Project Gutenberg's History of Greece, Volume 03 (of 12), by George Grote This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. Title: History of Greece, Volume 03 (of 12) Author: George Grote Release Date: December 29, 2018 [EBook #58565] Language: English Character set encoding: UTF-8 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORY OF GREECE, VOLUME 03 *** Produced by Henry Flower, Adrian Mastronardi, Ramon Pajares Box and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) Transcriber's note Table of Contents HISTORY OF GREECE. BY GEORGE GROTE, Esq. VOL. III. REPRINTED FROM THE SECOND LONDON EDITION. NEW YORK: HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS 329 AND 331 PEARL STREET [p. iii] CONTENTS. VOL. III. PART II. CONTINUATION OF HISTORICAL GREECE. CHAPTER IX. CORINTH, SIKYON, AND MEGARA. — AGE OF THE GRECIAN DESPOTS. Early commerce and enterprise of the Corinthians. — Oligarchy of the Bacchiadæ. — Early condition of Megara. — Early condition of Sikyôn. — Rise of the despots. — Earliest changes of government in Greece. — Peculiarity of Sparta. — Discontinuance of kingship in Greece generally. — Comparison with the Middle Ages of Europe. — Anti-monarchical sentiment of Greece — Mr. Mitford. — Causes which led to the growth of that sentiment. — Change to oligarchical government. — Such change indicates an advance in the Greek mind. — Dissatisfaction with the oligarchies — modes by which the despots acquired power. — Examples. — Tendency towards a better organized citizenship. — Character and working of the despots. — The demagogue-despot of the earlier times compared with the demagogue of later times. — Contrast between the despot and the early heroic king. — Position of the despot. — Good government impossible to him. — Conflict between oligarchy and despotism preceded that between oligarchy and democracy. — Early oligarchies included a multiplicity of different sections and associations. — Government of the Geomori — a close order of present or past proprietors. — Classes of the people. — Military force of the early oligarchies consisted of cavalry. — Rise of the heavy-armed infantry and of the free military marine — both unfavorable to oligarchy. — Dorian states — Dorian and non-Dorian inhabitants. — Dynasty of despots at Sikyôn — the Orthagoridæ. — Violent proceedings of Kleisthenês. — Classes of the Sikyonian population. — Fall of the Orthagoridæ — state of Sikyôn after it. — The Sikyonian despots not put down by Sparta. — Despots at Corinth — Kypselus. — Periander. — Great power of Corinth under Periander. — Fall of the Kypselid dynasty. — Megara — Theagenês the despot. — Disturbed government at Megara — The poet Theognis. — Analogy of Corinth, Sikyôn, and Megara. pages 1-47 CHAPTER X. IONIC PORTION OF HELLAS. — ATHENS BEFORE SOLON. History of Athens before Drako — only a list of names. — No king after Kodrus. — Life archons. — Decennial archons. — Annual archons, nine in number. — Archonship of Kreôn. B. C. 683 — commencement of Attic chronology. — Obscurity of the civil condition of Attica before Solon. — Alleged duodecimal division of Attica in early times. — Four Ionic tribes — Geleontes, Hoplêtes, Ægikoreis, Argadeis. — These names are not names of castes or professions. — Component portions of the four tribes. — The Trittys and the Naukrary. — The Phratry and the Gens. — What constituted the gens or gentile communion. — Artificial enlargement of the primitive family association. Ideas of worship and ancestry coalesce. — Belief in a common divine ancestor. — This ancestry fabulous, yet still accredited. — Analogies from other nations. — Roman and Grecian gentes. — Rights and obligations of the gentile and phratric brethren. — The gens and phratry after the revolution of Kleisthenês became extra-political. — Many distinct political communities originally in Athens. — Theseus. — Long continuance of the cantonal feeling. — What demes were originally independent of Athens. — Eleusis. — Eupatridæ, Geômori, and Demiurgi. — Eupatridæ originally held all political power. — Senate of Areopagus. — The nine archons — their functions. — Drako and his laws. — Different tribunals for homicide at Athens. — Regulations of Drako about the Ephetæ. — Local superstitions at Athens about trial of homicide. — Attempted usurpation by Kylôn. — His failure, and massacre of his partisans by order of the Alkmæônids. — Trial and condemnation of the Alkmæônids. — Pestilence and suffering at Athens. — Mystic sects and brotherhoods in the sixth century B. C. — Epimenidês of Krete. — Epimenidês visits and purifies Athens. — His life and character. — Contrast of his age with that of Plato. 48-88 CHAPTER XI. SOLONIAN LAWS AND CONSTITUTION. Life, character, and poems of Solon. — War between Athens and Megara about Salamis. — Acquisition of Salamis by Athens. — Settlement of the dispute by Spartan arbitration in favor of Athens. — State of Athens immediately before the legislation of Solon. — Internal dissension — misery of the poorer population. — Slavery of the debtors — law of debtor and creditor. — Injustice and rapacity of the rich. — General mutiny, and necessity for a large reform. — Solon made archon, and invested with full powers of legislation. — He refuses to make himself despot. — His seisachtheia, or relief-law for the poorer debtors. — Debasing of the money standard. — General popularity of the measure after partial dissatisfaction. — Different [p. v] [p. vi] statements afterwards as to the nature and extent of the seisachtheia. — Necessity of the measure — mischievous contracts to which the previous law had given rise. — Solon’s law finally settled the question — no subsequent complaint as to private debts — respect for contracts unbroken under the democracy. — Distinction made in an early society between the principal and the interest of a loan — interest disapproved of in toto. — This opinion was retained by the philosophers after it had ceased to prevail in the community generally. — Solonian seisachtheia never imitated at Athens — money-standard honestly maintained afterwards. — Solon is empowered to modify the political