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. I
London:
John Murray, Albemarle Street.
1839.
CONTENTS
Extract From The Translators’ Preface To The First Edition.
Advertisement To The Second Edition.
Introduction.
Book I. History Of The Doric Race, From The Earliest Times To The End Of
The Peloponnesian War.
Chapter I.
Chapter II.
Chapter III.
Chapter IV.
Chapter V.
Chapter VI.
Chapter VII.
Chapter VIII.
Chapter IX.
Book II. Religion And Mythology 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.
Appendix I.
Appendix II. Genealogy of Hellen.
Appendix III. The migration of the Dorians to Crete.
Appendix IV. History of the Greek congress or synedrion during the Persian
war.
Footnotes
EXTRACT FROM THE TRANSLATORS’ PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.
The History, of which an English translation is now offered to the public,
forms the second and third volumes of a work by Professor C. O. Müller,
entitled, “Histories of Greek Tribes and Cities.” The first volume of this
series was published separately under the name of “Orchomenos and the
Minyæ;” and contains a most learned examination of the mythology and early
history of Orchomenos and other towns of Bœotia, and of the migrations of
the Minyæ, together with other questions more or less connected with these
subjects. It is, in every respect, a distinct and separate work from the
Dorians, comprised in the second and third volumes; nor was it more
incumbent on us to publish a translation of that first volume, because it
is often referred to in the subsequent volumes, than of the many other
admirable works on Grecian history, equally referred to, which are
inaccessible to persons not acquainted with the German language.
At a time when a large part of the present translation had been completed,
the translators communicated by letter to Professor Müller their intention
with regard to his work on the Dorians, and requested him to read the
manuscript of their translation before it was printed, in case they should
have anywhere committed any errors, or failed to catch the import of his
words. To this request Mr. Müller, though not personally known by either
of the translators, not only acceded, but, with an unexpected, and indeed
unhoped-for liberality, expressed his willingness to contribute to our
translation all the alterations and additions which his reading had
suggested since the appearance of the original work. The manuscript was
accordingly transmitted, and carefully revised, corrected, and enlarged by
the author. Of the value of these changes it would perhaps be improper
that we should speak in the terms which they seem to us to deserve: of
their number, however, as this can be brought to a certain test, we will
venture to assert, that few books undergo so great changes after their
first publication; and that the present work may be in strictness
considered, not only a translation, but a new edition of the original. In
making these changes, it was also the author’s wish to clear up
ambiguities or obscurity of meaning, either by a change in the expression,
or a fuller development of the thought: and we cannot help hoping, that
even to a person acquainted with German, our translation will thus be
found in many places more explicit and satisfactory than the original
text.
Besides those alterations, which appear for the first time in the
following translation, the additions and corrections published by the
author in his “Introduction to a scientific System of Mythology” have been
here incorporated; and a Dissertation on the early history of the
Macedonian nation, published separately by the author, some time after the
appearance of the Dorians, has been inserted in the Appendix.
Not only has the small map of Macedonia, appended to this Dissertation,
been inserted in our translation, in addition to the map of the
Peloponnese, which was alone contained in the original work, but also a
map of northern Greece, which, together with the explanatory article
inserted in the Appendix, is now for the first time given to the public.
These three maps together furnish a complete geographical picture of
ancient Greece, from the promontory of Tænarum to the north of Macedonia;
and we may be allowed to say, that in accuracy and fulness of detail, they
rival, if not excel, all other maps of the same regions(1).
After the printing of the whole work (with the exception of the Appendix)
had been completed, the sheets were sent to Mr. Müller, by which means not
only the translation of the original, but also of the manuscript
additions, have received the approbation of the author. Any discrepancies,
therefore, which may appear between the translation and the original must
be considered as sanctioned by the author. The translators at the same
time think it right to state, in case Mr. Müller should be exposed to any
misrepresentations in his own country, that in making their translation
they did not consider themselves bound to follow the letter of the
original, and have sometimes indulged in a free paraphrase: while in some
places they suggested more considerable changes, on account of the
difference between the opinions on many important subjects which generally
prevail in England and Germany.
(1830.)
ADVERTISEMENT TO THE SECOND EDITION.
The First Edition of the present Translation has been revised by the
Author; and he has supplied several corrections and additions, which have
been inserted in their proper places.
The accounts of the geography of Peloponnesus and Northern Greece, which
were inserted in the Appendix to the First Edition of the Translation,
have been omitted in the present Edition.
April, 1839.
INTRODUCTION.
§ 1. Origin of the Dorians in the North of Greece. § 2. Northern
boundary of Greece. § 3. The Macedonians. § 4. The Thessalians. §
5. Diffusion of the Illyrians in Western Greece. § 6. The
Phrygians. § 7. The Thracians. § 8. The Hellenes, Achæans,
Minyans, Ionians, and Dorians. § 9. The Hylleans. § 10. Relation
of the above nations to the Pelasgians. § 11. Difference between
the Pelasgic and Hellenic religions. § 12. Early language of
Greece, and its chief dialects.
1. The Dorians derived their origin from those districts in which the
Grecian nation bordered towards the north upon numerous and dissimilar
races of barbarians. As to the tribes which dwelt beyond these boundaries
we are indeed wholly destitute of information; nor is there the slightest
trace of any memorial or tradition that the Greeks originally came from
those quarters. On these frontiers, however, the events took place which
effected an entire alteration in the internal condition of the whole
Grecian people, and here were given many of those impulses, of which the
effects were so long and generally experienced. The prevailing character
of the events in question, was a perpetual pressing forward of the
barbarous races, particularly of the Illyrians, into more southern
districts; yet Greece, although harassed, confined, nay even compelled to
abandon part of her territory, never attempted to make a united resistance
to their encroachments. The cause of this negligence probably was, that
all her views being turned to the south, no attention whatever was paid to
the above quarters.
2. To begin then by laying down a boundary line (which may be afterwards
modified for the sake of greater accuracy), we shall suppose this to be
the mountain ridge, which stretches from Olympus to the west as far as the
Acroceraunian mountains (comprehending the Cambunian ridge and mount
Lacmon), and in the middle comes in contact with the Pindus chain, which
stretches in a direction from north to south. The western part of this
chain separates the furthest Grecian tribes from the great Illyrian
nation, which extended back as far as the Celts in the south of Germany.
Every clue respecting the connexion, peculiarities, and original language
of this people must be interesting, and the dialects of the Albanians,
especially of those who inhabit the mountains where the original customs
and language have been preserved in greater purity, will afford materials
for inquiry.(2) For our present purpose it will be sufficient to state,
that they formed the northern boundary of the Grecian nation, from which
they were distinguished both by their language and customs.
3. In the fashion of wearing the mantle and dressing the hair,(3) and also
in their dialect, the MACEDONIANS bore a great resemblance to the
Illyrians; whence it is evident that the Macedonians belonged to the
Illyrian nation.(4) Notwithstanding which, there can be no doubt that the
Greeks were aboriginal(5) inhabitants of this district. The plains of
Emathia, the most beautiful district of the country, were occupied by the
Pelasgians,(6) who, according to Herodotus, also possessed Creston above
Chalcidice, to which place they had come from Thessaliotis.(7) Hence the
Macedonian dialect was full of Greek radical words. And that these had not
been introduced by the royal family (which was Hellenic by descent or
adoption of manners) is evident from the fact, that many signs of the most
simple ideas (which no language ever borrows from another) were the same
in both, as well as from the circumstance that these words do not appear
in their Greek form, but have been modified according to a native
dialect.(8) In the Macedonian dialect there occur grammatical forms which
are commonly called Æolic,(9) together with many Arcadian(10) and
Thessalian(11) words: and what perhaps is still more decisive, several
words, which, though not to be found in the Greek, have been preserved in
the Latin language.(12) There does not appear to be any peculiar affinity
with the Doric dialect: hence we do not give much credit to the otherwise
unsupported assertion of Herodotus, of an original identity of the Doric
and Macednian (Macedonian) nations. In other authors Macednus is called
the son of Lycaon, from whom the Arcadians were said to be descended;(13)
or Macedon is the brother of Magnes, or a son of Æolus, according to
Hesiod and Hellanicus,(14) which are merely various attempts to form a
genealogical connexion between this semi-barbarian race, and the rest of
the Greek nation.(15)
4. The THESSALIANS, as well as the Macedonians, were, as it appears, an
Illyrian race, who subdued a native Greek population; but in this case the
body of the interlopers was smaller, while the numbers and civilization of
the aboriginal inhabitants were considerable. Hence the Thessalians
resembled the Greeks more than any of the northern races with which they
were connected: hence their language in particular was almost purely
Grecian, and indeed bore perhaps a greater affinity to the language of the
ancient epic poets than any other dialect.(16) But the chief peculiarities
of this nation with which we are acquainted were not of a Grecian
character. Of this their national dress,(17) which consisted in part of
the flat and broad-brimmed hat καυσία and the chlamys (which last was
common to both nations, but was unknown to the Greeks of Homer’s time, and
indeed long afterwards,(18) until adopted as the costume of the equestrian
order at Athens), is a sufficient example. The Thessalians, moreover, were
beyond a doubt the first to introduce into Greece the use of cavalry. More
important distinctions however than that first alleged are perhaps to be
found in their impetuous and passionate character, and the low state of
their intelligence. The taste for the arts shown by the wealthy house of
the Scopadæ proves no more that such was the disposition of the whole
people, than the existence of the same qualities in Archelaus argues their
prevalence in Macedonia. This is sufficient to distinguish them from the
race of the Greeks, so highly endowed by nature. We are therefore induced
to conjecture that this nation, which a short time before the expedition
of the Heraclidæ, migrated from Thesprotia, and indeed from the territory
of Ephyra (Cichyrus) into the plain of the Peneus, had originally come
from Illyria. On the other hand indeed, many points of similarity in the
customs of the Thessalians and Dorians might be brought forward. Thus for
example, the love for the male sex (that usage peculiar to the Dorians)
was also common among the Illyrians, and the objects of affection were, as
at Sparta, called ἀίται;(19) the women also, as amongst the Dorians, were
addressed by the title of _ladies_ (δέσποιναι), a title uncommon in
Greece, and expressive of the estimation in which they were held.(20) A
great freedom in the manners of the female sex was nevertheless customary
among the Illyrians, who in this respect bore a nearer resemblance to the
northern nations.(21) Upon the whole, however, these migrations from the
north had the effect of disseminating among the Greeks manners and
institutions which were entirely unknown to their ancestors, as
represented by Homer.
5. We will now proceed to inquire what was the extent of territory gained
by the Illyrians in the west of Greece. Great part of Epirus had in early
times been inhabited by Pelasgians,(22) to which race the inhabitants of
Dodona are likewise affirmed by the best authorities to have belonged, as
well as the whole nation of Thesprotians;(23) also the Chaonians at the
foot of the Acroceraunian mountains,(24) and the Chones, Œnotrians, and
Peucetians on the opposite coast of Italy, are said to have been of this
race.(25) The ancient buildings, institutions, and religious worship of
the Epirots, are also manifestly of Pelasgic origin. We suppose always
that the Pelasgians were Greeks, and spoke the Grecian language: an
opinion in support of which we will on this occasion only adduce a few
arguments. It must then be borne in mind, that all the races whose
migrations took place at a late period, such as the Achæans, Ionians,
Dorians, were not (the last in particular) sufficiently powerful or
numerous to effect a complete change in the customs of a barbarous
population;(26) that many districts, Arcadia and Perrhæbia, for instance,
remained entirely Pelasgic, without being inhabited by any nation not of
Grecian origin; that the most ancient names, either of Grecian places or
mentioned in their traditions, belonged indeed to a different era of the
dialect, but not to another language; that finally, the great similarity
between the Latin and Greek can only be explained by supposing the
Pelasgic language to have formed the connecting link. Now the nations of
Epirus were almost reduced to a complete state of barbarism by the
operation of causes, which could only have had their origin in
Illyria;(27) and in the historic age, the Ambracian bay was the boundary
of Greece. In later times, more than half of Ætolia ceased to be Grecian,
and without doubt adopted the manners and language of the Illyrians;(28)
from which point the Athamanes, an Epirot and Illyrian nation, pressed
into the south of Thessaly.(29) Migrations and predatory expeditions, such
as the Encheleans had undertaken in the fabulous times, continued without
intermission to repress and keep down the genuine population of Greece.
6. The Illyrians were in these ancient times also bounded on the east by
the Phrygians and Thracians, as well as by the Pelasgians. The PHRYGIANS
were at this time the immediate neighbours of the Macedonians in Lebæa, by
whom they were called Brygians (Βρύγες, Βρύγοι, Βρίγες);(30) they dwelt at
the foot of the snowy Bermius, where the fabulous rose-gardens of king
Midas were situated, while walking in which the wise Silenus was said to
have been taken prisoner. They also fought from this place (as the
Telegonia of Eugammon related)(31) with the Thesprotians of Epirus. At no
great distance from hence were the Mygdonians, the people nearest related
to the Phrygians. According to Xanthus, this nation did not migrate to
Asia until after the Trojan war.(32) But, in the first place, the Cretan
traditions begin with religious rites and fables, which appear from the
most ancient testimonies to have been derived from Phrygians of Asia;(33)
and, secondly, the Armenians, who were beyond a doubt of a kindred race to
the Phrygians,(34) were considered as an aboriginal nation in their own
territory.(35) It will therefore be sufficient to recognise the same race
of men in Armenia, Asia Minor, and at the foot of mount Bermius, without
supposing that all the Armenians and Phrygians emigrated from the latter
settlement on the Macedonian coast. The intermediate space between Illyria
and Asia, a district across which numerous nations migrated in ancient
times, was peopled irregularly from so many sides, that the national
uniformity which seems to have once existed in those parts was speedily
deranged. The most important documents respecting the connexion between
the Phrygian and other nations are the traces that remain of its dialect.
It was well known in Plato’s time that many primitive words of the Grecian
language were to be recognised with a slight alteration in the Phrygian,
such as πῦρ, ὕδωρ, χύων;(36) and the great similarity of grammatical
structure which the Armenian now displays with the Greek, must be referred
to this original connexion.(37) The Phrygians in Asia must, however, have
been intermixed with Syrians, who not only established themselves on the
right bank of the Halys, but on the left also in Lycaonia,(38) and as far
as Lycia,(39) and accordingly adopted much of the Syrian language and
religion.(40) Their enthusiastic and frantic ceremonies had doubtless
always formed part of their religion: these they had in common with their
immediate neighbours the Thracians: but the ancient Greeks appear to have
been almost entirely unacquainted with such rites.
7. The THRACIANS, who settled in Pieria at the foot of mount Olympus, and
from thence came down to mount Helicon, as being the originators of the
worship of Dionysus and the Muses, and the fathers of Grecian poetry,(41)
are a nation of the highest importance in the history of civilization. We
cannot but suppose that they spoke a dialect very similar to the Greek,
since otherwise they could not have had any considerable influence upon
the latter people. They were in all probability derived originally from
the country called Thrace in later times, where the Bessians, a tribe of
the nation of the Satræ,(42) at the foot of Mount Pangæum, presided over
the oracle of Dionysus. Whether the whole of the populous races of Edones,
Odomantians, Odrysians, Treres, &c. are to be considered as identical with
the Thracians in Pieria, or whether it is not more probable that these
barbarous nations(43) received from the Greeks their general name of
Thracians, with which they had been familiar from early times, are
questions which I shall not attempt to determine. Into these nations,
however, a large number of Pæonians subsequently penetrated, who had
passed over at the time of a very ancient migration of the Teucrians,
together with the Mysians.(44) To this Pæonian race the Pelagonians, on
the banks of the Axius, belonged; who also advanced into Thessaly, as will
be shown hereafter. Of the Teucrians, however, we know nothing, excepting
that in concert with (Pelasgic) Dardanians they founded the city of
Troy,—where the language in use was probably allied to the Grecian, and
distinct from the Phrygian.(45)
8. Now it is within the mountainous barriers above described that we must
look for the origin of the nations which in the heroic mythology are
always represented as possessing dominion and power, and are always
contrasted with an aboriginal population. These, in my opinion, were
northern branches of the Grecian nation, which had overrun and subdued the
Greeks who dwelt further south. The most ancient abode of the HELLENES
Proper (who in mythology are merely a small nation in Phthia(46)) was
situated, according to Aristotle, in Epirus, near Dodona, to whose god
Achilles(47) prays, as being the ancient protector of his family. In all
probability the ACHÆANS, the ruling nation both of Thessaly and of
Peloponnesus, in the mythical times, were of the same race and origin as
the Hellenes. The MINYANS, Phlegyans, Lapithæ, and Æolians of Corinth and
Salmone, came originally from the districts above Pieria, on the frontiers
of Macedonia, where the very ancient Orchomenus, Minya, and Salmonia or
Halmopia were situated.(48) Nor is there less obscurity with regard to the
northern settlements of the IONIANS; they appear, as it were, to have
fallen from heaven into Attica and Ægialea: they were not, however, by any
means identical with the aboriginal inhabitants of these districts, and
had, perhaps, detached themselves from some northern, probably Achæan,
race.(49) Lastly, the DORIANS are mentioned in ancient legends and poems
as established in one extremity of the great mountain-chain of Upper
Greece, viz. at the foot of Olympus; there are, however, reasons for
supposing, that at an earlier period they had dwelt at its other northern
extremity, at the furthest limit of the Grecian nation.
9. We now turn our attention to the singular nation of the HYLLEANS
(Ὑλλεῖς, Ὕλλοι), which is supposed to have dwelt in Illyria, but is in
many respects connected in a remarkable manner with the Dorians. The real
place of its abode can hardly be laid down; as the Hylleans are never
mentioned in any historical narrative, but always in mythical legends; and
they appear to have been known to the geographers only from mythological
writers. Yet they are generally placed in the islands of Melita and
Black-Corcyra, to the south of Liburnia.(50) Now the name of the Hylleans
agrees strikingly with that of the first and most noble tribe of the
Dorians. Besides which, it is stated, that, though dwelling among Illyrian
races, these Hylleans were nevertheless genuine _Greeks_. Moreover they,
as well as the Doric Hylleans, were supposed to have sprung from Hyllus, a
son of Hercules, whom that hero begot upon Melite, the daughter of
Ægæus:(51) here the name Ægæus refers to a river in Corcyra, Melite to the
island just mentioned. Apollo was the chief god of the Dorians; and so
likewise these Hylleans were said to have concealed under the earth, as
the sign of inviolable sanctity, that instrument of such importance in the
religion of Apollo, a tripod.(52) The country of the Hylleans is described
as a large peninsula, and compared to Peloponnesus: it is said to have
contained fifteen cities, which, however, had not a more real existence
than the peninsula as large as Peloponnesus on the Illyrian coast. How all
these statements are to be understood is hard to say. It appears, however,
that they can only be reconciled as follows: the Doric Hylleans had a
tradition, that they came originally from these northern districts, which
then bordered on the Illyrians, and were afterwards occupied by that
people; and there still remained in those parts some members of their
tribe, some other Hylleans. This notion of Greek Hylleans in the very
north of Greece, who also were descended from Hercules, and also
worshipped Apollo, was taken up and embellished by the poets; although it
is not likely that any one had really ever seen these Hylleans and visited
their country. Like the Hyperboreans, they existed merely in tradition and
imagination. It is possible also that the Corcyræans, in whose island
there was an “_Hyllæan_” harbour,(53) may have contributed to the
formation of these legends, as is shown by some circumstances pointed out
above; but it cannot be supposed that the whole tradition arose from
Corcyræan colonies.
10. Here we might conclude our remarks on this subject, did not the
following important question deserve some consideration. What relation can
we suppose to have existed between the races which migrated into those
northern districts, and the native tribes, and what between the different
races of Greece itself? All inquiries on this subject lead us back to the
Pelasgians, who although not found in every part of ancient Greece (for
tradition makes so wide a distinction between them and many other nations,
that no confusion ever takes place),(54) yet occur almost universally
wherever early civilization, ancient settlements, and worships of peculiar
sanctity and importance existed. And in fact there is no doubt that most
of the ancient religions of Greece owed their origin to this race. The
Zeus and Dione of Dodona; Zeus and Heré of Argos; Hephæstus and Athené of
Athens; Demeter and Cora of Eleusis; Hermes and Artemis of Arcadia,
together with Cadmus and the Cabiri of Thebes, cannot properly be referred
to any other origin. We must therefore attribute to that nation an
excessive readiness in creating and metamorphosing objects of religious
worship, so that the same fundamental conceptions were variously developed
in different places; a variety which was chiefly caused by the arbitrary
neglect of, or adherence to, particular parts of the same legend. In many
places also we may recognise the sameness of character which pervaded the
different worships of the above gods; everywhere we see manifested in
symbols, names, rites, and legends, a uniformity of ideas and feelings.
The religions introduced from Phrygia and Thrace, such as that of the
Cretan Zeus and Dionysus or Bacchus, may be easily distinguished by their
more enthusiastic character from the native Pelasgic worship. The
Phœnician and Egyptian religions lay at a great distance from the early
Greeks, were almost unknown even where they existed in the immediate
neighbourhood, were almost unintelligible when the Greeks attempted to
learn them, and repugnant to their nature when understood. On the whole,
the Pelasgic worship appears to form part of a simple elementary religion,
which easily represented the various forms produced by the changes of
nature in different climates and seasons, and which abounded in expressive
signs for all the shades of feeling which these phenomena awakened.
11. On the other hand, the religion of the northern races (who as being of
Hellenic descent are put in contrast with the Pelasgians) had in early
times taken a more moral turn, to which their political relations had
doubtless contributed. The heroic life (which is no fiction of the poets),
the fondness for vigorous and active exertion, the disinclination to the
harmless occupations of husbandry, which is so remarkably seen in the
conquering race of the Hellenes, necessarily awakened and cherished an
entirely different train of religious feeling. Hence the Zeus Hellanius of
Æacus, the Zeus Laphystius of Athamas, and, finally, the Doric Zeus, whose
son is Apollo, the prophet and warrior,(55) are rather representations of
the moral order and harmony of the universe, after the ancient method,
than of the creative powers of nature. I do not however deny, that there
was a time when these different views had not as yet taken a separate
direction. Thus it may be shown, that the Apollo Lyceus of the Dorians
conveyed nearly the same notions as the Zeus Lycæus of the Arcadians,
although the worship of either deity was developed independently of that
of the other. Thus also certain ancient Arcadian and Doric customs had, in
their main features, a considerable affinity. The points of resemblance in
these different worships can be only perceived by comparison: tradition
presents, at the very first outset, an innumerable collection of
discordant forms of worship belonging to the several races, but without
explaining to us how they came to be thus separated. For these different
rites were not united into a whole until they had been first divided; and
both by the connexion of worships and by the influence of poetry new
combinations were introduced, which differed essentially from those of an
earlier date.
12. The language of the ancient Grecian race (which, together with its
religion, forms the most ancient record of its history) must, if we may
judge from the varieties of dialect and from a comparison with the Latin
language, have been very perfect in its structure, and rich and expressive
in its flexions and formations; though much of this was polished off by
the Greeks of later ages: in early times, distinctness and precision in
marking the primitive words and the inflections being more attended to
than facility of utterance. Wherever the ancient forms had been preserved,
they sounded foreign and uncouth to more modern ears; and the language of
later times was greatly softened, in comparison with the Latin. But the
peculiarities of the pure Doric dialect are (wherever they were not owing
to a faithful preservation of archaic forms) actual deviations from the
original dialect, and consequently they do not occur in Latin; they bear,
if I may be allowed the expression, a _northern_ character. The use of the
article, which did not exist in the Latin language or in that of epic
poetry, can be ascribed to no other cause than to immigrations of new
tribes, and especially to that of the Dorians. Its introduction must, as
in the Romance languages, be almost considered as the sign of a great
revolution. The peculiarities of the Doric dialect must have existed
before the period of the migrations; since thus only can it be explained
how peculiar forms of the Doric dialect were common to Crete, Argos, and
Sparta: the same is also true of the dialects which are generally
considered as subdivisions of the Æolic; the only reason for the
resemblance of the language of Lesbos to that of Bœotia being, that
Bœotians migrated at that period to Lesbos. The peculiarities of the Ionic
dialect may, on the other hand, be viewed in great part as deviations
caused by the genial climate of Asia;(56) for the language of the Attic
race, to which the Ionians were most nearly related, could hardly have
differed so widely from that of the colonies of Athens, if the latter had
not been greatly changed.(57)
BOOK I. HISTORY OF THE DORIC RACE, FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES TO THE END OF
THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR.
Chapter I.
§ 1. Earliest Settlement of the Dorians in Thessaly. § 2.
Description of the Vale of Tempe. § 3. Of the Passes of Olympus. §
4. And of Hestiæotis. § 5. The Perrhæbians. § 6. The Lapithæ. § 7.
Limits of the Territory in Thessaly occupied by the Dorians. § 8.
Contents of the Epic Poem Ægimius. § 9. Doric Migration from
Thessaly to Crete. § 10. Relation of the Dorians to the
Macedonians.
1. “From early times the Dorians and Ionians were the chief races of the
Grecian nation; the latter of Pelasgic, the former of Hellenic origin; the
latter an aboriginal people, the former a people much addicted to
wandering. For the former, when under the dominion of Deucalion, dwelt in
Phthiotis; and in the time of Dorus, the son of Hellen, they inhabited the
country at the foot of Ossa and Olympus, which was called Hestiæotis.
Afterwards, however, being driven from Hestiæotis by the Cadmeans, they
dwelt under mount Pindus, and were called the Macednian nation. From
thence they again migrated to Dryopis; and having passed from Dryopis into
Peloponnesus, they were called the Doric race.”(58)
This connected account cannot be considered as derived immediately from
ancient tradition; but can only be viewed as an attempt of the father of
history to arrange and reconcile various legends. Nor indeed is it
difficult to discover and examine the steps of the argument which led him
to this conclusion. It is clear that he considers the genealogy of
Hellen,(59) viz. that he was the son of Deucalion and father of Dorus,
Xuthus, and Æolus, as an historical fact; although it is at least more
recent than the poems of Homer, where the name of Hellenes does not
include these races, but is the appellation of a single nation in
Phthiotis: and that his object is to establish the position, that the
Dorians were the genuine Hellenes. Now since Deucalion, the father of
Hellen and grandfather of Dorus, was supposed to have dwelt in
Phthiotis,(60) Herodotus represents the Dorians as also coming from
Phthiotis; although the people meant in these legends by the names of
Deucalion and Hellen were the real ancient Hellenes, the Myrmidons,(61)
who were afterwards under the dominion of the Æacidæ,(62) and are entirely
distinct from the Dorians. Dorus was next represented as succeeding Hellen
as king of the same people; and then, since the name of Dorus was in these
fabulous accounts connected with Hestiæotis, he infers that the Dorians
went thither from Phthiotis. But the modern mythologist must of course
abandon this whole deduction as unfounded; and he can only adopt the datum
from which the historian started; namely, that, according to ancient
tradition, “Dorus dwelt at the foot of Olympus and Ossa.” Here then the
real fact presents itself to us. The chain of Olympus, the divider of
nations, whose lofty summit is still called by the inhabitants the
_celestial mansion_, is the place in which the Dorians first appear in the
history of Greece.
2. The mountain-valley, which in later times bore the name of Thessaly,
was bounded to the west by Pindus, to the south by Othrys, to the east by
Pelion and Ossa, and to the north by Olympus, under which name the ancient
writers, for example Herodotus, also include the chain which in
after-times (probably from an Illyrian word)(63) was called the Cambunian
mount. The course of the Peneus is so situated as to divide the open plain
to the south, the ancient Pelasgic Argos, from the mountainous district to
the north; towards the north-east it breaks through the mountain-ridge,
dividing Ossa from Olympus; here too the river creeps under the loftier
heights of mount Olympus;(64) so that the path passes along the side of
the more rugged and precipitous Ossa. This ravine was known by the ancient
generic name of _Tempea_ or _Tempe_ (the _cut_, from τέμνω), and has been
often poetically described, but seldom sufficiently considered as bearing
upon the history of Greece.(65)
Before entering the pass, the traveller crosses a small round valley,
agreeably situated; at the end of which on the left hand, where the
mountains approach one another on both sides, was the ancient fortress of
Gonnus (or Gonni), distant 160 stadia from Larissa, the chief city of the
plain.(66) From this point the mountains close upon one another more
rapidly, until they rise on both sides of the glen in two rocky parapets,
forming a gully, where in many places a path has been hewn along the
river. About the middle of this path there stands now, upon a bold
projection of Ossa, a fortress of Roman construction called Horæo-Castro,
covering also a cross glen of that mountain: it was there probably that
the strong-hold Gonnocondylum stood; which appears to have taken its name
from the “windings” of the valley.(67) Not far from this spot is the
narrowest part of the ravine, hardly 100 feet in width: which is stated in
an inscription to have been fortified by L. Cassius Longinus, the
proconsul and partisan of J. Cæsar; but, without the aid of fortification,
a few armed men would probably have been able to stop the progress of a
force many times their number. The region has nothing beautiful or
agreeable in its appearance, but presents rather a look of savage
wildness: the perpendicular masses of rock of the same kind of stone
appear, as it were, to have been rent asunder, and are without any
covering of trees or grass; the blackness of the shadows in the deep
hollow, and the dull echoes, increase the gloominess of the impression:
beneath bubble the silver waters of the Peneus (ἀργυροδίνης).(68) Not far
from this narrow passage the defile opens towards the sea, to which the
Peneus flows through marshes; and from hence may be seen the smiling
country of Pieria, on the eastern side of Olympus, particularly the plains
of Phila, Heracleum, and Leibethrum, which lead onwards to the southern
parts of Macedonia.
3. This is the only road between Thessaly and the northern districts,
which passes in its whole length along a valley; all the others are
mountain-passes. Such was the other road to Macedonia, which crossed mount
Olympus (ἐσβολὴ Ὀλυμπική).(69) This road, too, begins at the
strongly-fortified city of Gonnus, the key of the country towards the
north; and it then goes along the southern side of Olympus, till it
reaches the cities of Azorum and Doliche. Between these two towns is a
place where three ways met.(70) The chief road passes in a northerly
direction over the summit of the Cambunian chain to the Macedonian
highlands; and it was here that Xerxes set fire to the woods in order to
open a passage for his army, which the Greeks had expected along the more
practicable way through Pieria and the valley of Tempe; and it was often
in the Roman wars traversed by large armies.(71) From the south of Olympus
two difficult mountain roads led over the heights of Olympus, connecting
Northern Thessaly with Pieria. The one avoided the valley of Tempe, as it
passed by the fortress of Lapathus to the north of that defile,(72) then
along the small lake of Ascurias, whence there was a view of the town of
Dium on the sea-coast, at the distance of 96 stadia; after which it
descended into the plains of Pieria. We should, however, more particularly
notice the other road, taking a more northern direction, and passing over
the lofty sides of Olympus, where formerly there stood the castle of
Petra, and the temple of the Pythian Apollo, commonly called Pythium,
together with a village of the same name,(73) the height of which
Xenagoras, by a geometrical measurement, ascertained to be 6096 Grecian
feet.(74) From this point there was a mountain-pass leading down to the
coast to Heracleum and Phila in Pieria, and another way led along the
ridge of Olympus by difficult and dangerous passages, as far as Upper
Macedonia.(75)
These mountain-passes and defiles have not been explored by any modern
traveller; but it was important for our subject to discover their position
from the writings of the ancients. Not only did Perseus and Æmilius Paulus
here contend for the fate of Macedonia, but it was in this region that the
Greek nations of the heroic age disputed the possession of the fertile
Thessaly. There was once a time when through these passes the nations
pressed down, to whose lot the finest parts of Greece were once to fall;
here every step was gained with labour, while the sons of the mountain
inured themselves to hardships in their incessant wars. Of the numerous
citadels which in these districts cover every important point, the greater
number were probably built at a very early period. Thus there were three
fortresses(76) to defend the pass of Olympus, or the road from Gonnus to
Azorum and Doliche, which two places, together with Pythium on the
mountain, were comprehended under the name of the Pelagonian Tripolis.(77)
4. The highlands which border on Macedonia are so rarely mentioned in
Grecian history, that we find in them few names of places, while in the
valley of the Peneus there were always some traditional and historical
memorials extant. For although the northern mountains were not destitute
of fountains, grassy slopes, and fertile pastures, still the nations
continually pressed downward to the fertile lands of the valley. In this
plain Gonnus and Elatea are succeeded by Mopsium upon the right, and
Gyrton and Phalanna on the left of the stream; and soon afterwards Larissa
stood in the midst of the open country,(78) which had been once deposited
from the stagnant waters of the Peneus, and being constantly irrigated,
always produced a plentiful crop. To the west of Larissa, in a narrower
part of the valley, where the hills approach the river more from the north
side, there stood, 40 stadia from Larissa, the town of Argura,(79) and at
the same distance again the fort of Atrax; on the northern bank of the
river were the celebrated city of Pelinna(80) and the castle of
Pharcedon;(81) higher up on the left bank, where the mountains on the
north begin to recede and form another plain, was the ancient city of
Tricca.(82) Between Tricca and Pelinna stood, as it appears, the city of
Œchalia, so celebrated in mythology; the ruins of which have been perhaps
discovered by a traveller in some ancient walls of massive structure,(83)
of which Pouqueville saw many in this district. If now we follow the
Peneus, which runs from the north-west, higher up the stream than Tricca,
we come to the mountain district of Hestiæotis. At about three and a half
hours from Tricca(84) is now situated the convent Meteora, whose name
alludes to its singular situation upon lofty columns of rock:(85) from
which place there were two ways, one leading higher up the Peneus in a
westerly direction to Epirus, and the other passing through Stymphæa to
Elimiotis in Macedonia,(86) This was about the situation of the ancient
fortress of Gomphi, which was near Pindus, and not very far from the
sources of the Peneus.(87) It is, indeed, probable that the name Γόμφοι
expresses the _wedge-shaped_ form of these rocks. According to Strabo,
Gomphi (in the north-west), Tricca (in the south-west), Pelinna (in the
north-east), and the more recent city of Metropolis (in the south-east),
formed a square of fortresses, in the middle of which was the ancient
Ithome; which Homer, from the steepness of the rock on which it stood,
calls the _precipitous_ (κλωμακόεσσα or κλιμακόεσσα).(88) From Meteora the
Peneus may be followed in a northerly direction to its origin from two
small streams; whence there was a path which wound over the high chain of
Pindus, and thus reached the country of Epirus. This was in ancient times
the road which connected the two countries, and there still remain on it
several Cyclopian walls, the strongholds of former ages.
