the Arcadians and Sikyon- ians are on the side of Messenia ; the victory is here decisive n the side of Aristodemus, and the Lacedaemonians are driven back into their own territory.i It was now their turn to send envoys and ask advice from the Delphian oracle ; while the re- maining events of the war exhibit a series, partly of stratagems to fulfil the injunctions of the priestess, partly of prodigies in which the divine wrath is manifested against the Messenians, The king Aristodemus, agonized with the thought that he has slain his own daughter without saving his country, puts an end to his own life. 2 In the twentieth year of the war, the Messe- nians abandoned Ithome, which the Lacedaemonians razed to the ground : the rest of the country being speedily conquered, such of the inhabitants as did not flee either to Arcadia or to Eleusis, were reduced to complete submission. Such is the abridgment of what Pausanias 3 gives as the nar- rative of the first Messenian war. Most of his details bear the evident stamp of mere late romance ; and it will easily be seen that the sequence of events presents no plausible explanation of that which is really indubitable, the result. The twenty years' war, and the final abandonment of Ithome, is attested by Tyrtaeus beyond all doubt, as well as the harsh treatment of the con- quered. " Like asses, worn down by heavy burdens," 4 says the 1 It is, perhaps, to this occasion that the story of the Epeunakti, in Theopompus, referred (ap. Athense. vi. p. 271), Helots adopted into the sleeping-place of their masters, who had been slain in the war, and who were subsequently enfranchised. The story of the Partheniffi, obscure and unintelligible as it is, belongs to the foundation of the colony of Taras, or Tarentum (Strabo, vi. p. 279). 2 See Plutarch, De Superstitione, p. 168. 3 See Pausan. iv. 6-14. An elaborate discussion is to be seen in Manso's Sparta, on the authorities whom Pausanias has followed in his History of the Messenian Wars, 18< Beilage, torn. ii. p. 264. " It would evidently be folly (he observes, p. 270), to suppose that in the history of the Messenian wars, as Pausanias lays them before us, we possess the true history of these events." 4 Tyrtaeus, Fragm. 5, 6 (Schneidewin). C. F. Hsrmann conceives the treatment of the Messenians after the first rar, as mild, in comparison with what it became after the second (Lehrbuch ​428 HISTORY OF GREECE. Spartan poet, " they were compelled to make over to their mas. ters an entire half of the produce of their fields, and to come in the garb of woe to Sparta, themselves and their wives, as mourn, ers at the decease of the kings and principal persons." The revolt of their descendants, against a yoke so oppressive, goes by the name of the second Messenian war. Had we possessed the account of the first Messenian war as given by Myron and Diodorus, it would evidently have been very different from the above, because they included Aristome- nes in it, and to him the leading parts would be assigned. As the narrative now stands in Pausanias, we are not introduced to that great Messenian hero, the Achilles of the epic of Rhi- anus, l until the second war, in which his gigantic proportions stand prominently forward. He is the great champion of his country in the three battles which are represented as taking place during this war : the first, with indecisive result, at Derae ; the second, a signal victory on the part of the Messenians, at the Boar's Grave ; the third, an equally signal defeat, in consequence of the traitorous flight of Aristokrates, king of the Arcadian Orchomenus, who, ostensibly embracing the alliance of the MPS- senians, had received bribes from Sparta. Thrice did Aris- tomenes sacrifice to Zeus Ithomates the sacrifice called Heka- tomphonia, 2 reserved for those who had slain with their own hands a hundred enemies in battle. At the head of a chosen band, he carried his incursions more than once into the heart of the Lacedaemonian territory, surprised Amykloe and Pharis, and even penetrated by night into the unfortified precinct of Sparta itself, where he suspended his shield, as a token of defiance, in the temple of Athene Chalkioekus. Thrice was he taken pris- oner, but on two occasions marvellously escaped before he could be conveyed to Sparta : the third occasion was more fatal, and he was cast by order of the Spartans into the Keadas, a deep, rocky cavity in Mount Taygetus, into which it was their habit to precipitate criminals. But even in this emergency the divine der Gricch. StaatsalterthUmer, sect. 31), a suonosiiion which the emphatic words of Tyrtseus render inadmissible. 1 This is the express comparison introduced hv Pausani.is. iv. 5. 2.

• riutarch, Sept. Sapient. Convivium. p. 159. ​SECOND MESSENIAN WAR. 429

aid' *at> not withheld from Mm. While the fifty Messenians who shared his punishment, were all killed by the shock, he alone was both supported by the gods so as to reach the bottom unhurt, and enabled to find an unexpected means of escape. For when, abandoning all hope, he had wrapped himself up in his cloak to die, he perceived a fox creeping about among the dead bodies : waiting until the animal approached him, he grasped its tail, defending himself from its bites as well as he could by means of his cloak ; and being thus enabled to find the aperture by which the fox had entered, enlarged it sufficiently for crawl- ing out himself. To the surprise both of friends and enemies, he again appeared, alive and vigorous, at Eira. That fortified mountain on the banks of the river Nedon, and near the Ionian sea, had been occupied by the Messenians, after the battle in which they had been betrayed by Aristokrates, the Arcadian ; it was there that they had concentrated their whole force, as in the former war at Ithome, abandoning the rest of the country. Under the conduct of Aristomenes, assisted by the prophet Theo- klus, they maintained this strong position for eleven years. At length, they were compelled to abandon it ; but, as in the case of Ithome, the final determining circumstances are represented to have been, not any superiority of bravery or organization on the part of the Lacedaemonians, but treacherous betrayal and strata- gem, seconding the fatal decree of the gods. Unable to main- tain Eira longer, Aristomenes, with his sons, and a body of his countrymen, forced his way through the assailants, and quitted the country, some of them retiring to Arcadia and Elis, and finally migrating to Rhegium. He himself passed the remain- der of his days in Rhodes, where he dwelt along Avith his son-in- law, Damagetus, the ancestor of the noble Rhodian family, called the Diagorids, cekbrafed for its numerous Olympic victories. 1 Pausan. iv. 18, 4. 'ApiffrouevTjV A* ef re T& a/J<.a -^euv Ti, tcai dr/ Kal rare Plutarch (De Herortot. MaJi^niUi. p. 856) states that Herodotus had men- tioned Aristomenes as having teen made prisoner by the Lacedaemonians . but Plutarch iww?t hero have ben deceived by his memory, for HerodotM does cot mevWwa Avistcmaes. ​430 HISTORY OF GREECE. Such are the main features of what Pausanias calls 1 the second Messenian war, or of what ought rather to be called the Aristomenei's of the poet Rhianus. That after the founda- tion of Messene, and the recall of the exiles by Epameinondas. favor and credence was found for many tales respecting the prowess of the ancient hero whom they invoked 2 in their liba- tions, tales well calculated to interest the fancy, to vivify the patriotism, and to inflame the anti-Spartan antipathies, of the new inhabitants, there can be little doubt. And the Messenian maidens of that day may well have sung, in their public proces- sional sacrifices, 3 how "Aristomenes pursued the flying Lacedac monians down to the mid-plain of Stenyklerus, and up to the very summit of the mountain." From such stories, traditions they ought not to be denominated, Rhianus may doubtless have borrowed ; but if proof were wanting to show how completely he looked at his materials from the point of view of the poet, and not from that of the historian, we should find it in the re- markable fact noticed by Pausanias. Rhianus represented Leo- tychides as having been king of Sparta during the second Mes- senian war; now Leotychides, as Pausanias observes, did not reign until near a century and a half afterwards, during the Persian invasion. 4 1 The narrative in Pausanias, iv. 15-24. According to an incidental notice in Herodotus, the Samians affirmed that they had aided Lacedaemon in war against Messene, at what period we do not know (Herodot. iii. 56). 2 ToOf 6e 'M.eaaijviov'f olda avrdc M raZf airov 6ai<; 'Apia~ou.Evr)v NIKO/XTJ- 6ovf /caAotivraf (Pausan. ii. 14, 5). The practice still continued in his time. Compare, also, Pausan. iv. 27, 3 ; iv. 32, 3-4. 3 Pausanias heard the song himself (iv. 16, 4) 'Enefa-yov $a[ia rd Kal e{ T>[IU<; In pdofievov : "Ef re fzeaov irediov "ZTevvKhypiov f r' opog unpov EtTrer' 'ApiaTopivTiG rolf AaKedat/zovuHc. According to one story, the Lacedaemonians were said to have got posses- sion of the person of Aristomenes, and killed him : they found in him a hairy heart (Steph. Byz. v. 'Avdavia).

• Pausan. iv. 15, 1.

Perhaps Leotychides was king during the last revolt of the Helots, or Mes- senians, in 464 B. c., which is called the third Messenian war. He seems to have been then in exile, in consequence of his venality during the Thessalian expedition, but not yet dead (Herodot. vi. 72). Of the reality of what ​TYRTjEUS. 4si To the great champion of Messenia, during this war, we may Oppose, on the side of Sparta, another remarkable person, less striking as a character of romance, but more interesting, in many ways, to the historian, I mean, the poet Tyrtseus, a native of Aphidna3 in Attica, an inestimable ally of the Lacede- monians during most part of this second struggle. According to a story, which, however, has the air partly of a boast of the later Attic orators, the Spartans, disheartened at the first euccesses of the Messenians, consulted the Delphian oracle, and were directed to ask for a leader from Athens. The Athenians complied by sending Tyrtseus, whom Pausanias and Justin represent as a lame man and a schoolmaster, despatched with a view of nominally obeying the oracle, and yet rendering no real assistance. 1 This seems to be a coloring put upon the story by later writers, but the intervention of the Athenians in the matter, in any way, deserves little credit. 2 It seems more probable that the legendary connection of the Dioskuri with Aphidnas, celebrated at or near that time by the poet Alkman, brought about, through the Delphian oracle, the presence of the Aphidnasan poet at Sparta. Respecting the lameness of Tyr- taeus, we can say nothing : but that he was a schoolmaster (if we are constrained to employ an unsuitable term) is highly probable, for in that day, minstrels, who composed and sung poems, were the only persons from whom the youth received any men- Mr. Clinton calls the third Messenian war, in 490 B. c., I see no adequate proof (see Fast. Hell. vol. i. p. 257). The poem of Ehianus was entitled Mr<7;?vta/ca. He also composed Qsa- cakiKu., 'H2.ia.Ku, 'xaiiid. See the Fragments, they are very few, in Diintzer's Collection, pp. 67-77. He seems to have mentioned Nikoteleia, the mother of Aristomenes (Fr. ii. p. 73) : compare Pausan. iv. 14, 5. I may remark, that Pausanias, throughout his account of the second Mes- seniati war, names king Anaxander as leading the Lacedsemonian troops ; but he has no authority for so doing, as we see by iv. 15, 1. It is a pure calculation of his own, from the Traripuv ira-fpef of Tyrtseus. 1 Pausan. iv. 15, 3; Justin, iii. 5, 4. Compare Plato, Legg. ii. p. 630, Diodor. xv. 66 ; Lycurg. cont. Leokrat. p. 1 62. Philochorus and Kallisthc- nes also represented him as a native of Aphidnas in Attica, which Strabo controverts upon slender grounds (viii. p. 362) ; Philochor. Fr. 56 (Didot). 'Plutarch, Theseus, c. 33; Pausan. i. 41, 5 ; Welcker, A.lkman. Fragra p. 20. ​482 HISTORY OF GREECE. tal training. Moreover, his sway over the youthful mind is par- ticularly noted in the compliment paid to him, in after-days, by king Leonidas : " Tyrtaeus was an adept in tickling the souls of youth." 1 We see enough to satisfy us that he was by birth a stranger, though he became a Spartan by the subsequent recom- pense of citizenship conferred upon him, that he was sent through the Delphian oracle, that he was an impressive and efficacious minstrel, and that he had, moreover, sagacity enough to employ his talents for present purposes and diverse needs ; being able, not merely to reanimate the languishing courage of the baffled warrior, but also to soothe the discontents of the mutinous. That his strains, which long maintained undiminished popularity among the Spartans, 2 contributed much to determine the ultimate issue of this war, there is no reason to doubt ; nor is his name the only one to attest the susceptibility of the Spartan mind in that day towards music and poetry. The first establish- ment of the Karneian festival, with its musical competition, at Sparta, falls during the period assigned by Pausanias to the second Messenian war : the Lesbian harper, Terpander, who gained the first recorded prize at this solemnity, is affirmed to have been sent for by the Spartans pursuant to a mandate from the Delphian oracle, and to have been the means of appeasing a sedition. In like manner, the Kretan Thaletas was invited thither during a pestilence, which his art, as it is pretended, con- tributed to heal (about G20 B. c.) ; and Alkman, Xenokritus, Polymnastus, and Sakadas, all foreigners by birth, found favora- ble reception, and acquired popularity, by their music and poetry. With the exception of Sakadas, who is a little later, all these names fall in the same century as Tyrtaeus, between G60 B. c. - 610 B. c. The fashion which the Spartan music continued for a long time to maintain, is ascribed chiefly to the genius of Terpander. 3 The training in which a Spartan passed his life consisted of exercises warlike, social, and religious, blended together. While the individual, strengthened by gymnastics, went through his 1 Plutarch, Kleomen. c. 2. 'AyaiSdf veuv T/t>uf alKuTJ^etv.

