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----------GREECE: Start----------
[Footnote: An important part of Greek history is treated
more fully under the heading "ATHENS" (in Volume 1), to
which the reader is referred.
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/65306]
GREECE:
The Land.
Its geographical characteristics, and their influence upon the
People.
"The considerable part played by the people of Greece during
many ages must undoubtedly be ascribed to the geographical
position of their country. Other tribes having the same
origin, but inhabiting countries less happily situated—such,
for instance, as the Pelasgians of Illyria, who are believed
to be the ancestors of the Albanians—have never risen above a
state of barbarism, whilst the Hellenes placed themselves at
the head of civilised nations, and opened fresh paths to their
enterprise. If Greece had remained for ever what it was during
the tertiary geological epoch—a vast plain attached to the
deserts of Libya, and run over by lions and the
rhinoceros—would it have become the native country of a
Phidias, an Æschylos, or a Demosthenes? Certainly not. It
would have shared the fate of Africa, and, far from taking the
initiative in civilisation, would have waited for an impulse
to be given to it from beyond. Greece, a sub-peninsula of the
peninsula of the Balkans, was even more completely protected
by transverse mountain barriers in the north than was Thracia
or Macedonia. Greek culture was thus able to develop itself
without fear of being stifled at its birth by successive
invasions of barbarians. Mounts Olympus, Pelion, and Ossa,
towards the north and east of Thessaly, constituted the first
line of formidable obstacles towards Macedonia. A second
barrier, the steep range of the Othrys, runs along what is the
present political boundary of Greece. To the south of the Gulf
of Lamia a fresh obstacle awaits us, for the range of the Œta
closes the passage, and there is but the narrow pass of the
Thermopylæ between it and the sea. Having crossed the
mountains of the Locri and descended into the basin of Thebæ,
there still remain to be crossed the Parnes or the spurs of
the Cithæron before we reach the plains of Attica. The
'isthmus' beyond these is again defended by transverse
barriers, outlying ramparts, as it were, of the mountain
citadel of the Peloponnesus, that acropolis of all Greece.
Hellas has frequently been compared to a series of chambers,
the doors of which were strongly bolted; it was difficult to
get in, but more difficult to get out again, owing to their
stout defenders. Michelet likens Greece to a trap having three
compartments. You entered, and found yourself taken first in
Macedonia, then in Thessaly, then between the Thermopylæ and
the isthmus. But the difficulties increase beyond the isthmus,
and Lacedæmonia remained impregnable for a long time. At an
epoch when the navigation even of a land-locked sea like the
Ægean was attended with danger, Greece found herself
sufficiently protected against the invasions of oriental
nations; but, at the same time, no other country held out such
inducements to the pacific expeditions of merchants. Gulfs and
harbours facilitated access to her Ægean coasts, and the
numerous outlying islands were available as stations or as
places of refuge. Greece, therefore, was favourably placed for
entering into commercial intercourse with the more highly
civilised peoples who dwelt on the opposite coasts of Asia
Minor. The colonists and voyagers of Eastern Ionia not only
supplied their Achæan and Pelasgian kinsmen with foreign
commodities and merchandise, but they also imparted to them
the myths, the poetry, the sciences, and the arts of their
native country. Indeed, the geographical configuration of
Greece points towards the east, whence she has received her
first enlightenment. Her peninsulas and outlying islands
extend in that direction; the harbours on her eastern coasts
are most commodious, and afford the best shelter; and the
mountain-surrounded plains there offer the best sites for
populous cities. … The most distinctive feature of Hellas,
as far as concerns the relief of the ground, consists in the
large number of small basins, separated one from the other by
rocks or mountain ramparts. The features of the ground thus
favoured the division of the Greek people into a multitude of
independent republics. Every town had its river, its
amphitheatre of hills or mountains, its acropolis, its fields,
pastures, and forests, and nearly all of them had, likewise,
access to the sea. All the elements required by a free
community were thus to be found within each of these small
districts, and the neighbourhood of other towns, equally
favoured, kept alive perpetual emulation, too frequently
degenerating into strife and battle. The islands of the Ægean
Sea, likewise, had constituted themselves into miniature
republics. Local institutions thus developed themselves
freely, and even the smallest island of the Archipelago has
its great representatives in history. But whilst there thus
exists the greatest diversity, owing to the configuration of
the ground and the multitude of islands, the sea acts as a
binding element, washes every coast, and penetrates far
inland. These gulfs and numerous harbours have made the
maritime inhabitants of Greece a nation of sailors—amphibiæ,
as Strabo called them. From the most remote times the passion
for travel has always been strong amongst them. When the
inhabitants of a town grew too numerous to support themselves
upon the produce of their land, they swarmed out like bees,
explored the coasts of the Mediterranean, and, when they had
found a site which recalled their native home, they built
themselves a new city. … The Greeks held the same position
relatively to the world of the ancients which is occupied at
the present time by the Anglo-Saxons with reference to the
entire earth. There exists, indeed, a remarkable analogy
between Greece, with its archipelago, and the British Islands,
at the other extremity of the continent. Similar geographical
advantages have brought about similar results, as far as
commerce is concerned, and between the Ægean and the British
seas time and space have effected a sort of harmony."
_E. Reclus,
The Earth and its Inhabitants: Europe,
volume 1, pages 36-38._
"The independence of each city was a doctrine stamped deep on
the Greek political mind by the very nature of the Greek land.