5. There had dwelt in the valley of the Peneus from the earliest times a
Pelasgic nation, which offered up thanks to the gods for the possession of
so fruitful a territory at the festival of Peloria.(89) Their habits were
doubtless adapted to the nature of the country, which has still the same
effect on the modern inhabitants; those who dwell near the river being of
a soft and peaceable disposition, while the mountaineers are of a stronger
and freer turn of mind.(90) Larissa was the ancient capital of this
nation.(91) But at a very early time the primitive inhabitants were either
expelled or reduced to subjection, by more northern tribes.(92) Those who
had retired into the mountains became the PERRHÆBIAN nation, and always
retained a certain degree of independence. In the Homeric catalogue the
Perrhæbians are mentioned as dwelling on the hill Cyphus under Olympus,
and on the banks of the Titaresius, which, flowing along the western edge
of Olympus, is distinguished by its clear and therefore dark-coloured
stream, from the muddy and white waters of the Peneus.(93) At the present
day the inhabitants of its banks are remarkable for their healthy
complexion, while the Peneus is surrounded by a sickly population.(94) The
ancients however were reminded by the Titaresius of the Styx and of the
infernal regions, not from any natural circumstance, but because both
among these Perrhæbians and the Hellopian Pelasgians the name and worship
of Dodona had been established.(95) Accordingly there seems to have been
in both places a Ψυχοπομπεῖον, or oracle of the dead. The prince of these
Perrhæbians was called Guneus. So much may be gathered from the passage in
Homer. Afterwards, in historical times, we find the Perrhæbians having
extended their limits to the Cambunian mountains, the pass of Tempe, and
the Peneus; and reaching to the west beyond the chain of Pindus.(96)
Gonnus and Atrax were likewise Perrhæbian towns.(97) The Perrhæbians
maintained themselves in the mountains, even when the Thessalians had
seized upon the plain, not indeed as an independent, but still as a
separate, and, until the Macedonian supremacy, as an Amphictyonic nation.
6. The plain on either side of the Peneus was however occupied by the
LAPITHÆ, a race which derived its origin from Almopia in Macedonia, and
was at least very nearly connected with the Minyans and Æolians of
Ephyra.(98) If it be allowed to speak of this heroic race, of superhuman
strength and courage, in the same terms as of a real nation, we should say
that the towns Elatea, Gyrton, Mopsium, Larissa, Atrax, Œchalia, Ithome,
and Tricca, were under their dominion. Our reason is, that the Lapithæ,
Elatus, Cæneus, Mopsus, Coronus, Eurytus and Hippodameia, were considered
by popular tradition as inhabitants of the above towns; a belief indicated
by the names of several of these heroes. The two last of these towns were
the native places of the Asclepiadæ, whom the genealogical and other
legends always represent as connected with the Lapithæ. In Homer the
inhabitants of Tricca, Ithome, and Œchalia are represented as following
the sons of Æsculapius; those of Argissa, Gyrton, Orthe, Elone, and
Oloosson are headed by the descendants of the Lapithæ. Now from the
researches mentioned by Strabo, it would seem that Orthe was the fortress
of Phalanna, Argissa the town Argura, both on the river Peneus; Elone was
a small town on mount Olympus, as also Oloosson;(99) and it appears that
the Homeric catalogue agrees well enough with the other traditions, and
supposes the Lapithæ to have occupied the valley of the Peneus, with some
parts of the mountainous country to the north.
7. Thus much it was necessary to premise, in order to give a faithful
description of the spot in which the Dorians first make their appearance
in the traditions of Greece. They bordered on the Lapithæ, but inhabited
the mountain district of Hestiæotis, according to Herodotus,(100) instead
of the champaign country, like the latter race. Yet the same passage of
that author implies that Tempe was within the territory of Hestiæotis, and
belonged at that time to the Dorians; we shall see hereafter how much this
account is confirmed by the altar of the Pythian Apollo in this
valley.(101) It will moreover be rendered probable that the Pythium above
mentioned was situated on the mountain heights. Hence we may well suppose
the whole Tripolis to have at one time belonged to the Dorians; since even
Azorium was not always inhabited by Illyrian Pelagones, but had once been
held by the Hellenes.(102) It is also probable that Cyphus, a town said to
have belonged to the Perrhæbians, was under the dominion of the Dorians;
since this race possessed in their second settlement a town called
Acyphas.(103) It is remarkable that no direct and positive account of any
Doric town in this district has been preserved, a circumstance to be
attributed to the loss of the epic poem of Ægimius.
8. This poem, written in the Hesiodean tone (although the author probably
lived about the 30th Olympiad, 660 B.C. in the last period of epic
poetry),(104) celebrated the most ancient exploits of the Doric race. Thus
it sung how Ægimius, the Doric prince, whilst engaged in a difficult and
dangerous war with the Lapithæ, called to his assistance the wandering
Hercules, and by the promise of a third part of the territory obtained his
alliance; by which means the enemies were beaten, their prince slain, and
the disputed territory conquered.(105) The name of the poem is a
sufficient proof that such would have been its contents.(106) Probably the
heroes of Iolcus and the Phthiotans were also introduced as allies of the
Lapithæ, and at least the adventures of Phrixus and Achilles.(107) The
scene of the second book was Eubœa, the name of which island was there
derived from the cow Io;(108) the attack of Hercules upon the Eubœan town
of Œchalia also formed, as I conjecture, part of the subject. Ægimius was,
however, supposed to reign in Hestiæotis, merely because the Dorians
bordered in this direction upon the Lapithæ; he was easily carried over to
the second settlements of the race under mount Œta.(109) This hero is in
general the mythical progenitor and hero of the Doric nation; hence Pindar
called the customs and laws of that people “the ordinances of
Ægimius.”(110) Nevertheless only two tribes of the Dorians are stated to
be descended from him, viz. the Dymanes and Pamphylians; the third and
most distinguished, viz. the Hylleans, was supposed to be descended from
Hyllus the son of Hercules, and adopted by Ægimius. And as the land in the
Doric states was equally divided between these three tribes, Hercules was
fabled to have received for his descendants a third part of the territory,
which belonged of right to the Hylleans. This triple division of the land
was expressly mentioned by the epic poet, who used the word τριχάϊκες to
express that the Dorians had obtained and shared among themselves, at a
distance from their native country (chiefly in Peloponnesus),(111) a
territory apportioned into three parts. An examination of the opinion,
that the first race was distinguished from the other two as of different
origin, will be found in a following chapter.(112)
We must also refer our reader to the investigation of the worship of
Apollo, and the mythology of Hercules, in the second book, since from
these alone can be collected the internal history of the Doric race during
its earliest period.
9. One event which, even if it had not been noticed by tradition, would
still have been felt and recognised from the effects it produced, is the
migration of the Dorians from the district of Olympus to Crete. It is,
indeed, a wonderful migration, being from one end of the Grecian world to
the other, and it presents a striking anomaly in the history of the
ancient colonies. We must suppose that the Dorians, whilst in their first
settlements, excluded from the plain, and pressed by want, or restless
from inactivity, constructed piratical canoes, manned these frail and
narrow barks with soldiers, who themselves worked at the oars, and thus
being changed from mountaineers into seamen—the Normans of Greece—set sail
for the distant island of Crete. The earliest trace of the migration in
question is found in the Odyssey, in which poem it is mentioned that the
_thrice-divided_ Dorians formed a part of the population of Crete.(113)
Andron states, even with geographical accuracy, that these Dorians came to
Crete from Hestiæotis, at that time called Doris, under Tectaphus, the son
of Dorus, together with Achæans and some Pelasgians who had remained in
Thessaly.(114) According to Dicæarchus, the Dorians migrated to Crete from
Pelasgiotis;(115) by which is meant the same district as that called by
Andron Hestiæotis, since Pelasgiotis and Hestiæotis bordered on each other
in the vicinity of Tempe. Again, Diodorus affirms that Asterius king of
Crete, the adopted father of Minos, the legislator, was the son of
Tectamus (Teutamus).(116) The essential parts of these statements are
rendered certain by two proofs: the first of these is, that the worship of
Apollo was practised in Crete with precisely the same ceremonies as at
Tempe, and connected with many of the same traditions; the second is, the
very remote period at which the principles of the Doric constitution were
systematized and established in Crete, so that they afterwards became a
model and standard for other states of that race. This gives us the
fullest right to consider Minos of Cnosus as a Dorian. We may assert, with
still more reason, that the name of Minos indicates a period in which the
Doric invaders united a part of the island into one state, and, by
extending their power over the Cyclades and many maritime districts,
obtained, according to the expression of Herodotus, Thucydides, and
Aristotle, the dominion of the sea. To discredit this Doric migration
would be to reject the simple explanation of many facts recorded in later
history. At the same time, however, we do not mean to throw any doubt upon
the later migrations from Peloponnesus, when it had already fallen under
the power of the Dorians.(117) We only assert that these took place at too
late a period to account for many unquestionable facts. The portion of
Crete first occupied by the Dorians was, according to Staphylus, the
eastern coast;(118) or, to speak more accurately, the eastern side of the
north coast. Here stood the Minoan town of Cnosus, with its harbour
Heracleum and colony Apollonia. From this point the dominion, customs, and
worship of the Dorians were at a very early period extended over the
districts inhabited by the Eteocretans, Pelasgians, and Cydonians; and,
with the help of later migrations, pervaded the whole island.(119) And
although the different dialects could still be distinguished at the time
of Homer,(120) yet in later times the Doric appears to have been
universally adopted.(121)
10. We now return to the passage of Herodotus, of which a part has been
already quoted; “When however the Dorians were driven out by the Cadmeans,
they dwelt under Mount Pindus, and were called the Macednian nation.” In
this passage the author alludes to the legend, that the Cadmeans, being
expelled from Thebes by the Argives, fled to the Encheleans of Illyria,
where they bordered upon Homolè, a Magnesian mountain near the valley of
Tempe. In this settlement they would certainly be in the neighbourhood of
the Dorians. But we should bear in mind how perplexed is the fable which
we have before us.(122) The predatory excursion of the Encheleans to
Phocis and Bœotia appears to admit of no doubt, as it was noticed by a
Delphian oracle of tolerable antiquity, and by the tradition of the
Thebans. The same horde may in its passage have also disturbed the Dorians
in their settlements; but it is no less wonderful, that fugitive Thebans
should have voluntarily taken refuge with the Encheleans in Illyria, than
that this latter nation should have driven the Dorians from their
settlements. It may be true that some northern hordes expelled the Dorians
from mount Olympus, since at a later period we find the Pæonian (Teucrian)
race of the Pelagones, who had descended from the Axius,(123) and made
themselves masters of the Tripolis, Azorum, Doliche, and Pythium, in
possession of their ancient settlements.
As to the statement of Herodotus, that the Macednians, or ancient
Macedonians (who in his lifetime inhabited the territory between the
rivers Haliacmon and Lydias, from the mountains to the coast),(124) were
derived from the Dorians when dwelling under mount Pindus, he probably
followed some accounts of the Macedonians, who, not satisfied with
establishing the Doric origin of their royal family, wished to claim the
same honour for the whole nation: but there does not appear to be any
historical foundation for this statement. For the Macedonians, as was
above remarked, were indeed for the most part Greeks, but neither their
language or customs authorize us to consider them as Dorians.(125)
Chapter II.
§ 1. Migration of the Dorians from Thessaly to the Valley of Œta
and Parnassus. § 2. District of Œta. § 3. Limits of Doris. § 4.
The Dryopians. § 5. The Malians. § 6. The Ænianes.
1. “From thence,” Herodotus proceeds to relate, “the race of the Dorians
migrated to Dryopis, afterwards called Doris, or the Doric Tetrapolis.”
Here also it will be necessary to give some illustration of the geography
of the country; beginning at Thermopylæ (the point at which mount Œta
comes in contact with the sea) to the broken ridge where it is swallowed
up in Parnassus, and both ranges are lost in the mountains of Pindus, and
where this latter, the grand chain of Greece, is separated and branches
off in different directions.
Following the plain of Phocis, which lies between mounts Œta and
Parnassus, and is watered by the Cephisus, we presently find the mountains
approaching each other from both sides, and contracting the valley of the
river. The last towns of Phocis in this direction are, Amphicæa,
Tithronium and Drymæa, still to be recognised in ruins, and places bearing
the name of _Palæocastro_.(126) Proceeding thence westward to the higher
country, we soon arrive at the sources of the river Cephisus, which cannot
be mistaken, since it immediately forms a stream of considerable size. The
Cephisus indeed rises not in Œta but in Parnassus, and runs first to the
north-east, in order to make a bend afterwards to the south-east.(127) The
situation is particularly indicated by the ancient citadel of a town,
situated close to the source, upon a steep projection of Parnassus; this
place must be recognised as Lilæa. The scenery around is of a grand and
bold description. Twenty stadia from hence was situated Charadra, where a
mountain-torrent joined the Cephisus. But the river Pindus, which falls
into the Cephisus not far from Lilæa, comes down from a much greater
elevation. These valleys, lying to the north-west of Lilæa,(128)
constitute the proper district of Doris, little described in detail by the
ancients, and never till a short time since visited by modern travellers.
The steep citadel, about an hour and a half’s distance from Lilæa,
situated upon a projection of Parnassus near the village of Mariolatis, is
perhaps Bœum. The ancient walls in the valley towards the west near Stagni
must be set down as the fortress of Cytinium.(129) Erineus should probably
be sought for in the defiles of Œta, nearer the sources of the stream just
mentioned.(130) Near Œta was situated Acyphas,(131) probably the same as
the city of Pindus(132) above Erineus, and of the same name as the river;
both which names the Dorians had brought with them from their early
settlements. This corner of land, placed under the chief mountain-chain of
Greece, and hanging over the plains which extend from thence, was bounded
by the upper districts of Ætolia, by the territory of the Ozolian
Locrians, Phocis, and southern Thessaly.(133) From Cytinium a
mountain-path led along the side of Parnassus to the country of the
Locrians:(134) this also has been explored by modern travellers. This pass
made the small stronghold of Cytinium so important as a military post,
that Philip of Macedon, when he invaded Northern Greece before the battle
of Chæronea, immediately occupied Elatea and Cytinium(135), evidently as a
key to the western districts. From Delphi another mountain-path (which was
reckoned by an ancient traveller at 180 stadia(136)) crossed over in the
direction of Lilæa. The modern road to the north, from the valley of
Pindus, likewise goes along a mountain-pass through the defiles and
ravines of Œta, to the opposite side of the valley of the Spercheus, now
called Hellada.(137) If this was passable in ancient times, it formed the
communication between Doris and the country of the Malians.
2. Mount Œta stretches in a westerly direction for the length of 200
stadia towards the Malian bay, which it reaches at Thermopylæ. It
separates Doris, Phocis, and the Epicnemidian Locrians from the valley of
the Spercheus. The passes connected with it are, first, the one just
mentioned: secondly, another from Phocis to the rocky glen of
Trachinia;(138) and, lastly, that of Thermopylæ, together with the upper
path, made famous by the battle with the Persians. The pass of Thermopylæ
is formed on one side by the steep declivity of the mountain, and on the
other by a deep and impassable salt-marsh: these in the narrowest part are
only 60 paces distant from each other:(139) in the middle arise the hot
sulphurous springs, which gave the name to the defile. At no great
distance from these lies the little plain of Anthela, breaking into two
narrow parts of the pass. At the northern entrance of the passage there
are still the ruins of a wall, which has perhaps served as a barrier
against the invasions of Thessalian, Persian, and Roman armies. Near this
spot the brook Asopus rises from the side of the mountain. At the southern
end of the pass was the small town of Alpenus, its whole length being
about five miles. From Thermopylæ the paved and raised military road leads
northward over the Spercheus to Thessaly, southward by Alpenus, Scarpheia,
and Thronium, and from thence to Elatea, and thus to the land of Phocis.
Although the broken and precipitous form of both mountain and valley
rendered the chain of Œta little suited for human habitation, yet there
was in ancient times a considerable number of cities reaching in a line
from the Doric Tetrapolis, as far as the sea. Amphanæa must have been
built upon mount Œta, but in the direction of Trachinia; so that, with a
little latitude of expression, it was considered as in Thessaly.(140)
Rhoduntia and Teichius were fortified heights on the road over mount
Œta.(141) Phricium was situated near Thermopylæ on the Locrian side; from
this place some colonists went to the Æolian Cume, and Larissa
Phriconis.(142) On the other side, upon the slope of the mountain above
the valley of the small streams Melas and Dyras, lay Trachis. Heraclea was
situated six stadia from the ancient Trachis.(143) Not far from hence
Ægoneia was probably situated.(144)
3. Having now marked out the topography of this district by traces, which,
although not as clear as could be wished, are yet perfectly accurate, we
will next proceed to inquire concerning the small native tribes which at
different periods settled in these parts, and particularly concerning the
Dorians themselves. Doris, in the limited meaning of the term, was the
valley of the river Pindus. Whenever the Doric _Tripolis_ is mentioned,
the three cities meant are Bœum, Cytinium, and Erineus;(145) which last
place, as being the most considerable, appears to have been also called
Dorium:(146) but when writers speak of a _Tetrapolis_, Acyphas (or Pindus)
is added as a fourth town.(147) This is the country which Dorus the son of
Hellen is said to have inhabited, when he brought together his nation on
the side of Parnassus;(148) a tradition which totally loses sight of the
more ancient settlements of the Doric race. It appears, however, that the
Dorians, whilst confined within these limits, did not rest content with
the possession of this narrow valley, but occupied several places along
mount Œta, of which Amphanæa was one.(149) An unknown writer(150) named
six Doric towns,—viz., Erineus, Cytinium, Bœum, Lilæum, Carphæa and
Dryope: of which, by Lilæum is meant the town of Lilæa, by Carphæa
probably Tarphe near Thermopylæ,(151) and by Dryope the country which had
once belonged to the Dryopians. There was therefore probably a time when
the heights near the sources of the Cephisus, and a narrow strip of land
along mount Œta, as far as the sea, were in the possession of the Dorians.
Nay this was even partly the case in the Persian war; for even at that
time Doris stretched in a narrow tongue of land thirty stadia broad,
between the Malians and Phoceans, nearly as far as Thermopylæ:(152) Scylax
also mentions the Dorians as inhabitants of the sea-coast.(153) This
district, however, near mount Œta is that which the Dryopians had formerly
inhabited (as may be shown from a passage of Herodotus)(154), before they
were entirely dispossessed by the Dorians, their neighbours in the
Tetrapolis. Thus, by means of this geographical investigation we have
arrived at an historical event. It seems probable that the Dorians, having
moved by slow degrees from Hestiæotis to mount Œta, first gained
possession of the furthest extremity of the mountain-valley, and thence
gradually spread towards the coast over the land of the Dryopians. This
race indeed generally did not press all at once, but passed slowly into
districts which had been seized by some part of them at an earlier
period.(155)
4. The DRYOPIANS (the fragments of whose history we here introduce) are an
aboriginal nation, which may be called Pelasgic, since Aristotle and
others assign to them an Arcadian origin.(156) Their affinity with the
Arcadians is confirmed by the worship paid by them to Demeter Chthonia, to
Cora Melibœa, and Hades Clymenus: which bore a great resemblance to those
of Phigaleia, Thelpusa, and other towns in Arcadia.(157) Their territory
bordered upon that of the Malians, so that they extended into the valley
of the Spercheus beyond Œta, and in the other direction as far as
Parnassus;(158) to the east their settlements reached to Thermopylæ.(159)
Their expulsion is related in a manner entirely mythical, being connected
with the propagation of the worship of Apollo (which is intimately allied
with the migrations of the Dorians), and also with the adventures of
Hercules; but when a clue to this method of narration is once discovered,
it will be found to be equally, or perhaps more, instructive, and to
convey much fuller information than a bare historical narrative. In the
present instance, the Pythian Apollo is represented as the god to whom the
vanquished Dryopians are sent as slaves, and who despatches them to
Peloponnesus;(160) and Hercules, in conjunction with the Trachinians,
subdues and consecrates them to Apollo, or assigns to them settlements in
Argolis, but allots their land to the Dorians or Malians.(161)
From this tradition we might perhaps infer that the Dryopians accompanied
the Dorians in their migration to Peloponnesus, and settled there with
them. But the situation of the places belonging to the Dryopians makes it
necessary to seek some other explanation; for the colonies of this race
lie scattered over so many coasts and islands, that they can only have
been planted by single expeditions over the sea. In Argolis, for instance,
they built Hermione, Asine, and Eion (Halieis), upon projecting headlands
and promontories; in Eubœa, Styra and Carystus belonged to them;(162)
among the islands they had settlements in Cythnos(163) and perhaps
Myconos; they had also penetrated as far as Ionia and Cyprus.(164) Hence
it must be inferred that the Dryopians, harassed or dislodged by their
neighbours, dispersed in various directions over the sea. It is, however,
_historically_ certain that a great part of the Dryopians were consecrated
as a subject people to the Pythian Apollo (an usage of ancient times, of
which there are many instances), and that for a long time they served as
such; for even in the fragmentary history of the destruction of Crissa
(Olymp. 47, 590 B.C.), we find _Craugallidæ_ mentioned together with the
Crissæans,(165) which was a name of the Dryopians derived from a fabulous
ancestor.(166) The condition of the subjects of temples, and consequently
of these Craugallidæ, will be treated of at large in another place.(167)
5. But the Dorians, though hostile to their neighbours the Dryopians, were
on friendly terms with the MALIANS. This people dwelt in the valley of the
Spercheus, enclosed on all sides by rocky mountains, and open only in the
direction of the sea; they were divided into the inhabitants of the coast,
the Sacerdotal, and the Trachinians.(168) The second of these classes
probably dwelt near to the Amphictyonic temple at Thermopylæ, the third on
the rocky declivities of mount Œta. These are the people who were in such
close alliance with the Dorians, that Diodorus speaks of Trachis as the
mother-town of Lacedæmon.(169) The friendship between Ceyx and Hercules,
together with that of his sons, is the mythical expression for this
connexion. The Malians were always a warlike people, those persons only
who had served as hoplites being admitted to a share in the
government.(170) Their country was however chiefly famous for its slingers
and darters.(171)
6. In after-times there came into these districts a nation which the
ancient traditions of the country do not recognise, viz. the Hellenic
ÆNIANES or Œtæans; the latter name denoting the region in which that
nation was settled, the former their race;(172) although I do not assert
that the fourteen Œtæan communities(173) constituted the entire nation of
the Ænianes. For they also dwelt on the banks of the Inachus, and about
the sources of the Spercheus, near the city of Hypata.(174) In early times
they had inhabited the inland parts of Thessaly, and about the end of the
fabulous period they descended into those settlements, from which in later
times they were dislodged by the Illyrian Athamanes.(175) Although the
Ænianes did not disavow a certain dependence on the Delphian oracle, and
though they adopted among their traditions the fables respecting Hercules,
anciently prevalent in their new settlements,(176) yet on account of their
geographical position they lived in opposition and hostility to the
Malians and Dorians;(177) who, as Strabo states, had been deprived by them
of a part of their territory.(178) Nay more, it is probable that the
emigration of the Dorians which conquered Peloponnesus, was in some way or
other connected with the arrival of the Ænianes in this region. There was
an _ancient enmity_ between the Lacedæmonians and the Œtæans.(179) It was
chiefly on this account that Sparta founded the town of Heraclea in the
country of Trachinia; which would doubtless have caused the revival of an
important Doric power in this part of Greece, had not the jealousy of the
Thessalians and Dolopians, and even of the Malians themselves, been
awakened at its first establishment.
Thus much concerning the situation of the Dorians in their settlements
near mount Œta. The subject however is not yet exhausted; for we have
still to trace the origin of the great influence which the establishment
of the Dorians at Lycorea upon Parnassus had on the religion of Delphi
(for that Lycorea was a Doric town will be made probable hereafter), as
well as to treat of the Amphictyonic league, in the founding of which a
very large share doubtless belonged to the Dorians: but the discussion of
both these points must be deferred to the second book.(180)
As to the colonies of the Doric cities near mount Parnassus, Bulis on the
frontiers of Phocis and Bœotia, on the Crissæan gulf, was probably founded
from thence at the time of the Doric migration.(181)
Chapter III.
§ 1. Migration of the Dorians into Peloponnesus represented as the
return of the descendants of Hercules. § 2. Improbability of the
common account. § 3. Sources of the common account. § 4. Legends
inconsistent with the common account. § 5. Common account. The
Heraclidæ fly from Trachis to Attica, and are assisted by the
Athenians against Eurystheus. § 6. Expeditions of the Heraclidæ
into Peloponnesus. § 7. Junction of the Heraclidæ with the
Dorians. § 8. The Heraclidæ pass into Peloponnesus by Rhium. § 9.
Connexion of the Dorians with the Locrians and Ætolians. § 10.
Tisamenus and the Peloponnesians defeated by the Dorians. § 11.
Partition of Peloponnesus. § 12. Immediate consequences of the
immigration of the Dorians.
1. The most important, and the most fertile in consequences, of all the
migrations of Grecian races, and which continued even to the latest
periods to exert its influence upon the Greek character, was the
expedition of the Dorians into Peloponnesus. It is however so completely
enveloped in fables, and these were formed at a very early period in so
connected a manner, that it is useless to examine it in detail, without
first endeavouring to separate the component parts.
The traditionary name of this expedition is “_the Return of the
descendants of Hercules_.”(182) Hercules, the son of Zeus is (even in the
Iliad), both by birth and destiny, the hereditary prince of Tiryns and
Mycenæ, and ruler of the surrounding nations.(183) But through some evil
chance Eurystheus obtained the precedency, and the son of Zeus was
compelled to serve him. Nevertheless he is represented as having
bequeathed to his descendants his claims to the dominion of Peloponnesus,
which they afterwards made good in conjunction with the Dorians; Hercules
having also performed such actions in behalf of this race, that his
descendants were always entitled to the possession of one-third of the
territory. The heroic life of Hercules was therefore the mythical title,
through which the Dorians were made to appear, not as unjustly invading,
but merely as reconquering, a country which had belonged to their princes
in former times. Hence Hercules is reported to have made war with some
degree of propriety, and subdued the principal countries of the Doric race
(except his native country Argos), Lacedæmon and the Messenian Pylus, to
have established the national festival at Olympia, and even to have laid
the foundation of the most distant colonies. To esteem as real these
conquests and settlements, these mythical forerunners of real history, is
incompatible with a clear view of these matters; and we could scarce
seriously ask even the most credulous, how, at a time when sieges were in
the highest degree tedious, Hercules could have stormed and taken so many
fortresses, surrounded with almost impregnable walls?(184)
A severer criticism enjoins us to trace the mythical narrative to its
centre, and attempt to ascertain whether the sovereign race of the Dorians
did really spring from the early sovereigns of Mycenæ; such being not only
the epic account, but also the tradition countenanced in Sparta itself.
Tyrtæus said, in his poem called the Eunomia, “_Zeus himself gave this
territory_ (Laconia) _to the race of Hercules; united with whom we_ (the
Dorians) _left the stormy Erineus, and reached the wide island of
Pelops_.”(185) And a still more important proof is the reply of king
Cleomenes, mentioned by Herodotus, who, when forbidden by the priestess in
the Acropolis of Athens to enter the temple, as being a Dorian, answered,
“I am no Dorian, but an Achæan,” referring to his descent from
Hercules.(186) From this it would appear that there was amongst the
Dorians an Achæan phratria, to which the kings of Argos, Sparta, and
Messenia, and the founders and rulers of Corinth, Sicyon, Epidaurus,
Ægina, Rhodes, Cos, &c., belonged; and which, in conjunction with the
Dorians, only recovered by conquest its hereditary rights.(187)
2. It is certainly hazardous at once to reject an extensive and connected
system of heroic traditions, for the sake of establishing in its place a
conjecture which sacrifices reports recognised by ages prior to historical
information, and celebrated by the earliest poets, to a mere theory of
historical probability. We must, however, recollect that mythical legends
present in general merely the views and opinions of nations on the origin
of their actual condition; these opinions being at the same time more
often directed and determined by religious and other notions, especially
by a certain feeling of justice, than by real tradition, and therefore
they frequently conceal, rather than express, historical truth. The
following remarks, partly deduced from inquiries which will follow, may
serve to contrast with each other the characteristics of history and
mythology.
In the first place, if we consider the narrative in question as a plain
historical statement, and consequently suppose the Heraclidæ to have been
expatriated Achæans, the same supposition must be extended to the whole
tribe of Hylleans. For Hyllus, the representative of the Hylleans, is
called the son of Hercules; and it was with reference to that tribe that
the third part of the territory was secured to the descendants of
Hercules: hence also Pindar calls the Dorians universally the _descendants
of Hercules and Ægimius_.(188) In this case, then, the Pamphylians and
Dymanes would alone remain as Dorians proper. It is, however, by no means
probable, that, if the most distinguished part of the Doric people had
been of Achæan descent, the difference between the language, religion, and
customs of these two races would have been so strongly and precisely
marked.
In the second place, everything that is related concerning the exploits of
Hercules in the north of Greece refers exclusively to the history of the
Dorians; and conversely all the actions of the Doric race in their earlier
settlements are mythically represented under the person of Hercules. Now
this cannot be accounted for by supposing that there was only a temporary
connexion between this hero and the Doric race.
Lastly, if we compare as much of the fables concerning Hercules related
below as refers to the Dorians, with those current among the ancient
Argives, and if we separate in mind the links by which the epic poets gave
them an apparent historical connexion, we shall find no real resemblance
between the two. The worship of Apollo, which can in almost every case be
shown to have been the real motive which actuated the Dorians, was wholly
foreign to the Argives. If then an Achæan tribe did arrive amongst the
Dorians, bringing with it the story of Hercules, or a hero so called, this
latter people must have applied and developed his mythology in a manner
wholly different from those to whom they owed it. And after all, we should
be obliged to suppose that long before their irruption into Peloponnesus,
these Heraclidæ had been so intermixed with the Dorians, that their
traditions were formed entirely according to the disposition of that race,
since Hercules in Thessaly is represented as a complete Dorian. Here,
however, we are again at variance with the fable, which represents the
Heraclidæ as having fled to the Dorians a short time only before their
entry into Peloponnesus.
Thus we are continually met with contradictions, and never enabled to
obtain a clear view of the question, unless we assent to the proposition
that Hercules, from a very remote period, was both a Dorian and
Peloponnesian hero, and particularly the hero of the Hyllean tribe, which
in the earliest settlements of the Dorians had probably united itself with
two other small nations, the Heraclidæ being the hereditary princes of the
Doric race. The story of the Heraclidæ being descended from the Argive
Hercules, who performed the commands of Eurystheus, was not invented till
after Peloponnesus had been introduced into the tradition.
3. There is hardly any part of the traditional history of Greece whose
real sources are so little known to us as the expedition of the Heraclidæ.