• Philochorus, Frag. 56, ed. Didot ; Lycurgus cent. Leokrat. p. 1G8.

See Plutarch, De Mus'cA, pp. 1134, 1142, 1 146. ​B1AR1AN MUblCAL SUSCEPTIBILITY. 433 lessons of fatigue, endurance, and aggressior, the citi- rens collectively were kept in the constant habit of simultaneous and regulated movement in the warlike march, in the religious dance, and in the social procession. Music and song, being con- stantly employed to direct the measure and keep alive the spirit ' of these multitudinous movements, became associated with the most powerful feelings which the habitual self-suppression of a Spartan permitted to arise, and especially with those sympathies which are communicated at once to an assembled crowd ; indeed, /he musician and the minstrel were the only persons who ever Addressed themselves to the feelings of a Lacedaemonian assembly. Moreover, the simple music of that early day, though destitute of artistical merit, and superseded afterwards by more compli^ cated combinations, had, nevertheless, a pronounced ethical char- acter ; it wrought much more powerfully on the impulses and resolutions of the hearers, though it tickled the ear less grate- fully, than the scientific compositions of after-days. Farther, each particular style of music had its own appropriate mental effect, the Phrygian mode imparted a wild and maddening stimulus ; the Dorian mode created a settled and deliberate resolution, exempt alike from the desponding and from the im- petuous sentiments. 2 What is called the Dorian mode, seems to be in reality the old native Greek mode, as contradistinguished from the Phrygian and Lydian, these being the three primi- tive modes, subdivided and combined only in later times, with which the first Grecian musicians became conversant. It prob- ably acquired its title of Dorian from the musical celebrity of Sparta and Argos, during the seventh and sixth centuries before the Christian era ; but it belonged as much to the Arcadians and Achaeans as to the Spartans and Argeians. And the marked ethical effects, produced both by the Dorian and the Phrygian modes in ancient times, are facts perfectly well-attested, however difficult they may be to explain upon any general theory of mu iic. 1 Thucyd. v. 69 ; Xenoph. Eep. Laced, c. 13. 2 See the treatise of Plutarch, De MusicA, passim, especially c. 17, p. 1136, etc; 33, p. 1143. Plato, Republ. iii. p. 399 ; Aristot. Polit. viii. 6, 5-8. The excellent treatise De Metris Pindari, prefixed by M. Boeckh to his edition of Pindar, is full of instruction upon this as well as upon all othei points connected with the Grecian music (see lib. iii. c. 8. p. 238). VOL. ii. 19 28oc. ​484 HISTORY OF GREECE. That the impression produced by Tyrtaeus at Sparta, there- fore, with his martial music, and emphatic exhortations to bravery in the field, as well as union at home, should have been very con- siderable, is perfectly consistent with the character both of the age and of the people ; especially, as he is represented to have ap- peared pursuant to the injunction of the Delphian oracle. From the scanty fragments remaining to us of his elegies and anapaests, however, we can satisfy ourselves only of two facts : first, that the war was long, obstinately contested, and dangerous to Sparta as well as to the Mcssenians ; next, that other parties in Pelo- ponnesus took part on both sides, especially on the side of the Messenians. So frequent and harassing were the aggressions of the latter upon the Spartan territory, that a large portion of the border land was left uncultivated : scarcity ensued, and the pro- prietors of the deserted farms, driven to despair, pressed for a re- division of the landed property in the state. It was in appeasing these discontents that the poem of Tyrtaeus, called Eunomia, " Legal order," was found signally beneficial. 1 It seems certain that a considerable portion of the Arcadians, together with the Pisataa and the Triphylians, took part with the Messenians ; there are also some statements numbering the Eleians among their allies, but this appears not probable. The state of the case rather seems to have been, that the old quarrel between the Eleians and the Pisatae, respecting the right to preside at the Olympic games, which had already burst forth during the pre- ceding century, in the reign of the Argeian Pheidon, still con- tinued. Unwilling dependents of Elis, the Pisatas and Triphy- lians took part with the subject Messenians, while the masters at Elis and Sparta made common cause, as they had before done against Pheidon.'- 2 Pantaleon, king of Pisa, revolting from Elis, acted as commander of his countrymen in cooperation with the Messenians ; and he is farther noted for having, at the period of the 34th Olympiad (644 B. c.), marched a body of troops to Olympia, and thus dispossessed the Eleians, on that occasion, of the presidency : that particular festival, as well as the 8th 1 Aristot. Polit. v. 7, 1 ; Pausan. iv. 1 8, 2. Pausan. vi. 12, 2; Strabo viii. p. 355, where the Nrcrropof -ojwo nefcn the PyHans of Tryphylit ​DATE OF THE SECOND WAR. 43* Olympiad, in which Pheidon interfered, and the 104lh Olym- piad, in which the Arcadians marched in, were always marked on the Eleian register as non-Olympiads, or informal celebra- tions. We may reasonably connect this temporary triumph of the Pisatans with the Messenian war, inasmuch as they were no match for the Eleians single-handed, while the fraternity of Sparta with Elis is in perfect harmony with the scheme of Peloponnesian politics which we have observed as prevalent ?ven before and during the days of Pheidon. 1 The second 1 Respecting the position, of the Eleians and Pisatas during the second Messenian war, there is confusion in the different statements : as they can- not all be reconciled, we are compelled to make a choice. That the Eleians were allies of Sparta, and the Pisatans of Messenia, and that the contests of Sparta and Messenia were mixed up with those of Elis and Pisa about the agonothesia of the Olympic games, is conformable to one distinct statement of Strabo (viii. pp. 355, 358), and to the passage in Phavori- nus v. Avyetac, and is, moreover, indirectly sustained by the view given in Pausanias respecting the relations between Elis and Pisa (vi. 22, 2), whereby it clearly appears that the agonothesia was a matter of standing dispute between the two, until the Pisatans were finally crushed by the Eleians in the time of Pyrrhus, son of Pantaleon. Farther, this same view is really conformable to another passage in Strabo, which, as now printed, appears to contradict it, but which is recognized by Muller and others as needing correction, though the correction which they propose seems to me not thi> nest. The passage (viii. p. 362) stands thus : Il2.eovu.Ktf 6' k-^oKi^ricsav (Messenians and Lacedaemonians) 6iii rue uTroaruaeif TUV ~M.saaqvi.uv. TTJV <IEV ovv TrpuTTiv xaTuKTrjaiv aiiriJv pr/ai Tvpralof ev rote iroirj/uaai Kartl roi'f ruv iraTtpuv Trarepaf yeveo&ai- TTJV 6e devrepav, a$' f/v ihopevoi avfj.fiu.xovf lll.eiovf KO.I 'Apyeiove Kal Hiaaraf uireaTjjaav, 'ApKaduv uev 'ApicrTOKpa.- ~TJV rbv 'Opxouevov fiaaiTiea napex.oiJ.EVuv crparTiybv, HiaarCiv 6e navra- eovra rbv 'OjKJia/.iuvof T/VIKO <j>T]atv atiroc arparij-yrjaai TUV Ttofefj.ov rotf iaKedaiftovioic, etc. Here it is obvious that, in the enumeration of allies, he Arcadians ought to have been included ; accordingly, both 0. Muller md Mr. Clinton (ad annum 672 B.C.) agree in altering the passage thus:

• hey insert the words KOI 'ApxaJac after the word 'H/ls-tovf, so that

Ljth Eleians and Pisatans appear as allies of Messenia at once. I submit that this is improbable in itself, and inconsistent with the passage of Strabo previously noticed : the proper way of altering the passage is, in my judg- ment, to substitute the word 'A p K a 6 a c in place of the word ' H A e i o v c, which makes the two passages of Strabo consistent with each other, and hardlj does greater violence to the text. As opposed to the view here adopted, there is, undoubtedly, the passage of Paus ias (iv. 15, 4) which numbers the Eleians among the allies of Mes ​436 HISTORY OF GREECE. Messenian war will thus stand as beginning somewhere about the 33d Olympiad, or 648 B. c., between seventy and .eighty years after the close of the fir^t, and lasting, according lo Pau- sanias, seventeen years ; according to Plutarch, more than twenty years. 1 senia, and takes no notice of the Pisatae. The affirmation of Julius Africanus (ap. Eusebium Chronic, i. p. 145, that the Pisatae revolted from Elis in tho 30th Olympiad, and celebrated the Olympic games themselves until 01. 52. | for twenty-two successive ceremonies) is in contradiction, first, with Pau- sanias (vi. 22, 2), which appears to me a clear and valuable statement, from its particular reference to the three non-Olympiads, secondly, with Pausa- nias (v. 9, 4), when the Eleians in the 50th Olympiad determine the number of Hellanodikae. I agree with Corsini (Fasti Attici, t. iii. p. 47) in setting aside the passage of Julius Africanns: Mr. Clinton (F. II. p. 253) is dis- pleased with Corsini for this suspicion, but he himself virtually does the same thing; for, in order to reconcile Jul. Africanus with Pausanias, he introduces a supposition quite different from what is asserted by either of them ; j. e. a joint agonothesia by Eleians and Pisatans together. This hypothesis of Mr. Clinton appears to me gratuitous and inadmissible : Afri- canus himself meant to state something quite different, and I imagine him to have been misled by an erroneous authority. See Mr. Clinton, F. II. ad. ann. 660 B. c. to 580 B. c. 1 Plutarch, DC Sera Num. Vind. p. 548 ; Pausan. iv. 15, 1 ; iv. 17. 3 : iv. 23, 2. The date of the second Messenian war, and the interval between the second and the first, are points respecting which also there is irreconcilable discrepancy of statement ; we can only choose the most probable : see the passages collected and canvassed in 0. Miillcr (Dorians, i, 7, 11, and in Mr. Clinton, Fast. Hellen. vol. i. Appendix 2, p. 257). According to Pausanias, the second war lasted from B.C. 685-GC8, and there was an interval between the first and the second war of thirty- nine years. Justin (iii. 5) reckons an interval of eighty years; Eusebius, an interval of ninety years. The main evidence is the passage of Tyrtoeus, wherein that poet, speaking during the second war, says, " The fathers of our fathers conquered Messene." Mr. Clinton adheres very nearly to the view of Pausanias; he supposes that the real date is only six years lowet (679-662). But I agree with Clavier (Histoire des Premiers Temps de la Grece, t- ii. p. 233) and O. MUller (1. c.) in thinking that an interval of thirty-nine years is too short to suit the phrase of fathers' fathers. Speaking in the present year (1846), it would not be held proper to say, " The fathers of our fathers carried on the war between 1793 and the peace of Amiens :" we should rather say, " The fathers of our fathers carried on the American war and the Seven Years' w ar." An ape is marked by its mature and even elderly members, by those between thirty-five and fifty-five years of age​SUBJUGATION OF THE MKSSEXIA:^. 437 Many of the Messenians who abandoned their country after this second conquest are said to have found shelter and sympathy among the Arcadians, who admitted them to a new home and gave them their daughters in marriage ; and who, moreover, punished severely the treason of Aristokrates, king of Orcho- menus, in abandoning the Messenians at the battle of the Trench. That perfidious leader was put to death, and his race dethroned, while the crime as well as the punishment was farther com- memorated by an inscription, which was to be seen near the altar of Zeus Lykseus, in Arcadia. The inscription doubtless existed in the days of Kallisthenes, in the generation after the restoration of Messene. But whether it had any existence prior to that event, or what degree of truth there may be in the story of Aristokrates, we are unable to determine :' the son of Aristo- krates. named Aristodemus, is alleged in another authority to have reigned afterwards at Orchomenus. 2 That which stands strongly marked is, the sympathy of Arcadians and Messenians against Sparta, a sentiment which was in its full vigor at the time of the restoration of Messene. The second Messenian war was thus terminated by the complete subjugation of the Messenians. Such of them as remained in the country were reduced to a servitude probably not less hard than that which Tyrtaeus described them as having endured be< tween the first war and the second. In after-times, the whole Agreeing as I do here with O. Muller, against Mr. Clinton, I also agree with him in thinking that the best mark which we possess of the date of the second Messenian war is the statemen ) respecting Pantaloon : the 34th Olym- piad, which Pantaleon celebrated, piobably fell within the time of the war; which would thus be brought down much later than the time assigned by Pausanias, yet not so far clown as that named by Eusebius and Justin : the cjcact year of its commencement, however, we have no means of fixing. Krebs, in his discussions on the Fragments of the lost Books of Diodorus, thinks that that historian placed the beginning of the second Messenian war in the 35th Olympiad (n. c. 640) (Krebs, Lectiones Diodorese, pp. 254-260). 1 Diodor. xv 66 ; Polyb. iv. 33, who quotes Kallisthenes ; Pans. viii. 5, 8. Neither the Inscription, as cited by Polybius, nor the allusion in Plutarch (De Sera Numin. Vindicta, p. 548), appear to fit the narrative of Pausanias, for both of them imply secret and long-concealed treason, tardily brought to light by the interposition of the gods; whereas, Pausanias describes the treason of Aristokrates, at the battle of the Trench, as palpable and flagrant