How truly this is so is hardly fully understood till we see
that land with our own eyes. The map may do something; but no
map can bring home to us the true nature of the Greek land
till we have stood on a Greek hill-top, on the akropolis of
Athens or the loftier akropolis of Corinth, and have seen how
thoroughly the land was a land of valleys cut off by hills, of
islands and peninsulas cut off by arms of sea, from their
neighbours on either side.
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Or we might more truly say that, while the hills fenced them
off from their neighbours, the arms of the sea laid them open
to their neighbours. Their waters might bring either friends
or enemies; but they brought both from one wholly distinct and
isolated piece of land to another. Every island, every valley,
every promontory, became the seat of a separate city; that is,
according to Greek notions, the seat of an independent power,
owning indeed many ties of brotherhood to each of the other
cities which helped to make up the whole Greek nation, but
each of which claimed the right of war and peace and separate
diplomatic intercourse, alike with every other Greek city and
with powers beyond the bounds of the Greek world. Corinth
could treat with Athens and Athens with Corinth, and Corinth
and Athens could each equally treat with the King of the
Macedonians and with the Great King of Persia. … How close
the Greek states are to one another, and yet how physically
distinct they are from one another, it needs, for me at least,
a journey to Greece fully to take in."
_E. A. Freeman,
The Practical Bearings of European History
(Lectures to American Audiences),
pages 243-244._
GREECE: Ancient inhabitants.
Tribal divisions.
See PELASGIANS; HELLENES; ACHAIA; ÆOLIANS;
and DORIANS AND IONIANS.
GREECE: The Heroes and their Age.
"The period included between the first appearance of the
Hellenes in Thessaly and the return of the Greeks from Troy,
is commonly known by the name of the heroic age, or ages. The
real limits of this period cannot be exactly defined. The date
of the siege of Troy is only the result of a doubtful
calculation [ending B. C. 1183, as reckoned by Eratosthenes,
but fixed at dates ranging from 33 to 63 years later by
Isocrates, Callimachus and other Greek writers]; and … the
reader will see that it must be scarcely possible to ascertain
the precise beginning of the period: but still, so far as its
traditions admit of anything like a chronological connexion,
its duration may be estimated at six generations, or about 200
years [say from some time in the 14th to some time in the 12th
century before Christ]. … The history of the heroic age is
the history of the most celebrated persons belonging to this
class, who, in the language of poetry, are called 'heroes.'
The term 'hero' is of doubtful origin, though it was clearly a
title of honour; but, in the poems of Homer, it is applied not
only to the chiefs, but also to their followers, the freemen
of lower rank, without, however, being contrasted with any
other, so as to determine its precise meaning. In later times
its use was narrowed, and in some degree altered: it was
restricted to persons, whether of the heroic or of after ages,
who were believed to be endowed with a superhuman, though not
a divine, nature, and who were honoured with sacred rites, and
were imagined to have the power of dispensing good or evil to
their worshippers; and it was gradually combined with the
notion of prodigious strength and gigantic stature. Here,
however, we have only to do with the heroes as men. The
history of their age is filled with their wars, expeditions,
and adventures, and this is the great mine from which the
materials of the Greek poetry were almost entirely drawn."
_C. Thirlwall,
History of Greece,
chapter 5 (volume 1)._
The legendary heroes whose exploits and adventures became the
favorite subjects of Greek tragedy and song were Perseus,
Hercules, Theseus, the Argonauts, and the heroes of the Siege
of Troy.
GREECE:
The Migrations of the Hellenic tribes in the Peninsula.
"If there is any point in the annals of Greece at which we can
draw the line between the days of myth and legend and the
beginnings of authentic history, it is at the moment of the
great migrations. Just as the irruption of the Teutonic tribes
into the Roman empire in the 5th century after Christ marks
the commencement of an entirely new era in modern Europe, so
does the invasion of Southern and Central Greece by the
Dorians, and the other tribes whom they set in motion, form
the first landmark in a new period of Hellenic history. Before
these migrations we are still in an atmosphere which we cannot
recognize as that of the historical Greece that we know. The
states have different boundaries, some of the most famous
cities have not yet been founded, tribes who are destined to
vanish occupy prominent places in the land, royal houses of a
foreign stock are established everywhere, the distinction
between Hellene and Barbarian is yet unknown. We cannot
realize a Greece where Athens is not yet counted as a great
city, while Mycenae is a seat of empire; where the Achaian
element is everywhere predominant, and the Dorian element is
as yet unknown. When, however, the migrations are ended, we at
once find ourselves in a land which we recognize as the Greece
of history. The tribes have settled into the districts which
are to be their permanent abodes, and have assumed their
distinctive characters. … The original impetus which set the
Greek tribes in motion came from the north, and the whole
movement rolled southward and eastward. It started with the
invasion of the valley of the Peneus by the Thessalians, a
warlike but hitherto obscure tribe, who had dwelt about Dodona
in the uplands of Epirus. They crossed the passes of Pindus,
and flooded down into the great plain to which they were to
give their name. The tribes which had previously held it were
either crushed and enslaved, or pushed forward into Central
Greece by the wave of invasion. Two of the displaced races
found new homes for themselves by conquest. The Arnaeans, who
had dwelt in the southern lowlands along the courses of
Apidanus and Enipeus, came through Thermopylae, pushed the
Locriams aside to right and left, and descended into the
valley of the Cephissus, where they subdued the Minyae of
Orchomenus [see MINYI], and then, passing south, utterly
expelled the Cadmeians of Thebes. The plain country which they
had conquered received a single name. Boeotia became the
common title of the basins of the Cephissus and the Asopus,
which had previously been in the hands of distinct races. Two
generations later the Boeotians endeavoured to cross
Cithaeron, and add Attica to their conquests; but their king
Xanthus fell in single combat with Melanthus, who fought in
behalf of Athens, and his host gave up the enterprise. In
their new country the Boeotians retained their national unity
under the form of a league, in which no one city had authority
over another, though in process of time Thebes grew so much
greater than her neighbours that she exercised a marked
preponderance over the other thirteen members of the
confederation. Orchomenus, whose Minyan inhabitants had been
subdued but not exterminated by the invaders, remained
dependent on the league without being
at first amalgamated with it.