constitution. — His census — four scales of property. — Graduated liability to income-tax, of the three richest classes, one compared with the other. — Admeasurement of political rights and franchises according to this scale — a Timocracy. — Fourth or poorest class — exercised powers only in assembly — chose magistrates and held them to accountability. — Pro-bouleutic or pre-considering Senate of Four Hundred. — Senate of Areopagus — its powers enlarged. — Confusion frequently seen between Solonian and post-Solonian institutions. — Loose language of the Athenian orators on this point. — Solon never contemplated the future change or revision of his own laws. — Solon laid the foundation of the Athenian democracy, but his institutions are not democratical. — The real Athenian democracy begins with Kleisthenês. — Athenian government after Solon still oligarchical, but mitigated. — The archons still continue to be judges until after the time of Kleisthenês. — After-changes in the Athenian constitution overlooked by the orators, but understood by Aristotle, and strongly felt at Athens during the time of Periklês. — Gentes and Phratries under the Solonian constitution — status of persons not included in them. — Laws of Solon. — The Drakonian laws about homicide retained; the rest abrogated. — Multifarious character of the laws of Solon: no appearance of classification. — He prohibits the export of landed produce from Attica, except oil. — The prohibition of little or no effect. — Encouragement to artisans and industry. — Power of testamentary bequest — first sanctioned by Solon. — Laws relating to women. — Regulations about funerals. — About evil-speaking and abusive language. — Rewards to the victors at the sacred games. — Theft. — Censure pronounced by Solon upon citizens neutral in a sedition. — Necessity, under the Grecian city-governments, of some positive sentiment on the part of the citizens. — Contrast in this respect between the age of Solon and the subsequent democracy. — The same idea followed out in the subsequent Ostracism. — Sentiment of Solon towards the Homeric poems and the drama. — Difficulties of Solon after the enactment of the laws. — He retires from Attica. — Visits Egypt and Cyprus. — Alleged interview and conversation of Solon with Crœsus at Sardis. — Moral lesson arising out of the narrative. — State of Attica after the Solonian legislation. — Return of Solon to Athens. — Rise of Peisistratus. — His memorable stratagem to procure a guard from the people. — Peisistratus seizes the Akropolis and becomes despot — courageous resistance of Solon. — Death of Solon — his character. — Appendix, on the procedure of the Roman law respecting principal and interest in a loan of money. 88-162 CHAPTER XII. EUBŒA. — CYCLADES. The islands called Cyclades. — Eubœa. — Its six or seven towns — Chalkis, Eretria, etc. — How peopled. — Early power of Chalkis, Eretria, Naxos etc. — Early Ionic festival at Dêlos; crowded and wealthy. — Its decline about 560 B. C. — causes thereof. — Homeric Hymn to the Delian Apollo — evidence as to early Ionic life. — War between Chalkis and Eretria in early times — extensive alliances of each. — Commerce and colonies of Chalkis and Eretria — Euboic scale of money and weight. — Three different Grecian scales — Æginæan, Euboic, and Attic — their ratio to each other. 163-172 CHAPTER XIII. ASIATIC IONIANS. Twelve Ionic cities in Asia. — Legendary event called the Ionic migration. — Emigrants to these cities — diverse Greeks. — Great differences of dialect among the twelve cities. — Ionic cities really founded by different migrations. — Consequences of the mixture of inhabitants in these colonies — more activity — more instability. — Mobility ascribed to the Ionic race as compared with the Doric — arises from this cause. — Ionic cities in Asia — mixed with indigenous inhabitants. — Worship of Apollo and Artemis — existed on the Asiatic coast prior to the Greek emigrants — adopted by them. — Pan-Ionic festival and Amphiktyony on the promontory of Mykalê. — Situation of Milêtus — of the other Ionic cities. — Territories interspersed with Asiatic villages. — Magnêsia on the Mæander — Magnêsia on Mount Sipylus. — Ephesus — Androklus the Œkist — first settlement and distribution. — Increase and acquisitions of Ephesus. — Kolophôn, its origin and history. — Temple of Apollo at Klarus, near Kolophôn — its legends. — Lebedus, Teôs, Klazomenæ, etc. — Internal distribution of the inhabitants of Teôs. — Erythræ and Chios. — Klazomenæ — Phôkæa. — Smyrna. 172-189 CHAPTER XIV. ÆOLIC GREEKS IN ASIA. Twelve cities of Æolic Greeks. — Their situation — eleven near together on the Elæitic gulf. — Legendary Æolic migration. — Kymê — the earliest as well as the most powerful of the twelve. — Magnêsia ad Sipylum. — Lesbos. — Early inhabitants of Lesbos before the Æolians. — Æolic establishments in the region of Mount Ida. — Continental settlements of Lesbos and Tenedos. — Ante-Hellenic inhabitants in the region of Mount Ida — Mysians and Teukrians. — Teukrians of Gergis. — Mitylênê — its political dissensions — its poets. [p. vii] [p. viii] — Power and merit of Pittakus. — Alkæus the poet — his flight from battle. — Bitter opposition of Pittakus and Alkæus in internal politics. — Pittakus is created Æsymnete, or Dictator of Mitylênê. 190-201 CHAPTER XV. ASIATIC DORIANS. Asiatic Dorians — their Hexapolis. — Other Dorians, not included in the Hexapolis. — Exclusion of Halikarnassus from the Hexapolis. 201-203 CHAPTER XVI. NATIVES OF ASIA MINOR WITH WHOM THE GREEKS BECAME CONNECTED. Indigenous nations of Asia Minor — Homeric geography. — Features of the country. — Names and situations of the different people. — Not originally aggregated into large kingdoms or cities. — River Halys — the ethnographical boundary — Syro-Arabians eastward of that river. — Thracian race — in the north of Asia Minor. — Ethnical affinities and migrations. — Partial identity of legends. — Phrygians. — Their influence upon the early Greek colonists. — Greek musical scale — partly borrowed from the Phrygians. — Phrygian music and worship among the Greeks in Asia Minor. — Character of Phrygians, Lydians, and Mysians. — Primitive Phrygian king or hero Gordius — Midas. 