 Chapter 3 Parts 3 and 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 Lizzie Driver. A History of Greece to the Death of Alexander the Great. Volume 1 By John Bagnell Burie. Chapter 3 Part 3 Internal Development of Sparta and Her Institutions In the seventh century one could not have foretold what Sparta was destined to be. Her nobles lived luxuriously, like the nobles of other lands. The individual was free, as in other cities, to order his life as he willed. She showed some promise of other than military interests. Lyric poetry was transported from its home in Lesbos to find for a while a second home on the banks of the Eurotos. Songs to be sung at banquets, at weddings, at harvest festivals, and at festivals of the gods, by single singers or choirs of men or maidens, were older than memory could reach. But with the development of music and the improvement of musical instruments, the composition of these songs became an art, and Lyric poetry was created. The introduction of a lyre of seven strings, instead of the old tetrachord, was attributed to a panda of Lesbos, who was at all events an historical person, and both a poet and a musician. He visited Sparta, and is said to have instituted the musical contest at the carnier, the great festival of Lassetamon. His music was certainly welcomed there, and Sparta soon had a poet who, though not her own, was at least her adopted son. Alkman from Lydian Sardis made Sparta his home, and we have some fragments of songs which he composed for choirs of Lassonian maidens. Sparta had her epic poet too, in Senefion, but this promise of a school of music and poetry was not to be fulfilled. When Sparta emerges into the full light of history, we find her under an iron discipline, which invades every part of a man's life, and controls all his actions from his cradle to his deathbed. Everything is subordinated to the art of war, and the sole aim of the state is to create invincible warriors. The martial element was doubtless, from the very beginning stronger in Sparta than in other states, and as a city ruling over a large, discontented population of subjects and serfs, she must always be prepared to fight. But we shall probably never know how and under what influences the single Spartan discipline, which we have now to examine, was introduced. Nor can we, in describing the Spartan society, distinguish always between older and later institutions. The whole Spartan people formed a military caste. The life of a Spartan citizen was devoted to the service of the state. In order to carry out this ideal, it was necessary that every citizen should be freed from the care of providing for himself and his family. The nobles owned family domains of their own, but the Spartan community also came into possession of common land, which was divided into a number of lots. Each Spartan obtained a lot, which passed from father to son, but could not be either sold or divided. Thus a citizen could never be reduced to poverty. The original inhabitants, whom the Lacedaemonians dispossessed, and reduced to the state of serfs, cultivated the land to their lords. Every year the owner of a lot was entitled to receive seventy midimini of corn for himself, twelve for his wife, and a stated portion of wine and fruit. All that the land produced beyond this, the hellet was allowed to retain for his own use. Thus the Spartan need take no thought for his support. He could give all his time to the affairs of public life. Though the hellets were not driven by taskmasters, and had the right of acquiring private property, their conditions seems to have been hard. At all events they were always bitterly dissatisfied and ready to rebel whenever an occasion presented itself. The system of helletry was a source of danger from the earliest times, but especially after the conquest of Messenia. And the state of constant military preparation in which the Spartans lived may have been partly due to the consciousness of this peril perpetually at their doors. The cryptia, or secret police, was instituted. It is uncertain at what date, to deal with this danger. Young Spartans were sent into the country and empowered to kill every hellet whom they had reason to regard with suspicion. Closely connected with this system was the remarkable custom that the euphors, in whose hands lay the general control over the hellets, should, every year on entering office, proclaim war against them. By this device the youths could slay dangerous hellets without any scruple or fear of the guilt of manslaughter. But notwithstanding these precautions serious revolts broke out again and again. A Spartan had no power to grant freedom to the hellet who worked on his lot, nor yet sell him to another. Only the state could emancipate. As the hellets were called upon to serve as light-arm troops in times of war, they had then an opportunity of exhibiting bravery and loyalty in the service of the city. And those who conspicuously distinguished themselves might be rewarded by the city with the mead of freedom. Thus arose a class of freedmen called Neo-Domodus, or New Demis men. There was also another class of persons, neither serfs nor citizens, called Mothones, who probably sprang from illegitimate unions of citizens with hellet women. Thus relieved from the necessity of gaining a livelihood, the Spartans devoted themselves to the good of the state, and the aim of the state was the cultivation of the art of war. Sparta was a large military school. Education, marriage, the details of daily life, were all strictly regulated with the view to the maintenance of a perfectly efficient army. Every citizen was to be a soldier, and the discipline began from birth. When a child was born it was submitted to the inspection of the heads of a tribe, and if they judged it to be unhealthy or weak, it was exposed to die on the wild slopes of Mount Tygetus. At the age of seven years the boy was consigned to the care of a state officer, and the cause of his education was entirely determined by the purpose of enuring him to bear hardships, training him to endure an exacting discipline, and instilling into his heart a sentiment of devotion to the state. The boys, up to the age of twenty, were marshaled in a huge school formed on the model of an army. The captains and prefects who instructed and controlled them were young men who had passed their twentieth year, but did not yet reach the thirtieth, which admitted them to the rights of citizenship. Warm friendships often sprang up between the young men and the boys whom they were training, and this was the one place in Spartan life where there was room for romance. At the age of twenty the Spartan entered upon military service, and was permitted to marry, but he could not yet enjoy home life. He had to live in barracks with his companions, and could only pay stolen and fugitive visits to his wife. In his thirtieth year, having completed his training, he became a man, and obtained the full rights of citizenship. The homo-io, or peers, as the Spartan citizens were called, dined together in tents in the Hyacinthian street. These public messes were in old days called Andreiii, or men's meals, and in later times Phidatia. Each member of a common tent made a fixed monthly contribution, derived from the produce of his lot, consisting of barley, cheese, wine and figs, and the members of the same mess-tent shared the same tent in the field in time of war. These public messes are a survival, adapted to military purposes, of the old custom of public banquets, at which all the burgers gathered together at a table spread for the gods of the city. Of the organisation of the Spartan hoplites in early times, we have no definite knowledge. Three hundred horsemen, chosen from the Spartan youths, formed the king's bodyguard. But though as their name shows, they were originally mounted, in later times they fought on foot. The light infantry was supplied by the Parisi and Helets. Spartan discipline extended itself to the women, too, with the purpose of producing mothers who should be both physically strong and saturated with the Spartan spirit. The girls, in common with the boys, went through a gymnastic training, and it was not considered immodest for them to practice their exercises almost nude. They enjoyed a freedom which was in marked contrast with the seclusion of women in other Greek states. They had a higher repute for chastity, but if the government directed them to bring children for the state, they had no scruples in obeying the command, though it should involve a violation of the sanctity of the marriage tie. They were proverbially ready to sacrifice their maternal instincts to the welfare of their country. Such was the spirit of the place. Thus Sparta was a camp in which the highest object of every man's life was to be ready, at any moment, to fight with the utmost efficiency for a city. The aim of every law, the end of the whole social order, was to fashion good soldiers. Private luxury was strictly forbidden. Spartan simplicity became proverbial. The individual man, entirely lost in the state, had no life of his own. He had no problems of human existence to solve for himself. Sparta was not a place for thinkers or theorists. The whole duty of man and the highest ideal of life were contained for a Spartan in the laws of his city. Warfare being the object of all the Spartan laws and institutions, one might expect to find the city in a perpetual state of war. One might look to see her sons always ready to strive with their neighbours without any ulterior object, war being for them an end in itself. But it was not so. They did not wait to war more lightly than other men. We cannot rank them with barbarians who care only for fighting and hunting. We may attribute the original motive of their institutions, in some measure at least, to the situation of a small dominant class in the midst of ill-contented subjects and hostile serfs. They must always be prepared to meet a rebellion of parisiae, or a revolt of helots, and a surprise would have been fatal. Forming a permanent camp in a country which was far from friendly, they were compelled to be always on their guard. But there was something more in the vitality and conservation of the Spartan constitution than precautions against a danger of a possible insurrection. It appealed to the Greek sense of beauty. There was a certain completeness and simplicity about the constitution itself. A completeness and simplicity about the manner of life enforced by the laws. A completeness and simplicity too about the type of character developed by them. Which Greeks of other cities never failed to contemplate with genuine, if distant, admiration. Shut away in, hollow, many-clefted Lacedaemon, out of the world and not sharing in the progress of other Greek cities. Sparta seemed to remain at a standstill. And a stranger from Athens or Miletus, in the fifth century visiting the straggling villages, which formed her