 Chapter 9 Intellectual Awakening. 750-479. Chapter 2. Religious, Moral, and Scientific Progress. Origin of Religion in the Worship of the Dead. The most obvious, and perhaps the most primitive, origin of religion is the phenomenon of sleep and dreams. The body is the principal self, but along with it is the soul, a shadow or image of the body. While the real self is unconscious in sleep, the shadow double communes with other souls and foresees the future. Death is closely akin to sleep. The body decays or is burned, but the soul survives with hunger and thirst, and with a power at least to annoy. These conditions account for the worship of the dead. Hence a childlike imagination peopled the world with similar spirits, whose like demands created the worship of natural objects and forces. A Social Origin of Religion. The growth of these ideas was reinforced by deeper experiences of the soul. Men were conscious of possessing powers which they vaguely confused with the forces of nature. Personal emotions or powers were greatly intensified by becoming social, when felt or exerted by a group of human beings accustomed to a common life. Their sacred dance or other collective ceremony wrought magically upon nature in the interest of the group. Doubtless it was this social emotion whose power surpassed the individual comprehension which led them to believe in the existence of a spirit, demon, of the group or community. He was a being like a human, though generally invisible and working with greater mystery and power, whose life was bound up with that of his community, when a demon came to be conceived as independent of its natural object or force or social group, or when it acquired a definite personality it became a god. To maintain relations with either of these beings, a social group founded an altar to him and instituted a ritual for his worship, watched over by priest or priestess whose office was sometimes hereditary, sometimes elective. The chief element of the ritual was a sacrifice, a meal partaken of in good fellowship by the god and his worshipers. There were also prayers, hymns, dances, and the presentation of gifts, votive offerings, for the adornment of the shrine. In the imagination of the worshipers the deities generally took the form of men and women, though taller, stronger, and more beautiful. Heroes and communal deities. Usually the spirits of the dead were worshipped by the family at its tombs. Heroes were the more powerful spirits of men who had been great on earth, the founders of cities or other mighty benefactors of their kind. Every association of men as a gins, frottry, demae, or tribe, in addition to other deities, had its name giving hero, the real or fictitious ancestor of the group. Every state had special guardian deities worshipped by all the citizens. Each of these gods enjoyed an independent existence. The Athena or Zeus of a given locality or frottry or state was a personal being distinct from every other Athena or Zeus. Myth. Original and derived meaning. Originally myth was the expression of a religious idea or emotion in the form of a story created by a fresh, childlike imagination. As the Greek mind in the course of development began to look for the causes of usages, institutions, and of the world itself, it was for a time satisfied with myths. These stories, however, never became dogmas among the Greeks, but remained plastic, freely molded to suit the poet's fancy or the genealogist's purpose. The Temple. In Minoan time, the chief deity dwelt in a chapel of the palace, and during the Middle Ages he was content with a modest shelter for himself and his movable goods. In the course of the 6th and 7th centuries all the more important gods came to be housed in well-built, artistic dwellings. The simplest form was the temple in Antis, whose cella and vestibule preserved the main elements of the Homeric palace. This developed a double temple in Antis, which for greater beauty and for the shelter of worshipers might be surrounded by a peristyle. In this case it is termed peripteral. There grew up as a distinct type, the prostyle temple, whose vestibule was fronted by a row of columns. The development from the latter type is the amphiprostyle temple, which, too, might be made peripteral. The temples of Greece and her western colonies were prevailingly of the Doric Order, a growth from Minoan elements. The earlier examples of this order give an impression of sturdiness and substantiality, gradually transformed into gracefulness with increasing height and slenderness of the columns and the diminution of the curves. A new element of beauty was added when toward the end of the 6th century the Greeks of certain places began to use marble instead of the earlier limestone. The most ancient stone temples have fallen to ruin, but the metopes from one of the earliest, at Salinas, Sicily, near the close of the 7th century may be seen in the museum of Palermo. In the sculptural groups that adorn them the lines are monotonously parallel, the human forms are disproportionate, the attitudes are rigid, and yet a certain freshness and originality stamp the work as Greek. Advance an art under the Pisa Stratidae, 560 to 510. In the age of the Pisa Stratidae a great advance was made throughout Hellis in architecture as well as in other arts, and the patron of those tyrants was directed to bringing Athens abreast of the general progress. From the islands of the Aegean Sea artists flocked to Athens to paint vases, build temples and chisel reliefs and statues to satisfy the improving taste of the community. In honor of Athena patron goddess of the city, Pisa Stratis surrendered her temple on the Acropolis with a pair of style. The limestone of the building was stuccoed and painted in brilliant colors, dominantly red and blue in the fashion of the age. For the first time at Athens marble was used in architecture. The metopee and pediment sculptures of the Athena temple were of that material imported from Peros. Among the other works of these tyrants we may merely mention the gigantic temple to the Olympian Zeus founded by them beside the Elysis to be completed six centuries later by the Emperor Hadrian. The Older Parthenon Emulating the tyrant's zeal for building, the party of Clisthenes after the completion of his reforms began her new and more splendid temple to Athena on the Acropolis, south of the existing shrine, on the site afterward occupied by the Parthenon. Unlike the Old Temple it was to be of Pentelec marble. For the site they first constructed a terrace for leveling the southern slope of the Acropolis and placed there on the foundation. Many marble drums, too, for the temple had been conveyed from Pentelecus when the invasion of Xerxes cut short the work till it could be resumed years after by Pericles. The pre-Persian building is known as the Older Parthenon. Statues Especially of Women Religion expressed itself not only in the temple with its sculpture decorations but also in statues, whether of the deity or his worshippers or of famous athletes or of benefactors of the state. A common material was wood and the most revered image of Athena on the Acropolis, even in the period of highest artistic development, remained a mere log with human features crudely indicated. Equally early, doubtless, was the use of soft limestone from which about six hundred the artists passed to marble. Most primitive is the statue of a woman found at Delos, in representing Artemis or a worshipper of that goddess. It is a marble block with the roughest suggestion of a woman's form and dress. The advance made within the sixth century may be estimated by comparing one of the maiden statues dedicated to Athena on the Acropolis no long time before the Persian War. Though slightly stiff and conventional, the form shows a noteworthy gain in grace and naturalness and the drapery is delicately elaborated. The air of refined luxury which surrounds this Athenian lady is doubtless in importation from Ionia, whence the softer elements of civilization came to the Greek peninsula. The Statues of Athletes In the series of Apollo's extending through the sixth century we may trace the development of the nude form of the youthful athlete. The original type seems strongly Egyptian, the posture is rigid, the only deviation from strict frontality is a slight advance of the left foot, perhaps to suggest walking. As in the earlier women statues the arms are attached to the sides and the bodies show little knowledge of anatomy, but we can trace a steady advance through the series and at the beginning of the following period we shall find a marvelous mastery of athletic form and posture. In contrast with the Orientals the Greeks like to display the unclad forms of men both in life and in art. This predilection contributed vastly to the development of naturalness in art and to a true appreciation of human physical perfection involving a respect for the dignity of the body wholly foreign to the Orient. Reasons for the Rapid Advance of Sculpture Having begun in the seventh century with a scale far inferior to that of the contemporary Egyptian the Greek sculptor rapidly brought his art abreast of the general progress of Hellenic culture. This success was largely due to his willingness while learning all his predecessors could teach to study external nature in the human form continually anew and quite as much to his constant effort to express in art the best thought and the noblest aspiration of his age. Hence it results that the material he has left us, fragmentary as it is, forms a most valuable source of our knowledge of the Hellenic character. Festivals The Panathenaea The gods required for their own happiness not only beautiful temples decorated with reliefs, statues and paintings, but also festivals wherein the citizens might gladden their own hearts. A most prominent feature of Athena worship at Athens was a festival held every summer, the Panathenaea. Peace Astratus ordained that every fourth year the festival was to be given as the greater Panathenaea with a special magnificence. Prisoners were set free and slaves were permitted to feast with their masters. There were races, war dances and armor, athletic competitions and a grand procession of all the free population, the priests and magistrates, the populace and varied festival attire, youths and girls carrying articles and utensils needed for the sacrifice. The object of the ceremony was to bring the goddess the peplos that had been woven and embroidered for her by her chosen girls. The procession passed through the streets and up the steep ascent of the Acropolis to the great altar before the temple of Athena. Peace Astratus added the recitation of Homer's poems and this new feature bore immediate fruit in introducing epic subjects into the rising art of painting and in giving an epic content to the drama then in its earliest beginnings. From formalism to emotional worship. The tendency of all ritual is to lose its meaning and to sink into dry barren formalism which fails to satisfy the emotional need of mankind. This principle holds for the ceremonies of Greek worship. As their springs of emotion dried up the void came to be filled by the worship of Dionysus. His cult, as some assert, may have survived among the peasants of the Minoan Age. At all events in the seventh and sixth centuries it received a new impetus from Thrace where the same god, or one closely like him, was venerated. The belief prevailed that in childhood he was torn to pieces by the Titans but restored to life through rebirth. The half-human, suffering, ever youthful god, the spirit of life and nature and man, a wakener of joys, appealed directly to the emotions. Throngs of worshipers, the majority women, roamed in wild nocturnal revels over mountaintop and danced in ecstasy to the role of drums in the clashing of cymbals. By such means they became one with their deity, partakers of his immortal life. Orphism. In the sixth century an effort was made to transform this unbridled worship into a theology and a church. The leaders of the new movement looked back for their master to Thracian Orpheus, who appears in story as a menstrual of wondrous power. The faith was spread by missionaries who travelled throughout Hellas initiating converts and founding societies of worshipers. They had their sacred scriptures containing prophecies and hymns, adopting the worship of Dionysus they gave it a more regular form and a higher spiritual interpretation. After the emotional rites of initiation they lived ascetic lives. They were under the impression that the soul is suffering the punishment of sin, committed in a previous existence, and that the body is an enclosure or prison in which the soul is incarcerated. By purity of living and the practice of their rituals however they were able not only to cleanse themselves from sin and secure eternal happiness but