No one can fail to perceive that it possesses the same mythical character
as the Trojan war; and yet we are deprived of that which renders the
examination of a mythical narrative so instructive, viz. the traditional
lore scattered in such abundance throughout the ancient epic poems. This
event, however, early as it was, lay without the range of the epic poetry;
and therefore, whenever circumstances connected with it were mentioned,
they must have been introduced either accidentally or in reference to some
other subject. In no one large class of epic poems was this event treated
at length, neither by the cyclic poets, nor the authors of the Νόστοι. In
the Ἠοῖαι attributed to Hesiod, it appears only to have been alluded to in
a few short passages.(189) Herodotus nevertheless mentions poets who
related the migration of the Heraclidæ and Dorians into Laconia.(190)
Perhaps these belonged to the class who carried on the mythical fables
genealogically, as Cinæthon the Laconian, and also Asius, who celebrated
the descent of Hercules, and appears, from the character of his poems, to
have also commemorated his descendants.(191) Or they may have been the
_historical poets_, such as Eumelus the Corinthian, although those alluded
to by Herodotus cannot have composed a separate poetical history (as the
former did of Corinth); since they would doubtless have followed the
national tradition of Sparta; and this, with respect to the first princes
of the Heraclidæ, differed from the accounts of all the poets with which
Herodotus was acquainted, and was not the general tradition of
Greece.(192) And doubtless many such local traditions were preserved
amongst particular nations, concerning an event which for a long time
determined the condition of Peloponnesus. Thus the Tegeatans(193)
celebrated the combat of Echemus their general with Hyllus. Whether the
early historians collected these accounts from oral record, or whether
they derived them from the poets above mentioned (although the latter is
more in their manner), cannot be determined; for there are only extant two
fragments of these writers concerning the Heraclidæ, one of Hecatæus, the
other of Pherecydes, which connect immediately with the death of Hercules,
and therefore do not prove that these authors wrote any continuous account
of the history of this migration. The early tradition received a fuller
development in the Attic drama; but it was unavoidably represented in a
very partial view. The Heraclidæ of Æschylus, and the Iolaus of Sophocles
might, like the Heraclidæ of Euripides, have had on the whole the tendency
to celebrate those merits which the Athenians are made to commend in
Herodotus,(194) even before the battle of Platæa, viz., their good offices
towards the Heraclidæ, at the time when they took refuge in Attica. The
last-named tragedian, in his Temenidæ, Archelaus, and Cresphontes, went
further into the history of the Doric states, and descended lower into the
historical period, than any poet before his time; his reason having,
perhaps, been, the exhaustion of the legitimate mythical materials.(195)
Now these Attic tragedians manifestly took for their basis the narrative
given by Apollodorus, himself an Athenian, as may be shown by some
particular circumstances. Perhaps Ephorus rested more upon the earlier
poets and historians, as far as we are acquainted with their statements;
but his narrative, even if it were extant, could, no more than those of
the former, be considered as proceeding from a critical examination;
since, in the first place, from a total misapprehension of the character
of tradition, he forced everything into history, and then endeavoured to
restore the deficiencies of oral narrative by probable reasoning; of the
fallaciousness of which method we will bring forward some proofs.
4. After what has been said, we will forbear to apologize for merely
offering a few remarks on the origin and meaning of the traditions which
concern the Doric migration, instead of endeavouring to give a history of
that event. And, indeed, we might bring forward some most marvellous
legends, but on that very account the better fitted to convince every one
what is the nature of the ground on which we stand.
In the Ἠοῖαι attributed to Hesiod, it was stated that Polycaon the son of
Butes, whose name represents the ancient (_i.e._ Lelegean) population of
Messene, married Euæchme (Εὐαίχμη, viz. _celebrated for the spear_) the
daughter of Hyllus, and grand-daughter of Hercules. In this simple and
unpretending manner the early tradition conveyed the idea that the
Hylleans and Dorians had, by the power of the spear, made themselves
masters of Messene, and united themselves with the original
inhabitants.(196)
In the Laconian village of Abia, there was a temple of Hercules, which was
said to have been built by Abia the nurse of Glenus, the brother of
Hyllus.(197) It was, therefore, supposed that Hyllus and Glenus themselves
came to Laconia. Pausanias endeavours to reconcile the local tradition
with the received history, and assumes that Abia had fled hither after the
death of Hyllus; which, however, is inconsistent with the common account
that Peloponnesus was in the hands of the enemy, and that the battle in
which Hyllus fell was at the Isthmus. We come now to the common relation
of the order of events.
5. According to this account, the Heraclidæ, after the death of their
father, were in Trachis with their host Ceyx, who generously protected
them for a time, but was afterwards forced, by the threats of Eurystheus,
to refuse them any longer refuge; Ceyx, according to Hecatæus,(198) was
compelled to say to them, “I have not the power to assist you; withdraw
therefore to another nation;” and upon this they sought an asylum in
Attica. Those early historians, however, who stated that Hercules died as
king in Mycenæ, gave an entirely different account of this circumstance,
viz., that Eurystheus, after the death of Hercules, expelled his sons, and
again usurped the dominion,(199) and they fled in consequence to Attica.
At Athens they sat as suppliants at the altar of Pity, received the
protection of Theseus or Demophon, dwelt in the Tetrapolis,(200) and
fought, together with the Athenians, under the command of Hyllus and
Iolaus (to whose prayers the gods had granted a second youth), at the pass
of Sciron, a battle against Eurystheus; Macaria (probably an entirely
symbolical being, but here the daughter of Hercules) having previously
offered herself as an expiatory sacrifice. In this action they conquered
the Argive king, whom Alcmene with womanish vengeance put to death, and
whose tomb the Athenians showed before the temple of the Pallenian
Minerva.(201) This is the fable so much celebrated by the tragedians and
orators, a _locus communis_ as it were, which the Athenians sometimes even
mentioned in their decrees,(202) or wherever it served to show how poorly
the Peloponnesians had requited their ancient benefactors. What credit a
Lacedæmonian would have given to these stories, we know not; Pindar
certainly knew nothing of them, for he states that Iolaus had near
_Thebes_ received a momentary renewal of youthful vigour for the purpose
of putting to death Eurystheus, after which he immediately expired, and
was buried by the Thebans in the family tomb of Amphitryon.(203) In this
account Eurystheus is represented as having been conquered in the
neighbourhood of Thebes, and in consequence by a Theban army. It is not
however necessary to esteem the Athenian tradition as altogether
groundless, and purposely invented: it was probably founded on some actual
event, and afterwards modified and embellished. The connecting link was
without doubt the temple of Hercules in Attica. It was natural that, if
the Athenians worshipped that hero, they should wish to have had the merit
of protecting his descendants. Hence the sons of Hercules were said to
have dwelt in the Tetrapolis at Marathon, where was the chief temple of
Hercules in Attica, and in the neighbourhood of which flowed the fountain
Macaria, represented as a daughter of that hero. It was on this account,
as is reported, that the entire Tetrapolis was during the Peloponnesian
war spared by the Lacedæmonians. Many circumstances, which will hereafter
be brought forward, seem to show that an union and intercourse subsisted
between the Dorians of Peloponnesus and some of the northern towns of
Attica,(204) the foundation of which appears to have been laid in the
times of the Doric migration, by a settlement of Dorians and Bœotians in
these towns. But this settlement had doubtless, when those fables were
invented, been already lost in the mass of the Athenian people.
6. After this battle, won by the aid of the Athenians, the Heraclidæ are
said (and with good reason, as they were assisted by the Athenians) to
have obtained possession of all Peloponnesus, and to have ruled
undisturbed for one year (or some fixed period); at the expiration of
which, a pestilence (like a tragical catastrophe) drove them back again to
Attica. The mythologists make use of this time to send Tlepolemus the
Heraclide to Rhodes, in order that he may arrive there before the Trojan
war. Of all this, however, Pherecydes could have known nothing, as he
relates that Hyllus, having conquered Eurystheus, went to Thebes,(205)
without subduing Peloponnesus, and there with the other Heraclidæ formed a
settlement near the gate of Electra, a circumstance which we shall advert
to hereafter.(206) In Peloponnesus, however, according to the traditions
chronologically arranged, Eurystheus was succeeded by the Pelopidæ, who
accordingly appear as the expellers of the legitimate sovereigns of the
race of Perseus.(207) Whether any such circumstance was known to the early
poets is very much to be doubted; but it is at least clear, that in this
case we are not in possession of the real tradition itself, but of
scientific combinations of it. Against these new sovereigns were directed
the expeditions of the Heraclidæ, of which it is generally stated that
there were three. The account given of them follows the general idea of an
entire dependence of the Dorians on the Delphian oracle;(208) but the
misconception of its injunctions, which embarrasses and perplexes the
whole question, may, we think, be attributed entirely to the invention of
the Athenians. The oracle mentioned the _third fruit_, and the _narrow
passage by sea_ (στενυγρὰ), as the time and way of the promised return,
which the Athenians falsely interpreted to mean the third _year_, and the
_Isthmus of Corinth_. But the account given in Apollodorus, nearly falling
into Iambic or Trochaic metre, leaves no doubt that he took his account of
the oracle from the Attic tragedians,(209) as was remarked above. Deceived
by these predictions, Hyllus forced his way into Peloponnesus in the third
year, and found at the Isthmus the Arcadians, Ionians, and Achæans of the
peninsula already assembled. In a single combat with Echemus the son of
Aëropus, the prince of Tegea, Hyllus fell, and was buried in Megara; upon
which the Heraclidæ promised not to renew the attempt for fifty or one
hundred years from that time.(210) Here every one will recognise the
battle of the Tegeate with the Hyllean as an ancient tradition. But in the
arrangement, by which it was contrived that the expeditions of the
Heraclidæ should not be placed during the Trojan war and the youth of
Orestes, we do not hesitate to suspect the industry of ancient systematic
mythologists.
7. When the Heraclidæ had been once separated from the Dorians as
belonging to a different race, and Hyllus set down as only the adopted son
of the Doric king, it immediately became a matter of doubt at what time
the junction of the Dorians and Heraclidæ in one expedition should be
fixed. Sometimes the Dorians are represented as joining the Heraclidæ
before the first, sometimes before the second, sometimes before the third
expedition; by one writer as setting out from Hestiæotis, and by another
from Parnassus.(211) There were doubtless no real traditional grounds for
any one report; and still less any sufficient to place the name Hyllus,
and the events connected with it, at any fixed epoch. Hence also Hyllus is
at one time called the contemporary of Atreus, and at another of
Orestes;(212) Pamphylus and Dymas are stated to have lived from the time
of Hercules to the conquest of Peloponnesus.(213) Nor is there any
absurdity in this, inasmuch as they are the collective names of races
which existed throughout this whole period. The descendants of Hyllus,
however, are no longer races, but, as it appears, real persons; viz., his
son Cleodæus,(214) and his grandson Aristomachus. These names stood at the
head of the genealogy of the Heraclidæ; as, for example, of the kings of
Sparta; and they can hardly have been mere creations of fancy. From their
succession is probably calculated the celebrated epoch of the expedition
of the Heraclidæ, viz., 80 years after the Trojan war, which was without
doubt determined by the early historians, since Thucydides was acquainted
with it. The Alexandrine critics generally adopted it, as we know
expressly of Eratosthenes, Crates, and Apollodorus.(215) But all that is
recounted of the expeditions of these two princes, however small in
amount,(216) cannot have been acknowledged by those who, like Herodotus,
and probably all the early writers, stated the armistice after the death
of Hyllus as lasting 100 years.(217)
8. At length Apollo himself opens the eyes of the Heraclidæ to the meaning
of the oracle. It was not across the _Isthmus_, but over the _Straits of
Rhium_, that they were to cross into Peloponnesus, and after the third
_generation_ had died away. They therefore first sailed from Naupactus, to
the Molycrian promontory (Antirrhium), and thence to Rhium in
Peloponnesus, which was only five stadia distant.(218) That the Dorians
actually came on that side into Peloponnesus, is a statement which may be
looked on as certain; agreeing (as it does) with the fact that the
countries near the Isthmus were the last to which the Dorians penetrated.
The name _Naupactus_ implies the existence of ship-building there in early
times;(219) and there was a tradition that the Heraclidæ passed over on
rafts, imitations of which were afterwards publicly exposed at a festival,
and called Στεμματιαῖα, _i.e._ _crowned with garlands_.(220) This festival
was doubtless the Carnea, since the Carnean Apollo was worshipped at
Sparta under the name of _Stemmatias_. Now it is also stated that the
Acarnanian soothsayer Carnus (who was reported to have founded the worship
of the Carnean Apollo) was killed at the time of this expedition by
Hippotes the son of Phylas, for which reason the Heraclidæ offered
expiatory sacrifices to his memory.(221) We see from this that some rites
of a peculiar worship of Apollo were observed at this passage, which were
probably for the most part of an expiatory nature. Now I have shown
elsewhere, that the Carnean or Hyacinthian worship of the Ægidæ originated
at Thebes, and prevailed in Peloponnesus before the arrival of the
Dorians, particularly at Amyclæ:(222) consequently, that prevalent near
the straits of Naupactus might have been another, probably an
Acarnanian(223) branch of the religion of Apollo, which was afterwards
incorporated in the Carnean festival; a supposition which, if admitted,
would enable us to explain many statements of ancient authors. The
religious rites and festivals are in fact often so intermingled and
confused together, that it is necessary to trace their component parts to
many and distant sources.
9. At their passage from Naupactus the Dorians stood in great need of the
friendship and assistance of the native races, the Ozolian Locrians and
Ætolians. The Locrians occupied Naupactus in early times;(224) the
Ætolians were their immediate neighbours, and their powerful city of
Calydon was the mistress of the region. The Locrians are said to have
aided the Dorians in their passage, by deceiving the Peloponnesians with
false beacons;(225) and we shall meet hereafter with traces of a lasting
amity between the Locrians and Sparta. A most singular, but, doubtless for
that very reason, a most ancient dress, has been given by mythology to the
union of the Dorians and Ætolians. This connexion, which was indispensable
for the passage from Naupactus, is also found implied in other legends,
the general character of tradition being to express the same thing in
various ways. Of these we may mention the marriage of Hercules with
Deianira, the daughter of Œneus the Calydonian.(226) At this time the
Dorians were ordered by the oracle to seek a person with three eyes for a
leader. This person they recognised in Oxylus the Ætolian, who either sat
upon a horse, himself having one eye, or rode upon a one-eyed mule.
Difficult as it is to rest satisfied with this interpretation of the
oracle, so casual a circumstance having no connexion with the general
course of events, yet it appears impossible to discover the true meaning
of the word τριόφθαλμος.(227) In all probability this expression for the
whole Ætolian race was only delivered in a mythical shape, and the sorry
explanation was not invented until a late period.(228) The family of
Oxylus is stated to have come from Calydon; so that the Ætolians (who in
later times made themselves masters of Elis) appear to have come for the
most part from that place.(229) There existed, however, an ancient
alliance and affinity between the inhabitants of Elis, the Epeans, and the
Ætolians who dwelt on the farther side of the Corinthian gulf; and Oxylus
himself was said to have originally belonged to Elis;(230) hence it does
not appear that there was any actual war between these two states, but
only that the Ætolians were received by the Eleans, and admitted to the
rights of citizenship;(231) and at the same time the same honours were
permitted to the heroes and heroines of the Ætolians as to their own.(232)
10. The systematised tradition next makes mention of a battle which took
place between the united force of Peloponnesus, under the command of
Tisamenus, the grandson of Agamemnon, and the sons of Aristomachus; in
which the latter were victorious, and Peloponnesus fell into their
possession. According as it suits the object of the narrator, this
engagement is either represented to have been both by sea and land, and to
have taken place at the passage,(233) or after the march through Arcadia.
We may fairly suppose that it was inferred merely on probable grounds that
a battle _must_ have been fought by Tisamenus, whom the tradition
represented as prince of the Achæans at the capture of Ægialea.(234) Many
traditions agree in stating that the Heraclidæ at that time took the road
through Arcadia; Oxylus is said to have led them by this way, that they
might not be envious of his fertile territory of Elis;(235) Cresphontes is
moreover stated to have been the brother-in-law of Cypselus king of
Arcadia, who had his royal seat at Basilis, on the Alpheus, in the country
of the Parrhasians.(236)
11. Next comes the division of Peloponnesus among the three brothers
Temenus, Cresphontes, and Aristodamus, or his sons. We have to thank the
tragedians alone for the invention and embellishment of this fable;(237)
that it contains little or no truth is at once evident; for it was not
till long after this time that the Dorians possessed the larger part of
Peloponnesus;(238) and a division of lands not yet conquered is without
example in Grecian history. At the same time it is related that, upon the
altars whereon the brothers sacrificed to their grandfather Zeus, there
was found a frog for Argos, a snake for Sparta, and a fox for Messenia. It
seems however probable that these are mere symbols, by which the inventors
(perhaps the hostile Athenians) attempted to represent the character of
those nations. For it cannot be supposed that national arms or ensigns are
meant; unless indeed we give credit to the pretended discovery of
Fourmont, who affirms that he found in the temple of the Amyclæan Apollo a
shield with the inscription of Teleclus as general (βάγος), with a snake
in the middle; and another of Anaxidamus, with a snake and two foxes.(239)
But he has represented the shield of so extraordinary a form, with sharp
ends, and indentures on the sides, that the fraud is at once open to
detection; and consequently the supposition that the snake was the
armorial bearing of Sparta remains entirely unfounded.(240)
12. Although we cannot here give a complete account of the great
revolution which the irruption of the Dorians universally produced in the
condition of the different races of Greece,(241) it may nevertheless be
remarked, that a very large portion of the Achæans, who originally came
from Phthia, retired to the northern coast of Peloponnesus, and compelled
the Ionians to pass over to Attica. The reduction of the principal
fortress of this country, the Posidonian Helice, is ascribed to Tisamenus;
and that Helice was in fact the abode of the most distinguished families
of the Achæan nation is evident from the legend, that Oxylus the Ætolian,
at the command of the oracle, shared the dominion with Agorius, a Pelopid,
who was descended from Penthilus the son of Orestes, and dwelt at
Helice.(242) The chronological difficulty of Oxylus being called the
cotemporary of a grandson of Penthilus is not of much importance. At
Helice was also shown the tomb of Tisamenus, whose supposed ashes the
Spartans (doubtless with the idea of thus making amends for the injustice
of his expulsion) afterwards brought to their city, as they also did the
corpse of Orestes at Tegea.(243) But hereupon follows a series of
migrations to Æolis in Asia, which was founded in later times, in which
the numbers of the Achæan race predominated. Although Orestes is called a
leader of the first expedition,(244) he probably is only put for his
descendants: Penthilus also is perhaps put only for that part of his
descendants who went with the colony to Lesbos and Æolis. For all the
Penthilidæ did not go; we find indeed Penthilidæ in Mitylene;(245) and
others at Helice, as we have just seen. Pisander, a Laconian Achæan, is
also mentioned as having gone with the expedition of Orestes; and there
were men of his family in Tenedos at the time of Pindar.(246)
Chapter IV.
§ 1. Physical Structure of Greece and Peloponnesus. § 2. Physical
Structure of Arcadia. § 3. Of Laconia. § 4. Of Argolis. § 5. Of
Achaia and Elis. § 6. Improvement of the Soil by artificial means.
§ 7. Early Cultivation of the Soil by the Pelasgians and Leleges.
§ 8. Numbers of the Doric Invaders. § 9. Mode by which they
conquered Peloponnesus.
1. So wonderful is the physical organization of Greece, that each of its
parts has received its peculiar destination and a distinct character; it
is like a body whose members are different in form, but between which a
mutual connexion and dependence necessarily exists. The northern districts
as far as Thessaly are the nutritive organs which from time to time
introduced fresh and vigorous supplies: as we approach the south, its
structure assumes a more marked and decided form, and is impressed with
more peculiar features. Attica and the islands may be considered as
extremities, which, as it were, served as the active instruments for the
body of Greece, and by which it was kept in constant connexion with
others; while Peloponnesus, on the other hand, seems formed for a state of
life, occupied more with its own than external concerns, and whose
interests and feelings centred in itself. As it was the extremity of
Greece, there also appeared to be an end set by nature to all change of
place and habitation; and hence the character of the Peloponnesians was
firm, steady, and exclusive. With good reason therefore was the region
where these principles predominated considered by the Greeks as the centre
and acropolis(247) of their countries; and those who possessed it were
universally acknowledged to rank as first in Greece.
2. This character of Peloponnesus will become more evident, if we examine
the peculiar nature of its mountain-chains. Though the Isthmus of Corinth
connected the peninsula with the continent by a narrow neck of land, yet
it was not traversed in its whole length by any continuous chain of
mountains; the Œnean hills being entirely separated from the mountains of
Peloponnesus.(248) The principal elevations in Peloponnesus form very
nearly a circle, the circumference of which passes over the mountains of
Pholoë, Lampe, Aroanius, Cyllene, Artemisium, Parthenium, and Parnon; then
over Boreum, and from thence up to the northern rise of mount Taygetus,
and finally over mount Lycaon along the river Alpheus. The highest ridge
appears to be that part of Cyllene which looks to Parnon: the height of
Cyllene, according to the statement of Dicæarchus,(249) was not quite 15
stadia; according to another measurement, it was nine stadia wanting 80
feet;(250) a considerable height, when it is remembered that the sea is
near, and that Peloponnesus is the last link of the great chain, which
runs down from the north of Macedonia. But the eastern plains also, for
instance that of Tegea, are at a great height above the sea, and are often
covered with snow late in the spring.(251) Now from the circle of
mountains which has been pointed out, all the rivers of any note take
their rise; and from it all the mountainous ranges diverge, which form the
many headlands and points of Peloponnesus. The interior part of the
country however has only one opening towards the western sea, through
which all its waters flow out united in the Alpheus. The peculiar
character of this inland tract is also increased by the circumstance of
its being intersected by some lower secondary chains of hills, which
compel the waters of the valleys nearest to the great chains either to
form lakes, or to seek a vent by subterraneous passages.(252) Hence it is
that in the mountainous district in the north-east of Peloponnesus many
streams disappear, and again emerge from the earth. This region is
ARCADIA; a country consisting of ridges of hills and elevated plains, and
of deep and narrow valleys, with streams flowing through channels formed
by precipitous rocks; a country so manifestly separated by nature from the
rest of Peloponnesus, that, although not politically united, it was always
considered in the light of a single community. Its climate was extremely
cold; the atmosphere dense, particularly in the mountains to the
north:(253) the effect which this had on the character and dispositions of
the inhabitants has been described in a masterly manner by Polybius,
himself a native of Arcadia.
3. LACONIA is formed by two mountain-chains running immediately from
Arcadia, and enclosing the river Eurotas, whose source is separated from
that of an Arcadian stream by a very trifling elevation. The Eurotas is,
for some way below the city of Sparta, a rapid mountain-stream; then,
after forming a cascade, it stagnates into a morass; but lower down it
passes over a firm soil in a gentle and direct course.(254) Near the town
of Sparta rocks and hills approach the banks on both sides, and almost
entirely shut in the river both above and below the town:(255) this
enclosed plain is without doubt the “_hollow_ Lacedæmon” of Homer.(256)
Here the narrowness of the valley, and the heights of Taygetus, projecting
above in a lofty parapet, increase the heat of summer, both by
concentrating the sun-beams, as it were, into a focus, and by presenting a
barrier to the cool sea-breezes;(257) whilst in winter the cold is doubly
violent. The same natural circumstances produce violent storms of rain,
and the numerous mountain-torrents frequently cause inundations in the
narrow valleys.(258) The mountains, although running in connected chains,
are yet very much interrupted; their broken and rugged forms were by the
ancients attributed to earthquakes;(259) one of which caused so great
consternation at Sparta a short time before the war with the Helots. The
country is not however destitute of plains; that indeed along the lower
part of the Eurotas is one of the finest in Greece, stretching towards the
south, and protected by mountains from the north wind: moreover, the
maritime district, surrounded by rocks, from Malea to Epidaurus Limera
(Malvasia), is extremely fertile.(260) Nor are the valleys on the
frontiers of Messenia less productive; towards the promontory of Tænarum
however the soil continually becomes harder, drier, and more ferruginous.
The error of supposing that this country was nearly a desert appears from
the very large number of its vegetable productions mentioned by
Theophrastus and others: Alcman and Theognis also celebrate its wines:
vines were planted up to the very summit of mount Taygetus, and
laboriously watered from fountains in forests of plane-trees;(261) the
country was in this respect able to provide for its own wants. But the
most valuable product, in the estimation of the new inhabitants, was
doubtless the iron of the mountains.(262) More fortunate still was the
situation of the country for purposes of defence, the interior of Laconia
being only accessible from Arcadia, Argolis, and Messenia by narrow passes
and mountain-roads; and the most fertile part is the least exposed to the
inroads of enemies from those quarters: the want of harbours(263) likewise
contributes to the natural isolation of Laconia from other lands.
Euripides has on the whole very successfully seized the peculiar character
of the country in the following lines, and contrasted it with the more
favoured territory of Messenia:(264)
Far spreads Laconia’s ample bound,
With high-heap’d rocks encompass’d round,
The invader’s threat despising;
But ill its bare and rugged soil
Rewards the ploughman’s painful toil;
Scant harvests there are rising.
While o’er Messenia’s beauteous land
Wide-watering streams their arms expand,
Of nature’s gifts profuse;
Bright plenty crowns her smiling plain;
The fruitful tree, the full-ear’d grain,
Their richest stores produce.
Large herds her spacious valleys fill,
On many a soft-descending hill
Her flocks unnumber’d stray;
No fierce extreme her climate knows,
Nor chilling frost, nor wintry snows,
Nor dogstar’s scorching ray.
For along the banks of the Pamisus (which, notwithstanding the shortness
of its course, is one of the broadest rivers in Peloponnesus), down to the
Messenian bay, there runs a large and beautiful valley, justly called
_Macaria_, or “The Happy,” and well worth the artifice by which
Cresphontes is said to have obtained it. To the north, more in the
direction of Arcadia, lies the plain of Stenyclarus, surrounded by a hilly
barrier. The western part of the country is more mountainous, though
without any such heights as mount Taygetus; towards the river Neda, on the
frontiers of Arcadia, the country assumes a character of the wildest and
most romantic beauty.
4. ARGOLIS is formed by a ridge of hills which branches from Mount Cyllene
and Parthenium in Arcadia, and is connected with it by a mountain-chain,
very much broken, and abounding in ravines and caverns (hence called
Τρητὸν);(265) through which runs the celebrated _Contoporia_,(266) a road
cut out, as it were, between walls of rock, connecting Argos with Corinth.
By similar passes Cleonæ, Nemea, and Phlius, more to the south, and
eastwards Mycenæ, Tiryns, and Epidaurus, were connected; and this natural
division into many small districts had a considerable effect upon the
political state of Argos. The southern part of this chain ends in a plain,
at the opening of which, and near the pass just alluded to, was situated
Mycenæ, and in a wider part of it the city of Argos. The nature of this
anciently cultivated plain is very remarkable; it was, as is evident,
gradually formed by the torrents which constantly filled up the bay
between the mountains; and hence it was originally little else than fen
and morass.(267) Inachus, “_the stream_,” and Melia, the daughter of
Oceanus, “_the damp valley_” (where ash-trees, μελίαι, grow), were called
the parents of the ancient Argives; and the epithet “thirsty” (πολυδίψιον
Ἄργος), which is applied to Argos in ancient poems, refers only to the
scarcity of spring-water in the neighbourhood of the town. Yet,
notwithstanding the rugged nature of the rest of Argolis, there are, both
in the interior and near the sea, here and there, small plains, which by
the fertility of their soil attract and encourage the husbandman; the
south-eastern coast slopes regularly down to the sea. To the north of the
mountain-ridge which bounded Argolis, extending from the Isthmus as far as
a narrow pass on the boundaries of Achaia, there is a beautiful, and in
ancient times highly-celebrated plain, in which Corinth and Sicyon were
situated.(268) With respect to the progress of civilization at Argos, it
is important to know that the mountains between that town and Corinth
contain copper:(269) accordingly, in the former town the forging of metals
appears to have been early introduced; and hence arose the ancient
celebrity of the Argive shields.(270) But no precious metal has been ever
found in any part of Peloponnesus: a circumstance which greatly tended to
direct the attention of its inhabitants to agriculture and war, rather
than commerce and manufactures.
5. That region which was in later times called ACHAIA, is only a narrow
tract of land along the coast, lying upon the slope of the northern
mountain-range of Arcadia. Hence most of the Achæan cities are situated on
hills above the sea, and some few in enclosed valleys. The sources of the
numerous streams by which the country is watered lie almost without
exception in Arcadia, whose frontiers here reach beyond the water-line.
But the lowest slope of Peloponnesus, and the most gradual inclination to
the sea, is on the western side; and it is in this quarter that we find
the largest extent of champaign country in the peninsula, which, being
surrounded by the chain beginning from mounts Scollis and Pholoë, was
hence called the HOLLOW ELIS. It was a most happy circumstance that these
wide plains enjoyed an almost uninterrupted state of peace. Towards the
coast the soil becomes sandy; a broad line of sand stretches along the sea
nearly as far as the Triphylian Pylos, which from this circumstance is so
frequently spoken of by Homer as “_the sandy_.”(271) As this tract of
country is very little raised above the level of the sea, a number of
small lakes or lagoons have been formed, which extend along the greatest
part of the coast, and are sometimes connected with one another, sometimes
with the sea. Such being the nature of the country, the river Alpheus runs
gently between low chains of hills and through small valleys into the sea.
Towards the south the country becomes more mountainous, and approaches
more to the character of Arcadia.
6. If now we picture to ourselves this singular country before the
improvements of art and agriculture, it presents to the mind a very
extraordinary appearance. The waters of Arcadia are evidently more
calculated to fill up the deep ravines and hollows of that country, or to
produce irregular inundations, than to fertilise the soil by quiet and
gentle streams. The valleys of Stymphalus, Pheneus, Orchomenus, and Caphyæ
in Arcadia required canals, dams, &c., before they could be used for the
purposes of husbandry. One part of the plain of Argos was carefully
drained, in order to prevent it becoming a part of the marshes of Lerna.
In the lower part of the course of the Eurotas it was necessary to use
some artificial means for confining the river: and that this care was at
some time bestowed on it, is evident from the remains of quays,(272) which
give to the river the appearance of a canal. The ancient Nestorian Pylus
was situated on a river (Anigrus), which even now, when it overflows,
makes the country a very unhealthy place of residence; and no traveller
can pass a night at Lerna without danger. Thus in many parts of
Peloponnesus it was necessary, not merely for the use of the soil, but
even for the sake of health and safety, to regulate nature by the
exertions of art. At the present time, from the inactivity of the natives,
the inevitable consequence of oppression, so bad an atmosphere prevails in
some parts of the country, that, instead of producing, as formerly, a
vigorous and healthy race, one sickly generation follows another to the
grave. And that improvements of this kind were begun in the earliest
periods, is evident from the fact, that the traces of primitive cities are
discovered in those very valleys which had most need of human labour.(273)
This induction is also confirmed by the evidence of many traditions. The
scanty accounts respecting the earliest times of Sparta relate, that
Myles, the son of the earth-born Lelex, built mills, and ground corn at
Alesiæ; and that he had a son named Eurotas, who conducted the water
stagnating in the level plain into the sea by a canal, which was
afterwards called by his name.(274) Indeed the situation of Sparta seems
to imply that the standing water was first drained off:(275) nay, even in
later times, it was possible, by stopping the course of the river, to lay
most of the country between Sparta and the opposite heights under
water.(276)
7. The consideration of these natural circumstances and traditions obliges
us to suppose that the races which were looked on as the ancient
inhabitants of Peloponnesus (the Pelasgians in the east and north, and the
Leleges in the south and west) were the first who brought the land to that
state of cultivation in which it afterwards remained in this and other
parts of Greece. And perhaps it was these two nations alone to whom the
care of husbandry, cattle, and everything connected with the products of
the soil, belonged through all times and changes. For, in the first place,
the numbers of the invading Achæans, Ionians, and afterwards of the
Dorians, were very inconsiderable, as compared with the whole population
of Peloponnesus; and, secondly, these races conquered the _people_ as well
as the _country_, and enjoyed an independent and easy life by retaining
both in their possession: so that, whatever tribe might obtain the
sovereign power, the former nations always constituted the mass of the
population. By means of these usurpations agriculture was kept in a
constant state of dependence and obscurity, so that we seldom hear of the
improvement of the country, which is a necessary part of the husbandman’s
business. Agriculture was, however, always followed with great energy and
success. For in the time of the Peloponnesian war, when the population of
Peloponnesus must have been very great, it produced more corn than it
consumed, and there was a constant export from Laconia and Arcadia
downwards to the coast of Corinth.(277)
8. It is not with a view of founding any calculation upon them, but merely
of giving a general idea of the numerical force of a Greek tribe (which
many would suppose to be a large nation), that I offer the following
remarks. At the flourishing period of the Doric power, about the time of
the Persian war, Sparta, which had then conquered Messenia, contained 8000
families, Argos above 6000; while in Sicyon, Corinth, Phlius, Epidaurus,
and Ægina, the Dorians were not so numerous, the constitution being even
more oligarchical in those states. Although in the colonies, where they
were less confined by want of sufficient space, and by the severity of the
laws, the inhabitants multiplied very rapidly, yet the number of original
colonists, as many of them as were Dorians, was very small. Now since in
the states of Peloponnesus, even after they had been firmly established,
the number of inhabitants, particularly of Dorians, never, from several
causes, much increased,(278) it seems probable that at the time of their
first irruption the whole number of their males was not above 20,000.(279)
Nor were the earlier settlements of Achæans and Ionians more considerable.