unwalled, unpretentious city, must have had a feeling of being transported into an age-long past. When men were braver, better and simpler, unspoiled by wealth, and disturbed by ideas. To a philosopher like Plato, speculating in political science, the Spartan state seemed the nearest approach to the ideal. The ordinary Greek looked upon it as a structure of severe and simple beauty. A Dorian city stately as a Dorian temple, far nobler than his own abode, but not so comfortable to dwell in. If this was the effect produced upon strangers, we can imagine what a perpetual joy to a Spartan peer was the contemplation of the Spartan constitution. How we felt a sense of superiority in being a citizen of that city, and a pride in living up to its ideal and fulfilling the obligations of his nobility. In his mouth, not beautiful meant, contrary to the Spartan laws, which were believed to be inspired by Apollo. This deep admiration for their constitution, as an ideally beautiful creation, the conviction that it was incapable of improvement, being in truth wonderfully effective in realising its aims, is bound up with the conservative spirit of the Spartans, shown so conspicuously in their use of their old iron coins, down to the time of Alexander the Great. It was inevitable that, as time went on, there should be many fallings away, and that some of the harder laws should, by tacit agreement, be ignored. The other Greeks were always happy to point to the weak spots in the Spartan armour. From an early period it seems to have been a permitted thing for a citizen to acquire land in addition to his original lot. As such lands were not, like the original lot, inalienable, but could be sold or divided, inequalities in wealth necessarily arose, and the communism which we observed in the life of the citizens was only superficial. But it was specially provided by law that no Spartan should possess wealth in the form of gold or silver. This law was at first eluded by the device of depositing money in foreign temples, and ultimately became a dead letter. Spartans even gained throughout Greece an evil reputation for avarice. By the fourth century they had greatly degenerated, and those who wrote studies of the Lacedaemonian constitution contrasted Sparta as it should be and used to be, with Sparta as it was. There is no doubt that the Spartan system of discipline grew up by degrees, yet the argument from design might be plausibly used to prove that it was the original creator of a single law-giver. We may observe how well articulated, and how closely interdependent were its various parts. The whole discipline of the society necessitated the existence of helots, and on the other hand the existence of helots necessitated such a discipline. The euphorite was the keystone of the structure, and in the dual kingship one might see a cunning intention to secure the powers of the euphors by perpetual jealousy between the kings. In the whole fabric one might trace an artistic unity which might be thought to argue the work of a single mind, and until lately this was generally believed to be the case. Some still maintain the belief. A certain lycurgis was said to have framed the Spartan institutions, and enacted the Spartan laws about the beginning of the ninth century. But the grounds were believing that a Spartan law-giver named Lycurgis ever existed are of the slenderest kind. The earliest statements as to the origin of the constitution date from the fifth century, and their discrepancy shows that there were mere guesses, and that the true origins were buried completely in the obscurity of the past. Pindar attributed the Lacedaemonian institutions to Agimus, the mythical ancestor of the Dorian tribes. The historian Hellenicus regarded them as the creation of the two first kings of Sparta, Procless and Eresthanes. The more critical fiscitides, less ready to record conjectures, contends himself with saying that the Lacedaemonian constitution had existed for rather more than four hundred years at the end of the Polypernesian War. Herodotus states that the Spartans declared Lycurgis to have been the guardian of one of their early kings, and to have introduced from Crete their laws and institutions. But the divergent accounts of this historian's contemporaries, who ignore Lycurgis altogether, prove that it was simply one of many guesses, and not a generally accepted tradition. It may be added that if the old Spartan poet Teteus had mentioned Lycurgis as a law-giver, his words would certainly have been quoted by later writers, and we may fairly conclude that he knew nothing of such a tradition. Lycurgis, or to give him his name in its true form, Lycovorgis, was not a man, he was only a god. He was an Arcadian deity or hero, perhaps some form of the Arcadian Zeus Lyceus, god of the Wolf Mountain, and his name meant wolf-repeller. He was worshipped at Lacedaemon, where he had a shrine, and we may conjecture that his cult was adopted by the Spartans from the older inhabitants whom they displaced. He may also have been connected with Olympia, for his name was inscribed on a very ancient quote, the so-called quote of Iphetus, which was preserved there, and perhaps dated from the seventh century. The belief that this deity was a Spartan law-giver, inspired by the Delphic Oracle, gradually gained ground, and in the fourth century generally prevailed. Aristotle believed it, and made use of the old quote, to fix the date of the Lycurgian legislation, to the first half of the eighth century. But while everybody regarded Lycurgis as unquestionably an historical personage, candid investigation confessed that nothing certain was known concerning him, and the views about his chronology were many and various. Part 4 The Cretan Constitutions Ancient Greek students of constitutional history were struck by some obvious and remarkable resemblances between the Spartan and the Cretan states, and it was believed by many that the Spartan constitution was derived from Crete, though there are notable differences as well as notable likenesses. It will be convenient to glance here at the political condition of this island, to which we shall seldom have to recur, since owing to its geographical situation, and the lack of political union, it was isolated and withdrew from the main course of Greek history. In a passage in the Odyssey, the inhabitants of Crete are divided into five classes, Achaeans, Etocretans, Sidonians, Dorians, and Pelasdians. Of these Etocretans may represent the original people who dwelled in the island before the Greeks came, like the Etocarpafians of Carpathaeus. They survived chiefly in the eastern part of the island, and they continue to speak their own tongue in historical times, writing it, however, not in their ancient linear script, but in Greek characters. A specimen of it, but we have no key to the meaning, has been preserved in some inscriptions, found at Prasius, their most important city. The people of Sedonia were perhaps also a remnant of the old population. The Achaeans and Pelasdians point to Thessaly, and there are some links which seem to connect Crete and towns with Perbea. We may consider it probable that early settlers from Thessaly found their way to Crete. But the most important settlers belonged to the Dorian branch of the Greek race, easily recognized by the three tribes, Ilius, Pamphili, and Amans, which always accompanied its migrations. These three tribes can be traced in many Cretan cities, and we saw that this island was one of the first places to receive the Dorian Wanderers. But at a later time there seems to be a further infusion of the Dorian element. New settlers came from Argelis and Laconia, and mingled with the older inhabitants, refounding many cities. Thus Goiton in the south of the island, in the valley of the River Lathius, was resettled, and her neighbor Festos, distinguished by mentor and homer, was invaded by newcomers from Argelis. Well-built Littus, in its central side, also of Homeric fame, and Polyryenion, rich in sheep, in the northwestern corner, a haunt of the divine huntress Dictiana, were both colonized from Laconia. Canossus, the great city of Minos. Canossus abroad was repopulated by Dorians, and though it never attained to its former splendor, it remained the leading city in Crete. The island then, colonized first by a folk closely akin to those who conquered Elassidumon and Argus, colonized again by those very conquerors, may be said to be doubly Dorian. And there is thus a double reason for resemblances between Laconian and Cretan institutions. In the Cretan cities themselves there were, of course, many local divergences. But the general resemblances are so close, wherever we can trace the facts, that for our purpose we may safely follow the example of the ancients, in assuming a general type of Cretan policy. The population of a Cretan state consisted of two classes, warriors and serfs. In a few cases where one city had subjugated another, the people of the subject city held somewhat the same position as the Laconian Perciai, and formed a third class, but these cases were exceptional. In general one of the main differences between a Cretan state and Sparta was that the Cretan state had no Perciai. There were two kinds of serfs, Noetai and Ephamiotai. The Noetais belonged to the state, while the Ephamiotai, also called Clarotes, or Lotmen, were attached to the lots of the citizens, and belonged to the owners of the lots. These bondsmen cultivated the land themselves and could possess private property, like the Spartan helots, but though we do not know exactly what their obligations were, they seemed to have been in some ways in a better condition than the bondsmen of Laconia. If the pastas, or lord of a Cretan serf, died childless, the serf had an interest in his property. He could contract a legal marriage, and his family was recognized by law. The two privileges from which he was always jealously excluded were the carrying of arms and the practice of athletic exercises in the gymnasia. Unlike the helots, the Cretan serfs found their condition tolerable, and we never hear that they revolted. The geographical conditions of the Cretans enabled them to excuse their slaves from military service. Of the monarchial period in Crete we know nothing. In the sixth century we find that monarchy had been abolished by the aristocracies, and that the executive governments are in the hands of boards of ten annual magistrates entitled Cosmoi. The Cosmoi were chosen from certain important clans, Stathai, and the military as well as the other functions of the king had passed into their hands. They were assisted by the advice of the Council of Elders, which was elected from those who had filled to the office of Cosmos. The results of the Cosmoi and Council were laid before the Agorai, or general assemblies of citizens, who had merely voted and had no right to propose or discuss. There is a superficial resemblance between this constitution, which