even to redeem the souls of the dead from punishment and torturous. Great in the coming world they thought will be the bliss of the righteous, evenly ever in sunlight, night and day, an unlaborious life the good receive. Whoever have been good of courage to the abiding, steadfast thrice on either side of death and have refrained their souls from all iniquity, travel the road of Zeus under the tower of Cronos. There round the islands of the blessed the ocean breezes blow and golden flowers are glowing, some from the land on trees of splendor and some the water feedeth, with wreaths whereof they entwine their hands. Some in horses and in bodily feats and some in dice and some in harp playing have delight, and among them thriveeth all fair flowering bliss. It behooveeth therefore in this life to walk in moderation refraining from evil doing, insolence and presumptuous thoughts. The Ellucinean Mysteries In no state was Orphism accepted as a part of the public worship, though the pieces trotter-day were warm patrons of Onomocrates, its most distinguished prophet. But Athens did not hesitate to worship Dionysus in shrines of his own and to join him with Demeter and her daughter Persephone, the great goddesses of Ellusus. Their worship, once local and Eupotrit, had now become national, open to all Helanes who were free from religious pollution. Once a year the devotees of these goddesses, gathering at Athens, moved in procession along the sacred way to Ellususus. Arriving there the initiated entered the shrine, Telesterion, where were performed the sacred rites which none dared disclose. Those who wished and were qualified were initiated. The Mysteries seemed to have consisted chiefly of a passion play, representing the sorrows of Demeter when her daughter was carried off by Hades and the joy of recovering her. The ceremony probably once referred to the death of vegetation in winter and its rebirth in spring. In this period, however, it came to signify death and the resurrection of the soul to eternal happiness. O Thrice blessed the mortals who have seen these Mysteries before descending to Hades realm. For those only will there be a future life of happiness. The others there will experience not but suffering. Thus Demeter brings the initiated the sweetest consolation at death in the hope of eternity. In this way the joys of Elysium, in Homer's conception open to the favored few, were democratized by the progress of Athens toward popular liberty and equality. Origin of the drama and the dramatic festivals at Athens. In addition to a share in the Ellucinian Festival Dionysus had his own holidays, connected with the culture of the vine, for his was the ecstasy, too, of the wine-cup. As his worship developed, many festivals, in honor of the dead, were transferred to him. In December the villages of Attica celebrated the rural Dionysia, in which a chorus of men in rustic attire sang in his honor and unpolished but joyous song, the Dithyram. There was a festival in the city, the Linnea, in January, and another, the greater Dionysia, in March. Similar festivals were held in other parts of Greece. The wild strain sung to Dionysus was transformed by poetic art into a choral ode. The singing was interspersed with recitation which gradually developed into the dialogue. Thus arose the drama. This growth was fostered by the tyrants. At the court of Periander the Lesbic poet Arian set the Dithyram to order, and at the court of Pisastratos lived Thespus, reputed the first dramatic writer. Through the encouragement of popular cults, as distinguished from those monopolized by the nobility, the tyrant aimed to free the masses from youpatrid control and attach them to himself. For a long time, however, the drama must have continued crude and immature. Even at the close of the period it was essentially a cantata in which the singing was occasionally interrupted by dialogue. The Four Great National Games All Hellenic states had their festivals similar to those of Athens. In tradition the oldest home of competitions in athletics and music was Crete and Lasadaiman, whence they extended to the rest of Hellas. Most festivals remained confined to a single locality, or at the widest to a city-state, but in a few instances games in honour of a local deity became, for unknown reasons, Pan-Hellenic. Such were the four great national festivals celebrated at Delphi, on the Corinthian Isthmus at Nimea, and at Olympia in honour of Apollo, Poseidon, Nimean Zeus, and Olympian Zeus respectively. At the founding of the Olympic Games a simple foot race sufficed, but other events were successfully added till the games included many kinds of athletic contests together with the races of horses and chariots. Especially noteworthy is the Pentathlon, comprising running, wrestling, leaping, spear hurling, and discus throwing. The contestant had to be an all-around athlete with a body symmetrically developed. In the Pythian Games, celebrated at Delphi, it was natural that the contests with the songpipe and lyre, and in singing, should be included for the honour of the god of music. There were no such competitions at Nimea or Olympia, but poet and rhetorician there found private audiences for their productions. The prize at these Games was a wreath of wild olive, bay, or other leaves. The competitive struggle and the glory and inspiration of victory. The greatest of the festivals, founded, men thought, for his father Zeus by Heracles, Prince of Athletes, are the Olympic, whereas striving of swift feet and of strong bodies brave to labour, but he that overcomeeth hath, because of these contests, a sweet tranquility throughout his life for evermore. At the close of the competition, the just judge of Games, fulfilling Heracles' behests of old, lays upon the winner's hair, above his brows, pale gleaming glory of olive. Then in the night, following the victory when the mid-month moon, riding her golden car, lit full the counterflame of the eye of even, all the precinct sounded with the songs of festal glee, in honour of the victors. The triumph was celebrated further by processions to the temples and prayers of thanksgiving. By feast and choral song. The banquet loveth peace, and by a gentle song a victory flourisheth afresh, and beside the bowl the singer's voice waxeth brave. The Games are, accordingly, the poet's chief inspiration. Since cometh the glorious hymn that entereth into the minds of the skilled in song. A victory sheds its radiance over the winner's family, and adds fairest renown to his state. The Influence of the Games The influence of the Games did not limit itself to the promotion of physical excellence and the cultivation of music and poetry. The assembly of the Helanes took place under a sacred truce, during which the states, ceasing from war, cultivated friendship. Merchants gathered, especially at the Isthmian Festival, to display and sell their wares. Even more beneficial than the exchange of material goods and the fostering of commerce was the intercommunication of ideas and sentiments among the assembled representatives of the entire Hellenic world. This social and intellectual symposium generated a spirit of racial unity and intensified the creative genius in the fields of art and intelligence. While the victory itself inspired the poet to the composition of splendid triumphal songs, the person of the athlete furnished the sculptor with the model, as well as the motive for the most beautiful statues. The National Games accordingly influenced Greek life in manifold ways, and especially the competitive spirit penetrated and energized every constructive element of Hellenism. Divination It was natural that a people whose life was permeated by religion should seek means of communicating with the gods. So common a use for this purpose was made of the flight of birds that the winged creature came to designate any kind of omen. An ox or an ass that may happen to pass, a voice in the street or a slave that you meet, a name or a word by chance overheard, if you deem it an omen you call it a bird. Oracles All such chance objects or occurrences were regarded as manifestations of the Divine Will. An oracle, on the other hand, had a fixed location and a definite method of expression. Although the Homeric Greeks had little knowledge of oracles we find them widespread over Hellas in the period under consideration and cannot doubt that some of them survived from the Minoan age. The most venerable was that of Zeus at Dodona, where the gods spoke through the rustling of oak leaves. Favoring conditions, however, brought to preeminence the oracle of Apollo at Delphi. His prophetess, the Pythia, sitting on a tripod in the Inmost Trine, received from Apollo the answers she gave to inquirers. Often unintelligible, her mutterings were interpreted to the inquirer by the priests of the god. The chief function of the oracle was not to reveal the future. When it made such a venture the response was couched in ambiguous terms so as to be right in any event. Thus he who desired more than his meat received an answer according to his folly. The gods' advice was generally limited to questions of moral and religious conduct of individuals and states, for instance as to what gods should be worshipped and with what rights on a given occasion, or by what ceremonies a pollution might be removed. Its approval was sought for the founding of colonies and for other important enterprises. Sometimes it was bribed, sometimes it showed undue favor to a particular state or political party. Notwithstanding these shortcomings its general reputation for honesty and wisdom long retained for it the highest, though by no means absolute, authority in Hellenic morals and religion. Divination from Sacrificial Animals It was not always convenient to go to an oracle, and the bird omens came to be thought extremely uncertain. A form of divination unknown to Hesiod as well as to Homer, and evidently later than their time, found its omens in the vitals of a sacrificed animal. The system seems to have been introduced from Babylonia, and was in full force in the time of the Great War with Persia. The commander of troops found this method convenient because he could easily resort to it at any time and place, and perhaps even more because the inspection of several victims in quick succession would most certainly bring omens favorable to his wishes. At least the Greeks were enabled to make divination subserve the practical intelligence. Systematic Thinking About the World Cosmogony In the general belief the gods, who acted under individual caprice or under the influence of prayer and sacrifice, were the causes of all things in nature and the arbiters of human destiny. In the beginning the clashing of divine wills wrought chaos in heaven and on earth till the dawning consciousness of moral and physical unity and order led the poets to devise a system into which all existing things might have a due part. With their conception of the gods in human form it was but natural that they should attempt to explain the multitude of deities, as of men, and even the plurality of all natural objects by the one process of birth. A system so devised is a cosmogony. He see it, our earliest exponent of this line of thought, assumes the creation, he does not say how, of chaos, then earth. From chaos sprang arabos and black night, and from night and turn sprang bright ether and day. An earth bear starry heaven, or anose, to the end that there might be for the blessed gods a habitation steadfast for ever. The youngest son of earth and heaven was Kronos of crooked councils, of all her children most terrible. The Supremacy of Zeus We need not numerate the hosts of supernatural beings thus generated, of monstrous or lovely form, deadly or beneficent, but may pass on to the birth of Zeus, son of Kronos. When he grew to manhood and the rich island of Crete, he conquered the Titans and other monstrous beings, and himself reigned Suprem. He was king in heaven, himself holding the thunder and the smoking thunderbolt, having by his might overcome his father Kronos. And he duly appointed their portions unto all the deathless gods alike, and declared unto them their honors. From cosmogony to science, aid from Egypt. In this way the poet thought, came unity, system, in order from chaos. With the accumulation of knowledge and the growth of an inquiring spirit, however, the Helanes would not satisfy themselves with such childlike reasoning. It was but natural that the next step should be taken by the Ionians, the most enterprising and inventive of the Greeks. Among them were men who visited Egypt and perhaps other parts of the Orient, not merely for trade, but also for sight seeing and instruction. Among them was Thales of Miletus. In Egypt they learned such elementary sciences that priests cultivated, especially arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy. The