For the Ionians, as is evident from their traditions, appear as a military
race in Attica, and probably formed, though perhaps together with many
families of a different origin, one, and certainly the least, of four
tribes (the ὅπλητες(280)). The arrival of the Achæans is represented in
ancient traditions in the following simple manner: “Archander and
Architeles, the sons of Achæus, having been driven from Phthiotis, came to
Argos and Lacedæmon.”(281) Their names signify “the ruler,” and “the chief
governor.” Certainly the Achæans did not come to till the ground; as is
also evident from the fact that, when dislodged by the Dorians, and driven
to the northern coast, they took possession of Patræ, dwelt only in the
town, and did not disperse themselves into the smaller villages.(282)
It seems pretty certain that the Dorians migrated together with their
wives and children. The Spartans would not have bestowed so much attention
as they did on women of a different race; and all the domestic
institutions of the Dorians would have been formed in a manner very unlike
that which really obtained. This circumstance alone completely
distinguishes the migration of the Dorians from that of the Ionians, who
having, according to Herodotus, sailed from Attica without any women, took
native Carian women for wives, or rather for slaves, who, according to the
same writer, did not even dare to address their husbands by their proper
names. And this was probably the case with all the early settlements
beyond the sea, since the form of the ancient Greek galley hardly admitted
of the transport of women.
9. It would have been less difficult to explain by what superiority the
Dorians conquered Peloponnesus, had they gained it in open battle. For,
since it appears, that Homer describes the mode of combat in use among the
ancient Achæans, the method of fighting with lines of heavy armed men,
drawn up in close and regular order, must have been introduced into
Peloponnesus by the Dorians; amongst whom Tyrtæus describes it as
established. And it is evident that the chariots and darts of the Homeric
heroes could never have prevailed against the charge of a deep and compact
body armed with long lances. But it is more difficult still to comprehend
how the Dorians could have entered those inaccessible fortifications, of
which Peloponnesus was full; since their nation never was skilful in the
art of besieging, and main force was here of no avail. How, I ask, did
they storm the citadel of Acro-Corinthus, that Gibraltar of
Peloponnesus?(283) how the Argive Larissa, and similar fortresses? On
these points, however, some accounts have been preserved with regard to
the conquest of Argos and Corinth, which, from their agreement with each
other, and with the circumstances of the places, must pass as credible
historical memorials. From these we learn that the Dorians always
endeavoured to fortify some post at a short distance from the ancient
stronghold; and from thence ravaged the country by constant incursions,
and, kept up this system of vexation and petty attack, until the defenders
either hazarded a battle, or surrendered their city. Thus at a late period
the places were still shown from whence Temenus and Aletes had carried on
contests of this nature with success.(284) And even in historical times
this mode of waging war in an enemy’s country (called ἐπιτειχισμὸς τῃ
χώρᾳ) was not unfrequently employed against places, which could not be
directly attacked.(285)
Chapter V.
§ 1. Reduction of Argos by the Dorians. § 2. Of Sicyon. § 3. Of
Phlius and Cleonæ. § 4. Of the Actè, Epidaurus, Ægina, and Trœzen.
§ 5. Independence of Mycenæ and Tiryns. § 6. Ancient homage of the
towns of the Actè to Argolis. § 7. Territory of the Dryopians in
Argolis. § 8. Reduction of Corinth by the Dorians. § 9. Ancient
inhabitants of Corinth. § 10. Reduction of Megara by the Dorians.
§ 11. Reduction of Laconia by the Dorians under Aristodemus. § 12.
Resistance of Amyclæ. Position of Sparta. § 13. Resistance of
other Laconian towns to the Dorians. § 14. Traditions respecting
Eurysthenes and Procles. § 15. Reduction of Messenia by the
Dorians. § 16. Political state of Messenia.
1. Before the time of the Dorians, Mycenæ, situated in the higher part of
the plain at the extremity of the mountain-chain, had doubtless been the
most important and distinguished place in Argolis; and Argos, although the
seat of the earliest civilization was dependent upon and inferior to it.
At Mycenæ were the Cyclopian hall of Eurystheus,(286) and the sumptuous
palace of Agamemnon; and though, as Thucydides correctly says, the
fortified town was of inconsiderable extent, yet it abounded with
stupendous and richly-carved monuments, whose semi-barbarous but
artificial splendour formed a striking contrast with the unornamented and
simple style introduced after the Doric period.(287) The Doric conquerors,
on the other hand, did not commence their operations upon fortresses
secured alike by nature and art, but advanced into the interior from the
coast. For near the sea between Lerna and Nauplia, on the mouth of the
Phrixus,(288) there was a fortified place named Temenium, from which
Temenus the son of Aristomachus, together with the Dorians, carried on a
war with Tisamenus and the Achæans, and probably harassed them by repeated
incursions, until they were obliged to hazard an open battle. From thence
the Dorians, after severe struggles, made themselves masters of the town
of ARGOS.(289) It is related in an isolated tradition, that Ergiæus, a
descendant of Diomed, stole and gave to Temenus the Palladium brought by
his ancestor from Troy to Argos, which immediately occasioned the
surrender of the city.(290) Argos was therefore supposed to have been
taken by Temenus himself.
2. The further extension of the Doric power is, however, attributed not to
Temenus, but to his sons; for such the Doric tradition calls Ceisus,
Cerynes, Phalces, and Agræus or Agæus.(291) Of these, Ceisus is
represented to have governed at Argos, and Phalces to have gone to SICYON.
The ancient Meconè or Sicyon had in early times been in the power of the
Ionians, and afterwards subject to the Achæans of Argos. The very copious
mythology of this ancient city contains symbolical and historical elements
of the most various nature: we will only touch upon a part of the story
immediately preceding the Doric invasion. Phæstus, a son of Hercules, is
stated to have been king of Argos before that event; and having gone to
Crete, where he founded the town of his name,(292) to have been succeeded
by his descendants Rhopalus, Hippolytus, and Lacestades, the last of whom
lived on terms of friendship with Phalces. Between them, however,
Zeuxippus, a son of Apollo and of the nymph Hyllis,(293) is placed. We
here perceive the traces of a connexion between Phæstus in Crete, and the
introduction of the worship of Apollo and Hercules; this tradition,
however, cannot authorise us to draw any chronological inferences.
3. Whether PHLIUS (situated in a corner of Arcadia, in a beautiful valley,
whence arise the four sources of the Asopus(294)) was founded from Sicyon
or Argos, was a matter of contention between these two towns: the latter
simply called Phlias the son of Ceisus.(295) This _Phlias_, however, is
nothing else than the country personified; the name being derived from
φλέω or φλιδάω, and signifying “damp,” or “abounding in springs,” which
appellation was fully merited by the nature of the spot. Hence Phlias was
with more reason called the son of Dionysus (Φλεὺς, Φλεὼν), who loved to
dwell in such valleys. There is, therefore, greater probability in the
account of the Sicyonians, that Phalces and Rhegnidas were the founders of
the Doric dominion;(296) it being moreover easier to force a way to
Phliasia from Sicyon along the Asopus, than from Argos. It is known, that
Pythagoras the Samian derived his origin from a certain Hippasus, who had
quitted Phlius on that occasion; and the Ionic town of Clazomenæ is said
to have been partly founded by some inhabitants of Cleonæ and Phliasia,
who had been expelled by the Dorians;(297) from which two facts we are
justified in inferring the existence of a connexion between the early
inhabitants of these places and the Ionians. CLEONÆ, situated in a narrow
valley, where the mountains open towards Corinth, and bordering upon
Phlius, appears from this account to have been colonised at the same time
with that town, but probably from Argos. For we find that the ruling power
was there in the hands of the same Heraclide family, of which a branch
went from Argos to Epidaurus.(298)
4. The ACTE (as the northern coast of Argolis, over against Attica, was
called)(299) was reduced, according to the account of Ephorus, by
Deiphontes and Agæus.(300) The former of these, who was called a
descendant of Ctesippus, and son-in-law of Temenus, and whose fortunes
afforded materials for the tragic poets, made himself master of the town
of EPIDAURUS, and dislodged the Ionians from thence: these latter, under
the command of their king Pityreus, crossed over to Attica, whence the
king’s son Procles went subsequently, at the general Ionic migration, to
Samos.(301) Of the Dorians of Epidaurus, however, a part under the conduct
of Triacon withdrew to ÆGINA,(302) in which place Hellenes of Thessaly had
formerly ruled, and united the island and mother-state into one
commonwealth, with equal rights, and the same magistrates. Now since
besides Epidaurus, TRŒZEN alone belonged to the Actè, and since both Agæus
and Deiphontes are mentioned as the Dorian colonisers of this coast, it
was probably this Agæus who brought Trœzen under the rule of the
Dorians.(303) In this city, too, he must have encountered some Ionians;
since both the mythical genealogies and religious rites of the ancient
Trœzen attest a close connexion between its earlier inhabitants and the
Athenians.(304) For Trœzen even shared with the Ionic cities in the
peculiar worship of the Apaturian Athene, as the goddess of _phratriæ_ and
_gentes_;(305) as also in that of Poseidon and his son Theseus.
5. The accounts already given show that Sicyon, Phlius, Cleonæ, Epidaurus,
Trœzen, and Ægina received their share of Doric inhabitants either
mediately or immediately from Argos. We can only regret the want of any
accurate accounts respecting Mycenæ and Tiryns; the conquest of which
cities must have been most difficult; but, when accomplished, decisive for
the sovereignty of the Dorians. Pindar(306) considers the expulsion of the
Achæan Danai from the gulf of Argos, and from Mycenæ, as identical with
the expedition of the Heraclidæ; and Strabo states that the Argives united
Mycenæ with themselves.(307) Nevertheless we find that in the Persian war
Mycenæ and Tiryns were still independent states, and it admits of a doubt
whether they had previously belonged for any length of time to Argos. That
some ancient inhabitants at least still maintained themselves in the
mountains above Argos, is shown by the instance of the Orneatæ. The
inhabitants of Orneæ, a town on the mountainous frontier of Mantinea,
having long been hostile to the Dorians, and at war with the
Sicyonians,(308) were at length overpowered by Argos, and degraded to the
state of periœci.(309) Now, since it is more probable that such a
proceeding took place against the people of a different race, than against
a colony of Argos, and also as there is nowhere any mention of a Doric
settlement at Orneæ, it is evident that the inhabitants of Orneæ had up to
that time been either Achæans or Arcadians.
6. Although from the foregoing accounts it appears that Argos almost
entirely lost its power over the towns which it had been the means of
bringing under the rule of the Dorians, yet in early times there existed
certain obligations on the part of these cities towards Argos, which at a
later period became mere forms. There was in Argos, upon the Larissa, a
temple of Apollo Pythaëus, which had probably been erected soon after the
invasion of the Dorians, as a sanctuary of the national deity who had led
them into the country. It was a temple common to all the surrounding
district, though belonging more particularly to the Argives.(310) The
Epidaurians were bound at certain seasons to send sacrifices to it.(311)
The Dryopians in early times, and afterwards also, in their character of
Craugallidæ, or servants of the Delphian god, had at Asine and Hermione
erected temples to Apollo Pythaëus, in acknowledgment of a similar
dependence; and this was the only one spared by the Argives at the
destruction of the former town.(312)
7. The fragments preserved respecting the ancient history of the DRYOPIANS
having been collected in a previous chapter,(313) we shall here only
remark that this people possessed a considerable district in the most
southern part of Argolis, the boundaries of which, so long as they
remained inviolate, were defined by two points, viz. the temple of Demeter
Thermesia on the frontier between Hermione and Trœzen, eighty stadia from
Cape Scyllæum, and a hill between Asine, Epidaurus, and Trœzen,(314) and
they may still be pointed out with tolerable certainty. Hercules, who,
according to the Doric tradition, brought the Dryopians hither, had
accurately marked out these boundaries. It is, however, also related that
the Dryopians established themselves beyond these limits at Nemea(315) in
Argolis: this, however, as well as Olympia, was not any particular town,
but merely the name of a valley, and particularly of a temple of Zeus
there situated.
8. The history of the establishment of CORINTH, though marvellous and
obscure, contains nevertheless some historical traces by no means unworthy
of remark. In the first place, it is stated that this town did _not_
receive its inhabitants from Argos. The purport of the tradition is as
follows: “When Hippotes at the time of the passage of the Dorians from
Naupactus slew the soothsayer, he was banished (according to Apollodorus
for ten years),(316) during which time he led a roaming and predatory
life;”(317) whence his son was called Ἀλήτης, or the _Wanderer_.(318) It
is also recorded in the fragment of a tradition(319) that Hippotes, when
crossing the Melian gulf, imprecated against those who wished to remain
behind, “_That their vessels might be leaky, and themselves the slaves of
their wives._” In like manner his son Aletes passed through the territory
at that time called Ephyra, where he received from scorn a clod of
earth;(320) which in the ancient oracular language was a symbol of
sovereignty.(321) We might almost guess from these traditions that the
Dorian warriors had harassed, and at length subdued the ancient Ephyreans,
by ravaging their lands, and by repeated invasions. This is confirmed by
the very credible account of Thucydides relating to this point.(322) There
was in the mountainous country, about sixty stadia from Corinth, and
twelve from the Saronic gulf, a hill called Solygius, of which the Dorians
had once taken possession for the purpose of making war against the Æolian
inhabitants of Corinth. This hill was, however (at least in the time of
Thucydides), entirely unfortified. Here we may recognise the very same
method of waging war as in the account of Temenus given above, a method
which in the Peloponnesian war was adopted by the Spartans at the
fortifying of Decelea. Again, it is related in a tradition connected with
the Hellotian festival, that at the taking of Corinth the Dorians set fire
to the town, and even to the temple of Athene, in which the women had
taken refuge.(323) In another it is stated that Aletes, being advised by
an oracle to attack the city on a “crowned day,” took it during a great
funeral solemnity by the treachery of the youngest daughter of Creon:
these, however, are for the most part mere attempts at an historical
interpretation of ancient festival ceremonies. As Aletes (according to his
genealogy) lived one generation after the conquerors of Peloponnesus, the
capture of Corinth was dated thirty years after the expedition of the
Heraclidæ;(324) whence probably also arose the error of supposing that
there had previously been Dorians at Corinth; as it was supposed that the
Dorians had obtained their whole dominion over Peloponnesus at _one_ time,
by _one_ expedition. The city appears to have received the name of Corinth
at this time, instead of its former one of Ephyra;(325) and it seems that
the Dorians called it with a certain preference “_The Corinth of Zeus_;”
although ancient interpreters have in vain laboured to give a satisfactory
explanation of this name.
9. The early inhabitants of Corinth were, according to the expression of
Thucydides,(326) Æolians; and their traditions and religion show that they
were very nearly connected with the Minyans of Iolcus and Orchomenus.(327)
Their kings were the Sisyphidæ, whose genealogy closes with Hyantidas and
Doridas. We find in the last name the same confusion which has been
pointed out (amongst others) in the legend of Thessalus the son of
Jason,(328) viz., that the arrival of a different nation was expressed by
connecting the new comers genealogically with the heroes of the ruling
race. Thus Doridas, _i.e._ the Dorians in a patronymic form, is the
descendant of Sisyphus. Here begins the sovereignty of the Dorians; who,
however, did not, as Pausanias(329) states, altogether expel the ancient
inhabitants, but formed the aristocratic class of the new state. Pindar
and Callimachus, indeed, call the whole Corinthian nation _Aletiadæ_(330)
but merely by a poetical license; the only lineal descendants of Aletes
being the ruling house, the Bacchiadæ, from which for a long time were
taken the kings and Prytanes of Corinth and all its colonies. There were,
however, at Corinth distinguished families of a different origin. The
family of Cypselus, which afterwards obtained possession of the tyranny,
was, according to Herodotus, of the blood of the Lapithæ, and descended
from Cæneus.(331) They came, according to Pausanias, from Gonusa, near
Sicyon, to assist the Dorians against Corinth:(332) Aletes, however, at
the advice of an oracle, at first refused to receive them, but presently
admitted them into the city, where they afterwards overthrew his own
descendants. We shall allow this narrative, which contains a _post
eventum_ prophecy of the tyranny of the Cypselidæ, to rest on its own
merits, remarking only that the Cænidæ had more reason to assist the
ancient Æolians than the Dorians; and shall merely infer from it the
existence of distinguished families in Corinth not of Doric descent.
10. As in this chapter we have hitherto rather followed a geographical
than a chronological arrangement, we will now pass to the founding of
MEGARA.(333) That event is represented by the ancient tradition as
connected with the expedition of the Peloponnesians against Athens;(334)
which is doubtless a correct statement, since Megara had before that epoch
been closely united with Attica, and comprehended in Ionia. This
expedition was, according to most authors, undertaken by the whole
Peloponnesus; by some, however, the Corinthians are called the real
authors of it, and Aletes the leader, Althæmenes of Argos, the son of
Ceisus, being nevertheless joined with him. The defeat of the Doric
invaders, by the voluntary sacrifice of Codrus, has been a favourite
subject both with poets and rhetoricians.(335) It is sufficient for our
purpose to oppose to this celebrated legend an obscure tradition that some
Athenians, whom Lycophron calls Codri, had a share in the expedition of
the Heraclidæ.(336) Whether or not the Ionians and Dorians met at the
borders on this occasion, thus much is certain, that Megara in consequence
of this invasion became a Doric town, and indeed soon afterwards a
Corinthian colony.(337) It also remained for some time in complete
dependence on Corinth, as Ægina upon Epidaurus; in proof of which it is
mentioned that the Megarians were bound to mourn for every death that
occurred in the family of the Bacchiadæ at Corinth.(338) When, however,
the internal strength of Megara increased, it ventured to dissolve this
connexion, and, in defiance of the Corinth of Zeus, to rout the
Corinthians in the field.(339) The border-wars of the Megarians and
Corinthians were carried on without intermission.(340) Megara appears not
to have raised itself to the situation of a ruling city till after it had
obtained its independence; since in earlier times it had been one of the
five hamlets (κῶμαι) into which the country was divided, viz. the Heræans,
Piræans, Megarians, Cynosyrians, and Tripodiscians.(341) These small
communities also waged war with each other, but with a singular lenity, of
which some almost marvellous accounts have been preserved; the conquerors
carried their prisoners home, treated them as guests and companions, who
were hence called δορύξενοι, in opposition to δορυάλωτοι.
11. We now turn to LACONIA, which, according to the above-mentioned legend
concerning the division of Peloponnesus, fell to the share of Aristodemus
or his sons.(342) According to the common tradition (which was derived
from the epic poets(343)) the twin brothers Eurysthenes and Procles(344)
took possession of Sparta after the death of their father; whereas the
national tradition of Sparta, as Herodotus informs us, represented
Aristodemus himself as having been the first ruler,(345) and the double
dominion of his children as not having been settled till after his death;
the first-born, however, enjoying a certain degree of precedence.(346)
This is, indeed, contradicted by the account of Thucydides,(347) who
mentions as a Lacedæmonian tradition, that the kings who first took
possession of Lacedæmon (_i.e._ Eurysthenes and Procles) were conducted
thither with dances and sacrifices, an honour which at the command of the
Delphian oracle was afterwards given to Pleistoanax at his restoration.
This variation, however, is perhaps merely the effect of a pardonable
negligence in the author.
12. It is, however, far more difficult to ascertain what was the condition
of Laconia immediately after the invasion of the Dorians. For it is plain
that the history, as it was arranged by Ephorus, and derived from him to
other authors, is in contradiction with many isolated traditions, but
which for that very reason are of the greater importance. So far, indeed,
from the whole of the Laconian territory immediately falling into the
hands of the Dorians,(348) it is certain that a powerful fortress of the
ancient Achæans, at a short distance from Sparta itself, held out for
nearly three centuries after the Doric invasion.
There was a saying, well known in antiquity, of the “silent Amyclæ;” thus
called because its citizens had been so often alarmed by the report of the
enemy coming, that they at last made a law that no one should give tidings
of the enemy’s approach; in consequence of which the town was at length
taken.(349) This proverb, and the story on which it was founded, prove the
existence of a long and determined contest between the two neighbouring
cities. They also confirm the account of Pausanias, that the Dorians in
the reign of Teleclus built a temple(350) to Zeus Tropæus, because they
had at length, after a tedious and severe struggle, overcome the Achæans
of Amyclæ and taken their city. This city of Amyclæ, one of the most
ancient and considerable in Peloponnesus, of which there still remains a
fort situated upon a rock on the side of mount Taygetus, was therefore so
far from being reduced by the Spartans immediately, that it held out until
the reign of Teleclus, 278 years after the invasion, a short time before
the first Messenian war; and then was only taken after a tedious contest,
which, from the proximity of Amyclæ and Sparta, must have been very
dangerous to the latter city. Now it is not possible that before this
victory Amyclæ and Sparta, distant only 20 stadia (2-1/2 miles) from each
other, should have been engaged in constant war, as it must have soon
ended in the destruction of one or the other city: their truces and
armistices were, however, doubtless interrupted frequently by sudden
incursions. The important territory near mount Taygetus belonged at that
time to Amyclæ, and all this country was still in the possession of the
Achæans, with whom some Minyans from Lemnos, and Cadmean Greeks, known by
the name of Ægidæ, had united themselves. This is the territory from which
the colonies of Thera, Melos, and Gortyna proceeded; so, according to
Pindar, Amyclæ was the point from which the first colonies to Lesbos and
Tenedos set out, and also (as may be inferred from other notices) those
Achæans who took possession of Patræ.(351)
Sparta, on the other hand, must have been of very slight importance before
the Doric migration; by which event alone it was enabled to become the
ruler of all the surrounding states. For, in the first place, Sparta was
not built in the same manner as Mycenæ, Tiryns, and other ruling cities
founded before the Doric invasion; the Acropolis is a hill of
inconsiderable height, and easy of ascent, without any trace of ancient
fortifications or walls. Secondly, it is remarkably deficient in monuments
and local memorials of the times of the Pelopidæ and other mythical
princes; much as the Spartans in other instances clung to traditions and
records of this kind: while Amyclæ and Therapne had these in great
abundance. Amyclæ, in a beautiful and well-wooded country,(352) was the
abode of Tyndareus and his family; here were the tombs of Cassandra and
Agamemnon, who, according to a native tradition (preserved by Stesichorus
and Simonides),(353) ruled in this city. At no great distance was situated
the town of Therapne. Alcman calls it the “well-fortified Therapne;”(354)
Pindar mentions its high situation;(355) by which they clearly imply a
position and fortification similar to that of Tiryns. The latter also
calls it the ancient metropolis of the Achæans, amongst whom the Dioscuri
lived; here were the subterraneous cemeteries of Castor and Pollux,(356)
vaulted, perhaps, in the ancient manner; here also the temples of the
Brothers and of Helen in the Phœbæum, and many remains of the ancient
symbolical religion.(357) It is also very remarkable, that on the banks of
the Eurotas, in the district between Therapne and Amyclæ, there should
have been discovered a building(358) which resembles the well-known
treasury at Mycenæ, and which affords a certain proof that the dominion of
the Pelopidæ extended to this district.
But although the local traditions make it probable that the ante-Doric
rulers of the country dwelt in Amyclæ and Therapne, yet Homer describes
Sparta as the residence of the Pelopidæ, transferring, apparently, the
circumstances of his own time to an earlier period. Homer sometimes calls
Lacedæmon the abode of Menelaus; by Lacedæmon meaning the entire country,
and especially the valley round Sparta, which agrees far better with the
epithet of “_hollow_ Lacedæmon,” than the district of Amyclæ, which opens
down to the sea.(359) Sometimes he expressly mentions Sparta as the city
in which Menelaus has fixed his abode.(360)
13. Amyclæ, however, is not the only Achæan city which was not reduced by
the Dorians till a late period. Ægys, on the frontiers of Arcadia, is said
to have been taken from the Achæans by Archelaus and Charilaus a short
time before Lycurgus; Pharis, together with Geronthræ, by Teleclus;(361)
and Helos in the plains, near the mouth of the Eurotas, by Alcamenes, the
son of Teleclus.(362) So long as these places belonged to the Achæans, the
Spartans were shut out from the sea, and surrounded on all sides by the
possessions of a different race. It appears, however, that other places
besides Sparta were held by the Dorians themselves previously to their
obtaining possession of the whole of Laconia; such were, for instance, BϾ
near Malea,(363) and perhaps also Abia on the confines of Messenia.(364)
But of the numerous contests which doubtless took place at this period,
little information has come down to us, as they just lie between the
provinces of mythology and history.
Thus much, however, we may with safety say, that Ephorus is clearly in
error when he mentions a division of Laconia made by the Dorians,
immediately after their conquest, for the sake of an undisturbed dominion
over the country.(365) The same historian further states that “Sparta was
reserved by the Dorians as the seat of their own empire; that Amyclæ(366)
was granted to Philonomus, who had delivered the country to them by
treachery, and that governors were sent into the other four divisions.”
Also, that “the principal towns of these four provinces were Las,
Epidaurus Limera (or Gytheium), Ægys, and Pharis; of which the first
served as the citadel of Laconia,(367) the second as an excellent harbour,
the third as a convenient arsenal for the wars with Arcadia, and the
fourth as an internal point of union. That the periœci dwelt in these
towns, and were dependent upon the Spartans, though without losing their
freedom.” This account doubtless suited the historical style of Ephorus;
but it does not agree with the isolated but genuine traditions already
mentioned.
The division into six provinces is nevertheless, in my opinion, to be
considered as an historical fact; only the arrangement could not have been
made till a much later period. Of these provinces, the first comprehended
the district of the city; the second, the mountain-chain of Taygetus, with
the western coast; the third, the Laconian gulf; the fourth, perhaps the
modern Zaconia, on the eastern side of the Eurotas; the fifth, the
northern frontier; and the sixth, the lower valley of the Eurotas. The
reality of such a division is also confirmed by the existence of a similar
one in Messenia; which is spoken of by other writers besides Ephorus.(368)
For this country is also said to have been divided by Cresphontes, so that
Stenyclarus was the habitation of the Dorians and their king, under whose
authority were placed the Messenian districts of Pylos, Rhium, Mesola, and
Hyamia; of these, Pylos apparently comprehended the whole western coast;
Rhium is the promontory of Methone and the neighbouring southern coast;
Hyamia may perhaps be the shore of the Messenian bay nearest to the
frontiers of Laconia; Mesola signifies the midland district(369) near the
Pamisus; and Stenyclarus is the northern plain of Messenia.
14. We have now another instance of the arbitrary manner in which Ephorus
composed his history by probable arguments. He proceeds upon the fact that
Eurysthenes and Procles, although the founders of Sparta, were not
honoured as such (as ἀρχηγέται), that they did not enjoy any divine
honour, did not give their name to any tribe, &c. (Now the very first of
these statements is false; for Eurysthenes and Procles, according to the
native tradition, were _not_ the founders of Sparta, as was shown above.)
Hence Ephorus infers that they must have offended the Dorians; and he
finds the cause of this offence in the adoption of foreign citizens,
through whose assistance they had extended their power. This instance is a
sufficient justification for our rejecting the historical system of
Ephorus, and neglecting the results which he obtained by it.
There must have been many stories concerning Eurysthenes and Procles
current in ancient times which have not come down to us. There was a
general tradition of their continual discord; and we know that the
military fame of Procles was as great as that of Eurysthenes was
insignificant.(370) There is, however, something peculiarly worthy of
notice in an incidental remark of Cicero,(371) that Procles died a year
before Eurysthenes. Could there have been chronicles of so early a period,
or is it possible that tradition should preserve such precise dates? It is
also a remarkable statement that the wives of both kings were likewise
twin sisters, Lathria and Anaxandra by name, daughters of Thersander king
of the Cleonæans, whose descent we mentioned above.(372) Some great heroic
actions of Soüs(373) (the “violent”), the son of Procles, were also
celebrated in Sparta.(374) It was even said that he had carried on war
against the Cleitorians; and it was related, that in the narrow valley of
Cleitor, when surrounded by enemies, and oppressed by intolerable thirst,
he promised to give up all his conquests, on the condition of himself and
his army being allowed to drink from the fountain: that upon this he
offered the crown to any one who would abstain from drinking, but, no one
being willing to gain it at this price, he moistened himself with water
from the fountain, and departed without drinking.(375) But a Spartan king
would hardly have ventured, even some centuries afterwards, to lead an
army through the hostile territory of Arcadia, to a place at so
considerable a distance as Cleitor, leaving behind so many hollow defiles,
ravines, and mountains.
15. In the country which from this time forth obtained the name of
MESSENIA,(376) Pylos was before the Doric migration the most important
town, whither the family of the Nelidæ had retired from the Triphylian
territory.(377) The Dorians under Cresphontes(378) at first seated
themselves in the opposite part of the country, at Stenyclarus, in the
midland region; they must however have soon pressed so closely upon Pylos,
that part of the inhabitants was forced to emigrate. For that many of the
noble families, both at Athens and in Asia Minor, came originally from
Pylos, is placed out of doubt by the agreement of many national and family
traditions; and it is equally certain that they did not leave Peloponnesus
long before the Ionic migration. Mimnermus, the most ancient witness to
this fact, says that the founders of his native city Colophon came from
the Nelean Pylos;(379) _i.e._, he calls Andræmon, the founder of Colophon,
a Pylian; where it almost seems that the poet meant a direct migration
from that place. Pylos however (though it is generally considered to have
been in the possession of the Dorians from this epoch) probably remained
for some time an independent town, with a limited territory; even in the
second Messenian war some Nestoridæ went as allies to the Messenians;(380)
and, after the defeat of the Messenians, the Pylians and the Methonæans
were able to harbour them for a considerable time.(381)
16. Of the internal condition of Messenia we cannot even know so much as
of that of Laconia, since, at the cessation of its political existence,
its monuments, and even its inhabitants, perished; and thus all means of
perpetuating a knowledge of its former state were entirely lost. Yet,
setting aside the accounts of Ephorus, there remain some very simple
circumstances from which we may form an idea of the condition of the
country. It is related, that when Cresphontes was treacherously
assassinated, the Arcadians, in conjunction with the kings of Sparta and
Ceisus king of Argos, re-established in his place his son Æpytus,(382) who
had been brought up with Cypselus the Arcadian, the father of his mother
Merope,(383) and who rendered himself so celebrated, that all his
descendants were called Æpytidæ. The name of Æpytus is evidently connected
with Æpytis, a district on the frontiers of Arcadia and Messenia, near the
ancient Andania, the earliest seat of civilization and religious worship
in the country. The names of his descendants, Glaucus, Isthmius, Dotades,
Sybotas (swine-herd), Phintas (or Φιλητὴς), are in remarkable contrast
with those of the Lacedæmonian kings, as Eurysthenes (widely-ruling),
Procles (the renowned), Agis (the general), Soüs (the violent),
Echestratus (the general), Eurypon (the widely-reigning), Labotas
(shepherd of the people), and so forth; for, whilst the latter signify
powerful warrior princes, there sounds in the former something peaceable
and pastoral. What Pausanias relates of these Messenian princes refers
almost exclusively to a peaceful office—viz., the establishment of
festivals; the gods also to whom they were consecrated agree with the same
general character. Glaucus and Isthmius, we are told, established or
promoted the worship of Æsculapius at Gerenia and Pharæ: Sybotas joined to
the ancient worship of the great gods at Andania the funeral sacrifices of
the hero Eurytus, brought over from the Thessalian to the Messenian
Œchalia; and others in the same manner. In fact this Cabirian worship of
Demeter at Andania, allied to that prevalent in Attica at Eleusis and
Phyla, was one of the most ancient in Peloponnesus, and at that time
flourished in Messenia;(384) whereas, according to Herodotus, the Dorians
everywhere exterminated the ancient rites of Demeter.(385) Hence also the
mystical consecration of Andania was discontinued as long as Messenia was
governed by the Spartans, and it fell into oblivion, until many centuries
afterwards Epaminondas solemnly re-established it, either from the mere
recollection of the inhabitants, or, if the account be true, upon the
authority of an inscription on a tin plate found in a brazen urn,
containing some obscure words referring to ancient mystic ceremonies.(386)
The re-establishment of Æpytus may, however, have been effected by the
threefold alliance of both the princes and nations of Argos, Sparta, and
Messenia, by which they guaranteed their respective rights, an alliance of
which Plato has preserved a faint, though undoubted trace, marked out in
the spirit of his political philosophy.(387)
From the settlements of the Dorians _within_ Peloponnesus, we now turn to
those _without_ that peninsula.
Chapter VI.
§ 1. Doric colonies of Argos, Epidaurus, and Trœzen. § 2. Doric
league of Asia Minor. § 3. Mythical accounts of the colonization
of Halicarnassus, Rhodes, Cos, Nisyrus, Carpathos, and Casos. § 4.
Rhodian colonies. § 5 and 6. Legends respecting the foundation of
Mallus, Mopsuestia, Mopsucrene, and Phaselis. § 7 and 8. Colonies
of Corinth. § 9 and 10. Colonies of Megara. § 11 and 12. Colonies
of Sparta.