203-218 CHAPTER XVII. LYDIANS. — MEDES. — CIMMERIANS. — SCYTHIANS. Lydians — their music and instruments. — They and their capital Sardis unknown to Homer. — Early Lydian kings. — Kandaulês and Gygês. — The Mermnad dynasty succeeds to the Herakleid. — Legend of Gygês in Plato. — Feminine influence running through the legends of Asia Minor. — Distribution of Lydia into two parts — Lydia and Torrhêbia. — Proceedings of Gygês. — His son and successor Ardys. — Assyrians and Medes. — First Median king — Dêïokês. — His history composed of Grecian materials, not Oriental. — Phraortês — Kyaxarês. — Siege of Nineveh — invasion of the Scythians and Cimmerians. — The Cimmerians. — The Scythians. — Grecian settlements on the coast of the Euxine. — Scythia as described by Herodotus. — Tribes of Scythians. — Manners and worship. — Scythians formidable from numbers and courage. — Sarmatians. — Tribes east and north of the Palus Mæotis. — Tauri in the Crimea — Massagetæ. — Invasion of Asia by Scythians and Cimmerians. — Cimmerians driven out of their country by the Scythians. — Difficulties in the narrative of Herodotus. — Cimmerians in Asia Minor. — Scythians in Upper Asia. — Expulsion of these Nomads, after a temporary occupation. — Lydian kings Sadyattês and Alyattês — war against Milêtus. — Sacrilege committed by Alyattês — oracle — he makes peace with Milêtus. — Long reign — death — and sepulchre, of Alyattês. — Crœsus. — He attacks and conquers the Asiatic Greeks. — Want of coöperation among the Ionic cities. — Unavailing suggestion of Thalês — to merge the twelve Ionic cities into one Pan-Ionic city at Teôs. — Capture of Ephesus. — Crœsus becomes king of all Asia westward of the Halys. — New and important era for the Hellenic world — commencing with the conquests of Crœsus. — Action of the Lydian empire continued on a still larger scale by the Persians. 219-263 CHAPTER XVIII. PHENICIANS. Phenicians and Assyrians — members of the Semitic family of the human race. — Early presence of Phenician ships in the Grecian seas — in the Homeric times. — Situation and cities of Phenicia. — Phenician commerce flourished more in the earlier than in the later times of Greece. — Phenician colonies — Utica, Carthage, Gadês, etc. — Commerce of the Phenicians of Gadês — towards Africa on one side and Britain on the other. — Productive region round Gadês, called Tartêssus. — Phenicians and Carthaginians — the establishments of the latter combined views of empire with views of commerce. — Phenicians and Greeks in Sicily and Cyprus — the latter partially supplant the former. — Iberia and Tartêssus — unvisited by the Greeks before about 630 B. C. — Memorable voyage of the Samian Kôlæus to Tartêssus. — Exploring voyages of the Phôkæans, between 630-570 B. C. — Important addition to Grecian geographical knowledge, and stimulus to Grecian fancy, thus communicated. — Circumnavigation of Africa by the Phenicians. — This circumnavigation was really accomplished — doubts of critics, ancient and modern, examined. — Caravan-trade by land carried on by the Phenicians. 264-289 CHAPTER XIX. ASSYRIANS. — BABYLON. Assyrians — their name rests chiefly on Nineveh and Babylon. — Chaldæans at Babylon — order of priests. — Their astronomical observations. — Babylonia — its laborious cultivation and fertility. — City of Babylon — [p. ix] [p. x] its dimensions and walls. — Babylon — only known during the time of its degradation — yet even then the first city in Western Asia. — Immense command of human labor possessed by the Babylonian kings. — Collective civilization in Asia, without individual freedom or development. — Graduated contrast between Egyptians, Assyrians, Phenicians, and Greeks. — Deserts and predatory tribes surrounding the Babylonians. — Appendix, “Nineveh and its Remains,” by Mr. Layard. 290-307 CHAPTER XX. EGYPTIANS. Phenicians — the link of commerce between Egypt and Assyria. — Herodotus — earliest Grecian informant about Egypt. — The Nile in the time of Herodotus. — Thebes and Upper Egypt — of more importance in early times than Lower Egypt, but not so in the days of Herodotus. — Egyptian castes or hereditary professions. — Priests. — The military order. — Different statements about the castes. — Large town population of Egypt. — Profound submission of the people. — Destructive toil imposed by the great monuments. — Worship of animals. — Egyptian kings — taken from different parts of the country. — Relations of Egypt with Assyria. — Egyptian history not known before Psammetichus. — First introduction of Greeks into Egypt under Psammetichus — stories connected with it. — Importance of Grecian mercenaries to the Egyptian kings — caste of interpreters. — Opening of the Kanôpic branch of the Nile to Greek commerce — Greek establishment at Naukratis. — Discontents and mutiny of the Egyptian military order. — Nekôs son of Psammetichus — his active operations. — Defeated by Nebuchadnezzar at Carchemisch. — Psammis, the son of Nekôs. — Apriês. — Amasis — dethrones Apriês by means of the native soldiers. — He encourages Grecian commerce. — Important factory and religious establishment for the Greeks at Naukratis. — Prosperity of Egypt under Amasis. — Appendix, on the Egyptian chronology given by Manetho, as explained by M. Boeckh. 308-342 CHAPTER XXI. DECLINE OF THE PHENICIANS. — GROWTH OF CARTHAGE. Decline of the Phenicians — growth of Grecian marine and commerce. — Effect of Phenicians, Assyrians, and Egyptians on the Greek mind. — The alphabet. — The scale of money and weight. — The gnomon — and the division of the day. — Carthage. — Era of Carthage. — Dominion of Carthage. — Dido. — First known collision of Greeks and Carthaginians — Massalia. — Amicable relations between Tyre and Carthage. 