development of these branches of knowledge, together with the elements of architecture and civil engineering, had been made possible only by the organized priesthoods of Egypt and Babylonia. This knowledge consisted purely of facts ascertained by experience and arbitrarily classified, but wanting the elements of reason and demonstration. Hence it was far from science in the present sense of the word. The contribution of the Hellenic mind, brilliantly imaginative and untrammeled by religious or other convention, was to pierce beneath the fact to the underlying cause, and thus to create real science. The first step in this process, taken by Thales, marks him as the founder, not merely of Greek science, but in the only true sense of the term of the world's science. Thales of Miletus Early Sixth Century Though we cannot be sure that everything ascribed to Thales of Miletus was really his work, there is no doubt that he contributed greatly to mathematics and astronomy. The story that while stargazing he fell into a well is told to illustrate the impracticability of the philosopher. The moral thus pointed, however, is nullified by another story that he speculated in olives on his foreknowledge of the weather and reaped great profit from the transaction. It may well be that he foretold the eclipse of the sun, which occurred on May 28th, 585, though it hardly seems possible that his knowledge enabled him to fix the very day and hour. Thales's Philosophic Theory Its Value However that may be, his fame rests not upon any individual scientific discovery, but upon his new conception of cause. Accepting from the poets the idea of the unity of things and the necessity of causation, he sought for cause, not among the gods, but in nature itself. Water, he declared, was the one source and substance of all things. In his statement, too, that the world is full of gods, he seems to mean that things contain in themselves the conscious power to create other things. Although not wholly free from the influence of mythology, and wrong in choosing a material substance as his first principle, yet in displacing the gods by natural causation he took the all-important step from mythology and theology to science and philosophy. Within the historical period this change has proved the most momentous revolution in the intellectual history of mankind. The Ionic School Anaximander Middle of the Sixth Century The Ionic School of Philosophy, thus founded by Thales, sought the first principle in matter. He left no writings, but a pupil, Anaximander, published a scientific treatise, probably the first prose work in the Greek language. His principle was the Unlimited, evidently a boundless reservoir from which all things come and to which everything returns. In opposition to the poets he thought out a mechanical process for explaining the formation and ultimate destruction of the existing world, in fact of an unending succession of worlds. Evolution it could not be called. Our present earth, he taught, is a cylinder whose upper surface we inhabit. This idea, too, is an advance beyond the earlier conception of the world as a round flat disk. From information gathered by Ionian navigators he made the first map of the earth, and hence may be regarded as the earliest geographer. Pythagoras The further history of this school need not concern us here. A newer and deeper meaning was given to philosophy by Pythagoras of Samos, who, in the latter half of the Sixth Century, migrated to Croton, Italy, 522. When he entered in mathematics of the Ionian school he sought in numbers the primary cause of all things, whether musical harmonies, stellar movements, the nature of the gods, or even abstract ideas. This attention to numbers gave a great impetus to the study of mathematics, hence to exactness in science, but it was marred by his attaching to numbers mystical powers alien to true science. In fact, Pythagoras is distinguished as a mystic and a moral reformer even more than for his contribution to science. With the Orphists he believed in the transmigration of souls, their attainment to a higher condition in a future existence depended on moral conduct in this. The chief aim of Pythagoras seems to have been a life of moral purity, to which philosophy, religion, and mystic initiations were merely contributory. His school was a secret association which extended to most of the cities of southern Italy. It cultivated dietetics and medicine. It enjoined a life of moral discipline and self-restraint. Taking a political turn and acquiring the rule over many states these societies endeavored to manage affairs according to their ethical standard. We must regard the organization as an element, both product and factor, in the deepening religious and moral sense of the period now under consideration. A further advance in these general philosophic and ethical directions was made by Zanophonese of Colophon, who immigrated to Elia, Italy, whence the school he founded is known as Elietic. He indignantly assails the Homeric conception of the gods as beings of human form, who lie and steal and commit other such sins as would shame the race of men. Beings of this kind are the creation of human fancy. The real god is one, like man neither informed nor thought. He is all-I, all-mind, all-ear, he controls all things without labour by the power of his thought. He is eternal, unchangeable and spiritual. Here seems to be the annunciation of a pure monotheism. It is clear too that this thinkers' interest centers in moral improvement. He chides his fellow-citizens of Colophon for having adopted the luxurious habits of the Lydians. They throng the marketplace by thousands in purple gowns, with hair well adorned, their bodies dripping with fragrant oils. It is the duty of sensible men, when they gather at banquets, to pray God to give us power to do justice. His God therefore is a moral force, and the author of the poems cited here is as much theologian and moral reformer as philosopher. He could look forward with good hope, believing that the powers have not revealed to men all things from the beginning, but that mortals, by searching gradually, found out the better. Improved Conceptions of Virtue Intellectual progress connected itself on one side with advancing religion, on the other with moral development. A better conception of virtue arose. It was no longer physical perfection or the free gift of the gods, as in Homer, but had come to mean especially moral excellence, which men had to strive for. It is hard to be a worthy man, now seems trite, but was then a fresh, stimulating truth. To maintain his character one had to exercise self-restraint, safrosony. This was a new word in the Greek vocabulary, yet one involving the most imperative of Hellenic commandments. It was no small gain that in this struggle for moral improvement man should now have the gods as helpers, better examples of purity and right than those of Homer, and demanding in the worshipper clean hands and an upright heart. Improvements in Domestic and in Interstate Law Moral progress showed itself in the better safeguarding of domestic peace by the establishment of competent courts for homicide and the abolition of the blood feud, by the improvement in the condition of women, involving the abolition of marriage by capture and purchase, and in the better protection of the masses from the brutality of aristocratic rule. In interstate relations piracy, once creditable, had fallen into disgrace, and was greatly limited by the rise of naval powers. In place of those undefined relations between states, which void of treaty and diplomatic representation, constantly tempted to hostilities, written truces, usually for a definite number of years, were substituted, and proved an invaluable aid to peace. Often states submitted their disputes to arbitration, and in all the known cases of this period both parties accepted the decision. More primitive in character, though but little less humane, was the custom of settling controversies through the battle of champions still occasionally employed. Generally captives were not massacred, as in earlier time, but held for ransom, or at the worst enslaved. The bodies of the dead were no longer mutilated or left a prey to dogs and birds, but were given back by the victors under a truce. As a rule, however, Greeks showed far greater humanity toward their own race than toward foreigners, whom they contemptuously termed barbarians. In brief a body of Hellenic law was developing, which under religious sanctions regulated the relations among the states of Hellas. Multiplication of Ethical Proverbs Examples of ethical truths may be found in the moral proverbs of the Seven Sages, among whom were Thales and so on. Know thyself, everything in moderation. It is hard to be a good man, and other such proverbs attributed to them were accepted as inspired rules of life. Hecied is the first who collected a moral code, and after him the elegiac and lyric poets abounded moral saws. In fact, the Greeks had come to be a moralizing people. Doubtless such proverbs were a great aid to write. Briefly it may be said that throughout this period, legislator, poet, scientific thinker, and practical sage, in their several ways, were exerting themselves for the moral improvement of mankind. The beginnings of historical thought. It remains to notice the view at this time coming to be taken of mankind's past. Little detail is given of the creation of human beings. Hecied simply informs us of the Golden Race, which the immortals originally produced, a race that knew no toil or sorrow or death, but passed away in sleep to become good spirits, eternal guardians of mortal men. Then ensued a silver race of inferior men, acquainted with sin and grief. Then a brazen race, warlike and insolent, slain by one another's hands, went down to the realm of Hades. Then came the juster race of heroes, who having fought round Troy, were gathered to the islands of the blast. Lastly arose the race of iron, among whom the poet lived. Neither by day shall there ever cease from weariness and woe, neither in the night from wasting, and sore cares shall the gods give them. The idea of an original Golden Age of moral purity and physical perfection from which mankind fell has a large place in the history of ancient thought. How the Greeks view the origin of their race. As to their own race, the Greeks of this period claimed to trace it from Prometheus, the heroic friend of man. His son was Ducalian, who with his wife Pyrrha were alone saved at the time of the Great Flood. They were the parents of Helen, the eponym of the Helanes. It was not until the time of Hesiod that the Greeks had become sufficiently conscious of their ethnic unity to group themselves thus under a single name. Helen's sons were Doris, Zuthos, and Aelis. By assuming that Zuthos had two sons, Achaus and Aeon, the Greeks of this period accounted for the names of the four races, Dorians, Achaeans, Ionians, and Aeolians, most prominent in early Hellenic history. Such eponyms were originally considered ancestors of their races, but came in time to be regarded as kings. The beginnings of historical and geographical literature. The process of weaving genealogies did not stop at the point above mentioned. Founders of cities, ruling dynasties, and individual gentes, had all to trace their pedigrees back to some hero and threw him to one of the greater gods. In an aristocratic society it was but natural that the interest in the past should center in pedigrees and project itself beyond recent generations to the beginnings of races and families. Among the genealogy mongers, who swarmed in every city, were a few who committed their results to writing. The earliest genealogist known to us by name was Cadmos of Miletus, a contemporary of Anaximander, and author of the Settlement of Ionia, about 550. The first genealogies to survive the present day are those of Acusalaeus of Argos, about 500. Such authors were described as logography, writers of prose. They merely converted into prose, extended and systematized the existing genealogical epics. They were the brood of Hesiod with the wings of their imagination clipped by the limitations of prose, with reason wide or awake, with a nascent critical power. The most imminent of the class was Hecateus of Miletus, who took an active part in public affairs during the Ionian Revolt. His genealogies must have contained, in addition to myths, some historical information in his Description of the Earth was for its day a geography of distinguished merit. An awakening consciousness of the distinction between myth and fact is proved by his own words. I write what I believe to be true, for the various stories of the Hellenes are, in my opinion, ridiculous. The logography, among whom he is numbered, were the connecting link between epic poetry and history, owing the equipment of their