1. On account of the multiplicity of subjects which it will be now
necessary to consider, we shall be compelled to shorten the discussion of
several points, and to take for granted many collateral questions, except
where we may be encouraged to enter into greater detail by the hope of
disclosing fresh fields for the inquiries of others.
It will be the most convenient method to make the mother-states the basis
of our arrangement, as these are known with far greater certainty than the
dates of the foundation of their respective colonies; by which means we
shall also be enabled to take in a regular order those settlements which
lie near to, and were connected with, one another.
First, the colonies of ARGOS, EPIDAURUS, and TRŒZEN. We will treat of
these together, as they all lie in the same direction, and as the colonies
of the two last states more or less recognised the supremacy of Argos, and
not unfrequently followed a common leader. These extend as far as the
southern extremity of Asia Minor.
The Dorians on the south-western coast of Asia Minor derived their origin,
according to Herodotus,(388) from Peloponnesus. And indeed they were
generally considered a colony of Argos(389) (from which state Strabo
derives Rhodes, Halicarnassus, Cnidus, and Cos), led by princes of the
Heraclidæ, from whom the noble families of Rhodes—for example, the Eratidæ
or Diagoridæ at Ialysus—claimed to be descended.(390) This emigration was
considered contemporary, and as having some connexion with the expedition
of Althæmenes, the son of Ceisus, from Argos to Crete.(391) Now we know
from Herodotus(392) that the Coans, Calydnians, and Nisyrians came from
Epidaurus; yet, as is evident from arguments already brought forward, two
different expeditions cannot be understood to have taken place. Thus also
Ægina was called a colony of Argos as well as of Epidaurus. The account of
Herodotus is confirmed by the similarity of the worship of Æsculapius at
Cos and at Epidaurus, which was sufficiently great to prove a colonial
connexion.(393) We have also a tradition of some sacred missions between
Cos and Epidaurus; a ship of the latter is said to have brought a serpent
of Æsculapius to the former state.(394) If this is considered as an
historical fact, we may, as it appears, deduce more from it than is
commonly inferred—viz. that the Doric colonists of Cos, Calydna, &c.
remained in Epidaurus a sufficient time before their passage into Asia
Minor to adopt the worship of Æsculapius. And since we find that the
worship of Æsculapius also prevailed in Cnidos and Rhodes,(395) it may be
fairly inferred, that of the inhabitants of these islands a part at least
passed through Epidaurus. This is further confirmed by the orator
Aristides, who, on the authority of the national tradition, states of the
Rhodians, “that from ancient times they had been Dorians, and had had
Heraclidæ and Asclepiadæ for their princes.”(396) Thus also there were
families of the Asclepiadæ and Heraclidæ at Cos, to the former of which
Hippocrates was related on his father’s side, to the latter on his
mother’s.(397) Contemporaneous with this migration from Argos and
Epidaurus was that from Trœzen,(398) in which Halicarnassus, _the citadel
upon the sea_ (ἁλι-κάρηνον), was founded; which fact also receives
confirmation from the similarity of religious worship.(399) And indeed
there is reason for believing that it was only one Doric tribe, the
Dymanes, which colonized this city,(400) who strengthened themselves by
collecting together the earlier inhabitants, the Leleges and Carians.(401)
2. Those towns, however, only which composed the Doric Tripolis of Rhodes
(a number which probably originated from the division of the tribes),
together with Cnidos, Cos, and Halicarnassus, formed the regular Doric
league (before the separation of Halicarnassus called the Hexapolis,
afterwards the Pentapolis). The members of this alliance met on the
Triopian promontory to celebrate in public national festivals the rites of
Apollo and Demeter, which last were of extreme antiquity;(402) its
influence in political affairs was however probably very
inconsiderable.(403) But, besides those already mentioned, many towns and
islands in this district were peopled by Dorians.(404) The small island of
Telos, near Triopium, was probably dependent upon Lindos:(405) Nisyrus and
Calydna (or Calymna) have been already mentioned; the inhabitants were
Epidaurian Dorians, who belonged to the colony of Cos:(406) Carpathus also
received some Argive colonists. It is said to have been taken by Ioclus,
the son of Demoleon, an Argive by descent.(407) Syme also was colonised
from Cnidos: of this town we shall make further mention when speaking of
the Laconian settlements. The inhabitants of Astypalæa were partly derived
from Megara;(408) their Doric origin is attested by the dialect of decrees
now extant;(409) and by the same circumstance we are enabled to recognise
as a Doric colony Anaphe,(410) which is situated near the Doric islands of
Thera, Pholegandros,(411) and Melos; the position of these islands,
together forming a chain across the southern part of the Ægæan sea, shows
that they were colonized in a connected and regular succession. Myndus,
however, upon the mainland had received inhabitants from the same town as
Halicarnassus;(412) perhaps Mylasa had also had some connexion with the
Dorians.(413) Cryassa in Caria was colonised by inhabitants of the Doric
island of Melos.(414) Even Synnada and Noricum, further to the interior in
Phrygia, had inhabitants of Doric origin;(415) yet the Spartan settlement
in Noricum is a fact which it is difficult to understand; and with regard
to the former we are wholly unable to state how the Dorians could have
penetrated thus far.
I have now, though not without in some measure forestalling the regular
course of these investigations, given an account of all the known cities
in this territory which were founded by Dorians of Peloponnesus; and if to
these we add the colonies from Rhodes upon the opposite coast of Asia, and
the cities of Lycia founded from the island of Crete, in which the Doric
dialect was doubtless spoken, we shall have before us a very extensive
range of colonies belonging to that race. Some of these were probably
dependent upon the more considerable; many on the contrary stood entirely
alone, some very early disagreements having, as it appears, separated and
estranged them from the league of the six towns.(416) Hence the Calymnians
(or Calydnians) at a later period, on the occasion of embarrassing
lawsuits, had recourse not to the larger states of the same race, but to
the Iasians (who, though a colony from Argos, had afterwards learned the
habits and character of the Ionic race by a settlement from Miletus),(417)
which nation sent them five judges. This circumstance, however, may be
accounted for by a temporary resemblance of their constitutions.(418)
3. Having thus put together the most simple historical accounts respecting
the foundation of these Doric cities, we have still to examine the
mythical narrations with which they are accompanied, and which were
invented by representing the same colonies under different names, and
attributing a false antiquity to their establishment. That this was in
fact the case is evident from the mythical account which is connected with
the colony of Trœzen, viz. “that Anthes and his son Aëtius, ancient
princes of the Trœzenians, had in early times founded Halicarnassus.”(419)
This tradition, however, contradicts itself, when compared with the
additional account in Callimachus,(420) “that Anthes had taken out Dymanes
with him;” which was _exclusively_ a civil division of the Dorians. It is
therefore far preferable to follow the statement of Pausanias,(421) that
the descendants of Aëtius passed over to Halicarnassus and Myndus long
after his death. It must not, however, from this circumstance be inferred
that these descendants of Aëtius were leaders of the colony, since it was
necessary that these should be Doric Heraclidæ. But they were in all
probability a family which cultivated the worship of Poseidon in
preference to any other, and carried it over with them to the colony. But
that a family of this kind, and with it the tradition and name of Anthes,
actually prevailed in Halicarnassus, is seen also from the poetical name
of the Halicarnassians (Antheadæ.)(422)
There is also a great similarity in the part which Tlepolemus bears in the
history of the colonisation of Rhodes. In this case also the mythical hero
is represented as coming from Argos,(423) as well as the historical
colony, only at an earlier period. But, it may be objected, the colony is
related to have come immediately from Epidaurus, and not the hero. We
have, however, still an evident trace of mythical genealogies of Rhodes,
in which Tlepolemus was represented as immediately connected with the
Heraclidæ of Epidaurus. For Pindar celebrates the Diagoridæ as descended
on the father’s side from Zeus, from Amyntor on the mother’s, because both
these were the grandfathers of Tlepolemus.(424) Now Deiphontes of
Epidaurus was also descended on his mother’s side from Amyntor, and was
therefore very nearly related to Tlepolemus. We may also probably suppose
that there was in this Argive and Epidaurian colony a family which derived
itself from Tlepolemus the son of Hercules, by which means the traditions
concerning him were connected with this migration.(425) The same want of
consistency which we observed above, may here also be perceived in the
statement of Homer, that the colony of Tlepolemus was divided into three
parts, according to the different races of the settlers;(426) whence it is
evident that he was always considered as a Doric prince.
Thirdly, the colony of Cos, Nisyrus, Carpathus, and Casos also possessed
leaders or heroic founders, whose expedition is reported to have taken
place at a time different from that at which the colony was founded, and
is placed back in a remote period, viz. Phidippus and Antiphus, sons of
Thessalus the Heraclide, or of Hercules himself. Their origin is derived
by the fable from the irruption of Hercules into Cos, where he made
pregnant the daughter of Euryphylus; afterwards they are said to have
migrated to Ephyra in Thesprotia, and their descendants to have gone from
thence to Thessaly, where the Aleuadæ, the most distinguished and the
wealthiest family of Larissa, claimed them as ancestors.(427) Again, I do
not deny that Heraclide families in exile at Cos derived their origin from
both these heroes (it was indeed by this means that the name of Thessalus
found its way into the Asclepiad family of Hippocrates); but that these
families were born in the island of Cos itself, is evidently a patriotic
invention of the Coans. There were, as we have seen, traditions respecting
Phidippus and Antiphus in Cos, and also at Ephyra in Thesprotia; which
traditions the fables and poems respecting the returns of the heroes from
Troy, endeavoured to reconcile, by making Antiphus reach Ephyra, after a
series of wanderings, instead of going directly to Cos; a supposition
which will not gain many believers. It is also plain from the epigram of
Aristotle,(428) that, according to the traditions of Ephyra, that city was
considered as the _native country_, and the domicile of the two heroes;
and therefore was in direct opposition to the Coan tradition. Now that a
Heraclide family should have gone from Cos to Ephyra in Epirus, is
contrary to all other examples of the migrations of Greek races and
colonies, and all that we know of the dispersion of Heraclide clans or
families. On the other hand, a part of the mythology of Hercules, which
appears to be of great antiquity,(429) refers to this Ephyra in Epirus;
and it was then quite natural, that with the conquest of Ephyra (a
fabulous exploit of Hercules) the origin of a branch of the Heraclidæ
should be connected, who then came with the Dorians into Peloponnesus, and
by means of the Epidaurian colony to the island of Cos.
4. The favourable situations of these Doric cities on islands and
promontories, possessing roadsteads and harbours convenient for maritime
intercourse, attracted in early times a considerable number of colonies.
It is remarkable that the RHODIANS should have founded fewer and less
considerable colonies on the coast of Asia Minor than in the countries to
the west: for, with the exception of Peræa, which was not till later times
dependent on this island, the only Rhodian towns in Asia Minor were
Gagæ(430) and Corydalla(431) in Lycia, Phaselis,(432) on the confines of
Lycia and Pamphylia, and Soli in Cilicia.(433) On the other hand, in
Olymp. 16. 4. 713 B.C., according to Thucydides, about the time of their
colonising Phaselis, they founded in Sicily the splendid city of Gela, the
mother-town of Agrigentum. This colony was sent from Lindus, which
furnished its leader Antiphemus (or Deinomenes.)(434) It was accompanied
by inhabitants of the small island of Telos;(435) and was at the same time
joined by some Cretan emigrants. That however the numbers of those who
came from the first-mentioned town predominated, is shown by the original
name of the settlement, Λίνδιοι, and by the religion there established.
Doric institutions were common to all the founders above mentioned, and
were consequently established in their settlements.(436) The connexion and
intercourse with those islands continued without interruption; hence it
was that, in later times, the family of Phalaris, coming from Astypalæa,
found a welcome reception at Agrigentum;(437) and the family of the
Emmenidæ, which overthrew Phalaris, had come from the same region, viz.
from Thera.(438) Moreover, Parthenope, in the country of the Osci, and
Elpiæ, or Salapiæ, in the territory of the Daunians (in the founding of
which the inhabitants of Cos had a share), were beyond a doubt settlements
of the Rhodians; and indeed this same people penetrated even to Iberia at
an early period, and there founded Rhode; and we have also traces of their
presence at the mouth of the Rhone.(439) Hence also, perhaps, arose the
account of the expedition of Tlepolemus to the Balearic islands; which
account, and the statement that Sybaris was founded by him, may be
understood merely as mythical expressions for the voyages undertaken by
the Rhodians in the western sea.
5. It is, however, a matter even of still greater difficulty to determine
the true history of several cities in Asia Minor, which are reported by
tradition to have been colonies of Argos, and generally of the greatest
antiquity. But it requires nothing short of absolute superstition to
believe that Tarsus was founded by Io, or Perseus the Argive,(440) who,
with his descendant Hercules, was worshipped in this place as a tutelar
deity;(441) or that Mallus, Mopsuestia, Mopsucrene, and Phaselis were
founded by Argive soothsayers at the time of the Trojan war.(442) To these
may be added Aspendus in Pamphylia, Curium in Cyprus, and even Ione, near
Antiochia, in Syria,(443) the founding of which place is attributed to the
Argives. For, without considering the period at which the ancient
Peloponnesians are represented to have undertaken such distant (and at
that time impossible) voyages round the Chelidonian islands, it is most
singular that Argos, which is at no time mentioned among the maritime
nations of Greece, should have planted upon that one line of coast a
series of colonies in so connected an order, and so completely useless to
herself. We will therefore venture to advance an hypothesis, to which,
though perhaps no complete proofs of it can be adduced, we have still
sufficient traces to lead us, viz. that all these towns were colonised
from Rhodes; but that, by a form frequently in use, they were led out in
the name of Argos, the mother-country of Rhodes, and under the auspices of
Argive gods and heroes.(444) In the first place, Argives and Rhodians are
mentioned together as founders; as in the instance of Soli, which
nevertheless only defended the Rhodians as a sister state before the Roman
senate.(445) Of the manner in which heroes were adopted as founders, the
city just mentioned furnishes a good instance. For the Argive soothsayer
Amphilochus is said to have come hither, who, according to poems that went
under the name of Hesiod, had been put to death by Apollo at Soli.(446)
The following example gives a still clearer notion of the manner in which
these fables were formed. The Rhodians built Phaselis at the same time
with Gela (Olymp. 16. 713 B.C.); the founder is called Lacius, whom the
Delphian oracle had sent to the east, as it had Antiphemus to the
west.(447) Now it is shown in another part of this work(448) that Lacius
is a Cretan form for Rhacius; and this was the name of the husband of
Manto, and father of Mopsus, the ancient mythical prophet of the temple at
Claros. For, leaving no doubt that this person is intended, the tradition
also says, that this Mopsus, the son of Rhacius, founded Phaselis:(449)
Pamphylia itself is called the daughter of Rhacius and of Manto;(450) and
lastly, the same Lacius is represented as a contemporary of Mopsus, and as
having been sent out by Manto as a founder at the same time with the
latter.(451) The inference that we must draw is, that there was no such
individual as Lacius who led the Lindians in person to Phaselis, but that
he was merely a mythical being, and represents the Clarian oracle, which
seems to have co-operated on this occasion.(452) Those who are versed in
the interpretation of mythical narratives will also hence infer, that the
same was the case with his contrary, Ἀντιόφημος. In order, however, to
give the mother-state, Argos, a share in the mythical account of the
foundation of the Pamphylian colonies, it was necessary that Amphilochus,
who belonged to the family of the Amythaonidæ, should, together with
Calchas, have some connexion with them all; and, in fact, it is not
impossible that soothsayers from Argos, who called themselves descendants
of this prophet and hero, were procured by the Rhodians for this service.
6. We may now penetrate somewhat deeper into the obscure traditions of the
Cilician cities Mallus, Mopsuestia, and Mopsucrene. In the fables
concerning the founding of these towns, Amphilochus and Mopsus are always
mentioned together; at the same time that the account of their Argive
origin is very much brought into notice. Cicero calls both these prophets
on this occasion kings of Argos.(453) Here then we may also assume that
soothsayers were brought from the mother-country, and suppose that the
prophets of the Amphilochian oracle of Mallus were actually natives of
Argos; and although, as will be shown below, the influence of the Clarian
worship was also felt,(454) yet the persons who were the real colonisers
could only have been a sea-faring people, such as the Rhodians. In
consequence, however, of these settlements having been founded at a very
early period, when all colonies were as yet entirely dependent upon the
oracles, and therefore were always under the direction of prophets, and as
an inventive and imaginative spirit was then in full vigour, their true
history has been enveloped in a thick cloud of mythological fiction, which
we have at least begun to remove.
7. We next proceed to the CORINTHIAN colonies, the geographical situation
of which alone affords a remarkable result with regard to the maritime
expeditions undertaken by the mother-country. For although Corinth had two
harbours, Lechæum in the Crisæan, and Cenchreæ in the Saronic gulf, it it
evident that all its colonies were sent out from the western port. They
were founded, almost without exception, on the coasts of the Ionian sea;
at the entrance of which the Corinthians had, perhaps at a very early
period, founded the city of Molycreium.(455) Notwithstanding this, the
very first colony from Corinth, the date of which is known within a few
years (Olymp. 5. 760-757 B.C.),(456) ventured to cross the Ionian sea, and
to found in the most beautiful part of Sicily the renowned city of
Syracuse. The founder was Archias a Heraclide, and probably also of the
family of the Bacchiadæ;(457) he was followed by Corinthians, chiefly from
the borough of Tenea;(458) and on the road was joined by some Dorians from
Megara;(459) the expedition was also accompanied by a prophet of the
sacred family of Olympia, the Iamidæ, whose descendants flourished at
Syracuse in the time of Pindar.(460) It appears, however, that Syracuse at
that time borrowed many religious institutions from Olympia, as is proved
by the worship of Arethusa, of Artemis Ortygia, and of the Olympian
Zeus.(461) These original founders built a town in the island of Ortygia,
the name of which can be explained only from the worship of the goddess
just mentioned. The lands taken from the aboriginal Sicilians they divided
into lots, according to the number of the colonists. For the method
universally observed in founding these colonies was, that the adventurers
received before-hand a promise of a share in the territory—which also was
called a lot. On the occasion of this very settlement, Æthiops, a
Corinthian glutton, is said to have sold a promise of this kind to a
companion for one honey-cake.(462) Eumelus the Bacchiad, the celebrated
poet of Corinth, seems to have been one of these colonists,(463) as he is
mentioned in connexion with Archias. Although the _demus_, or populace of
the city, chiefly perhaps consisted of inhabitants of various nations, who
put themselves under the protection of this colony, and although the
territory around was peopled by Sicilian bondsmen, yet in its dialect, and
probably for a considerable period in its customs also, Syracuse remained
a purely Doric state: as the women in Theocritus say,(464) “_Our origin is
Corinthian, and therefore we speak the language of Peloponnesus. For it is
permitted, I suppose, to the Dorians to speak Doric._” Hence the
Syracusans were so greatly pleased with an ambassador from Lucania, who
had learnt to speak Doric in order to address them in their native
tongue.(465) Syracuse increased so rapidly in population and power, that
seventy years after its foundation it colonized Acræ, and also Enna,
situated in the centre of the island; twenty years after this, the town of
Casmenæ; and in forty-five more, Camarina. Also some Syracusan(466)
fugitives named Myletidæ, together with Chalcideans from Zancle, are said
to have founded Himera: hence the dialect there in use was a mixture of
Chalcidean and Doric; but the institutions were entirely Chalcidean.
8. The other Corinthian colonies, as has been already remarked, were all
situated to the east of the Ionian sea. The nearest of these are, besides
their colony of Molycreium, Chalcis in Ætolia,(467) and Solium in
Acarnania;(468) further on, we find that Ambracia was in very early times
founded by Corinth,(469) and accordingly was governed by a brother of
Periander;(470) by the influence of this settlement Amphilochian Argos
changed its language and customs for those of the Greeks.(471) Anactorium
was founded by the Corinthians, under the command of Periander, in
conjunction with the Corcyræans. At the same time, and in connexion with
the same persons, they occupied the island of Leucadia;(472) to the
possession of which, however, the Corcyræans, as they were at that time
subject to Corinth, had no just claim; and Themistocles unquestionably did
wrong in attributing any such right to them;(473) the Leucadians also
always remained firm to their real parent-state. Next comes Corcyra
itself, the founding of which by Chersicrates the Bacchiad(474) is
represented as having been a secondary branch of the colony sent to
Syracuse;(475) but it had at a very early period set itself up as a rival
to the mother-state in the Ionian sea, whose ancient power had been
probably broken before the Persian war. On the opposite coast lay
Epidamnus, which city was chiefly founded by Corcyræans, but under the
command of Phalius, the son of Eratocleides, a Corinthian Heraclide, whom
the Corcyræans, according to the ancient colonial law, had sent for,
together with some of his countrymen (in Olymp. 38. 2. 629 B.C. according
to Eusebius), and were afterwards strengthened by emigrants from
Dyspontium in Pisatis.—Lastly, Gylax, a Corinthian, together with 200 of
his own countrymen, and a greater number of Corcyræans, founded Apollonia
in the time of Periander. Here ends the list of Corinthian colonies, which
formed a strong and continuous chain along the coast; and thus even the
barbarians of the interior, especially the Epirots of Thesprotia, were
forced to maintain a perpetual connexion with Corinth:(476) hence also the
kings of the Lyncestæ in Macedonia esteemed it an honour to derive their
origin from the Bacchiadæ.(477) At a still further distance lay the island
of Issa, which was colonized from Syracuse.(478) Corcyra, however,
possessed settlements as far as the Flanatian gulf.(479) From these facts
it is evident that there was a time when Corinth predominated in these
seas; and by means of Corcyra and Ambracia, and other towns, ruled over
many nations of barbarians. But the loss of Corcyra, which had been at war
with its mother-state in the 28th Olympiad (about 668 B.C.),(480) even
before the time of Periander (though it was for a short time again reduced
to subjection by the enterprising Cypselidæ), was an incurable wound for
Corinth. The other colonies, however, showed a remarkable obedience to
her.(481) It was not till after the loss of their maritime dominion in
these quarters (an event which had nevertheless taken place before the
Persian war) that the Corinthians appear to have founded Potidæa on the
opposite side of Greece in Chalcidice, which colony they sought to retain
in their power by continually interfering in its internal administration,
and for this purpose sent thither every year magistrates named
Epidemiurgi.(482)
9. MEGARA, on the other hand, was induced by its situation to send even
its first colonies to the opposite side of Greece on the Thracian coast.
Thus in Olymp. 17. 3. 710 B.C. it founded Astæus in Bithynia;(483)
afterwards Chalcedon, on the entrance of the Bosporus(484) in Olymp. 26.
2. 675 B.C. (according to Eusebius); and 17 years later (Olymp. 30. 3. 658
B.C.) Byzantium in a more favoured spot, opposite to Chalcedon.(485) The
Argives also had a share in the foundation of this town; for which fact we
may trust the general assertion of Hesychius of Miletus, that his
circumstantial and fabulous history of the early times of this city was
derived from ancient poets and historians. For the transmission of the
worship of Here (whose temple both at Byzantium and Argos was on the
citadel),(486) and the traditions concerning Io, the attendant of the
Argive Here, confirm in a manner which does not admit of a doubt, the
pretensions of Argos to a share in this colony. Io, who was represented
with horns on her forehead, is said to have here produced to Zeus a
daughter, Ceroëssa the “Horned” by name (which is, however, only a
different name for Io herself), who being suckled by the nymph Semestra,
afterwards brought forth Byzas.(487) Thence the fable of the cow swimming
over the sea became peculiar to this place.(488) In other respects the
combinations of religious ceremonies as found at Byzantium, almost exactly
resembled that which existed in Megara. Nay, so carefully did the
Byzantians, though far removed from their mother-state, preserve the
remembrance of it, that they carried over almost all the names of their
native country and the neighbouring region. We find on the coast a temple
of Poseidon, whose son was named Byzas; also of Demeter and Cora; the
Scironian rocks, an Isthmian promontory, with the tomb of Hipposthenes a
Megarean hero, the temple of Apollo on the high promontory of Metopum;
also an altar of Saron, a pretended hero, whose name referred to the
Saronic gulf.(489) Thus Byzantium was never estranged from its
Peloponnesian ancestors, although it adopted a large number of additional
colonists,(490) and ruled over Thracian subjects. Moreover, the prevailing
dialect, which occurs in some public decrees still extant, remained for a
long time Doric.(491) The Byzantians, together with the Chalcedonians,
either at the time of the expedition of Darius against the Scythians, or
of the Ionic revolt, founded Mesambria on the Pontus,(492) which some
consider as a colony of Megara. The Megareans had also founded Selymbria
even before the settlement of Byzantium,(493) and probably carried on from
this place a war with the Samians at Perinthus,(494) when that island was
still governed by Geomori, before the time of Polycrates. Moreover, the
Megareans had a large share in the founding of Heraclea on the Pontus; for
although they were strengthened by some Tanagræans from Bœotia, their
numbers so predominated that this city was in general considered as
Doric.(495)
10. Megara, however, at the same time founded some very considerable
colonies to the west, viz., in Sicily. It will be sufficient to state in
general terms that Hybla in Sicily was a Megarean colony, established in
the 13th Olympiad (about 728 B.C.), and was even called Megara.(496) It
probably kept up a constant intercourse with the mother-state; since
Theognis, who was a Megarean from Sicily, according to Plato, dwelt
nevertheless for a long time in the Megara near Athens, to which state
many of his poems refer.(497) The founding of the small town of Trogilus,
and of the more important city of Thapsos, preceded the building of
Megara. A century later, some inhabitants of Megara founded Selinus in the
neighbourhood of that part of the island, which town was in early times
held by the Phœnicians, in later times by the Carthaginians.
11. The colonies of SPARTA, which still remain to be considered, were more
numerous than would be expected of a state so averse to maritime affairs.
In the history of the migrations of the Heraclidæ, we find introduced the
colonies of Thera, Melos, Gortyna, and Cyrene; which, although for the
sake of honour they recognised Sparta as their mother-state, had been in
fact founded by Achæans, Minyans, and Ægidæ, who dwelt at that time in a
state of almost entire independence in a district of Laconia.(498) All
these states, however, retained the Doric name; and Cyrene, though even
the founders married Libyan women,(499) always preserved to the utmost of
its power the institutions, customs, and language of its
mother-country.(500) The founding of Cnidos also took place at an early
period, and was generally ascribed to the Lacedæmonians.(501) The leader
of the colony was, according to Diodorus, one Hippotes.(502) Syme also was
at that time peopled from Cnidos.(503) The principal religion of this
city, that of Aphrodite(504) (who was here worshipped in a three-fold
capacity), was without doubt the same as that which existed at Cythera,
having been carried over by the Lacedæmonian colonists. The splendid city
of Cnidos, protected toward the east by an Acropolis, which both its
Cyclopian architecture(505) and fabulous history prove to have existed
before the time of the Dorians, was situated on a neck of land, with a
harbour on each side, one of which was among the largest in Greece. Thus
fitted by nature for commerce, Cnidos also founded colonies of its own,
among which Lipara, established (in Olymp. 50, about 580 B.C.) upon one of
the Æolian islands under the direction of descendants of Hippotes,(506)
overcame the Etruscans in several wars, and adorned Delphi with offerings
of victory.(507) Another colony from Cnidos, remarkable chiefly for its
distance from the mother-country, is Black-Corcyra, on the coast of
Illyria. Lacedæmon herself, however, is said to have sent out colonies to
Phrygia, Pisidia, and Cyprus. In the former country, Pisistratus, a
Spartan, is said to have founded Noricum near Celænæ on the river
Marsyas.(508) Selge in Pisidia is generally considered by the ancients to
have been a Lacedæmonian colony, and we frequently find on coins of a late
date this origin recognised. The representative of the state is Hercules
the Doric hero: moreover, the free spirit, the bravery, and the good laws
of the Selgæans (although the reverse is sometimes attributed to them)
were derived from their mother-state.(509) The wrestling youths in the act
of grasping one another (ἀκροχειριζόμενοι) represented on their coins,
bespeak a love for gymnastic exercises. It should, however, be remembered,
that the founders of this colony were, according to a more exact
statement, Amyclæans,(510) _i.e._ fugitive Periœci, who perhaps had passed
through Cnidos in their way to these districts. It appears that the
Selgæans founded Sagalassus,(511) which city is styled on its coins _The
Lacedæmonian_. Perhaps Praxander went at the same time from Therapne in
Laconia, with Cephas of Olenus (both Achæans by birth) to the island of
Cyprus, where they founded Lapathus and Ceronia.(512)
12. But the most celebrated of all the Lacedæmonian colonies, and which
really proceeded from Sparta, was Tarentum. The history of its origin is
buried in fable, in the accounts of the first Messenian war; the
accompanying circumstances will be mentioned below. The leader of this
colony was Phalanthus, son of Aratus, a Heraclide.(513) Taras, on the
other hand, is called the son of Poseidon, because this colony carried
over the worship of that deity from Tænarum to Italy. These emigrants also
brought with them other religious rites, as for instance the worship of
Hyacinthus;(514) likewise many names from their native country, as that of
the Eurotas, which they gave to the river Galæsus.(515) But the fruitful
and luxuriant territory to which they had moved, its soft and voluptuous
climate, and the commerce, for which Tarentum was well situated,(516) and
always open (although it never carried it on in an active manner), helped
to engender that effeminacy of character, which gave countenance to the
fable of the founders having been the sons of unmarried women (παρθενίαι).
Still, amidst all its degeneracy, Tarentum retained a certain degree of
dependence on its mother-country: at the foundation of Heraclea the
Tarentines allowed Cleandridas a Spartan to be one of the original
colonists.(517) The friendship, moreover, of the Cnidians with the
Tarentines,(518) as well as that with the Cyreneans, was founded on the
recognition of a common origin. The colony of Croton (Olymp. 19. 2. 703
B.C., according to Eusebius) consisted indeed of Achæans, who came partly
from the maritime town of Rhypæ,(519) and partly from Laconia:(520) it
must, however, have been established under the authority of the Doric
state of Sparta, since Apollo and Hercules, the Doric god and hero, were
here worshipped with especial honour;(521) the early constitution was also
Doric; and although in general we are not to look for truth in the poetry
of Ovid, yet in this instance we may credit his statement that Myscellus
the founder was a Heraclide.(522) In like manner the Locrians, who (in
Olymp. 24. 2. 683 B.C.) founded Locri, must have procured Spartans as
leaders,(523) since (as their coins also show) they paid particular
honours to the Dioscuri, in time of distress in war the statues of these
gods having been sent to them from Sparta, as being a people of the same
origin;(524) and even in the Peloponnesian war they still adhered to the
cause of Sparta.(525) Of a nature wholly different were the rapid and
transitory settlements of Dorieus the son of Anaxandrides, king of Sparta,
which this noble adventurer founded in Sicily and Libya; when, scorning to
submit to a worthless brother, and confiding in his own strength, he hoped
to obtain by conquest a kingdom in a distant country.(526) Finally, the
Lyctians of Crete and other inhabitants of this island called themselves
colonists of Sparta. In all probability many of the ancient Doric cities
of this country received fresh settlers from Lacedæmon; which state, at
the beginning of the Olympiads(527) in the time of Alcamenes, and even
during the life of Lycurgus,(528) exercised a very considerable influence
upon the internal affairs of Crete.
Having taken a view of the Doric settlements without Peloponnesus, we now
return to the history of that peninsula, which we will divide into two
periods, namely, before and after the 40th Olympiad, or the year 620 B.C.
Chapter VII.
§ 1. Sources of the early history of Peloponnesus. § 2. Quoit of
Iphitus, Registers of Victors at the Olympic and Carnean Games,
Registers at Sicyon and Argos. § 3. Registers of the Spartan
Kings. § 4. Spartan Rhetras, Land-marks. § 5. Lyric Poets, Oral
Tradition, and Political Institutions. § 6. Mythical character of
Lycurgus. § 7. Lycurgus founder of the sacred armistice of
Olympia. § § 8. and 9. Messenian wars: sources of the history of
them. § 10. First Messenian war. § 11. Second Messenian war. § 12.
Influence in Arcadia obtained by the Spartans. § 13. Limited
ascendancy of Argos in Argolis. § 14. Disputes between Argos and
Sparta. § 15. Pheidon of Argos. § 16. Further struggles between
Argos and Sparta.
1. Before we begin to collect and arrange the accounts extant concerning
the early history of Peloponnesus, it will be first necessary to ascertain
what are our sources of information respecting the events of this period.
For the epic poets, who carried on an uninterrupted series of traditions
on the events of the mythical ages, and have thus thrown over this dark
period some faint glimmerings which may in many places be condensed into a
distinct and useful light, only touch on a few points of the period whose
history we are about to examine. On the other hand, indeed, the art of
writing was during this time introduced among the Greeks through their
intercourse with Asia; but that a long time elapsed before it came into
general use, is evident from the almost surprising imperfection of those
written documents which have been preserved to us of a date anterior to
the 60th Olympiad, in comparison with the great perfection of the works of
Grecian art. For this reason, writing was long regarded in Greece as a
foreign craft, and letters were considered (for example in the Tean
curses) as Phœnician symbols. Nevertheless, these few and scanty registers
are the first materials for real history and chronology now extant. As
such, the following have been made known to us from Peloponnesus.