342-348 CHAPTER XXII. WESTERN COLONIES OF GREECE — IN EPIRUS, ITALY, SICILY, AND GAUL. Early unauthenticated emigration from Greece. — Ante-Hellenic population of Sicily — Sikels — Sikans — Elymi — Phenicians. — Œnotria — Italia. — Pelasgi in Italy. — Latins — Œnotrians — Epirots — ethnically cognate. — Analogy of languages — Greek, Latin, and Oscan. — Grecian colonization of ascertained date in Sicily — commences in 735 B. C. — Cumæ in Campania — earlier — date unknown. — Prosperity of Cumæ between 700-500 B. C. — Decline of Cumæ from 500 B. C. — Revolution — despotism of Aristodêmus. — Invasion of Cumæ by Tuscans and Samnites from the interior. — Rapid multiplication of Grecian colonies in Sicily and Italy, beginning with 735 B. C. — Foundation of Naxos in Sicily by Theoklês. — Spot where the Greeks first landed in Sicily — memorable afterwards. — Ante-Hellenic distribution of Sicily. — Foundation of Syracuse. — Leontini and Katana. — Megara in Sicily. — Gela. — Zanklê, afterwards Messênê (Messina). — Sub-colonies — Akræ, Kasmenæ, Kamarina, etc. — Agrigentum, Selinûs, Himera, etc. — Prosperity of the Sicilian Greeks. — Mixed character of the population. — Peculiarity of the monetary and statical system, among the Sicilian and Italian Greeks. — Sikels and Sikans gradually Hellenized. — Difference between the Greeks in Sicily and those in Greece proper. — Native population in Sicily not numerous enough to become formidable to the Greek settlers. — Sikel prince Duketius. — Grecian colonies in southern Italy. — Native population and territory. — Sybaris and Krotôn. — Territory and colonies of Sybaris and Krotôn. — Epizephyrian Lokri. — Original settlers of Lokri — their character and circumstances. — Treachery towards the indigenous Sikels. — Mixture of Sikels in their territory — Sikel customs adopted. — Lokrian lawgiver Zaleukus. — Rigor of his laws — government of Lokri. — Rhêgium. — Chalkidic settlements in Italy and Sicily — Rhêgium, Zanklê, Naxos, Katana, Leontini. — Kaulônia and Skyllêtium. — Siris or Hêrakleia. — Metapontium. — Tarentum — circumstances of its foundation. — The Partheniæ — Phalanthus the œkist. — Situation and territory of Tarentum. — Iapygians. — Messapians. — Prosperity of the Italian Greeks between 700-500 B. C. — Ascendency over the Œnotrian population. — Krotôn and Sybaris — at their maximum from 560-510 B. C. — The Sybarites — their luxury — their organization, industry, and power. — Grecian world about 560 B. C. — Ionic and Italic Greeks are then the most prominent among Greeks. — Consequences of the fall of Sybaris. — Krotoniates — their salubrity, strength, success in the Olympic games, etc. — Massalia. 349-402 CHAPTER XXIII. GRECIAN COLONIES IN AND NEAR EPIRUS. [p. xi] [p. xii] Korkyra. — Early foundation of Korkyra from Corinth. — Relations of Korkyra with Corinth. — Relations with Epirus. — Ambrakia founded by Corinth. — Joint settlements by Corinth and Korkyra. — Leukas and Anaktorium. — Apollonia and Epidamnus. — Relations between these colonies — Commerce. 402-410 CHAPTER XXIV. AKARNANIANS. — EPIROTS. Akarnanians. — Their social and political condition. — Epirots — comprising different tribes, with little or no ethnical kindred. — Some of these tribes ethnically connected with those of southern Italy; — others, with the Macedonians — impossible to mark the boundaries. — Territory distributed into villages — no considerable cities. — Coast of Epirus discouraging to Grecian colonization. — Some Epirotic tribes governed by kings, others not. 411-419 HISTORY OF GREECE. PART II. CONTINUATION OF HISTORICAL GREECE. CHAPTER IX. CORINTH, SIKYON, AND MEGARA. — AGE OF THE GRECIAN DESPOTS. The preceding volume brought down the history of Sparta to the period marked by the reign of Peisistratus at Athens; at which time she had attained her maximum of territory, was confessedly the most powerful state in Greece, and enjoyed a proportionate degree of deference from the rest. I now proceed to touch upon the three Dorian cities on and near to the Isthmus,—Corinth, Sikyôn, and Megara, as they existed at this same period. Even amidst the scanty information which has reached us, we trace the marks of considerable maritime energy and commerce among the Corinthians, as far back as the eighth century B. C. The foundation of Korkyra and Syracuse, in the 11th Olympiad, or 734 B. C. (of which I shall speak farther in connection with Grecian colonization generally), by expeditions from Corinth, affords a good proof that they knew how to turn to account the excellent situation which connected them with the sea on both sides of Peloponnesus: and Thucydides,[1] while he notices them as the chief liberators of the sea, in early times, from pirates, also tells us that the first great improvement in ship-building,—the construction of the trireme, or ship of war, with a full deck and triple banks for the rowers,—was the fruit of Corinthian ingenuity. It was in the year 703 B. C., that the Corinthian Ameinoklês built four triremes for the Samians, the first which those islanders had ever possessed: the notice of this fact attests as well the importance attached to the new invention, as the humble scale on which the naval force in those early days was equipped. And it is a fact of not less moment, in proof of the maritime vigor of Corinth in the seventh century B. C., that the earliest naval battle known to Thucydides was one which took place between the Corinthians and the Korkyræans, B. C. 664.[2] It has already been stated, in the preceding volume, that the line of Herakleid kings in Corinth subsides gradually, through a series of empty names, into the oligarchy denominated Bacchiadæ, or Bacchiads, under whom our first historical knowledge of the city begins. The persons so named were all accounted descendants of Hêraklês, and formed the governing caste in the city; intermarrying usually among themselves, and choosing from their own number an annual prytanis, or president, for the administration of affairs. Of their internal government we have no accounts, except the tale respecting Archias the founder of Syracuse,[3] one of their number, who had made himself so detested by an act of brutal violence terminating in the death of the beautiful youth Aktæôn, as to be forced to expatriate. That such a man should have been placed in the distinguished post of œkist of the colony of Syracuse, gives us no favorable idea of the Bacchiad oligarchy: we do not, however, know upon what