The History and Antiquities
Of The
Doric Race
by Karl Otfried Müller
Professor in the University of Göttingen
Translated From the German by
Henry Tufnell, Esq.
And
George Cornewall Lewis, Esq., A.M.
Student of Christ Church.
Second Edition, Revised.
Vol. II
London:
John Murray, Albemarle Street.
1839.
CONTENTS
Book III. Political Institutions Of The Dorians.
Chapter I.
Chapter II.
Chapter III.
Chapter IV.
Chapter V.
Chapter VI.
Chapter VII.
Chapter VIII.
Chapter IX.
Chapter X.
Chapter XI.
Chapter XII.
Book IV. Domestic Institutions, Arts, And Literature Of The Dorians.
Chapter I.
Chapter II.
Chapter III.
Chapter IV.
Chapter V.
Chapter VI.
Chapter VII.
Chapter VIII.
Chapter IX.
Appendices.
Appendix V. On the Doric Dialect.
Appendix VI. Chronological Tables.
Index.
Footnotes
BOOK III. POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS OF THE DORIANS.
Chapter I.
§ 1. End of a state according to the Doric notions. § 2.
Difference between the political institutions of the Dorians and
Ionians. § 3. Successive changes in the constitutions of the Greek
states; 1st, royal aristocracy of the heroic ages. § 4. 2nd,
Timocracy, or aristocracy of wealth. § 5. 3rd, Tyranny. § 6. 4th,
Democracy. § 7. Form of government characteristic of the Doric
race. § 8. Supposed legislation of Lycurgus. § 9. Derivation of
Spartan laws from the Delphic oracle. § 10. Characteristics of the
Doric form of government.
1. Before we speak of the form of government which prevailed in the Doric
states, it will be necessary to set aside all modern ideas respecting the
origin, essence, and object of a state; namely, that it is an institution
for protecting the persons and property of the individuals contained in
it. We shall approach nearer to the ancient notion, if we consider the
essence of a state to be, that by a recognition of the same opinions and
principles, and the direction of actions to the same ends, the whole body
become, as it were, one moral agent. Such an unity of opinions and actions
can only be produced by the ties of some natural affinity, such as of a
nation, a tribe, or a part of one: although in process of time the meaning
of the terms _state_ and _nation_ became more distinct. The more complete
the unity of feelings and principles is, the more vigorous will be the
common exertions, and the more comprehensive the notion of the state. As
this was in general carried to a wider extent among the Greeks than by
modern nations, so it was perhaps nowhere so strongly marked as in the
Dorian states, whose national views with regard to political institutions
were most strongly manifested in the government of Sparta. Here the
plurality of the persons composing the state was most completely reduced
to unity; and hence the life of a Spartan citizen was chiefly concerned in
public affairs. The greatest freedom of the Spartan, as well as of the
Greeks in general, was only to be a living member of the body of the
state; whereas that which in modern times commonly receives the name of
liberty, consists in having the fewest possible claims from the community;
or in other words, in dissolving the social union to the greatest degree
possible, as far as the individual is concerned. What the Dorians
endeavoured to obtain in a state was good order, or κόσμος, the regular
combination of different elements. The expression of king Archidamus in
Thucydides,(1) that “it is most honourable, and at the same time most
secure, for many persons to show themselves obedient to the same order
(κόσμος),” was a fundamental principle of this race. And hence the
Spartans honoured Lycurgus so greatly, as having instituted the existing
order of things (κόσμος):(2) and called his son by the laudatory title of
Eucosmus.(3) For the same reason the supreme magistrate among the Cretans
was called Cosmus; among the Epizephyrian Locrians, Cosmopolis. Thus this
significant word expresses the spirit of the Dorian government, as well as
of the Dorian music and philosophy.(4) With this desire to obtain a
complete uniformity, an attempt after stability is necessarily connected.
