 Chapter 4, Part 3 of A History of Greece to the Death of Alexander the Great, Volume 1. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Anna Christensen. A History of Greece to the Death of Alexander the Great, Volume 1 by John Bagnell-Burry. Chapter 4, Part 3. Early in the 7th century then, the Athenian Republic was an aristocracy, and the executive was in the hands of three annually elected officers. The Archon, the King, and the Polomark. The Archon was a supreme judge in all civil suits. When he entered an office, he published a declaration that he would, throughout the term of his Archonship, preserve the property of every citizen intact. At a later time, this sphere of judicial power was limited, and he judged mainly cases in which injured parents, orphans, heiresses were involved. He held the chief place among the magistrates, having his official residence in the Pridinaum, where was the public hearth, and his name appeared at the head of official lists, once he was called Eponymous. Though the Archonship was a later institution than that of Polomark, as is shown by the fact that no old religious ceremonies were performed by the Archon, such as devolved upon the Polomark as well as upon the King. But the conduct of festivals instituted at later times were entrusted to him. Such was the Thardelia, the late May Feast of the First Fruits, the chief Athenian Feast of Apollo, introduced from Delos, probably in the 7th century. Such was the great Dionysia, which, as we shall see, were founded in the 6th. The Polomark had traditional duties, besides being commander-in-chief of the army. He held a court in the Epollochion on the banks of the Elysis, and judged there all cases in which non-citizens were involved. Thus, what the Archon was for citizens, the Polomark was for the class of foreign settlers who were called Medics. The King had his residence in the Royal Stoa in the Agor. His functions were confined to the management of the state religion, and the conduct of certain judicial cases connected with religion. He was president of the council, and thus had considerable power and responsibility in the conduct of the judicial functions of that body. The Boulet, or council, was the political organization through which the nobles carried out, at Athens as elsewhere, the gradual abolition of monarchy. This council of elders, a part as we saw of the Aryan inheritance of the Greeks, came afterwards to be called at Athens the Council of the Areopagus to distinguish it from other councils of later growth. This name was derived from one of the council's most important functions. According to early custom, which we find reflected in Homer, murder and manslaughter were not regarded as crimes against the state, but concerned exclusively the family of the slain man, which might either slay the slayer or accept a compensation. But gradually, as the worship of the souls of the dead and the deities of the underworld developed, the belief gained ground that he who shed blood was impure and needed cleansing. Accordingly, when a murderer satisfied the kinswoke of the murder by paying a fine, he had also to submit to a process of purification and satisfy the Chithyan gods, and the Arrhenias, or furies, who were, in the original conception, the souls of the dead clamoring for vengeance. This notion of manslaughter as a religious offense necessarily led to the interference of the state. For when the member of a community was impure, the stain drew down the anger of the gods upon the whole community, if the unclean were not driven out. Hence it came about that the state undertook the conduct of criminal justice. The council itself formed the court, and the proceedings were closely associated with the worship of the Semnai. These Chithyan goddesses had a sanctuary, which served as a refuge for him whose hand was stained with bloodshed on the north-east side of the Areopagus, outside the city wall. It is possible that the association of this hill with the god Erez is merely due to popular etymology, for he had no shrine here, but the correct explanation of the name areespacus. On this rugged spot, apart from but within sight of the dwellings of men, the council held sittings for cases of murder, violence with murderous intent, poisoning, and incendiaryism. The accused were stood on the stone of insolence, the accused on the stone of recklessness, each a huge unhewn block. This function of the council, which continued to belong to it after it lost its other powers, procured it the name of the Areopagus. During the period of the aristocracy, the council was the governing body of Athens. We may be certain that the magistrates were always members, but otherwise we do not know how it was composed, and therefore can form no clear idea how the constitution worked. The council doubtless exercised direct control over the election of the chief magistrates. But we need to have small doubt that the king, the archon, and the polomarch were either elected by the ecclesia consisting of the whole body of citizens entitled to vote, or at all events were chosen by the council out of a limited number nominated by the assembly. As an achievement of the aristocracy, we may regard the annexation of Ellusis, the Ellucian kingdom bound in by Athens on one side, and Megara on the other. Its little bay blocked by Megarian Salamis did not play any part in any portion of Greek history of which we have the faintest record, but of its independent existence we have a clear echo and a hymn which tells the Ellucian story of Demeter. That goddess, wandering in quest of her lost daughter, Persephone, came to Ellusis where she was hospital entertained by the king and would have made his infant son immortal but for the queens want of faith. This poem is thought to have been composed in the 7th century, and if so, the days when Ellusis was independent had not yet passed out of men's memories then. The middle of the 7th century is marked by a further constitutional change, which is the result of various social changes. The aristocracy of birth is forced to widen into an aristocracy of wealth. The general causes of this change are to be found in the new economical conditions, which have been already pointed out it's affecting the whole Greek world in the 7th century. But to understand their operation and political consequences at Athens we must look more closely into the classes of the attic population and the social structure. Under the rule of the kings and the aristocracies the free population fell into three classes the Upatridae or nobles Gorgae or peasants who qualified their own farms and the Demiurgae public workers those who lived by trade or commerce. The Upatrids originally lived in the country and many attic places were called from their families Peonidae or Butidae after the Sinoicism many of them came to live in the city. The Demiurgae had their settlements in the neighborhood of the city for example there was the quarter of the Potters north of the Areopagus and also in the country such as Pelates or Darulidae but besides these classes of citizens who had the right of attending the assembly there was a mass of free men who were not citizens among these we can distinguish the agricultural laborers who having no land of their own cultivated the estates of the nobles in return for their labor they retained one-sixth of the Pratus Pratus and were hence called Sixth Parters Hectomoroi there were also the craftsmen who were employed and paid by the Demiurgae and doubtless small retail dealers and others although Atticae seems to have taken no part in the colonizing movement of the Eighth and Seven Centuries the Athenians shared in the trading activities of the period and were profoundly affected by the economical revolution of the Greek world the cultivation of the olive was becoming a feature of Attica and its oil a profitable article of exportation at the same time Atticae Potters were actively developing their industry on lines of their own and Atticae Pottery was in the course of another century that was dominated throughout Mediterranean countries from Tuscany to Cyprus jars of this age have been found in tombs near the Diplom gate on the northwest side of Athens and these Diplom vases as they were called give us a glimpse of the attic civilization of the period we not only see a new style of vase painting with geometrical ornament and a symmetrical arrangement of the space of the parent's disposal but in the picture of funeral processions observed with what pomp and cost the attic nobles buried their dead in the graves where these vases were found offerings were laid beside the dead pottery and sometimes gold ornaments and this sepulchral pit was surmounted not by a mound but by a tall clay jar with an opening below through which drink offerings could be poured but it must be noticed that soon after this epoch the influence of Ionia made itself felt in Attica and the custom was introduced of burning the dead burial however was not discontinued the two customs subsisted side by side Ionia also influenced Athenian dress the woollen peplos fastened with a pin was given up and the Ionian sleeve tunic or keton of linen took its place it would be interesting if we might see in the rude representation of ships on some of the Diplom vases and illustration of the beginnings the sea traffic Athens must have been rapidly growing in the first half of the 7th century it is easy to see how the active participation of Athens in trade began to undermine the foundations of the aristocracy of birth but introducing a new standard of social distinction the nobles engaged in mercantile ventures with various success some becoming richer and others poorer and the industrial folk increased in wealth and importance the result would ultimately be that wealth would assert itself as well as birth both socially and politically and in the second half of the 7th century we find that though the aristocracy has not been fully replaced by a democracy or constitution in which political rights depend entirely on wealth all the conditions are present for such a transformation for we find the people divided into three classes according to their wealth the principle of division was the annual yield of landed property in corn, oil, or wine the highest class was the Pentecosteo medimni before this name had any official meaning it was perhaps in popular use to designate those large proprietors whose income reached 500 medimni of corn the time when oil and wine had not been much cultivated when it acquired an official sense it was defined to include those whose land produced at least so many measures medimni of corn and so many measures metritae of oil or wine as together amounted to 500 measures the second class included those whose property produced more than 300 but less than 500 such measures these were called knights and so represented roughly those who could maintain a horse and take their part in war as mounted soldiers the minimum income of the third class was 200 measures and their name, teamsters they were well-to-do peasants who could till their land with a pair of oxen the chief magistracies of Archon, King, and Polarmarch were confined to the first class but the principal was admitted that a successful man the Nauru Patreid was eligible for the highest offices if his income amounted to 500 medimni it was natural the rating should be expressed in terms of wealth derived from land but it is not a necessary inference that the handed caressmen were entirely excluded or that in order to win political rights they were forced to purchase estates at first this concession of the U-patreids to their fellow citizens did