minds to the intellectual progress of the sixth century. The children of Hesiod, so to speak, and school-fellows with the earliest philosophers. Chapter 10 of Hellenic History 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 Sim. Hellenic History by George Willis Botsford Chapter 10 Conquest of the Asiatic Greeks by the Lydians and the Persians 560-493 Characteristic of Ionian political history It is a strange yet characteristic fact that the growth of the brilliant Ionian culture reviewed in the preceding chapters was accompanied as cause and effect by continued wars among the states which produced this splendid versatile life and by fiercer factional struggles within the individual cities. One example of internal conflict will suffice. In Malaysian territory the tillers of the soil were Gurgathe, a class of serfs who rebelled against their lords and gaining the upper hand but momentarily collected the young children of their masters on threshing floors and crushed them under the hooves of oxen. Regaining control, the lords smeared the captive Gurgathe with pitch and burned them alive. So deadly was the antipathy of classes. Everywhere the primitive kingship had passed away. In some states aristocracy survived. In others democracy had gained the upper hand but in the general internal weakness the republics were giving way, one after another to tyranny. Civil discord and interstate warfare while stimulating the mind to intense productivity rendered the Asiatic Greeks wholly unfit to defend themselves against foreign aggression. Lydia and the Anatolian Greeks. The need of united action increased with the growth of Lydia in the interior of Asia Minor to a strong aggressive power under King Gagas about 660. That country was rich in gold and the inhabitants by manufacturing and by overland trade with Asia had accumulated great wealth. The delicacies of their life however afforded little hindrance to the policy of conquest adopted by Gagas. It was probably in resistance to Lydian aggression that 12 cities of Ionia joined in a league, whose centre was the Pan-Ionian, a shrine of Poseidon on the promontory of Michael. In a spirit of exclusiveness, they styled themselves groundlessly the only true Ionians and would admit no other states of their union. The Aeolians and the Dorians of Asia Minor formed similar leagues but the idea of inviting all the Asiatic Greeks under a single government seems to have occurred to no one. On critical occasions the deputies of the allied Ionian states met at the Pan-Ionian to deliberate on the common welfare but the central government possessed no means of enforcing harmonious or efficient action. Lydian conquest of the Greeks. Under these circumstances Gagas succeeded in taking Colophon, one of their cities. The conquest was completed by Croesus a later king about 560 to 546 who incorporated the Greeks of the Asiatic coast in his realm. Miletus alone, which had taken no part in the resistance, remained an ally under treaty. In far earlier times the Lydians had given the Greeks their useful arts and were now adopting the Hellenic culture. Though differing in language the two peoples were coming therefore to possess essentially the same civilisation and were closely allied in commercial and social intercourse. Croesus made the burden of his tribute on the Greeks light and favoured their shrines with rich votive offerings. Under him Lydia reached the height of her prosperity and attained to the magnitude of an empire. To the tributes which poured in from all the people's west of the Halis River was added a rich gold revenue from the sands of the Pactolus. Relying on his material resources the prosperous king made ready to contend with the Persian empire newly arisen on his eastern border. The Assyrian Empire to 606. From about the beginning of the middle age the great power of Asia had been Assyria. Early in the 7th century she had conquered Egypt. After this event her empire extended from above Memphis on the Nile nearly to the Caspian Sea and from the Persian Gulf to the Black Sea. This was the first conquering state to follow a systematic policy of organisation. She divided her subject territories into provinces, satrapies, each under a governor or satrap. Pointed by the Assyrian king the functions of the satrap were military, judicial and general administrative, including a supervision of the tributes. Under him were native kings who enjoyed far less freedom than had been possible in earlier and more loosely organised empires. It was also the policy of the central government to transplant great numbers of the newly conquered from one part of the empire to another with a view to uprooting local patriotism and of making the subject peoples more dependent. A state so thoroughly predatory in its aims is doomed sooner or later to decay. Thus it happened that in 606 the Assyrian capital Nineveh was taken by a combination of the highly civilised Babylonians with the Mades, a fresh virile Indo-European people. The Median and the Persian empires 605 to 546 then arose two empires the Babylonian on the south of Hizra Asia and the Median in the north. The latter included Persia and by rapid conquest extended its western border to the Halis river. With this boundary the Mades might have been satisfied but suddenly 550 their king was overthrown by an uprising of the Persians under Cyrus. This revolution making the Median empire Persian placed in control a still more vigorous aggressive Indo-European race of mountaineers under a leader of extraordinary genius and ambition. Cyrus defeated Croesus in two battles seized Sardis his capital and took the proud king Cactiv. Lydia became a part of the Persian empire 546. The Persian conquest of the Anatolian Greeks 546 to 538 the Aeolians and Ionians were loath to exchange their benevolent king for the new Persian conqueror. Having treated his messengers coldly at the beginning of the war they now sought from him the same terms of subjection as they had received from Croesus. He refused whereupon they began to wall their towns and calling a council at the Pan-Ionian the Ionians resolved to ask the aid of Sparta now the strongest power in Greece. The Lacedaemonians could not think of so distant an enterprise. It is said however that they sent an embassy to warn Cyrus at his peril not to harm any city of Helus. The Persian king treated the message with contempt. Arpagus, his lieutenant entrusted with the work of conquering the Greeks laid siege to their cities one by one and captured them unwilling to submit the Fascians sailed away in a body to find a colony in Corsica. In like manner the people of Teos abandoning their city founded Abdera in Thrace. The rest of the Ionians with the exception of the Malaysians who had allied themselves with Cyrus submitted and most of the neighboring islands followed their example. Gradually all Asia Minor was conquered and incorporated in the Persian empire. Meantime after conquering Babylon Cyrus met death in battle with the Barbarians on his north eastern frontier. Darius, 521 to 485. Organization of the Empire during the reign of Cambyses Sun and successor of Cyrus 529 to 522. The Persians made no great extension of their territory to the west but directed themselves mainly to the acquisition of Egypt. Cambyses died by a self-inflicted wound and after a brief interval Darius, a distant relative came to the throne. This king is famous chiefly for his organization of the empire. Enlarging on a policy begun by Cyrus he divided the entire area accepting Persia into 20 large satrapies. The Persian Satrap had essentially the same functions as the Assyrian officer of that title had formally exercised. Naturally the king interfered at will in all local affairs. A necessary element of control is to be found in the splendid system of well-kept roads which Darius built from his capital Sousa to all important points on the frontier. The king's eye and near relative of the sovereign invested with great dignity and military power served as a royal inspector. Not only the roads but also an excellent system of gold and silver coins favored the growth of commerce. At the same time Darius took great pains to preserve internal peace and protect his empire from invasion. The government was less predatory in aim than that of Assyria and we find in Darius a rare benevolence towards his subjects. The place of the Greeks in the empire all the Greeks on the Aegean coast of Asia Minor together with some neighboring peoples constituted the Ionian Satrapy. It was placed under an officer who from his capital Sardis governed also the Lydian Satrapy. The Asiatic Greeks paid tribute to the Persian king as they formally had to Croesus. In addition they were required to perform military and naval service. The conqueror did not interfere with their religion or their habits of life or their city organizations but everywhere set up tyrants devoted to himself. The Greeks however were no longer the favored people of their king. In fact no cultural or religious sympathies were possible between Helens and Persians, a far less civilized people whose religion knew no images or gay festivities but consisted in an internal warfare between good and evil. Greeks too were humiliated by their insignificant place in a gigantic empire which embraced the East Mediterranean countries and extended into India and Central Asia. Their land forces marched with the Motley army of Asiatics and their fleets were arrayed with those of Phoenicia and Egypt under officers of the king. Their new position gave them internal peace protection from enemies and the advantage of commerce with the Orient by Landansi but irritated their pride and repressed their genius which could only thrive in freedom. Invasion of Europe by Darius about 513. The empire was exposed on the northwestern frontier to the raids of the nomadscythians who occupied the region north of the Black Sea. After trying in vain to check the inroads Darius seems to have conceived the idea of attacking these restless enemies in their rear from the european side and perhaps of conquering them in a return march through their country. If so he must have greatly underrated the difficulties of the expedition. However that may be he led a great army across the Bosphorus on a bridge of boats prepared for by Asamian architect. Thence he marched to the Danube which he crossed on a similar bridge made from the fleets of the Ionian tyrants. As the Scythians would not meet Darius in open battle but harassed his army interminably and as provisions and water were insufficient the invasion of Scythia ended in disaster. With great loss Darius retreated into Asia. One of his generals however Magabazus left behind with 80,000 men conquered the Thracian coast from the Propontis to the Strymon river. Relations between Persia and Athens the positive result of the Scythian expedition was accordingly the conquest by Darius of a part of European Hellas. There could be no doubt that the Persians following their usual policy would endeavor to continually to push their boundary forward in this direction. The people of the Greek mainland who most sensitively felt the approaching danger were the Athenians for their two colonies in the Hellespontic region Sygeum and Chursoneus were now lost to them through Persian aggression. They knew too that their exile tyrant Hippias now at Sygeum but hoping to be restored through Persian aid was doing his utmost to persuade Artefernes Sotrap of Sardis to an expedition against Athens. When some years earlier the Athenians had expelled their tyrant and had restored a republican form of government they were assailed by the Peloponnesians. Under these circumstances they had sent ambassadors to Sardis to seek an alliance with Persia. Artefernes expressed his willingness on condition of their giving Darius earth and water the tokens of submission. They agreed but in returning home they were severely censored and their promise was repudiated. Hearing now of the machinations of Hippias they sent a second embassy to counteract his influence. Artefernes abruptly ordered them to receive Hippias back if they wished to escape ruin. Thereupon the Athenians who had no idea of accepting the proposal felt that a state of war existed between them and Persia. Causes of the Ionic Revolt. Aristogras at Sparta. No long time afterward Aristogras tyrant of Miletus took advantage of party strife in Naxos to attempt the conquest of that island. By holding out great promises he enlisted the aid of Artefernes. The enterprise failed and the tyrant could only expect the severest punishment for his broken word. His sole way of escape led through revolt. To him it was clear that the Asiatic Greeks were chafing under Persian rule and ready on the slightest pretext for liberty. Hecateus the historian and geographer warned them of the overwhelming superiority of