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A second tribe who were expelled by the irruption of the
Thessalians were the Dorians, a race whose name is hardly
heard in Homer, and whose early history had been obscure and
insignificant. They had till now dwelt along the western slope
of Pindus. Swept on by the invaders, they crossed Mount
Othrys, and dwelt for a time in the valley of the Spercheius
and on the shoulders of Oeta. But the land was too narrow for
them, and, after a generation had passed, the bulk of the
nation moved southward to seek a wider home, while a small
fraction only remained in the valleys of Oeta. Legends tell us
that their first advance was made by the Isthmus of Corinth,
and was repulsed by the allied states of Peloponnesus, Hyllus
the Dorian leader having fallen in the fight by the hand of
Echemus, King of Tegea. But the grandsons of Hyllus resumed
his enterprise, and met with greater success. Their invasion
was made, as we are told, in conjunction with their neighbours
the Aetolians, and took the Aetolian port of Naupactus as its
base. Pushing across the narrow strait at the mouth of the
Corinthian Gulf, the allied hordes landed in Peloponnesus, and
forced their way down the level country on its western coast,
then the land of the Epeians, but afterwards to be known as
Elis and Pisatis. This the Aetolians took as their share,
while the Dorians pressed further south and east, and
successively conquered Messenia, Laconia, and Argolis,
destroying the Cauconian kingdom of Pylos and the Achaian
states of Sparta and Argos. There can be little doubt that the
legends of the Dorians pressed into a single generation the
conquests of a long series of years. … It is highly probable
that Messenia was the first seized of the three regions, and
Argos the latest … but of the details or dates of the Dorian
conquests we know absolutely nothing. Of the tribes whom the
Dorians supplanted, some remained in the land as subjects to
their newly found masters, while others took ship and fled
over sea. The stoutest-hearted of the Achaians of Argolis,
under Tisamenus, a grandson of Agamemnon, retired northward
when the contest became hopeless, and threw themselves on the
coast cities of the Corinthian Gulf, where up to this time the
Ionic tribe of the Aegialeans had dwelt. The Ionians were
worsted, and fled for refuge to their kindred in Attica, while
the conquerors created a new Achaia between the Arcadian
Mountains and the sea, and dwelt in the twelve cities which
their predecessors had built. The rugged mountains of Arcadia
were the only part of Peloponnesus which were to escape a
change of masters resulting from the Dorian invasion. A
generation after the fall of Argos, new war-bands thirsting
for land pushed on to the north and west, led by descendants
of Temenus. The Ionic towns of Sicyon and Phlius, Epidaurus
and Troezen, all fell before them. Even the inaccessible
Acropolis which protected the Aeolian settlement of Corinth
could not preserve it from the hands of the enterprising
Aletes. Nor was it long before the conquerors pressed on from
Corinth beyond the isthmus, and attacked Attica. Foiled in
their endeavour to subdue the land, they at least succeeded in
tearing from it its western districts, where the town of
Megara was made the capital of a new Dorian state, and served
for many generations to curb the power of Athens. From
Epidaurus a short voyage of fifteen miles took the Dorians to
Aegina, where they formed a settlement which, first as a
vassal to Epidaurus, and then as an independent community,
enjoyed a high degree of commercial prosperity. It is not the
least curious feature of the Dorian invasion that the leaders
of the victorious tribe, who, like most other royal houses,
claimed to descend from the gods and boasted that Heracles was
their ancestor, should have asserted that they were not
Dorians by race, but Achaians. Whether the rude northern
invaders were in truth guided by princes of a different blood
and higher civilization than themselves, it is impossible to
say. … In all probability the Dorian invasion was to a
considerable extent a check in the history of the development
of Greek civilization, a supplanting of a richer and more
cultured by a poorer and wilder race. The ruins of the
prehistoric cities, which were supplanted by new Dorian
foundations, point to a state of wealth to which the country
did not again attain for many generations. On the other hand,
the invasion brought about an increase in vigour and moral
earnestness. The Dorians throughout their history were the
sturdiest and most manly of the Greeks. The god to whose
worship they were especially devoted was Apollo, the purest,
the noblest, the most Hellenic member of the Olympian family.
By their peculiar reverence for this noble conception of
divinity, the Dorians marked themselves out as the most moral
of the Greeks."
_C. W. C. Oman,
History of Greece,
chapter 5._
ALSO IN:
_M. Duncker,
History of Greece,
book 2 (volume 1)._
_C. O. Müller,
History and Antiquity of the Doric Race,
introduction, and book 1, chapters 1-5._
_G. Grote,
History of Greece,
part 2, chapters 3-8 (volume 2)._
See, also, DORIANS AND IONIANS;
ACHAIA; ÆOLIANS; THESSALY;
and BŒOTIA.