2. The _Quoit of Iphitus_, upon which was inscribed in a circle the
formula for proclaiming the sacred armistice of Elis, and in which Iphitus
and Lycurgus were mentioned as the founders of it.(529) There is no reason
for doubting its genuineness, which was recognised by Aristotle, and the
institution which it mentioned was considered by all ancient writers as a
real fact.(530) Secondly, the _lists of the conquerors at the Olympic
games_ brought down uninterruptedly from the victory of Chorœbus,(531)
which always recorded the conquerors in the foot-race, and in later times
at least those in the other games.(532) It is probable that they were
originally engraved on single pillars, and afterwards collected under the
inspection of the Hellanodicæ.(533) Similar catalogues of conquerors in
other games, besides the four great ones, were also probably not uncommon,
but they were generally inscribed on separate pillars, and were therefore
of little use to the historian.(534) The names of the _conquerors at the
Carnean games_ at Sparta were also registered, so that Hellanicus was
enabled to compose from them a work called Καρνεονῖκαι. The _register at
Sicyon_ contained a list of the priestesses of Here at Argos, and the
poets and musicians of the games.(535) But this also contained fabulous
accounts: for example, the invention of playing and singing on the harp by
Amphion. Nor were the _catalogues of the priestesses of Here_, which were
probably kept at Argos, altogether free from fable, as may be perceived
from the fragments of Hellanicus’s chronological work on these
priestesses, which was probably founded on the official catalogues.(536)
3. There were also at Lacedæmon public registers, in which Plutarch found
mention of the daughters of Agesilaus;(537) and in those of the earliest
times the same author discovered the Pythian oracle concerning
Lycurgus,(538) the same that Herodotus refers to in his first book. These
doubtless contained the names of all the kings, and probably also the
years of their reigns, as far back as Procles, who, according to a
statement noticed above, died one year before his brother
Eurysthenes.(539) This fact could hardly have been derived from any other
source than some national annals, though it is not impossible that it was
first transferred to them from oral narrative; in which case, however, it
is difficult to understand how tradition, contrary to its general
character, preserved dates. It was without doubt from these registers that
Charon of Lampsacus, before the time of Herodotus, composed his work
entitled, “_The Prytanes, or Rulers, of Lacedæmon_;”(540) in which he also
noticed the sacred offerings and monuments of ancient times.(541) With
respect to the chronological labours of Timæus, Polybius(542) says that
“this writer compared the ephors with the kings of Lacedæmon from the
beginning, and the archons at Athens and priestesses at Argos with the
conquerors at the Olympic games, and noted the errors which the cities had
made in the registration, even when they only differed by three months.”
Eratosthenes and Apollodorus founded their chronology, especially before
the Olympiads, upon the same list of the kings;(543) they both nearly
agreed in reckoning 327 or 328 years from the expedition of the Heraclidæ
to the first Olympiad (776 B.C.),(544) which calculation would have been
impossible if the duration of each king’s reign had not been known; for if
this computation is made by generations, reckoning about three to a
century, quite a different number comes out.(545) Lycurgus, however, was
placed by Eratosthenes 108 years before the first Olympiad;(546) in which
computation he certainly went on the authority of the Quoit of Iphitus;
which agrees with the statement of Apollodorus, that Homer, who according
to this chronologist flourished 148 years before the first Olympiad, was a
contemporary of Lycurgus when the latter was a young man.(547)—It appears,
however, that the name of Lycurgus was not preserved in any register of
the kings, since in that case it would have been impossible that he should
have been called by Herodotus the guardian of his nephew Labotas the
Eurysthenid,(548) by Simonides (who lived in great intimacy with king
Pausanias)(549) the son of Prytanis and brother of Eunomus the Proclid,
and by others the son of Eunomus and guardian of his nephew
Charilaus,(550) had there existed any genealogy of him which was
sufficiently accredited. Hence we must infer that these catalogues only
contained the names of the kings, and not even of the royal guardians or
protectors, such as Lycurgus. On the other hand, the variations in the
enumeration of the kings are unimportant, being confined to this, that in
the pedigree of the Proclidæ Herodotus(551) (or his transcribers) leaves
out the name of Soüs, which occurs in all the rest, and, contrary to
Pausanias, changes the order of Eunomus and Polydectes. Since the name of
Polydectes is entirely wanting in Simonides and Eusebius, it is probable
that Polydectes and Eunomus are only different names of the same king; and
that Polydectes was the proper name, and Eunomus a title of honour.(552)
Upon this hypothesis we obtain the following series of kings of the
Proclid line—Prytanis, Polydectes, Charilaus, with tolerable certainty.
There must also have been registers of the names and years of the princes
of Corinth, and the family of the Bacchiadæ, since no one could have had
the boldness to invent them.(553) Indeed there were altogether many
pedigrees, particularly of the Heraclidæ: as, for example, of families at
Cyrene,(554) and the Ptolemies;(555) their authority, however, could not
have been very great; in the latter, indeed, we cannot fail to recognise
the unscrupulous hand of Alexandrine flatterers. The ancient chronicles of
Elis, which Pausanias saw, appear to have contained complete pedigrees
from Oxylus down to Iphitus;(556) although the descendants of the former
were not kings. The father of Iphitus was there stated to have been also
named Iphitus, in contradiction to the common account.(557)
4. None of these registers appear to have contained anything beyond the
names of conquerors at the games (which have seldom any reference to
history), and princes with the years of their reigns. If anything more was
noted down, it was perhaps here and there an oracle, as those belonging to
the history of Sparta in Herodotus,(558) which were without doubt brought
by the Pythians to Sparta in writing, at a very early period. To these may
be perhaps added some ancient _rhetras_;(559) under which term the ancient
Dorians included all political documents, laws, and treaties. The most
ancient instance of the last kind is the treaty between the Eleans and the
inhabitants of Heræa, discovered by sir William Gell,(560) the writing of
which is so extremely rude as to prove that they were little practised in
that art when it was engraved. It is however very doubtful how the Spartan
rhetras of Lycurgus were drawn up. By some it has been supposed that they
were originally composed in metre, in order to be chanted by the youth of
Sparta;(561) but this is contradicted by the certain testimony(562) that
Terpander of Antissa, whom the Spartans so highly esteemed, was the first
who set these laws to music, and first gave them a metrical and poetical
form; and Terpander did not live till after the 26th Olympiad, or 672
B.C.(563) But the rhetra which Plutarch has preserved as the genuine
constitutional formula bears a truly archaic character, since it contains
a command of the Pythian Apollo to the lawgiver in the infinitive mood,
and does not fall into verse. I do not perceive why it might not have been
written, as well as the contemporaneous inscription on the Quoit of
Iphitus, and the ancient oracles cited by Herodotus; at least we cannot in
any other way account for the preservation of the words. The original
rhetras, however, were very few, and formed merely the nucleus of a system
of laws, more as a help to the memory than as a perfect code; hence the
ancients could with propriety say, that Zaleucus was the first who
committed laws to writing.(564) The three rhetras, which were preserved
besides the former one, were merely certain general formulas, and by no
means explicit laws; they had the form of an oracle, as having proceeded
from the Pythian god,(565) but were written entirely in prose.(566)
Next in the list of public monuments come the ὅροι, or landmarks of
territory. It is well known that we are in possession of such records of a
later period, belonging to the sacred territory of the Pythian Apollo (in
which earlier surveys of the Amphictyonic Hieromnemons, and ancient
inscriptions on boundary-stones are appealed to), belonging to Cretan
towns, and likewise to Samos and Priene, in which the inhabitants of
Priene cite ancient records, preserved from the time of Bias in the temple
of Athene.(567) Historical works were also composed from these
memorials.(568) Now there must also have been records of this kind in
Peloponnesus, although the inscriptions, by which the Messenians wished to
prove to the Romans their original boundary towards Laconia, were
evidently not made till after their re-establishment by Epaminondas.(569)
5. These documents, if we were in possession of them, would afford a
valuable foundation for an account of the three centuries before regular
history begins; but merely an outline, which would require to be filled up
from other sources. This might partly be done from the writings of the
_Lyric poets_, who flourished at that time, as Eumelus, Thaletas, Tyrtæus,
Alcman, and Terpander;(570) which writers had frequent intercourse with
the Spartans, and introduced the events of the time into their poetry to a
much greater degree than the epic poets. And in fact we find in the
fragments of Tyrtæus and Alcman a lively representation of the feelings
and manners of the period. The next source of information is _oral
tradition_, which, though erring continually with regard to names and
numbers, yet always relates something essential; and, finally, the
_political institutions_ continuing to exist in later times, which had
their origin in this period.
These, and no other than these, can have been the means employed by the
authors who wrote on the affairs of Laconia, in the century when history
was approaching to maturity, such as Hellanicus, Charon, and Herodotus;
and either directly or indirectly must have afforded materials to those
who treated of the times of Lycurgus during the later age of Greek
learning. But how little do we recognise the ancient simplicity and
liveliness which characterise all the genuine remains of that time, in the
historical style of Ephorus and Hermippus,(571) and their followers. The
object of these writers was to assimilate, as much as possible, the
notions of antiquity to those of their own time, and to attempt in some
way or other to represent every act as proceeding from such motives as
would have actuated their own contemporaries. They have with a truly
unsparing hand rubbed off the venerable rust of ancient tradition, and,
totally mistaking the most powerful springs of action then prevalent,
moulded all events of which any records had been preserved, into a
connected form more suited to a modern history. It is almost impossible to
describe with what unlucky zeal Plutarch, where Lycurgus only embodied in
laws the political feelings of his race and nation, ascribes to that
legislator plans and views generally unsatisfactory, and often absolutely
childish.
6. If now we apply the method above stated to the history of Lycurgus, we
shall find that we have absolutely no account of him as an _individual
person_. Tradition very properly represents him as intimately connected
with the temple of Delphi (by which the Dorians, and especially the state
of Sparta, were at that time entirely led), and with Crete, the earliest
civilized state of the Doric race. This connexion was generally
represented under the form of a journey to both places; his tomb was also
shown both at Cirrha and at Pergamia in Crete. It was easy to imagine that
the reforms of Lycurgus were violently opposed, and produced tumults and
disturbances.(572) But the story of Alcander putting out one of Lycurgus’s
eyes (probably a popular tale) is founded on a false explanation of the
title of Pallas Optiletis.(573) It was indeed an ancient tradition that he
was guardian of a Spartan king; but the common report of this being
Charilaus(574) is not quite certain, as we have seen above; and in order
to account for both his travels and regency, he was reported to have
abdicated the latter in order to avoid suspicion.(575) If we set aside all
fictions of this description, which have almost the spirit of a moral
tale, like the Cyropædia of Xenophon, there remains very little
traditional lore. Of his legislation we will treat hereafter.(576)
7. It is very singular that historians should have mentioned so little of
the action of Lycurgus, which comes next in importance to that which has
been just discussed;(577) I mean the share that he had in founding the
sacred armistice and games at Olympia, which event was without doubt the
commencement of a more tranquil state of affairs in Peloponnesus.
Lycurgus, as the representative of the Doric race, Iphitus, of the
Ætolians and Eleans, and Cleosthenes,(578) the son of Cleonicus of Pisa,
the city to which the temple of Olympia properly belonged, and which had
not then lost the management of it, in conjunction perhaps with several
others, drew up the fundamental law of the Peloponnesian armistice. This
contained two heads. First, that the whole territory of the Eleans (who
acted as masters of the games, after the expulsion of the Pisatans, every
year with more exclusive power) should remain for ever free from hostile
inroads and ravages, insomuch that even armed troops were only to be
allowed a passage on condition of first laying down their arms;(579)
secondly, that during the time of the festival a cessation of arms should
also be proclaimed throughout the rest of Peloponnesus. But, since there
was little agreement among the individual states in the computation of
time, and as the Eleans alone were acquainted with the exact time at which
the quadrennial festival came round, and perhaps also in order to make the
injunction of the god more impressive, the Eleans always sent _feciales_
round to the different states, “_heralds of the season, the Elean
truce-bearers of Zeus_;”(580) these persons proclaimed the Olympic
armistice, first to their own countrymen, and then to the other
Peloponnesians: after which time no army was to invade another’s
territory.(581) The fine which was to have been paid by the Spartans in
the Peloponnesian war for having sent out soldiers after this period was
two minas for each hoplite, the very sum which by the agreement of the
Peloponnesians was required for the ransom of prisoners of war;(582)
whence it is evident that the transgressors of the truce were considered
as becoming slaves of the god, and were to be ransomed again from him. The
decree was pronounced by the tribunal of the temple at Elis, according to
the “Olympian law.”(583) The fine was divided between the Eleans and the
treasury at the temple of Olympia. To this temple also were paid all
penalties incurred by the infraction of treaties;(584) nay, sometimes
whole cities were bound to pay a fixed tribute every year to the god.(585)
By these and similar laws was the armistice protected, which doubtless was
not intended merely to secure the celebration of the games from
disturbance, but also to effect a peaceable meeting of the Peloponnesians,
and thus to give occasion for the settling of disputes, and the conclusion
of alliances. Even in the Peloponnesian war public business was transacted
at this assembly.(586) But one chief effect of the Olympian festival
appears to have been the production of a more friendly connexion between
the Ætolian and Doric races. This fact appears to be established by the
tradition that Iphitus introduced the worship of Hercules at Elis, which
therefore had previously been peculiar to the Dorians.(587) Apollo, the
Doric god, was also at this time regarded as the protector of the sacred
armistice of Olympia, as we shall see hereafter.(588)
8. We now proceed immediately to the _Messenian wars_, since it is hardly
possible to find one independent event between the commencement of them
and the time of Iphitus. These however are really historical, since we
have in Tyrtæus a nearly contemporaneous account of the first, and one
actually so of the second. The fragments and accounts of his poems are our
principal guides for obtaining a correct knowledge of these transactions.
And in these alone many circumstances appear in quite a different light
from that in which they are represented in the romance of Pausanias. In
the latter, the Spartans only are the aggressors, the Messenians only the
subjects of attack; but, if we listen to Tyrtæus, the former also had to
fight for their own country. But, since even the ancients possessed few
remains of Tyrtæus, and as nearly all the historical part of his poems
appears to have come down to us, whence did Pausanias derive his copious
narrative, and the details with which he has adorned it? Was it from
ancient epic poets? Yet of these there is nowhere any mention: and in
general an historical event, if it could not be put into an entirely
fabulous shape, like the stories of the origin and foundation of many
colonies, lay altogether without the province of the early poetry. It is
indeed possible that in the Naupactia, which are referred to for the
mythical history of Messenia,(589) some historical notices may have
occasionally occurred, perhaps too in the works of Cinæthon and Eumelus:
but the ancients, who disliked the labour of compiling a history from
scattered fragments, probably gave themselves very little trouble to
discover them. On the other hand, there existed a series of traditional
legends, whose character announces their high antiquity; thus, that of the
Messenians, that Aristomenes had _thrice_ offered a _hecatomphonion_, or
sacrifice for a hundred enemies slain in battle;(590) whether or no of
human victims is doubtful.(591) A share in this sacrifice was also
performed by Theoclus, who is called an Elean, because he belonged to a
family of the Iamidæ, which, as it appears, was settled in Messenia; but
this clan, though scattered about in different places, yet always retained
their rights at Olympia.(592) The same character may also be perceived in
the legend of Aristomenes thrice incurring the danger of death. On the
first of these occasions, when thrown into the Ceadas, he was preserved by
a fox, the symbol of Messenia; on the second, whilst his guards were
asleep, he turned to the fire and burnt in two the cords that bound his
limbs,(593) a story more certainly derived from tradition than the
love-adventure which supplies its place in Pausanias: the third time
however that he fell into the hands of his enemies, they cut open his
breast, and found a hairy heart.(594)
9. Traditions of this kind were probably circulating in different forms
among the victorious Lacedæmonians,(595) amongst the refugee Messenians in
Italy and Naupactus, the subject Messenians who remained in the country,
and the other Peloponnesians, when they were recalled into existence by
the re-establishment of the Messenian state by Epaminondas. Even before
the battle of Leuctra, the Bœotians, on the advice of an oracle, hung up
as a trophy the shield of Aristomenes,(596) the device of which was a
spread eagle:(597) and when Epaminondas recalled the Messenian fugitives
from Italy, Sicily, and even from Libya, and had erected them, with
numerous Helots and people collected from various quarters, into a new
state,(598) Aristomenes was especially invoked before the foundation of
the city.(599) In this manner the ancient traditions were enabled to gain
a new footing, and to be developed in a connected form. Several writers
now seized upon a subject which had begun to excite so great interest, of
whom Rhianus the poet and Myron the prose-writer are known to us.(600)
Myron gave an account of the first Messenian war down to the death of
Aristodemus; but, in the opinion of Pausanias, utterly regardless whether
or no he related falsehood and incredibilities; thus, in the teeth of all
tradition, he introduced Aristomenes, the hero of the second war, into the
first; and he wrote with an evident bias _against_ Sparta.(601) Rhianus,
however, a native of Bena in Crete, celebrated the actions of Aristomenes,
in the second war, from the battle near the Great Trench (Μεγάλη Τάφρος),
until the end of the war, as Homer had done those of Achilles; and
although Pausanias has disproved some of his statements of particular
facts from Tyrtæus,(602) yet he has frequently followed him, and
especially in the poetical embellishments of his narrative.(603) He never
mentions any historians, such as Ephorus, Theopompus, Antiochus, or
Callisthenes.(604) Rhianus, however, though he might not have exclusively
adopted the Messenian account,(605) yet, as far as we can judge from
Pausanias, gave the reins to his fancy, and mixed up many circumstances
and usages of later times with the ancient tradition.(606) It is not
therefore our intention either to divert the reader with a continued
narration of these fictions, at the expense of truth, or fatigue him by a
detailed criticism of them, but merely to lay before him the chief
circumstances, as they are known with historical certainty.
10. The first war is distinctly stated by Tyrtæus to have lasted nineteen
years, and in the twentieth the enemy left their country, and fled from
the mountain Ithome.(607) The same authority also gives the time which
elapsed between the first and second wars, viz., that the grandfathers
were engaged in the first, the grandchildren in the second.(608) The date
of the first war is fixed by Polychares, who is stated to have been the
author of it,(609) having been conqueror in the race at the 4th
Olympiad(610) (764 B.C.); and it agrees well with this date that Eumelus,
who was contemporary with Archias the founder of Syracuse (in the 5th
Olympiad), composed a poem for _free_ Messenia. Pausanias places the
commencement (we know not on what grounds) at Olymp. 9. 2, (743 B.C.) the
termination nineteen years later, Olymp. 14. 1. (724 B.C.) The interval
between the two wars he states (though on what authority we know not, and
contrary to Tyrtæus) to have been thirty-nine years;(611) so that the
second would have lasted from Olymp. 23. 4. to Olymp. 28. 1. (or from 685
to 668 B.C.)(612) We shall, however, find hereafter that the date of this
war was probably later by several years, though not so late as Diodorus
fixed it, according to whom the war began in Olymp. 35. 3.(613) We also
know from Tyrtæus that the Spartan king who completed the subjugation of
Messenia was Theopompus.(614) Now, with respect to the origin of this war,
it may be first traced in the increase of power, which Sparta, before the
beginning of the Olympiads, owed to the exertions of its king Teleclus;
this prince having succeeded in subduing the neighbouring city of Amyclæ,
and in reducing several other Achæan towns to a state of dependence on
Sparta.(615) Indeed, if we correctly understand an insulated notice,(616)
Teleclus razed the town of Nedon, on the frontiers of Messenia and
Laconia,(617) and transplanted its inhabitants to the towns of Pœessa,
Echeiæ, and Tragis. Hence arose border wars between the Dorians at Sparta
and those at Stenyclarus. The temple of Artemis Limnatis,(618) the
possession of which was disputed between the two nations (though its
festival was common to both), afforded, as may be discovered from the
romance of Pausanias,(619) the immediate ground for the war. For even in
the reign of Tiberius the Lacedæmonians supported their claim to this
temple by ancient annals and oracles;(620) while the Messenians, on the
other hand, brought forward the document already quoted, according to
which this temple, together with the whole territory of Dentheleatis, in
which it was situated, belonged to them. Dissensions in Messenia must have
hastened the breaking out of the war, since it is certain that Hyamia, one
of the five provinces of Messenia, was given by the Spartans to the
Androclidæ, a branch of the family of the Æpytidæ.(621) The history of the
first war contains traces of a lofty and sublime poetical tradition: for
example, that Aristodemus, though ready to appease the wrath of the gods
by the blood of his own daughter,(622) yet was unable to effect his
purpose; that the damsel was put to death in vain; and upon this,
recognising the will of the gods that Messenia should fall, and being
terrified by portentous omens, he slaughtered himself upon the tomb of his
murdered child.(623) The war seems to have been confined chiefly to the
vicinity of Ithome, which stronghold, situated in the midst of the
country, commanded both the plain of Stenyclarus and that of the Pamisus.
The reduction of this fortress necessarily entailed the subjugation of the
whole country, and many of the Messenians began to emigrate. With this
event the Doric colony of Rhegium is connected. Heraclides of Pontus(624)
merely relates, that some Messenians (who happened to be at this time at
Macistus in Triphylia, in consequence of the violation of some Spartan
virgins) united themselves to the Chalcidian founders of this town (who
had been sent out from Delphi). He probably means those Messenians who
wished to make a reparation for the violation of the Spartan virgins in
the temple of Artemis Limnatis, and were in consequence expelled by their
own countrymen.(625) But, according to Pausanias,(626) even this body of
Messenians received the district of Hyamia; and the Messenians did not
migrate to Rhegium until after the taking of Ithome under Alcidamidas, and
again after the second Messenian war under Gorgus and Manticlus, son of
Theoclus, one of the Iamidæ.(627) Anaxilas the tyrant (who lived after
Olymp. 70) afterwards derived his family from the Messenians,(628) who
constituted in general the first nobility of the town of Rhegium.(629)
The establishment of Tarentum is connected with the history of the first
Messenian war; but it is wrapped up in such unintelligible fables (chiefly
owing perhaps to an ignorance of Lacedæmonian institutions), that all we
can learn from them is, that Tarentum was at that time founded from
Sparta.(630)
11. In a fragment of Tyrtæus we find some very distinct traces of the
condition of the subject Messenians after the first war, which will be
separately considered hereafter. The second war clearly broke out in the
north-eastern part of the country, on the frontier towards Arcadia, where
the ancient towns of Andania and Œchalia were situated. In all probability
this tract of country had never been subjugated by the Spartans.
Aristomenes, the hero of this war, was born at Andania,(631) from which
town he harassed the Spartans by repeated inroads and attacks. In his
first march he advanced as far as the plain of Stenyclarus; but after the
victory at the Boar’s Grave he returned to Andania. But this attempt of
the Messenians to recover their independence became of serious importance
by the share which the greater part of the states in Peloponnesus took in
it. For Strabo,(632) quoting Tyrtæus, states, that the Eleans, Argives,
Arcadians, and Pisatans(633) assisted the Messenians in this struggle. The
Pisatans were led by Pantaleon the son of Omphalion, who celebrated the
34th Olympiad in the place of the Eleans;(634) which fact enables us
accurately to fix the time (644 B.C.).—At the head of the Arcadians was
Aristocrates, whom Pausanias calls a Trapezuntian, the son of Hicetas, and
mentions his treachery at the battle near the Trench, on the subsequent
discovery of which the Arcadians deprived his family of the sovereignty of
Arcadia.(635) The same account is also given by Callisthenes,(636) and
both writers quote the inscription on a pillar erected near the
mountain-altar of Zeus Lycæus in memory of the traitor’s detection. Now we
know from good authority(637) that Aristocrates was in fact king only of
Orchomenus in Arcadia,(638) of which his family was so far from losing the
sovereignty, that his son Aristodamus ruled over it, and also over a great
part of Arcadia. The date of Aristocrates(639) appears to have been about
680-640 B.C.(640)
The Lacedæmonians were therefore in this war really pressed by an enemy of
superior force, a fact alluded to by Tyrtæus. Meanwhile Sparta was
assisted by the Corinthians,(641) perhaps by the Lepreatans,(642) and even
by some ships of the Samians;(643) but chiefly by Tyrtæus of Aphidnæ, whom
an absurd and distorted fable has turned into a lame Athenian
schoolmaster. The fact of Sparta seeking a warlike minstrel in Aphidnæ,
may be accounted for from its ancient connexions with this borough in
Attica, which is said to have been in the hands of the Dioscuri. Whether
or not Aphidnæ at that time belonged to Attica, and was subject to Athens,
is a question we shall leave undecided; but there does not seem to be any
reason for inferring with Strabo, from the passage of Tyrtæus itself, that
the whole tradition was false, and that Tyrtæus was a Lacedæmonian by
birth,(644) though he doubtless became so by adoption. It is to be
regretted that we have very little information concerning the war carried
on by Sparta with the rest of the Peloponnesians;(645) but the Messenians
at a later period withdrew from Andania towards Eira, which is a
mountain-fortress on the Neda, the border-stream towards Arcadia, near the
sea-coast. When obliged to retire from this stronghold, they were received
first by the Arcadians, their ancient and faithful allies (who, according
to the tradition, gave them their daughters in marriage(646)); afterwards
the exiles sought an asylum with their kinsmen at Rhegium. Aristomenes
himself (if he was not put to death by the Spartans) is said to have died
at Rhodes, in the house of the noble family of the Eratidæ.(647)
12. Besides the possession of Messenia, nothing was of such importance to
the Spartans as the influence which they gained over the towns of Arcadia.
But in what manner these came into their hands is very little known.(648)
During the Messenian war Arcadia was always opposed to Sparta. Hence, in
the year 659 B.C., the Spartans suddenly attacked and took the town of
Phigalea, in a corner of Messenia and Triphylia; but were soon driven out
again by the neighbouring Oresthasians.(649) But the place chiefly dreaded
by Sparta, as being one of the most powerful cantons in Arcadia, and
commanding the principal entrance to Laconia, was Tegea. Charilaus, one of
the early kings of Sparta, is said to have been compelled, by the valour
of the Tegeate women, to submit to a disgraceful treaty.(650) At a later
period also, in the reigns of Eurycrates and Leon the Eurysthenid,(651)
Sparta suffered injury from the same state,(652) until it at last obtained
the superiority under the next king, Anaxandridas. It was not, however,
merely the ingenuity of a mountain-tribe, in protecting and fortifying its
defiles, that made victory so difficult to the Spartans; but, although the
pass which separates Tegea from Laconia, and even at the present time
retains the vestiges of defensive walls, was of great service in repelling
invasions from Laconia,(653) yet Tegea was also formidable in the open
field from her heavy-armed troops, which in later times always maintained
the second place in the allied army of Peloponnesus.(654)
13. Argos never obtained so great authority in Argolis as Sparta did in
Laconia, since, in the former country, the Dorians divided themselves into
several ancient and considerable towns;(655) and to deprive Dorians of
their independence seems to have been more contrary to the principles of
that race, than to expel them, as the Spartans did the Messenians. Argos
was thus forced to content itself with forming, and being at the head of a
league, which was to unite the forces of the country for common defence,
and to regulate all internal affairs. An union of this kind really
existed, although it never entirely attained its end. It was probably
connected with the temple of Apollo Pythaëus, which, as we remarked above,
was considered as common to the Epidaurians and Dryopians. An Argive
Amphictyonic council is mentioned in the account of the Messenian
war,(656) and is evidently not a fiction, although erroneously there
introduced. That it still continued to exist in the 66th Olympiad is clear
from the fact, that, when the inhabitants of Sicyon and Ægina furnished
Cleomenes with ships to be employed against Argos, each town was condemned
to pay a fine of 500 talents.(657) These penalties could not have been
imposed by Argos as a single town, but in the name of a confederacy, which
was weakened and injured by this act. We find that the Eleans could impose
similar penalties in the name of the Olympian Zeus.(658) But the very case
here adduced shows how refractory was the conduct of the members of this
alliance with regard to the measures taken by the chief confederate.
14. To this internal discord were added the continual disputes with
Lacedæmon. Herodotus states, that in ancient times (_i.e._ about the 50th
Olympiad, or 580 B.C.) the whole eastern coast of Peloponnesus as far as
Malea (comprising the towns of Prasiæ, Cyphanta, Epidaurus Limera, and
Epidelium), together with Cythera, and the other islands, belonged to the
Argives.(659) According to the account of Pausanias the territory of
Cynuria, a valley between two ranges of mountains, on the frontiers of
Laconia and Argos, inhabited by a native Peloponnesian race, had been from
early times a perpetual subject of contention between the two states. The
Lacedæmonians had subdued this district in the reigns of Echestratus and
Eurypon.(660) During the reigns of Labotas and Prytanis, the Spartans
complained of an attempt of the Argives to alienate the affections of
their Periœci in Cynuria:(661) as, however, we know not by what authority
this statement is supported, we shall allow it to rest on its own merits.
In the reign of Charilaus the Lacedæmonians wasted the territory of
Argos.(662) His son Nicander made an alliance with the Dryopians of Asine
against Argos. Accordingly this people were expelled by Eratus, the Argive
king, from their town,(663) and fled to their allies in Laconia; from whom
they obtained, after the end of the first Messenian war, a maritime
district, where they built a new Asine, and for a long time preserved
their national manners,(664) as well as their connexion with the ancient
religious worship of their kinsmen, the inhabitants of Hermione.(665)
15. A clearer point in the Argive and Peloponnesian history is the reign
of Pheidon. The accounts respecting this prince having been collected and
examined in another work, it is merely necessary to repeat the
result.(666) Pheidon the Argive, the son of Aristodamidas, was descended
from the royal family of Temenus, the power of which had indeed since the
time of Medon, the son of Ceisus, been much diminished, but yet remained
in existence for a long time. Pheidon broke through the restrictions that
limited his power, and hence, contrary however to the ancient usage of the
term, was called a _tyrant_. His views were at first directed towards
making the independent towns of Argolis dependent upon Argos. He undertook
a war against Corinth, which he afterwards succeeded in reducing. In all
probability Epidaurus, and certainly Ægina, belonged to him; none of the
other towns in the neighbourhood were able to withstand the bold and
determined conqueror.(667) The finishing stroke of his achievements was
manifestly the celebration of the Olympic games, over which he, as
descendant of Hercules (the first conqueror at Olympia), after having
abolished the Ætolian-Elean Hellanodicæ, presided, in conjunction with the
inhabitants of Pisa, the ancient town of Pelops, which at this time, and
many centuries after this time, had not relinquished its claims to the
management of the festival. This circumstance also enables us to fix with
certainty the period of his reign, since, in the Elean registers, the 8th
Olympiad was marked as having been celebrated by him (747 B.C.). But it
was this usurpation that united the Eleans and Lacedæmonians against him,
and thus caused his overthrow. While the undertakings of Pheidon thus
remained without benefit to his successors, he has been denounced by
posterity as the most rapacious of tyrants in Greece; but, had he
succeeded in establishing a permanent state of affairs, he would have
received equal honours with Lycurgus. Yet, notwithstanding his failure,
some of his institutions survived him, which adorn his memory. He is known
to have equalized all weights and measures in Peloponnesus, which before
his time were different in each state; he was also the first who coined
money. He was enabled to undertake both with the greater success, since
the only two commercial towns at that time belonging to Peloponnesus lay
in his dominions, viz. Corinth (whence he is sometimes called a
Corinthian) and Ægina. According to the most accurate accounts he first
stamped silver-money(668) in Ægina (where at that time forges doubtless
existed), and, after having circulated these, he consecrated the ancient
and then useless bars of metal to Here of Argos, where they were exhibited
in later times to strangers.(669)—Many of the most ancient drachmas of
Ægina, with the device of a tortoise, perhaps belong to this period, since
the Greek coins struck before the Peloponnesian war appear to indicate a
progress of many centuries in the art of stamping money. Those however
which we have are sufficient to show that the same standard was prevalent
throughout Peloponnesus,(670) a difference in weight, measure, and
standard not having been introduced till after the Peloponnesian war. This
again was a second time abolished by the Achæan league, and an equality of
measures restored.(671)
16. After the fall of Pheidon the old dispute with Lacedæmon still
continued.(672) In the 15th Olympiad (720 B.C.) the war concerning the
frontier territory of Cynuria broke out afresh;(673) the Argives now
maintained it for some time,(674) and secured the possession of this
district chiefly by the victory at Hysiæ in Olymp. 27. 4. (669 B.C.(675))
And they kept it until the time of Crœsus (Olymp. 58.), when they lost it
by the famous battle of the three hundred, in which Othryadas, though
faint with his wounds, erected the trophy of victory for Sparta:(676) a
history the more fabulous, since it was celebrated by sacred songs at the
Gymnopædia.(677) Inconsiderable in extent as was the territory(678) for
which so much blood was shed, yet its possession decided which should be
the leading power in Peloponnesus. It was not till after this had taken
place that Cleomenes, in whose reign the boundary of Lacedæmon ran near
the little river Erasinus, was enabled to attack Argos with success.