For an unity of this kind having been once established, the next object is
to remove whatever has a tendency to destroy it, and to repress all causes
which may lead to a change: yet an attempt to exclude all alteration is
never completely successful: partly on account of the internal changes
which take place in the national character, and partly because causes
operating from without necessarily produce some modifications. These
states, however, endeavour to retain unchanged a state of things once
established and approved; while others, in which from the beginning the
opinions of individuals have out-weighed the authority of the whole,
admit, in the progress of time, of greater variety, and more innovations,
readily take up whatever is offered to them by accident of time and place,
or even eagerly seek for opportunities of change. States of this
description must soon lose all firmness and character, and fall to pieces
from their own weakness; while those which never admit of innovation will
at last, after having long stood as ruins in a foreign neighbourhood,
yield to the general tide of human affairs, and their destruction is
commonly preceded by the most complete anarchy.
2. This description expresses, though perhaps too forcibly, the difference
between the Doric and Ionic races. The former had, of all the Grecians,
the greatest veneration for antiquity; and not to degenerate from his
ancestors was the strongest exhortation which a Spartan could hear:(5) the
latter, on the other hand, were in everything fond of novelty, and
delighted in foreign communication; whence their cities were always built
on the sea, whereas the Dorians generally preferred an inland situation.
The anxiety of the Dorians, and the Spartans in particular, to keep up the
pure Doric character and the customs of their ancestors, is strongly shown
by the prohibition to travel,(6) and the exclusion of foreigners, an
institution common both to the Spartans and Cretans, and which has been
much misrepresented by ancient authors.(7) It is very possible, as
Plutarch thinks, that the severity of these measures was increased by the
decline of all morals and discipline, which had arisen among the Ionians
from the contrary practice; that race having in the earliest times fallen
into a state of the greatest effeminacy and inactivity, from their
connexion with their Asiatic neighbours. For how early was the period when
the ancient constitution of the Grecian family degenerated among the
Ionians into the slavery of the wife! how weak, effeminate, and luxurious
do their ancient poets Callinus(8) and Asius(9) represent them! and if the
legend describes even the daughters of Neleus, the founder of the colony,
as completely destitute of morality,(10) what must have been the condition
of this people, when the wives of the Ionians had mixed with Lydian women!
The warning voice of such examples might well stimulate the ancient
lawgivers to draw in with greater closeness the iron bond of custom.
3. But with all this difference in the races of which the Grecian nation
consisted, there was, in the development of the constitutions of the Greek
states, a common progress, which extended a certain influence even to such
as retained their earlier impressions with a firm adherence to antiquity.
As it is our present object to give a general view of this advance, we
will begin with the constitution of the heroic age, so clearly described
in Homer. This can scarcely be called by any other name than that of
_aristocracy_, as its most important feature is the accurate division
between the nobles(11) and the people. The former composed the
deliberative councils, and the courts of justice;(12) and although both
were commonly combined with a public assembly (ἀγορὰ), the nobles were the
only persons who proposed measures, deliberated and voted; the people was
only present in order to hear the debate, and to express its feelings as a
body; which expressions might then be noticed by princes of a mild
disposition.(13) The chief ruler himself was properly of equal rank with
the other nobles, and was only raised above them by the authority
intrusted to him as president in the council, and commander in the field.
This form of government continued to exist for a considerable time in the
Ionian, Achæan, and Æolian states; but the power of the chief ruler
gradually declined, and was at last wholly abolished. With the Dorians,
however, the case was very different; they were peculiar in possessing a
very limited nobility, for the Heraclidæ had nearly an exclusive right to
that appellation: while, on the other hand, a whole nation occupied by
means of conquest, a station analogous to that of an aristocracy, uniting
military pursuits with independence obtained by the possession of the
land.