GREECE:
The Migrations to Asia Minor and the Islands of the Ægean.
Æolian, Ionian and Dorian colonies.
See ASIA MINOR: THE GREEK COLONIES.
GREECE:
Mycenæ and its kings.
The unburied memorials.
"Thucydides says that before the Dorian conquest, the date of
which is traditionally fixed at B. C. 1104, Mycenae was the
only city whence ruled a wealthy race of kings. Archaeology
produces the bodies of kings ruling at Mycenae about the
twelfth century and spreads their wealth under our eyes.
Thucydides says that this wealth was brought in the form of
gold from Phrygia by the founder of the line, Pelops.
Archaeology tells us that the gold found at Mycenae may very
probably have come from the opposite coast of Asia Minor which
abounded in gold; and further that the patterns impressed on
the gold work at Mycenae bear a very marked resemblance to the
decorative patterns found on graves in Phrygia. Thucydides
tells us that though Mycenae was small, yet its rulers had the
hegemony over a great part of Greece. Archæology shews us that
the kings of Mycenae were wealthy and important quite out of
proportion to the small city which they ruled, and that the
civilisation which centred at Mycenae spread over south Greece
and the Aegean, and lasted for some centuries at least. It
seems to me that the simplest way of meeting the facts of the
case is to suppose that we have recovered at Mycenae the
graves of the Pelopid race of monarchs. It will not of course
do to go too far. … It would be too much to suppose that we
have recovered the bodies of the Agamemnon who seems in the
Iliad to be as familiar to us as Caesar or Alexander, or of
his father Atreus, or of his charioteer and the rest.
{1568}
We cannot of course prove the Iliad to be history; and if we
could, the world would be poorer than before. But we can
insist upon it that the legends of heroic Greece have more of
the historic element in them than anyone supposed a few years
ago. … Assuming then that we may fairly class the Pelopidae
as Achaean, and may regard the remains at Mycenae as
characteristic of the Achaean civilisation of Greece, is it
possible to trace with bolder hand the history of Achaean
Greece? Certainly we gain assistance in our endeavour to
realize what the pre-Dorian state of Peloponnesus was like. We
secure a hold upon history which is thoroughly objective,
while all the history which before existed was so vague and
imaginative that the clear mind of Grote refused to rely upon
it at all. But the precise dates are more than we can venture
to lay down, in the present condition of our knowledge. …
The Achaean civilisation was contemporary with the eighteenth
Egyptian dynasty (B. C. 1700-1400). It lasted during the
invasions of Egypt from the north (1300-1100). When it ceased
we cannot say with certainty. There is every historical
probability that it was brought to a violent end in the Dorian
invasion. The traditional date of that invasion is B. C. 1104.
But it is obvious that this date cannot be relied upon."
_P. Gardner,
New Chapters in Greek History,
chapters 2-3._
ALSO IN:
_R. Schliemann,
Mycenæ._
_C. Schuchhardt,
Schliemann's Excavations,
chapter 4._
GREECE:
Ancient political and geographical divisions.
"Greece was not a single country. … It was broken up into
little districts, each with its own government. Any little
city might be a complete state in itself, and independent of
its neighbours. It might possess only a few miles of land and
a few hundred inhabitants, and yet have its own laws, its own
government, and its own army. … In a space smaller than an
English county there might be several independent cities,
sometimes at war, sometimes at peace with one another.
Therefore when we say that the west coast of Asia Minor was
part of Greece, we do not mean that this coast-land and
European Greece were under one law and one government, for
both were broken up into a number of little independent
States: but we mean that the people who lived on the west
coast of Asia Minor were just as much Greeks as the people who
lived in European Greece. They spoke the same language, and
had much the same customs, and they called one another
Hellenes, in contrast to all other nations of the world, whom
they called barbarians … , that is, 'the unintelligible
folk,' because they could not understand their tongue."
_C. A. Fyffe,
History of Greece (History Primers),
chapter 1._
"The nature of the country had … a powerful effect on the
development of Greek politics. The whole land was broken up by
mountains into a number of valleys more or less isolated;
there was no central point from which a powerful monarch could
control it. Hence Greece was, above all other countries, the
home of independence and freedom. Each valley, and even the
various hamlets of a valley, felt themselves possessed of a
separate life, which they were jealous to preserve."
_E. Abbott,
History of Greece,
part 1, chapter 1._
See AKARNANIANS; ACHAIA;
ÆGINA; ÆTOLIA; ARCADIA; ARGOS; ATHENS;
ATTICA; BŒOTIA; CORINTH; DORIS AND
DRYOPIS; ELIS; EPIRUS; EUBŒA; KORKYRA;
LOCRI; MACEDONIA; MANTINEA; MEGALOPOLIS;
MEGARA; MESSENE; OLYNTHUS; PHOKIANS;
PLATÆA; SICYON; SPARTA; THEBES;
and THESSALY.
GREECE:
Political evolution of the leading States.
Variety in the forms of Government.
Rise of democracy at Athens.