prevailed in most Cretan cities, and that of Sparta. The Cretan Agora answers to the Spartan Appella, the Cretan to the Spartan Garusai, and the Cosmoi to the Euphors. The most obvious difference is that in Crete there was no royalty, but there is another important difference. The democratic feature of the Spartan constitution is absent in Crete. While the Euphors were chosen from all the citizens, in a Cretan state only certain noble families were eligible to the office of Cosmos. And as the Garusai was chosen from the Cosmoi, it is clear that the whole power of the state resided in a privileged class, consisting of those families or clans. Thus the Cretan state was a close aristocracy. The true likeness between Sparta and Crete lies in the circumstance that the laws and institutions of both countries aimed at creating a class of warriors. Boys were taught to read and write and to recite certain songs ordained by law. But the chief part of their training was bodily, with a view to making them good soldiers. At the age of seventeen they were admitted into herds, a Gellai answering to the Spartan Buai, which were organised by sons of noble houses and supported at the expense of the state. The members of these associations went through a training in the public gymnasia, Ordremoi, and hence were called Remies. Great days were held in which sham fights took place between these herds to the sound of liars and flutes. The Dromias was of age in the eyes of the law, and he was bound to marry, but his wife continued to live in the house of her father or kinsman, until he passed out of the state of Dromias and became a man. The men dined at public messes called Andreae, corresponding to the Spartan Fidatiya, but the boys were also permitted to join them. These meals were not defrayed altogether, as at Sparta, by the contributions of the members, but were partly at least paid for by the state, and the state also made provision for the sustenance of the women. The public income which defrayed these and other such burdens and maintained the worship of the gods must have been derived from public land cultivated by the Noetai, and distinct from the land which was apportioned in lots among the citizens. We see then that, in the discipline and education of the citizens, in the common meals of the men, in general political objects, there is a close and significant likeness between Sparta and Crete. But otherwise there are great differences. One, in Crete there were, as a rule, no Parisi. Two, the Cretans' serfs lived under more favourable conditions than the helots, and were not a constant source of danger. Three, kingship did not survive in Crete, and consequently four, the functions which in Sparta were divided between kings and euphors, were in Crete united in the hands of the Cosmoi. Five, the Cretan state was an aristocracy, while Sparta, so far as the city itself was concerned, was the limited democracy, a difference which clearly reveals itself in six, the modes of electing Cosmoi and euphors. Seven, there is a more advanced form of communism in Crete, in so far as state stores contribute largely to the maintenance of the citizens. If one city had become dominant in Crete, and reduced the others to subjugation, the resemblance between Laconia and Crete would have been much greater. A class of Cretan Persiai would have forthwith been formed. End of Chapter 3 Parts 3 and 4 A History of Greece to the Death of Alexander the Great Volume 1 by John Bagnell Bure Chapter 3 Part 5 The supremacy and the decline of Argus, the Olympian Games The rebellion of Messinia had been especially formidable to Sparta because the rebels had been supported by two foreign powers, Arcadia and Pisa. Part of Arcadia seems to have been united at this time under the lordship of the king of Arcadia or Communus. The king of Pisa on the Alpheus had recently risen to newer power and honour with the help of Argus, and Argus itself had been playing a prominent part in the peninsula under the leadership of her king Fiden. The reign of this king was the last epoch of Argus as an active power of the first rank. We know little about him, but his name became so famous that in the later times the royal house of the distant Macedonia when it reached the height of its success in Alexander the Great was anxious to connect its line of descent with Fiden. Under his auspices, a system of measures was introduced to Argus and the Polyponesis. These measures were called, after his name, Fidonian and were likewise adopted at Aethys. They seemed to have been closely connected with the Ageniton system of weights, but the only clear action of Fiden is his expedition to the west. He led an Argyre army across Arcadia to the banks of the Alpheus and presided there over the celebration of the Olympian festival which is now, for the first time, heard of in the history of Greece. The altars or sacred grove of Olympia lay under the wooden mount of Cronus where the river Clidus flows into the Alpheus in the angle between the two streams. It was dedicated to the worship of Zeus but the spot was probably sacred to Pilops before Zeus claimed it for himself and Pilops, degraded to a rank of a hero, kept his own sacred precinct within the larger enclosure. The sanctuary was in the territory of Pisa and it is possible that the care of the worship and the conduct of the festivals belonged originally to the Pisan community. But the men of Elis, northern neighbors of Pisa set their hearts on having control of the Olympian sanctuary which though it is not once mentioned as Delphi and Dona are mentioned in the poems of Homer, must by the 7th century have won a high prestige in the Peloponnesus and drawn many visitors. As Elis was stronger than Pisa, the Elians finally succeeded in usurping the conduct of the games. Games were the chief feature of the festival which was held every fourth year at the time of the second full moon after Midsummer's Day. The games at first included foot races, boxing and wrestling, chariot races and horse races were added later. Such contests were an ancient institution in Greece. We know not how far back they go or in what circumstances they were first introduced but the funeral games of Patroclus described in the Iliad permit us to infer that they were a feature of Ionian life in the 9th century. We can see but dimly into the political relations of Phaidon's age. We can discern at least that Sparta lent her continence to Elis in this usurption and that Argus, jealous of the growing power of Sparta, espoused the cause of Pisa. This was the purpose of King Phaidon's expedition to Olympia. He took the management of the games out of the hands of Elis and restored it to Pisa. And for many years, Pisa maintained her rights. She maintained them so long as Sparta, absorbed in the Mycenaean strife, had no help to spare for Elis and during that time she did what she could to help the foes of Sparta. But when the revolt was suppressed, it was inevitable that Elis should again, with Sparta's help, win the control of the games for Argus. Declining under successors of Phaidon could give no way to Pisa. When King Phaidon held his state at Olympia, the most impressive shrine in the Altus was the temple of Hera and Zeus. And this is the most ancient temple of which the foundations are still preserved on the soil of Hellas. It was built of sun-baked bricks upon lower courses of stone and the Doric columns were of wood. The days of stone temples were at hand, but it was not till two centuries later that the elder shrine was overshadowed by the great stone temple of Zeus. The temple of Hera is supposed by some to have been founded in the 11th or 10th century. It is hardly likely to be so old, but it was certainly very old like the games of the place. The medical institution of the games was ascribed to Pilops or to Heracles. And when the Elians usurped the presidency, the story gradually took shape that the celebration had been revived by the Spartan Lycurgus and the Elian Iphetus in the year 776 BC. And this year was regarded as the first Olympia. From that year until the visit of Fiden, the Elians professed to have presided over the feast and their account of the matter won its way into general belief. It is possible that King Fiden reorganized the games and inaugurated a new stage in the history of the festival. At all events, by the beginning of the 6th century, the festival was no longer an event of the merely Peloponnesian interest. It had become famous wherever the Greek tongue was spoken and when the feast site came around in each cycle of four years, they are thronged to the banks of alpheus from all quarters of the Greek world, athletes and horses to compete in the contest and spectators to behold them. During the celebration of the festival, a sacred truce was observed and the men of Elis claimed that in those days their territory was inviolable. The prize of victory in the games was a wreath of wild olive, but rich rewards always awaited the victor when he returned home in triumph and laid the Olympian crown in the chief temple of his city. It may seem strange that the greatest and the most glorious of all pan-Hellenic festivals should have been celebrated near the western shores of the Peloponnesus. One might have looked to find it nearer the Aegean, but situated where it was, the scene of the great games was all the nearer to the Greeks beyond the western sea and none of the people of the mother country wied more eagerly or more often in the contest of Olympia than the children who had found new homes far away on Sicilian and Italian soil. This nearness of Olympia to the western colonies comes into one's thoughts when standing in the sacred altars one beholds the terrace of the northern side of the precinct and the scanty remains of the row of twelve treasure houses which once stood here. For those twelve treasuries, five at least were dedicated by Sicilians and Italian cities. Thus the Olympian festival helped the colonies of the west to keep in touch with the mother country. It furnished a center where Greeks of all parts met and exchanged their ideas and experiences. It was one of the institutions which expressed and quickened the consciousness of fellowship among the scattered folks of the Greek race and it became a model, as we shall see, for other festivals of the same kind which concurred in promoting a feeling of national unity. The final success of Sparta in the long struggle with Messinia marks the period at which the balance of power among the Peloponnesian states began to shift. In the 7th century, Argus is the leading state. She has reduced Mycenae. She has annihilated Ascenae. She has made Tirins an Argyre fort. She has defeated Sparta at Hysia. There can be little doubt that Phidon's authority extended over all Argolis. Possibly, his influence was felt in the Aegean and the Laconian islands of Scythira may have been an Argyre position as well as the whole eastern coast of