original authority the story depends, nor can we be sure that it is accurately recounted. But Corinth, under their government, was already a powerful commercial and maritime city, as has already been stated. Megara, the last Dorian state in this direction eastward, and conterminous with Attica at the point where the mountains called Kerāta descend to Eleusis and the Thracian plain, is affirmed to have been originally settled by the Dorians of Corinth, and to have remained for some time a dependency of that city. It is farther said to have been at first merely one of five separate villages,—Megara, Heræa, Peiræa, Kynosura, Tripodiskus,—inhabited by a kindred population, and generally on friendly terms, yet sometimes distracted by quarrels, and on those occasions carrying on war with a degree of lenity and chivalrous confidence which reverses the proverbial affirmation respecting the sanguinary character of enmities between kindred. Both these two statements are transmitted to us (we know not from what primitive source) as explanatory of certain current phrases:[4] the author of the latter cannot have agreed with the author of the former in considering the Corinthians as masters of the Megarid, because he represents them as fomenting wars among these five villages for the purpose of acquiring that territory. Whatever may be the truth respecting this alleged early subjection of Megara, we know it[5] in the historical age, and that too as early as the 14th Olympiad, only as an independent Dorian city, maintaining the integrity of its territory under its leader Orsippus, the famous Olympic runner, against some powerful enemies, probably the Corinthians. It was of no mean consideration, possessing a territory which extended across Mount Geraneia to the Corinthian gulf, on which the fortified town and port of Pêgæ, belonging to [p. 1] [p. 2] [p. 3] [p. 4] the Megarians, was situated; it was mother of early and distant colonies,—and competent, during the time of Solon, to carry on a protracted contest with the Athenians, for the possession of Salamis, wherein, although the latter were at last victorious, it was not without an intermediate period of ill-success and despair. Of the early history of Sikyôn, from the period when it became Dorian down to the seventh century B. C., we know nothing. Our first information respecting it, concerns the establishment of the despotism of Orthagoras, about 680-670 B. C. And it is a point deserving of notice, that all the three above-mentioned towns,—Corinth, Sikyôn, and Megara,—underwent during the course of this same century a similar change of government. In each of them a despot established himself; Orthagoras in Sikyôn; Kypselus in Corinth; Theagenês in Megara. Unfortunately, we have too little evidence as to the state of things by which this change of government was preceded and brought about, to be able to appreciate fully its bearing. But what draws our attention to it more particularly is, that the like phenomenon seems to have occurred contemporaneously throughout a large number of cities, continental, insular, and colonial, in many different parts of the Grecian world. The period between 650 and 500 B. C., witnessed the rise and downfall of many despots and despotic dynasties, each in its own separate city. During the succeeding interval between 500 and 350 B. C., new despots, though occasionally springing up, become more rare; political dispute takes another turn, and the question is raised directly and ostensibly between the many and the few,—the people and the oligarchy. But in the still later times which follow the battle of Chæroneia, in proportion as Greece, declining in civic not less than in military spirit, is driven to the constant employment of mercenary troops, and humbled by the overruling interference of foreigners,—the despot with his standing foreign body-guard becomes again a characteristic of the time; a tendency partially counteracted, but never wholly subdued, by Aratus, and the Achæan league of the third century B. C. It would have been instructive if we had possessed a faithful record of these changes of government in some of the more considerable of the Grecian towns; but in the absence of such evidence we can do little more than collect the brief sentences of Aristotle and others respecting the causes which produced them. For as the like change of government was common, near about the same time, to cities very different in locality, in race of inhabitants, in tastes and habits, and in wealth, it must partly have depended upon certain general causes which admit of being assigned and explained. In the preceding volume, I tried to elucidate the heroic government of Greece, so far as it could be known from the epic poems,—a government founded (if we may employ modern phraseology) upon divine right as opposed to the sovereignty of the people, but requiring, as an essential condition, that the king shall possess force, both of body and mind, not unworthy of the exalted breed to which he belongs.[6] In this government, the authority which pervades the whole society, all resides in the king; but on important occasions it is exercised through the forms of publicity; he consults, and even discusses, with the council of chiefs or elders,—he communicates after such consultation with the assembled agora,—who hear and approve, perhaps hear and murmur, but are not understood to exercise an option or to reject. In giving an account of the Lykurgean system, I remarked that the old primitive Rhetræ, or charters of compact, indicated the existence of these same elements; a king of superhuman lineage (in this particular case two coördinate kings),—a senate of twenty-eight old men, besides the kings who sat in it,—and an ekklesia, or public assembly of citizens, convened for the purpose of approving or rejecting propositions submitted to them, with little or no liberty of discussion. The elements of the heroic government of Greece are thus found to be substantially the same as those existing in the primitive Lykurgean constitution: in both cases the predominant force residing in the kings,—and the functions of the senate, still more those of the public assembly, being comparatively narrow and restricted; in both cases the regal authority being upheld by a certain religious sentiment, which tended to exclude rivalry and to insure submission in the people up to a certain point, in spite of misconduct or deficiency in the reigning individual. Among the principal Epirotic tribes, this government subsisted down to the third century B. C.