§ 1. Origin and distribution of the Periœci of Laconia. § 2. Their
political condition and civil rights. § 3. Their service in war,
and their occupation in manufactures, trade, and art. § 4. Noble
families in Sparta not of Doric origin. Trades and crafts
hereditary in Sparta.
1. The clearest notion of the subjection enforced by the dominant race of
Dorians may be collected from the speech of Brasidas to the
Peloponnesians, in Thucydides.(51) “You are not come,” he says, “from
states in which the many rule over the few, but the few over the many,
having obtained their sovereignty in no other manner than by victory in
the field.” The only right indeed which they possessed was the right of
conquerors; the Dorians had by the sword driven out the Achæans, and these
again could not rest their claim to Peloponnesus on any better title. It
seemed also like a continuation of the heroic age, the existence of which
was founded on the rule exercised by the military over the agricultural
classes. The relative rights of the Dorians and Achæans appear, however,
to have been determined by mutual compact, since the Dorians, obtaining
the superiority only by slow degrees, were doubtless glad to purchase the
accession of each town on moderate conditions; and this was perhaps
especially the case in Messenia.(52) The native inhabitants of the towns,
thus reduced to a state of dependence, were called Περίοικοι.(53) The
difference of races was strictly preserved; and was not (as elsewhere)
obliterated by an union in the same city and political community. The
Periœci were always considered as Achæans, that people having in early
times composed the larger mass of the people thus subdued. So, for
example, the inhabitants of the maritime town of Asopus were called by the
title of Ἀχαιοὶ οἱ παρακοπαρίσσιοι.(54) At a later date, when the power of
Sparta had been long broken, and her freedom annihilated by the tyrant
Nabis, Titus Quinctius detached the hamlets (once called πόλεις, then
κῶμαι, _vici_) from all connexion with Sparta, and placed them under the
protection of the Achæan league.(55) Augustus confirmed the independence
of twenty-four Laconian towns under the name of Eleutherolacones; these,
like the former, being entirely released from the power of Sparta, were
governed by their own laws,(56) and formed a small distinct confederation.
Hence it is evident that these Periœci had previously maintained a certain
degree of independence, and composed separate communities. Of these
twenty-four towns eighteen are mentioned—viz., Gerenia, Alagonia, Thalamæ,
Leuctra, Œtylus, Cænepolis, Pyrrhichus, Las, Teuthrone, Gythium, Asopus,
Acriæ, Bœæ, Zarax, Epidaurus, Limera, Prasiæ, Geronthræ, and Marius;(57) a
small part only of the coast near Cardamyle remained at that time under
the power of Sparta.(58) The towns, however, belonging to the Periœci did
not lie merely on the coast, but also more inland; for example, Thuria and
Æthæa, which were in what had formerly been Messenia.(59) This Æthæa is
reckoned among the hundred cities of Laconia,(60) which Androtion had
enumerated at full length in his Atthis, and perhaps also Stephanus of
Byzantium, on the authority of Androtion;(61) the epitome of whose work
which we now possess only mentions Æthæa, Amyclæ, Croceæ, Epidaurus,
Limera, Dyrrachium, Tenos, Aulon, and Anthana. Now since two of these
towns are known from other authorities to have belonged to Periœci, we may
perhaps infer the same of the whole hundred. The round number of a hundred
cannot however have been fixed before the time when the whole of Messenia,
as far as the river Neda (on which Aulon was situated), as well as Cynuria
(to which Anthana, or Athene, belonged), came finally under the dominion
of Sparta, that is to say, after Olymp. 58. 548 B.C.(62) It must therefore
have been subsequent to this epoch that Sparta fixed the exact number of
the towns inhabited by her Periœci, and somewhat arbitrarily set them at a
hundred; as Cleisthenes at Athens, though by what means is indeed unknown,
contrived likewise to raise the number of demi in Attica to a hundred.
We have already(63) taken notice of another division of Laconia besides
that into towns, and shown that the Periœci of this country had formerly
dwelt in five districts, of which the chief towns were Amyclæ, Las,
Epidaurus Limera (or else Gytheium), Ægys, and Pharis; as also Messenia,
in addition to the territory round the city inhabited by Dorians,
contained four provinces—viz., Pylos, Rhium, Mesola, and Hyamia. For what
length of time these districts were retained, and what relation they bore
to the division into a hundred towns or hamlets, cannot now be determined.