Laconia. But his reign is the last manifestation of the greatest of the southern Argus. Fifty years after the subjugation of Messinia, the Spartans become the strongest state in the Peloponnesians and the Argyres sink into the position of a second-rate power. Always able to maintain their independence, always a thorn in the side of Sparta, always to be reckoned with as a foe and welcomed as a friend, but never leading, dominant or originative. Part 6 Democratic Movements, Loguers and Tyrants It is clear that there is no security that equal justice will be meted out to all. So long as the laws by which the judge is supposed to act are not accessible to all. A written code of laws is a condition of just judgment, however just the laws themselves may be. It was therefore natural that one of the first demands of the people in Greek cities pressed upon their aristocratic governments and one of the first concessions these governments were forced to make was a written law. It must be borne in mind that in old days deeds which injured only the individual and did not touch the gods or the state were left to the injured person to deal with as he chose or could. The state did not interfere. Even in the case of bloodshedding, it devolved upon the kinsfolk of the slain man to wreck punishment upon the slayer. Then as social order developed along with centralization the state took justice partly into its own hands and the injured man before he could punish the wrong doer was obliged to charge him before a judge who decided the punishment. But it must be noted that no crime could come before the judge unless the injured person came forward as accuser. In case of bloodshedding was exceptional owing to the religious ideas connected with it. It was felt that the shedder of blood was not only impure himself but had also defiled the gods of the community so that as a consequence of this theory manslaughter of every form came under the class of crimes against the religion of the state. The work of writing down the laws and fixing customs in legal shape was probably in most cases combined with the work of reforming and thus the great codifiers of the 7th century were also law givers. Among them the most famous were the mystifigures of Xaluchus who made laws for the western Lucraines and Chardonnay, the legislator of Cotain. The clearer figure of the Athenian dracon of whom more will be said hereafter and most famous of all, Solon the Wise. But cities under the elder Greece had their law givers too men of knowledge and experience. The names of some were preserved but they are mere names. It is probable that the laws of Sparta herself which she afterwards attributed to a god were first shaped and written down at this period. The cities of Crete too were affected by the prevalent spirit of law shaping and some fragments are preserved of the early laws of Cotain which were the beginning of an epoch of legislative activity culminating in the Gautinian Code which has come down to us on tablets of stone. In many cases the legislation was accompanied by political concessions to the people and it was part of the law givers task to modify the constitution. But for the most part this was only the beginning of a long political conflict. The people striving for freedom and equality the privileged classes struggling to retain their exclusive rights. The social distress touched on it in a previous chapter was the sharp spur which drove the people on in this effort towards popular government. The struggle was in some cases to end in the establishment of a democracy. In many cases the oligarchy succeeded in maintaining itself and keeping the people down. In most cases perhaps the result was a perpetual oscillation between oligarchy and democracy and endless series of revolutions too often sullied by violence. But though democracy was not everywhere victorious though even the states in which it was most firmly established were exposed to the danger of oligarchical conspiracies yet everywhere the people aspired to it and we may say that the chief feature of the domestic history of most Greek cities from the end of the 7th century forward is an endeavor here successful, yonder frustrated to establish or maintain popular government. In this sense when we have now reached a period in which the Greek world is striving and tending to pass from the aristocratic to the democratic Commonwealth. The movement passed by some states like Thessaly just as there had been some exceptions like Argus to the general fall of monarchies while remote kingdoms like Macedonia and Molossia were not affected. As usually or at least frequently happens in such circumstances a popular movement received help from within the camp of the adversary. It was help indeed for which there was no reason to be grateful to those who gave it for it was not given for the love of the people. In many cities feuds existed between some of the power holding families and when one family was in the ascended its rivals were tempted to make use of the popular descent in order to subvert it. Thus discontented nobles came forward to be in the leaders of the discontented masses but when the government was overthrown the revolution generally resulted in a temporary return to monarchy. The noble leader seized the supreme power and maintained it by armed might. The masses of the people were not yet right with the power into their own hands and they were generally glad to entrust it to the man who had held them to overthrow the hated government of the nobles. This new kind of monarchy was very different from the old for the position of the monarch did not rest on hereditary right but on physical force. Such illegitimate monarchs were called tyrants to distinguish them from the hereditary kings and this form of monarchy was called a tyrannies. The name tyrant was perhaps derived from Lydia and first used by Greeks in designating the Lydian monarchs. Archilochus in whose fragments we first meet tyrannies applied to the sovereignty of Jaij. The word in itself morally neutral did not imply that the monarch was bad or cruel. There was nothing self-contradictory in a good tyrant and many tyrants were beneficial but the isolation of these rulers who being without the support of legitimacy depended on armed force so often urged them to be suspicious and cruel that the tyrannies came into bad order. Arbitrary acts of oppression were associated with the name and tyrant inclined to the evil sense in which modern languages have adopted it. For the Greek dislike of the tyrannies there was however a deeper cause that many tyrants were oppressors. It placed in the hands of an unconstitutional ruler arbitrary control whether he exercised it or not over the lives and fortunes of the citizens. It was thus repugnant to the Greek love of freedom and it seemed to arrest their constitutional growth. As a matter of fact this temporary arrest during the period when the first tyrannies prevailed may have been useful for the tyrannies though its direct political effect was retarding forwarded the progress of the people in other directions and even from a constitutional point of view it may have had its uses at this period. In some cases it secured an interval of repose and growth during which the people won experience and knowledge to fit them for self-government. The period which saw the fall of the aristocracies is often called the age of the tyrants. The expression is unhappy because it might easily mislead. The tyrannies first came into existence at this period. There was a large crop of tyrants much about the same time in different parts of Greece. They all performed the same function of overthrowing aristocracies and in many cases they paved the way for democracies. But on the other hand the tyrannies was not a form of government which appeared only at this transitional crisis and then passed away. There is no age in the subsequent history of Greece which might not see and did not actually see the rise of tyrants here and there. Tyranny was always with the Greeks. It as well as oligarchy was a danger by which the democracies were threatened at all periods. Ionia seems to have been the original home of the tyrannies and this may have been partly due to the seductive example of the rich court of the Lydian tyrants at Sardis. But of the Ionian tyrannies we know little. We hear of factions and feuds in the cities of aristocratic houses overthrown and despotisms established in various states. A tyrant of Ephesus marries the daughter of the Lydian monarch Eletes. The most famous of these tyrants was Thracibulus of Meletes under whose rule that city held a more brilliant position than ever. Abroad he took part in planting some of the colonies on the Black Sea and successfully resisted the menaces of Lydia. At home he developed the craft of tyranny to a fine art. In Lesbian Mytilene we see that tyrannies and also a method by which it might be avoided. Mytilene had one great commercial prosperity. Its ruling nobles, the Penthylites, were wealthy and luxurious and oppressed the people. The tyrants rose and fell in rapid succession. The echoes of hatred and jubilation still ring to us from the relics of the lyric poems of Alsius. Let us drink and reel for Marsilus is dead. The poet was a noble and a fighter but in a war with the Athenians on the coast of the Hellespont he threw away his shield like Archilochus and it hung as a trophy at Cegium. He plotted with Pitecus against the tyrant but Pitecus was not a noble and his friendship with Alsius was not enduring. Pitecus, however, all who distinguished himself for bravery in the same war with the Athenians was to be the savior of the state. He gained the trust of the people and was elected ruler for a period of ten years in order to heal the source of the city. Such a governor possessing supreme power but for a limited time was called asymetes. Pitecus gained the reputation of a wise lawgiver and a firm moderate ruler. He banished the nobles who opposed him among those others the two most famous of all lesbians the poets Alsius and Sappho. At the end of ten years he laid down his office to be enrolled after his death in the number of the seven wise men. The ship of state had reached the haven to apply a metaphor of Alsius and the exiles could safely be allowed to return. This was a brilliant period of the history of Lesbos and a few surviving fragments of its two great poets who struck new notes and devised new cadences of lyrics gave a glimpse of the free and luxurious life of Aeolian islands. A radiant genius of Sappho was inspired by her passionate attachments to young lesbian maidens. The songs of Alsius mirroring the commotions of party warfare rang with the latter of arms and the clinking of drinking cups. End of chapter three part five and six. Chapter three part seven and eight of a history of Greece to the death of Alexander the Great volume one. Chapter three part seven and eight. Chapter three the