Persia. They paid him no heed but readily followed Aristogras in revolt. The Ionic Revolt 499-494. Aristogras at Sparta. Abdicating his tyranny and accepting a constitutional office Aristogras proceeded to overthrow the despots in the remaining Ionic cities. All Ionia were soon free from tyranny and committed to a hopeless rebellion. Aristogras went personally to Lassidamen to ask for an alliance. Herodotus represents him as appealing to King Cleomenes in the following terms. That the sons of the Ionians should be slaves instead of free as a reproach and grief most of all indeed to ourselves. But of all others most to you, in as much as ye are the leaders of Helas. Now therefore I entreat you by gods of Helas to rescue from slavery the Ionians who are your own kinsmen and ye may easily achieve this thing for the barbarians are not brave in fight whereas ye have attained to the highest point of valour in war. Furthermore their fighting is with bows and arrows and a short spear and they go into battle wearing trousers. For this reason they are easily conquered. Then in detail he pointed out on the map he had brought with him the road from the Ionian coast to Sousa and described the wealth that would fall to the conqueror. Cleomenes, an ambitious king seems to have been personally favourable to the undertaking but the Lassidamonians could not think of so distant an expedition. The arguments and bribes of the smooth Ionian were accordingly rejected. Aristogras at Athens. There upon Aristogras went to Athens where he found conditions more favourable to himself. Losses of territory and the threats of Artefernes had stirred the Athenians to anger. Furthermore the men who supported the reforms of Cleisthenes who hated Tyrannians stood loyally for the independence of the city. Forming what we may describe as a Republican party were willing to try the issue of war with Persia. It was better to fight at a distance and with allies than to bear alone the shock of inevitable invasion. Their kinship and commercial relations with Ionia led them in the same direction. They resolved therefore to send 20 ships which were reinforced by two from Eritrea. Looking upon the war as a full Haidae undertaking Herodotus bitterly complains that it was easier for Aristogras to deceive 30,000 Athenians than one Spartan and that the ships dispatched to the war proved to be the beginning of evils for the Helens and the Barbarians. The burning of Sardis 498. The crews of these vessels joined with the Ionians in an attack on Sardis. They burned the city but failing to take the citadel they were forced to retreat. On their way to the coast they were overtaken and defeated by the Persians at Ephesus. Thereupon the Athenians returned home and would have nothing more to do with the war. This conduct proves not fickleness of purpose but the defective character of the popular assembly as an instrument for the management of foreign relations. The friends of Hippias were always numerous and the change of a few timid votes from the republican to the tyrannous party was sufficient to give the latter the control. As the republicans were ready for war the tyrannists were eager for peace. The defeat at Laid 497. Its effect on Athens. The burning of Sardis encouraged the revolt which rapidly spread to all western Asia Minor, Thrace and Cyprus. At the same time it roused Darius to extra ordinary efforts for the suppression of the rebellion. The decisive battle was fought off Laid near Miletus between the Greek and Phoenician fleets 353 against 600 ships according to Herodotus. Shurking the drill necessary to efficient action the Greeks preferred to waste their time in the shade. Discipline and united action were therefore impossible. Many Greeks listened to secret overcharge from their exiled tyrant now with the enemy and the result was inevitably utter ruin. If this battle was fought in 497 we can understand the feeling which the news of defeat excited at Athens. Reconciliation with Persia seemed a necessity. The tyrannist party was so strengthened that it elected to the archonship for 496 Hipparchus a kinsman of Hippias. This was a step towards recalling the tyrant Siege of Miletus 494. Meantime the Persians had laid close blockade to Miletus. After a long siege they captured and sacked the city. After killing most of the men they transplanted the rest of the population in Asiatic style to the mouth of the Tigris. In another year the entire rebellion was suppressed. In many instances cities were plundered and destroyed and the remnants of the population carried into captivity. Significance of the fall of Miletus. It would be difficult to overrate the significance of these events. For centuries the Ionians had been the standard bearers of the world's civilization. Miletus the home of commerce and industry and of the fine arts of poetry and science. The most brilliant city in Helas was blotted out of existence. Since the decay of the Minoan civilization human progress had not experienced so severe a blow. Fortunately however other mines and hands were ready to take up the thought and seal of Ionia and to carry it to a far higher reach of perfection. Effect of the event on Athens. It is worthwhile for us to notice how sensitive was the political atmosphere of Athens to the happenings across the sea. When Frenicus had composed a drama called The Capture of Miletus and had put it on the stage the spectators fell to weeping and the Athenians find the poet a thousand drachmas on the ground that he had reminded them of their own misfortunes and they ordered that in future no one should present this drama. To them here to fall the thought of submission to Persia had meant no more than tyranny and the payment in tribute. The poet made them vividly see the horrors which attended the Persian triumph over a city of kindred blood and which surely impended over themselves. They would have no more tyrannist politics. In this frame of mind they elected to the archon ship for 493 to 2 an uncompromising advocate of war for the defense of the Republic. A man of marvellous energy and mental resources, Themistocles. Themistocles archon 493 to 2. He belonged to the gents of the Lycomidae highly reverenced for its priestly functions though hitherto without political importance. His father Neoclese was probably a merchant and Themistoclese was himself accounted a keen man of business. An obstacle in his way was the circumstance that he laid out for himself a political path which coincided with the aims of neither the tyrannists nor the Republicans, the two great parties of the time. His support came from mercantile class who were in a better position than others to appreciate his aims and from the masses in whose hearts his patriotism awakened a responsive echo. For the control of the sea Peraeus. At this early date he seems to have understood the weak point in any effort of Persia to conquer Greece. The country was too barren to feed an invading army large enough to crush the liberty loving inhabitants. It would be essential therefore to the Persian king's success to keep control of the sea in order to supply his army with provisions. Themistocles saw the practicability of building a Hellenic fleet large enough to gain the supremacy of the sea. Thus Helas would be saved and his own city raised to a towering preeminence. His year of office he devoted accordingly to improving the three natural harbours of Peraeus as a home for the great Athenian fleet of which he dreamed. He was in fact the first to call attention to the advantages of Peraeus over the open roadstead at the philarium with which Athenian merchants had thus far satisfied themselves. His far-reaching vision was all the more remarkable from the circumstance that during his official year the Persians were actually attempting an invasion of Greece by way of Thrace and Macedon. End of chapter 10. Chapter 11 of Hellenic History 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 Morgan Scorpion. Hellenic History by George Willis Botsford Chapter 11. The War with Persia and Carthage 492-479 The underlying cause of the war between Persia and Greece. The fundamental cause of the great war between Greece and the Asiatic Empire lay in the Persian policy of conquest. The chief interest in Oriental empire building had always been predatory. The acquisition of slaves and other booty, attending the subjugation of a country, as well as the tributes thereafter permanently imposed. Each king desired too to excel his predecessor in the glory of triumphant war, and Darius was himself not only an organiser but conqueror, intent upon pushing his imperial boundary westward as well as in other directions. The subjugation of Asia Minor had been followed by the invasion of Europe and the annexation of the Thracian coast. An attempt had been made on Naxos and the near lying Aegean islands. Steadily by land and sea the empire was approaching the Greek peninsula. Undoubtedly Darius placed a high value on the Helens as mariners, artisans and artists, and probably overestimated the wealth of the country. These circumstances alone would suffice to explain his invasions of Greece. In the Ionic revolt, moreover, was involved an additional motive. He could never hope to keep his Asiatic Greeks submissive so long as their European kinsmen were free to interfere with encouragement and aid to rebellion. It was not mere anger at the Athenians then for having joined in the burning of Sardis, as Herodotus represents, but a well-founded policy which prompted Darius to punish Athens and Eritrea for their meddling in his imperial affairs. The expedition of Mardonius, 492. In the year immediately following the suppression of the Ionian revolt, accordingly Darius sent his son-in-law Mardonius at the head of a large army through Thrace against Greece. It was supported by a fleet which described a parallel movement along the coast. The avowed purpose was the punishment of Athens and Eritrea, but a wider object is proved by the conquest of Thasos and Macedon. While encamped in the latter country, the invading army suffered great loss from an attack by the Thracians, and at nearly the same time the fleet was shattered in an attempt to round Mount Athos. Mardonius, accordingly, led his expedition home in Disgrace and was deposed from his command. The King demands submission, the condition of Hellas. This disaster left a stain upon the king's glory, which had by all means to be wiped off. He began forthwith to prepare a greater armament. At the same time he sent heralds among the Greek states to demand earth and water. Determined upon making himself master of all Hellas, he wished first to separate the willingly submissive from those against whom he should have to apply force. Hopeless of resistance, the island has yielded, and many of the mainland acted likewise. Among the more independent states which thus medised were the Thessalian cities, Thebes, doubtless irritated by the aggressions of Athens, and Argos through enmity to Lachodemon. With the exception of Aegina, the Peloponnesian League, directed by King Cleomanes, stood firmly loyal. It had been joined some years earlier by Athens, and from the Arkonship of Themistocles, we discover a close understanding between his city and Lachodemon as to the maintenance of a consistent attitude towards Persia. On the complaint of Athens, now at war with Aegina, Cleomanes attempted in vain to punish the leading medisers of that island. We recognize in this proceeding an acknowledgement of Lachodemon as the leading state of Hellas, bested with the right and duty of enforcing loyalty. Pessimism in Hellas, desperate measures of Athens and Sparta. In most respects conditions inspired no hope in the successful resistance to the overwhelming Persian power. The royal states formed but a small fraction of Hellas, and even in them were strong minorities who were willing to yield to escape what seemed inevitable destruction. Extraordinary measures were taken to nullify their influence. The story was afterward told that at Athens the King's heralds were thrown into the Barathron, at Sparta into Orwell, with the order to take thence earth and water to their lord. By violating the sacred persons of ambassadors, the authorities aimed to cut off every hope of reconciliation with Darius, and thus to commit their states irrevocably to a life-and-death struggle for freedom. Athenian preparation. Miltiades. The Athenians exerted themselves to the utmost to prepare for the impending invasion. Their most effective measure at this crisis was the election of Miltiades to the Board of Generals. His uncle of the same name had ruled the Athenian colony of Cursonisi under the Paisis Stratidae. Ultimately the government of the colony devolved upon the nephew Miltiades, who made himself tyrant, and strengthened his dynasty by a marriage with the daughter of a neighbouring Thracian