"The Hellenes followed no common political aim. …
Independent and self-centred, they created, in a constant
struggle of citizen with citizen and state with state, the
groundwork of those forms of government which have been
established in the world at large. We see monarchy,
aristocracy, democracy, rising side by side and one after
another, the changes being regulated in each community by its
past experience and its special interests in the immediate
present. These forms of government did not appear in their
normal simplicity or in conformity with a distinct ideal, but
under the modifications necessary to give them vitality. An
example of this is Lakedæmon. If one of the families of the
Heracleidæ [the two royal families-see SPARTA: THE
CONSTITUTION] aimed at a tyranny, whilst another entered into
relations with the native and subject population, fatal to the
prerogatives of the conquerors, we can understand that in the
third case, that, of the Spartan community, the aristocratic
principle was maintained with the greatest strictness.
Independently of this, the divisions of the Lakedæmonian
monarchy between two lines, neither of which was to have
precedence, was intended to guard against the repetition in
Sparta of that which had happened in Argos. Above all, the
members of the Gerusia, in which the two kings had only equal
rights with the rest, held a position which would have been
unattainable to the elders of the Homeric age. But even the
Gerusia was not independent. There existed in addition to it a
general assembly, which, whilst very aristocratic as regards
the native and subject population, assumed a democratic aspect
in contrast with the king and the elders. The internal life of
the Spartan constitution depended upon the relations between
the Gerusia and the aristocratic demos. … The Spartan
aristocracy dominated the Peloponnesus. But the constitution
contained a democratic clement working through the Ephors, by
means of which the conduct of affairs might be concentrated in
a succession of powerful hands. Alongside of this system, the
purely aristocratic constitutions, which were without such a
centre, could nowhere hold their ground. The Bacchiadæ in
Corinth, two hundred in number, with a prytanis at their head,
and inter-marrying only among themselves, were one of the most
distinguished of these families. They were deprived of their
exclusive supremacy by Kypselus, a man of humble birth on his
father's side, but connected with the Bacchiadæ through his
mother. … As the Kypselidæ rose in Corinth, the metropolis
of the colonies towards the west, so in the corresponding
eastern metropolis, Miletus, Thrasybulus raised himself from
the dignity of prytanis to that of tyrant; in Ephesus,
Pythagoras rose to power, and overthrew the Basilidæ; in
Samos, Polycrates, who was master also of the Kyklades, and of
whom it is recorded that he confiscated the property of the
citizens and then made them a present of it again. By
concentrating the forces of their several communities the
tyrants obtained the means of surrounding themselves with a
certain splendor, and above all of liberally encouraging
poetry and art.
{1569}
To these Polycrates opened his citadel, and in it we find
Anacreon and Ibycus; Kypselus dedicated a famous statue to
Zeus, at Olympia. The school of art at Sikyon was without a
rival, and at the court of Periander were gathered the seven
sages—men in whom a distinguished political position was
combined with the prudential wisdom derived from the
experience of life. This is the epoch of the legislator of
Athens, Solon, who more than the rest has attracted to himself
the notice of posterity.
See ATHENS: B. C. 594.
He is the founder of the Athenian democracy. … His proverb
'Nothing in excess' indicates his character. He was a man who
knew exactly what the time has a right to call for, and who
utilized existing complications to bring about the needful
changes. It is impossible adequately to express what he was to
the people of Athens, and what services he rendered them. That
removal of their pecuniary burdens, the seisachtheia, made
life for the first time endurable to the humbler classes.
See DEBT, LAWS CONCERNING: ANCIENT GREEK.
Solon cannot be said to have introduced democracy, but, in
making the share of the upper classes in the government
dependent upon the good pleasure of the community at large, he
laid its foundations. The people were invested by him with
attributes which they afterwards endeavored to extend. …
Solon himself lived long enough to see the order which he
established serve as the basis of the tyranny which he wished
to avoid; it was the Four Hundred themselves who lent a hand
to the change. The radical cause of failure was that the
democratic element was too feebly constituted to control or to
repress the violence of the families. To elevate the democracy
into a true power in the state other events were necessary,
which not only rendered possible, but actually brought about,
its further development. The conflicts of the principal
families, hushed for a moment, were revived under the eyes of
Solon himself with redoubled violence. The Alemæonidæ
[banished about 595 B. C.—see ATHENS: B. C. 612-595] were
recalled, and Æthelred around them a party consisting mainly
of the inhabitants of the seacoast, who, favored by trade, had
the money in their hands; the genuine aristocrats, described
as the inhabitants of the plains, who were in possession of
the fruitful soil, were in perpetual antagonism to the
Alemæonidæ; and, whilst these two parties were bickering, a
third was formed from the inhabitants of the mountain
districts, inferior to the two others in wealth, but of
superior weight to either in the popular assemblies. At its
head stood Peisistratus, a man distinguished by warlike
exploits, and at an earlier date a friend of Solon. It was
because his adherents did not feel themselves strong enough to
protect their leader that they were induced to vote him a
body-guard chosen from their own ranks. … As soon, however,
as the first two parties combined, the third was at a
disadvantage, so that after some time sentence of banishment
was passed upon Peisistratus. … Peisistratus … found means
to gather around him a troop of brave mercenaries, with whom,
and with the support of his old adherents, he then invaded
Attica. His opponents made but a feeble resistance, and he
became without much trouble master both of the city and of the
country.
See ATHENS: B. C. 560-510.