growth of Sparta and the fall of the aristocracies. Part seven the tyrannies of central Greece. About the middle of the seventh century the history of Greece to the death of Alexander the Great volume one. Chapter three part seven and eight. Chapter three about the middle of the seventh century three tyrannies arose in central Greece in the neighborhood of the Isthmus at Corinth, at Sisyon and at Megara. In each case the development was different and is in each case instructive. In Sisyon the tyranny is brilliant and beneficent in Corinth brilliant and oppressive in Megara short-lived and followed by long intestine struggles. The ruling clan of the Bacchaeids at Corinth was overthrown by Cipcellus who had put himself at the head of the people. A characteristic legend was formed at an early time about the birth of Cipcellus suggested by the connection of his name with a jar. His mother was a Bacchaeid lady named Labda who being lame and consequently compelled to wed out of her own class married a certain Etion a man of the people. Having no children and consulting the Delphic Oracle on the matter Etion received this reply High honour is thy due Etion yet no man doth the honour as were right. Labda thy wife will bear a huge millstone destined to fall on them who rule alone and free thy Corinth from their rightless might. The prophecy came to the ears of the Bacchaeids and was confirmed to them by another Oracle. So as soon as Labda's child ascended they sent ten men to slay it. When the men came to the court of Etion's dwellings they found that he was not at home and they asked Labda for the infant. Suspecting nothing she gave it to one of them to take in his arms but as he was about to dash it to the ground the child smiled at him and he had not the heart to slay it. He passed it on to the second but he too was moved with pity and so it was passed round that one could find it in his heart to destroy it. Then giving the infant back to the mother and going out of the courtyard they reviled each other for their weakness and resolved to go in again and do the deed together. But Labda listening at the door overheard what they said and hid the child in a jar where none of them thought of looking. Thus the boy was saved but the men falsely reported to the Bacchaeids that they had performed their errand. They were punished and their property confiscated. Dangerous persons were executed and Cipcellus took the reins of government into his own hands. Of the rule of Cipcellus himself we know little. He is variously represented as harsh and mild. His son Periander succeeded and of him more is recorded. The general features of the Cipcelli tyrannies were a vigorous colonial and commercial policy and the encouragement of art. The earliest triumphs of Cipcellus was probably the reduction of Corsera which had formed a fleet of its own and had grown to be a rival of its mother in the Ionian seas. It has already been mentioned that the earliest battle of ships between two Greek states was supposed to have been fought between Corinth and Corsera. The attempt of Corinth to form a colonial empire was an interesting experiment. The idea of Cipcellus corresponded to our modern colonial system in which the colonies are in a relation of dependence to the mother and not to that of the Greeks in which the colony was an independent sovereign state. Geographical conditions alone rendered it out of the question to apply the new principle to Syracuse but the success at Corsera was followed up by a development of Corinthian influence in the northwest of Greece. The Arcanian peninsula of Lucas was occupied and made into an island by piercing a channel through the narrow isthmus. An actorian was founded on the south side of the Ambracean Gulf and inland on the north side Ambracea. Apollonia was planted on the coast of Ipirus and farther north Corsera under the auspices of her mother city colonized Epidemnos. At a latter period and in another quarter of the Greek world a son of Periander founded in the Chaucitic peninsula. Sipsilis and Periander did their utmost to promote the commercial activity of their city. In the middle of the 7th century the rival Eubonian cities Chausus and Eritrea were the most important merchant states of Greece. But 50 years later they had somewhat declined. Corinth and Agena were taking their place. Their decline was brought about by their rivalry which led to an exhausting war for the lowland team Plain. It is said that this struggle assumed a larger proportion of a Greek mercantile war involving on the one side Corinth and Samos as allies of Chausus on the other Magara and Miletus as allies of Eritrea. The dates are uncertain but the fact seems to be that the strife was protracted and interrupted and at some points in its course it may have led to consequences beyond Euboa. Archaeolochus saying how Euboa's spear-famed lords shoot not with slings or bows but smite with swords. And theugness of Magara at a much later date speaks of the end of the war as a recent event. Sarenthus fallen the lowland team Plain Waste and the vineyards all the good have fled the city and the power of evil men oh might the sipsillids even be sped. An utterance which shows that the end of the war was located by domestic factions. Eritrea suffered most in the struggle, she lost her share in the Lellentine Plain and she presently lost also her continental territory, the Plain of Oropus, which in the course of the sixth century passed under the power of Thebes. Moreover her sway over the island of Andros, Tenos, and Seos was undermined and they came after a while under Athenian influence. The decline of Chausus was perhaps promoted by a radical change in the foreign policy of Corinth. This city had formally cultivated the alliance of Samos. She now deserted this alliance and formed a friendship with her old foe Miletus. The cause of this change was, at least in great measure, the natural sympathy of tyrannies. Thrasybulus, the powerful tyrant of Miletus, sympathized with Periander, the powerful tyrant of Corinth. This change in policy is connected with the change in the balance of mercantile power. Corinth is more prosperous than ever and Egeena is beginning to share with her the place which was hitherto held by the cities of Uboa. The foreign relations of Periander extended to Egypt and there are two indications of his intercourse with the Egyptian monarchs, Neco, and Someticus II. His nephew and successor was called after the last named king. Moreover we may guess that the canal works of Neco suggested to Periander undertakings of the same kind, the small canal which he actually cut at Lucas and the great canal which he designed to cut through the isthmus of Corinth itself. But a Greek tyrant had not at his command the slave labor of which an Egyptian king disposed and the design fell through, an enterprise more than once attempted since, but not accomplished till our own day. Had Periander had the resources to carry out his idea, the subsequent history of Greek military and naval operations would have been largely changed. While the most successful of the tyrants like Periander furthered material civilization, they often manifested an interest in intellectual pursuits and did something for the promotion of art. A new form of poetry called the Dithrium was developed at Corinth during this period. The rude strains which were sung at vintage feasts in honor of Dionysus being molded into an artistic shape. The discovery was attributed to Arian, a mythical minstrel who was said to have leaped into the sea under the compulsion of mariners who robbed him and who have been carried to Corinth on the back of a dolphin, the fish of Dionysus. In architecture Corinthian skill had made an important contribution to the development of the temple. In the course of the seventh century men began to translate into stone the old shrine of Brick and Wood and stone temples arose in all parts of the Greek world. The lighter Ionic form in Ionia, the heavier Doric in the elder Greece. By the invention of roof tiles, Corinthian workmen rendered it practicable to give considerable inclination to the roof and thus in each gable of the temple a large triangular space was left, inviting the sculptor to fill it with a story in marble. The pediment, as we name it, was called by the Greeks the eagle and thus it was said that Corinth had discovered the eagle. Seven great columns of limestone, which till the other day were almost the only sign that marked the site of ancient Corinth, are probably a relic of the reign of Periander. They belonged to the colonnade of a large Doric temple with two separate chambers. It was a sanctuary of Apollo and the second chamber was perhaps a treasury. The dedicatory offerings of the Sipcellids at Delphi and Olympia were rich and remarkable. The treasure-house of the Corinthians at Delphi was ascribed to Sipcellis. More famous, on account of the legend which was in later times attached to it, was a large chest of cedar wood which was dedicated, probably by Periander, in the shrine of Hera at Olympia. It was called the chest of Sipcellis and was said to have been the place in which Lobda hid her child. This story overlooked the fact that a chest was an obvious place to search in and fabricated the theory that the Corinthians called a chest a jar. Three sides of the chest were ornamented with mythological scenes which ran around in five hands. It was still in existence eight centuries later, and a traveler who saw it then has left a minute of caution, which enables us to form a notion how Greek art in the days of Periander attempted the treatment of legend. Judged by a modern standard, the government of Periander was strict, though in accordance with the practice in other cities and with the Greek views of the time. There were laws forbidding men to acquire large numbers of slaves or to live beyond their income, suppressing excessive luxury and idleness, hindering country people to vote in the city. In his home life Periander was unlucky. He married Melissa, the daughter of Procles who had made himself tyrant of Epidares. It was believed that he put her to death and this led to an irreconcilable quarrel with his son, Lycophron. The story is that Procles invited his two grandchildren, Lycophron and an elder brother to his court. When they were departing he said to them Do you know, boys, who killed your mother? The elder was dull and did not understand, but the word sank into the heart of Lycophron and henceforward he showed dislike and suspicion towards his father. Periander, pressing him, discovered what Procles had said and the affair ended for the time in a war with Epidares in which Procles was captured and the banishment of Lycophron to Corsera. As years went on and Periander was growing old, seeing that his elder son was dull of wit, he desired to hand over the government to Lycophron. But the son was implacable and did not deign even to answer his father's