Four tribes,(140) four castes, territorial division of Attica into four
parts, institution of tetrarchies. Thessaly anciently divided into four
tetrarchies. Institution (between 600-560 B.C.) of cycle or period, marked
by the four sacred Olympic games, one of which took place in one of four
cities each year in rotation. Pisistratus added the quadrennial or greater
Panathenæa to the ancient annual and lesser Panathenæa (Grote, History of
Greece, vol. 4).
Twelve tribes formed by Cecrops—represented by twelve chiefs,
+Cecrops=thirteen.
It is most interesting to find this division adopted in Plato’s de
Legibus, in which it is imagined that three elderly statesmen come
together, belonging respectively to Athens, Crete and Lacedæmon, to
discuss the reëstablishment of the depopulated city of Magnesia in Crete.
Aristotle has insinuated that the scheme proposed by Plato was not
original and had been actually realized at Lacedæmon. Mr. George Burger,
the able translator of Bohn’s edition of Plato’s Works, in his
introduction to vol. V, remarks that, if that were the case, Plato would
never have wasted his time in writing two elaborate treatises on matters
already well known, when it would have been sufficient to point out ...
the institutions of Lycurgus as the pattern, if not of a faultless
government, at least of one, that approached the nearest to perfection.
Plato might have replied to the charge made by Aristotle by saying that
his notions were all the better for not being original, for it was thus
shown that, as some of them were practicable, since they had already been
put into practice—the rest, which were a reform rather of existing
institutions than the construction of a code perfectly novel, would be
equally practicable if they were submitted to the same test. In his
Protagoras, Plato distinctly states that in Crete and Lacedæmon a most
beautiful philosophy was to be found, which had been handed down from
ancient times.... Let us now examine the plan discussed by the three
statesmen and submitted to them by the anonymous Athenian who, according
to Cicero, Plutarch and Boeckh, was Plato himself.
In the case of “the Magnesians, whom a god is again raising up and
settling into a colony ... a divine polity....” Plato says: ... “It is
meet, in the first place, to build the city as much as possible in the
middle of the country.... After this to divide it into twelve parts(141)
and placing first the temple of Hestia, and Zeus and Athene, to call it
the Acropolis and to throw around a circular enclosure and from it to cut
the city and all the country into twelve parts. But the twelve parts ought
to be equalized ... and the allotments to be five thousand and forty....
After this to assign the twelve allotments to the twelve gods and to call
them by their names and to consecrate to each the portion attained by lot
and to call it a phyle; and again to divide the twelve sections of the
city in the same manner as they divided the rest of the country, and that
each should possess two habitations, one near the centre and the other
near the extremity, and thus let the method end ... (B. V, C. 14).... We
ought, in the first place, to resume the number five thousand and forty
because it had and has now convenient distributions, both the whole number
and that which was assigned to the wards, which we laid down as the
twelfth part of the whole, being exactly four hundred and twenty. And as
the whole number has twelve divisions, so also has that of the wards. Now
it is meet to consider each division as a sacred gift of a deity through
its _following both the months and revolutions of the universe_. (By this
is meant, says Ast, the twelve signs of the zodiac.) _Hence that which is
inherent leads every state, making them holy_.... Some persons indeed have
made a more correct distribution than others, and with better fortune have
dedicated the distribution to the gods. But we now assert that the number
five thousand and forty has been chosen most correctly, as it has all
divisions as far as twelve, beginning from one, except that by eleven; ...
let us distribute this number; and dedicating to a god ... each portion,
and giving the altars ... let us institute monthly two meetings relating
to sacrifices ... twelve according to the divisions of the wards and
twelve to that of the city ... for the sake of every kind of intercourse.”
It should be noted here that, as in his Republic, Plato provides his ideal
state with female as well as male guardians, and with priestesses as well
as priests, whose duty it was to fulfil sacerdotal functions. Special
attention is drawn to this point, as in practice, it naturally signifies a
dual government, such as I have traced in ancient Egypt,
Babylonia-Assyria, and also in Mexico and Peru.
“As regards the number of ... festivals ... let there be three hundred and
sixty-five ... so that some one of the magistrates may always sacrifice
... there are to be twelve festivals to the twelve gods from whom each
tribe has its name ... and twelve guardians of the law.... There ought to
be twelve hamlets, one in the middle of each twelfth part, and in each
hamlet to be selected first, a market place and temples ... prepare all
the rest of the country by it into thirteen parts for the handicraftsmen
and to cause one portion of these to reside in the city by distributing
this portion among the twelve parts of the whole city ... to have other
persons distributed out of the city, in a circle around it.”
The portions of Plato’s work dealing with the appointment of the governors
and guardians of the state and their rotations in office and imposed tours
of inspection, are of such particular interest in connection with the
present comparative research, that I am impelled to quote them here.