• Herakleid. Pontic. ap Diog. LaGrt. i. 94. ​438 HISTORY OF GREECE.

territory which figures on ;he map as Messenia, south of tha river Nedon, and westward of the summit of Taygetus, ap- pears as subject to Sparta, arid as forming the western portion of Laconia ; distributed, in what proportion we know not, between Perioekic towns and Helot villages. By what steps, or after what degree of farther resistance, the Spartans conquered this country, we have no information ; but we are told that they made over Asine to the expelled Dryopes from the Argolic peninsula and Mothone to the fugitives from Nauplia. 1 Nor do we hear of any serious revolt from Sparta in this territory until one hun- dred and fifty years afterwards, 2 subsequent to the Persian inva- sion, a revolt which Sparta, after serious efforts, succeeded in crushing. So that the territory remained in her power until her defeat at Leuktra, which led to the foundation of Messene by Epameinondas. The fertility of the plains, especially of the central portion near the river Pamisus, so much extolled by ob- servers, modern as well as ancient, rendered it an acquisition highly valuable. At some time or other, it must of course have been formally partitioned among the Spartans, but it is probable that different and successive allotments were made, according as the various portions of territory, both to the east and to the west of Taygetus, were conquered. Of all this we have no in- formation. 3 Imperfectly as these two Messenian wars are known to us, we may see enough to warrant us in making two remarks. Both were tedious, protracted, and painful, showing how slowly the results of war were then gathered, and adding one additional illustration to prove how much the rapid and instantaneous con- quest of Laconia and Messenia by the Dorians, which the Hera- kleid legend sets forth, is contradicted by historical analogy. Both were characterized by a similar defensive proceeding on 1 Pausan. iv. 24, 2 ; iv. 34, 6 ; iv. 35, 2. * Thucyd. i. 101. 3 Pausatrias says, T^V [J.EV u/U,r/i> Meaaqviav, K/JJV rfff 'Aaivaiuv, avroi iJieXdy^avov, etc. (iv. 24, 2.) In an apophthegm ascribed to king Polydorns, leader of the Spartans dnring the first Messenian war, he is asked, whether he is really taking arms against his brethren, to which he replies, " No ; I am only marching to tha unallotted portion of the territory." (Plutarch, Apophthegm. Lakonic. p 231.) tirl T/JV unliTipu ​PISA ASD ELIS. 439 the part of the Messenians, the occupation of a mountain difficult of access, and the fortification of it for the special pur- pose and resistance, Ithome (which is said to have had already a smull town upon it) in the first war, Eira in the second. It is reasonable to infer from hence, that neither their principal town Stenyklerus, nor any other town in their country, was strongly fortified, so as to be calculated to stand a siege ; that there were no walled towns among them analogous to Mykeniv, and Tiryns on the eastern portion of Peloponnesus ; and that, per- haps, what were called towns were, like Sparta itself, clusters of unfortified villages. The subsequent state of Helotism into which they w r ere reduced is in consistency with this dispersed village residence during their period of freedom. The relations of Pisa and Elis form a suitable counterpart and sequel to those of Messenia and Sparta. Unwilling sub- jects themselves, the Pisatans had lent their aid to the Messe- nians, and their king, Pantaleon, one of the leaders of this combined force, had 'gained so great a temporary success, as to dispossess the Eleians of the agonothesia or administration of the games for one Olympic ceremony, in the 34th Olym- piad. Though again reduced to their condition of subjects, they manifested dispositions to renew their revolt at the 48th Olympiad, under Damophon, the son of Pantaleon, and the Eleians marched into their country to put them down, but were persuaded to retire by protestations of submission. At length, shortly afterwards, under Pyrrhus, the brother of Damo- phon, a serious revolt broke out. The inhabitants of Dyspcn- tium, and the other villages in the Pisatid, assisted by those of Makistus, Skillus, and the other towns in Triphylia, took up arms to throw off the yoke of Elis ; but their strength was in- adequate to the undertaking. They were completely conquered ; Dyspontium was dismantled, and the inhabitants of it obliged to flee the country, from whence most of them emigrated to the colonies of Epidamnus and Apollonia, in Epirus. The inhabi- tants of Makistus and Skillus were also chased from their abodes, while the territory became more thoroughly subject to Elis than it had been before. These incidents seem to have occurred about the 50th Olympiad, or B. c. 580 ;' and the dominion of Elis over her Pericekic territory was thus as well assured as that ​440 HISTORY OF GREECE. of Sparta. 1 The separate denominations both of Pisa and Tri- phylia became more and more merged in the sovereign name of Elis: the town of Lepreum alone, in Triphylia, seems to have maintained a separate name and a sort of half-autonomy down to the time of the Peloponnesian war, not without perpetual struggles against the Eleians. 2 But towards the period of the Peloponnesian war, the political interests of Lacedremon had be- come considerably changed, and it was to her advantage to main- -ain the independence of the subordinate states against the superior : accordingly, we find her at that time upholding the autonomy of Lepreum. * From what cause the devastation of the Triphylian towns by Elis, which Herodotus mentions as hav- ing happened in his time, arose, we do not know ; the fact seems to indicate a continual yearning for their original independence, which was still commemorated, down to a much later period, by the ancient Amphiktyony, at Samikum, in Triphylia, in honor of Poseidon, a common religious festival frequented by all the Triphylian towns and celebrated by the inhabitants of Makistus, who sent round proclamation of a formal truce for the holy period. 3 The Lacedaemonians, after the close of the Peloponnesian war, had left them undisputed heads of Greece, formally upheld the independence of the Triphylian towns against Elis, and seem to have countenanced their endeavors to attach themselves to the Arcadian aggregate, which, however, was never fully accom- plished. Their dependence on Elis became loose and uncertain, but was never wholly shaken off. 4 1 Pausan. vi. 22, 2; v. 6, 3 ; v. 10, 2; Strabo, viii. pp. 355-357. The temple in honor of Zeus at Olympia, was first erected by the Eleians, out of the spoils of this expedition (Pausan. v. 10, 2). 2 Thucyd. v. 31. Even Lepreum is characterized as Eleian. however ( Ari?- toph. Aves, 149) : compare also- Steph. Byz. v. TpifvMa, 1} 'H/Uc. Even in the 6th Olympiad, an inhabitant of Dyspontium is proclaimed as victor at the stadium, under the denomination of "on Eleian from Dyspon- tium;" proclaimed by the Eleians of course, the like in the 27th Olym- piad : see Stcphan. Byz. v. AVOTTOVTIOV, which shows that the inhabitants of the Pisatid cannot have rendered themselves independent of Eli? in the 2Ctb Olympiad, as Strabo alleges (viii. p. 355). 3 Herodot iv. 149 ; Strabo, viii. p. 343. 4 Diodor. xiv. 17 ; xv. 77 ; Xenoph. Hellen. iii. 2, 23, 26. It was about this period, probably, that the idea of the local Triphylos, son of Arkas. was first introduced (Polyb. iv. 77). ​ARCADIA. 441 CHAPTER VIII. CONQUESTS OF SPARTA TOWARDS ARCADIA AND ARGOL1S. I HAVE described in the last two chapters, as far as our im- perfect evidence permits, how Sparta came into possession both of the southern portion of Laconia along the coast of the Euro- tas down to its mouth, and of the Messenian territory westward. Her progress towards Arcadia and Argolis is now to be sketched, so as to conduct her to that position which she occupied durin^ the reign of Peisistratus at Athens, or about 560-540 B. c., u time when she had reached the maximum of her territorial pos- sessions, and when she was confessedly the commanding state in Hellas. The central region of Peloponnesus, called Arcadia, had never received any emigrants from without. Its indigenous inhabitants, a strong and hardy race of mountaineers, the most numerous Hellenic tribe in the peninsula, and the constant hive for merce- nary troops, 1 were among the rudest and poorest of Greeks, retaining for the longest period their original subdivision into a number of petty hill-villages, each independent of the other ; while the union of all who bore the Arcadian name, though they had some common sacrifices, such as the festival of the Ly- koean Zeus, of Despoina, daughter of Poseidon and Demeter, and of Artemis Hymnia, 2 was more loose and ineffective than that of Greeks generally, either in or out of Peloponnesus. The Arcadian villagers were usually denominated by the names 1 Hermippus ap. Athenae. i. p. 27. 'Ariipun-oJ' EK tpvyiof, unb J' 'A iTTiKovpovf. Also, Xcnoph. Hellen. vii. 1, 23. irfalarov de </>v%ov TUV VIKUV rb 'ApKadiKbv elij, etc. 2 Paasan. viii. 6, 7 ; viii. 37, 6 ; viii. 38, 2. Xenias, one of the generals of Greek mercenaries in the service of Cyrus the younger, a native of the Parrhasian district in Arcadia, celebrates with great solemnity, during tho march upward, the festival and games of toe Lykaea (Xenoph. Anabas. 5. 3 10 ; compare Pindar, Olymp. ix. 142). Many of the forests in Arcadia contained not only wild boars, but bean, in the days of Pausanias (viii. 23, 4). 19* ​442 HISTORY OF GREECE. of regions, coincident with certain ethnical subdivisions, the Azanes, the Parrhasii, the Moenalii (adjoining Mount Maenalus), the Eutresii, the JEgytae, the Skiritae, etc.* Some considerable towns, however, there were, aggregations of villages or demes which had been once autonomous. Of these, the principal were Tegea and Mantineia, bordering on Laconia and Argolis, Or- chomenus, Pheneus, and Stymphalus, towards the north-east, bordering on Achaia and Phlius, Kleitor and Heraea, west- ward, where the country is divided from Elis and Triphylia by the woody mountains of Pholoe and Erymanthus, and Phiga- leia, on the south-western border near to Messenia. The most powerful of all were Tegea and Mantineia, 2 conterminous towns, nearly equal in force, dividing between them the cold and high plain of Tripolitza, and separated by one of those capricious torrents which only escapes through katabothra. To regulate the efflux of this water was a difficult task, requiring friendly cooperation of both the towns : and when their frequent jealousies brought on a quarrel, the more aggressive of the two inundated the territory of its neighbor as one means of annoyance. The power of Tegea, which had grown up out of nine constituent townships, originally separate, 3 appears to have been more an- cient than that of its rival ; as we may judge from its splendid heroic pretensions connected with the name of Echemus, and from the post conceded to its hoplites in joint Peloponnesian 1 Pausan. viii. 26, 5 ; Strabo, viii. p. 388. Some geographers distributed the Arcadians into three subdivision*, Azanes, Parrhasii, and Trapezuntii. Azan passed for the son of Areas, and his lot in the division of the paternal inheritance was said to have contained seventeen towns (of e^a^sv 'A&v). Stephan. Byz. v. 'Afaw'a Ha/i/5a<na. Kleitor seems the chief place in Azania, as far as we can infer from geneal- ogy (Pausan. viii. 4, 2, 3). Pseus, or Paos, from whence the Azanian suitor of the daughter of Kleisthene"s presented himself, was between Kleitor and Psophis (Herod, vi. 127 ; Paus. viii. 23, 6). A Delphian oracle, however, reckons the inhabitants of Phigaleia, in the south-western corner of Arcadia, among the Azanes (Paas. viii. 42, 3). The burial-place of Areas was supposed to be on Mount Mamalus (Pan*, viii. 9, 2). 3 Thucyd. v. 65. Compare the descr iption of the ground in Professo* Boss (Reisen im Peloponnes. iv. 7). 3 Strabo. viii. p. 337. ​TEGJ;A AND MANTIXEIA. 443 armaments, which was second in distinction only to that of the Lacedaemonians.* If it be correct, as Strabo asserts,2 that the incorporation of the town of Mantineia, out of its five separate denies, was brought about by the Argeians, we may conjecture that the latter adopted this proceeding as a means of providing some check upon their powerful neighbors of Tegea. The plain common to Tegea and Mantineia was bounded to the west by the wintry heights of Ma2nalus,3 beyond which, as far as the boundaries of Laconia, Messenia, and Triphylia, there was noth- ing in Arcadia but small and unimportant townships, or villages, without any considerable town, before the important step taken by Epameinondas in founding Megalopolis, a short time after the battle of Leuktra. The mountaineers of these regions, who joined Epameinondas before the battle of Mantineia, at a time when Mantineia and most of the towns of Arcadia were opposed to him, were so inferior to the other Greeks in equipment, that they still carried as their chief weapon, in place of the spear, nothing better than the ancient club. 4 1 Herodot. ix. 27.