not practically amount to much most of the richest men in the state still belonged to the old clans but the recognition of wealth as a political test could not fail to undermine ultimately the privileges of birth the organization of the lower classes into bodies resembling the clans of the nobles and their admission into the brotherhoods have been mentioned it is probable that the institution of the Thesmythetai also marks a step in self-assertation of these classes that Thesmythetai were a college of six judges who managed the whole judicial system of Athens it was their duty to examine and call attention to defects in the laws and to keep a record of judicial decisions and they seem to have taken cognizance of all cases which belonged to the scope of the council of Areopagus except trials for murder in fact it looks as if they were practically a committee of that council they were elected annually and it has been plausibly supposed that the number of six was determined by the fact that they originated in a compromise between the orders three being U-patreids two Gorgai and one Demyorgos they were soon associated with the three chief magistrates the Archon the Basilius and the Polomarch and the nine came to Formisota college and were called the nine Archons each of the nine when he entered on his office took an oath that he would act in accordance with the laws and vowed that if he committed any injustice he would dedicate in gold a man's statute of life size it was a penalty which no Archon could have discharged outside these classes were the smaller peasants who had land of their own of which however the produce did not amount to two hundred measures of corn or oil and the humbler handicraftsmen these were called the Thetes the name being purported from its proper meaning of laborers the Thetes were citizens but had no political rights yet they were beginning to win a certain public importance the conditions of a growing maritime trade led to the development of a navy as the sea power grew a new organization was found necessary and there can be little doubt that the duty of serving as Marines and the Penteconters mainly devolved upon the Thetes this gave them a new significance in the state a significance which would strengthen their claim to political rights when the time for pressing that claim should come we shall see here after how closely it was a democracy of Athens with her sea power and they can hardly be wrong in surmising the faint brushado wings of that connection at the very beginning of her naval history each of the four tribes was divided for this purpose into 12 districts called Necrarii each Necrarii was probably bound to supply a ship thus the fleet consisted of 48 ships the administration was directed by a body of Necrarii at the head of which were presidents and the organization might be found convenient for other than naval purposes thus the Necrarii formed an important administrative council we see then that in the middle of the 7th century society and attic is undergoing the change which is transforming the face of all the progressive parts of Helas wealth is competing with descent as a political test and the aristocracy of Barth seems to be passing into a democracy the power is in the hands of the three chief archons who always belong to the class of wealthy nobles and the council of Areopagus which is certainly composed of Upasridai but the classes outside the noble clans the smaller proprietors and the merchants are beginning to assert themselves and make their weight felt possibly the institution of the Thesmotheti is due to their pressure they also obtained admission into the brotherhoods which had been hitherto exclusive attic trade is rapidly growing the commercial development promotes tendencies and has also led to the creation of a fleet which since the poorest class of citizens are required to manage renders that class important and prepares the way for its political recognition as yet however the naval establishment of Athens was but small compared with her neighbors Calcus and Corinth or her daughter cities of Ionia and Agana which I come for well under the influence of Argos outstripped her it is interesting to find these two cities Athens and Agenia which were in later times to be bitter rivals for the supremacy in their gulf in the 7th century taking part in an association for maintaining the worship of Poseidon in the little island at Calara over against Trozan other coast towns of the Saronic and Argolic bays Epidares, Trozan Hermion, Nauplia Prazeic belong to the sacred union and the Boatian Archimenas by virtue of the authority which she still possessed under the sailors of Anthodon was also a member there was no political significance in the joint Calarian worship of these maritime towns their seamen propitiated Poseidon at Calaria just as they sacrificed to Pan-Hellenic Zeus on the far seam mountain of Agena and these were not grudging votaries they built a house for the sea god in his island its foundations have been recently uncovered and it is one of the earliest stone temples whose ruins have been found in Greece Attica like the rest of the Greek world was disturbing her economic development by the invention of money she had naturally been brought into close commercial relations with her neighbor Agena which at this time began to take a leading part in maritime enterprise accordingly we find Athens adopt in the Aegean coinage and using a system of weights and measures which was almost, if not quite identical with the Aegean the introduction of money which was at first very scarce and led to the accumulation of capital in the chest of successful speculators was followed by a period of transition between the old system of the direct exchange of commodities and the new system of a metallic medium and this transitional period was trying to all men of small means but the inevitable economic crisis did not come at once though all conditions of social distress were present and a conflict between the rich and the poor was drawing steadily near an event happened about 30 years before the end of the century which shows that the peasants were still loyal to the existing constitution the example of tyranny was infectious and as it flourished at the very door of Athens and Megara it was unlikely that some attempt should not be made at Athens too a certain Cylon of noble family married the daughter of the Agonis, tyrant of Megara and under Megarian influence and with Megarian help he tried to make himself master of the city consulting the Delphic Oracle he was advised to seize the acropolis on the greatest festival of Zeus Cylon and Olympic Victor himself had no doubt that the Feast of Olympia but when his plot failed it was explained that Oracle referred to the Athenian Feast Diasia in March which was celebrated outside the city Cylon enlisted in his enterprise a number of noble youths and a band of Megarian soldiers were sent by the Agonis he had no support among the people he succeeded in seizing the acropolis but the sight of foreign soldiers have factually quenched any learning sympathy that any of the Athenians might have felt for an effort to overthrow the government the council of the Naocraris summoned the husbandmen from the country and the summons was readily obeyed Cylon was blockaded in the citadel and after a long siege when food and water began to fail he escaped with his brother from the fortress the rest were soon constrained to capitulate they sought refuge in the temple of Athena Polius and left it when the Archons promised to spare their lives Megaclas Cylon and family was Archon this year and at his instigation the pledge was disregarded and the conspirators were put to death some feud among the clans may have been at work here the city was saved from a tyrant but it had incurred a grave pollution such a violation of a solemn pledge to the suppliants who had trusted in the protection of the gods was an insult to the gods themselves and the city was under a curse till the pollution should be removed this view was urged by the secret friends of Cylon and those who hated and so it came to pass that while Cylon, his brother and their descendants were condemned to disenfranchisement and perpetual banishment the Elchemiah Nuds and those who had acted with them were also tried on the charge of sacrilege and condemned to a perpetual exile with the confiscation of their property and the bodies of those of the clan who had died between the deed of sacrilege and the passing of the sentence that was assumed and cast beyond the boundaries of Attica the banishment of the Elchemiah Nuds had consequences in the distant future and we shall see how it comes into the practical politics of Athens 200 years later the tales also told that the city required a further purification and that a priest name of Epimenides came from Crete and cleansed it but it has been thought doubtful whether Epimenides is more than a mythical name like Orpheus since another story brings him to Athens again for similar purposes of atonement more than a century afterwards and then both tales are conciliated by ascribing to the seer miraculous sleep of a hundred years in the course of the next ten years the state of the peasant seems to have changed considerably for the worse the outbreak of a war with Megara in consequence of the plot of Cylon aggravated the distress of the rural population for the Attic coast suffered from the depredations of the enemy and the Megarian market was closed to the oil trade whether the peasants who groaned under the existing system found leaders and extorted concessions from the government or whether the ruling classes themselves saw the danger and tried to prevent it by a timely concession it was at all events decided that a code of law should be drawn up and written down probably men had been clamoring long to obtain the security for life and property and what the Thessamathete may have already done by recording judicial decisions in writing was not enough Dracon was appointed an extraordinary legislator Thessamathetes and empowered to codify and rectify the existing law we know only the provisions of that part of his criminal law which dealt with the shedding of blood for these provisions were not altered by subsequent legislation in later times it was thought that Dracon revealed to the Athenians how harsh their laws were and his name became proverbial for a severe law giver an Athenian orator won credit for his epigram that Dracon's law were written not in ink but in blood this idea arose from the fact that certain small offenses such as stealing cabbage were punished by death a broader view however of Dracon's code will modify this view he drew careful distinctions between murder and various kinds of accidental or justifiable manslaughter in Dracon's laws we meet a body of 51 judges called the Epitai they were chosen from the Upatrid but it is not clear whether they formed a part of the council of the Areopagus or were a wholly distinct body those cases of bloodshed which did not come before the court of the Areopagus were tried by the Epitai in case the shedder of blood was known according to the nature of the deed the Epitai held their quark in different places in the temple of the Delfinian Apollo in the Palladian at Phalaron or at Franto a tongue of land on the munician peninsula this last quark was used in the case of those who were tried for manslaughter committed abroad and as they might not set foot on the soil of their country they had to answer the charge standing in a boat drawn up near the shore when the shedder of blood was not known the case came before the king in the