The power of Argos in the neighbourhood of the city was very insecure and
fluctuating. Towards the end of the second Messenian war Argos had
conquered the neighbouring town of Nauplia; the Lacedæmonians gave Methone
in Messenia to the expelled inhabitants.(679) The temple of Nemea, in the
mountains towards Corinth, was, from its situation, the property of the
independent Doric town Cleonæ; the Argives took it from them before Olymp.
53. 1. 568 B.C.,(680) and henceforth celebrated the games of Zeus. The
Argives however again lost it; and some time before the 80th Olympiad the
Cleonæans again regulated the festival,(681) a privilege which they
probably did not long retain. It is likely that about 580 B.C. the town of
Orneæ, between Argos and Sicyon, which had anciently carried on wars with
the latter city, was rendered subject to the former, from which
circumstance the Periœci of Argos obtained the general name of
_Orneatans_; to which class the Cynurians also belonged before the battle
of Thyrea.(682) But these events properly belong to the period, on the
history of which we are now about to enter, and which we will designate in
general as _the time of the tyrants_.
Chapter VIII.
§ 1. The Doric principles of government opposed to despotic (or
tyrannical) power. § 2. Tyrants of Sicyon. § 3. Of Corinth. § 4.
Of Epidaurus and of Megara overthrown by Sparta. § 5. Other
tyrants overthrown by Sparta. § 6. Expedition of Cleomenes against
Argos. § 7. Internal history of Argos. § 8. Contests between
Megara and Athens.
1. The subject of this chapter may be best expressed in the words of
Thucydides:(683) “The tyrants of Athens, and of the rest of Greece, of
which many states had been governed by tyrants before the Athenians, were,
with the exception of those in Sicily, in most instances, and especially
in later times, overthrown by the Lacedæmonians, whose state was never
under a despotic government, and who, having become powerful through the
early establishment of their own constitution, were enabled to arrange to
their own liking the governments of other states.” It is a remarkable
circumstance in the history of Greece, that at the same period of time
tyrants everywhere obtained the supreme authority in Doric, Ionic, and
Æolic cities; a proof that, although these nations were derived from
different races, the same stage in the progress of social life was every
where attended with the same phenomena. Those states alone in which the
features of the Doric character were most strongly marked, viz., Sparta
and Argos, resisted this influence; and we shall in general find that it
was by a subversion of the Doric principles that the tyrants obtained
their power. This will be made evident by a consideration of the absolute
monarchies in the Doric states of Peloponnesus.
2. The inhabitants of SICYON appear in ancient times to have been
distinguished from other Dorians by a lively and excitable temperament,
and by a disposition which they had at an early period transferred to
their mythical hero Adrastus, whose “tongue was softly persuasive.”(684)
This very disposition, however, under the actual state of circumstances,
opened the way to tyranny. In this instance of Sicyon, as in many others,
the tyrant was the leader of the lower classes, who were opposed to the
aristocracy. It was in this character that Orthagoras came forward, who,
not being of an ancient family, was called by the nobles a cook.(685) But,
notwithstanding its low origin, the family of this person maintained the
supremacy for a longer period than any other, according to Aristotle(686)
for a century, as they did not maltreat the citizens, and upon the whole
respected the laws. Their succession is Orthagoras, Andreas, Myron,
Aristonymus, and Cleisthenes,(687) of whom, however, the second and fourth
never ascended the throne, or only reigned for a short time. Myron was
conqueror at Olympia in the chariot-race in the 33d Olympiad (648 B. C),
and afterwards built a treasury, in which two apartments were inlaid with
Tartessian brass, and adorned with Doric and Ionic columns.(688) Both the
architectural orders employed in this building, and the Tartessian brass,
which the Phocæans had then brought to Greece in large quantities from the
hospitable king Arganthonius,(689) attest the intercourse of Myron with
the Asiatics; we shall presently see that this same correspondence was of
considerable importance for the measures of other tyrants. Cleisthenes
appears to have employed violence in obtaining the sovereignty,(690) which
he held undisturbed, partly by creating terror through his military fame
and exploits in arms, and partly by gaining the support of the people by
the introduction of some democratic elements into the constitution. With
regard to the latter measure, the singular alterations which he made in
the tribes of Sicyon will be explained hereafter.(691) We will here only
remark that Cleisthenes himself belonged to the subject tribe, which was
not of Doric origin; and while he endeavoured to raise the latter, at the
same time he sought to depress, and even to dishonour the Doric tribes, so
that he entirely destroyed and reversed the whole state of things which
had previously existed. For this reason Cleisthenes was at enmity with
Argos, the chief Doric city of this district.(692) For the same reason he
proscribed the worship of the Argive hero Adrastus, and favoured in its
place the worship of Dionysus, a deity foreign to the Doric character; and
lastly, prohibited the Homeric rhapsodists from entering the town, because
Homer had celebrated Argos, and, we may add, an aristocratic form of
government. These characteristic traits of a bold and comprehensive mind
are gathered from the lively narrative of Herodotus. The same political
tendency was inherited by his son-in-law Megacles, the husband of the
beautiful Agariste, to obtain whose hand many rival youths had assembled
in the palace of Cleisthenes, like the suitors of old, for that of
Helen;(693) and it was particularly manifested in Cleisthenes of Athens,
who changed the Athenian constitution by abolishing the last traces of
separate ranks. With regard, however, to the warlike actions of
Cleisthenes, he must have been very celebrated for his prowess; since in
the war of the Amphictyons against Cirrha, although denounced as a
stone-slinger (that is, a man of the lowest rank),(694) by the Pythian
priestess, he shared the chief command of the army with the Thessalian
Heraclid, Eurylochus, and helped to conquer the city.(695) This took place
in the third year of the 47th Olympiad, or 592 B.C.(696) Out of the
plunder of the town Cleisthenes built a portico for the embellishment of
Sicyon;(697) he was also conqueror in the chariot-race at the second
Pythiad (Olymp. 49. 3. 584 B.C.)(698) It may perhaps be possible from the
scattered accounts concerning this prince to form a notion of his
character. Cleisthenes was undoubtedly a man who was able to seize the
spirit of the time, which aimed at great liberty and excitement—the very
contrary of the settled composure of the Dorians; and, combining talents
and versatility with the love of splendour and pageantry, ridiculed many
things hitherto looked upon with awe, and set no limits to his love of
change. Notwithstanding these qualities, he was, as is probable from the
general testimony of Thucydides, overthrown by Sparta, perhaps soon after
580 B.C.;(699) nor was the ancient state of things restored at Sicyon till
60 years afterwards,(700) during which interval another tyrant named
Æschines reigned, belonging however to a different family.
3. The CORINTHIAN tyrants(701) were nearly allied with those of Sicyon;
since the former, not belonging to the Doric nobility, were placed in the
same situation as the latter with regard to this class. In Corinth, before
the commencement of the dynasty of tyrants, the ruling power was held by
the numerous(702) Heraclide clan of the Bacchiadæ, which had changed the
original constitution into an oligarchy, by keeping itself distinct, in
the manner of a caste, from all other families, and alone furnished the
city with the annual prytanes, the chief magistrates. Cypselus the son of
Aëtion, the grandson of Echecrates, from a Corinthian borough named
Petra,(703) and not of Doric descent, although connected on his mother’s
side with the Bacchiadæ, overcame, with the assistance again of the lower
classes,(704) the oligarchs, now become odious through their luxury(705)
and insolence, the larger part of whom, either voluntarily or by
compulsion, quitted Corinth;(706) and Cypselus became tyrant about the
30th Olympiad (660 B.C.),(707) from the inability of the people to govern
itself independently. However violently the Corinthian orator in Herodotus
accuses this prince, the judgment of antiquity in general was widely
different. Cypselus was of a peaceable disposition, reigned without a
body-guard,(708) and never forgot that he rose from a demagogue to the
throne. He also undertook works of building, either from a taste for the
arts, or for the purpose of employing the people. The treasury at Delphi,
together with the plane-tree, was his work.(709) To him succeeded his son
Periander, who was at first equally or more mild than his father.(710)
Soon, however, his conduct became sensibly more violent, and, according to
Herodotus, he was instigated by his correspondence with Thrasybulus, the
tyrant of Miletus, who counselled him by every method to weaken, or even
to exterminate, the nobility of his city.(711) Many of his actions were
evidently prompted by the wish of utterly eradicating the peculiarities of
the Doric race, which were closely connected with an aristocratic spirit.
For this reason he abolished the public tables, and prohibited the ancient
education.(712) He awed the people by his military splendour, and
maintained triremes on both coasts of the Isthmus;(713) his person he
protected by three hundred body-guards.(714) To maintain the city at
peace, and to avoid all violent commotions, was a principle, on the
observance of which the security of his dominion depended, and upon which
a complete system of regulations was founded. With this view he abolished
a criminal court(715) for the condemnation of such as wasted their
patrimony, inasmuch as persons in this situation were likely to become
innovators. He interdicted immoderate luxury, and an extravagant number of
slaves. Idleness he considered as especially dangerous. So little true did
he remain to the democratic principles of his father, that he expelled the
people from the city;(716) and in order the more readily to accustom them
to agricultural and mechanical labour, only permitted them to wear the
dress of peasants.(717) His own expenses were trifling, and therefore he
required no other taxes than harbour-dues and market-tolls. He also
avoided, where his projects did not require it, all violence and open
injustice; and was even at times so strict a maintainer of public
morality, that the numerous procuresses of the luxurious Corinth were by
his orders thrown into the sea;(718) the hospitable damsels of
Aphrodite(719) being protected by religion. He, as well as his father,
made the construction of splendid monuments of art(720) a means of taxing
the property of the rich, and of employing the body of the people; though
indeed his own refined taste took pleasure in such works. And in general,
if considered in reference to the cultivation of taste and intellect, and
the interests of agriculture and trade, the age of the tyrants was
productive of a very great advancement in the Grecian states. The unpliant
disposition, strict in the observance of all ancient customs and usages,
was then first bent and subdued, and more liberal and extended views
became prevalent. The tyrants were frequently in intimate connexion with
the inhabitants of Asia Minor, whom Sparta despised for their luxury and
effeminacy; and from the Lydian sultan in his harem at Sardes, a chain of
communication, most important in its consequences, was established through
the princes of Miletus and Samos with the countries in the immediate
neighbourhood of Sparta. Periander was in correspondence not only with
Thrasybulus, but also with Halyattes, the king of Lydia, and sent to the
latter prince some Corcyræan youths to be castrated according to the
oriental custom.(721) The names of his kinsmen, Psammetichus and Gordias,
the latter Phrygian, the former Egyptian, are proofs of an hospitable
intercourse with those countries. On the other side of Greece, the policy
of the Cypselidæ led them to attempt the occupation of the coast of the
Ionian sea as far as Illyria, and to establish a connexion with the
barbarous nations of the interior.(722) Periander was of a daring and
comprehensive spirit, and rivalled by few of his contemporaries, bold in
the field, politic in council, though misled by continual distrust to
undertake unworthy measures, and having too little regard for the good of
the people when it interfered with his own designs; a friend of the arts,
of an enlightened mind, but at the same time overcome by the strength of
his passions; and, although devoid of awe for all sacred things, yet at
times a prey to the most grovelling superstition. After the death of
Periander, Psammetichus(723) the son of Gordias, of the same family,
succeeded to the sovereignty, but only reigned three years, having been,
without doubt, overthrown by the Spartans in Olymp. 49. 3. 582 B.C.(724)
4. Periander was married to the fair Melissa, whose beauty had captivated
him in the house of her father, the tyrant Procles, while she was
distributing wine to the labourers in a thin Doric dress.(725) Procles was
ruler of EPIDAURUS and the island of Ægina, which were at that time still
closely united; he himself was related by marriage to the princes of
Orchomenus, and appears from this circumstance, and from his connexion
with the family of Cypselus, to belong to the number of tyrants, who,
being hostile to the Dorian aristocracy, obtained their power by the
assistance of the lower ranks.
And when we also add that Theagenes of MEGARA, the father-in-law of Cylon
the Athenian,(726) precisely resembled the princes already mentioned in
his conduct (since he likewise obtained his power by attacking the rich
landed proprietors, and had killed their flocks upon the pastures of the
river),(727) and that like the others he endeavoured to please the people
by embellishing the city, by the construction of an aqueduct, and of a
beautiful fountain;(728) it is easy to perceive in the dynasties of the
Sicyonian, Corinthian, Epidaurian, and Megarian tyrants, a powerful
coalition against the supremacy of the Dorians, and the ancient principles
of that race, the more powerful, as they knew how to render subservient to
their own ends the opinions which had lately arisen; and it is a matter of
wonder that Sparta should have succeeded in overthrowing this combination.
5. If, indeed, it is also borne in mind that the Ionic, as well as the
Æolic and Doric(729) islands and cities of Asia, and also Athens, together
with Phocis, Thessaly, and the colonies in Sicily and Italy, were all in
the hands of tyrants, who doubtless assisted one another, and knew their
common interest; and that Sparta alone, in most instances at the
instigation of the Delphian oracle, declared against all these rulers a
lasting war, and in fact overthrew them all, with the exception of the
Sicilian tyrants; it must be confessed, that in this period of Grecian
history no contest took place either greater, or, by its extent as well as
its principles, of more important political and moral consequences. The
following tyrants are stated by ancient historians to have been deposed by
the Spartans:(730) the Cypselidæ of Corinth and Ambracia, the former in
Olymp. 49. 3. (584 B.C.), the latter probably somewhat later; the
Pisistratidæ of Athens, who were allied with the Thessalians, in Olymp.
67. 3. (510 B.C.);(731) their adherent Lygdamis of Naxos,(732) probably
about the same time: Æschines of Sicyon, about the 65th Olympiad(733) (520
B.C.); Symmachus of Thasos; Aulis of Phocis; and Aristogenes of Miletus,
of whom we know only the names;(734) the larger number were dethroned
under the kings Anaxandridas and Ariston, Cleomenes and Demaratus. Of
these tyrants, some they deposed by a military force, as the Pisistratidæ;
but frequently, as Plutarch says, they overthrew the despotism without
“moving a shield,” by despatching a herald, whom all immediately obeyed,
“as, when the queen bee appears, the rest arrange themselves in
order.”(735) In the time of Cleomenes also (525 B.C.) Sparta sent out a
great armament, together with Corinthian and other allies, against
Polycrates of Samos, the first Doric expedition against Asia, not, as is
evident from the trivial reason stated by Herodotus, (viz. in order to
revenge the plunder of a cauldron and a breastplate,) but with the intent
of following up their principle of deposing all tyrants.(736) But the
besieging of a fortified town, situated upon the sea, and at so great a
distance, was beyond the strength of Peloponnesus. The last expedition of
Sparta against the tyrants falls after the Persian war, when king
Leotychidas, the conqueror at Mycale, was sent for the purpose of ejecting
the Aleuadæ of Thessaly, who had delivered up the country to the Persians
in 470 B.C. or somewhat later. Aristomedes and Angelus were actually
dethroned, but the king suffering himself to be bribed by others, the
expedition did not completely succeed.(737)
We may suppose with what pride the ambassador of Sparta answered Gelon the
tyrant of Syracuse (however brilliant and beneficial his reign may have
been), when he required the command in the Persian war: “Truly the Pelopid
Agamemnon would lament, if he heard that the supremacy was taken from the
Spartans by Gelon and the Syracusans!”(738)
6. To these important changes in the political history of that time we may
annex the subordinate events in the interior of Peloponnesus.
Sparta, by the conquest of Cynuria, had obtained the key of the Argive
territory. Soon after this, Cleomenes, the eldest son of Anaxandridas the
Eurysthenid, succeeded to the throne, a man of great boldness and strength
of mind, sagacious, enterprising, accustomed, after the manner of his age
and country, to express himself in a concise and emphatic language, only
too much inflated by family and personal pride, and in disposition more
nearly resembling his contemporaries the tyrants than beseemed a king of
Sparta. The first exploit of this prince(739) was the expedition against
Argos. He landed in some vessels of Sicyon and Ægina on the coast of
Tiryns, overcame the Argives at the wood of Argos,(740) slew the greater
part of the men able to bear arms, and would have succeeded in capturing
their city, had he not, from an inconceivable superstition, dismissed the
allied army without making any further use of the victory, and contented
himself with sacrificing in the temple of Here.(741) At the same time
Argos, in consequence of this defeat, remained for a long time crippled,
and it was even necessary that a complete change in her political
condition should take place, in order to renovate the feeble and
disordered state into which she had fallen.
7. For after the bond-slaves or _gymnesii_(742) of Argos had for a time
governed the state thus deprived of its free inhabitants, until the young
men who had in the mean time arisen to manhood overcame and expelled them,
the Argives, as Aristotle(743) relates, saw themselves compelled, in order
to restore the numbers of their free population, to collect about them the
surrounding subjects of their city, the Periœci, and to distribute them in
the immediate neighbourhood.(744) The completion of this plan took place
one generation after the fatal battle with Cleomenes, at the time of the
Persian war, in which Argos, whose attention was wholly occupied with
strengthening her affairs at home, took no part. At that time the Argives,
in order to increase their own numbers, dispeopled nearly all the large
cities in the surrounding country, and transplanted the inhabitants to
Argos;(745) particularly Tiryns, Mycenæ, Hyseæ, Orneæ, and Midea.(746)
Tiryns and Mycenæ were in the time of the Persian war free, and even
independent communities, which followed the command of Sparta without the
consent of Argos; the latter town indeed contested with Argos the right to
the administration of the temple of Here, and the presidency at the Nemean
games.(747) The destruction of their city, which the Argives undertook in
concert with the Cleonæans and Tegeates,(748) was effected in the year 464
B.C. (Olymp. 79. 1). But of the Mycenæans, a few only followed the
Argives, as the larger number either took refuge at Cleonæ (which city was
at that time independent, and had for some time the management of the
Nemean games)(749), at Ceryneia in Achaia, and even in Macedonia.(750) Of
the Tirynthians also some fled to Epidaurus, and some to Halieis in the
territory of the Dryopians, in which place the expelled Hermioneans also
found an asylum.(751) For Hermione, which Herodotus during the time of the
Persian war considers as a Dryopian city,(752) was subsequently taken by
the Argives.(753) The other cities which have been mentioned, had however,
as we know of Orneæ and also Hysiæ, previously belonged to Periœci, being
subjects of Argos, and were only then incorporated for the purpose of
enlarging the metropolis.(754) The Argives, by these arbitrary
proceedings, secured themselves as well against external foes as against
their former enemies the bond-slaves, and also acquired a large number of
laborious and industrious inhabitants, who, by the continuance of peace,
soon re-established the prosperity and wealth of Argos.(755) The oracle
has well marked out the principles which were then expedient for the
welfare of that state, when it recommended it, as “_the enemy of its
neighbours, and friend of the gods, to draw in its arms, and __ remain in
watchful quiet, guarding its head; for that the head would save the
body_.”(756) At the same time, however, by these proceedings, a complete
change in the constitution was brought about, and Argos, as we shall see
hereafter, gradually lost the peculiar features of the Doric character.
The other actions of Cleomenes of which we have any knowledge refer to the
political changes at Athens, and could only be connectedly related in a
history of the Athenian constitution, or in reference to the events in
Ægina, which we have narrated elsewhere.
8. It is remarkable that during this whole time, in which Sparta founded
her empire, we read of no serious contest between Dorians and Ionians. For
although the border-states, Megara and Ægina (the latter after its revolt
from Epidaurus), carried on a continued war with Athens, the whole race
took no part in the contest, and Sparta herself fulfilled the office of an
impartial arbitrator between Athens and Megara. Even before the time of
Solon, the Athenians and Megarians fought in the territory of
Eleusis.(757) The chief struggle was for the island of Salamis, which
Solon is supposed to have gained by the well known stratagem,(758) a fact
however which was denied by Daimachus of Platæa.(759) According to the
Megarian account, some refugees from their own city (named Δορύκλειοι)
betrayed the island to the Athenians.(760) So much is certain, that five
Spartan arbitrators (Critolaidas, Amompharetus, Hypsechidas, Anaxilas, and
Cleomenes), in obedience to ancient traditions and fables respecting the
original owners of Salamis, adjudged the possession of Salamis to the
Athenians. Yet in the troubles which succeeded the banishment of Megacles,
this island was again lost, as well as the harbour Nisæa, which had been
before conquered.(761) They soon however regained it, and Megara appears
from that time forth to have given up all hopes of recovery: as in this
age the power of Athens increased so rapidly, that Megara could no longer
think of renewing her ancient contests.
Since it is not my object to give a continuous and general narration of
facts, but only to extract what is most instructive for the condition of
the Doric race, I shall not carry on the history of the Dorians out of
Peloponnesus to a lower point, as their local connexions would lead us far
astray into other regions. For the same reason I will only touch upon a
few events of the Persian wars, confining myself to the internal affairs
of Peloponnesus during that period, among which the supremacy of Sparta is
the most important and remarkable.
Chapter IX.
§ 1. Sparta the head of the Peloponnesian confederacy. Its members
and their order of precedence. § 2. Mode in which the supremacy of
Sparta was exercised. § 3. Congress of the confederacy. § 4.
Non-interference of the confederacy with the internal affairs of
the confederate States. § 5. Sparta the head of the confederacy by
general acknowledgment. § 6. Hellenic league during the
Peloponnesian war. § 7. Sparta withdraws from the command of the
Allied Army. § 8. Ionia never completely liberated by Athens from
the power of Persia. § 9. War between Sparta and Arcadia. § 10.
Revolt of the Helots; third Messenian war. § 11. Dissolution of
the alliance between Sparta and Athens. Battles of Tanagra and
Œnophyta. Five years’ truce. Thirty years’ truce. § 12. Origin of
the Peloponnesian war. § 13. Opposite principles of the contending
parties in the Peloponnesian war. § 14. Its influence upon Sparta.
1. Sparta, by the conquest of Messenia and Tegea, had obtained the first
rank in Peloponnesus, which character she confirmed by the expulsion of
the tyrants, and the overthrow of Argos. From about the year 580 B.C. she
acted as the recognised commander, not only of Peloponnesus, but of the
whole Greek name. The _confederacy_ itself however was formed by the
inhabitants of that peninsula alone, on fixed and regular laws; whereas
the other Greeks only annexed themselves to it temporarily. The order of
precedence observed by the members of this league may be taken from the
inscription on the footstool of the statue of Zeus, which was dedicated at
Olympia after the Persian war, the Ionians, who were only allied for a
time, being omitted.(762) It is as follows: Lacedæmon, Corinth, Sicyon,
Ægina, Megara, Epidaurus,(763) Tegea, Orchomenus, Phlius, Trœzen,
Hermione, Tiryns, Mycenæ, Lepreum, and Elis; which state was contented
with the last place, on account of the small share which it had taken in
the war. The defenders of the Isthmus are enumerated in the following
order;(764) Lacedæmonians, Arcadians, Eleans, Corinthians, Sicyonians,
Epidaurians, Phliasians, Trœzenians, and Hermionians, nearly agreeing with
the other list, only that the Arcadians, having been present with their
whole force, and also the Eleans, occupy an earlier place; and the
Megarians and Æginetans are omitted, as having had no share in the
defence. This regular order of precedence is alone a proof of a firm
union. The Tegeates, since they had joined the side of Lacedæmon, enjoyed
several privileges, and especially the place of honour at the left wing of
the allied army.(765) Argos remained excluded from the nations of
Peloponnesus, as it never would submit to the command of Sparta; the
Achæans, indifferent to external affairs, only joined themselves
momentarily to the alliance:(766) but the Mantineans, though latterly they
followed the policy of Argos,(767) were long attached to the Peloponnesian
league; for at the end of the Persian war they sent an army, which arrived
too late for the battle of Platæa;(768) having before, together with the
other Arcadians, helped to defend the Isthmus;(769) they had also been
engaged in the first days of the action at Thermopylae;(770) and they were
at this time still the faithful allies of the Lacedæmonians.(771) Their
subsequent defection from Sparta may be attributed partly to their
endeavours to obtain the dominion of Parrhasia, which was protected by
Lacedæmon;(772) to their hostility with Tegea,(773) which remained true to
Sparta after the great war with Arcadia, which began about 470 B.C. and to
the strengthening of their city (συνοικισμὸς), and the establishment of a
democratic government, through the influence of Argos.(774)
2. The supremacy of Sparta(775) was exercised in the expeditions of the
whole confederacy, and in transactions of the same nature. In the first, a
Spartan king—after it had been thought proper never to send out two
together—was commander-in-chief, in whose powers there were many remains
of the authority of the ancient Homeric princes. Occasionally, however,
Sparta was compelled to give up her privilege to other commanders,
especially at sea, as, for instance, the fleet at Salamis to Eurybiades.
When any expedition was contemplated, the Spartans sent round to the
confederate states,(776) to desire them to have men and stores in
readiness.(777) The highest amount which each state could be called on to
supply was fixed once for all, and it was only on each particular occasion
to be determined what part of that was required.(778) In like manner, the
supplies in money and stores were regularly appointed;(779) so that an
army, with all its equipment, could be collected by a simple summons. But
agricultural labour, festivals, and the natural slowness of the Doric
race, often very much retarded the assembling of this army. The
contributions, chiefly perhaps voluntary, both of states and individuals,
were registered on stone: and there is still extant an inscription found
at Tegea, in which the war supplies of the Ephesians, Melians, &c, in
money and in corn, are recorded.(780) But the Lacedæmonians never exacted
from the Peloponnesian confederacy a regular annual contribution,
independent of circumstances; which would have been in fact a tribute: a
measure of this kind being once proposed to king Archidamus, he answered,
“that war did not consume according to rule.(781)” Pericles, however,
properly considers it as a disadvantage to the Peloponnesians that they
had no paid troops, and that neither in common nor in the several states
they had amassed any treasure.(782) The object of an expedition was
publicly declared: occasionally however, when secrecy was required, it was
known neither to the states nor to their army.(783) The single allied
states, if necessity demanded it, could also immediately summon the army
of the others;(784) but it is not clear to what extent this call was
binding upon them. The Spartan military constitution, which we will
explain hereafter, extended to the whole allied army; but it was doubtless
variously combined with the tactics of the several nations.(785) To the
council of war, which moreover only debated, and did not decide, the
Spartan king summoned the leaders of the several states, together with
other commanders, and generally the most distinguished persons in the
army.(786)
3. According to the constitution of the Peloponnesian league, every common
action, such as a declaration of war, or the conclusion of a peace or
treaty, was agreed on at a congress of the confederates. But, as there was
no regular assembly of this kind, the several states sent envoys
(ἄγγελοι), like the deputies (πρόβουλοι) of the Ionians, who generally
remained together only for a short time.(787) All the members had legally
equal votes;(788) and the majority sometimes decided against a strong
opposition;(789) Sparta was often outvoted, Corinth being at all times
willing to raise an opposition.(790) We have however little information
respecting the exact state of the confederacy; it is probable indeed, from
the aristocratic feelings of the Peloponnesians, that, upon the whole,
authority had more weight than numbers; and for great undertakings, such
as the Peloponnesian war, the assent of the chief state was necessary, in
addition to the agreement of the other confederates.(791) When the
congress was summoned to Sparta, the envoys often treated with a public
assembly (ἔκκλητοι)(792) of the Spartans; although they naturally withdrew
during the division. Of these envoys, besides Sosicles the Corinthian, we
also know the name of Chileus of Tegea, who prevailed upon the ephors,
after a long delay, to send the army to Platæa, and who did much to allay
the differences existing between the members of the then numerous
confederacy.(793)
4. But upon the _internal_ affairs, laws, and institutions of the allied
states, the confederacy had legally no influence. It was a fundamental law
that every state (πόλις) should, according to its ancient customs (καττὰ
πάτρια), be independent and sovereign (αὐτόνομος καὶ αὐτόπολις);(794) and
it is much to the credit of Sparta, that, so long as the league was in
existence, she never, not even when a favourable opportunity offered,
deprived any Peloponnesian state of this independence. Nor were disputes
between individual states brought before the congress of the allies,
which, on account of the preponderance of Sparta, would have endangered
their liberty; but they were commonly either referred to the Delphian
oracle, or to arbitrators chosen by both states.(795) When Elis claimed an
ancient tribute from Lepreum, both states agreed to make Sparta their
arbitrator by a special reference. In this character Sparta declared that
Lepreum, being an independent member of the confederacy, was not bound to
pay the tribute: and Elis acted unjustly in refusing to abide by her
agreement, on the plea that she had not expected the decision.(796) For
disputes between citizens of different states there was an entirely free
and equal intercourse of justice (_commercium juris dandi
repetendique_).(797) The jurisdiction of the states was also absolutely
exempt from foreign interference (αὐτόδικοι).(798) These are the chief
features of the constitution of the Peloponnesian confederacy; the only
one which in the flourishing times of Greece combined extensive powers
with justice, and a respect for the independence of its weaker members.
5. Sparta had not become the head of this league by agreement, and still
less by usurpation; but by tacit acknowledgment she was the leader, not
only of this, but of the whole of Greece; and she acted as such in all
foreign relations from about the year 580 B.C. Her alliance was courted by
Crœsus: and the Ionians, when pressed by Cyrus, had recourse to the
Spartans, who, with an amusing ignorance of the state of affairs beyond
the sea, thought to terrify the king of Persia by the threat of
hostilities. It is a remarkable fact, that there were at that time
Scythian envoys in Sparta, with whom a great plan of operations against
Persia is said to have been concerted; which it is not easy to
believe.(799) In the year 520 B.C. the Platæans put themselves under the
protection of Cleomenes,(800) who referred them to Athens; a herald from
Sparta drove the Alcmæonidæ from their city:(801) afterwards Aristagoras
sought from the protector of Greece(802) aid against the national enemy:
and when the Æginetans gave the Persians earth and water, the Athenians
accused them of treachery before the Spartans: and lastly, during the
Persian war, Greece found in the high character of that state the only
means of effecting the union so necessary for her safety and success.(803)
6. In this war a new confederacy was formed, which was extended beyond
Peloponnesus; the community of danger and of victory having, besides a
momentary combination, also produced an union destined for some duration.
It was the assembly of this league—a fixed congress at Corinth during, and
at Sparta after, the war—that settled the internal differences of Greece,
that invited Argos, Corcyra, and Gelon to join the league, and afterwards
called upon Themistocles to answer for his proceedings.(804) So much it
did for the present emergency. But at the same time Pausanias, the regent
of Sparta, after the great victory of Platæa (at which, according to
Æschylus, the power of Persia fell by the Doric spear),(805) prevailed
upon the allies to conclude a further treaty. Under the auspices of the
gods of the confederacy, particularly of the Eleutherian (or Grecian)
Zeus, they pledged themselves mutually to maintain the independence of all
states, and to many other conditions, of which the memory has been lost.
To the Platæans in particular security from danger was promised.(806) The
Ionians also, after the battle of Mycale, were received into this
confederacy.(807)
7. The splendid victories over the Persians had for some time taken
Sparta, which was fitted for a quiet and passive existence, out of her
natural sphere; and her king Pausanias had wished to betray his country
for the glitter of an Asiatic prince. But this state soon perceived her
true interest, and sent no more commanders to Asia, “that her generals
might not be made worse:” she likewise decided to avoid any further war
with the Persians, thinking that Athens was better fitted to carry it on
than herself.(808) The decision of the Spartans was doubtless influenced
by the defection of the Ionians from Pausanias, and their refusal to obey
Dorcis, whom the Spartans had sent with a small body of men in his place.