[7], though some of them had passed out of it, and were in the habit of electing annually a president out of the gens to which the king belonged. Starting from these points, common to the Grecian heroic government, and to the original Lykurgean system, we find that in the Grecian cities generally, the king is replaced by an oligarchy, consisting of a limited number of families,—while at Sparta, the kingly authority, though greatly curtailed, is never abolished. And the different turn of events at Sparta admits of being partially explained. It so happened that, for five centuries, neither of the two coördinate lines of Spartan kings was ever without some male representatives, so that the sentiment of divine right, upon which their preëminence was founded, always proceeded in an undeviating channel. That sentiment never wholly died out in the tenacious mind of Sparta, but it became sufficiently enfeebled to occasion a demand for guarantees against abuse. If the senate had been a more numerous body, composed of a few principal families, and comprising men of all ages, it might, perhaps, have extended its powers so much as to absorb those of the king: but a council of twenty-eight very old men, chosen indiscriminately from all Spartan families, was essentially an adjunct and secondary force. It was insufficient even as a restraint upon the king,—still less was it competent to become his rival; and it served indirectly even as a support to him, by preventing the formation of any other privileged order powerful enough to be an overmatch for his authority. This insufficiency on the part of the senate was one [p. 5] [p. 6] of the causes which occasioned the formation of the annually-renewed Council of Five, called the Ephors; originally a defensive board, like the Roman Tribunes, intended as a restraint upon abuse of power in the kings, but afterwards expanding into a paramount and unresponsible Executive Directory. Assisted by endless dissensions between the two coördinate kings, the ephors encroached upon their power on every side, limited them to certain special functions, and even rendered them accountable and liable to punishment, but never aspired to abolish the dignity. That which the regal authority lost in extent (to borrow the just remark of king Theopompus)[8] it gained in durability: the descendants of the twins Eurysthenês and Proklês continued in possession of their double sceptre from the earliest historical times down to the revolutions of Agis the Third, and Kleomenês the Third,—generals of the military force, growing richer and richer, and reverenced as well as influential in the state, though the directory of ephors were their superiors. And the ephors became, in time, quite as despotic, in reference to internal affairs, as the kings could ever have been before them; for the Spartan mind, deeply possessed with the feelings of command and obedience, remained comparatively insensible to the ideas of control and responsibility, and even averse to that open discussion and censure of public measures, or officers, which such ideas imply. We must recollect that the Spartan political constitution was both simplified in its character, and aided in its working, by the comprehensive range of the Lykurgean discipline, with its rigorous equal pressure upon rich and poor, which averted many of the causes elsewhere productive of sedition,—habituating the proudest and most refractory citizen to a life of undeviating obedience,—satisfying such demand as existed for system and regularity,—rendering Spartan personal habits of life much more equal than even democratical Athens could parallel; but contributing, at the same time, to engender a contempt for talkers, and a dislike of methodical and prolonged speech, which of itself sufficed to exclude all regular interference of the collective citizens, either in political or judicial affairs. Such were the facts at Sparta; but in the rest of Greece the primitive heroic government was modified in a very different manner: the people outgrew, much more decidedly, that feeling of divine right and personal reverence which originally gave authority to the king. Willing submission ceased on the part of the people, and still more on the part of the inferior chiefs, and with it ceased the heroic royalty. Something like a system or constitution came to be demanded. Of this discontinuance of kingship, so universal in the political march of Hellas, the prime cause is, doubtless, to be sought in the smallness and concentrated residence of each distinct Hellenic society. A single chief, perpetual and unresponsible, was noway essential for the maintenance of union. In modern Europe, for the most part, the different political societies which grew up out of the extinction of the Roman empire embraced each a considerable population and a wide extent of territory and the monarchical form presented itself as the only known means of union between the parts, the only visible and imposing symbol of a national identity. Both the military character of the Teutonic invaders, as well as the traditions of the Roman empire which they dismembered, tended towards the establishment of a monarchical chief, the abolition of whose dignity would have been looked upon as equivalent, and would really have been equivalent, to the breaking up of the nation, since the maintenance of a collective union by means of general assemblies was so burdensome, that the kings themselves vainly tried to exact it by force, and representative government was then unknown. The history of the Middle Ages, though exhibiting constant resistance on the part of powerful subjects, frequent deposition of individual kings, and occasional changes of dynasty, contains