Pritinaeum it is unfortunate that we are not informed of Drakon's other legislation we know that the laws relating to debtors were stringent the creditor could claim the person of the insolvent debtor in general he was bound to provide for the interests of the rich powerholding classes but it was at all events an enormous gain for the poor that those interests should be defined in writing chapter 4 part 4 of a history of Greece to the death of Alexander the great volume 1 this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Graham Redman a history of Greece to the death of Alexander the great volume 1 John Bagnell Bury chapter 4 part 4 the legislation of Solon and the foundation of democracy Drakon's code was something but it did not touch the root of the evil every year the oppressiveness of the rich few and the impoverishment of the small farmer were increasing without capital and obliged to borrow money the small proprietors managed their lands which fell into the hands of capitalists who lent money at ruinous interest it must be remembered that money was still very scarce and that the peasants had now to purchase all their needs in coin footnote the value of silver at this time may be judged from the fact that a sheep cost a drachma a bushel of barley a drachma an ox five drachmy a drachma equals about a franc end of footnote even in Attica the small peasant could not cope with the larger proprietor thus the little farms of Attica were covered with stones on which the mortgage bonds were written the larger states drew a pace the black earth as Solon said was enslaved the condition of the free laborers was even more deplorable the sixth part of the produce which was their wage no longer sufficed under the new economical conditions to support life and they were forced into borrowing from their masters the interest was high the laws of debt were ruthless and the person of the borrower was the pledge of repayment and forfeited to the lender in case of inability to pay the result was that the class the free laborers was being gradually transformed into a class of slaves whom their lords could sell when they chose thus while the wealthy few were becoming wealthier and greedyer the small proprietors were becoming landless and the landless freemen were becoming slaves and the evil was aggravated by unjust judgments and the perversion of law in favor of the rich and powerful the social disease seemed likely to culminate in a political revolution the people were bitter against their remorseless oppressors and only wanted a leader to rebel to any student of contemporary politics observing the development in other states a tyranny would have seemed the most probable solution a tyranny had already once at least and probably more than once aborted and now as it happened the masses obtained a mediator not a demagogue a reform not a revolution the tyranny, though it was ultimately to come was postponed for more than 30 years the mediator and the civil strife was so long the son of excess estates a noble connected with the house of the medontids he was a merchant the wealthiest class in the state but he was very different from the Atticupatris rustic squires of old fashions and narrow vision we may guess that he had not been a homekeeping youth but had visited the eastern coasts of the Aegean with the mercantile concerns might have taken him at all events he had learned much from progressive Ionia he had imbued himself literature and had mastered the art of writing verse in the Ionic idiom so that he could himself take part in the intellectual movement of the day and become one of the sages of Greece he was a poet not because he was poetically inspired like the Perian archilicus of an earlier or the lesbian safo of his own generation but because at that time every man of letters was a poet there was no prose literature a hundred years later Solon would have used prose as the vehicle of his thoughts his moderate temper made him generally popular his knowledge gave him authority and his countrymen called upon him at last to set their house in order we are fortunate enough to possess portions of poems political pamphlets which he published for the purpose of public opinion and thus we have his view of the situation in his own words he did not strupple to speak plainly the social abuses and the sad state of the masses were clear to everybody but Solon saw another side of the question and he had no sympathy with the extreme revolutionary agitators who demanded a redistribution of lands the moderate of the nobles seemed to have seen the danger and the urgent need of a new order of things and thus it came to pass that Solon was solicited to undertake the work of reform he definitely undertook the task and was elected archon with extraordinary legislative powers for the purpose of healing the evils of the state and conciliating the classes footnote the year of Solon's archonship is either 594-3 or 592-1 BC there is evidence for both perhaps the earlier is the more probable in any case it seems certain that Solon's legislative activity extended over more than a single year and likely that he was commissioned as an extraordinary law giver nomathetes to revise the constitution end of footnote instead of making the usual declaration of the Chief Magistrate that he would protect the property of all men undiminished he made proclamation that all mortgages and debts by which the debtor's person was pledged were annulled and that all those who had become slaves for debt were free by this proclamation in that summer memorable for the rescue of hundreds of poor wretches into liberty and hope the Athenians shook off their burdens and this first act of Solon's social reform was called the Seizechtheia the great deliverance was celebrated by a public feast the character of the remedial measures of Solon is imperfectly known after the cancelling of old debts he passed a law which forbade debtors to be enslaved he fixed a limit for the measure of land which could be owned by a single person so as to prevent the growth of dangerously large estates and he forbade the exportation of attic products except oil for it had been found that so much corn was carried to foreign markets where the prices were higher that an insufficient supply remained for the population of Attica it is to be observed that at this time the Athenians had not yet begun to import Pontic corn all these measures hit the rich hard and created discontent with the reformer while on the other hand he was far from satisfying the desires and hopes of the masses he would not confiscate and redistribute the estates of the wealthy as many wished and though he rescued the free laborer from bondage he made no change in the sixth part system so that the condition of these landless freemen was improved only in so far as they could not be enslaved and in so far as the law limiting exportation affected prices and Solon was too discreet to attempt to interfere seriously with the conditions of the money market by artificial restrictions he fixed no maximum rate of interest and his monetary reforms must be kept strictly apart from his social reforms hitherto the Athenians did not coin money of their own they used the Egenetan currency Solon inaugurated a native coinage but he adopted the Ubiic not the Egenetan standard thus a hundred of the new Attic Drachmy were equivalent in value to about 70 Egenetan Drachmy the Attic coinage introduced by Solon is to be brought into connection not with the domestic reform but with the foreign policy of Athens to which new prospects were opening the old coinage attached her to a Jaina with which her relations were strained and to her foe Megara the new system seemed to invite her into the distant fields beyond the sea where Calces and Corinth had led the way in opening up a new world a generation later a new monetary reform introduced a distinct Attic standard slightly higher than the Ubiic what Solon did to heal the social sores of his country entitled him to the most fervent gratitude but it was no more than might have been done by any able and honest possessed men's confidence his title to fame as one of the great statesmen of Europe rests upon his reform of the constitution he discovered a secret of democracy and he used his discovery to build up the constitution on democratic foundations the Athenian commonwealth did not actually become a democracy till many years later but Solon not only laid the foundations he shaped the framework at first sight indeed the state as he reformed it might seem little more than an aristocracy of wealth a democracy with certain democratic tendencies he retained the old graduation of the people in classes according to property but he added the thetes as a fourth class and gave it certain political rights and the three higher classes devolved the public burdens and they served as cavalry or as hoplites the thetes were employed as light-armed troops or as marines it is probable that Solon made little or no change in regard to the offices which were open to each class Pentecostia Madimni were alone eligible to the archonship and for them alone was reserved the official office of treasurer of Athena other offices were open to the hippies and the ziugiti but the distinction in privilege between them is unknown footnote the offices of the politi who formed out public contracts for example mines the eleven heads of the executive of justice the colacriti financial officers end of footnote the thetes were not eligible to any of the offices of state but they were admitted to take part in the meetings of the ecclesia and this gave them a voice in the election of the magistrates the opening of the assembly to the lowest class was indeed an important step in the democratic direction but it may have been only the end of a gradual process of widening which had been going on under the aristocracy the radical measure of solon which was the very cornerstone of the Athenian democracy was his constitution of the courts of justice he constituted a court out of all the citizens including the thetes and as the panels of judges were enrolled by lot the poorest burger might have his turn any magistrate on laying down his office could be accused before the people in these courts and thus the institution of popular courts invested the people with a supreme control over the administration the people sitting in sections as sworn judges were called the heliier as distinguished from the ecclesia in which they gathered to pass laws or choose magistrates to take no oath having in its hands both the appointment of the magistrates and the control of their conduct the people possessed theoretically the sovereignty of the state and the meeting out of more privileges to the less wealthy classes could be merely a matter of time at first the archons were not deprived of their judicial powers and the heliier acted as a court of appeal but by degrees the competence of the archons was reduced to the conduct of the proceedings preliminary to a trial and the heliier became both the first and the final court the constitution of the judicial courts out of the whole people was the secret of democracy which Solon discovered it is his title to fame in the history of the growth of popular government in Europe without ignoring the tendencies to a democratic development which existed before him and without, on the other hand disguising the privileges which he reserved to the upper classes we can hardly hesitate to regard Solon as the founder of the Athenian democracy it must indeed be confessed that there is much in the scope and intention of his constitution which it is difficult to appreciate because we