He thus attained to power; it is true, with the approbation of
the people, but nevertheless by armed force. … We have
almost to stretch a point in order to call Peisistratus a
tyrant—a word which carries with it the invidious sense of a
selfish exercise of power. No authority could have been more
rightly placed than his; it combined Athenian with
Panhellenist tendencies. But for him Athens would not have
been what she afterwards became to the world. …
Nevertheless, it must be admitted that Peisistratus governed
Athens absolutely, and even took steps to establish a
permanent tyranny. He did, in fact, succeed in leaving the
power he possessed to his sons, Hippias and Hipparchus. … Of
the two brothers it was the one who had rendered most service
to culture, Hipparchus, who was murdered at the festival of
the Panathenæa. It was an act of revenge for a personal
insult. … In his dread lest he should be visited by a
similar doom, Hippias actually became an odious tyrant and
excited universal discontent. One effect, however, of the loss
of stability which the authority of the dominant family
experienced was that the leading exiles ejected by
Peisistratus combined in the enterprise which was a necessary
condition of their return, the overthrow of Hippias. The
Alcmæonidæ took the principal part. … The revolution to
which this opened the way could, it might seem, have but one
result, the establishment of an oligarchical government. …
But the matter had a very different issue," resulting in the
constitution of Cleisthenes and the establishment of democracy
at Athens, despite the hostile opposition and interference of
Sparta.
_L. von Ranke,
Universal History:
The oldest Historical Group of Nations and the Greeks,
chapter 5._
See, also,
ATHENS: B. C. 510-507,
and 509-506.
GREECE: B. C. 752.
The Archonship at Athens thrown open to the whole body of the
people.
See ATHENS: FROM THE DORIAN MIGRATION TO B. C. 683.
GREECE: B. C. 624.
The Draconian legislation at Athens.
See ATHENS: B. C. 624.
GREECE: B. C. 610-600.
War of Athens and Megara for Salamis.
Spartan Arbitration.
See ATHENS: B. C. 610-586.
GREECE: B. C. 595-586.
The Cirrhæan or first Sacred War.
See ATHENS: B.C. 610-586; and DELPHI.
GREECE: B. C. 500-493.
Rising of the Ionians of Asia Minor against the Persians.
Aid rendered to them by the Athenians.
Provocation to Darius.
The Ionic Greek cities, or states, of Asia Minor, first
subjugated by Crœsus, King of Lydia, in the sixth century B.
C., were swallowed up, in the same century, with all other
parts of the dominion of Crœsus, in the conquests of Cyrus,
and formed part of the great Persian Empire, to the
sovereignty of which Cambyses and Darius succeeded. In the
reign of Darius there occurred a revolt of the Ionians (about
502 B. C.), led by the city of Miletus, under the influence of
its governor, Aristagoras. Aristagoras, coming over to Greece
in person, sought aid against the Persians, first at Sparta,
where it was denied to him, and then, with better success, at
Athens. Presenting himself to the citizens, just after they
had expelled the Pisistratidæ, Aristagoras said to them "that
the Milesians were colonists from Athens, and that it was just
that the Athenians, being so mighty, should deliver them from
slavery.
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And because his need was great, there was nothing that he did
not promise, till at the last he persuaded them. For it is
easier, it seems, to deceive a multitude than to deceive one
man. Cleomenes the Spartan, being but one man, Aristagoras
could not deceive; but he brought over to his purpose the
people of Athens, being thirty thousand. So the Athenians,
being persuaded, made a decree to send twenty ships to help
the men of Ionia, and appointed one Melanthius, a man of
reputation among them, to be captain. These ships were the
beginning of trouble both to the Greeks and the barbarians.
… When the twenty ships of the Athenians were arrived, and
with them five ships of the Eretrians, which came, not for any
love of the Athenians, but because the Milesians had helped
them in the old time against the men of Chalcis, Aristagoras
sent an army against Sardis, but he himself abode in Miletus.
This army, crossing Mount Tmolus, took the city of Sardis
without any hindrance; but the citadel they took not, for
Artaphernes held it with a great force of soldiers. But though
they took the city they had not the plunder of it, and for
this reason. The houses in Sardis were for the most part built
of reeds, and such as were built of bricks had their roofs of
reeds; and when a certain soldier set fire to one of these
houses, the fire ran quickly from house to house till the
whole city was consumed. And while the city was burning, such
Lydians and Persians as were in it, seeing they were cut off
from escape (for the fire was in an the outskirts of the
city), gathered together in haste to the market-place. Through
this market-place flows the river Pactolus, which comes down
from Mount Tmolus, having gold in its sands, and when it has
passed out of the city it flows into the Hermus, which flows
into the sea. Here then the Lydians and Persians were gathered
together, being constrained to defend themselves. And when the
men of Ionia saw their enemies how many they were, and that
these were preparing to give battle, they were stricken with
fear, and fled out of the city to Mount Tmolus, and thence,
when it was night, they went back to the sea. In this manner
was burnt the city of Sardis, and in it the great temple of
the goddess Cybele, the burning of which temple was the cause,
as said the Persians, for which afterwards they burnt the
temples in Greece. Not long after came a host of Persians from
beyond the river Halys; and when they found that the men of
Ionia had departed from Sardis, they followed hard upon their
track, and came up with them at Ephesus. And when the battle
was joined, the men of Ionia fled before them. Many indeed
were slain, and such as escaped were scattered, every man to
his own city. After this the ships of the Athenians departed,
and would not help the men of Ionia any more, though
Aristagoras besought them to stay. Nevertheless the Ionians
ceased not from making preparations of war against the King,
making to themselves allies, some by force and some by
persuasion, as the cities of the Hellespont and many of the
Carians and the island of Cyprus. For all Cyprus, save Amathus
only, revolted from the King under Onesilus, brother of King
Gorgus. When King Darius heard that Sardis had been taken and
burned with fire by the Ionians and the Athenians, with
Aristagoras for leader, at the first he took no heed of the
Ionians, as knowing that they would surely suffer for their
deed, but he asked, 'Who are these Athenians?' And when they
told him he took a bow and shot an arrow into the air, saying,
'O Zeus, grant that I may avenge myself on these Athenians.'