few instances of any attempt to maintain a large political aggregate united without a king, either hereditary or elective. Even towards the close of the last century, at the period when the federal constitution of the United States of America was first formed, many reasoners regarded[9] as an impossibility the application of any other system than the monarchical to a territory of large size and population, so as to combine union of the whole with equal privileges and securities to each of the parts. And it might, perhaps, be a real impossibility among any rude people, with strong local peculiarities, difficult means of communication, and habits of representative government not yet acquired. Hence, throughout all the larger nations of mediæval and modern Europe, with few exceptions, the prevailing sentiment has been favorable to monarchy; but wherever any single city, or district, or cluster of villages, whether in the plains of Lombardy, or in the mountains of Switzerland, has acquired independence,—wherever any small fraction has severed itself from the aggregate,—the opposite sentiment has been found, and the natural tendency has been towards some modification of republican government;[10] out of which, indeed, as in Greece, a despot has often been engendered, but always through some unnatural mixture of force and fraud. The feudal system, evolved out of the disordered state of Europe between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries, always presumed a permanent suzerain, vested with large rights of a mixed personal and proprietary character over his vassals, though subject, also, to certain obligations towards them the immediate vassals of the king had subordinate vassals of their own, to whom they stood in the same relation: and in this hierarchy[11] of power, property, and territory blended together, the rights of the chief, whether king, duke, or baron, were always conceived as constituting a status apart, and neither conferred originally by the grant, nor revocable at the pleasure, of those over whom they were exercised. This view of the essential nature of political authority was a point in which the three great elements of modern European society,—the Teutonic, the Roman, and the Christian,—all concurred, though each in a different way and with different modifications; [p. 7] [p. 8] [p. 9] [p. 10] and the result was, a variety of attempts on the part of subjects to compromise with their chief, without any idea of substituting a delegated executive in his place. On particular points of these feudal monarchies there grew up, gradually, towns with a concentrated population, among whom was seen the remarkable combination of a republican feeling, demanding collective and responsible management in their own local affairs, with a necessity of union and subordination towards the great monarchical whole; and hence again arose a new force tending both to maintain the form, and to predetermine the march, of kingly government.[12] And it has been found in practice possible to attain this latter object,—to combine regal government with fixity of administration, equal law impartially executed, security to person and property, and freedom of discussion under representative forms,—in a degree which the wisest ancient Greek would have deemed hopeless.[13] Such an improvement in the practical working of this species of government, speaking always comparatively with the kings of ancient times in Syria, Egypt, Judæa, the Grecian cities, and Rome,—coupled with the increased force of all established routine, and the greater durability of all institutions and creeds which have once obtained footing throughout any wide extent of territory and people, has caused the monarchical sentiment to remain predominant in the European mind, though not without vigorous occasional dissent, throughout the increased knowledge and the enlarged political experience of the last two centuries. It is important to show that the monarchical institutions and monarchical tendencies prevalent throughout mediæval and modern Europe have been both generated and perpetuated by causes peculiar to those societies, whilst in Hellenic societies such causes had no place,—in order that we may approach Hellenic phenomena in the proper spirit, and with an impartial estimate of the feeling universal among Greeks towards the idea of a king. The primitive sentiment entertained towards the heroic king died out, passing first into indifference, next,—after experience of the despots,—into determined antipathy. To an historian like Mr. Mitford, full of English ideas respecting government, this anti-monarchical feeling appears of the nature of insanity, and the Grecian communities like madmen without a keeper: while the greatest of all benefactors is the hereditary king, who conquers them from without,—the second-best is the home-despot, who seizes the acropolis and puts his fellow-citizens under coercion. There cannot be a more certain way of misinterpreting and distorting Grecian phenomena than to read them in this spirit, which reverses the maxims both of prudence and morality current in the ancient world. The hatred of kings as it stood among the Greeks, whatever may be thought about a similar feeling now, was a prëeminent virtue, flowing directly from the noblest and wisest part of their nature: it was a consequence of their deep conviction of the necessity of universal legal restraint—it was a direct expression of that regulated sociality which required the control of individual passion from every one without exception, and most of all from him to whom power was confided. The conception which the Greeks formed of an unresponsible One, or of a king who could do no wrong, may be expressed in the pregnant words of Herodotus:[14] “He subverts the customs of the country: he violates women: he puts men to death without trial.” No other conception of the probable tendencies of kingship was justified either by a general knowledge of human nature, or by political experience as it stood from Solon downward: no other feeling than abhorrence could be entertained for the character so conceived: no