2. It will next be necessary to ascertain what were the political rights
and condition of the Periœci. The main circumstances are without doubt
correctly given by Ephorus. “They were,” he says, “tributary to Sparta,
and had not equal rights of citizenship.” If these words are taken in
their literal sense, it is plain that the Periœci had not a share in the
great legislative assembly of the citizens. And in truth the passages
adduced by modern writers to show that they had a vote in this assembly
are not by any means satisfactory.(64) Perhaps the following
considerations are sufficient to convince us of the impossibility of such
general assemblies. Had the Spartan constitution permitted the whole
people to hold large assemblies with the right of deciding on all public
questions, it would have been in principle completely democratic, and
would have had a perpetual tendency to become more so, in the necessary
course of events. But, in addition to this objection, let us only picture
to ourselves the absurdity of the Periœci, in the neighbourhood of Sparta,
all flocking together between the brook Babyca and the bridge Cnacion!
Where again were those, who took several days to arrive at Sparta from
Cyphanta, Pylos, or Tænarus, to find houseroom and food? How could any of
them be ready to leave their homes and trades at such a summons? It was
esteemed a difficult matter even to collect an armed force of Periœci at a
short notice. A _city-community_ was doubtless everywhere requisite for a
popular assembly; and hence in the Athenian, and every similar democracy,
each citizen was in some way settled in the town, and had the right of
there possessing an house (ἔγκτησις οἰκίας), which a Periœcus most
assuredly had not.(65)
3. Now, if it is acknowledged that the distant situation and state of the
Periœci presented almost insuperable objections to their possessing a
share in the general government, their political inferiority to the
Spartans will not appear very oppressive. They were admitted equally with
the Spartans to the honourable occupation of war, and indeed sometimes
served as heavy-armed soldiers, or as troops of the line.(66) There were
at Platæa 5000 Dorian hoplitæ, and the same number of Periœci; at
Sphacteria 292 prisoners were taken, of whom only 120 were Spartans.(67)
How, if the Periœci had been an oppressed people, could Sparta have
ventured to collect so large a number into her armies; and for what reason
should the Periœci have taken part in the heroic devotion of that small
band, if they had not the victory and honour of Sparta as much at heart as
their own? “Sparta,” said the Spartan king Demaratus, to Xerxes,(68)
“contains 8000 Spartans, all of equal bravery; the other Lacedæmonians, in
many surrounding cities, are indeed inferior to them, but yet not
deficient in courage.” Nor do we hear of any insurrection of Periœci (if
we except the revolt of two Messenian towns in Olymp. 78. 468 B.C.) until
the downfall of the constitution.(69) Again, would it be possible, on the
assumption of an oppressive subjection, to explain how the Asinæans and
Nauplians, when deprived of their independence by Argos, fled to Laconia,
that they might occupy the maritime towns of Mothone and Asine, manifestly
as Periœci? Nor is it consistent with a general contempt of the Periœci
that καλοὶ καγαθοὶ—“gentlemen”—are mentioned in their number.(70) All
trade and commerce, of indispensable need to Laconia, were in the hands of
the maritime towns. Merchants from Libya and Egypt brought their cargoes
to the Periœci of Cythera,(71) who, among other branches of trade,
followed the lucrative employment of the purple fishery.(72) All manual
labour in Sparta, not performed by slaves, was in the hands of this class,
since no Spartan, before the introduction of the Achæan constitution, was
allowed to follow any trade.(73) The low estimation in which trade was
held was founded on the ancient Grecian customs and opinions, in departing
from which the Corinthians were nearly singular among the Doric states,
the productiveness of trade having taught them to set a higher value upon
it.(74) And yet in their colony of Epidamnus public slaves were the only
manual labourers;(75) Diophantus wished to introduce the converse of this
system at Athens, and to make all the manual labourers slaves. The
Spartans, moreover, appear to have admitted those alone of the Periœci who
were engaged in agriculture to serve among the heavy-armed, while artisans
were admitted only to the light-armed infantry.(76) This had been once the
case at Athens, where the Thetes (to which class the artificers belonged)
served only in that inferior rank. According to this, then, the 5000
Periœci, who at the battle of Platæa were allotted as light-armed to the
same number of heavy-armed soldiers, were in part perhaps artificers. The
industrious pursuit of trade did not, however, suffer so much as might be
supposed, from the low estimation in which it was held; for not only were
many raw commodities obtained in a high degree of perfection in Laconia,
but many Lacedæmonian manufactures were also used and sought after in the
rest of Greece. The Laconian _cothon_, a drinking vessel used in camps and