chief. During the Scythian expedition he had been forced to serve under Darius, but had afterward joined the Ionians in revolt, thus incurring the implacable enmity of Persia. After the collapse of the revolt he fled for his life to Athens. Scarcely arrived in his native land, in the Arkonship of Themistocles, he was brought to trial on the capital charge of having usurped the tyranny in Cursonisi. His prosecutor must have been one of the Republican statesman in sympathy with Themistocles. Among the arguments which led to his acquittal were most probably his recent acquisition of Lemnos for Athens, his known enmity to Persia, and the hope of his future youthfulness as a man well acquainted with the military affairs of the enemy. Athenian Commanders and Army 490. It speaks well to the sobriety of the Athenians that they suppressed party feelings to acquit this anti-Republican, elect him to the generalship, and provide him with congenial colleagues on the board and in the office of Paul March. Under his guidance the Athenians abandoned the naval program of Themistocles to devote their whole attention to the heavy infantry. The army of the Reborn Republic, in the crisis attending the reforms of Pleistones, had gallantly overcome a coalition of powerful neighbours. It was efficiently organised and equipped, and though it lacked the professional training of Spartans, no force in the world of that time could compare with it in military spirit. The Persian invasion, capture of Eritrea. In the summer of 490, an Asiatic fleet, conveying a land force of infantry and cavalry, moved westward across the Aegean Sea. It was commanded by Datus, Amid, and Artophanes, and Nephew of Darius. Most of the islanders along their route submitted. The immediate object was to subdue Eritrea and Athens, and bring the inhabitants as slaves into the presence of the great king. After a siege of six days Eritrea was betrayed by two of her people. The city was sacked and the population taken captive. The landing at Marathon, the message to Sparta. From Eritrea the Persians, under the guidance of the aged Hippias, crossed over to Marathon on the coast northeast of Athens. Hearing of this movement, the Athenians dispatched Phidipides, a professional long-distance runner, to Sparta to ask aid. Reaching Sparta the day after setting out, he said to the magistrates, Raccodamonians, the Athenians ask you to come to their aid and not allow so ancient a Hellenic city to be enslaved by the Barbarians, for already Eritrea has fallen into slavery and Hellas has been weakened by the loss of no mean city. The Raccodamonians, says Herodotus, were eager to give aid, but a religious law forbade their departure before the full moon. The Battle of Marathon, 490. Meanwhile the Athenian army had marched to Marathon and had encamped in a narrow valley facing the Persians, who were in the plain adjoining the shore. There they were strengthened by a small force from Plataea, their ally. The Athenian commander was Callimachus, the Polarmarch, whose council of war comprised a group of ten generals, including Militiades. It was decided to give the chief command to the latter because of his great experience and his knowledge of the Persians. The situation was such that should the Persians take the road to Athens the Athenians could attack them in the flank. After several days of waiting the invaders moved against their enemy's position. They were furnished with bows and short swords and wore but slight defensive armor, whereas the Athenians were heavy armed and depended upon their long spears for attack. Understanding well the strength and weakness of the opposing force, Militiades held his men back till the hours of the enemy began to reach them, whereupon he ordered them to charge at a run. Thus they avoided long exposure to the hours and came most speedily to close quarters. Wholly unprepared for hand to hand fighting, the Persians retreated with great loss to their ships. After a vain attempt to surprise Athens by an attack from Falarum, the invading armament sailed back to Asia. A force of Lachydemunians arriving too late for the fray could only express their appreciation of the brave work of their allies. Effects of the victory. There were perhaps ten thousand Athenians engaged in this battle, and in numbers the Persians were certainly superior. The moral effect of the victory was tremendous. Up to this time the very name of the Medes was to the Hellinis a terror to hear, but it was now demonstrated that the Greek warrior was superior to the Persian. The westward advance of the Asiatic empire was halted, and the Greeks were inspired with a fair hope of maintaining their freedom. To the Athenians, who almost single handed had beaten a power thought to be irresistible, this victory served as an incentive to heroism and enwrapped the Marathonian warriors in an unfading glory. The end of Miltiades. During the next few years the history of Athens centers in the conflict of personalities and of parties. For the moment the victory made her people forget all other leading statesmen in their admiration for the general who had won it. Taking advantage of their confidence, Miltiades persuaded them to entrust to him a fleet of seventy ships, saying he would lead his countrymen to a place where they could enrich themselves, but not letting them know definitely his purpose. With this armament he sailed against the Parians, on whom he levied a fine of a hundred talents for having joined the enemy in attacking Athens. On their refusal to pay he besieged the island but failed to capture it and returned home wounded to disappoint the hopes of all. Thereupon he was tried for his life before the popular assembly on the charge of having deceived the Athenians. He was condemned, but because of his former services the punishment was mitigated to a fine of fifty talents. The condemned man died of his wound and the fine was paid by his son Caiman. Miltiades had embarked on a policy of aggrandising his state by the conquest of the medizing islanders. Had the undertaking succeeded the Athenians would undoubtedly have approved the policy and the conqueror might have made himself tyrant. His failure gave his enemies their opportunity to strike him down. His prosecutor was Zansipus, a republican statesman, who had allied himself with the Alchmionidae by his marriage with Agoristi, niece of Pleistones, the struggle of republicans and tyranists. The republican leaders must have considered the overthrow of Miltiades a great victory for the constitution. Gradually, however, the tyranists, who had not long remained in the background and who had contented themselves during the invasion with secret encouragement to the enemy, began to make themselves again felt in politics, and perhaps about the same time the Athenians learned of preparations by the enemy for another attack. In the spring of 487, accordingly, the republicans turned in great fury upon the tyranists and ostracised their leader Hipparchus, a retired archon, and kinsman of Hippias. This was the first application of ostracism, a great constitutional change. It is clear, too, that many prominent republicans were now bent on making the constitution more democratic. This wing of the party was represented by Aristides, who had been archon the year after the Battle of Marathon. Shortly after the ostracism of Hipparchus, these progressives brought about the adoption of a law according to which the archons, instead of being elected, should be taken by lot from nominees furnished by the demes. The measure had a democratic appearance in that it gave all the qualified an equal chance for the office, whereas, in fact, it degraded the archonship by filling it with men of mediocre ability. Henceforth no eminent man ever held the office. The nine archons seized forthwith to be the chief magistrates, and the polymark lost his command of the army. The headship of the state passed to the ten generals. Statesmen who promoted this measure had held the archonship once, and were forbidden by law to repeat it, but the generalship they could hold as often as the people were willing to elect them to it, and perhaps this was the leading motive to the innovation. Conservatives and Democrats, end of the tyrannists. On this issue the Republicans split into two parties. Those who favored the change were thereafter to be known as Democrats. Their opponents were conservatives. Naturally the alchemyonidae wished to preserve the Cleisthenin legislation unchanged, and therefore took the lead of the conservatives. Megacles, nephew of Cleisthenes, was ostracized in the spring of 486, probably because of his opposition to the reform. His being classed with the friends of the tyrants points to a political deal with that party. But the tyrannists were thoroughly demoralized by the ostracism of another leader, not known by name, in the following year. The faction, accordingly, disappeared from history, its members joining the other two parties according to their several inclinations. Undoubtedly the conservatism of Zanthippus led to his ostracism in 484. By means of the slender thread furnished us by Aristotle, we have followed darkly the course of a mighty political battle for the Constitution and for progress. When the light of history breaks upon the field, we see a thought the ruin of tyrannists and conservatives, the two great victors in the struggle. Aristides and Themistocles. The naval and financial questions. Themistocles against Aristides. Again Athenian politics turned on the question of war with Persia, for it was now known that preparations were far advanced for a new and greater expedition. Themistocles again urged the creation of a navy, and advised that the surplus in the treasury from silver mines in Llorium be used for the purpose. Aristides, on the other hand, was content with the army, which had won so great a victory. Down to this time the Athenians seemingly never entertained a thought of devoting any extraordinary gain to the benefit of the state. Whenever Aristides or any of his countrymen ascended the Acropolis he could see on the left as he entered the gateway a bronze chariot and four, which some years earlier his people had dedicated from the spoils of a victory gained over neighbors, and more recently from the booty of Marathon they had erected a neat little treasury of the Athenians at Delphi, though it would have been far better to employ these proceeds to a naval fund. The inhabitants of the island of Sifnos had long been accustomed to divide among themselves the revenues from their mines, and probably this was the general practice in early Greece. It would accord perfectly with the later policy of Aristides to assume that he was among those who favored an equal division of the revenue from the Attic mines among the citizens. When the conflict between the two statesmen became bitter, Aristides was ostracised and went to live in Edina, then at war with Athens. The naval decree of Themistocles 482. About the same time the naval decree of Themistocles providing for the building of a hundred triremes was adopted by the assembly. Forty-seven more were added before the great naval conflict came. The motive of Themistocles was purely patriotic, to defend the freedom of Hellas and to make his own state a great power. The democratic effect could hardly have been foreseen. In fact, so far as one class more than another benefited by the measure, it was the merchants through whose cooperation Themistocles carried his decree. When we consider the obstacles he had to overcome in securing its adoption, as well as the far-reaching results, we can hardly doubt that it was the most splendid individual achievement of statesmanship up to that time known to the world. Xerxes prepares a gigantic invasion. The Battle of Marathon shook the military prestige of the great king and encouraged rebellion within the empire. The conquest of Greece became, accordingly, even more than ever, a question of practical necessity as well as of honour. Preparations for a new invasion, however, were suspended by the revolt of Egypt and the death of Darius, 486. After the reconquest of that country, Xerxes, son and successor of the deceased king, devoted himself to gathering the whole available strength of the empire with a view to overwhelming Greece by the force of numbers. Mardonius was pardoned for his earlier failure. As his route was to be followed, engineers and workmen were soon engaged in bridging the helispont with boats, and in cutting a canal through the Isthmus of Mount Athos, for the ships were on this occasion to avoid the fatal promontory. As the army could subsist only in small part on the invaded country, great depots of provisions were established along the projected route. The care and pains expended on the provisioning and equipment of the expedition were extraordinary. In the autumn of 481, the