And he commanded his servant that every day, when his dinner
was served, he should say three times, 'Master, remember the
Athenians.' … Meanwhile the Persians took not a few cities
of the Ionians and Æolians. But while they were busy about
these, the Carians revolted from the King; whereupon the
captains of the Persians led their army into Caria, and the
men of Caria came out to meet them; and they met them at a
certain place which is called the White Pillars, near to the
river Mæander. Then there were many counsels among the
Carians, whereof the best was this, that they should cross the
river and so contend with the Persians, having the river
behind them, that so there being no escape for them if they
fled, they might surpass themselves in courage. But this
counsel did not prevail. Nevertheless, when the Persians had
crossed the Meander, the Carians fought against them, and the
battle was exceeding long and fierce. But at the last the
Carians were vanquished, being overborne by numbers, so that
there fell of them ten thousand. And when they that
escaped—for many had fled to Labranda, where there is a great
temple of Zeus and a grove of plane trees—were doubting
whether they should yield themselves to the King or depart
altogether from Asia, there came to their help the men of
Miletus with their allies. Thereupon the Carians, putting away
their doubts altogether, fought with the Persians a second
time, and were vanquished yet more grievously than before. But
on this day the men of Miletus suffered the chief damage. And
the Carians fought with the Persians yet again a third time;
for, hearing that these were about to attack their cities one
by one, they laid an ambush for them on the road to Pedasus.
And the Persians, marching by night, fell into the ambush, and
were utterly destroyed, they and their captains. After these
things, Aristagoras, seeing the power of the Persians, and
having no more any hope to prevail over them—and indeed, for
all that he had brought about so much trouble, he was of a
poor spirit—called together his friends and said to them, 'We
must needs have some place of refuge, if we be driven out of
Miletus. Shall we therefore go to Sardinia, or to Myrcinus on
the river Strymon; which King Darius gave to Histiæus?' To
this Hecateus, the writer of chronicles, made answer, 'Let
Aristagoras build a fort in Leros (this Leros is an island
thirty miles distant from Miletus) and dwell there quietly, if
he be driven from Miletus. And hereafter he can come from
Leros and set himself up again in Miletus.' But Aristagoras
went to Myrcinus, and not long afterwards was slain while he
besieged a certain city of the Thracians."
_Herodotus,
The Story of the Persian War
(version of A. J. Church, chapter 2)._
See, also,
PERSIA: B. C. 521-493;
and ATHENS: B. C. 501-490.
GREECE: B. C. 496.
War of Sparta with Argos.
Overwhelming reverse of the Argives.
See ARGOS: B. C. 496-421.
GREECE: B. C. 492-491.
Wrath of the Persian king against Athens.
Failure of his first expedition of invasion.
Submission of 'Medizing' Greek states.
Coercion of Ægina.
Enforced union of Hellas.
Headship of Sparta recognized.
{1571}
The assistance given by Athens to the Ionian revolt stirred
the wrath of the Persian monarch very deeply, and when he had
put down the rebellion he prepared to chastise the audacious
and insolent Greeks. "A great fleet started from the
Hellespont, with orders to sail round the peninsula of Mt.
Athos to the Gulf of Therma, while Mardonius advanced by land.
His march was so harassed by the Thracians that when he had
effected the conquest of Macedonia his force was too weak for
any further attempt. The fleet was overtaken by a storm off
Mt. Athos, on whose rocks 300 ships were dashed to pieces, and
20,000 men perished. Mardonius returned in disgrace to Asia
with the remnant of his fleet and army. This failure only
added fury to the resolution of Darius. While preparing all
the resources of his empire for a second expedition, he sent
round heralds to the chief cities of Greece, to demand the
tribute of earth and water as signs of his being their
rightful lord. Most of them submitted: Athens and Sparta alone
ventured on defiance. Both treated the demand as an outrage
which annulled the sanctity of the herald's person. At Athens
the envoy was plunged into the loathsome Barathrum, a pit into
which the most odious public criminals were cast. At Sparta
the herald was hurled into a well, and bidden to seek his
earth and water there. The submission of Ægina, the chief
maritime state of Greece, and the great enemy of Athens,
entailed the most important results. The act was denounced by
Athens as treason against Greece, and the design was imputed
to Ægina of calling in the Persians to secure vengeance on her
rival. The Athenians made a formal complaint to Sparta against
the 'Medism' of the Æginetans; a charge which is henceforth
often repeated both against individuals and states. The
Spartans had recently concluded a successful war with Argos,
the only power that could dispute her supremacy in
Peloponnesus; and now this appeal from Athens, the second city
of Greece, at once recognized and established Sparta as the
leading Hellenic state. In that character, her king Cleomenes
undertook to punish the Medizing party in Ægina 'for the
common good of Greece'; but he was met by proofs of the
intrigues of his colleague Demaratus in their favour. …
Cleomenes obtained his deposition on a charge of illegitimacy,
and a public insult from his successor Leotychides drove
Demaratus from Sparta. Hotly pursued as a 'Medist,' he
effected his escape to Darius, whose designs against Athens
and Sparta were now stimulated by the councils of their exiled
sovereigns, Hippias and Demaratus. Meanwhile, Cleomenes and
his new colleague returned to Ægina, which no longer resisted,
and having seized ten of her leading citizens, placed them as
hostages in the hands of the Athenians. Ægina was thus
effectually disabled from throwing the weight of her fleet
into the scale of Persia: Athens and Sparta, suspending their
political jealousies, were united when their disunion would
have been fatal; their conjunction drew after them most of the
lesser states: and so the Greeks stood forth for the first
time as a nation prepared to act in unison, under the
leadership of Sparta (B. C. 491). That city retained her proud
position till it was forfeited by the misconduct of her
statesmen."
