The second and authentic period of Greek history commences in the year
884 B. C., at the institution of the Olympic Festival, when the people
had begun to emerge from their primitive barbarism. This festival, as
already stated, was instituted by direction of the Delphic oracle, by
Iphitus, Prince of Elis, for the patriotic purpose of assembling
together, in a peaceful manner, persons from all parts of Greece. The
festival was ordained to take place once every four years, in the
month corresponding to our July, and to last five days, during which
there was to be complete truce, or cessation from war, throughout the
Grecian states. Agreeably to the ancient practice at public
solemnities, the festival was celebrated by games and various feats of
personal skill, and the whole order of procedure was regulated with
extraordinary care. All freemen of Grecian extraction were invited to
contend, provided they had been born in lawful wedlock, and had lived
untainted by any infamous moral stain. No women (the priestesses of
Ceres excepted) were permitted to be present. Females who violated
this law were thrown from a rock. The competitors prepared themselves
during ten months previous at the gymnasium at Elis. During the last
thirty days, the exercises were performed with as much regularity as
at the games themselves. The festival began in the evening with solemn
sacrifices, and the games were commenced the next day at daybreak.
These consisted in races on horseback and on foot, in leaping,
throwing the discus or quoit, wrestling, and boxing; musical and
poetical contests concluded the whole. The honor of having gained a
victory in the Olympic Games was very great; it extended from the
victor to his country, which was proud of owning him. However rude and
boisterous were some of the sports of the Olympic Festival, it is
acknowledged by the best authorities that they were attended with
manifold advantages to society. It is sufficient barely to mention the
suspension of hostilities, which took place not only during the
festival, but a considerable time both before and after it. Considered
as a kind of religious ceremony, at which the whole Grecian citizens
were invited, and even enjoined, to assist, it was well adapted to
facilitate intercourse, to promote knowledge, to soften prejudice, and
to hasten the progress of civilization and humanity.
At the first institution of the Olympic Festival, and for one or two
centuries afterwards, the condition of Grecian society was primitive,
and almost patriarchal, but marked by strong features of heroic
dignity, and a certain depth and refinement of thought. The attire of
the men was very simple, consisting only of a shirt or close jacket to
the body, with a loose robe hanging down over the naked limbs, while
performers in the public games were almost naked. The arts, including
agriculture, were also little advanced; few persons seemed to have
thought of toiling to accumulate wealth; and each community presented,
in time of peace, the picture of a large family. That portion of the
people constituting the freemen lived much in public, or in the
society of their equals, enjoyed common pleasures and amusements, and
had daily opportunities of displaying their useful talents in the
sight of their fellow-citizens. The frequent disputes between
individuals occasioned litigations and trials, which furnished
employment for the eloquence and ability of men in the necessary
defence of their friends. The numerous games and public solemnities
opened a continual source of entertainment, and habituated every man
to active physical exercise, and the performance of his duties as a
soldier. These were agreeable features in the condition of Grecian
society; but there were also some of an opposite character. The people
were of an unsettled disposition, never satisfied long with any kind
of government which existed amongst them, and very much disposed to
wage war against neighboring states on the most trifling pretenses.
The population of the various states was divided into three
classes――namely, the citizens, the enfranchised populace, and the
slaves. All political power, even in the most democratical of the
Grecian communities, was possessed by the first of these classes,
while in the oligarchical states, only that small portion of the
citizens which constituted the nobility or aristocracy possessed any
influence in the management of public affairs. The mechanical and
agricultural labors necessary for the support and comfort of the
whole, were chiefly performed by the inferior class of free
inhabitants, who did not enjoy the privilege of citizenship, and by
the slaves, who formed a considerable portion of the population of
every state. These slaves were sprung from the same general or parent
stock, spoke the same language, and professed the same religion, as
their masters. They were in most cases the descendants of persons who
had been conquered in war, but were in some instances acquired by
purchase. Society being thus based on vicious principles, it is not
wonderful that the Grecian states were the scene of constant civil
broils.
SPARTA――LYCURGUS. At the beginning of this period of Grecian history,
our attention is powerfully attracted by a very remarkable series of
proceedings which took place in Lacedæmon, or Laconia, a country of
southern Greece, of which the chief city was Sparta. This city being
in a state of intestine disorder, it was agreed by many of the
inhabitants to invite Lycurgus, the son of one of their late kings, to
undertake the important task of preparing a new constitution for his
country. Fortified with the sanction of the Delphic oracle, he
commenced this difficult duty, not only settling the form of
government, but reforming the social institutions and manners of the
people. The government he established consisted of two joint kings,
with a limited prerogative, and who acted as presidents of a senate of
twenty-eight aged men. The functions of the senate were deliberative
as well as executive, but no law could be passed without receiving the
consent of the assembled citizens. The most remarkable of the
arrangements of Lycurgus was his attempt to abolish difference of
rank, and even difference of circumstances, among the people. He
resolved on the bold measure of an equal division of lands, and
actually parceled out the Laconian territory into 39,000 lots, one of
which was given to each citizen of Sparta, or free inhabitant of
Laconia. Each of these lots was of such a size as barely sufficed to
supply the wants of a single family――for Lycurgus was determined that
no person should be placed in such circumstances as would permit of
luxurious living.