• Strabo, 1. c. Mantineia is reckoned among the oldest cities of Arcadia

(Polyb. ii. 54). Both Mantineia and Orchomenus had originally occupied very lofty hill-sites, and had been rebuilt on a larger scale, lower down, nearer to the plain (Pausan. viii. 8, 3 ; 12, 4 ; 13, 2). In regard to the relations, during the early historical period, between Sparta, Argos, and Arcadia, there is a new fragment of Diodorus (among those recently published by Didot out of the Excerpta in the Escurial library, Fragment. Historic. Grsecor. vol. ii. p. viii.}. The Argeians had espoused the cause of the Arcadians against Sparta ; and at the expense of consider- able loss and suffering, had regained such portions of Arcadia as she had conquered. The king of Argos restored this recovered territory to the Arcadians : but the Argeians generally were angry that he did not retain it and distribute it among them as a reward for their losses in the contest. They rose in insurrection against the king, who was forced to flee, and take refuge at Tegea. We have nothing to illustrate this fragment, nor do we know to what king, date, or events, it relates. a MaivaMrj SvaxEififpos (Delphian Oracle, ap. Paus. viii. 9, 2). 4 Xenophon, in describing the ardor with which Epameinondas inspired his soldiers before this final battle, says (vii. 5, 20), Kpodiipus [ilv eXevKovvra ol /7r;rf ru upavij, KeTiEvovrof EKELVOV ETTeypaijiovTode Kal T&v 'Ap/ca- duv dTrTilrai. poira'ka I o v T e c, we Qij [3aioi ovref iravr !f it IKOVUVTO Kal Myxat; Kal //a,t;a<pac, Kal &aftirpvvovro ruf u ​444 HISTORY OF GREECF. Both Tegea and Mantineia held several of these smaller Are*- dian townships near them in a sort of dependence, and were anxious to extend this empire over others : during the Pelopon nesian war, we find the Mantineians establishing and garrisoning a fortress at Kypsela among the Parrhasii, near the site in which Megalopolis was afterwards built. 1 But at this period, Sparta, as the political chief of Hellas, having a strong interest in keeping all the Grecian towns,. small and great, as much isolated from each other as possible, and in checking all schemes for the formation of local confederacies, stood forward as the pro- tectress of the autonomy of these smaller Arcadians, and drove back the Mantineians within their own limits. 2 At a somewhat later period, during the acme of her power, a few years before the battle of Leuktra, she even proceeded to the extreme length of breaking up the unity of Mantineia itself, causing the walls to be razed, and the inhabitants to be again parcelled into their five original demes, a violent arrangement, which the turn of po- litical events very soon reversed. 3 It was not until after the battle of Leuktra and the depression of Sparta that any mea- sures were taken for the formation of an Arcadian political confederacy ; 4 and even then, the jealousies of the separate cites rendered it incomplete and short-lived. The great perma- nent change, the establishment of Megalopolis, was accomplished It is hardly conceivable that these Arcadian clubmen should haye pos- sessed a shield and a full panoply. The language of Xenophon in calling them hoplites, and the term kKeypufyovTo, properly referring to the inscription on the shield, appear to be conceived in a spirit of contemptuous sneering, proceeding from Xenophon's miso-Theban tendencies: " The Arcadian hop- lites, with their clubs, put themselves forward to be as good as the Thebans." That these tendencies of Xenophon show themselves in expressions very unbecoming to the dignity of history (though curious as evidences of the time), may be seen by vii. 5, 12, where he says of the Thebans, evruv&a 6% ol vvp Trveovrcf, ol veviKrjKoref rovf AaKdai/j.oviovf, oi r<p Kavrl frAeoi'tf, etc. 1 Thucyl T. 33, 47, 81. f Thucyd. 1. c. Compare the instructive speech of Klcigcnes, the envoy from Akanthus, addressed to the Lacedaemonians, B. c. 382 (Xen. Helleo v. 2, 15-16). 3 Xcnoph. Hellcn. v. 2, 1-6 ; Diodor. xv. 19.

• Xcnooh. Hellen. vi. 5, 70-11 ; vii. 1, 23-25. ​MEGALOPOLIS 44$

by the ascendency of Epameinondas. Forty petty Arcadian townships, among those situated to the west of Mount Mzenalus, were aggregated into the new city: the jealousies of Tegea, Mantineia, and Kleitor, were for a while suspended; and ockists came from all of them, as well as from the districts of the Mse- nalii and Parrhasii, in order to impart to the new establishment a genuine Pan- Arcadian character. 1 It was thus there arose for the first time a powerful city on the borders of Laconia and Mes- senia, rescuing the Arcadian townships from their dependence on Sparta, and imparting to them political interests of their own, which rendered them, both a check upon their former chief and a support to the reestablished Messenians. It has been necessary thus to bring the attention of the reader for one moment to events long posterior in the order of time (Megalopolis was founded in 370 B. c.), in order that he may understand, by contrast, the general course of those incidents of the earlier time, where direct accounts are wanting. The north- ern boundary of the Spartan territory was formed by some of the many small Arcadian townships or districts, several of which were successively conquered by the Spartans and incorporated with their dominion, though at what precise time we are unable to say. We are told that Charilaus, the reputed nephew and ward of Lykurgus, took J>gys, and that he also invaded the territory of Tegea, but with singular ill-success, for he was de- feated and taken prisoner : 2 we also hear that the Spartans took Phigaleia by surprise in the 30th Olympiad, but were driven out again by the neighboring Arcadian Oresthasians. 3 During the second Messenian war, the Arcadians are represented as cor- dially seconding the Messenians : and it may seem perhaps pinr.lar that, while neither Mantineia nor Tegea are mentioned 1 Pnnsan. via. 27, 5. No cekist is mentioned from Orchomenus, though three of the petty townships contributing (avvre^ovvra) to Orchomenus were embodied in the new city. The feud between the neighboring cities of Orchomenus and Mantineia was bitter (Xen. Hellen. vi. 5, 11-22). Orcho- menus and Herrca both opposed the political confederation of Arcadia. The oration of Demosthenes, iixep Mcya/loTro/UriJv, strongly attests tin Importance of this city, especially c. 10, kuv piv avaipe dual nal dioiKi ftv, hxvpoif Aaitetaiftovioic evdiif eartv tivai, etc. Tnusan iii. 2, 6 : iii. 7. 3 ; viii. 48, 3 3 Pausan. viii. 3r, 2 ​446 HISTORY OF GREECE. in this war, the more distant town of Orchomenus, with its Aristokrates, takes the lead. But the facts of the contest come before us with so poetical a coloring, that we cannot venture to draw any positive inference as to the times to which they are referred. CEnus 1 and Karystus seem to have belonged to the Spartans in the days of Alkman : moreover, the district called Skiritis, bordering on the territory of Tegea, as well as Belemina and Maleatis to the westward, and Karyse to the eastward and south- eastward, of Skiritis, forming altogether the entire northern frontier of Sparta, and all occupied by Arcadian inhabitants, had been conquered and made part of the Spartan territory 2 be- fore 600 B. c. And Herodotus tells us, that at this period the Spartan kings Leon and Hegesiklcs contemplated nothing less than the conquest of entire Arcadia, and sent to ask from the Delphian oracle a blessing on their enterprise. 3 The priestess dismissed their wishes as extravagant, in reference to the whole of Arcadia, but encouraged them, though with the usual equivo- cations of language, to try their fortune against Tegea. Flushed with their course of previous success, not less than by the favora- ble construction which they put upon the words of the oracle, the Lacedaemonians marched against Tegea with such entire con- fidence of success, as to carry with them chains for the purpose 1 Alkman, Fr. 15, Welcker; Strabo, x. p. 446. 'That the SkiritaB were Arcadians is well known (Time. v. 47; Steph. Byz. v. IiKtpof ) ; the possession of Belemina was disputed with Sparta, in the days of her comparative humiliation, by the Arcadians : see Plutarch, Kleomenes, 4 ; Pausan. viii. 35, 4. Respecting Karyae (the border town of Sparta, where the tiiaparripia were sacrificed, Thuc. v. 55), see Photius Kapvureta Loprrj 'Aprt/uJof ruf 6e Kapvae 'ApKuduv ovaa$ UTT-STEJUOVTO A.aKcdaip.6vioi. The readiness with which Karyse and the Maleatcs revolted against Sparta after the battle of Leuktra, even before the invasion of Laconia by the The- bans, exhibits them apparently as conquered foreign dependencies of Sparta, without any kindred of race (Xenoph. Hellen. vi. 5, 24-26; vii. 1, 28). Leuktron, in the Maleatis, seems to have formed a part of the territory of Megalopolis in the days of Kleomenes the Third (Plutarch, Kleomenes, 6); ia the Peloponnesian war it was the frontier town of Sparta toward* Mount Lykseum (Thuc. v. 53).