4. About the 30th Olympiad (660 B.C.), however, on account of the
increased trade and intercourse with foreign nations, and consequently of
the greater demand for luxuries, the value of wealth rose in comparison
with the honour of noble descent. The land, indeed, still remained for the
most part in the hands of the aristocracy; but as it had at this time
become more easy to dissipate an inherited estate, and to obtain
consideration by the profits of trade, property was more exposed to sudden
changes. It is probable that the Geomori of the Ionic Samos, as well as
the Hippobotæ of Chalcis (which, as well as Samos, had once belonged to
Ionians), whose distinction was derived from the possession of land, also
carried on the extensive commerce of these two states; otherwise the
wealth of the merchant would soon have exceeded that of the landowner. In
the Doric states also, which were much engaged in trade, such as Corinth,
Ægina, &c., it was attempted to unite the government of hereditary
aristocracy and of wealth.(14) The new importance attached to wealth, even
at the time of the Seven Sages, gave rise to the saying of Aristodemus the
Argive, “Money makes the man;”(15) and at a later period Theognis the
Megarean complains that the pursuit of riches confounds all distinction of
rank, and that estimation was derived from it.(16) The ancient legislators
of Greece considered the power of money, or moveable property (which is as
changeable as property in land is durable), most prejudicial to the safety
of states; and they endeavoured by oppressing the commercial classes, as
well as by rendering the land inalienable, to palliate a danger which they
were unable wholly to remove. Sparta alone, from the unchangeableness of
her institutions, remained free from these revolutions. Solon, on the
other hand, endeavoured to arrest and perpetuate a state of things which
was merely fleeting and transitory. He left some remnants of the
aristocracy, particularly the political union of the γένεα, or houses,
untouched; while he made his government in principle a timocracy, the
amount of property determining the share in the governing power; and at
the same time showed a democratic tendency in the low rate at which he
fixed the valuation. In his poetry also Solon considers the middle ranks
as most valuable to the state; and therefore he endeavoured to give them
political importance.(17) But the temperature which he chose was too
artificial to be lasting; and the constitution of Solon, in its chief
points, only remained in force for a few years. In other Ionic states also
similar reconciliations were attempted, but without obtaining any
stability.(18) The spirit of the age was manifestly turned towards
democracy; and though at Athens Solon, as being the friend of the people,
succeeded perhaps in effecting a more gradual transition; in other places
the parties were more directly opposed, as is clearly shown by the contest
between the parties Πλοῦτις and Χειρομάχα at Miletus.(19)
5. At Athens however, and generally throughout Greece, the first result of
these democratic movements was the establishment of tyranny or despotism;
which may be considered as a violent revulsion, destined to precede a
complete subversion of all the existing institutions. It has been already
shown that the tyrants of Corinth, Sicyon, Megara, and Epidaurus, were
originally leaders of the popular party against the Doric nobility, or
_demagogues_, according to the expression of Aristotle; and for this
reason Sparta, as being the protector of aristocracy, overthrew them,
wherever her power extended.(20) In Ionia and Sicily the tyrants found an
oligarchical timocracy, which was commonly opposed by a democratical
party;(21) and in some instances, as in that of Gelon, the tyrant acted
against the popular faction. At the time of the Persian war democracy had
struck deep root among the Ionians; and Mardonius the Persian, after the
expulsion of the tyrants, restored it in their cities as the desired form
of government.(22) In Athens Cleisthenes had deprived the union of the
houses (the last support of the aristocracy) of its political importance;
and Aristides was at length compelled by circumstances to change the
timocracy into a democracy. For in the Persian invasion the lower orders
had discovered, while serving as rowers and sailors in the fleet, how much
the safety of the state depended upon their exertions, and would no longer
submit to be excluded from a share in the highest offices.(23) The
democracy flourished so long as great men understood how to guide it by
the imposing superiority of their individual characters, and educated
persons (οἱ βελτίονες) dared to take a share in public affairs; it fell
when the greedy and indolent people, allured by the prospect of rewards
pernicious to the state, filled the public assemblies and courts of
justice. We will not carry on any further our picture of the ochlocracy,
in which all social union was entirely dissolved, and the state was
surrendered to the arbitrary will of a turbulent populace.