know so little of the older constitution which he reformed thus we have no definite record touching the composition of the council of the Areopagus touching its functions as a deliberative body and its relations to the assembly or touching the composition of the assembly itself we can however have little doubt that under the older Commonwealth the council of elders exerted a preponderant influence over the assembly and that the business submitted to the assembly whether by the magistrates or in whatever way introduced was previously discussed and settled by the council the founder of popular government could not leave this hinge of the aristocratic republic as it was he must either totally change the character of the council and transform it into a popular body he must deprive it of its deliberative functions in regard to the assembly Solon deprived the council of elders of these deliberative functions so that it could no longer take any direct part in administration and legislation but on the other hand he assigned to it a new and lofty role he constituted it the protector of the constitution and the guardian of the laws giving it wide and undefined powers of control over the magistrates and a sensorial authority over the citizens its judicial and religious functions it retained in order to bring it into harmony with the rest of his constitution Solon seems to have altered the composition of the council hence forward at least the nine archons at the end of their year of office became life members of the council of Arieopagus and this was the manner in which the council was recruited thus the Arieopagites were virtually appointed by the people in the assembly having removed the council of the Arieopagus to this place of dignity above and almost outside the constitution Solon was obliged to create a new body to prepare the business for the assembly such a body was indispensable as the Greeks always recognized and it is clear that in its absence enormous powers would have been placed in the hands of the magistrates on whom the manipulation of the assembly would have entirely devolved the Probulyutic council which Solon instituted consisted of four hundred members a hundred being taken from each of the four tribes either chosen by the tribe itself or more probably picked by lot all citizens of the three higher classes were eligible the Thetes alone were excluded in later days this council or rather a new council which took its place gained a large number of important powers which made it to all intents an independent body in the state but at first its functions seemed to have been purely Probulyutic and it has therefore rather the aspect of being merely a part of the organization of the assembly it must always be remembered that it does not represent the council of elders of the Arian four world it does not correspond to the Jeruzia of Sparta or the Senate of Rome but it takes over certain functions which had before formed part of the duty of the council of elders it discusses beforehand the public matters which are to be submitted to the assembly the use of lot for the purpose of appointing public officers was a feature of Solon's reforms according to men's ideas in those days lot committed the decision to the gods and was thus a serious method of procedure not a sign of political levity as we should regard it now but a device which superstition suggested was approved by the reflections of philosophical statesmen and lot was recognized as a valuable political engine for security against undue influence and for the protection of minorities it was doubtless as a security against the undue influence of clans and parties that Solon used it he applied it to the appointment of the chief magistrates themselves but religious though he was he could not be blind to the danger of taking no human precautions against the falling of the lot upon an incompetent candidate he therefore mixed the two devices of lot and election forty candidates were elected ten from each tribe by the voice of their tribesmen and out of these the nine archons were picked by lot it is probable that a similar mixed method was employed in the choice of the four hundred councillors Solon sought to keep the political balance steady by securing that each of the four tribes should have an equal share in the government he could hardly have done otherwise and yet here we touch on the weak point in the fabric of his constitution the gravest danger ahead was in truth not the strife of poor and rich of noble lord and man of the people but the deep rooted and bitter jealousies which existed between many of the clans while the clan had the tribe behind it and the tribe possessed political weight such feuds might at any moment cause a civil war or a revolution was reserved for a future law giver to grapple with this problem Solon assuredly saw it but he had no solution ready to hand and the evil was closely connected with another evil the local parties which divided Attica for these dangers Solon offered no remedy and therefore his work though abiding in the highest sense did not supply a final brief pacification of the warring elements in the state he is said to have passed a law so clumsy so difficult to render effective that it is hard to believe that such an enactment was ever made that in the case of a party's struggle every burgher must take aside under pain of losing his civic rights Solon if he was indeed the author of such a measure sought to avert the possible issues of political strife by forcing the best citizens to intervene it was a safeguard a clumsy safeguard against the danger of a tyranny it is interesting to observe that in some directions Solon extended and in others restricted the freedom of the individual he restricted it by sumptuary laws for idleness he extended it by an enactment allowing a man who had no heirs of his body to will his property as he liked instead of its going to the next of kin footnote this measure we may probably assume simply legalized an usage which had been introduced in practice long before end of footnote one of Solon's first acts was to call the legislation of dracon except the laws relating to manslaughter his own laws were inscribed on wooden tables set in revolving frames called axonies which were numbered and the laws were quoted by the number of the axon these tablets were kept in the public hall but copies were made on stone pillars called in the old attic-tongue kept in the portico of the king every citizen was required to take an oath that he would obey these laws and it was ordered that the laws were to remain in force for a hundred years Solon had done his work boldly but he had done it constitutionally he had not made himself a tyrant as he might easily have done and as many expected him to do on the contrary one purpose of his reform was to forestall the necessity and prevent the possibility of a tyranny he had not even become anisimnites a legislator like pitticus who for a number of years supersedes the constitution in order to reform it and rules for that time with the absolute power of a tyrant he had simply held marcon invested indeed with extraordinary powers to a superficial observer caution seemed the note of his reforms and men were surprised and many disgusted by his cautiousness his caution consisted in reserving the highest offices for men of property and the truth probably is that in his time no others would have been fitted with his own ideas but solan has stated his own principle that the privileges of each class should be proportional to the public burdens which it can bear this was the conservative feature of his legislation and seizing on it democrats could make out a plausible case for regarding his constitution as simply a democracy when he laid down his office he was assailed by complaints and he wrote alleges in which he explains his middle course and professes that he performed the things which he undertook without favor or fear I threw my stout shield he says over both parties he refused to entertain the idea of any modifications in his measures and thinking that the reforms would work better in the absence of the reformer he left Athens soon after his archonship and travelled for ten years partly for mercantile ends but perhaps chiefly from curiosity to see strange places and strange men though the remnants of his poems are fragmentary though the recorded events of his life are meager and though the details of his legislation are dimly known and variously interpreted the personality of Solon leaves a distinct impression on our minds we know enough to see in him an embodiment of the ideal of intellectual and moral excellence of the early Greeks and the greatest of their wise men for him the first of the virtues was moderation and his motto was avoid excess he was in no vulgar sense a man of the world for he was many-sided poet and legislator traveller and trader noble and friend of the people he had the insight to discern some of the yet undeveloped tendencies of the age and could sympathize with other than the power-holding classes he had meditated too deeply on the circumstances of humanity to find power a temptation he never forgot that he was a traveller between life and death it was a promising and characteristic act for a Greek state to commit the task of its reformation to such a man and empower him to translate into definite legislative measures the views which he expressed in his poems Solon's social reforms inaugurated a permanent improvement but his political measures which he intended as a compromise displeased many Part his strife broke out again bitterly soon after his archonship and only to end after thirty years in the tyranny which it had been his dearest object to prevent of this strife we know little it took the form of a struggle for the archonship and two years are noted in which, in consequence of this struggle no archons were elected hence called years of anarchy then a certain archon Demesias attempted to convert his office into a permanent tyranny and actually held it for over two years this attempt frightened the political parties into making a compromise of some sort to the need that ten archons should be chosen five Eupatrid's three Georgi and two Demiurgi all of course possessing the requisite minimum of wealth footnote we learned this from Aristotle's Athenian Polytyre and there is no longer any doubt about the reading this unique arrangement superseded the Solonian Constitution and a footnote it is unknown whether this arrangement was repeated after the year of its first trial but it certainly did not lead to a permanent reconciliation the two great parties were those who were in the main satisfied with the new constitution of Solon and those who disliked its democratic side and desired to return to the aristocratic government the latter consisted chiefly of Eupatrid's and were known as the Men of the Plain they were led by Lycurgus and numbered among them the clan of the Philidae distinguished as the clan of Hippoclaides the Woor of Agarista and destined to become more distinguished still as that of more than one Simon and Miltiades the opposite party of the coast included not only the population of the coast but the bulk of the middle classes the peasants as well as the Demiurgi who were bettered by the changes of Solon they were led by Megacles the same Megacles who married Agarista for one of Solon's measures was an act of amnesty which was couched in such terms that while it did not benefit of Silon it permitted the return of the alchemyonidae their position severed them from the rest of the Eupatrid's and associated them with the party which represented Solon's views