“Let each (of the twelve) phyles furnish for the year five Rural Stewards
(in all sixty) ... each of whom is to choose twelve young men ... to the
latter let there be allotted portions of the country during a month ... so
that all of them may have a practical knowledge of every part of the
country.... But let the governorship and guardianship continue to the
guards and governors for two years, and let those who first obtain by lot
their respective portions, the guard officers, lead out, _changing the
places of the country constantly by going to the place next in order
towards the right in a circle, and let the right be that which is in the
east_. But as the years come around, in the second year, in order that the
greatest portion of the guards may become acquainted with the country, not
only at one season of the year, but that as many as possible may know
thoroughly in addition to the country, at the same time what occurs
relatively to each spot in the country at each season, let the officers
_lead them out again to the left, constantly changing the place until they
go through the second year_. In the third year it is meet to choose other
rural stewards and guard officers as the five curators of the twelve young
men.... There were to be three city stewards, dividing the twelve parts of
the city into three ... and five Market-Stewards, to be chosen from ten
elected”....(142)
It is deeply interesting to consider from the standpoint of comparative
study the principal features of the perfected scheme proposed by Plato, in
the fifth century B. C, for the establishment of an ideal colony, which is
designated as a “divine polity” or a “holy land.” This is especially the
case when we see that Plato himself states that it is the conformity of
the states to the inherent laws of nature, that confers upon it divinity
or holiness. It seems impossible not to recognize that both ideal
republics of Plato were intended to be “celestial kingdoms” or “kingdoms
of heaven” and that he expounded and doubtlessly perfected, an ancient
ideal which had been more or less successfully carried out in different
countries during many centuries before his time.
Having studied the proposed scheme for the foundation of a new colony of
the Greeks, who proudly maintained that “it was meet that the Greeks
should rule barbarians,” and pursued a regular system of colonization, let
us now obtain an idea of the mode in which Greeks had previously founded
colonies by reading the following passage from Grote’s History of Greece,
vol. IV, chap. XXVII:
“Under reign of Psammetichus, king of Egypt, about the middle of seventh
century B.C., Grecian mercenaries were first established in Egypt and
Grecian traders admitted ... into the Nile.(143) The opening of this new
market emboldened them to traverse the direct sea which separates Krête
from Egypt—a dangerous voyage with vessels which rarely ventured to lose
sight of land—and seems to have first made them acquainted with the
neighboring coast of Libya ... hence arose the foundation of the important
colony called Kyrênê” ... about 630 B.C.
“Thêra was the mother-city, herself a colony from Lacedæmon ... political
dissension among its inhabitants ... bad seasons, distress and
over-population led to the emigration that founded Kyrênê.... The oekist
Battus was selected and consecrated to work of founding the colony....
_From the seven districts into which Thêra was divided, emigrants were
drafted for the colony, one brother being singled out by lot from the
different families_.... The band which accompanied Battus was generally
supplied with provisions for one year and was all conveyed in two
pentekonters—armed ships with fifty rowers each. Thus humble was the start
of the mighty Kyrênê. After six years residence in one spot they abandoned
it and were conducted to a better site by guides, saying: ‘Here, men of
Hellas, is the place for you to dwell, for here the sky is
perforated.’ ”(144) The small force brought over by Battus was enabled at
first to fraternize with the indigenous Libyans,—next, reinforced by
additional colonists and availing themselves of the power of native
chiefs, to overawe and subjugate them....
“The Theræan colonists seem to have married Libyan wives, whence Herodotus
describes the women of Kyrênê and Barka as following, even in his time,
religious observances indigenous and not Hellenic. Even the descendants of
the primitive oekist Battus were semi-Libyan.... We must bear in mind that
the population of the [Græco-Libyan] cities was not pure Greek, but more
or less mixed, like that of the colonies in Italy, Sicily or Ionia....
Isokrates praises the well-chosen site of the colony of Kyrênê because it
was planted in the midst of indigenous natives apt for subjection and far
distant from any formidable enemies.... We are then to conceive the first
Theræan colonists as established in their lofty fortified post Kyrênê, in
the centre of Libyan Perioeki, till then strangers to walls, to arts and
perhaps even to cultivated land.... To these rude men the Theræans
communicated the elements of Hellenism and civilization, not without
receiving themselves much that was non-Hellenic in return, and perhaps the
reactionary influence of the Libyan element against the Hellenic might
have proved the stronger of the two had they not been reinforced by
new-comers from Greece.... About 543 B.C. owing to discontent, etc., the
regal prerogative of the Battiad line was terminated and a republican
government established; the dispossessed prince retaining both the landed
domains and various sacerdotal functions which had belonged to his
predecessors.”