nations of the empire were pouring their motley forces into Asia Minor, and ships were preparing in all the Mediterranean harbours subjects to Persia. With his great host Xerxes wintered at Sardis in expectation of setting out in earliest spring. Winter of 481 to 480, the that of preparation throughout Hellas. Thus far, outside of Athens, the Greek had begun no preparation to resist the invader, and no further progress had been made towards unity. The heralds of Xerxes, as they passed to and throw throughout Hellas during the winter preceding the invasion, found many states ready to purchase safety by the gift of earth and water. The pack of the ship was the ship of earth and water. The Patriot cause could place no reliance on Thessaly, Thebes or Argos, or on the less progressive states of the centre and west of the peninsula, or on the numerous widely scattered islands. Gelen, tyrant of Syracuse, might have given powerful aid, but had to face a Carthaginian attack. The Brunt was to be borne by the Peloponnesian League, Athens, and a few small communities on the peninsula and the neighbouring islands, and even here the prevailing sentiment was nearly akin to despair. The Hellenic Congress at Corinth, autumn of 481. Under these circumstances, deputies from the loyal states met at Corinth to concert meshes for defence. The call had been issued by Lackadiman, but at the suggestion of Athens, undoubtedly on the motion of Themistocles. It was on his initiative, too, that this Congress, when assembled, resolved that all enmities among the states there represented should be reconciled. In pursuance of this resolution, Athens clasped hands with her inveterate enemy, Aegina. Another act provided for dispatching envoys to the unrepresented Hellenic states to invite their adhesion to the cause, and for sending spies to the camp of Xerxes. The embassies accomplished nothing worthy of mention, but the spies, captured by the Persians, were, under order of the king, shown everything in the camp, and dismissed in the expectation that their report of his immense army would induce the Greeks to yield without resistance. It was resolved further by the Hellenic Congress to wage war in common against Persia, and in the event of victory to destroy those Hellenic states which should willingly medize, divide their property as spoil, and dedicate a tenth to the Delphic Apollo. The Congress conferred the chief command by sea, as well as by land, on Sparta, to whose leadership most of the states had long been accustomed. There can be no doubt that the proceedings of this Congress were directed by the mighty spirit of Themistocles, and that his determination to fight out the issue on the sea was accepted by all concerned. Xerxes crosses the Helispont, his army and fleet. In the spring of 480, Xerxes led his army across the Helispont, and began his march through Thrace. His numbers continually increased by local reinforcements, while the Great Fleet accompanied him along the coast. The numbers given by Herodotus amounting to more than five millions, including non-combatants, and on the sea twelve hundred and seven warships, is an enormous exaggeration, though modern scholars have not thus far agreed as to actualities. A moderate estimate would be a hundred thousand fighting men in the land force, and about six hundred ships of war. The Battle of Thermopylae, 480. Xerxes entered Thessaly unopposed, whereupon the states of this district under the lead of medising oligarchs passed over to his side. In accordance with the Themistoclean plan of campaign, the Greek fleet took up its station at Artemisium, of northern Euboea, to meet the Persian fleet, while a force of about six thousand Greeks under Leonidas, king of Sparta, occupied the pass of Thermopylae to check the progress of the land army. In that narrow road between the Malian Gulf and the steep mountain side, where numbers did not count, the strong armor and long spears of the Greeks might have held the Persian host indefinitely at bay, but after several days of unsuccessful assaulting in front, a traitor led a detachment along an obscure byway over the mountain to the rear of the Hellenic force. The encounter at Artemisium, 480. When the Greek position thus became untenable, Leonidas prudently dismissed all his allies, retaining only the three hundred Spartans who were with him, for a law of their country forbade the Spartans to flee from an enemy. Their battle to death was the noblest even in the history of their city. Over the hero's graves the Amphicteonic Council inscribed this epitoc. Stranger, report this word, we pray, to the Spartans. That lying here in this spot we remain, faithfully keeping their laws. To the rest of the Greeks this heroic example was the most powerful of all commands, to keep their freedom or die in the attempt. Meanwhile the Hellenes at Artemisium were encouraged by successful engagements with the enemy and by the damaging of the Persian fleet in a storm. When, however, they learned that Xerxes had forced the pass at Thermopylae, they felt compelled to withdraw, though they had fought no decisive battle. The total result of these conflicts by sea and land was victory to the Persians, and a strengthening of the Greek hope that under more favourable conditions the struggle might yet be successful. The Delphic Oracle Xerxes was now advancing through Boise towards Athens and the states of central Greece were flocking to his standard. As the Hellenic fleet was retiring to Salamis, Themistocles returned to his city to find it full of gloom. Earlier in the invasion, when rumours of the irresistible oncoming of the enemy troubled their decision, the Athenians sent to inquire with the Delphic Apollo what hope they might cherish or what course pursue, and the Messengers were commanded by dire prophecies of ruin and slaughter ending in the command. Fourth with you, forth from the shrine, and steep your soul in sorrow. Naturally the prudent men who controlled the Oracle could see no result of the war save the utter conquest of Greece. But the Messengers returned as suppliants to the temple, declaring they would remain there to death unless a more favourable response were given. Then in the story of Herodotus the god mercifully offered a ray of hope. Pallas has not been able to soften the Lord of Olympus, though she has often prayed him and urged him with excellent counsel. Yet once more I address thee in words than adamant firma, when the foe shall have taken whatever the limit of khet crops holds within it, and all that divine kither on shelters, then far-seeing Zeus grants this to the prayers of Athena. Safe shall the wooden wall continue for thee and thy children. Wait not the tramp of the horse nor the footman mightily moving over the land, but turn your back to the foe and retiree. Yet shall a day arrive when ye shall meet him in battle. Holy Salamis thou shalt destroy the offspring of women, when men scatter the seed, or when they gather the harvest. The Athenians abandoned their country. When this Oracle was brought to Athens some were of the opinion that the wooden wall had reference to the palisade around the Acropolis and accordingly took refuge there. Themistocles, however, declared that it meant the fleet, and so persuaded the Athenians to abandon their homes and trust everything to their ships. The removal of the population and personal property was supervised by the Council of the Areopagias, now filled with Patriots and directed by Themistocles and his associates. No one has tried to tell of the pain and heartburnings of the sufferings of the sick and the aged, of the energy and the unselfish devotion of the strong attending this evacuation, or has tried to estimate the tremendous moral effect on the community. Some idea of the event we might form by imagining the removal of the population of an entire coast state with our greater resources in the face of invading Asiatics. Some of the fugitives remained in Salamis and Aegean, but the greater number were carried over to Troism. The people of that city voted them an allowance of two obols each for their daily support, an additional sum for the education of their children, and for the latter, the privilege of picking fruit from any man's tree. The Hellenic Fleet in the Bay of Salamis The Hellenic Fleet hearted in the Bay of Salamis to cover the Athenian Retreat, with the intention, too, of making there a further stand against the enemy. The place was well chosen, for the enemy would be compelled to fight in the strait, where superior numbers would not count. Further retreat would in fact be almost equivalent to abandoning the cause, for it would leave the enemy free to land troops on the coast of Peloponnes in the rear of the Isthmus, and the Peloponnes in the rear of the Isthmian line of defence then being prepared. Reinforcements more than made good the loss. The Hellenis had above 300 triremes besides smaller vessels. The Athenian contingent was far the largest. Not only was the fleet at the command of Persia, made up of Phoenician, Egyptian, Ionian, and lesser contingents, superior in numbers according to all ancient accounts, but the ships were better built and the crews more experienced. Ancient writers are agreed that the only real advantage on the Hellenic side was in spirit and resolution. Recently, however, it has been suggested with some degree of reason that in the actual battle the Greeks may have outnumbered their enemy. The eve of the battle. Meanwhile Xerxes had reached Athens, having laid waste the country along his route. From Salamis the Greeks could see the city in flames, and their scouts aspired the Persian fleet at anchor in the bay of Balaron. These circumstances tended for the moment to lessen the courage of the Greeks and to suggest to the admirals the prudence of retiring to the Isthmus where they could cooperate with the land forces. Themistocles, however, used all the resources of his reason and eloquence to persuade Uribaides to remain. He even threatened, in case of retreat, to withdraw his ships and use them in conveying the Athenians to a new home in Italy. While thus pleading with the admirals, he took measures to bring on a Persian attack as soon as possible. Secretly dispatching a trusty slave to Xerxes, he falsely informed the king that the Greeks, panic-stricken, were about to sail away and urging him to cut off their retreat. The advice was taken, and the Hellenic fleet was blocked up in the bay. About the same time the army of Xerxes on its march towards Peloponnesus had reached a bay of Salamis and encamped on the shore. The story is told that the news of these movements was brought to the Greek headquarters on Salamis by Aristides, who was just returning from Aegina, for early in the spring of that year the Athenians had decreed an amnesty to their exiles. The Battle of Salamis, 480 In their resolution to fight, the Greeks had high hopes of success, for conditions were now more favorable than they had been at Artemisium. The story of the battle is clearly ambividly narrated by the poet Aeschylus, who served among the Athenians. The speaker is a messenger to the king's mother and her counsellors at Sousa. And night passed by, yet did the Hellenic host essay in no wise any secret flight, but when the day by white steed chariot-born, radiant to sea, flooded all earth with light, first from the Hellenes did a clamorous shout ring for a triumphant chant, and wild and high pealed from the island rock the answering cheer of Echo. Thrilled through all our folk's dismay of baffled expectation, for the Greeks, not as for flight that Holy Payene sang, but straining battle-wood with heroic hearts, the trumpets blare set all their lines aflame. Straightway, with chiming dip of dashing oars, they smote the loud brine to the timing cry, and suddenly flashed they all fall into view, foremost their right-wing, seemingly ordered, led in fair array, next all their armament, battle-wood, swept on. There with all was heard a great chout. On ye Sons of Hellas, on, win for the homeland freedom. Freedom win for sons, wives, temples of ancestral gods, and old-sized graves. This day are all at stake. Ye, and from us low thunder of Persian cheers answered, no time it was for dallying. Then straightway Gally dashed her beak of bronze on Gally, towards a Hellene ship began the onset, and sure all the figurehead from a Phoenician. Captain charged on Captain. At first the Persian navy's torrent flood withstood them, but when our vast fleet was cramped in straight space, friend could lend no aid to friend. When ours by fangs of allies beaks of bronze were struck, and shattered all their ore array, while with shewed strategy the Hellene ships swept round, and rammed us, and upturned were hulls of ships. No more could one discern the sea, clogged all with wrecks and limbs of slaughtered men. The shores, the rock-weaves, were