other than a man of unprincipled ambition would ever seek to invest himself with it. Our larger political experience has taught us to modify this opinion by showing that, under the conditions of monarchy in the best governments of modern Europe, the enormities described by Herodotus do not take place,—and that it is possible, by means of representative constitutions acting under a certain force of manners, customs, and historical recollection, to obviate many of the mischiefs likely to flow from proclaiming the duty of peremptory obedience to an hereditary and unresponsible king, who cannot be changed without extra-constitutional force. But such larger observation was not open to Aristotle, the wisest as well as the most cautious of ancient theorists; nor if it had been open, could he have applied with assurance its lessons to the governments of the single cities of Greece. The theory of a constitutional king, especially as it exists in England, would have appeared to him impracticable: to establish a king who will reign without governing,—in whose name all government is carried on, yet whose personal will is in practice of little or no effect,—exempt from all responsibility, without making use of the exemption,— receiving from every one unmeasured demonstrations of homage, which are never translated into act except within the bounds of a known law,—surrounded with all the paraphernalia of power, yet acting as a passive instrument in the hands of ministers marked out for his choice by indications which he is not at liberty to resist. This remarkable combination of the fiction of superhuman grandeur and license with the reality of an invisible strait-waistcoat, is what an Englishman has in his mind when he speaks of a constitutional king: the events of our history have brought it to pass in England, amidst an aristocracy the most powerful that the world has yet seen,—but we have still to learn whether it can be made to exist elsewhere, or whether the occurrence of a single king, at once able, aggressive, and resolute, may not suffice to break it up. To Aristotle, certainly, it could not have appeared otherwise than unintelligible and impracticable: not likely even in a single case,—but altogether inconceivable as a permanent system and with all the diversities of temper inherent in the successive members of an hereditary dynasty. When the Greeks thought of a man exempt from legal responsibility, they conceived him as really and truly such, in deed as well as in name, with a defenceless community exposed to his oppressions;[15] and their fear and [p. 11] [p. 12] [p. 13] [p. 14] hatred of him was measured by their reverence for a government of equal law and free speech, with the ascendency of which their whole hopes of security were associated,—in the democracy of Athens more perhaps than in any other portion of Greece. And this feeling, as it was one of the best in the Greek mind, so it was also one of the most widely spread,—a point of unanimity highly valuable amidst so many points of dissension. We cannot construe or criticize it by reference to the feelings of modern Europe, still less to the very peculiar feelings of England, respecting kingship: and it is the application, sometimes explicit and sometimes tacit, of this unsuitable standard, which renders Mr. Mitford’s appreciation of Greek politics so often incorrect and unfair. When we try to explain the course of Grecian affairs, not from the circumstances of other societies, but from those of the Greeks themselves, we shall see good reason for the discontinuance as well as for the dislike of kingship. Had the Greek mind been as stationary and unimproving as that of the Orientals, the discontent with individual kings might have led to no other change than the deposition of a bad king in favor of one who promised to be better, without ever extending the views of the people to any higher conception than that of a personal government. But the Greek mind was of a progressive character, capable of conceiving and gradually of realizing amended social combinations. Moreover, it is in the nature of things that any government,—regal, oligarchical, or democratical,—which comprises only a single city, is far less stable than if it embraced a wider surface and a larger population: and when that semi-religious and mechanical submission, which made up for the personal deficiencies of the heroic king, became too feeble to serve as a working principle, the petty prince was in too close contact with his people, and too humbly furnished out in every way, to get up a prestige or delusion of any other kind: he had no means of overawing their imaginations by that combination of pomp, seclusion, and mystery, which Herodotus and Xenophon so well appreciate among the artifices of kingcraft.[16] As there was no new feeling upon which a perpetual chief could rest his power, so there was nothing in the circumstances of the community which rendered the maintenance of such a dignity necessary for visible and effective union:[17] in a single city, and a small circumjacent community, collective deliberation and general rules, with temporary and responsible magistrates, were practicable without difficulty. To maintain an unresponsible king, and then to contrive accompaniments which shall extract from him the benefits of responsible government, is in reality a highly complicated system, though, as has been remarked, we have become familiar with it in modern Europe: the more simple and obvious change is, to substitute one or more temporary and responsible magistrates in place of the king himself. Such was the course which affairs took in Greece. The inferior chiefs, who had originally served as council to the king, found it possible to supersede him, and to alternate the functions of administration among themselves; retaining probably the occasional convocation of the general assembly, as it had existed before, and with as little practical efficacy. Such was in substance the character of that mutation which occurred generally throughout the Grecian states, with the exception of Sparta: kingship was abolished, and an oligarchy took i...