• Herod, i. 66. KaTa^povf/a^vref 'Ap/cu(5t>v Kpeaoovf<; drat,

h Ae?.^oiffi tttl iraog -y ' ​BONES OF OUESTES. 447 of binding their expected prisoners. But the result was disap- pointment and defeat. They were repulsed with loss, and the prisoners whom they left behind, bound in the very chains which their own army had brought, were constrained to servile labor on the plain of Tegea, the words of the oracle being thus literally fulfilled, though in a sense different from that in which the Lacedemonians had first understood them. 1 For one whole generation, we are told, they were constantly unsuccessful in their campaigns against the Tegeans, and this strenuous resistance probably prevented them from extending their conquests farther among the petty states of Arcadia. At length, in the reign of Anaxandrides and Aristo, the suc- cessors of Leon and Hegesikles (about 5 GO B. c.), the Delphian oracle, in reply to a question from the Spartans, which of the gods they ought to propitiate in order to become victorious, enjoined them to find and carry to Sparta the bones of Orestes, son of Agamemnon. After a vain search, since they did 'not know where the body of Orestes was to be found, they applied to the oracle for more specific directions, and were told that the son of Agamemnon was buried at Tegea itself, in a place " where two blasts were blowing under powerful constraint, where there was stroke and counter-stroke, and destruction upon destruction." These mysterious words were elucidated by a lucky accident. During a truce with Tegea, Lichas, one of the chiefs of the three hundred Spartan chosen youth, who acted as the movable police of the country under the ephors, visited the place, and entered the forge of a blacksmith, who mentioned to him, in the course of conversation, that, in sinking a well in his outer court, he had recently discovered a coffin containing a body seven cubits long ; astounded at the sight, he had left it there undisturbed. It struck Lichas that the gigantic relic of afore- time could be nothing else but the corpse of Orestes, and he felt assured of this, when he reflected how accurately the indications of the oracle were verified ; for there were the " two blasts blow- ing by constraint," in the two bellows of the blacksmith : there 1 Herod, i. 67 ; Pausan. iii. 3, 5 ; viii. 45, 2. Herodotus saw the identical chains suspended in the temple of AthenS Alea at Tegea. ​448 HISTORY OF GREECE. was the " stroke and counter-stroke," in his hammer and anvil, as well as the " destruction upon destruction," in the murderous weapons which he was forging. Lichas said nothing, but re- turned to Sparta with his discovery, which he communicated to the authorities, who, by a concerted scheme, banished him under a pretended criminal accusation. He then returned again to Tegea, under the guise of an exile, prevailed upon the black- smith to let to him the premises, and when he found himself in possession, dug up and carried off to Sparta the bones of the venerated hero. 1 From and after this fortunate acquisition, the character of the contest was changed ; the Spartans found themselves constantly victorious over the Tegeans. But it does not seem that these victories led to any positive result, though they might perhaps serve to enforce the practical conviction of Spartan superiority ; for the territory of Tegea remained unimpaired, and its auto- nomy noway restrained. During the Persian invasion, Tegea appears as the willing ally of Lacedaemon, and as the second military power in the Peloponnesus ; 2 and we may fairly pre- sume that it was chiefly the strenuous resistance of the Tegeans which prevented the Lacedaemonians from extending their em- pire over the larger portion of the Arcadian communities. These latter always maintained their independence, though acknowledg- ing Sparta as the presiding power in Peloponnesus, and obeying her orders implicitly as to the disposal of their military force. And the influence which Sparta thus possessed over all Arcadia was one main item in her power, never seriously shaken until the battle of Leuktra; which took away her previous means of insuring success and plunder to her minor followers. 3 Having thus related the extension of the power of Sparta on her northern or Arcadian frontier, it remains to mention her acquisitions on the eastern and north-eastern side, towards Argos. Originally, as has been before stated, not merely the province of Kynuria and the Thyreatis, but also the whole coast down to the 1 Herod, i. 69-70. * Herod, ix. 26. 3 Xenoph. Hcllcn. T. 2, 19. 'QsTcep 'Apudtitf, orav /*&' i'/iiiJv lum, rd n ai>TtJv au&vai /cat r<i u^Aorpta apTruovffi, etc. This was said to the Lacedaemonians about ten years before the battle of Lenktra. . ​COMBAT AT THYREA 449 promontory of Malea, had either been part of the territory of Argos or belonged to the Ar^eian confederacy. We learn from Herodotus, 1 that before the time when the embassy from Crcrsu?, king of Lydia, came to solicit aid in Greece (about 547 B. c.), the whole of this territory had fallen into the power of Sparta ; but how long before, or at what precise epoch, we have no in- formation. A considerable victory is said to have been gained by the Argeians over the Spartans in the 27th Olympiad or 669 B. c., at Hysise, on the road between Argos and Tegea. 8 At that time it does not seem probable that Kynuria could have been in the possession of the Spartans. so that we must refer the acquisition to some period in the following century ; though Pausanias places it much earlier, during the reign of Theopom- pus,3 and Eusebius connects it with the first establishment of the festival called Gymnopsedia. at Sparta, in G78 B. c. About the year 547 B. c., the Argeians made an effort to reconquer Thyrea from Sparta, which led to a combat long memorable in the annals of Grecian heroism. It was agreed between the two powers that the possession of this territory should be determined by a combat of three hundred select champions on each side ; the armies of both retiring, in order to leave the field clear. So undaunted and so equal was the valor of these two chosen companies, that the battle terminated by leaving only three of them alive, Alkenor and Chromius among the Argeians. Othryadts among the Spartans. The two Argeians warriors hastened home to report their victory, but Othryades remained on the field, carried off the arms of the enemy's dead into the Spartan camp, and kept his position until he was joined by his countrymen the next morning. Both Argos and Sparta claimed the victory for their respective cham- pions, and the dispute after all was decided by a general conflict, in which the Spartans were the conquerors, though not without much slaughter on both sides. The brave Othryades, ashamed to return home as the single survivor of the three hundred, fell upon his own sword on the field of battle. 4 This defeat decided the possession of Thyrea, which did nol 1 Herod. i._82. * Pausan. ii. 25, 1. * Pausan. Ui. 7, 5. 4 Herod. L 82 : Strab'. viii. p. 376. VOL. n. 290C. ​450 HISTORY 01 GREECE. agaii pass, until a very late period of Grecian history, under (he power of Argos. The preliminary duel of three hundred, with its uncertain issue, though well established as to the general fact, was represented by the Argeians in a manner totally different from the above story, which seems to have been current among the Lacedaemonians. 1 But the most remarkable circumstance is, that more than a century afterwards, when the two powers were negotiating for a renewal of the then expiring truce, the Argeians, still hankering after this their ancient territory, de- sired the Lacedemonians to submit the question to arbitration ; which being refused, they next stipulated for the privilege of trying the point in dispute by a duel similar to the former, at any time except during the prevalence of war or of epidemic disease. The historian tells us that the Lacedaemonians ac- quiesced in this proposition, though they thought it absurd, 2 in consequence of their anxiety to keep their relations with Argos at that time smooth and pacific. But there is no reason to imagine that the real duel, in which Othryades contended, was considered as absurd at the time when it took place, or during the age immediately succeeding. It fell in with a sort of chival- 1 The Argeians showed at Argos a statue of Pcrilans, son of Alkendr, killing Othryades (Pansan. ii. 20, 6 ; ii. 38, 5 : compare x. 9, G, and the references in Larcher ad Herodot. i. 82). The narrative of Chrysermns, lv rpiT(f> HeTionovvrjaiaKuv (as given in Plutarch, Parallel, -lellenic. p. 306), is different in many respects. Pausanias found the Thyreatis in possession of tbr Argeians (ii. 38, 5). They told him that they had recovered it by adjudication ; when or by whom we do not know : it seems to have passed hack to Argos before the close of the reign of Kleomenes the Third, at Sparta (220 B. c.), Polyb. iv. 36. Strabo even reckons Prasise as Argeian, to the south of Kynuria (viii. p. S68), though in his other passage (p. 3741 .oemingly cited from Ephorns, it is treated as Lacedaemonian. Compare jlanso, Sparta, vol. ii. Beilage i. p. 48. Eusebius, placing this duel at a much earlier period (Ol. 27, 3, 878 B. c.), ascribes the first foundation of the Gymnopaedia at Sparta to the desire of commemorating the event. Pausanias (iii. 7, 3) places it still farther back in the reign of Thoopompus.

• Thucyd. T. 41. ToZf 6e AaKetiaipovicie rb pev irpurov i5oKsi ftupia elvai

raCra, ItrstTa (kire&vnovv yap irai-TUf rb "Apyof Qifaov fyeiv) If olf fyt-itw, Kfl ​PROPOSITION OF A SIMILAR COMBAT. 45) rous pugnacity which is noticed among the attributes of the early Greeks, 1 and also with various legendary exploits, such as the single combat of Echemus and Hyllus, of Melanthus and Xan- thus, of Menelaus and Paris, etc. Moreover, the heroism of Othryades and his countrymen was a popular theme for poets, not only at the Spartan gymnopasdia, 2 but also elsewhere, and appears to have been frequently celebrated. The absurdity at- tached to this proposition, then, during the Peloponnesian war, - in the minds even of the Spartans, the most old-fashioned and unchanging people in Greece, is to be ascribed to a change in the Grecian political mind, at and after the Persian war. The habit of political calculation had made such decided progress among them, that the leading states especially had become familiarized with something like a statesmanlike view of their resources, their dangers, and their obligations. How lamentably deficient this sort of sagacity was during the Persian invasion, will appear when we come to describe that imminent crisis of Grecian independence : but the events of those days were well calculated to sharpen it for the future, and the Greeks of the Peloponnesian war had become far more refined political schemers than their forefathers. And thus it happened that the proposition to settle a territorial dispute by a duel of chosen champions, admissible and even becoming a century before, came afterwards to be derided as childish. The inhabitants of Kynuria are stated by Herodotus to have been lonians, but completely Dorized through their long sub- jection to Argos, by whom they were governed as Periceki. Pausanias gives a different account of their race, which he traces to the eponymous hero Kynurus, son of Perseus : but he does not connect them with the Kynurians whom he mentions in another place as a portion of the inhabitants of Arcadia. 3 It is evident that, even in the time of Herodotus, the traces of their primitive descent were nearly effaced. He says they were " Omeates and Periceki " to Argos ; and it appears that the 1 Hcrodot. vii. 9. Compare the challenge which Herodotus alleges to have been proclaimed to the Spartans by Mardonius, through a herald Just before the battle of Plataea (ix. 48).

• Athenae. xv. p. 678.