messenger. Then Periander sent his daughter to intercede, but Lycophron replied that he would never come to Corinth while his father was there. Periander then decided to go himself to Corsera and leave Corinth to his son, but the Corserians were so terrified at the idea of having tyrant among them that they slew Lycophron in order to foil the plan. For this act Periander chastised them heavily. The great tyrant died and was succeeded by his nephew Cymeticus, who having ruled for a few years was slain. With him the tyranny of the Cipcillids came to an end and an aristocracy of merchants was firmly established. At the same time the Cipcillid colonial system partly broke down, for Corsera became independent and hostile while the Ambrosiat set up a democracy, but over her other colonies Corinth retained her influence and was on friendly terms with all of them. The natural sympathy of tyrannies affected the relations of Corinth and Magara. Sometime after the inauguration of the Cipcillid tyranny a similar constitutional change occurred at Magara and a friendship sprang up between the two cities. The mercantile development of Cipcillid, famous for her weavers, had enriched the nobles, who held the political power and oppressed the peasants with a grinding despotism. Then theogenes arose as a deliverer and made himself tyrant. The example of the Cipcillids and probably his direct influence and help had something to do with the enterprise of theogenes. A connection between the tyrannies of Corinth and Magara seems implied in the rankerous reference which the Magarian poet Theognis makes to the Cipcillids. Having obtained a bodyguard, Theogenes surprised and massacred the aristocrats. His term of tyranny was marked by one solid work, the construction of an aqueduct. He was overthrown and did not, like Cipcillis, transmit his power to his descendants. Then followed a political struggle between the aristocracy which had regained its power and the people. But the time for an unmitigated victory had gone by, the demos could not be ignored or brushed aside. Concessions were wrung from the government. The economical conditions of the peasants was relieved by a measure which forced the capitalists to pay back the interest which they had extorted. While the political disabilities were relieved by extending citizenship to the country population and admitting the tillers of the soil to the assembly. He had made the country a land of darkness who meditated and lamented them. He sang in the early part of the 6th century, pouring out his heart to Sirness, a young noble of the polypaed family. He had made an unsuccessful voyage, lost his land and fortune, and consequently his influence. He judges severely the short-sighted, greedy policy of his own case, and sees that it is likely to lead to another with an aristocratic form of government, and he discerns with dismay the growth of democratic tendencies and the changed condition of the countryfolk, whom he regarded with true aristocratic contempt. The exclusiveness of the nobility was breaking down in the new circumstances, and mixed marriages were coming in. He cries, Unchanged the walls, but ah, how changed the folk? The base, who knew erstwhile, nor law, nor right, but dwelled like deer with goatskin for a cloak, are now ennobled, and oh, sorry, plight, the nobles are made base in all men's sight. It was not long before the importance of Magara as a power in Greece dwindled. The war with Athens, which resulted in the loss of the island of Salamis, was decisive for her own decline and for the rise of her rival. The rise of a tyranny in agricultural Sisyon seems to have occurred much about the same time as at mercantile Corinth. We know nothing of the circumstances. The name of the first founder, who was of low birth, is said to have been Orthogoras. The first of the house of whom we have any historical records is Chliesthanes, who ruled in the first quarter of the sixth century. His hostility to Argos, which claimed lordship over Sisyon, the part he took in the sacred war of Delphi, and the splendor of his court, are the chief facts of which we know. He was engaged in an Argyve war. He would not permit Rhapsodists to recite the Homeric poems at Sisyon, because there was so much in them about Argos and the Argyves, and he did away with the worship of the Argyve hero Andristus, whose cult in Sisyon had been conspicuous. It is also stated that not wishing the tribes of Sisyon and Argos should have the same names, he substituted for the Dorian tribes, Helaeus, Pamphili, Damonaeus, the insulting names Swynites, Assites, and Pygites, and called his own tribe Arcaloi rulers, and that this nomenclature endured for sixty years after his death, when the old Dorian names were restored and Arcaloi changed to Aegeleus. In this form the story seems highly unlikely, for such a change would have been a greater slight to the masses of Sisyons than to the Argyves. But it is quite possible that the tyrant changed the name of his own tribe, Aegeleus, to Arcaloi, and we can understand how the story might have arisen out of a word spoken in jest. I have changed my goats into rulers of the folk. I have a mind to change those Argyve helais into the rest of them into Swyn and Asses. He is married his daughter, Argyrista, to an Athenian noble, of the famous family of the Ausmeianids. A legend is told of the wooing of Argyrista, which illustrates the tyrant's wealth and hospitality and the social ideas of the age. On the occasion of an Olympian festival at which he had himself won in the chariot race, Cleesthenes made proclamation to the Greeks that all who aspired to the hand of his daughter should assemble at Sisyon sixty days hence and be entertained at his court for a year. At the end of the year he would decide who was most worthy of his daughter. Then there came to Sisyon all the Greeks who had a high opinion of themselves or of their families. From Sbaras and Ceres in the far west, from Epidamnes and Etolia, Arcadia and Elis, Argos and Athens, Euboea and Thessaly, the suitors for the hand of Argyrista came. Cleesthenes tested their accomplishments for a year. He tried them in gymnastic exercises, but laid most stressed on their social qualities. The two Athenians, Hippocleides and Megacles, pleased him best, but to Hippocleides of these two he most inclined. The day appointed for the choice of the husband came, and Cleesthenes sacrificed a hundred oxen and feasted all the suitors and all the folk of Sisyon. After the dinner the woors competed in music and general conversation. Hippocleides was the most brilliant, and as his success seemed assured he bade the flute player strike up and began to dance. Cleesthenes was surprised and disconcerted at his behavior, and his surprise became discussed when Hippocleides, who thought he was making a decisive impression, called for a table and danced Spartan and Athenian figures on it. The host controlled his feelings, but when Hippocleides proceeded to dance on his head he could no longer resist and called out, O son of Tassander, you have danced away your bride. But the Athenian only replied, Hippocleides, careth not, and danced on. Megacles was chosen for Argyrista and rich presence were given to the disappointed suitors. Section 8 The Sacred War The Panhellenic Games The most important achievement of Cleesthenes, and that which won him most fame in the Greek world, was his championship of the Delphic Oracle. The Temple of Delphi, or Pytho, lay in the territory of the Phocian town of Cresa. A Delphic hymn tells how Apollo came to Cresa, a hill facing to westward, under snowy Parnassus, a beatling cliff overhangs it, beneath is a hollow, rugged glen. Here he said, I will make me a fair temple, to be an oracle for men. The poet's picture is perfect. The sanctuary of Rocky Pytho was terraced on a steep slope, hard under the bare, sheer cliffs of Parnassus, looking down upon the deep glen of the Pleistas, an austere and majestic scene, supremely fitted for the utterance of the oracles of God. The city of Cresa lay on a vine-trust hill to the west of the temple, and commanded its own plain, which stretched southward to the sea. The men of Cresa claimed control over the Delphinians in the oracle, and levied dues on the visitors who came to consult the deity. The Delphinians desired to free themselves from the control of the Cresaians, and they naturally looked for help to the Great League of the North, in which the Thessalians, the ancient foes of the Phocians, were now the dominant member. The folks who belonged to this religious union were the dwellers around the Shrine of Demeter at Enthela, close to the pass of Thermopylae, and hence they were called the Enfectiones of Enthela or Philae. The League was probably old. It was formed at all events before the Thessalians had incorporated Achaean Pythotias in Thessaly. For the people of Pythotias were an independent member of the League, which included the Locrians, Phocians, Votians, and Athenians, as well as the Dorians, Malians, Dolopians, Aeneans, Thessalians, Perhaebians, and Magnets. The members of the League were bound not to destroy or cut off running water from any city which belonged to it. The Amphicians espoused warmly the cause of Apollo, and his Delphian servants, and declared a holy war against the men of Cresa who had violated the sacred territory. And Delphi found a champion in the south as well as in the north. The tyrant of Sisyon across the gulf went forth against the impious city. It was not enough to conquer Cresa and force her to make terms or promises. As she was situated in such a strong position, commanding the road from the sea to the sanctuary, it was plain that the utter destruction of the city was the only conclusion of the war which could lead to the assured independence of the Oracle. The Amphicians and Thessalians took the city after a sore struggle, raised it to the ground, and slew the indwellers. The Cresaian plain was dedicated to the god, solemn and heavy curses were pronounced against whosoever should till it. The great gulf which sunders northern Greece from the Peloponnesus, and whose old name Cresaion testified to the greatness of the Phocian city, received after this its familiar name Corinthian from the city of the Isthmus. One of the consequences of this war was the establishment of a close connection between Delphi and the infictionary of Anthela. The Delphic shrine became a second place of meeting, and the league was often called the Delphic Amphiciani. The temple was taken under the protection of the league. The administration of the property of the gods was placed in the hands of the Hyrenemines, or sacred counselors, who met twice a year in spring and autumn, both at Anthela and at Delphi. Two Hyrenemines were sent as its representatives by each member of the league. The Oracle and the priestly nobles of Delphi thus won a position of independence. Their great career of prosperity and power