Nevertheless, the chief motives which determined them must have lain
deeper; for without the Greeks of Asia Minor, they could, by the
assistance of the naval powers of Peloponnesus, Corinth, Ægina, &c, have
continued a war which promised more gain and plunder than trouble and
danger. If the speech were now extant in which Hetoëmaridas the Heraclid
proved to the councillors that it was not expedient for Sparta to aim at
the mastery of the sea,(809) we should doubtless possess a profound view,
on the Spartan side, of those things which we are now accustomed to look
on with Athenian eyes. Nor is it true that the supremacy over the Greeks
was in fact transferred at all from Sparta to Athens, if we consider the
matter as Sparta considered it, however great the influence of this change
may have been on the power of Athens. But Sparta continued to hold her
pre-eminence in Peloponnesus, and most of the nations of the
mother-country joined themselves to her: while none but the Greeks of Asia
Minor and the islands, who had previously been subjects of Persia, and
were then only partially liberated, perhaps too much despised by Sparta,
put themselves under the command of Athens.(810)
8. But the _complete_ liberation of Asia Minor from the Persian yoke,
which has been considered one of the chief exploits of Athens, was in fact
never effected. Without entering into the discussion respecting the
problematical treaty of Cimon,(811) we will merely seek to ascertain the
actual state of the Asiatic Greeks at this period. Herodotus states, that
Artaphernes, the satrap at Sardes under Darius, fixed the tribute to be
paid by the Ionians as it remained until the time of the writer,(812)
_i.e._ about the end of the Peloponnesian war. It is evident that this was
a tribute to be paid to the king of Persia: the exactions of the Athenians
were clearly not regulated by any Persian register of property. Again, in
the nineteenth year of the war, Tissaphernes sought for assistance against
Athens, that he might be able to pay to the king of Persia the tribute due
from the Grecian maritime towns, which the Athenians had prevented him
from collecting.(813) From this it is plain that the shah of Susa was
ignorant that the majority of those cities had for more than sixty years
paid to the Athenians and not to him, and attributed the arrears only to
the negligence of his viceroys. I say only the majority; for the Athenians
had been far from completing the glorious work of the great Cimon; and
after the war-contributions had become a most oppressive tribute, these
cities might not themselves be very desirous to change their master. Hence
Themistocles, as a vassal of Persia, possessed undisturbed, at the
accession of Artaxerxes, the beautiful towns of Magnesia on the Mæander,
Lampsacus, Myus, Percote, and ancient Scepsis.(814) At a still later
period the descendants of king Demaratus, Eurysthenes, and Procles, ruled
by the same title over Halisarna in Mysia.(815) The neighbouring towns of
Gambrium, Palægambrium, Myrina, and Grynium had been given by Darius to
Gongylus, and his descendants still dwelt there after the Peloponnesian
war.(816) When Athens unjustly expelled the Delians from their island,
they found a place of refuge at Adramytteum, on the coast of Æolis, which
was granted them by the satrap Pharnaces.(817) Thus the Athenian empire
did not prevent the vassals and subjects of the king of Persia from ruling
over the Greeks of Asia Minor, even down to the very coast. We need not go
any further to prove the entire falsehood of the account commonly given by
the panegyrical rhetoricians of Athens.
9. Peloponnesus took the less concern in these proceedings, as internal
differences had arisen from some unknown cause, which led to an open war
between Sparta and Arcadia. We only know, that, between the battle of
Platæa (in which Tegea, as also later still, showed great fidelity towards
Sparta) and the war with the Helots (_i.e._ between 479 and 465 B.C.), the
Lacedæmonians fought two great battles, the one against the Tegeates and
Argives at Tegea, the other against all the Arcadians, with the exception
of the Mantineans, at Dipæa in the Mænalian territory. Tisamenus, an
Elean, of the family of the Iamidæ, was in both battles in the Spartan
army; and in both Sparta was victorious.(818) Yet, in an epigram of
Simonides, the valour of the Tegeates is praised, who by their death had
saved their city from destruction;(819) probably after the loss of the
first battle. As we find that Argos had a share in this war,(820) it is
possible that the views of that state were directed against the ascendancy
of Sparta; perhaps also the independence of the Mænalians, Parrhasians,
&c. had been, as was so often the case, attacked by the more powerful
states of Arcadia, and was defended by the head of the Peloponnesian
confederacy.
10. This war had not been brought to a termination, when, in the year 465
B.C., in the reign of Archidamus(821) and Pleistoanax, a tremendous
earthquake (which is said to have been predicted by Anaximander(822))
destroyed Sparta, and a sudden ruin threatened to overwhelm the state of
Greece. For, in the hope of utterly annihilating their rulers, many Helots
(perhaps doubly excited by the late outrage on the suppliants at the altar
of the Tænarian god),(823) especially the ancient inhabitants of Messenia,
and two cities of the Periœci, revolted from Sparta; these rebels were all
named Messenians, and the war was called the third Messenian war.(824) The
circumstances of this terrible contest are almost unknown to us; and we
can only collect the few fragments extant of its history. Aëimnestus the
Spartan, who had killed Mardonius, fought with 300 men at Stenyclarus
against a body of Messenians, and was slain with all his men.(825) This
was followed by a great battle with the same enemy at Ithome,(826) in
which the Spartans were victorious. Most of the conquered Messenians then
intrenched themselves on the steep summit of Ithome, which was even then
sacred to Zeus Ithomatas; and they probably restored the ancient walls and
defences which had fallen down. Upon this the Lacedæmonians, foreseeing a
tedious siege, called in the aid of their allies; and this call was
answered among others by the Æginetans,(827) the Mantineans,(828) the
Platæans,(829) and the Athenians, who, at the request of the Spartan envoy
Periclides, sent 4000 hoplites(830) under the command of Cimon; the
Spartans, however, dismissed them before the fortress was taken, in which
they expected to be aided by the superiority of the Athenians in the art
of besieging, not without showing their suspicion of the innovating spirit
of their ally.(831) In the tenth year of the siege, 455 B.C., Ithome
surrendered on terms; and the Messenians, together with their wives and
children, quitted Peloponnesus, under a promise of never again entering
it. It appears that the war between Lacedæmon and Arcadia was concluded
upon conditions, of which one was, that no person should be put to death
for the sake of the Lacedæmonian party at Tegea; and another, that Sparta
was to expel the Messenians from the country, but not kill them—which were
inscribed on a pillar on the banks of the Alpheus.(832) The Athenians,
however, gave the fugitives the town of Naupactus, which they had shortly
before conquered, and which was conveniently situated for tempting them,
against their promise, to make inroads and forays in Peloponnesus. The
Messenians still continued, in the Peloponnesian war, to be distinguished
from the neighbouring people by their Doric dialect.(833)
11. Immediately after the dismission of the Athenians from Ithome, the
people of Athens, in order to resent the affront, annulled the alliance
with Sparta, which had subsisted since the Persian war;(834) entered into
a treaty with Argos, the enemy of Sparta, and also with the Thessalians;
and even joined to itself Megara, which was dependent on its commercial
intercourse. Then followed the war with the maritime towns of Argolis, in
which Athens, after many reverses, at length succeeded in destroying the
fleet of Ægina, and subjugating that island (457 B.C.).(835) Sparta was
compelled to be a quiet spectator of the subjection of so important a
member of her confederacy, as she was still occupied with the siege of
Ithome, and in the same year had sent out an army to liberate her mother
country, Doris, from the yoke of the Phocians. But when, after the
execution of this object, the Spartans were hastening back to
Peloponnesus, they were compelled to force their passage home by the
battle of Tanagra, which, with the assistance of the Thebans, they gained
over an army composed of Athenians, Ionians, Argives, and Thessalians.
This aid was afforded to them on the condition that they would help the
Thebans to regain their supremacy in Bœotia, which the Thebans had lost by
their defection from the Grecian cause in the Persian war.(836) Sparta,
however, after so decisive a victory, concluded a four months’ armistice
with Athens, during which that state conquered the Thebans at Œnophyta,
finished the blockade of Ægina, subdued all Bœotia with the exception of
Thebes, and Phocis, and extended its democratical constitution, which
after the battle of Tanagra was nearly threatened with destruction,(837)
even to the city of Thebes. The inactivity of Sparta during these
astonishing successes of her enemy (for when she concluded the armistice
with Athens she must have partly foreseen its consequences) seems to prove
that she was entirely occupied with the final capture of Ithome, and the
settlement of her interests in Arcadia.(838) But that the war, which was
now renewed by Athens, nevertheless extended to the whole Peloponnesian
league, is shown by the connected attacks of Tolmides on the Spartan
harbour Gytheium, and the cities of Sicyon and Corinth, and also by the
expedition of Pericles in the Corinthian gulf. The five years’ truce in
451 B.C. was only an armistice between Athens and the Peloponnesian
confederacy, which left Bœotia to shake off the Athenian yoke by its own
exertions. This was also the time of the Sacred war, in which a Spartan
and an Athenian army, one coming after the other, the first gave the
management of the temple to the Delphians, and the second, against all
ancient right,(839) to the Phocians. At the end of these five years Megara
revolted from the Athenians, and in consequence an invasion of Attica by
the Peloponnesians took place, which, though it did not produce any
immediate result, was soon followed by the thirty years’ truce, in which
Athens ceded her conquests in Megaris and Peloponnesus,(840) and on the
mainland returned within her ancient boundaries; but she preserved the
same power over her other confederates. For when the Athenians soon
afterwards attacked the revolted island of Samos, the Peloponnesians
indeed debated whether they should protect it, but the proposal of Corinth
was adopted, that Athens should be allowed to deal with her allies as she
pleased.(841)
12. If now we consider the events which have been briefly traced in the
foregoing pages, it will be perceived, that the principle on which the
Lacedæmonians constantly acted was one of self-defence, of restoring what
had been lost, or preserving what was threatened with danger; whereas the
Athenians were always aiming at attack or conquest, or the change of
existing institutions. While the Spartans during this period, even after
the greatest victories, did not conquer a foot of land, subjugate one
independent state, or destroy one existing institution; the Athenians, for
a longer or for a shorter time, reduced large tracts of country under
their dominion, extended their alliance (as it was called) on all sides,
and respected no connexion sanctioned by nature, descent, or antiquity,
when it came in conflict with their plans of empire. But the astonishing
energy of the Athenian people, which from one point kept the whole of
Greece in constant vibration, almost paralysed Sparta; the natural
slowness of that state became more and more apparent: which having been,
as it were, violently transplanted into a strange region, only began by
degrees to comprehend the policy of Athens.
But when Athens saw the Peloponnesian confederacy again established, and
as she could not, on account of the truce, attack it directly, she looked
to the colonial law, which rested rather on hereditary feelings than on
positive institution, for an opportunity of an indirect attack. This was
soon found in the defensive treaty with Corcyra, which state was engaged
with its mother country Corinth in a war, according to ancient Greek
principles, wholly unlawful and unjust. Besides this, however, it was an
actual breach of the thirty years’ truce.(842) And the same principles
were expressed in the demand that Potidæa should, for the sake of the
Athenian confederacy, give up its original connexion with the parent
state. In both these cases it is manifest that the maxims of the Athenian
policy were directly at variance with the general feeling of justice
entertained by the Greeks, and especially with the respect for affinity of
blood; and this fundamental difference was the true cause of the
Peloponnesian war.
13. As it would not be consistent with the plan of this work to give a
detailed account of the influence of the Peloponnesian war upon the
political and private character of the Greeks, we must be content to point
out the following obvious points of opposition between the contending
parties. In the first place, then, _Dorians were opposed to Ionians_; and
hence in the well-known oracle it was called the Doric war.(843) The
individual exceptions are for the most part merely apparent;(844) also
when the Athenians attacked Sicily, all the Doric cities were opposed to
them.(845) On the side of Athens were ranged all the Ionians of Europe, of
the islands, and of Asia, not indeed voluntarily, but still not altogether
against their inclination. _The union of the free Greeks against the evil
ambition of one state._ At the beginning of the war the general voice of
Greece was in favour of Sparta(846) (which was heard through the Delphian
oracle, when it promised that state assistance);(847) nor did she compel
any one to join in it. The allies of Athens, having previously been
Persian subjects, were accustomed to obey; and on the present occasion
forced to submit; the public assembly of Athens was the only free voice in
so large a combination. _Land-forces against sea-forces._ According to the
speech of Pericles, Peloponnesus was able, in an action with heavy-armed
troops, to resist all the rest of Greece together; and Athens avoided
coming to this mode of engagement with singular ingenuity. The fleet of
the Peloponnesians, on the other hand, was at the beginning of the war
very inconsiderable.(848) Hence it was some time before the belligerent
parties even so much as encountered one another. The land was the means of
communication for one party, the sea for the other: hence the states
friendly to Athens were immediately compelled to build _long walls_ for
the purpose of connecting the chief city with the sea, and isolating it
from the land; as Megara before, and Argos and Patræ during the war.(849)
_Large bodies of men practised in war against wealth._ The Peloponnesians
carried on the war with natives: whereas Athens manned her fleet—the basis
of her power—chiefly with foreign seamen; so that the Corinthians said
justly that the power of Athens was rather purchased than native.(850) It
was the main principle of Pericles’ policy, and it is also adopted by
Thucydides in the famous introduction to his History, that it is not the
country and people, but moveable property, (χρήματα, in the proper sense
of the word,) which makes states great and powerful. _Slow and deliberate
conviction against determined rashness._ This is evident both from the
different direction taken by the alliances of the two parties, and from
their national character. It was with good reason that the oracle
admonished Sparta to carry on the war with decision and firmness; for that
state was always cautious of undertaking a war, and ready for peace.(851)
_Maintenance of ancient custom as opposed to the desire of novelty._ The
former was the chief feature of the Doric, the latter of the Ionic race.
The Dorians wished to preserve their ancient dignity and power, as well as
their customs and religious feelings: the Ionians were commonly in pursuit
of something new, frequently, as in the case of the Sicilian expedition,
but obscurely seen and conceived. _Union of nations and races against one
arbitrarily formed._ As has been already shown, this difference was the
cause of the war; and indeed Athens in the course of it hardly recognised
any duty in small states to remain faithful to cities of the same race,
and to their mother countries; otherwise, why was Melos so barbarously
punished, for remembering rather that it was a colony of Sparta than an
island? Thus also in the interior of states the Athenians encouraged
political associations or clubs (ἑταιρίαι), while the Spartans trusted to
the ties of relationship.(852) _Aristocracy against democracy._(853) This
difference was manifested in the first half of the war by Athens changing,
while Sparta only restored governments; for in this instance also the
power of Sparta was in strictness only employed in upholding ancient
establishments, as an aristocracy may indeed be overthrown, but cannot be
formed in a moment.
14. These obvious points of difference are sufficient to substantiate the
result which we wish to arrive at. It is manifest that the second of the
two forces, which in each of these instances came into collision, must
necessarily have always overcome the first. The slow, cumbrous, unwieldy
body of the Spartan confederacy was sure to suffer under the blows of its
skilful, forward, and enterprising antagonist. The maxims which, according
to Thucydides, were current at this time,(854) that rashness was to be
called courage in a friend’s cause, provident foresight hidden cowardice,
moderation a cloak for pusillanimity, and that to be prudent in every
thing was to be active in nothing, necessarily impeded and shackled the
beneficial effects of the measures of the Doric party. The “honesty and
openness” of the Doric character, the noble simplicity of the ancient
times of Greece, soon disappeared in this tumultuous age.(855) Sparta
therefore and the Peloponnesians emerge from the contest, altered, and as
it were reversed; and even before its termination appear in a character of
which they had before probably contained only the first seeds.
But in the second half of the war, when the Spartans gave up their great
armaments by land, and began to equip fleets with hired seamen; when they
had learnt to consider money as the chief instrument of warfare, and
begged it at the court of Persia; when they sought less to protect the
states joined to them by affinity and alliance, than to dissolve the
Athenian confederacy; when they began to secure conquered states by
harmosts of their own, and by oligarchs forced upon the people, and found
that the secret management of the political clubs was more to their
interest than open negotiation with the government; we see developed on
the one hand an energy and address, which was first manifested in the
enterprises of the great Brasidas, and on the other a worldly policy, as
was shown in Gylippus, and afterwards more strongly in Lysander; when the
descendants of Hercules found it advisable to exchange the lion’s for the
fox’s skin.(856) And, since the enterprises conducted in the spirit of
earlier times either wholly failed or else remained fruitless, this new
system, though the state had inwardly declined, brought with it, by the
mockery of fate, external fame and victory.(857)
BOOK II. RELIGION AND MYTHOLOGY OF THE DORIANS.
Chapter I.
§ 1. Apollo and Artemis the principal deities of the Doric race. §
2. Traces of the worship of Apollo in Tempe. § 3. Route of the
Theoria from Tempe to Delphi. § 4. Establishment of the worship of
Apollo at Delphi; § 5. Crete; § 6. And Delos. § 7. Early history
of Crissa. § 8. Doric population of Delphi. § 9. Opposition to the
worship of the Delphian Apollo.
1. In turning from the history of the external affairs of the Dorians to
the consideration of their intellectual existence, our first step must be
to enquire into their religion; and for this purpose we will proceed to
analyse and resolve it into the various worships and ceremonies of which
it was composed, and to trace the origin and connexion of these as they
successively arose.
Now it may with safety be asserted, that the principal deities of the
Dorians were Apollo and Artemis, since their worship is found to have
predominated in all the settlements of that race; and conversely the Doric
origin can be either proximately or remotely traced wherever there were
any considerable institutions dedicated to the worship of Apollo; insomuch
that the adoration of this god may be shown from the most ancient
testimonies of mythology to have gradually advanced with the extension of
the Doric nation. Yet we are not to understand that the worship of Apollo
and the Doric race were so exactly co-extensive that the presence of the
latter always proves either the previous or actual existence of the
former. Indeed it is certain that in ancient as well as in modern times
the worship of particular gods was not only propagated by migration and
conquest, but that religious belief was also extended by peaceful
intercourse, and, as it were, by moral contact.
In order to rest the claims of the Doric race to the worship of Apollo on
a secure foundation, it is necessary first to give a direct contradiction
to all those statements which assert its connexion with any race not of
Hellenic descent. In the first place, then, Apollo was not a national
deity of the aboriginal _Pelasgic_ nations of Greece.(858) Had this been
the case, he would certainly have enjoyed frequent and distinguished
honours in those countries where the numbers of that race remained
undiminished; for example, in Arcadia. Now there were very few temples of
Apollo in Arcadia; and moreover, the founding of most of these was either
connected with a foreign hero, or else attributed to some external
influence.(859) Secondly, it has been supposed that the worship of this
god was introduced from the _East_ (an opinion founded chiefly on the
establishments of his religion in Lycia); but we shall presently show that
its institution in this quarter was in fact derived from the Dorians. To
this we may add, that amongst none of the _half-Grecian_ nations, for
example, the Leleges, Carians, Ætolians, Phrygians, and Thracians, the
worship of this god can be proved to have been national. The same may be
affirmed of the _Italian_ nations. Apollo never occurs in the ancient
_Etruscan_ religion. Nor was _Rome_ acquainted with this worship, until it
was introduced by the Sibylline oracles; a sacred spot was then allotted
on the Flaminian meadow; and the temple erected there (324 A.U.C.) was, up
to the time of Cicero, the only one in Rome.(860) Nay, that the Italians
adopted Apollo altogether as a foreign deity is proved by the circumstance
of their not having united him with their native Jupiter, or Mercury, as
they did the Grecian Zeus, Hermes, &c. In our inquiries therefore into the
origin of the worship of Apollo, we are limited to the races of purely
Greek offspring. It remains only to be shown why we have selected the
_Dorians_ in particular from all these different tribes. And we merely
make this preliminary remark, that the mythical genealogy, in which Dorus
is called the son of Apollo,(861) was a simple expression for this fact.
2. The most ancient settlements of the Doric race, of which any historical
accounts are extant, were, as we before ascertained,(862) the country at
the foot of Olympus and Ossa, near the valley of TEMPE. In this district
there were two sanctuaries, bearing the character of the highest
antiquity, viz., the Pythium, on the ridge of Olympus, near a steep
mountain-pass leading to Macedonia; and the altar in the ravine of the
Peneus,(863) from which the god himself was called Τεμπείτας; and in an
inscription discovered near this spot, on the banks of the river between
Tempe and Larissa, are the words ΑΠΛΟΥΝΙ ΤΕΜΠΕΙΤΑ, “To Apollo of
Tempe.”(864) From another inscription found in this district we gather an
account of certain native Thessalian festivals, at which branches of
laurel were carried round, that were doubtless procured from the groves in
the valley of Tempe; whither also the Delphians every eight years, at the
expiration of the sacred period, sent the Pythian theori, who, after the
performance of a sacrifice, broke the expiatory branch from the sacred
laurel-tree.(865) According also to the admission of the Delphians
themselves, the temple of Apollo at Tempe was more ancient than their own,
since a perfect expiation could only be performed in that sanctuary. In
accordance with the tradition that Apollo himself, after having slain the
Python, fled to the altar at Tempe to be purified from the pollution, the
sacred boy, at each return of the appointed day, went to Tempe by a
certain path,(866) in imitation of the god whom he honoured, in order to
return home amidst the joyful songs of the choruses of virgins, as
δαφνηφόρος, or _laurel-bearer_. The religious usages at this festival will
be investigated hereafter; here we will only consider the route which the
procession took. It led through Thessaly and Pelasgia (that is, through
the plain of the Peneus, which stretches to the south as far as Pheræ);
then through the country of the Malians and Ænianes, over mount Œta,
through Doris and the western part of Locris;(867) avoiding in a
remarkable manner the shorter and more frequented road from Thessaly
through Thermopylæ, over Phocis, and through the pass of Panopeus and
Daulis to Delphi. The reasons of this deviation may have been the
opposition offered in early times by hostile tribes from the eastern side
of Delphi to the peaceable march of sacred processions; and also that the
theoria might in its progress pass through the second settlements of the
Dorians, between Œta and Parnassus, where doubtless the worship of Apollo
had likewise prevailed.(868)
3. The first half of the Pythian road, which goes through Thessaly, is
very accurately determined by a combination of different testimonies. Its
first stage was from Tempe to Larissa. Near this place was a village named
Deipnias, where the boy who carried the laurel-branch first broke his long
fast;(869) as Apollo himself was reported also to have done. That the
place received its name from this circumstance is a sufficient proof of
the antiquity of the usage. The theoria next proceeded to Pheræ, where the
boy, on his way to Tempe, and before his purification, represented the
servitude of Apollo when a refugee at the palace of Admetus. This use of
slavery as a preparative for the expiation of guilt, is doubtless taken
from some very ancient tradition; and it is alluded to by the earliest
epic poets; in the Iliad the horses of Eumelus, the son of Admetus, are
stated to have derived their excellence from having been under the care of
Apollo at Pheræ.(870) The harbour of Pheræ was Pagasæ, in the furthest
recess of the Pagasæan bay, in which place there was a celebrated altar of
the Pagasæan Apollo, situated in an extensive grove,(871) where there were
large numbers of sacred ravens.(872) This sanctuary is the theatre of
Hesiod’s poem of the Shield of Hercules; and at no great distance the
river Anaurus runs into the sea,(873) which stream, swollen by violent
storms of rain carried away the tomb of Cycnus, the son of Mars; “_for
thus Apollo, the son of Latona, willed it, because Cycnus had plundered
the hecatombs which the nations brought to the temple of Pytho._”(874)
Hence it is evident that the Pagasæan sanctuary was situated on the road
consecrated by the processions to and from Delphi; and we may perceive
also in these words of Hesiod an allusion to a fable perhaps much
celebrated by early poets, viz., that Cycnus was slain for having profaned
the temple of Apollo.(875) Moreover, the legend related by Heraclides
Ponticus, that Trophonius founded the temple of Apollo at Pagasæ,(876)
points to the connexion with Delphi; the same Trophonius, a renowned
architect of the mythical age, is also said to have built the most ancient
temple of Pytho.
4. We thus arrive at DELPHI, the second grand station of the worship of
Apollo, and, as it were, a focus, from which it diverged in numberless
directions, and to which it was again partially reflected. Now although
from early times the singular and striking character of the place might
often have raised the feelings to ecstasy, and excited in the spectator
dim and shadowy forebodings of the future; yet the establishment of a
_fixed_ institution, with its sacred regulations and rights, was
intimately connected with the introduction of the worship of Apollo. At
what time, however, did this first obtain a footing at Delphi? Probably
when the Doric race came from Hestiæotis to Parnassus, and settled above
Delphi, which event took place at a very early period. This supposition,
to which we are led by the preceding inquiry, is not inconsistent with the
celebrated tradition that Cretan navigators landed on this coast in the
time of Minos, and there introduced the worship of Apollo. In order,
however, to reconcile these two accounts, we must first examine the Cretan
worship of that god.
5. The population of CRETE having been in early times composed of a
heterogeneous mixture of different nations, it was natural that the
worships of many different gods should prevail there; yet in many cases it
is possible to ascertain the nation from which they severally originated.
Amongst these, the Dorians, whose chief settlement was on the
north-eastern coast near Cnosus (from which point, however, they very soon
spread over other parts of the island), had brought over the worship of
Apollo from their settlements under Olympus. According to a tradition
preserved in the Homeric hymn to Apollo, the ship, which Apollo in the
shape of a dolphin conducted to Delphi, set out from the city of Cnosus.
Of this city the chief temple was that of Apollo Delphinius.(877) In its
territory was situated a place called Apollonia; and the remarkable town
of Amnisus, with the grotto of Eileithyia, where it was supposed that this
goddess, who assisted at the birth of Apollo, was herself born.(878) On
the same coast are Miletus, where (as will be mentioned hereafter) the
worship of Apollo prevailed, and Lato (Camira), whose name reminds us of
the goddess Latona. It cannot be doubted that the same worship also
prevailed in the ancient Doric town of Lyctus, in the interior of the
island.(879) Nearer to the southern coast was Gortyna, which, though
founded by a different race, yet in later times recognised the dominion
and worship of the same nation as Cnosus: accordingly, the most central
point of this city was called _Pythium_.(880) Immediately bordering on it
was Phæstus, the birthplace of Epimenides, which town was said to have
derived its origin and name from a Heraclid of Sicyon.(881) Here, together
with Hercules, Apollo and Latona received particular honours.(882) Further
on towards the west, in the mountains, was Tarrha, one of the most ancient
and considerable temples of Apollo.(883) Here, according to the Cretan
tradition, dwelt Carmanor the father of the minstrel Chrysothemis, a
priest who was said to have purified Apollo himself from the blood of the
Python;(884) which legend, when compared with the account of his expiation
at the altar in the valley of Tempe, shows how the legends connected with
the worship of Apollo crossed over to Crete, and there again took root.
With the residence of Apollo when a refugee in the house of Carmanor,
there is connected a tradition of his amour with Acacallis, who bore him
Naxos,(885) or Miletus,(886) or Phylander and Phylacis, who, in a sacred
offering of the Elyrians at Delphi, were represented as sucking the teat
of a she-goat.(887) This Elyrus, like most of the ancient towns of Crete,
was situated in the mountains of the interior, probably not far from
Tarrha.(888) Although there have not been preserved accounts sufficient to
lead to any general conclusion, yet those which we have adduced establish
the position that it was not the original inhabitants of mount Ida or any
supposed colonists from Phœnicia, but the Dorian invaders alone who made
Crete the head-quarters of the worship of Apollo: we therefore assert that
this worship (as originally founded in Crete), had not the slightest
connexion with the enthusiastic (and probably Phrygian) orgies of the
Idæan Zeus, with the Corybantes, &c. Yet from these ceremonies being
celebrated at so short a distance from each other, confusions soon arose;
so that in later times the Curetes were called the sons of Apollo.(889)
According to some writers, Corybas was the father of Apollo, and he was
reported to have disputed the sovereignty of Crete with Zeus.(890)
6. From Crete, we will now proceed to DELOS. Virgil, on the authority (as
it appears) of some ancient epic poet, calls the Cretans ministers of the
Delian altars.(891) The voyages of Theseus from Cnosus to Delos is also
founded on the same connexion, as will be more fully explained
hereafter.(892) We must not, however, too hastily conclude, that in the
age of Minos, when the Cretans were the dominant nation in the Greek
Archipelago, Delos received the worship of Apollo from a Cretan
colony.(893) It may with greater probability be conjectured, that the
Dorians in their first expedition to Crete (which could hardly have
traversed so great a distance without leaving behind some traces of its
existence) had founded the sanctuary at Delos; since the tradition of the
transmission of sacred presents from the country of the Hyperboreans to
that island, is most simply explained as a memorial of a religious
connexion, which had once been long maintained, by means of sacred
processions, with the northern settlements of the Dorians.
7. Now respecting the presence of Cretans at Delphi, it was nothing more
than an attempt of these islanders, who dwelt on the very verge of the
Grecian territory, to gain for themselves the credit of a reciprocal
influence upon the early settlements of their own race and religion. We
find in the Hymn of Homer, that Apollo, descending from Olympus, himself
founded his temple at Pytho, and afterwards obtained experienced priests,
minstrels, and prophets(894) from Cnosus; for which purpose he, in the
shape of a dolphin, conducted a Cretan vessel to Crissa. Crissa, or Cirrha
(for that the same place was originally signified by both names I consider
as certain(895)), a fortified town in the inmost recess of the Crissæan
bay, was probably a settlement of this Cretan colony, as the name Κρῖσα
seems to signify nothing else than a _Cretan_ city (Κρησία πόλις).(896)
Although the Pythian sanctuary itself was situated in the territory of
Crissa,(897) yet the town of Crissa possessed, besides an altar of Apollo
Delphinius on the shore, in early times one of the chief temples of
Apollo:(898) hence in Homer’s Catalogue the _sacred_ Crissa is mentioned,
together with the rocky Pytho; and the Pythian sanctuary is called
_Crissæa templa_, on the faith of some ancient tradition, by a Roman poet.
This expression must have been borrowed from poems anterior to the
destruction of Cirrha (about 585 B.C.) before this town had by its
extortions and oppression of pilgrims deserved the wrath of the
Amphictyonic confederacy; nor is it probable that it retained a share in
the management of the Delphian temple up to the very last moment of its
political existence, when it was visited with a destruction so complete,
as nearly to deprive us of all knowledge of its previous history. The
unfortified town of Delphi, which, with the Amphictyons, obtained after
that war the sole management of the temple, previously perhaps had not
been a place of any importance; at least it is not mentioned in any
earlier writings than one of the most recent hymns of Homer, and by
Heraclitus of Ephesus.(899)
8. In ancient times the service of the temple, as appears from the Homeric
Hymn, was performed both at Delos and Delphi by Cretans; but it is
scarcely possible that they should have constituted the whole population
of the country. For, in the first place, the extensive territory of the
temple was cultivated by a subject people, of whom we shall speak
hereafter, and who were certainly not of Doric, and probably in few cases
of Cretan descent;(900) besides whom there was a native nobility, whose
influence over the temple was very considerable. These are the persons
who, according to Euripides, “_sat near the tripod, the Delphian nobles,
chosen by lot_;”(901) called also “_the lords and princes of the
Delphians_.” They also formed a criminal court, which, by the Pythian
vote, sentenced all offenders against the temple to be hurled from a
precipice.(902) To the same persons also doubtless belonged the permission
and superintendence of the ancient rite of expiation; and it was their
duty (as it was that of the court of the Samothracian priests) to
determine whether a homicide was expiable or not. Their influence over the
oracle was so great, that they may be considered to have been the actual
managers of it. Their political bias may be inferred from the fact, that
Timasitheus the Delphian distinguished himself by his boldness and
resolution among the aristocratical party of Isagoras at Athens.(903) It
appears that these families originally came to Delphi from the mountainous
country in the interior. Thus the chief-priests of the god, the five
Ὅσιοι, were chosen by lot from a number of families who derived their
descent from Deucalion,(904) by which they probably meant to denote their
origin from Lycoreia on the heights of Parnassus, founded (as was
supposed) by Deucalion, the father of Hellen;(905) from which town it is
known that great part of the population of Delphi had proceeded.(906) Now
this place, of which traces still remain in the village of _Liacura_ (now
only inhabited in summer by mountain shepherds)(907) was in all
probability of Doric origin, since it formed the communication between the
Tetrapolis and Delphi.(908) The language spoken at Delphi was likewise a
Doric dialect.(909)
If then this was the case, Doric mountaineers from the heights of
Parnassus, and Cretan colonists on the sea-coast, met together (according
to a very uncertain computation about 200 years before the Doric migration
into Peloponnesus), in order to establish the Delphian worship. The Doric
dialect, it may be observed, which prevailed at Delphi, was common to both
parties. It is known from many traditions and historical traces, that the
connexion established by the Cretans continued for a long time.(910) The
ancient tents made of feathers, and a wooden statue of Apollo, perhaps one
of the most ancient specimens of rude carving, were also reported to have
been brought from Crete. The fabulous series of Delphic minstrels began
with Chrysothemis, the son of Carmanor, the above-mentioned priest of
Tarrha.(911) Crete, however, did not merely send works of sculpture and
hymns to Delphi, but sometimes even men,(912) for the service of the
Pythian Apollo.
9. I know not whether these accounts are sufficient to afford an
intelligible description of a time when the worship of Apollo, being
established at the foot of Olympus, Parnassus, and in the distant island
of Crete, and producing a certain degree of communication between these
points, had not as yet penetrated to any part of Greece which lay to the
south of Œta and Parnassus.
It is evident, moreover, that the extension of this worship met with a
long opposition. Apollo is in ancient traditions represented as himself
protecting his own temple.(913) The Phlegyans to the east, and the
Ætolians to the west, appear to have been particularly adverse to the
worship of the Delphian Apollo. That there was a national opposition
caused by the Phlegyans possessing the stronghold of Panopeus in the
mountain-passes towards Bœotia, is shown by the legends, that Phorbas
their leader wrestled there with Apollo; that Phlegyas burned the temple
to the ground; and lastly, that Apollo exterminated their whole race with
thunder and lightning.(914) The same people is here represented as waging
war with the great deity of the Dorians, which, under the name of Lapithæ,
opposed the Dorians themselves in Thessaly. And on the other side, Apollo
was related in the Poems of Hesiod, and the Minyad, to have assisted the
Locrian Curetes against the Ætolians, and slain their prince
Meleager.(915)