3 Herod, viii. 73 ; Pausan. iii. 2, 2 ; viii. 27, 3. ​4i>2 HISTORY OF GREECE. inhabitants of Orneae also, whom Argos had reduced to the same dependent condition, traced their eponymous hero to an Ionic stock, Orneus was the son of the Attic Erechtheus. 1 Strabo seems to have conceived the Kynurians as occupying originally, not only the frontier district of Argolis and Laconia, wherein Thyrea is situated, but also the northwestern portion of Argolis, under the ridge called Lyrkeium, which separates the latter from the Arcadian territory of Stimphalus. 2 This ridge was near the town of Orneae, which lay on the border of Argolis near the con- fines of Phlius ; so that Strabo thus helps to confirm the state- ment of Herodotus, that the Orneates were a portion of Kynu- rians, held by Argos along with the other Kynurians in the condition of dependent allies and Periceki, and very probably also of Ionian origin. The conquest of Thyrea (a district valuable to the Lacedaemo- nians, as we may presume from the large booty which the Arge- ians got from it during the Peloponnesian war) 3 was the last territorial acquisition made by Sparta. She was now possessed of a continuous dominion, comprising the whole southern portion of the Peloponnesus, from the southern bank of the river Nedon on the western coast, to the northern boundary of Thyreatis on the eastern coast. The area of her territory, including as it did both Laconia and Messenia, was equal to two-fifths of the entire peninsula, all governed from the single city, and for the exclu- sive purpose and benefit of the citizens of Sparta. Within all this wide area there was not a single community pretending to independent agency. The townships of the Periceki, and the villages of the Helots, were each individually unimportant ; nor do we hear of any one of them presuming to treat with a foreign 1 Pausan. ii. 25, 5. Mannert (Geographic der Griechen und Homer Gricchenland, book ii. ch. xix. p. 618) connects the Kynurians of Arcadia and Argolis, though Herodotus tells us that the latter were lonians : he gives to this name much greater importance and extension than the evidence bears out. 2 Strabo, viii. p. 370 6 'lva%of fyuv TUI; Trrjyuf La Avpneiov TOV KOTU, Kvvovpiav bpovg rijc 'Ap/cad/af. Coray and Grosskurd gain nothing here by the conjectural reading of 'Apyeiac in place of 'AfKaSiaf, for the rid/re ot Lyrkeium ran between the two, and might, therefore, be connected with either without impropriety. Thncyd. vi 95. ​STRONG POSITION OF SPARTA. 453 (ate : both consider themselves as nothing else but subjects of the Spartan ephors and their subordinate officers. They are indeed discontented subjects, hating as well as fearing their mas- ters, and not to be trusted if a favorable opportunity for secure revolt presents itself. But no individual township or district is strong enough to stand up for itself, while combinations among them are prevented by the habitual watchfulness and unscrupu- lous precautions of the ephors, especially by that jealous secret police called the Krypteia, to which allusion has already been made. Not only, therefore, was the Spartan territory larger and its population more numerous than that of any other state in Hellas, but its government was also more completely centralized and more strictly obeyed. Its source of weakness was the discontent of its Perioeki and Helots, the latter of whom were not like the slaves of other states imported barbarians from different countries, and speaking a broken Greek, but genuine Hellens, of one dialect and lineage, sympathizing with each other, and aa much entitled to the protection of Zeus Hellanius as their mas- ters, from whom, indeed, they stood distinguished by no other line except the perfect training, individual and collective, which was peculiar to the Spartans. During the period on which we are at present dwelling, it does not seem that this discontent comes sensibly into operation ; but we shall observe its manifes- tations very unequivocally after the Persian and during the Pelo- ponnesian war. To such auxiliary causes of Spartan predominance we must add another, the excellent military position of Sparta, and the unassailable character of Laconia generally. On three sides that territory is washed by the sea, 1 with a coast remarkably danger- ous and destitute of harbors ; hence Sparta had nothing to ap- prehend from this quarter until the Persian invasion and its consequences, one of the most remarkable of which was, the astonishing development of the Athenian naval force. The city of Sparta, far removed from the sea, was admirably defended by an almost impassable northern frontier, composed of those districts

hich we have observed above to have been conquered from 1 Xenrphon, Hellen. iv. 8, 7 : fofiovuevor TTJV ci ​454 HISTORY OF GREECE. Arcadia, Karyatis, Skirltis, Maleatis, and Belerainatis. The difficulty as well as danger of marching into Laconia by ihese mountain passes, noticed by Euripides, was keenly felt by every enemy of the Lacedaemonians, and has been powerfully stated by a first-rate modern observer, Colonel Leake. 1 No site could be better chosen for holding the key of all the penetrable passes than that of Sparta. This well-protected frontier was a substi- tute more than sufficient for fortifications to Sparta itself, which always maintained, down to the times of the despot Nabis, its 1 Xcnoph. Hellen. v. 5, 10 ; Eurip. ap. Strabo, viii. p. 366 ; Lcake, Travels in Morea, vol. iii. c. xxii. p. 25. " It is to the strength of the frontiers, and the comparatively large extent of country inclosed within them, that we must trace the primary cause of the Lacedaemonian power. These enabled the people, when strengthened by a rigid military discipline, and put in motion by an ambitious spirit, first to triumph over their weaker neighbors of Messenia, by this additional strength to overawe the disunited republics of Arcadia, and at length for centuries to hold an acknowledged military superiority over every other state in Greece. " It is remarkable that all the principal passes into Laconia lead to one point : this point is Sparta ; a fact which shows at once how well the posi- tion of that city was chosen for the defence of the province, and how well it was adapted, especially as long as it continued to be unwalled, to maintain n, perpetual vigilance and readiness for defence, which are the surest means of offensive success. " The natural openings into the plain of Sparta arc only two ; one by the upper Eurotas, as the course of that river above Sparta may be termed ; the other by its only large branch CEnus, now the Kelefina, which, as I have already stated, joins the Eurotas opposite to the north-eastern extremity of Sparta. All the natural approaches to Sparta from the northward lead to one or the other of these two valleys. On the side of Messenia, the northerly prolongation of Mount Taygetum, which joins Mount Lyceum at the pass of Andania, now the pass of Makryplai, furnishes a continued barrier of the loftiest kind, admitting only of routes easily defensible ; and which, whether from the Cromitis of Arcadia to the south-westward of the modern Londari, from the Stenykleric plain, from the plain of the Pamisus, or from Pherae, now Kalamata, all descend into the valley of the upper Eurotas. and conduct to Sparta by Pellana. There was, indeed, a branch of the last- mentioned route, which descended into the Spartan plain at the modern Mistra, and which must have been a very frequent communication between Sparta and the lower part of Messenia ; but, like the other direct passes over Taygetum, it was much more difficult and defensible than those I have called the natural entrances of the province." ​ACQUIRED ASCENDENCY OF SPARTA. 455 primitive aspect of a group of adjacent hill-villages rather than a regular city. When, along with such territorial advantages, we contemplate the personal training peculiar to the Spartan citizens, as yet undiminished in their numbers, combined with the effect of that training upon Grecian sentiment, in inspiring awe and ad- miration, we shall not be surprised to find that, during the half-century which elapsed between the year 600 B. c. and the final conquest of Thyreatis from Argos, Sparta had acquired and begun to exercise a recognized ascendency over all the Grecian states. Her military force was at that time superior to that of any of the rest, in a degree much greater than it afterwards came to be ; for other states had not yet attained their maximum, and Athens in particular was far short of the height which she after- wards reached. In respect to discipline as well as number, the Spartan military force had even at this early period reached a point which it did not subsequently surpass ; while in Athens, Thebes, Argos, Arcadia, and even Elis (as will be hereafter shown), the military training in later days received greater at- tention, and improved considerably. The Spartans (observes Aristotle) * brought to perfection their gymnastic training and their military discipline, at a time when other Greeks neglected both the one and the other : their early superiority was that of the trained men over the untrained, and ceased in after-days, when other states came to subject their citizens to systematic exercises of analogous character or tendency. This fact," the early period at which Sparta attained her maximum of discipline, power, and territory, is important to bear in mind, when we are explaining the general acquiescence which her ascendency met with in Greece, and which her subsequent acts would cer- tainly not have enabled her to earn. That acquiescence first began, and became a habit of the Grecian mind, at a time when Sparta had no rival to come near her, when she had complete- 1 Aristot Polit. viii. 3, 4. "En 5e atVotif -ot'c Awuvac lo/iev, u$ /jii-v ai>Tol T(toarj6pevov ralf dt/Lo7rov/a*f, vTrepe^ovraf ruv UA/MV vvv <5e, /cat ro?f Kal Tolf nofaftiKolf iy&drt, fatirofievvvf ETspuv ' ov yap T> rot)f a&iv TOV rpo~ov TOVTOV 6if(j>epov t <M.a : > fiovov firj Trpdf aaKovv- rof uaneiv ...... ' AvrayuviffTu" yup TTJS ?ra5e<af vvv e^ovat- KpoTwo* 6i <A* tlov. ​456 HISTORY OF GKEECE. ly shot ahead of Argos, and when the vigor of the Lykurgeat discipline had been manifested in a long series of conquests, made during the stationary period of other states, and ending only, to use the somewhat exaggerated phrase of Herodotus, when she had subdued the greater part of Peloponnesus. 1 Our accounts of the memorable military organization of Sparta are scanty, and insufficient to place the details of it clearly before us. The arms of the Spartans, as to all material points, were not different from those of other Greek hoplites. But one grand peculiarity is observable from the beginning, as an item in the Lykurgean institutions. That lawgiver established military divi- sions quite distinct from the civil divisions, whereas in the other states of Greece, until a period much later than that which we have now reached, the two were confounded, the hoplites or horsemen of the same tribe or ward being marshalled together on the field of battle. Every Lacedaemonian was bound to mili- tary service from the age of twenty to sixty, and the ephors, when they sent forth an expedition, called to arms all the men within some given limit of age. Herodotus tells us that Lykur- gus established both the syssitia, or public mess, and the enomo- ties and triakads, or the military subdivisions peculiar to Sparta. 2 The triakads are not mentioned elsewhere, nor can we distinctly make out what they were; but the enomoty was the special characteristic of the system, and the pivot upon which all its arrangements turned. It was a small company of men, the num- ber of whom was variable, being given differently at twenty-five, thirty-two, or thirty-six men, drilled and practised together in military evolutions, and bound to each other by a common oath.s 1 Herodot. i. 68. f/fiij 6e c<j>i KO.I i) iro'Ah/) r^f HehoTrovvr/aov qv /c

• Herodot. i. 67 : compare Larcher's note.

Concerning the obscure and difficult subject of the military arrangements of Sparta, see Cragius, Eepub. Laced, iv. 4 ; Manso, Sparta, ii. Beilage 1 8, p. 224; 0. Miiller, Hist. Dorians, iii. 12, Dr. Arnold's note on Thucydides, v. 68 ; and Dr. Thirlwall, History of Greece, vol. i. Appendix 3, p. 520. 3 Pollux, i. 10, 129. 'Idt'wf fiivroi. TUV aKE(Saifj.oviuv, ivufioria, xai ftopa : compare Suidas and Hesych. v. 'Evw//ort'a; Xenoph. Rep. Lacon. c. 11; Thucyd. v. 67-68 ; Xenoph. Hellen. vi. 4, 1 2. Suidas states the enomoty at twenty-five men : in the Lacedasmonian mrmy which fought nt the first battle cf Mantincia (418 u. c ), it seemi to ​SPARTAN DRILLING. 457 Each enomoty had a separate captain, or enomotarch, the strong- est and ablest soldier of the company, Avho always occupied the front rank, and led the enomoty when it marched in single file, giving the order of march, as vell as setting the example. If the enomoty was drawn up in three, or four, or six files, the enomotarch usually occupied the front post on the left, and care was taken that both the front-rank men and the rear-rank men, of each file, should be soldiers of particular merit. 1 It was upon these small companies that the constant and se- vere Lacedaemonian drilling was brought to act. They were taught to march in concert, to change rapidly from line to file, to wheel right or left in such manner as that the enomotarch and the other protostates, or front-rank men, should always be the persons immediately opposed to the enemy. 3 Their step was have consisted of about thirty-two men (Thuc. 1. c.) : at the battle of Leuktra of thirty-six men (Xen. Hellen. I. c.). But the language of Xenophon and Thucydides does not imply that the number of each enomoty was equal. 1 0. Miiller states that the enomotarch, after a -rrapajuyri, or deployment into phalanx, stood on the rigid hand, which is contrary to Xenoph. Rep. Lac. 11, 9. 'Ore 6e 6 upxuv evwvv[io<; yiyvcTai, ov<5' kv TOVTQ fieiovrKTflv ir/ovvrai uTJC eanv ore KOI nhsoveKTeiv, the upx uv was the first enomo- tarch of the lochus, the Trpuroorcm/f (as appears from 11, 5), when the enomoty marched in single file. To put the iiyepvv on the right flank, was done occasionally for special reason, fjv 6e irore evsica Ttvof tony i-vfi- Qcpeiv, rbv #ye//6va 6eiov Kepaf EX ELV > etc - I understand Xenophon's de- scription of the Trapaywy?}, or deployment, differently from Miiller, it rather seems that the enomoties which stood first made a side-movement to the left, so that the first enomotarch still maintained his place on the left, at the same 'time that the opportunity was created for the enomoties in the rear to come up and form equal front, T tvapoTapxy irapey/vuTai sir (IETUTTOV irap' uaxitia Katiiaraadat, the words Trap' uanida have reference, as I ima- gine, to the proceeding of the first enomotarch, who set the example of side-movement to the left-hand, as it is shown by the words which follow, Kai did. TtavTbc ovrof lor' uv r; 0<i/layf ivavria naraaTij. The pha- lanx was constituted when all the lochl formed an equal and continuous front, whether the sixteen enomoties, of which each lochus was composed, might be each in one file, in three files, or in six files.