6. The last of these changes, produced by what is called the spirit of the
times, we have illustrated by the history of Athens, although the same
course may be shown to have taken place in other, even originally Doric
states. Thus in Ambracia, about the same time as at Athens, the timocracy
gradually passed into a democracy,(24) and at Argos also the democracy
rose at the same period. At the time of Polybius, the people had in the
Doric states of Crete so unlimited an authority, that this writer himself
wonders that his description of them should be so entirely opposed to all
former accounts.(25) But since, in general, these alterations threw down
the Doric families from their high station, and put an end to the Doric
customs, they have not so strong a claim upon our attention, as the
peculiar system of the Doric form of government, which was most strongly
expressed in the ancient Cretan and Lacedæmonian constitutions: the latter
of which, although in many points it yielded and adapted itself to the
progress of civilization, existed in its essential parts for five
centuries;(26) and by its durability preserved Sparta alone among all the
states of Greece from revolutions and revolutionary excesses.(27)
7. But, it may be asked, what right have we to speak of a Doric
constitution in general; and why should we select Sparta in preference to
any other state of the Doric race, as a model of that system? May not
Lycurgus have formed his legislation from reflection upon the condition
and wants of his own nation, or have conceived it from arbitrary
principles of his own, and have thus impressed upon Sparta the character
which it ever after retained, as an essential element of its system?(28)
Against this opinion, not unfrequently advanced, instead of bringing
forward any general arguments, we prefer adducing the words of Pindar,(29)
who, beyond a doubt, was far better acquainted with the basis and origin
of ancient constitutions, than either Ephorus or Plutarch. Pindar mentions
that Hieron, the Syracusan, wished to establish the new city of Ætna
(which was inhabited by 5000 Syracusans, and the same number of
Peloponnesians) upon the genuine Doric principles; as in later times Dion
wished to establish in Syracuse itself a Lacedæmonian or Cretan
constitution.(30) He founded it “with heaven-built freedom, according to
the laws of the Hylean model;” _i.e._, after the example of the Spartan
constitution. “For the descendants of Pamphylus, and of the Heraclidæ, who
dwell under the brow of Taygetus, wish always to retain the Doric
institutions of Ægimius.” Now in the first place, this passage proves that
the laws of Sparta were considered the true Doric institutions; and,
secondly, that their origin was held to be identical with that of the
people. It proves that the Spartan _laws_ (νόμοι) were the true Doric
_institutions_ (νόμιμα), and indeed, in no other nation was the
distinction between usage and positive law less marked; from which
circumstance alone it is evident how little opportunity the legislator had
for fresh enactments, since custom can never be the work of one person.
From this view of the subject we can also explain why Hellanicus, the most
ancient writer on the constitution of Sparta,(31) made no mention of
Lycurgus (for which he is ignorantly censured by Ephorus),(32) and
attributed what are called the institutions of Lycurgus to the first
kings, Procles and Eurysthenes. It also follows, that when Herodotus
describes the Spartans before the time of Lycurgus, as being in a state of
the greatest anarchy,(33) he can only mean that the original constitution
(the τεθμοὶ Αἰγιμίου) had been overthrown and perverted by external
circumstances, until it was restored and renewed by Lycurgus. Lycurgus, of
whose real or imaginary existence we have already spoken,(34) must at the
time of Herodotus have been considered a mythical personage, as he had a
temple, annual sacrifices, and, in fact, a regular worship.(35) Now it is
the tendency of mythological narration to represent accordant actions of
many minds at different times under the name of one person: consequently,
the mere name of an institution of Lycurgus says very little respecting
its real origin and author.