End of Chapter 4 Part 4 Recording by Graham Redman Chapter 5 Parts 1 and 2 of a history of Greece to the death of Alexander the Great Volume 1 This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Graham Redman A History of Greece to the Death of Alexander the Great Volume 1 by John Bagnell Bury Chapter 5 Growth of Athens in the 6th Century Part 1 The Conquest of Salamis and Nicaea In the midst of these domestic troubles and party struggles there were a few statesmen who found time to attend to foreign affairs and saw that the time had come for Athens to take a new step in her political career Under her aristocracy Athens had enjoyed a long period of development which may be called peaceful if we compare the growth of some other states and this prepared her to take her place in the general scene of Greek history Though Attica was a poor country scantily watered and with light soil her prosperity in the oil trade might encourage her to look forward to becoming rich But if she was ever to become political power there was one thing to be achieved at all hazards Every Athenian who stood on his strong hill and looked south westward could see what this was He described lying close to his own shore an island which was not his own and if he walked across Mount E. Galeos he saw how this foreign island blocked up the bay of what was his own elusives Almost equally distant from Athens and Megara parted by a narrow water from both Salamis in the hands of either must be a constant menace to the other The possession of Salamis must decide the future history of both Megara and Athens At this period Megara with her growing colonial connections was a strong state and a formidable neighbor and her expanding trade must have been viewed with alarm and jealousy by Athenian statesmen A struggle with Megara sooner or later was inevitable and the Silenian conspiracy as we saw furnished an occasion of war The Agenes could not easily brook the slaughter of his men in violation of the promise which had been given to them and he sent his ships to Harry the Attic coasts The Athenians sought to occupy Salamis but all their efforts to gain a permanent footing failed and they abandoned the attempt in despair Years passed away At length Solon saw that the favorable hour had come It was perhaps a quarter of a century after the year of his law-giving He had returned from his travels and was living at Athens one of the council of the Areopagus Megara was now weaker than in the days of the Agenes and whether she had given any new cause of offense to Athens or not Solon and his friends decided that it was time to strike The great legislator came forward now not as before to assuage strife but to stir up to conquest He composed a stirring poem which began I came myself as a herald from lovely Salamis but with song on my lips instead of common speech He blamed the peace-policy of the men who let slip Salamis as dishonorable and cried arise and come to Salamis to whim that fair violent and undue our shame The poem of Solon was intended to have the effect which in later times when common speech had been perfected to a fine art would have been wrought by the eloquence of an orator in the assembly His appeal moved the hearts of his countrymen to a national effort and an Athenian army went forth to lay the first stone of his greatness An intimate friend of Solon took part in the enterprise by Zistratus, son of Hippocrates whose home and estates were near Braron It has been thought that by Zistratus was the polymark of the year but it is more probable that he was only a general subordinate to the polymark He helped the expedition to a successful issue because the disputed island rested from Megara but he captured the port of Nicaea over against the island We may conjecture that Nicaea was surprised first and that its capture enabled the Athenians to occupy Salamis Thus though Pysistratus was associated with the conquest of Nicaea not with the conquest of Salamis it was to him that Solon who inspired the enterprise that the great achievement was really due The seizure of her port was a great shock to the trade of Megara It was indeed afterwards restored when peace was made through the mediation of Sparta but the hopes of Athenian policy which its possession aroused are reflected in the legend created at this time that Nicus the Megarian hero was a son of Pandion an early Athenian king Shortly afterwards the text of the Iliad which assumed, as we shall see its final shape at Athens was tampered with The Athenians entered in that venerable record the political geography which they desired In the catalogue of the ships where Megara has no independent place, she is counted in Russia two verses were inserted implying that Salamis belonged to Athens in the time of the Trojan War There is no reason to suppose that there was any truth in this prehistoric claim but Salamis now became permanently annexed to Attica The island was afterwards divided in lots among Athenian citizens who were called clerux unlike Iliusis was not incorporated in Attica though it was nearer Athens There have been found fragments of a document inscribed on a stone pillar perhaps, but it is difficult to judge the dates of early Attic writings not many years later than the conquest a decree of the people which concerns the settlement of Salamis one of the earliest scriptural stones of Athenian history and the earliest example we possess of a decree of the Athenian people The old inhabitants of the island were to pay the same taxes as the Athenians and to serve in the army but they were to dwell on their farms in the island and were not to let their lots to others under pain of a fine The conquest of Salamis was a decisive event for Athens Her territory was now rounded off She had complete command of the landlocked Eliusinian bay It was she who now threatened Megara End of Chapter 5, Part 1 Chapter 5, Part 2 Athens under Pisistratus The conqueror of Nicaea was the hero of the day by professing democratic doctrines and practicing popular arts he ingratiated himself with those extreme Democrats who, being bitterly opposed to the nobles and not satisfied by the Salonian compromise were outside both the plain and the coast Pisistratus thus organized a new party which was called the Hill as it largely consisted of the Achaotica but it also included the Hectimors for whom Solon had done little and many discontented men who, formally rich had been impoverished by Solon's measure of cancelling old debts With this party at his back Pisistratus aimed at no lesser thing than grasping the supreme power for himself One day he appeared in the Agara he said by a foul attack of his political foes his foes because he was a friend of the people and he showed wounds which he bore In the assembly packed by the Hillsman a bodyguard of fifty clubsmen was voted to him on the proposal of Aristion We have a monument which we may associate with the author of this memorable act in a sepulchral slab near Brauren on which is finally wrought in very low relief the portrait of Aristion standing armed by his tombstone and it is hardly too bold to recognize in this contemporary sculpture the friend of Pisistratus when we remember that the home of the Pisistrated family was at Brauren Having secured his bodyguard the first step in the tyrant's progress Pisistratus seized the Acropolis and made himself master of the state It was the fate of Solon to live long enough to see the establishment of the tyranny which he dreaded We know not what part he had taken in the troubled world of politics since his return to Athens The story was invented that he called upon the citizens to arm themselves against the tyrant but called in vain and that then laying his arms outside the threshold of his house he cried I have aided so far as I could my country and the constitution and I appeal to others to do likewise Nor has the story that he refused to live under a tyranny and sought refuge with his Cyprian friend the king of Soli any good foundation We know only that in his later years he enjoyed the pleasures of wine and love and that he survived but a short time the seizure of the tyranny by Pisistratus who at least treated the old man with respect The discord of parties had smoothed the way for the schemes of Pisistratus but his success led in turn to the union of the two other parties the plane and the coast against him and at the end of about five years they succeeded in driving him out but new disunion followed and Megacles the leader of the coast seems to have quarrelled not only with the plane but with his own party At all events he sought a reconciliation with Pisistratus and undertook to help him back to the tyranny on condition that the tyrant wedded his daughter The legend is that the partisans of Pisistratus found in Peania an attic village a woman of loftier than common stature whom they arrayed in the guise of the goddess Athena Her name was Fae Then heralds on a certain day entered Athens crying that Pallas herself was leading back by Zistratus Presently a car arrived bearing the tyrant and Fae and the trick deceived all the common folk But the coalition of Pisistratus with Megacles was not more abiding than that of Megacles with Lycurgus By a former wife footnote her name is unknown Pisistratus had also married Timonassa an Argyve woman whom being a foreigner Attic law did not recognize as a legal wife The sons of Timonassa Iofon and Hegesistratus were therefore technically illegitimate but socially doubtless no stain was attached to them Hegesistratus seems to have been afterwards legitimized and made a citizen Perhaps it was on this occasion that he received his other name Thessalus End of footnote Pisistratus had two sons Hippias and Hipparchus and as he desired to create a dynasty he feared that if he had offspring by a second wife the interests of his older sons might be injured and family dissensions ensue So though he went through the form of marriage with the daughter of Megacles as he had promised he did not treat her as his wife Megacles was enraged when the tyrants neglect reached his ears He made common cause with the enemies of Pisistratus and succeeded in driving him out for the second time perhaps in the same year in which he had been restored The second exile lasted for about ten years and Pisistratus spent it informing new connections in Macedonia On the Thermaic Gulf he organized the inhabitants of the neighborhood of Resolus into some sort of a city-state He exploited the gold mines of Mount Pangius near the Strymon and formed a force of mercenary soldiers thus providing himself with money and men to recover his position at Athens He was supported by Ligdemis the tyrant of Naxos and by the friendship of other Greek states especially which he had cultivated in the days of his power The aristocracy of Eretrian horsemen were well disposed to him and their city was an admirable basis for an attack upon Athens When he landed at Marathon his adherents flocked to his standard The citizens who were loyal to the constitutional government marched forth and were defeated in battle at the tyranny Resistance was at an end and once more Pysistratus had the power in his hands This time he kept it The rule of Pysistratus may be described as a constitutional tyranny He did not stop the wheels of the democracy but he guided the machine entirely at his own will The constitution of Solon seems to have been preserved in its essential features though in some details the lapse of time may have brought modifications Thus it is possible that even before the first success of Pysistratus the assessment according to measures of corn and oil had been converted