• See Xenoph. Anab. iv. 8, 10, upon the advantage of attacking the enemy

with op&ioi hoxoi, in which case the strongest and best soldiers all came first into conflict. It is to be recollected, however, that the practice of the Cyre- ian troops cannot be safely quoted as authority for the practice at Sparta. Xenophon and his colleagues established lochi. pentekosties, and enomoties VOL. TI. 20 ​458 HISTORY OF GREECE. regulated by the fife, which played in martial measures peculiar to Sparta, and was employed in actual battle as well as in mili- tary practice ; and so perfectly were they habituated to the move- ments of the enomoty, that, if their order was deranged by any adverse accident, scattered soldiers could spontaneously form them- selves into the same order, each man knowing perfectly the du- ties belonging to the place into which chance had thrown him. 1 Above the enomoty were several larger divisions, the pente- kostys, the lochus, and the mora, 2 of which latter there seem to in the Cyrcian army : the lochus consisted of one hundred men, but tho numbers of the other two divisions are not stated (Anab. iii. 4, 21 : iv. 3, 26: compare Arrian, Tactic, cap. 6). " The words of Thucydides indicate the peculiar marshalling of the Lace daemonians, as distinguished both from their enemies and from their allies at the battle of Mantineia, xal ei>$vf vird airovdris Ka&iffTavro ef noafiov Tbv tavruv, "AytcJof TOV /foui/leof lunara tfyyovftevov Kara vouov : again, c. 68. About the music of the flute or fife, Thncyd. v. 69; Xen Rep Lao J3, 9, Plutarch, Lycurg. c. 22. 2 Meursius, Dr. Arnold, and Rachctti (Delia Milizia dei Grechi Antichi, Milan, 1807, p. 166) all think that lochus and mora were different names for the same division ; but if this is to be reconciled with the statement of Xenophon in Repub. Lac. c. 11, we must suppose an actual change of nomenclature after the Peloponnesian war, which appears to be Dr. Arnold's opinion, yet it is not easy to account for. There is one point in Dr. Thirlwall's Appendix which is of some impor tance, and in which I cannot but dissent from his opinion. He says, after stating the nomenclature and classification of the Spartan military force as given by Xenophon, " Xenophon speaks only of Spartans, as appears by the epithet TrohiTiKiJv" p. 521 : the words of Xenophon are, 'EKUOTJ; dt TUV xo- MTLKUV [topuv l%ei notepapxov Zva, etc. (Rep. Lac. 11.) It appears to me that Xenophon is here speaking of the aggregate Lacc- Jaemonian heavy-armed force, including both Spartans and Periceki, not of Spartans alone. The word iro7.irt.Kuv does not mean Spartans as distin- guished from Pcrioeki, but Lacedaemonians as distinguished from allies. Thus, when Agesilaus returns home from the blockade of Phlius, Xenophon tells us that ravra Trotf/aae roi)f fiev cvp/uuxovf affitce, rd c5e KO?.ITIKOV oiKade uiTTjyayE (Hellen. v. 3, 25). O. Miillcr, also, thinks that the whole number of five thousand seven hun- dred and forty men, who fought at the first battle of Mantineia, in the thir- teenth year of the Peloponnesian war, were furnished by the city of Sparta itself (Hist, of Dorians, iii. 12, 2) : and to prove this, he refers to the very fMjage just cited from the Hellenica of Xenophon, which, as far as it prove ​SYSTEMATIC DRILLING RARE 111 GREECE. 459 Lave been six in all. Respecting the number of each division, and the proportion of the larger to the smaller, we find state- ments altogether different, yet each resting upon good authority, - so that we are driven to suppose that there was no peremp- tory standard, and that the enomoty comprised twenty-five, thirty- two, or thirty-six men ; the pentekostys, two or four enomoties ; the lochus, two or four pentekosties, and the mora, four hundred, five hundred, six hundred, or nine hundred men, at different times, or according to the limits of age which the ephors might prescribe for the men whom they called into the field. 1 What remains fixed in the system is, first, the small number, though varying within certain limits, of the elementary company called enomoty, trained to act together, and composed of men nearly of the same age, 2 in which every man knew his place ; secondly, the scale of divisions and the hierarchy of officers, each rising above the other, the enomotarch, the pentekonter, the lochage, and the polemarch, or commander of the mora, each having the charge of their respective divisions. Orders were anything, proves the contrary of his position. He gives no other evidence to support it, and I think it in the highest degree improbable. I have nl- re?4y remarked that he understands the expression TTO^ITIHJ} <jpa (i n Poly- bins, vi. 45) to mean the district of Sparta itself as contradistinguished from Laconia, a construction which seems to me not warranted by the passage in Polybius. 1 Aristotle, Aanuvuv Holureia, Fragm. 5-6, ed. Neumann: Photius v. Ao^of. Harpokration, Mopa. Etymologic. Mag. Mopa. The statement of Aristotle is transmitted so imperfectly that we cannot make out clearly what it was. Xenophon says that there were six mora in all, comprehending all the citizens of military age (Rep. Lac. 11, 3). But Ephorus stated the mora at five hundred men, Kallisthenes at seven hundred, and Polybius at nine hundred (Phitarch, Pelopid. 17 ; Diodor. xv. 32). If all the citizens compe- tent to bear arms were comprised in six morac, the numbers of each mora must of course have varied. At the battle of Mantineia, there were seven Lacedcemonian lochi, each lochus containing four pentekosties, and each pentekosty containing four enomoties : Thucydides seems, as I before remarked, to make each enomoty thirty-two men. But Xenophon tells us that each mora had four lochi, each lochus two pentekosties, and each pen- tekosty two enomoties (Rep. Lac. 11, 4). The names of these divisions remained the same, but the numbers varied. 2 This is implied in the fact, that the men under thirty or under thirty- five years of age, were often detached in a battle to ptrsue the light troops f the enemy (Xen. Hellen. iv. 5. 15-16). ​460 HISTORY OF GREECE. transmitted from the king, as commander-in-chief, through the polemarchs to the lochages, from the lochages to the pente- konters, and then from the latter to the cnomotarchs, each of whom caused them to be executed by his enumoty. As all these men had been previously trained to the duties of their respective stations, the Spartan infantry possessed the arrangements and aptitudes of a standing army. Originally, they seem to have had no cavalry at all, 1 and when cavalry was at length introduced into their system, it was of a very inferior character, no provi- sion having been made for it in the Lykurgean training. But the military force of the other cities of Greece, even down to the close of the Peloponnesian war, enjoyed little or no special train- ing, having neither any small company like the enomoty, consist- ing of particular men drilled to act together, no fixed and disciplined officers, nor triple scale of subordination and sub- division. Gymnastics, and the use of arms, made a part of education everywhere, and it is to be presumed that no Grecian hoplite was entirely without some practice of marching in line and military evolutions, inasmuch as the obligation to serve was universal and often enforced. But such practice was casual and unequal, nor had any individual of Argos or Athens a fixed mili- tary place and duty. The citizen took arms among his tribe, under a taxiarch, chosen from it for the occasion, and was placed in a rank or line wherein neither his place nor his immediate neighbors were predetermined. The tribe appears to have been the only military classification known to Athens, 2 and the taxi- 1 Xenoph. Hellcn. vi. 4, 12. 2 Herodot. vi. Ill ; Thucyd. vi. 98 ; Xenoph. Hcllen. iv. 2, 19. The same marshalling of hoplites, according to the civil tribes to which they belonged, is seen in the inhabitants of Messenc in Sicily as well as of Syrakuse (Thucyd. iii. 90; vi. 100). At Argos, there was a body of one thousand hoplites, who, during the Peloponnesian war, received training in military manoeuvres at the cost of the city (Thucyd. v. 67), but there is reason to believe that this arrangement was not introduced until about the period of the peace of Nikias in the tenth or eleventh year of the Peloponnesian war, when the truce between Argos and Sparta was just expiring, and when the former began to entertain schemes of ambition. The Epariti in Arcadia began at a much later time, after the battle of Lcuktra (Xenoph. Hellen. vii. 4, 33). About the Athenian taxiarcbs, one to each tribe, sec JEschincs de FR! ​INCREASING TENDENCY 1 COOPERATION. 461 arch the only tribe officer for infantry, as the phylarch was for cavalry, under the general-in-chief. Moreover, orders from the general were proclaimed to the line collectively by a herald of loud voice, not communicated to the taxiarch so as to make him responsible for the proper execution of them by his division. With an arrangement thus perfunctory and unsystematized, we shall be surprised to find how well the military duties were often performed: but every Greek who contrasted it with the symmet- rical structure of the Lacedaemonian armed force, and with the laborious preparation of every Spartan for his appropriate duty, felt an internal sentiment of inferiority, which made him willing- ly accept the headship of " these professional artists in the busi- ness of war," * as they are often denominated. It was through the concurrence of these various circumstances that the willing acknowledgment of Sparta as the leading state of Hellas became a part of Grecian habitual sentiment, during the interval between about 000 B. c. and 547 B. c. During this period too, chiefly, Greece and her colonies were ripening into a sort of recognized and active partnership. The common religious assemblies, which bound the parts together, not only acquired greater formality and more extended development, but also became more numerous and frequent, while the Pythian, Isthmian, and Nemean games were exalted into a national im- portance, approaching to that of the Olympic. The recognized superiority of Sparta thus formed part and parcel of the first his- torical aggregation of the Grecian states. It was about the year 547 B. c., that Croesus of Lydia, when pressed by Cyrus and the Persians, solicited aid from Greece, addressing himself Leg. c. 53, p. 300 R. ; Lysias, pro Mantitheo, Or. xvi. p. 147 ; Demosth. adv BiEOtum pro nomine, p. 999 It. Philippic, i. p. 4". See the advice given by Xenophon (in his Treatise De Officio Magistri Equitum) for the remodelling of the Athenian cavalry, and for the introduc- tion of small divisions, each with its special commander. The division into tribes is all that he finds recognized (Off. M. E. C. ii. 2-iv. 9) ; he strongly recommends giving orders, fiia. Kapayy&oeuc, and not UTT& Kypvuof. 1 Plutarch, Pelopid. c. 23. UUVTUV uKpot re^vlrat /cat aotyia-al TUV irofa- ttKuv ovTef ol SirapnuTai, etc. (Xenoph. Rep. Lac. c. 14) fjyrjaalo uv, rotif (iev u/Mcwf avToa%6iaaTu elvai ruv arpariuriKuv, A.aKE6aip.oviovg 6e fiovov^ 7<p OVTI TexviTaf TUV TrofapcKuv *i2<rre T&V deofiivuv Yiyveirdai ovdh L oi'dsv yap inrpoaKeTTTov ianv. ​462 HISTORY OF GRKECE. to the Spartans as confessed presidents of the whole Hellenic body. 1 And the tendencies then at work, towards a certain de- gree of increased intercourse and cooperation among the dis- persed members of the Hellenic name, were doubtless assisted by the existence of a state recognized by all as the first, a state whose superiority was the more readily acquiesced in, be- cause it was earned by a painful and laborious discipline, which sill admired, but none chose to copy. 3 Whether it be true, as O. Miiller and other learned men con- ceive, that the Homeric mode of fighting was the general prac- tice in Peloponnesus and the rest of Greece anterior to the invasion of the Dorians, and that the latter first introduced the habit of fighting with close ranks and protended spears, is a point which cannot be determined. Throughout all our histori- cal knowledge of Greece, a close rank among the hoplites, charg ing with spears always in hand, is the prevailing practice ; though there are cases of exception, in which the spear is hurled, when troops seem afraid of coming to close quarters. 3 Nor is it by any means certain, that the Homeric manner of fighting ever really prevailed in Peloponnesus, which is a country eminently incon- venient for the use of war-chariots. The descriptions of the bard may perhaps have been founded chiefly upon what he and his auditors witnessed on the coast of Asia Minor, where chariots yup ~vvduvofj.ai TrpoeaTavai ri/f 'E^-Aadof (Herodot. i. 69) : com- pare i. 152 ; v. 49 ; vi. 84, about Spartan hegemony, 2 Xenoph. Hcpub. Lac. 10, 8. eiraivovai fiev KUVTEC -a rotaCra i~iTt]dtv firtra, fj.ifj.ela&ai 6e avru ovdepia Koki^ kdekeL. The magnificent funeral discourse, pronounced by Perikles in the early part of the Peloponnesian war over the deceased Athenian warriors, includes a remarkable contrast of the unconstrained patriotism and bravery of the Athenians, with the austere, repuLivc, and ostentatious drilling to which the Spartans were subject from their earliest youth ; at the same time, it attests the powerful effect which that drilling produced upon the mind of Greece (Thucyd. ii. 37-39). iriarEvovri; ov ratf KupaaitEva.lq rb irAeov KOI inrdraif, ?} T<J up iin&v avruv if TU epja tir^v^ nal tv raif naidelaif oi [lev ( tho Spartans) txtirovu uaKTjaei ei&iif vioi OITPC rb uvdpelov fiETep^ovraL, etc. The impression of the light troops, when they first began to attack tha Lacedaemonian hoplites in the island of Sphakteria, is strongly expressed bj Thucydides (iv. 34), :jj yvw/iJj tiedo vhupevo . .'; l~l Aa/cf(5amovi ovf, etc. 3 "Xcnoph. Ilcllen. v. 4, 52: compare iii. 5, 20 ​SPARTA AXD AHCOS. 463 trere more employed, and where the country was much more favorable to them.i We have no historical knowledge of any military practice in Peloponnesus anterior to the hoplites with close ranks and protended spears. One Peloponnesian state there was, and one alone, which disdained to acknowledge the superiority or headship of Lace- daemon. Argos never forgot that she had once been the chief power in the peninsula, and her feeling towards Sparta was that of a jealous, but impotent, competitor. By what steps the de- cline of her power had taken place, we are unable to make out, nor can we trace the succession of her kings subsequent to Phei- don. It has been already stated that, about G69 B. c., the Ar- geians gained a victory over the Spartans at HysiaB, and that they expelled from the port of Nauplia its preexisting inhabi- tants, who found shelter, by favor of the Lacedaemonians, at the port of Mothone, in Messenia r 2 Damokratidas was then king of Argos. Pausanias tells us that Meltas, the son of Lakides, was the last descendant of Temenus who succeeded to this dignity ; he being condemned and deposed by the people. Plutarch, however, states that the family of the Herakleids died out, and that another king, named JEgon, was chosen by the people at the indication of the Delphian oracle. 3 Of this story, Pausanias appears to have know r n nothing. His language implies that the kingly dignity ceased w r ith Meltas, wherein he is undoubtedly mistaken, since the title existed, though probably with very lim- ited functions, at the time of the Persian war. Moreover, there is some ground for presuming that the king of Argos was even at that time a Herakleid, since the Spartans offered to him a third part of the command of the Hellenic force, conjointly with 1 Xenoph. Hellcn. iii. 4, 19. * Pausnn. iv. 24, 2 ; iv. 35, 2. 5 Pausan. ii. 19, 2 ; Plutarch (Cur Pythia mine non rcdilat oracula, etc. c. > ; p. 396 ; De Fortuna Alexandri, c. 8, p. 340). Lakides, king of Argos, is also named by Plutarch as luxurious and effeminate (Dc capicnda ab hosti- bus utilitate, c. 6, p. 89). O. Miiller (Hist, of Dorians, iii. 6, 10) identifies Lakides, son of Mcltas, named by Pausanias, with Leokedes son of Pheidon, named by Herodotus as one of the suitors for the daughter 01' Kleisthcues the Sikyonian (vi. 127) ; and he thus infers that Meltas must have been deposed and succeeded by ^Egon, about 560 B. c. This conjecture seems to me not much to b trusted. ​464 HISTORY OF GREECE. their own two kings. 1 The conquest of Thyreatis by the Spar- tans deprived the Argeians of a valuable portion of their Perioe- kis, or dependent territory ; but Orneae, and the remaining portion of Kynuria, 2 still continued to belong to them ; the plain round their city was very productive ; and except Sparta, there was no other power in Peloponnesus superior to them. Mykenae and Tiryns, nevertheless, seem both to have been independent Btates at the time of the Persian war, since both sent contingents to the battle of Plataea, at a time when Argos held aloof and rather favored the Persians. At what time Kleonoe became the ally, or dependent, of Argos, we cannot distinctly make out. During the Peloponnesian war, it is numbered in that character along with Orneae ; 3 but it seems not to have lost its autonomy about the year 470 B. c., at which period Pindar represents the Kleonaeans as presiding and distributing prizes at the Ne- mean games. 4 The grove of Nemea was less than two miles from their town, and they were the original presidents of this great festival, a function of which they were subsequently robbed by the Argeians. in the same manner as the Pisatans had been treated by the Eleians with reference to the Olympic Agon. The extinction of the autonomy of Kleonag and the acquisition of the presidency of the Nemean festival by Argos, were doubt- less simultaneous, but we are unable to mark the exact time ; for the statement of Eusebius, that the Argeians celebrated the Nemean festival as early as the 53d Olympiad, or 5G8 u. c., is contradicted by the more valuable evidence of Pindar. 5 1 Herodot. vii. 149. 2 Herodbt. viii. 73. Strabo distinguishes two places called Orneae ; one a village in the Argeian territory, the other a town between Corinth and Sikyon : but I doubt whether there ever were two places so called : the town or village dependent on Argos sceras the only place (Strabo. viii. p. 376). 3 Thucyd. v. 67-vi. 95. The Kleonjcans are also said to have aided the Argeians in the destruction of Mykense, conjointly with the Tcgeatans : from hence, however, we cannot infer anything as to their dependence at that time (Strabo, viii. p. 377). 4 Pindar, Nem. x. 42. Kfauva'uv Trpdc uvSptiv TerpuKtf (compare Nem. iv. 17). KAewvaiou r' UTT' ayiJvof, etc.