with corpses strewn, then rolled each bark in fleeing disarray. Ye, every keel of our barbarian host. They with ore fragments, and with shards of wrecks, smoked, hacked, as men smite tunnies, or a draught of fishes, and a moaning, all confused with shrieking, hovered wider that sea-brine, till night's dark presence blotted out the horror. That swarm of woes, ye, though for ten day's space I should rehearse, could I not tell in full. Yet know this well, that never in one day died such a host, such a tale untold of men. Xerxes withdraws from Greece. Too thoroughly crippled to renew the fight, the Persian fleet retired to Asia. Thereupon Themistocles urged the Greeks to sail forthwith to the helispont, and by destroying the bridge cut Xerxes off from his base of supplies. The advice was sound, and if taken would probably at once have ended the war, but to the other Greeks the idea seemed too venturesome, and the war continued another year. Xerxes himself returned to Asia, leaving Mardonius with the best part of the army. The Plan of Campaign for 479 For the campaign of 479 the Greeks so far adopted the plan of Themistocles, as to send a fleet of 110 ships across the Aegean, with a view to striking Persia in her own territory. The armament was under the chief command of King Leo Ticadas of Sparta, whereas the Athenian force was led by Zamthippus, who had returned from exile under the Amnesty, and had been elected general. Among the Athenians, however, a revulsion of feeling had come in favour of Themistocles' former adversary, Aristides, now also a general. Obedient to their insistent demands, the policy of defence at the Isthmus was abandoned, and a Hellenic army gathered at Plataea for a trial of strength with Mardonius in the open field. Her commander was Parsonius, regent for the young son of Leonidas, and the general of the Athenian division was Aristides. The Greeks had altogether perhaps 25 to 30 thousand heavy infantry, in addition to light troops, and the force of the enemy could not have been greatly superior. The Battle of Plataea 479 The numerous manoeuvres and countermanoeuvres, the changes of position, the omens and prophecies involved in the complex battle, cannot be detailed here. From the confused traditions certain facts stand out boldly. Could the Greeks choose their own ground, they were certain of victory? The only hope of the Persians lay in taking them off their guard or in an unfavourable position. Hence resulted the long postponements of the conflict and the shiftings of position. While affairs were in this condition, the report of the arrival of the Greek fleet at Samos forced Mardonius to battle, that he might return as soon as possible for the protection of Ionia. In the retirement of the Hellenic army to a more tenable position, some distance in the rear, Mardonius saw his opportunity to assail it while in a state of disorder. The main attack was directed against the Peloponnesians. The latter faced about, and as the omens were unfavourable, stood patiently under the shower of arrows from the enemy's horsemen. But when the main body of Persians had drawn up within bowshot behind their fence of wicker shields, at this critical moment the omens changed, the order to charge was given and the heavy infantry of Peloponnes dashed at a run upon the enemy's line. The Persians resisted bravely. But when Mardonius and the men stationed around him in the strongest part of their line had fallen, the rest turned and gave way before the Lachodemonians, for their manner of equipment, without defensive armour, wasn't a special cause of their losses. In fact they were contending right armed against hoplities. It is clear that in the complex movements of Plataea the leading fact is the repetition of the chief tactical feature of Marathon, the double quick charge of the Hellenic phalanx upon the line of light Persian infantry. The result was decisive. The remnant of the Persian army hurriedly retreated and the Greek peninsula was free from the great king. The Battle of Mykali, 479 The achievement of the Hellenic naval force may be told in fewer words. Meeting no opposing fleet, the Greeks landed on the Ionian coast and assailed the Persians entrenched at Mykali. Asiatic Greeks deserted to their kinsmen, the Persian force was destroyed and their warships drawn upon the shore and surrounded by a palisade were burned. Whereas other battles of the war has been defensive, this victory pointing the way to the liberation of Asiatic Greece began a policy of aggression against the Persian Empire. Western Hellas Economic and Intellectual Condition In an earlier chapter we touched upon the Hellenic colonisation of Italy and Sicily and the growth of the new settlements in that region to a high degree of economic prosperity. This success was due to the superior vitality, quick intelligence and bold enterprise of the settlers as well as to the fertility of their lands and the great extent of country open to their exploitation. Far, however, from devoting themselves solely to the accumulation of wealth, the colonists for a long time advanced beyond the mother country in cultural development. In the intellectual awakening of Hellas, they had their full share, particularly in the fields of architecture and philosophy, and as the Asiatic Greeks declined under foreign rule, the cultural leadership of Hellas temporarily passed to the Western Greeks. Aristocracy and Tyranny The earliest settlers dividing the lands among themselves tended to form themselves into a closed aristocracy. The natives who tilled their fields were serfs and the fishermen and traders who collected in every coastal town constituted the commons, who were citizens with inferior privileges. Class conflicts inevitably led to tyrannies. The result that was before the close of the 6th century nearly every Greek city in Sicily had fallen under despotic rule. Those of Italy were governed either by tyrants or Pythagorean brotherhoods. In the West, as in the East, each community went its own way with little heed to the general Hellenic interest. Enemies of Western Hellas, the Etruscans This particularism, while acting as a powerful cultural stimulus, wrought little harm so long as the Hellenes had to deal merely with foreign states as small as their own. In time, however, in the West as well as in the East, they had to confront great military powers. Politically, the most important people thus far in Italy were the Etruscans. In origin, decadent Minoans, they had received from their mingling with the native Italians a new vitality and an aggressiveness in war which made them formidable to their neighbours. In the beginning of the 5th century, they held not only Etruria and parts of the pole basin further north, but also most of Campania and the coast region to the south nearly to Poseidonia. In the opinion of Cato the Sensor, they governed the greater part of Italy, the Phoenicians and the Carthaginian Empire. While the Etruscans were developing this power within the peninsula, the Phoenicians were threatening to take possession of the islands and remaining coasts of the Middle and Western Mediterranean. For a time, they had to yield ground to the Greeks in both Sicily and Spain. In Africa, west of Chironica, however, the Phoenicians were comparatively free to work at their own destiny. On and near the African coast opposite Sicily, there grew up a group of colonies, the most important of which was Carthage. Toward the end of the 7th century, this city won the leadership over her near neighbours and began to develop a naval power, the foundation of her future empire. Her ambition was to gather under her leadership and protection all the Phoenician colonies of the Mediterranean and to win as much new territory as possible for the race. In Sicily, they gained ground. In Sardinia, they won a footing, about 600, though they never succeeded there in occupying more than the coasts. The Phoenician settlements in Spain acknowledged the leadership of Carthage, while the African coast became hers, from Coronaca to Lixus on the Atlantic, before 500. Carthaginians and Etruscans combine, the Falkians driven from Corsica 540. Naturally, Carthage had entered into close commercial relationship with the Etruscans, a people of similar character. About 550, she had begun to form treaties with the individual coast towns of Etruria for the regulation of trade and for the defence of their common interests against the Greeks. The first Hellenes to suffer from this alliance were the Falkian colonists in Corsica. In a naval battle between them and the combined feats of the Allies, they were overwhelmingly beaten, 540, and were forced in consequence to abandon Corsica. This was the first important loss of territory suffered by the Hellenes in the West. The New War Policy of Carthage At Carthage, toward the end of the same century, the Office of General, newly instituted, fell to a certain mago who used his position for a thorough reorganisation of the army. It was henceforth to consist largely of mercenaries, recruited from the fresh, war-like native races of the Western Mediterranean countries. Thereafter, few citizens of Carthage served, accepting as officers. Their immense financial resources could thus be converted into sinews of war, and a policy of conquest could be inaugurated without disturbance to the money-making pursuits of the great commercial city. Carthaginian Invasion of Sicily The first use made of the system was to be for the conquest of Sicily. While therefore Xerxes was preparing his stupendous expedition against Eastern Helles, the Carthaginians, doubtless in concert with him, were recruiting a great mercenary force for the Invasion of Sicily. In 480, Hanelcar, mago's son, led forth the armament. The numbers given by the ancients are 200 ships of war, 3,000 transports, and 300,000 men. Herein we may discover an attempt of the Sicilian historians to make their glory equal that of the victor's at Salamis and Plataea. 200 triremes there may have been, but the other numbers are exaggerated beyond our power to correct. The Tyrants Gellon of Syracuse It was fortunate that the Western Greeks had made progress toward political unification, an axiolus, Tyrant of Regium, 494 to 476, had seized Xencol across the strait, and recolonising it with a mixed multitude had named it Messini after his native land. Meanwhile in southern Sicily a succession of powerful Tyrants of Geller had extended their city's sway over several neighbouring states. The last and greatest of these despots was Gellon, a young cavalry officer of remarkable genius in war and statecraft. Opportunity the serfs of Syracuse had risen against the lords and had violently expelled them. Gladly espousing the cause of the exiles, Gellon made himself master of Syracuse, but instead of restoring the city to the landlords he faithlessly held it for himself, and took up his residence there. With still less moral scruple he enlarged his new capital by transplanting to it the wealthier citizens of neighbouring towns he conquered, while the poorer class he sold into slavery merely remarking. Common men are an undesirable element in a state. Thus it came about that by energy and cunning Gellon had united all south-eastern Sicily under his rule. The Battle of Himera 480 To strengthen himself further he had married Damareta, daughter of Theron, despot of the flourishing city of Acragas. Scarcely less ambitious than his son-in-law, Theron had annexed Himera to his domain after expelling its Tyrant, Teryllus. The combination of the powerful Tyrants of Syracuse and Acragas threatened Phoenician interests in Sicily, and led to the Carthaginian invasion, wherein the exiled Tyrillus played the part of a Hippias, and Anaxulus, kinsman of the former, promised his cooperation. The invaders laid siege to Himera, and the great battle was fought beneath its walls, Gellon and Theron against the Carthaginians, Helus against Canaan. Survivors of the invading army afterwards reported that all day long, as the battle raged, Hamilcar, in Semitic style, stood apart from his host, bent on winning aid of the gods by offering them the entire bodies of sacrifice victims on a great pyre. And when he saw there was a rout of his own army, he being then, as it chance, in the act of pouring a libation over the sacrifices, threw himself into the fire, and thus he was burned up and removed from sight. The details are uncertain, the results well known. A great part of the fleet went up in flames. The army was utterly overthrown, vast spoils and countless prisoners, made slaves, enriched the victors. To save her dependencies in Sicily, Carthage brought peace with a heavy war indemnity. The victors were proudly conscious of having done their part in freeing Helus from the Barbarian Peril, and in just appreciation, Pindar associated Himmela on equal terms with Salamis and Plataea.