into an assessment in money and as money became cheaper the earlier standards for the division of classes ceased to have the old significance A man who at the beginning of the sixth century just reached the standard of the first class was passing rich 50 years later he would be comparatively poor but it was not to the interest of the tyrant to raise the census for political office Various measures of policy were adopted by him to protect his position while he preserved the old government He managed to exert an influence on the appointment of the Archons so as to secure personal adherence and one of his own family generally held some office This involved the suspension or modification of the system of lot introduced by Solon The tyrant kept up a standing force of paid soldiers among them perhaps Scythian archers whom we see portrayed in Attic vases of the time and he kept in his power as hostages the children of some noble families which he suspected Most indeed of his more prominent opponents including the Alkmyonids had left Attica and the larger states which they abandoned were at his disposal These estates gave him the means of solving a problem which Solon had left unsolved and of satisfying the expectations of a large number of his supporters He divided the vacant lands into lots and gave them to the laborers who had worked on these and other estates Thus the way was prepared for the total abolition of the hectimores They became practically peasant proprietors and they had to pay only the land tax amounting to one tenth of their produce Land was also given to many needy people who idled in the city and loans of money to start them The tax of a tenth imposed on all estates formed an important source of the tyrant's revenue and it is generally supposed that he introduced it But this is not probable We may take it that this land tax was an older institution that continued under Pysistratus until either he or his sons were able through an increase of revenue from other sources to reduce it to one twentieth It has been plausibly suggested that this increase of revenue came from the silver mines of Lorion which now perhaps began to be more effectively worked His possessions on the Strymon were another mainstay of the finance of Pysistratus He exerted himself to improve agriculture and under his influence the olive, which had long ago found a home in Attica was planted all over the land Under Pysistratus Athens rested from the distractions of party strife and the old parties gradually disappeared The mass of discontented hectimors was absorbed in the class of peasant proprietors Thus the people enjoyed a tranquil period of economical and political development and as the free forms of the constitution were preserved the masses in the assembly and in the law courts received a training in the routine at least of public affairs which rendered them fit for the democracy which was to ensue when the tyranny was overthrown Abroad it was the consistent policy of Pysistratus to preserve peaceful relations with other states Aegina indeed was openly the rival of Athens and Humboldt Megara could hardly be ought save sullen but Athens was on friendly terms with both the rival powers of the Peloponnesus, Sparta and Argos and Thebes and Thessaly and the Eretrian knights had helped the tyrant in the days his influence extended to the banks of the Strymon and the coast of Macedonia as we have already seen and he had a subservient friend in Ligdomis of Naxos whom he had installed as tyrant over the Naxian people It was doubtless with the object of injuring the Megarian trade in Pontic Corn and gaining some counter-poise to Megarian power in the region that Athens made her first venture in distant seas It was about forty years before Pysistratus became tyrant that Athens seized the lesbian fortress of Sygeum on the shore of the Troad at the entrance to the Hellespont The friendship of Miletus mother of many Pontic colonies favoured this enterprise which however involved Athens in a conflict with Mittellini whose power and settlements extended along the shores of the Straits Mittellini failing to recover the fortress built another the Achillian close by which cut off the Athenians from the sea It has been already told how the statesman Pitticus was engaged in this war and slew an Athenian commander in single combat and how the poet Alceus threw away his shield It would seem that while Athens was absorbed in her party conflicts at home Sygeum slipped from her hands and that the recapture of it was one of the achievements of Pysistratus The tyrant showed the importance he attached to it by installing one of his sons as governor The statesman who first sent Athenian soldiers to the shores of the Hellespont opened up a new path for Athenian policy and Pysistratus pursued that path It was not long before a much greater acquisition than Sygeum was made in the same region but this acquisition though made with the good will and even under the auspices of Pysistratus was made by one who was his political rival and opponent Miltiades son of Sipsilis belonged to the noble family of the Phileids and was one of the leaders of the plain It was after the usurpation of Pysistratus that as he sat one day in the porch of his country house at Lassiadi on the road from Athens to Eleusis he saw a company of men in thration dress and armed with spears passing along the road He called out to them and invited them into his house and profiled them hospitality They were Dolonsii natives of the Thracian Cursonies and they had come to Greece in search of a helper who should have the strength and skill to defend them against their northern neighbors who were pressing them hard in war They had gone to Delphi and the oracle had bitten them invite the man who first offered them entertainment and they left the shrine Miltiades thus designated by the god obeyed the call of the Thracians not reluctant to leave his country fallen under a tyrant's rule The circumstances of the foundation of Athenian power in the Cursonies were thus wrought by the story-shaping instinct of the Greeks into a picturesque tale The simple fact seems to have been applied directly to Athens inviting the settlement of an Athenian colony in their midst Pisistratus was well pleased to promote Athenian influence on the Hellespontine shores and the selection of Miltiades was not unwelcome to him since it removed a dangerous subject We may feel no doubt that it was as an esist dually chosen by the Athenian people that Miltiades went forth blessed by the Delphic Oracle to the land of his Thracian guests But the esist who went forth as it was said to escape tyranny became absolute ruler in his new country He ruled as a Thracian prince over the Dolonsai He ruled as a tyrant over his Athenian fellow settlers He protected the peninsula against invasions from the north by a wall which he built across the neck from Cardia to Pactii We hear of his war with Lamsicus and his friendship with the king of Lydia It is not too much to say that Pisistratus took the first steps on the path which led Athens to empire That path had indeed been pointed out to him by nameless predecessors But his sword conquered Salamis Under his auspices Athens won a footing on both shores of the Helispont We cannot estimate too highly the statesmanship which sought a field for Athenian enterprise in the regions of the Propontis The Ionian cities had forestalled Athens in venturing into the vast spaces of the eastern sea and winning the products of its shores But though she entered into the contest late she was destined to outstrip both her friend Miletus and Megara her foe Many years indeed were still to run before her ships dominated the Yuxain But it was much that she now set her posts as a watcher on either side of the narrow gate where the sea ridge of Heli hangs heavier and east upon west waters break Pisistratus strongly asserted the claim of Athens to be the mother and leader of the Ionian branch of the Greek race The temple of Apollo in Delos the island of his mythical birth had been long a religious centre of the Ionians on both sides of the Aegean There, as an ancient hymn sang The long-robed Ionians gather with their children and their wives to honour Apollo with dance and song and games A stranger who came upon the Ionians in their throng seeing the men and the fair girdled women and the swift ships and all their wealth would say that they were beings free forever from death and eld this purified the sacred spot by digging up all the tombs that were within sight of the sanctuary and removing the bones of the dead to another part of the island and Athens took not only the Ionian festival under her special care but also the great Ionian epics it was probably towards the end of his reign that Pisistratus and his son Hipparchus took in hand the work of arranging and writing down the Homeric poems since the poet of Chios had composed the Iliad since another Ionian poet had framed the odyssey new parts had been added by their successors such as the catalogue of the ships and the poem of Dolon the minstrels who recited Homer at the Delian festival for example there is strict order of parts in their recitations and discrepancies were inevitable both in the order and in the text at the instance of Pisistratus some men of letters undertook the task of fixing definitely the text of both poems and wrote them down in the old Attic alphabet thus Athens became one of the birth cities of Homer and Odyssey assumed their final shape there but what the Athenians did for Homer was entirely an achievement in literary criticism it was in no way a work of original composition we may say that the Pisistratian revision of Homer was the beginning of literary criticism in Europe some liberties indeed were taken with the text a line or two were added a line or two may have been omitted for the sake of the political interest or the vanity of Athens we have met an instance in regard to Salamis the Homeric enterprise of Pisistratus was thoroughly successful Athens grew to be the center of the Greek book trade and the Athenian text was circulated through the whole Greek world but before this circulation began it had been copied out in a new shape about half a century later Athenian poets began to give up the old Attic alphabet and use the more convenient Ionic alphabet instead Homer was then copied out of the Attic letters into the Ionic and our texts are still disfigured by some errors which arose in the process the immediate purpose of the revision of Pisistratus was to regulate the Homeric recitations which had made a feature of the great Panathenaic festival this feast had been remodeled if not founded shortly before he seized the tyranny and on the pattern of the national gatherings at Olympia and Delphi was held every fourth year it was celebrated with athletic and musical contests but the centre and motive of the feast was the great procession which went up to the house of Athena on her hill to offer her a robe woven by the hands of Athenian maidens the rich fane of Athena wherein she accorded Erechthus a place had the distinction of passing into the Homeric poems it was situated near the northern cliff and to the south of it a new house had been reared for the goddess of the city to inhabit close to the ruins of the palace of the ancient kings it had been built before the days of Pisistratus but it was probably he who encompassed it with the Doric Colonnade from its length this temple was known as the House of the Hundred Feet and many of the lowest stones of the walls still lying in their places show us its sight and shape the triangular gables displayed what attic sculptors