_P. Smith,
History of the World: Ancient,
chapter 13 (volume 1)._
ALSO IN:
_G. W. Cox,
The Greeks and the Persians,
chapter 6._
_G. Grote,
History of Greece,
chapter 36 (volume 4.)_
See, also, ATHENS: B. C. 501-490.
GREECE: B. C. 490.
The Persian Wars: Marathon.
The second and greater expedition launched by Darius against
the Greeks sailed from the Cilician coast in the summer of the
year 490 B. C. It was under the command of two generals,—a
Mede, named Datis, and the king's nephew, Artaphernes. It made
the passage safely, destroying Naxos on the way, but sparing
the sacred island and temple of Delos. Its landing was on the
shores of Eubœa, where the city of Eretria was easily taken,
its inhabitants dragged into slavery, and the first act of
Persian vengeance accomplished. The expedition then sailed to
the coast of Attica and came to land on the plain of Marathon,
which spreads along the bay of that name. "Marathon, situated
near to a bay on the eastern coast of Attica, and in a
direction E. N. E. from Athens, is divided by the high ridge
of Mount Pentelikus from the city, with which it communicated
by two roads, one to the north, another to the south of that
mountain. Of these two roads, the northern, at once the
shortest and the most difficult, is 22 miles in length. …
[The plain] 'is in length about six miles, in breadth never
less than about one mile and a half. Two marshes bound the
extremities of the plain; the southern is not very large and
is almost dry at the conclusion of the great heats; but the
northern, which generally covers considerably more than a
square mile, offers several parts which are at all seasons
impassable. Both, however, leave a broad, firm sandy beach
between them and the sea. The uninterrupted flatness of the
plain is hardly relieved by a single tree; and an amphitheatre
of rocky hills and rugged mountains separates it from the rest
of Attica."
_G. Grote,
History of Greece,
part 2, chapter 36 (volume 4)._
The Athenians waited for no nearer approach of the enemy to
their city, but met them at their landing-place. They were few
in number—only 10,000, with 1,000 more from the grateful city
of Platæa, which Athens had protected against Thebes. They had
sent to Sparta for aid, but a superstition delayed the march
of the Spartans and they came the day after the battle. Of all
the nearer Greeks none came to the help of Athens in that hour
of extreme need; and so much the greater to her was the glory
of Marathon. The ten thousand Athenian hoplites and the one
thousand brave Platæans confronted the great host of Persia,
of the numbers in which there is no account. Ten generals had
the right of command on successive days, but Miltiades was
known to be the superior captain and his colleagues gave place
to him. "On the morning of the seventeenth day of the month of
Metagitnion (September 12th), when the supreme command
according to the original order of succession fell to
Miltiades, he ordered the army to draw itself up according to
the ten tribes. … The troops had advanced with perfect
steadiness across the trenches and palisadings of their camp,
as they had doubtless already done on previous days. But as
soon as they had approached the enemy within a distance of
5,000 feet they changed their march to a double-quick pace,
which gradually rose to the rapidity of a charge, while at the
same time they raised the war-cry with a loud voice.
{1572}
When the Persians saw these men rushing down from the heights,
they thought they beheld madmen: they quickly placed
themselves in order of battle, but before they had time for an
orderly discharge of arrows the Athenians were upon them,
ready in their excitement to begin a closer contest, man
against man in hand-to-hand fight, which is decided by
personal courage and gymnastic agility, by the momentum of
heavy-armed warriors, and by the use of lance and sword. Thus
the well-managed and bold attack of the Athenians had
succeeded in bringing into play the whole capability of
victory which belonged to the Athenians. Yet the result was
not generally successful. The enemy's centre stood firm. …
But meanwhile both wings had thrown themselves upon the enemy;
and after they had effected a victorious advance, the one on
the way to Rhamnus, the other towards the coast, Miltiades …
issued orders at the right moment for the wings to return from
the pursuit, and to make a combined attack upon the Persian
centre in its rear. Hereupon the rout speedily became general,
and in their flight the troubles of the Persians increased;
… they were driven into the morasses and there slain in
numbers."
_E. Curtius,
History of Greece,
book 3, chapter 1 (volume 2)._
The Athenian dead, when gathered for the solemn obsequies,
numbered 192; the loss of the Persians was estimated by
Herodotus at 6,400.
_Herodotus,
History,
book 6._
ALSO IN:
_E. S. Creasy,
Fifteen Decisive Battles,
chapter 1._
_C. Thirlwall,
History of Greece,
chapter 14 (volume 2)._
_G. W. Cox,
The Greeks and Persians,
chapter 6._
_Sir E. Bulwer Lytton,
Athens: Its Rise and Fall,
book 2, chapter 5._
GREECE: B. C. 489-480.
The Æginetan War.
Naval power of Athens created by Themistocles.