• Sec Corsini Dissertation. Agonisticae, iii. 2.

Che tenth Nemean Ode of Pindar is on this point peculiarly good eo​CONQUESTS CF SPARTA FROM ARGOS. 4(55 Of Corinth and Sikyon it will be more convenient to speak when we survey what is called the Age of the Tyrants, or Des- pots ; and of the inhabitants of Achaia (who occupied the south- ern coast of the Corinthian gulf, westward of Sikyon, as far aa Cape Araxus, the north-western point of Peloponnesus), a few words exhaust our whole knowledge, down to the time at which we are arrived. These Achaeans are given to us as representing the ante-Dorian inhabitants of Laconia, whom the legend affirms to have retired under Tisamenus to the northern parts of Pelo- ponnesus, from whence they expelled the preexisting lonians and occupied the country. The race of their kings is said to have lasted from Tisamenus down to Ogygus, 1 how long, we do not know. After the death of the latter, the Achaean towns formed each a separate republic, but with periodical festivals and sacrifice at the temple of Zeus Homarius, affording opportunity of settling differences and arranging their common concerns. Of these towns, twelve are known from Herodotus and Strabo, Pellene, ^Egira, ^Egas. Bura, Helike, JEgium, Rhypes, Pa- trae, Pharae, Olenus, Dyme, Tritasa. 2 But there must originally have been some other autonomous towns besides these twelve ; for in the 23d Olympiad, Ikarus of Hyperesia was proclaimed as victor, and there seems good reason to believe that Hyperesia, an old town of the Homeric Catalogue, was in Achaia. 3 It is affirmed that, before the Achaean occupation of the country, the lonians had dwelt in independent villages, several of which were dsnce, inasmuch as it is composed for, and supposed to be sung by Theiseus, a native of Argos. Had there been any jealousy then subsisting between Argos and Kleonse on the subject of the presidency of this festival, Pindar would never, on such an occasion, have mentioned expressly the Kleonseans as presidents. The statements of the Scholia on Pindar, that the Corinthians at one time celebrated the Nemean games, or that they were of old celebrated at Sikyon, seem unfounded (Schol. Pind. Arg. Nem., and Ncm. x. 49). 1 Polyb. ii. 41. 2 Herodot. i. 145 ; Strabo, viii. p. 385. 3 Pansan. iv. 15, 1 ; Strabo, viii. p. 383 ; Homer, Iliad, ii. 573. Pausanias seems to have forgotten this statement, when he tells us that the name of Hyperesia was exchanged for that of JEgeira, during the time of the Ionian occupation of the country (vii. 26, 1 ; Steph. Byz. copies him, v. AZyr/pa). It is doubtful whether the two names designate the same ph.ce, no; Joe* Strabo conceive that they did. VOL. ii. 20* 30oc ​4<J6 HISTORY OF GREECE. subsequently aggregated into towns thus Patrae was formed bj a coalescence of seven villages, Dyine from eight (one of which wra named Teuthea), and JEgium also from seven or eight. But all these towns were small, and some of them underwent a farther junction one with the other ; thus JEgae was joined with ./Egeira, and Olenus with Dyme. 1 All the authors seem disposed to recognize twelve cities, and no more, in Achaia ; for Polybius, still adhering to that number, substitutes Leontium and Keryneia in place of JEgae and Rhypes ; Pausanias gives Keryneia in place of Patrae. 2 We hear of no facts respecting these Achasan towns until a short time before the Peloponnesian war, and even then their part was inconsiderable. The greater portion of the territory comprised under the name of Achaia was mountain, forming the northern descent of those high ranges, passable only through very difficult gorges, which separate the country from Arcadia to the south, and which throw out various spurs approaching closely to the gulf of Co- rinth. A strip of flat land, with white clayey soil, often very fertile, between these mountains and the sea, formed the plain of each of the Achaean towns, which were situated for the most part upon steep outlying eminences overhanging it. From the mountains between Achaia and Arcadia, numerous streams flow into the Corinthian gulf, but few of them are perennial, and tha whole length of coast is represented as harborless. 3 1 Strabo, viii. pp. 337, 342, 386. Polyb. il 41

• Sec Lcake's Travels in Morea. c. xxvii. and