began. The Pythian games were now reorganized on a more splendid scale, and the ordering of them was one of the duties of the Amphicians. The festival became, like the Olympian, a four-yearly celebration, being held in the middle of each Olympiad. The big contests were introduced, whereas before there had been only a musical competition, and money prizes were abolished for a wreath of bay. Cleisthanes won the laurel in the first chariot race in the new Hippodrome, which was built in the plain below the ruins of Cresa. Hard buy was the stadium, or race course, in which the athletes ran and wrestled, and it was not till after many years had passed that the new stadium was built high up above Delphi itself, close under the cliffs. Cleisthanes was remembered as having taken a prominent pathboat in the Sacred War and in the institution of the games, and he commemorated the occasion of his victory by founding a Pythian games at Sisyon, which afterwards, by a stroke of the irony of history, became associated with the hated hero Adrastus. Before the Sacred War it would seem that Sisyon had a treasure-house within the Delphic precinct. Some traces of its round form, some traces possibly of its primitive sculptures, have been discovered. But not long after the war the old building had to make way for a larger house in the shape of a Doric temple, and it is hard not to believe that it was Cleisthanes himself who erected this lordlier treasury for Sisyon. Much about the same time two other Panhellenic festivals were instituted at Isthmus and Nemia. It is uncertain whether the Isthmian games in honour of Poseidon were founded by Periander, or in commemoration of the abolition of tyranny at Corinth after the death of Symmeticus. The games in honour of Niemian Zeus were administered by the little town of Cleonay, and seem to have been established by the influence of Argos. Both the Isthmian and the Niemian festivals were too yearly. Thus from the beginning of the sixth century four Panhellenic festivals are celebrated, two in the Peloponnesus, one on the Isthmus, one in the north, and throughout the course of Grecian history the prestige of these gatherings never wanes. These four Panhellenic festivals helped to maintain a feeling of fellowship among all the Greeks, and we may suspect that the promotion of this feeling was the deliberate policy of the rulers who raised these games to Panhellenic dignity. But it must not be overlooked that the festivals were themselves only a manifestation of a tendency toward unity which had begun in the eighth century. We have already seen how this tendency was promoted by colonisation and confirmed by the introduction of a common name for the Greek race. About the middle of the seventh century we meet the name Panhellenus in a poem of Archaeologus, and the phrase Panhellenus and Achaeans occurs in a passage which may be still earlier in the Homeric catalogue of the ships. The Panhellenic idea, the conception of a common Hellenic race with common interests, was encouraged by the poetical records of the heroic age. The Trojan War was remembered as a common enterprise in which northern and southern Greece had joined, and the ancient poets had called the whole host Achaeans or Argyves indifferently. The Homeric poems were a bond among all men of Greek speech, and the memory of Troy was an ingredient in a sentiment which, though we cannot call it national, was distinctly a sentiment of community. The feeling of community was also displayed in the recognition of the Pythian Apollo as the chief and supreme oracle of Greece. The growth of the prestige of the Delphic god might almost have been used as a touchstone for measuring the growth of the feeling of community. As a meeting place for pilgrims and envoys from all quarters of the Greek world, Delphi served to keep distant cities in touch with one another, and to spread news, purposes which were affected in a lesser degree by the Pan-Hellenic festivals. The tendencies to unity were also shown by the leagues, chiefly of a religious kind, which were formed among neighboring states. The Maritime League of Caloria is an instance, the northern and fictiony of Antela is another, and we shall presently have a glimpse of the Ionic Federation of Delos. Early in the sixth century we find the cities of Italy bound together by a sort of commercial league, which was indicated in the character of their coinage. We shall soon see Sparta uniting a large part of the Peloponnesus in a confederacy under her presidency. These tendencies to unity never resulted in a political union of all Hellas. The Greek race never became a Greek nation, for the Pan-Hellenic idea was weaker than the love of local independence. But an ideal unity was realized. It was realized in those beliefs and institutions which we have just been considering. They fostered in the hearts of the Greeks a lively feeling of fellowship and a deep pride in Hellas, though there was no political tie. And it is to be noted that the Delphic oracle made no efforts to promote political unity, though unintentionally it promoted unity of another kind. If it had made any such efforts they would certainly have failed, for the oracle had little influence in initiation. Greek states did not ask Apollo to originate or direct their policy. They only sought his authority for what they had already determined. We saw that the Boshans were a member of the Northern Enfictiony. The unity of Bosha itself had taken the form of a federation, in which Thebes was the dominant power, being not only the federal capital, but, at all events and later times, being represented by two members on the board of the Boatarchs, as the federal magistrates were called, whereas each of the other cities returned only one Boatarch. Its religious center, for like all old Greek federations it was religious before it became political, was the sanctuary of Poseidon at Oncestas. In the seventh century it did not yet include all Bosha, or Comenus still resisted. But at length Thebes forced Orcomenus to join, and in the course of the sixth century the Gratian land of Oropus was annexed. The unity of Bosha, thus completed, had its weak points. Its maintenance depended upon the power of Thebes. Some of the cities were reluctant members. Above all, Platia chafed. She had kept herself pure from mixture with the Boshan settlers, and her whole history, of which some remarkable episodes will pass before us, may be regarded as an isolated continuation of the ancient struggle between the elder Greek inhabitants of the land and the Boshan conquerors. End of Chapter 3, Part 7 and 8 Chapter 4, Parts 1 and 2 of A History of Greece to the Death of Alexander the Great, Volume 1. Chapter 4, The Union of Attica and the Foundation of the Athenian Democracy, Section 1, The Union of Attica. When recorded history begins, the story of Athens is the story of Attica. The inhabitants of Attica are Athenians. But Attica, like its neighbour, Biosha, and other countries of Greece, was once occupied by a number of independent states. Some of these little kingdoms are vaguely remembered in legends, which tell of the giant palace who ruled at Polini, under the north-eastern slopes of Hymetus, of the dreaded Cephalus, Lord of the southern region of Thoricus, or of Porphyryon of the mighty stature, whose domain was at Athmonon, under Mount Pentelicus. The hill of Munikia was in the distant past an island, and was crowned by a stronghold. The name Pyreus has been supposed to preserve the memory of days when the lords of Munikia looked across to the mainland and spoke of the opposite shore. At a later stage we find neighbouring villages uniting themselves together by political or religious bonds. Thus in the north, beyond Pentelicus, Marathon, and Oini, and two other towns, formed a tetrapolis. Again, Pyreus, adjacent Phalaron, and two other places, joined in the common worship of the god Heracles, and were called the four villages. Of all the lordships between Mount Qitharon and Cape Sunium, the two most important were those of Eleusis and Athens, severed from one another by the hill-chain of Aigilius. It was upon Athens, the stronghold in the midst of the Caephician plain, five miles from the sea, that destiny devolved the task of working out the unity of Attica. This Caephician plain on the south side, open to the Sauronic Gulf, is enclosed by hills, on the west, by Aigilius, on the northwest, by Parnes, on the east by Hymetus, while the gap in the northeast between Parnes and Hymetus is filled by the gable-shaped mass of Pentelicus. The river Cephisus flows, not far from Athens to the westward, but the Acropolis was geared by two smaller streams, the Eleusis and the Eridanus. We have seen that it had been occupied as an abode of men in the third millennium, and that in the Bronze Age it was one of the strong places of Greece. There still remain pieces of the wall of grey-blue limestone, with which the Pelasgian lords of the castle secured the edge of their precipitous hill. The old wall was called the Pelargicon, but in later times this name was specially applied to the ground on the northwestern slope. The Acropolis is joined to the Areopagus by a high saddle, which forms its natural approach, and on this side walls were so constructed that the main western entrance to the citadel lay through nine successive gates. At the northwestern corner a covered staircase led down to the well of Clepsidra, which supplied the fortress with water, and on the north side there were two narrow postures descends into the plain, much steeper than that at Tirins. We may take it that all these constructions were the work of the Pelasgians, and were inherited by their Greek successors. The first Greeks who won the Pelasgic Acropolis were probably the Kekropes, and though their name was forgotten as the name of an independent people, it survived in another form, for the later Athenians were always ready to describe themselves as the sons of Kekrops. This Kekrops was numbered among the imaginary prehistoric kings of Athens. He was nothing more than the fabulous ancestor of the Kekropes. But the time came when other Greek dwellers in Attica won the upper hand over the Kekropes, and brought with them the worship of Athena. It was a momentous day in the history of the land when the goddess, whose cult was already established in many other Attic places, took possession of the hill which was to be preeminently and for all time associated with her name. The Acropolis became Athenii. The folks, whether Kekropes or Pelasgians, who dwelled in the villages around it on the banks of the Elesus, and the Eridanus, became Athenians. The god whom the Kekropes worshipped on the hill, Poseidon Erectius, was forced to give way to the goddess. Legend told that Athena and Poseidon had disputed the possession of the Acropolis, and that each had set a token there, the goddess her sacred olive tree, the god Assault Spring. The dethroned deity was