Lycurgus carried into effect a number of other visionary projects: he
abolished the use of money, with the hope of preventing undue
accumulation of wealth; prohibited foreigners from entering the
country, and the natives from going abroad, in order to preserve
simplicity of manners among the people; directed that all men, without
distinction of rank or age, should eat daily together at public
tables, which were furnished with the plainest food; and finally,
ordained that all the children who were born, and seemed likely to be
strong, should be reared by public nurses, under a rigid system of
privation and personal activity, while the weak infants should be
thrown out to the fields to perish. The citizens, when they had
attained the age of manhood, were engaged in martial exercises, all
labor being left to the slaves, or _helots_, as they were termed; and
in short, the whole nation was but a camp of soldiers, and war was
reckoned the only legitimate profession. These laws were in some
measure suited to the rude condition of the Spartans, but, as being
opposed to some of the best and strongest principles in human nature,
they could not possibly endure, and there is reason to believe that
some of them were not strictly enforced. It is not unusual to see
historians use the term _Spartan virtue_ with a certain degree of
admiration of its quality; but the Spartans had, in reality, no moral
dignity, certainly no benevolence, in their virtue, either public or
private. They were a small confederacy of well-trained soldiers; and
merely as such, deserve no mark of our respect or esteem. The manner
in which they used their helots was at once barbarous and cruel. The
murder of a serf by a free citizen was not punishable by law; nay, it
was even allowable for the young Spartans to lie in wait, as a kind of
sport, for any good-looking or saucy-looking slave, and stab him to
the heart on the highway. It is certain that at one time, when the
helots had stood their masters in good stead in battle, they were
desired, by way of reward, to choose out 2000 of their best men, that
they might receive their freedom, and be enrolled as Spartans, and
that these 2000 men were all silently murdered soon after. At another
time, when danger was apprehended from the growing numbers and petty
wealth of the boors, the senate enacted the farce of declaring war
against them, and coolly murdered many thousands, in order to thin
their numbers and break their spirit. Had there been any redeeming
trait in the Spartan character to compensate for such barbarity, one
would have wondered less at the respect which is sometimes paid them;
but their military fame only adds another instance to the many already
on record, that the most ignorant and savage tribes make the most
dogged soldiers.
ATHENS. We now turn to Athens, long the principal seat of Grecian
learning. Athens is said to have been founded by Cecrops, 1550 B. C.,
and in the most ancient times was called Cecropia. It probably
received the name of Athens from the goddess Minerva, who was called
also Athena, by the Greeks, and to whom an elegant temple had been
erected in the city. The old city spread from the mount of the
Acropolis over a wide and pleasant vale or low peninsula, formed by
the junction of the Cephesus and Ilissus. Its distance from the
sea-coast was about five miles. In the course of time Athens became
populous and surpassingly elegant in its architecture, while its
citizens contrived to take a lead in the affairs of the communities
around. At first they were governed by kings, but, as in the case of
the Spartan citizens, they became dissatisfied with their existing
constitution, and about the year 600 B. C. invited Solon, one of the
wisest men in Greece, to reörganize their political constitution.
Solon obeyed the summons, and constituted the government on a broad
republican basis, with a council of state, forming a judicial court,
consisting of 400 members, and called the Areopagus. This court of
Areopagus besides its other duties, exercised a censorship over public
morals, and was empowered to punish impiety, profligacy, and even
idleness. To this court every citizen was bound to make an annual
statement of his income, and the sources from which it was derived.
The court was long regarded with very great respect, and the right was
accorded to it of not only revising the sentences pronounced by the
other criminal tribunals, but even of annulling the judicial decrees
of the general assembly of the people. The regulations of Solon were
not maintained for any great length of time, although the republican
form of government, in one shape or other, continued as long as the
country maintained its independence. Clesthenes, the leader of a
party, enlarged the democratic principle in the state; he introduced
the practice of _ostracism_, by which any person might be banished for
ten years, without being accused of any crime, if the Athenians
apprehended that he had acquired too much influence, or harbored
designs against the public liberty. Ostracism was so called, because
the citizens, in voting for its infliction, wrote the name of the
obnoxious individual upon a shell (_ostreon_). It is said that
Clesthenes was the first victim of his own law, as has happened in
several other remarkable cases, ancient and modern.
For a period of about two centuries after the settlement of a
republican constitution, there is little of importance to relate in
Athenian history. Athens was gradually enlarged, the taste for
refinement increased, and various men of sagacious understanding,
entitled Philosophers, began to devote themselves to inquiries into
the nature of the human mind and the character of the Deity. The
principal Grecian philosopher who flourished in this era (550 B. C.)
was Pythagoras, a man of pure and exalted ideas, and an able expounder
of the science of mind.