8. The legislation of Lycurgus was, however, according to ancient
traditions, aided by the support of Crete and Delphi, and the connexion
between the religious usages of these states thus influenced their
political condition. The form of government which was prevalent throughout
the whole of Crete, originated, according to the concurrent testimony of
the ancients, in the time of Minos; and it has been already shown that the
Dorians at that time extended their dominion to this island, which thus
received their language and customs.(36) In Crete therefore, the
constitution founded on the principles of the Doric race, was first
moulded into a firm and consistent shape, but even in a more simple and
antiquated manner than in Sparta at a subsequent period.(37) Thus Lycurgus
was enabled, without forcing any foreign usages upon Sparta, to take for a
model the Cretan institutions which had been more fully developed at an
earlier period; so that the constitutions of Crete and Sparta had from
that time, as it were, a family resemblance.(38) When therefore we are
told that a pæan singer and expiatory priest of Crete, by name Thaletas of
Elyrus,(39) sent by the command of the Pythian oracle, composed the
troubles and dissensions of Sparta by the power of his music, and that he
was the instructor of Lycurgus;(40) it is easy to perceive that the latter
part of this account is an addition, made without any attention to
chronology; but the operation of Cretan music upon the regulation of
political affairs, is strictly in the spirit of an age, and of a race, in
which religion, arts, and laws conduced far more than among any other
people to attain the same end, and had their basis in the same notions.
9. On the other hand, it was the pride of the Spartans, that their laws
had proceeded from the oracle of the Pythian god:(41) and Tyrtæus says, in
some verses of his Eunomia, that the fundamental principles of the Spartan
constitution had been laid down by Apollo.(42) It is probable that these
laws were really composed in the form of injunctions to Lycurgus, or to
the people.(43) The oracle, however, continued to possess a superintending
power over the constitution, chiefly through the intervention of the
Pythians,(44) four persons appointed by the kings as messengers to the
temple of Pytho, who delivered the oracles truly and honestly to the
kings,(45) and were equally acquainted with their purport. On account of
the importance of these oracles, the Pythians were the assessors of the
kings and the gerusia,(46) and were always the messmates, both at home and
in the field, of the kings. It is probable that the three “Pythian
interpreters” at Athens, who, besides explaining the oracles, performed
public and domestic expiatory sacrifices,(47) once possessed a similar
dignity, although they lost these powers at a very early period. The
theori of Ægina, Mantinea, Messenia, Trœzen, and Thasos, who composed
separate colleges, ate together, and who were regular magistrates, not
being like the theori of Athens, chosen for a single theoria, may be
compared with the Pythians.(48)
10. This comparison again leads us back to our former position, that in
the genuine Doric form of government there were certain predominant ideas,
which were peculiar to that race, and were also expressed in the worship
of Apollo, viz., those of _harmony_ and _order_ (τὸ εὔκοσμον); of
_self-control and moderation_ (σωφροσύνη), and of _manly virtue_
(ἀρετή).(49) Accordingly, the constitution was formed for the education as
well of the old as of the young, and in a Doric state education was upon
the whole a subject of greater importance than government. And for this
reason all attempts to explain the legislation of Lycurgus, from partial
views and considerations, have necessarily failed. That external happiness
and enjoyment were not the aim of these institutions was soon perceived.
But it was thought, with Aristotle,(50) that every thing could be traced
to a desire of making the Spartans courageous warriors, and Sparta a
dominant and conquering state; whereas the fact is, that Sparta was hardly
ever known to seek occasion for a war, or to follow up a victory; and
during the whole of her flourishing period (that is, from about the 50th
Olympiad to the battle of Leuctra) did not make a single conquest by which
her territory was enlarged. In conclusion we may say, that the Doric state
was a body of men, acknowledging one strict principle of order, and one
unalterable rule of manners; and so subjecting themselves to this system,
that scarcely anything was unfettered by it, but every action was
influenced and regulated by the recognised principles. Before however we
come to the consideration of this system, it will be necessary to explain
the condition of an order of persons, upon which it was in a certain
measure founded, namely, the _subject classes_ in the several Doric
states.