not banished. There was a conciliation, characteristic of the Greek temper between the old and the new. Erectius in the shape of a snake is permitted still to live on the hill of Athena, and the oldest temple that was built for the goddess harbored also the god. In later times Athenian history transformed Erectius into a hero, and regarded him, like Kekropes, as one of the early kings. There was another god who was closely associated in Attic legend with Athena, and Athens was distinguished by the high honor in which she held him. This was Hephaestus, the divine smith, the master and helper of handicraftsmen, the cunning giver of wealth. But we cannot say how far back his worship in Attica goes, or when his special feasts were instituted. It is probable that his honor grew along with the prosperity of the craftsmen. An Athenian poet calls his countrymen, sons of Hephaestus, and according to one myth it was from his seed that all the earth-born inhabitants of Attica were sprung. At the feast of Apertoria in the last days of autumn, when children were admitted into the fratries by a solemn ceremony, the fathers used to light torches at the hearth, and sing a hymn to the Lord of Fire. The next great step in Attic history was the union of the land. We cannot be certain at what time this union took place. It recedes beyond the beginnings of recorded history, and we can only dimly discern how it was brought about. When the Lords of the Acropolis had subdued their own Cephasian claim, from Mount Parnes to the hill of Mnichia, from the slopes of Hymetus to Agiles, they were tempted to extend their power eastward into the Midlands, beyond Mount Hymetus, and subdue the southern Actae, or wedge of land, which ends in the lofty Cape of Sunium. The completion of this conquest was possibly the first great achievement of Athens, and the second was probably the subjugation of the northeastern plain of Marathon and the tetrapolis. Thus the first stage in the union of Attica is the reduction of the small independent Sovereignities throughout all the land, except the Eleusinian plain in the west, under the loose overlordship of Athens. In the course of time the feeling of unity in Attica became so strong that all the smaller lordships, which formed part of the large state, but still retained their separate political organizations, could be induced to surrender their home governments, and merge themselves in a single community, with a government centralised in the city of the Cephasian plain. The man of Thoricus, or Aphidni, or Icaria, now became a citizen of Athens, and his political rights must be exercised there. The memory of this synaikism was preserved in historical times by an annual feast, and it was fitting that it should be so remembered, for it determined the whole history of Athens. From this time forward she is no longer merely the supreme city of Attica. She is neither the head of a league of partly independent states, nor yet a despotic mistress of subject communities. She is not what Thebes is to become in Biosha, or what Sparta is in Laconia. If she had been, and she might well have been, either of these things, her history would have been gravely altered. She is the central city of a united state, and to the people of every village in Attica belong the same political rights as to the people of Athens herself. The man of Marathon, or the man of Thoricus, is no longer an Attic, he is an Athenian. It is generally supposed that the synaikism was the work of one of the kings. It was undoubtedly the work of one man, but it is possible that it belongs to the period immediately succeeding the abolition of royal power. In after times the Athenians thought that the hero Thesias, whom they had enrolled in the list of their early kings, was the author of the union of their country. But at the period when that union was brought about, Thesias was not a national hero. He was a local god, worshipped in the Marathonian district, and in the east coastlands of Attica. He had not yet won the importance which he was to possess hereafter in Athenian myth and history. Section 2 Foundation of the Athenian Commonwealth The early history of the Athenian constitution resembles that of most other Greek states, in the general fact that a royalty, subjected to various restrictions, passes into an aristocracy. But the details of the transition are peculiar, and the beginning of the republic seems to have been exceptionally early. The traditional names of the Attic kings, who came after the hero Thesias, are certainly in some cases, and it may be in most cases fictitious. The most famous of them being the Nileid Codros, who was said to have sacrificed himself to save his country on the occasion of an attack of invaders from the Peloponnesus. The Athenians said that they had abolished royalty on the death of Codros because he was too good to have a successor, a curious reversal of the usual causes of such a revolution. But this story is a late invention. The first limitation of the royal power affected by the aristocracy was the institution of a polymark, or military commander. The supreme command of the army which had belonged to the king was transferred to him, and he was elected from and by the nobles. The next step seems to have been the overthrow of the royal house by the powerful family of the Medontids. The Medontids did not themselves assume the royal title, nor did they abolish it. They instituted the office of Archon or Regent, and this office usurped the most important functions of the king. Acastus, the Medontid, was the first Regent. We know that he was an historical person. The Archons of later days always swore that they would be true to their oath even as Acastus. He held the post for life, and his successors after him, and thus the Medontids resembled kings, though they did not bear the kingly name. But they felt short of royalty in other way, too, for each Regent was elected by the community. The community was only bound to elect a member of the Medontid family. The next step in weakening the power of this kingly magistrate was the change of the regency from a life office to an office of ten years. This reform is said to have been effected about the middle of the eighth century. It is uncertain at what time the Medontids were deprived of their prerogative, and the regency was thrown open to all the nobles. With the next step we reach firm aground. The regency became a yearly office, and from this time onward an official list of the Archons seems to have been preserved. But, meanwhile, there were still kings at Athens. The Medontids had robbed the kings of their royal power, but they had not done away with the kings. There was to be a king at Athens till the latest days of the Athenian democracy. It seems probable that, as some historical analogies might suggest, the Medontids allowed the shadow of royalty to remain in the possession of the old royal house, so that for some time there would have been life kings existing by the side of the life regents. It is not likely that from the very first the kingship was degraded to a yearly office filled by election. This, however, was what it ultimately became. The whole course of the constitutional development is uncertain, for it rests upon traditions of which it is extremely hard to judge the value. But whatever the details of the growth may have been, two important facts are to be grasped. One is that the fall of royalty, which does not imply the abolition of the royal name, happened in Athens at an earlier period than in Greece generally. The other is that the Medontids were not kings, but Archons, the chiefs of an aristocracy. The great work of the Medontids was the foundation of the Athenian Commonwealth, and perhaps one of their houses to be remembered for another achievement, no less great which has already been described, the Union of Attica. That union needed not to be older than the 9th century, and it is possible that the same republican movement, which led to the downfall of the old royal house of the Acropolis, led to the cynicism of Attica. The political union of a country demands a system of organization, and the statesmen who united Attica sought their method of organization from one of those cities of Ionia, which Athens came to look upon as her own daughters. All the inhabitants were distributed into four tribes, which were borrowed from Miletus. The curious names of these tribes, Galeontes, Argedes, Aegikores, and Hoplates, seem to have been derived from the worship of special deities, for instance Galeontes from Zeus Galeon. But the original meanings of the names has entirely passed away, and the tribes were affiliated to Apollo Patrus, the paternal Apollo from whom all Athenians claimed descent. The brotherhoods seemed to have been reorganized and arranged under the tribes three to each tribe, so that there were twelve brotherhoods in the Attic state. At the head of each tribe was a tribe king. We can see the clan organization at Athens better than elsewhere. The families of each clan derived themselves from a common ancestor, and most of the clan names are patronymics. The worship of this ancestor was the chief end of the society. All the clans alike worshipped Zeus, Hercheios, and Apollo Patrus. Many of them had a special connection with other public cults. Each had a regular administration and officers, at the head of which was an archon. To these clans only members of the noble families belonged, but the other classes, the peasants and the craftsmen, formed similar organizations founded on the worship not of a common ancestor, for they could point to none, but some deity whom they chose. The members of these were called Augeones. This innovation heralds the advance of the lower classes to political importance. The brotherhoods, composed of families whose lands are joined, united their members in the cult of Zeus Fratrios and Athena Fratria. In early times only clansmen belonged to the brotherhoods, but here again a change takes place in the seventh century, and Augeones are admitted. The organization was then used for the purposes of censors. Every child whose parents were citizens must be admitted into a brotherhood, and if this right is neglected he is regarded as illegitimate. It should be observed that illegitimacy at Athens did not deprive a man of political rights, but he could not lay claim by right of birth to his father's inheritance. At a much later time the constitutional historians of Athens made out that the clans were artificial subdivisions of the brotherhoods. They said that each tribe was divided to three brotherhoods, each brotherhood into 30 clans, and it was even added that each clan comprised 30 men. This artificial scheme is true so far as the relation of the tribe to the brotherhood is concerned, but it is not true in regard to the clan, and is refuted by the circumstance that the tribes consisted of others than clansmen. End of Chapter 4, Sections 1 and 2