of the day could achieve hitherto the favourite material of these sculptors had been the soft Marley limestone of the Pyreus and by a curious stroke of luck some striking specimens of such work encountering the three-headed typhoon Heracles destroying the Hydra have been partly preserved the early efforts of an art which 150 years would bring to perfection but now in the second half of the sixth century Greek sculptors have begun to work in a nobler and harder material and on one of the pediments of the renovated temple of Athena Polyas the middle of the gods and giants was wrought in Perian marble Athena herself in the centre of the composition slaying Enceladus with her spear may still be seen and admired but the tyrant planned a greater work than the new sanctuary on the hill down below south eastward from the citadel on the banks of the Elesis he began the building of a great temple for the Olympian's use he began but never finished it nor his sons after him so immense was the scale of his plan that Athens even when she reached the height of her dominion and fulfilled many of the aspirations of Pisistratus never ventured to undertake the burden of completing it a full completion was indeed to come though in a shape far different from the old Athenian's plan but not until Athens and Greece had been gathered under the wings of a power which had all Europe at its feet the richly ornamented capitals of the few lofty pillars which still stand belong to the work of the Roman emperor but we must remember that the generations of Athenians with whom this history has to do saw only plain Doric columns there the monument of the wealth and ambition of the tyrant who had done more for their city than they cared to think Pisistratus was indeed scrupulous and zealous in all matters concerned with religion and his sons more than himself but no act of his was more fruitful in results than what he did for the worship of Dionysus in the marshes on the south side of the Areopagus the Bacchic god had an ancient sanctuary of which the foundations have been recently uncovered but Pisistratus built him a new house at the foot of the Acropolis and its ruins have not yet wholly disappeared in connection with this temple Pisistratus instituted a new festival called the Great Dionysia of the city and it completely overshadowed the older feast of the wine-press linear which still continued to be held in the first days of spring at the temple of the marshes the chief feature of the Dionysiac feasts was the choir of satyrs the god's attendants who danced around the altar clothed in goat skins and sang their goat song but it became usual for the leader of the dancers who was also the composer of the song to separate himself from his fellows and hold speech with them assuming the character of some person connected with the events which the song celebrated and wearing an appropriate dress such performances which at the rural feasts had been arranged by private enterprise were made an official part of the Great Dionysia and thus taken under state protection in the form of a tragic contest two or more choruses competing for a prize it was the work of a generation to develop these simple representations into a true drama by differentiating the satiric element legends not connected with Dionysus were chosen for representation and the dancers appeared not in the backik goat dress but in the costume suitable for their part in the story this performance was divided into three acts the dancers changed their costumes for each act and only at the end did they come forward in their true goat guys and perform a piece which preserved the original satiric character of tragedy then their preponderant importance was by degrees diminished and a second actor was introduced and by a development of this kind hidden from us in its details the goat song of the days of by Zistratus grew into the tragedy of Iscalus the popularity of the worship of Dionysus at Athens in the days of by Zistratus might be observed in the workshops of the potters no subject was more favoured than Dionysiac scenes by the artists Ezekias and his fellows who painted the black-figured jars of this period there is another thing which the student of history may learn among the graceful vessels of the potters of Athens on the jars of the Pysistrataean age the deeds of Heracles are a favourite theme while Theseus is little regarded but before the golden age of Vars painting sets in about the time of the fall of the Pysistratids Theseus has begun to seize the popular imagination as the great Attic hero and this is reflected in paintings on the cups of Euphronius at the other brilliant masters of the red-figured style if we remember that Theseus was specially associated with the hill-country of North Attica which was the stronghold of the Pysistrataean party we may be tempted to infer that the glorification of Theseus was partly due to the policy of Pysistratus but besides caring for the due honours of the gods the tyrant visit himself with such humbler matters as the improvement of the water supply of Athens west and south-west of the Acropolis in the rocky valley between the Areopagus and the Pnex his waterworks have recently come to light a system there received the waters which an aqueduct conveyed from the upper stream of the Elyseus it is indeed on this side of Athens south and west of the oldest Athens of all that the chief stone memorials of the age of Pysistratus stood apart from what he may have built in the Elyseus itself but he not only built he also demolished he pulled down the old city wall and for more than half a century Athens was an unwalled town end of chapter 5 part 2 recording by Graham Redman chapter 5 parts 3, 4 and 5 of a history of Greece to the death of Alexander the Great, volume 1 this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org recording by Graham Redman a history of Greece to the death of Alexander the Great volume 1 by John Bagnell Bury chapter 5 part 3 growth of Sparta and the Peloponnesian League while a tyrant was moulding the destinies of Athens the growth of the Spartan power had changed the political aspect of the Peloponnesus about the middle of the 6th century Sparta won successes against her northern neighbours Tegea and Argos and in consequence of these successes she gained the predominant power in the peninsula Eastern Arcadia is marked by a large plain high above the sea level the villages in the north of this plain had coalesced into the town of Mantinea those in the south had been united in Tegea Sparta had gradually pressed up to the borders of the Tegean territory and a long war was the result this war is associated with a lasting legend based on the tradition that the Laconian hero Aristes was buried in Tegea when the Spartans asked the Delphic Oracle whether they might hope to achieve the conquest of Arcadia they received a promise that the god would give them to Tegea then on account of this answer they went forth against Tegea with fetters but were defeated and bound in the fetters which they had brought to bind the Tegeates were compelled to till the Tegean plain Herodotus professed that in his day the very fetters hung in the temple of Athena Alia the protectors of Tegea war went on and the Spartans invariably defeated at last consulted the Oracle again the god bad them bring back the bones of Aristes but they could find no trace of the heroes burying place of the god once more this time they received an Oracle couched in obscure enigmatic words among Arcadian hills a level space holds to Tegea where blow to blast perforce and woe is laid on woe and face to face striker and counter striker there the course thou seekest lies even Agamemnon's son convey him home and victory is won this did not help them much but it befell that during a truce with the Tegeates a certain Licas a Spartan man was in Tegea and entering a Smith's shop saw the process of beating out iron the Smith in conversation told him that wishing to dig a well in his courtyard he had found a coffin seven cubits long and within it a corpse of the same length which he replaced Licas guessed at once that he had won the solution of the oracular enigma and returning to Sparta communicated his discovery the courtyard was hired from the reluctant Smith the coffin was found and the bones brought home to Laconia then Tegea was conquered and here we return from fable to fact the territory of the Arcadian city was not treated like Messenia it was not incorporated in the territory of Lassidemon it became a dependent state contributing a military contingent to the army of its conqueror and it bound itself to harbour no Messenians within its borders at this period the Councils of Sparta seemed to have been guided by Kyloon whose name became proverbial for wisdom it was much about the same time shortly after the victory over Tegea that Sparta at length succeeded in rounding off the frontier of Laconia on the north-eastern side by resting the disputed territory of Thyriates from Argos the armies of the two states met in the March land but the Spartan kings and the Argyve chiefs agreed to decide the dispute by a combat between 300 chosen champions on either side the story is that all the 600 were slain except three one Spartan and two Argyves and that while the Argyves hurried home to announce their victory the Spartan, Othryades was his name remained on the field and erected a trophy in any case the trial was futile for both parties claimed the victory and a battle was fought in which the Argyves were utterly defeated Thyriates was the last territorial acquisition of Sparta she changed her policy and instead of aiming at gaining new territory she endeavored to make the whole Peloponnesus a sphere of Lacidemonian influence this change of policy was exhibited in her dealing with Tegea the defeat of Argos placed Sparta at the head of the peninsula all the Peloponnesian states except Argos and Akia were enrolled in a loose confederacy engaging themselves to supply military contingents in the common interest Lacidemon being the leader the meetings of the confederacy were held at Sparta and each member sent representatives Corinth readily joined for Corinth was naturally arranged against Argos while her commercial rival the island state of Aegina was a friend of Argos Periander had already inflicted a blow upon the Argyves by seizing Epidorus and thus cutting off their nearest communications with Aegina the other Ismian state Megara in which the rule of the nobles had been restored was also enrolled everywhere Sparta exerted her influence to maintain oligarchy everywhere she discounted democracy so that her supremacy had important consequences for the constitutional development of the Peloponnesian states in northern Greece the power of the Thessalians was declining and thus Sparta became the strongest state in Greece in the second half of the 6th century she was on the most friendly terms with Athens throughout the reign of Byzistratus but the tyrant was careful to maintain good relations with Argos also with Argos herself indeed Athens had no cause for collision but the rivalry which existed between Athens and Aegina arranged Athens and Argos in opposite camps it was perhaps not long before the accession of Byzistratus that the Athenians had landed forces in Aegina and had been repulsed with Argyve help the policy of Byzistratus avoided a conflict with his island neighbour and courted the friendship of Argos but the deeper antagonism is shown by the embargo which Argos and Aegina placed upon the importation of Attic pottery the excavations of the temple of the Argyve hearer have illustrated this hostile measure