marches,(77) the bowl,(78) the goblet,(79) tables, seats, elbow
chairs,(80) doors,(81) and cars,(82) the Laconian steel,(83) keys,(84)
swords, helmets, axes, and other iron fabrics,(85) the shoes of
Amyclæ,(86) the Laconian mantles,(87) and woollen garments dyed with
native purple, which adorned alike the warriors setting out to battle and
the bloody corpses of the slain; all these bespeak an active pursuit of
trade, and at the same time a peculiar sense of propriety and comfort,
which brought several of these goods and implements into general use. Many
men were probably employed in the iron mines and forges;(88) stone
quarries of Tænarus had also been worked from early times;(89) and that
their industry was not confined to the mere drudgery of manufactures is
shown by the schools of Lacedæmonian embossers and brass-founders
(probably a branch of that in Crete), to which Chartas, Syadras, Dontas,
Dorycleidas and Medon, Theocles, Gitiadas, and Cratinus belonged,(90) all
of whom were probably Periœci, although Pausanias, neglecting the
distinction, calls them Spartans. Upon the whole we may venture to affirm
that the Doric dominion did not discourage or stifle the intellectual
growth of her dependent subjects, but allowed it full room for a vigorous
development. Myson, by many reckoned one of the seven sages, was,
according to some, and perhaps the most credible accounts, a husbandman of
the Laconian town of Etia, and resided at a place called Chen in the same
country.(91) Even the highest honour among the Greeks, the victory at the
Olympic games, was not denied to the Lacedæmonians; an inhabitant of Acriæ
was found in the list of the conquerors at Olympia:(92) from which
circumstance it is evident that the Periœci of Sparta were in all other
parts of Greece considered as free citizens. They must also without doubt
have possessed civil rights, but only in those communities to which they
immediately belonged, and which would never have been called _cities_
(πόλεις) unless they had to a certain point been independent bodies.
Isocrates,(93) indeed, states that they possessed less freedom and power
than the demi of Attica; but no general comparison can be drawn between
the δῆμοι of Attica and πόλεις of Laconia. Perhaps they had the power of
electing their own municipal magistrates, though we find that a Spartan
was sent as governor to the island of Cythera.(94) The same was the case
in war. We find the command at sea intrusted to one of the class of
Periœci,(95) doubtless because the Spartans did not hold the naval service
in much estimation, and because the inhabitants of the maritime towns were
more practised in naval affairs than the Dorians of the interior.
Concerning the tribute of the towns belonging to the Periœci no accurate
account has been preserved.
4. Though for the most part the early inhabitants were driven into the
country by the Doric conquerors, there still remained some families which
inhabited the city conjointly with the Spartans, and were held in equal
consideration with them; as at Athens, for example, many families of the
original inhabitants appear to have had the rank of Eupatridæ. Of this the
Talthybiadæ are an instance. The office of herald was at Sparta (as in the
fabulous times) hereditary, and not, as in other parts of Greece, obtained
by competition.(96) The privilege of performing all foreign embassies,(97)
and a share in the sacred missions,(98) were assigned to the pretended
descendants of the Mycenean herald Talthybius, who also enjoyed especial
honours amongst the Achæans at Ægium;(99) and there is doubtless reason to
suppose that this family belonged to the Achæan race, without entering
into the question of the correctness of their pedigree. The dignity
attached to their office was very great, especially if, as was the case in
the heroic ages, it was the custom for the heralds to address the princes
as “beloved sons.” As to property and effects, they ranked with the first
Spartans,(100) if, as it appears, Sperthias and Bulis, who offered
themselves to the Persian king as an atonement for the murder of his
ambassadors,(101) were of the family of the Talthybiadæ.
Indeed almost all the other trades and occupations, besides that of
herald, were hereditary at Sparta, as, for example, those of cooking,
baking, mixing wine, flute-playing, &c.(102) The trade of cooks had its
particular heroes, viz., Dæton, Matton, and Ceraon, whose statue stood in
the Hyacinthian street.(103) It is easy to see how this hereditary
transmission of employments favoured the maintenance of ancient customs.
In fact, Sparta would not have so long remained contented with her black
broth, either if her cooks had not learnt the art of dressing it from
their youth upwards, and continued to exercise their craft after the
manner of their fathers, or if this office could have been assigned at
will to those who were able by their art to gratify the palate. It is not
probable that any of these families of artisans were of Doric origin, and
they doubtless belonged to the class of Periœci; nor is it to be supposed
that, like the Talthybiadæ, they possessed the Spartan rights of
citizenship.(104)