hardly any fragments of Attic pottery dating from the period of Byzistratus or 50 years after his death have been found in the precinct end of chapter 5 part 3 chapter 5 part 4 fall of the Byzistratids and intervention of Sparta when Byzistratus died his eldest son Hippias took his place Hipparchus helped him in the government while Thessalus took little or no share in politics the general policy of Byzistratus both in home and foreign affairs was continued but the court of Athens seems to have acquired a more distinctive literary flavour Hippias who was a learned student of oracles and Hipparchus were abreast of the most molten culture the eminent poets of the day came to their court Simonides of Seos famous for his choral odes Anakrian of Teos Boone Companions, singer of wine and love Lasers of Hermione who made his mark by novelties in the treatment of the Dithyram and amused his leisure hours by composing hisseless hymns which the sound S did not occur all these were invited or welcomed by Hipparchus one of the most prominent figures in this society was Honor Macratus a religious teacher who took part in preparing the new edition of Homer the first serious blow aimed at the power of the tyrants was due to a personal grudge not to any widespread dissatisfaction but nevertheless it produced a series of effects which resulted in the fall of the tyranny it would seem but conflicting accounts of the affair were in circulation that Hipparchus or according to another story Thessalus gave a fence to a comely young man named Hermodius and his lover Aristojaiton it is said that Hipparchus was in love with Hermodius and when his wooing was rejected avenged himself by putting a slight on the youth's sister refusing to allow her to bear a basket in the Panathenaic procession Hermodius and Aristojaiton then formed the plan of slaying the tyrants and chose the day of that procession because they could then without raising suspicion appear publicly with arms very few were initiated in the plot as it was expected that when the first blow was struck the citizens would declare themselves for freedom but as the hour approached it was observed that one of the conspirators was engaged in speech with Hippias in the outer ceramicas his fellows leapt hastily to the conclusion that their plot was betrayed and giving up the idea of attacking Hippias rushed to the marketplace and slew Hipparchus near the Leocorion Hermodius was cut down by the mercenaries and Aristojaiton escaping for the moment was afterwards captured, tortured and put to death at the time no sympathy was manifested perhaps little felt for the conspirators but their act led to a complete change in the government of Hippias not knowing what ramifications the plot might have or what dangers might still lurk about his feet he became a hard and suspicious despot he fortified Menikia to have a post on the shore from which he might at any hour flee overseas and he began to turn his eyes towards Persia where a new power had begun to cast its shadow over the Hellenic world then many Athenians came to hate him and longed to shake off the reins of tyranny and they began to cherish the memory of Hermodius and Aristojaiton slayers the overthrow of the tyranny was chiefly brought about by the Alchmianids who desired to return to Athens and could not win their desire so long as the Pisistritids were in power they had taken care to cultivate an intimacy with the priesthood of Delphi which they now turned to account the old sanctuary of Apollo had been burned down by a mischance and it was resolved to build a new temple at an enormous cost footnote three hundred talents perhaps one hundred thousand pounds which in those days when money was scarce and the fortunes of the richest were small would correspond to six or seven times as much nowadays end of footnote a Panhellenic subscription was organized and by this means about a quarter of the needed money was raised the rest was defrayed from the resources of Delphi the Alchmianids undertook the contract for the work and the story went that a frontage of Perian marble was added at their own expense porous stone having been specified in the agreement the temple was not unworthy of the greatest shrine of Hellas an Athenian poet has sung of the glancing light of the two fair faces of the pillared house of Loxias and has vividly described sculptured metopes with heroes destroying monsters and a pediment with the gods quelling the giants footnote Euripides in the Iron line one hundred and eighty five at sequenties end of footnote it must have been about the time when the new temple was approaching its completion or soon after that to the holy buildings of Delphi added one of the richest of all the islanders of Sifnos spent some of the wealth which they dug out of their gold mines in making themselves a treasury at the mid-center of the earth and its remains recently recovered show us the richness of its decoration perhaps this building marks the height of Sifnian prosperity before a hundred years had passed their supply of precious metal was withdrawn their miners had got below the sea level and the water filtering in cut them off from the sources of their wealth large sums of money passed through the hands of the alchemyonids during the building of the temple and their enemies said that this enabled them to hire mercenaries for their design on Attica their first attempt was a failure they and other exiles sees like Sidrian a strong position on a spur of Mount Parnes looking down on Pianidi and Arkani but they were too few to take the field by themselves and the people had no desire to drive out the tyrant for the sake of setting up an oligarchy of nobles they were soon forced to abandon their fortress and leave Attica convinced that they could only accomplish their schemes by foreign help they used their influence with the Delphic Oracle to put pressure on Sparta accordingly whenever the Spartans sent to consult the god the response always was first free Athens it has already been said that the Pisistrates cultivated the friendship of Sparta and after his brother's murder Hippias was more anxious than ever not to break with her but the diplomacy of the alchemyonids of whose clan Cleisthenes son of Megacles was at this time head supported as it was by the influence of Delphi finally prevailed and the Spartans consented to force freedom upon Athens perhaps they thought the dealings of Hippias with Persia suspicious he had married his daughter Arche Dicey to a son of the tyrant of Lamsakus who was known to have influence at the Persian court a first expedition of the Spartans under Anchemolius was utterly routed with the help of a body of Thessalian cavalry but a second led by king Cleomany is defeated the Thessalians and Hippias was blockaded in the Atropolis when his children whom he was sending secretly into safety abroad fell into the hands of his enemies he capitulated and on condition that they were given back undertook to leave Attica within five days all his house departed to Sygeum and a pillar was set up on the Atropolis recording the sentence which condemned the Pisistrates to perpetual disfranchisement Atimea thus the tyrants had fallen and with the aid of Sparta Athens was free it was not surprising that when she came to value her liberty she loved to turn away from the circumstances in which it was to linger over the romantic attempt of Hermodius and Aristogiton which might be considered at least the prelude to the fall of Hippias a drinking song Breathing the spirit of liberty celebrated the two friends who slew the tyrant Hermodius and Aristogiton became household words a skilful sculptor and Tina wrought a commemorative group of the two tyrant slayers and it was set up not very many years later above the marketplace the Athenian Republic had to pay indeed something for its deliverance it was obliged to enter into the Peloponnesian League of which Sparta was the head and thus Sparta acquired a certain right of interference in the affairs of Athens this new obligation was destined to lead soon to another struggle End of Chapter 5 Part 4 Chapter 5 Part 5 King Cleomenes and the Second Spartan Intervention It is necessary here to digress for a moment to tell of the strange manner of the birth of King Cleomenes who liberated Athens His father, King Anaxandridas was wedded to his niece but she had no children the effers heedful the agids should not die out urged him to put her away and when he gained said they insisted that he should take a second wife into his house this he did and Cleomenes was born but soon afterwards his first wife hitherto childless bore a son who was named Dorius when the old king died it was ruled that Cleomenes as the eldest should succeed and Dorius who had looked forward to his citizenship was forced to leave Sparta he went forth to seek his fortune in lands beyond the sea having attempted to plant a settlement in Libya he led an expedition of adventure to the west he took part in a war of Croton with Sibiris and then fared to Sicily with the design of founding a new city in the south west country yet he did not bring his purpose against the Carthaginians and their Illimion allies it must also be told that after the birth of Dorius his mother brought Anaxandridas to other sons Leonidas and Cleombratus both of whom we shall meet hereafter after the expulsion of the tyrant the Athenians had to deal with the political problems whose solution 50 years before had been postponed by the tyranny the main problem was to modify the constitution of Solon in such a way as to render it practicable the old evils which had hindered the realization of Solon's democracy reared their heads again as soon as Hippias had been driven out and the Spartans had departed the strife of factions led by noble and influential families broke out and the coast and plains seemed to have risen again as Cleisthenes and his rival Isagoras as Cleisthenes had been the most active promoter of the revolution Isagoras was naturally supported by the secret adherents of the tyrant's house the struggle at first turned in favor of Isagoras who was elected to the Chief Magistracy but it was only for a moment Cleisthenes won the upper hand by enlisting on his side superior numbers he rallied to his cause a host of poor men who were outside the pale of citizenship by promising to make them citizens thus the victory of Cleisthenes and the victory of Cleisthenes was the victory of reform was won by the threat of physical force and in the year of his rival's archonship he introduced new democratic measures of law Isagoras was so far outnumbered that he had no recourse but appeal to Sparta at his instance the Lacedemonians who looked with disfavor on democracy demanded that the Alcmeanids as a clan under a curse should be expelled from Attica and Cleisthenes without attempting resistance left the country but this was not enough King Cleomenes entered Attica for the second time he expelled 700 families pointed out by Isagoras and attempted to dissolve the new constitution and to set up an oligarchy but the whole people rose in arms Cleomenes who had only a small band of soldiers with him was blockaded with Isagoras in the Acropolis and was forced to capitulate on the third day in spite of his Spartan spirit Homo's Laconicon Pneon Aristophanes Lysistrata line 276 end of footnote Cleisthenes could now return with all the other exiles and complete his work the event was a check for Lacedemon it was the first but it was not the last time that Athenian oligarchs sought Spartan intervention and Spartan men at arms held the hill of Athena end of chapter 5 part 5 recording by Graham Redman